Alexandru Averescu

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Alexandru Averescu
Alexandru Averescu
In office
February 9, 1918 – March 15, 1918
March 19, 1920 – December 18, 1921
March 30, 1926 – June 4, 1927
Preceded by Ion I. C. Brătianu
Alexandru Vaida-Voevod
Ion I. C. Brătianu
Succeeded by Alexandru Marghiloman
Take Ionescu
Barbu Ştirbey
In office
January 29, 1918 – March 4, 1918
Preceded by Ion I. C. Brătianu
Succeeded by Constantin C. Arion
Born November 14, 1859
Ozyornoye, Ukraine (Bessarabia)
Died October 2, 1938
Bucharest, Romania
Political party People's Party
Spouse Clotilda Averescu
Profession soldier
Religion Romanian Orthodox

Alexandru Averescu (April 3, 1859 [O.S. March 9] — October 2, 1938) was a Romanian general and populist politician. He was the Romanian Army Commander during World War I, and served as Prime Minister in three separate cabinets (as well as being interim Foreign Minister in January-March 1918). Averescu, who authored over 12 works on various military topics (including his memoirs from the frontline),[1] was an honorary member of the Romanian Academy.

Contents

[edit] Early life and career

Averescu was born in Ozyornoye (previously known as Babele, and subsequently renamed Alexandru Averescu), a village northwest of Izmail, now part of Ukraine. The son of Constantin Averescu, who held the rank of sluger, he studied at the Romanian Orthodox seminary in Izmail, then at the School of Arts and Crafts in Bucharest (intending to become an engineer).[2] In 1876, he decided to join the Gendermes in Izmail.[3]

Seeing action as a cavalry sergeant with the Romanian troops engaged in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, he was decorated on several occasions, but was later moved to reserve (after failing his medical examination due to the effects of frostbite).[4] He was, however, reinstated later in 1878, and subsequently received a military education in Romania, at the military school of Târgovişte (Dealu Monastery), and in Italy, at the Military Academy of Turin.[5] Averescu married an Italian opera singer, Clotilda Caligaris, who had been the prima donna of La Scala.[6]

Upon his return, Averescu steadily climbed through the ranks. He was head of the Bucharest Military Academy (1894-1895), and, in 1895-1898, Romania's military attaché in the German Empire; a colonel in 1901, he was advanced to the rank of Brigadier General and became head of the Tecuci regional Army Command Center in 1906.[7]

Before the World War, he led the troops in crushing the 1907 peasants' revolt — where he engaged in using very harsh means of repression, especially when dealing with soldiers who refused to fight against the rebels — and was subsequently Minister of War in Dimitrie Sturdza's National Liberal Party (PNL) cabinet (1907-1909).[8] According to the recollections of Eliza Brătianu, a split occurred between him and the PNL after Averescu attempted to advance various political goals — a conflict erupted when he sought support with King Carol I and then, as the National Liberals deeply resented Romania'salliance with the Central Powers, he approached the Germans for backing.[9]

Subsequently, he was commander of the First Infantry Division (stationed in Turnu Severin) and, later, of the Second Army Corps in Craiova.[10] In 1912, he became a Major General, and, in 1911-1913, he was Chief of the General Staff.[11] In the latter capacity, Averescu organized the actions of Romanian troops operating south of the Danube in the Second Balkan War (the campaign against Bulgaria, during which his troops met no resistance).[12]

[edit] World War and first cabinet

Main article: Romanian Campaign (World War I)

During the World War (in which Romania entered in 1916), he led the Second Army in the defense of the Southern Carpathians, and was then moved to the head of the Third Army (following the latter's defeat in the Battle of Turtucaia).[13] He commanded Army Group South in the Flămânda operation against the Third Bulgarian Army and other forces of the Central Powers, ultimately stopped by the German offensive (Averescu's forces did not register important losses, and orderly retreated to Moldavia, where Romanian authorities had taken refuge from the successful German operations).[14]

Averescu again led the Second Army in the minor victories in the Battle of Mărăşti and the Battle of Mărăşeşti (August 1917);[15] his achievements, including his brief breakthrough at Mărăşti, were considered impressive by public opinion and his officers.[16] However, several military historians rate Averescu and his fellow Romanian generals very poorly, arguing that, overall, their direction of the war "could not have been worse".[17] Despite controlling an army of 500,000 plus 100,000 Russian reinforcements, they were soundly defeated by a much smaller German-Austrian-Bulgarian army in less than four months of combat.

