Full text: The report of the Minister of Finance to the Counsel of Ministers on the situation of Roumania created by the reparation and interallied debts policy

78 
power for the Russian defection to be as complete as possible, could not consent 
that a situation which gave the impression of a final defeat on the Roumanian 
front should go on. Taking advantage therefore of the Russian defection they im 
posed an armistice on Roumania who was completly cut off from her great Allies 
without the possibility of renewing her war stock, and completely abandoned by 
her great Russian ally and quite incapable of meeting with her proper forces a 
new attack of the enemy. With the knowledge of her Allies site inclined her 
self before the events and although she never doubted that the victory would be 
on the part of the Allies, she had no other thought than to be able to conserve a 
quantity of war material which would be necessary for the new mobilization 
which was evident in the future. So these are the circumstances in which the 
armistice and the peace imposed inBucarest on April 2, 1918, came to take place. 
Complety exhausted in all her ressources, without any effective assistance 
on account of her geographical isolation from her Allies, with out the possibillity 
of making an effort for a last sacrifice, Roumania thought that she still was 
useful to the cause of the Allies, and bowing herself before the draconian clauses 
of the Treaty of Peace imposed on her, having nevertheless the conviction that 
this was only a temporary situation that would not last long, the territory 
occupied by the troops of the enemy represented two thirds of the area of Rou 
mania had been completely laid waste and sacked by the Central Powers, accor 
ding to a well established plan decided in Berlin in October 29 th 1916, by 
the counsel of the group that represented the Central Powers. (Anex 21). 
The decisions of this counseil besides fixing in all its details the plan for 
speculating the occupied territories had also the subversive object intended to 
rob the population and the country of all her riches, giving the impression that 
everything which is carried away, is paid for and that the population 
loses nothing. 
So was created a means of payment by the bank notes issued by the army 
of occupation with the assistance of the “Banca Generala Romana- a former 
branch patronized by the direction of the Disconto Gesellschaft in Berlin. 
(Anex 43). 
The German military economical organization acquired from the inhabi 
tants (it is well under stood for prices imposed, and far below their real value) 
all the products of their labour sending them towards the Central Powers coun 
try and parellelly with this economical speculation the military administration 
gave them repuisition bonds or obliged them to underwrite Hungarian war loans. 
The issue of notes made by the enemy is the first stroke given to our 
issue institution as in the clauses of the counsel of Octobrc 29"' 1916 it was 
stipulated that at the conclusion of peace the reedeming of this issue should be 
left to the charge of the Roumanian Goverment. 
The peace of Bucared provided in its clauses regular detailed organiza 
tions of modern slavery, the whole population being obliged iso work for its 
conquerors of the moment. 
In the first place all was done for the blow widely was given to our first
	        
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