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Neutrality-era Romania sometimes behaves like a transit country with the appearance of an
oriental bazaar. The ideal place where all sorts of foreigners (some of dubious reputation)
come to do noisy business. Eager traders who are eager to make a profit and are eager to get their hands on the most precious commodities in wartime: food and fuel. They were
selling, sadly, almost everything. Corruption had touched the moral fibre of a nation in
search of its identity. The insiders were well aware of the situation when they wrote: "With
the refined senses that usually distinguish thieves, these individuals have noticed that we
now have to work with money here and therefore they think that their time has come to fish
in troubled waters". These words belong to Austro-Hungarian plenipotentiary Ottokar
Czernin. He recorded them in a report of February 1915 to the Foreign Minister. They
show the involvement of Central Power diplomats in secret negotiations on trade
arrangements that also concealed political desires in Romania at the time. In the economic
sphere, these arrangements were aimed at obtaining the coveted export permits for grain
and accepting the transit of munitions for the Ottoman Empire. There were, of course,
possible political scenarios arising from the conclusion of the contracts. All were aimed at
Romania's entry into the war against Russia. The War Ministry held such discussions and
even concluded a controversial trade treaty. Citing the need to ensure supplies of
armaments and the import of ammunition on the old German (or Austro-Hungarian, as the
case may be route, which had become inaccessible to Romania when neutrality in the war
was proclaimed, the Romanian army chiefs sat down at the negotiating table. This is
practically how the "grain for arms" exchange system was set up, a model of lucrative
business justified by the superior interests of the state. The corrupt middlemen and officials
in particular stood to gain. Many foreign traders were registered with the General
Security, and at the time they were also known as grain traders. One of them, Carsten
Nielsen, managed to rise to the top. He brokered the signing of a trade contract with the
War Ministry which, once in force, would probably have secured Germany a benevolent
neutrality from Romania. But this contract was never implemented. Carsten Nielsen
suffered considerable damage. Always seeking justice in the interwar years, he created a
legal dispute over financial compensation for losses resulting from the blocking of
Romanian business. This legal dispute did not die out until the years of Nazi Germany.
Nielsen drafted numerous petitions, some of which were even addressed to the German
Foreign Ministry. The Communication analyses the contents of these documents and
identifies information that sheds new light on the 'alternatives' to Romanian neutrality.

In the summer of 1915, concerned about Italy's entry into the war in alliance with the Entente powers yet encouraged by the victories of its armies on the Eastern Front, the German diplomacy attempted to encourage Sweden and Romania to abandon their neutrality in order to give a decisive blow to Russia. In several reports dispatched from Berlin, Alexandru Beldiman, the envoy to Germany who was also Romania's representative in the Scandinavian countries, raised the possibility of Sweden's entry into the war on the German side. After he had identified Russia as the common historical enemy of the two countries, the Romanian diplomat suggested forging an alliance under the leadership of Germany. A strong alliance was thought to ensure Sweden's ascendancy in Finland and the Baltic states, and Romania's supremacy in the East at the Black Sea. Although this plan was rejected by the liberal government, Beldiman's initiative in a period of neutrality remains an alternative in the Romanian political circles to Entente supremacy.

Klappentext: Though persistently overshadowed by the Great War in historical memory, the two Balkan conflicts of 1912-1913 were among the most consequential of the early twentieth century. By pitting the states of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro against a diminished Ottoman Empire - and subsequently against one another - they anticipated many of the horrors of twentieth-century warfare even as they produced the tense regional politics that helped spark World War I. Bringing together an international group of scholars, this volume applies the social and cultural insights of the 'new military history' to revisit this critical episode with a central focus on the experiences of both combatants and civilians during wartime.