Great Britain, British Jews, and the international protection of Romanian Jews, 1900-1914: a study of Jewish diplomacy and minority rights

 
40 
 
The Romanian Parliament passed an amendment, Article 7, to the 
Constitution on 13 / 25 October 1879
46
. The new piece of legislation adopted the 
principle of individual naturalisation and stipulated that religion did not form 
an obstacle to the acquisition of civil and political rights.
47 
 
 
The route by which a ‘foreigner’ could obtain naturalisation was explained 
in detail, and conditions for naturalisation were given. A person wishing to be 
naturalised had to send off an application to the government, after which he 
had to reside in Romania for ten years and prove that he was useful to the 
country. Exemptions could be made from the ten-year domicile requirement if 
the applicant was exceptionally distinguished (for example, if he had founded a 
large company) or if he and also his parents had lived in Romania for all their 
lives. In addition, Jewish war veterans of the War of Independence were 
naturalised collectively. All other naturalisations, however, were to be granted 
individually, each requiring a separate consideration in Parliament.
48
  
 
Germany adopted a new approach to the Romanian situation in autumn 
1879 when it formed an alliance with Austria. As the Austrians were very 
willing to normalise relations with Romania, the Germans could not ignore this 
viewpoint. At the same time, Prime Minister Sturdza at last managed to secure 
the final settlement on the railway issue.
49
 German shareholders were offered 
securities that were issued by the Romanian government and guaranteed by 
mortgages on the railways and revenue from the state tobacco monopoly.
50
 The 
railway settlement, as negotiated in the previous autumn, was finally ratified by 
the Romanian Parliament on 2 February 1880 and consequently accepted by 
bankers Bleichröder and Hansemann.
51
  
 
Article 7, although very narrow in its interpretation of the Treaty of Berlin, 
satisfied the Great Powers. The dispute was finally settled when Britain, 
Germany, and France together recognised the independence of Romania on 20 
February 1880. The first Anglo-Romanian commercial treaty was signed 
immediately after Britain recognised Romanian independence. The Great 
Powers, however, promised to observe the application of the naturalisation law 
and expressed their hope that Romania would eventually extend the 
mechanism of naturalisation. The British government argued that the new 
constitutional provisions could not be considered to be a complete fulfilment of 
the articles of the Berlin Treaty.
52
 The implications of the recognition of 
                                                           
46
  
The Julian calendar was in use in Romania until the First World War. It was 12 days 
earlier than the Gregorian calendar in the 19th century, and 13 days earlier in the 
20th century. Throughout this work, dates are given in the Gregorian calendar, 
except if mentioning some important dates of Romanian events, when the dates are 
given in both calendars. 
47
  
Monitorul Oficial,13/25 Oct. 1879 
48
  
Monitorul Oficial,13/25 Oct. 1879; Iancu 1987, 82-88; Rey 1903, 484-485; Wolloch 1988, 
68-69. 
49
  
Medlicott 1933b, 584-585. 
50
  
Kellogg 1995, 211, 215. 
51
  
Stern 1977, 391. 
 
52
  
State Papers 1880, no 149, White to Salisbury, 20 Feb. 1880; Cernovodeanu 1990, 255-
 256. 

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41
independence were to cause confusion in later years as far as the intervention 
rights of the Powers were concerned. 
 
The Romanians had so far gained a victory in the battle over the Jewish 
rights, despite the efforts of the Western Powers. The Romanian government 
held its course determinedly, believing that it was vital to the interests of the 
country that Jews did not  become citizens. The Great Powers surrendered 
under the persistence of the Romanians; after all, the situation of the Romanian 
Jews was hardly the most significant political question at the time. Occasional 
foreign protests in the late nineteenth century did not have any effect on 
Romania, and the Romanian Jewish cause was not at the centre of international 
attention during the two final decades of the century.            
 
From an international point of view, the position of Romanian Jews in the 
period discussed in this work, i.e. 1900-1914, should have been based on the 
stipulations of the Congress of Berlin. From an internal Romanian point of 
view, the Jewish legal position in the country was based on Article VII of the 
Constitution, which defined the conditions of citizenship. Other legal 
restrictions relating to foreigners, or to Jews, could be derived from this article. 
Although citizenship legislation was supposedly an outcome of the Berlin 
Treaty clauses, there was a gap between the interpretation of the clauses by 
Romania and their original meaning. 
 
According to Beate Welter, the Romanian Jews were no longer an issue in 
international politics after the consular agreement of 1899 with Austria. 
However, it is open to question whether the consular treaty was the decisive 
factor in the Jewish question. Welter also claims that from the 1880s onwards, 
Romania was seen as an interesting possible ally in the Balkans by almost all the 
Great Powers, and nobody wanted to irritate her. Another reason why the 
Romanian Jews were forgotten in international politics was the increasing 
European involvement in colonial business overseas.
53
  
 
Furthermore, Welter argues that when the sovereignty of Romania was 
recognised in 1880, the status of the Great Powers as guarantors, as defined in 
the 1858 Treaty of Paris, ended, and they could no longer intervene in 
Romanian affairs.
54
 Usually the situation was comprehended differently, 
however. The contemporaries (outside Romania) held that the Powers were 
entitled to interfere if the terms of the Berlin Treaty were broken. This was also 
the attitude of the British government. The Treaty of Berlin was still often 
referred to in 1880-1914, and the possibility of intervention was brought up 
frequently, not only in the context of the Jewish question, but in discussing 
other Balkan problems as well.     
 
Although the British government had been friendly to the Jewish cause, it 
had simply not been able to impose Article 44 of the Berlin Treaty on Romania 
in the late nineteenth century. This could only have been done effectively in co-
                                                           
53
  
Welter 1989, 202. Welter holds the consular treaty between Romania and Austria as 
very important, which is unusual as other historians tend not to mention it at all. The 
most likely explanation for this is perhaps the fact that Welter relies, for the most 
part, on the Austrian archival sources.   
54
  
Welter 1989, 156. 

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