black sea

supported the Romanian demand for the unification
of the two provinces. The French government
financed the first two Romanian loans in the Paris
money markets in 1864 and 1866 and also that of
1875 that would serve to support financially the
newborn state. 20
Since the Berlin Convention in 1878 and
thereafter, the political orientation of Romania
became principally pro-German because of the
country’s border with the Austro-Hungarian
Empire and the reign of King Charles I in Romania
who was of German descent. In 1883, Romania
joined the Triple Alliance. 21 In the economy, the
building of the fundamental infrastructure around
the end the 19 th century led to the development of
other sectors of the Romanian economy. The food,
forestry and minerals sectors started to be
developed by large foreign companies, mainly
British and German. 22
From the 1870s decade to the outbreak of World
War I in 1914, Romania remained largely controlled
by the German capital and products. The German
Banking group Disconto-Gesellschaft Bleichröder
relying on its close ties with the Romanian Court 23
was the one that essentially directed the negotiations
with the Romanian government each
time. 24 On the other side, the French banks
Paribas, Société Générale and Comptoir
National d´Escompte de Paris acting either
separately, or as a group managed to gain some
participation in the placements of capital in
Romania along with the German Banks but always
lagging behind and under the lead of their German
counterparts. Thus the French participation in six
of the twelve loans that Romania contracted from
1880 until 1910 totalling approximately 1.5 billion
francs amounted to 20% of the total capital. 25
Naturally, the primacy of the German banks had
commensurate consequences in the German
exports to the country. The German side gained
the lion’s share in the Romanian armaments as
well as the rest of the industrial products. When in
1901, the Romanian Government repeatedly
approached the French Banks to contract a 250
million francs loan in the French money market,
the French Foreign Ministry (Foreign Minister
Delcassé) initially adopted a negative stance. Not
only because of the country’s political ties with the
Triple Alliance but also because Romania looked
for its orders of military material and machineguns
elsewhere – principally to Germany. Despite
everything, the French side had no intention to
abandon Romania in the German hands. The
German Ambassador in Bucharest stressed the
special interests of French financiers and
businessmen who anxiously sought to expand their
corporate interests in Romania. 26
Since 1902 the French government adopted
the harder core policy that the French Banks
should negotiate directly with the Romanian
government and not in collaboration with the
German Banks, as members of a French-German
group. Thus, the French side would be in a better
position to impose its terms, principally in
relationship to the condition that industrial and
military orders should necessarily be tied up to the
placements of capital. The competition between
the companies Schneider and Krupp became
intense with the German side though finally
prevailing. 27 Respectively, in a correspondence
between the French bank Comptoir National
d´Escompte de Paris and the German Disconto,
the French side implied that its hands were tied by
the French government in regard to a French -
German collaboration in Romania. The reasons
were mainly political and industrial. 28 Certainly,
the German side protested that in contrast to what
was happening in Greece, the German funds in
Romania were used to feed the French industry as
well. 29 The French government’s stance identified
mainly with the efforts by French companies to
secure orders from the Romanian army and seize
them from the German Krupp. For that reason
Schneider as well as Saint-Chamond directly
approached Romanian officers for the procurement
of a large number of machine-guns. The
French Foreign Ministry even considered the
possibility of a compromise between the particularly
competitive Schneider and Krupp so as to win
even a partial order. 30 At the same time, the French
banks participated in the placement of a fraction
of the 1903 loan in the French money market.
However, the order of 450 machine guns would be
given to the German Krupp for an amount of
approximately 25 million francs. 31
Similar incidents would more or less be
repeated on the occasion of the contract of the
large Romanian conversion loan of 1905 between
the German and French Banks and particularly in
the case of a parallel loan of 100 million francs,
40% of which was meant for the payment of orders
to Krupp. The minor French contribution and the
40 ����� Review of Military History �����