While the war situation in Europe was undergoing tremendous changes, Romania's domestic economy also continued to develop at a rapid pace due to the European war.
In fact, the economic development of other European countries that have not participated in the war is pretty good, but Romania is too prominent among them. While other neutral countries in Europe generally have a growth rate of 6% to 15%, Romania's growth rate of more than 20% is extremely eye-catching.
However, the main reason is that Romania can provide the necessities needed by the surrounding countries for military and civilian life. The food, oil, vehicles, etc. needed by Germany and Austria, and the daily necessities, vehicles, fuel, etc. needed by Russia.
Even after Russia was seized of Russian Poland this year, Russian Ambassador Filalovsky took the British and French ambassadors to visit Prime Minister Bretianu. When talking with the Prime Minister, the Russian Ambassador strongly hinted that he hoped Romania would sell a batch of
Arms, and is willing to increase the current price by another 20%. However, Prime Minister Bretianu does not dare to make a hasty decision. He temporarily postpones it on the grounds that Romania's neutral export of arms to Russia needs to be carefully considered. This matter will eventually need to be
Edel will handle it.
However, it can be seen from here that the Russian military supplies are about to bottom out, and even Romania, which rarely exports neutral arms, is paying attention. In fact, several consecutive defeats caused Russia to suffer heavy losses, and a large number of soldiers were captured.
There are also a large number of weapons and ammunition, which makes the already ill-prepared Russian army even worse. Now the Russian government cannot even guarantee the supply of rifles to the soldiers. A large number of supplementary soldiers on the front line still do not have weapons. They
You need to share the same weapon with your comrades.
What's even more frightening is that the Russian government has compressed the training period for newly recruited soldiers from the originally short 6 weeks to 4 weeks. The recruits after the compressed training period cannot even complete rifle shooting well, let alone simple tasks.
Tactical training. So the chances of these recruits surviving on the battlefield can be imagined.
However, Russia suffered too many losses on the battlefield. Russia had already lost more than one million people after participating in the war for one year. Now the Russian government can only make up for the losses suffered by the army by compressing the training period.
Now Edel has no intention of giving up neutrality. Even if he is ready to let Romania join the Allied Powers, he will not let this small gain affect the Allies' current perception of Romania. You must know that Romania is now surrounded by the Allies on three sides.
At the same time, he was not interested in the Russian proposal at the moment, and now there was an annoying thing in Romania that was really bothering him.
Romania has developed well in the past few years. There is a voice in Romanian society. Now that the Kingdom of Romania has become stronger, the Kingdom needs to protect every Romanian from harm. To put it simply, as Romania becomes stronger, nationalist sentiments will expand.
trend.
However, the organization that made this sound is called the Patriotic Youth Association. It was originally founded by a few fanatical patriotic students on campus. However, with the radical slogan (Romania needs Austria-Hungary’s Transylvania and Russia’s Bessarabia)
), has also attracted many radical nationalists to join. However, the mainstream of society is very dissatisfied with this radical proposition, and most people in Romania do not agree with it. Because most people are opposed to occupying Romanian ethnic groups.
Austria-Hungary and Russia in the settlement area are very sensible and know that Romania's national strength cannot offend either of them.
But now that Romania's economic development is accelerating, and most importantly, neighboring Austria-Hungary and Russia are involved in a war, the ideas of the Patriotic Youth Association have become attractive again, and more and more people are slowly beginning to accept the views of this small organization. Gradually, This small political party became more and more prominent in Romania, and finally caught Eder's attention.
Edel was wary of the slogans of this radical party, because no one except him would have known that Austria-Hungary would disintegrate, Russia would change color, and both European powers would fall in this war. The current mainstream view is that one of them will Will be defeated and withdraw from the war, and one side will win. So in this case, Edel thinks that the slogan of the Patriotic Youth Association is suspicious and needs to send someone to investigate.
Soon the captain of the guard, Carlust, placed the preliminary investigation information on the Patriotic Youth Association in front of Edel's desk. In this report, Carlust introduced the situation of the Patriotic Youth Association in detail, from the initial development to the middle. From mediocrity to the great development now.
The Patriotic Youth Association was first established at the University of Iasi. Although this university established in 1832 is not the most famous university in Romania, it has produced many famous figures. Now the Patriotic Youth Association has several main backbones, including the Chairman of the Youth Association. ; Yang Uskov, chairman of the board; Bostmy, etc., are all people who graduated from this school.
According to the survey data, the Patriotic Youth Association has been focusing on local development since the establishment of the University of Iasi, and only put a small amount of energy on recruiting members in the school. It seems that the senior leaders of the Youth Association have very clear thinking and know that students are It is easy to hurt yourself with a double-edged sword, and this situation continued until the outbreak of World War I.
Since the outbreak of World War I, the development speed of the Youth Association has reached a new level, rapidly growing from more than 10,000 people before the war to 30,000 people. However, at this time, the development of the Youth Association was still within the scope of Edel's approval. It’s just that at the beginning of this year, the development momentum of the Youth Association in Romania became very strange. They published a large number of their opinions in newspapers, and began to hold rallies in various cities to promote their views. Moreover, the senior leaders of the Youth Association also frequently went to various cities to give speeches. .
Edel could tell at a glance that this was a propaganda master building momentum for the Youth League. Moreover, the Youth League has been active this year, and its expenses are no longer within the reach of the Youth League, which only needs to collect membership fees. This is what Edel is most worried about. One thing, these people cannot imagine how terrifying a radical organization funded by external forces is.
Therefore, Edel asked Calust to find out the financial backer behind it. Regardless of whether he is a domestic person or a foreign institution, Edel cannot let Edel relax his investigation.
After several days of investigation, Edel was a little dumbfounded by the report that Calust put on his desk. The YMCA was not funded by a foreign force, but by people from both the Allied and Central Powers who were heavily funding its development. Edel thought about it carefully. After a while, you will understand why this organization is so popular with people from both sides.
The slogan put forward by the Youth Association is that the Kingdom of Romania needs to protect every Romanian from persecution. There are still a large number of Romanians living in Transylvania in Austria-Hungary and Bessarabia in Russia, and Romania The ethnic groups belong to the majority in both regions. Then after the al-Shabaab organization expands, it must meet the requirements of members. At this time, Romania must choose between the two camps. This is to allow both parties to fund a radical political party. The reason is that they want to inflame Romania's national sentiment so that the Kingdom of Romania must choose a side.
