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

 
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not obtain Romanian citizenship automatically but only after inquiries were 
made as to their eligibility. This undoubtedly left some room for manoeuvre on 
the part of the authorities. In addition, Dobrudjan self-governmental 
institutions were crushed, the province was deprived of parliamentary 
representation, some tracts of land under the old Ottoman ownership system 
were confiscated, and schools and churches became Romanian-controlled.
73
    
 
One detail that was systematically omitted in the papers and publications 
of Jewish organisations, and in British official documents, was the number of 
Southern Dobrudjan Jews. Dobrudja was not a significant Jewish centre. The 
number of Jews in the neighbouring Northern Dobrudja was relatively small, 
approximately 4,000.
74
 The Conjoint Committee did not give any figures on the 
number of Dobrudjan Jews in its extensive correspondence with the Foreign 
Office in 1913-1914.  No reference was made to the number of Jews on whose 
behalf the intensive diplomatic campaign was waged. The Jewish Chronicle did 
not feature any data either, and, as to the Foreign Office, the British diplomats 
ignored the matter.  
 
The leader of the Union of Native Jews, Adolf Stern, did mention a figure 
for the number of Southern Dobrudjan Jews. Stern criticised the Romanian 
Government for the manner in which it had been able to overlook the legal 
position of all Romanian Jews by granting citizenship to a group of Dobrudjan 
Jews numbering only 20-30.
75
 Stern’s estimates were extremely small and make 
the international Jewish crusade on behalf of the group appear somewhat out of 
proportion. In this light, it would not have been surprising if the embarrassing 
smallness of the Dobrudjan Jewish community was the reason for the failure of 
the Conjoint Committee to inform the Foreign Office and the British public 
about the number of Dobrudjan Jews. When intervening on behalf of Romanian 
Jews, Jewish activists usually drew attention to the size of the Romanian Jewish 
population, sometimes overestimating the number.   
 
The total population of the ceded Southern Dobrudjan province was in the 
region of 300,000, with estimates ranging from 280,000
76
 to 310,000. Turks and 
Tartars formed the largest ethnic group in the region (47.7%), followed closely 
by Bulgarians (44.3%). Other minorities included Romanians, Armenians, and 
Greeks. It is striking to notice that Romanians formed only a minority of 8,532 
persons or 2.4%, meaning that the border change certainly could not be justified 
by the ethnic composition of the area.
77
  
                                                           
73
   FO 371/2089/28020, G. Barclay to Grey, 13 June 1914, enclosure: copy of the 
Administration Law, 31 March/13 April 1913; see also an article in The Times, 13 May 
1914. The Times article examines the question from the Bulgarian viewpoint and does 
not scrutinise Jewish grievances.  
74
  
RG 1899, xlvi-xlviii. 
75
  
Schneider 1981, 615-616. This figure refers to the Silistra area only. 
76
  
Helmreich 1969, 453; Ischirkoff 1919, 110. 
77
  
FO 371/1917/18343, British Minister in Sofia Henry Bax-Ironside to Grey, 17 April 
1914. This document is in the Bulgarian volume. Another estimate of the percentage 
of ethnic Romanian population in Dobrudja, by Boeckh, is very similar: 2.2%. See 
Boeckh 1996, 49.  

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200 
 
For reasonably detailed information on the number of Jews in the ceded 
territory, Bulgarian sources prove to be useful. It is also not likely that the 
Bulgarians had any motive for distorting the statistics as far as the Jews were 
concerned — they were too busy trying to demonstrate that very few 
Romanians, as opposed to many Bulgarians, were living in Dobrudja. The 
Bulgarian data would imply that there were at least 600 Jews in Southern 
Dobrudja: 549 in Silistra and Dobritch together, a few dozen in other towns, and 
still some more, undoubtedly, in the villages.
78
 If the estimation of 600 plus is 
accepted as correct, it would mean that the percentage of the Jewish population 
in the province was approximately 0.2%. The Conjoint Committee was also 
determined to get a clause on civil and religious liberties, referring to the newly 
annexed areas, to be included in any international legal document concerning 
the Balkans. This was a direct continuation of the policy that the Conjoint had 
begun as early as December 1912. The matter was discussed in the Conjoint’s 
meetings again in spring 1914 and, especially, in the correspondence between 
Lucien Wolf and other Anglo-Jewish notables.  
 
The Conjoint Committee wanted to make the recognition of territorial 
changes in the Balkans conditional on the respective states accepting the clause. 
The proposed text was intended to replace the civil liberty articles of the Berlin 
Treaty — for example, the Romanian Article 44. The main reason for the 
Conjoint’s plans was, unsurprisingly, the behaviour of Romania. The Conjoint 
Committee actually went as far as helpfully suggesting a draft paragraph that 
the Foreign Office or other official bodies could use: 
 
 
‘All persons of whatever religious belief born of residing in the territories annexed to 
—, in virtue of the Treaties of London and Bucharest, and who do not claim a foreign 
nationality and cannot be shown to be claimed as nationals of a foreign state shall be 
entitled to full civil and political rights as nationals of the Kingdom of —, in 
accordance  with the foregoing stipulations.’
79
 
 
In the Foreign Office, Eyre Crowe did not believe that any clause would affect 
the attitudes of the Balkan governments. He did not consider the issue to be 
pending as, for the time being, the British government was not going to 
recognise the annexation of Southern Dobrudja.
80
  
 
Having, in January, sent out the letter enquiring about the attitudes of 
other Powers on the recognition of the Balkan territorial annexations, the 
Foreign Office had awaited the replies. Responses from the Powers were very 
slow to arrive, at least as far as definite statements of policy were concerned. 
The British government was not optimistic about the prospects for concerted 
action. Finally, in early May, Grey was able to put forward an overview of their 
responses and the resulting British policy, again in a circular to the 
ambassadors in the major European capitals. 
                                                           
78
  
Ischirkoff 1919, 113-114. 
79
  
FO 371/2089/11207, Alexander and Montefiore to Grey, 12 March 1914. 
80
  
FO 371/2089/11207, minute by Crowe, 18 March 1914; FO 371/2089/32066, minute 
by Crowe, 22 March 1914. 

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