Averescu was widely seen as the person behind a relatively successful resistance to further offensives on Moldavia (the single piece of territory still held by the Romanian state), and he was considered by many of his contemporaries to have stood in contrast to the what was seen as endemic corruption and incompetence.[18] The state of affairs, together with the October Revolution in Russia, was to be blamed for the eventual Romanian surrender to the Central Powers; promoted Premier by King Ferdinand I during the period of crisis, Averescu began armistice talks with August von Mackensen in Buftea and Focşani, but was vehemently opposed to the terms — he resigned, leaving the Alexandru Marghiloman cabinet when it signed the Treaty of Bucharest.[19]

[edit] People's Party

Averescu quit the army in the spring of 1918, aiming for a career in politics — initially, with a message that was hostile to the National Liberal Party (PNL) and its leader Ion I. C. Brătianu.

He presided over the People's Party (initially named People's League), and he was immensely popular especially among peasants after the end of the war. His force had an appealing populist message, translated into vague promises and relying on the image of the General: peasants had been promised land at the beginning of the war (and they were being rewarded with it at the very moment, through an agrarian reform that reached its full scope in 1923); they had formed the larger part of the Army, and had come to see Averescu as the one to fulfill their expectations, as well as a figure who was still commanding their allegiance.[20] Eliza Brătianu, the PNL leader's wife, placed Averescu's ascension in the context of Greater Romania's creation through the addition of Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Transylvania (while making use of the condescending National Liberal tone towards the Romanian National Party that was emerging triumphant in previously Austro-Hungarian Transylvania):

"[The] so very harsh losses [during the war], the defeats suffered by the Old Kingdom, the traces of foreign domination in the newly-acquired provinces, but most of all the state of unhealthy euphoria that had taken hold of Transylvania, who had begun, in all good faith, to believe that only she had made the union happen, all of these have created a sort of insecurity within the borders of [Greater Romania]."[21]

As the movement initially tended to describe itself as a social movement rather than a political party, it also attracted former members of the Conservative Party (such as Constantin Argetoianu, Constantin Garoflid, and Take Ionescu), military men such as Constantin Coandă, the Democratic Nationalist Party leader A. C. Cuza, the notorious supporters of dirigisme Mihail Manoilescu and Ştefan Zeletin,[22] the moderate nationalist Duiliu Zamfirescu, and the left-wing agrarianist Petru Groza. It also established close links with Garda Conştiinţei Naţionale (GCN, "The National Awareness Guard"), a reactionary group formed by the electrician Constantin Pancu, engaged in violence against communist activists in Iaşi (the latter were feared by Averescu as well).[23] According to Eliza Brătianu (who was comparing Averescu with the French rebel soldier Georges Boulanger), several voices inside the movement called on Averescu to lead a republican coup d'état against King Ferdinand I and her husband — a move allegedly prevented only by the general's loyalism.[24]

Aiming to answer most of Romania's social and political issues, the League's founding document called for:

"A land reform, with the passage of the land which is at the moment expropriated only on principle [- a reference to the 1917 promise for a land reform] into the effective and immediate ownership of villagers through the means of communes; an electoral reform, through universal suffrage, direct election, secret ballot, and compulsory voting, with representation given to ethnic minorities, since the latter would not incomodate the free manifestation of political individualities; administrative decentralization."[25]

According to Argetoianu,

"in the autumn of 1919, [Averescu's] popularity had reached its peak. In the villages, people would dream of him, some swore that they had seen him descending from an airplane into their midst, others, who had fought in the war, told that they had lived by his side in the trenches, it was through him that hopes were solidified, and he was expected of to provide a miracle for people to live a carefree and fulfilling life. His popularity was something mystical, something supernatural, and all sorts of legends had begun to surround this Messiah of the Romanian people."[26]

Although he was also Prime Minister of Romania for three mandates (1918, 1920-1921, 1926-1927), his political success is not as spectacular as the military one. Averescu ended up as one of the pawns maneuvered by Brătianu.

[edit] Second cabinet

Alexandru Averescu on horseback
Enlarge
Alexandru Averescu on horseback

[edit] Establishment

Initially, Brătianu approached Averescu using their shared dissatifaction with the Alexandru Vaida-Voevod Romanian National Party (PNR)-Peasants' Party (PŢ) cabinet; the National Liberals managed to obtain the general's renounciation of his goal to prosecute their party for alleged mis-management of Romania before and during the war, as well as his promise to respect the 1866 Constitution of Romania when carrying out the planned land reform. At the same time, Brătianu kept a tight relationship with King Ferdinand.[27]

On March 13, 1920, he gave news of the Vaida-Voevod cabinet's dissolution, and was widely expected to call for early elections as soon as this had happened. Instead, he read a document convened with King Ferdinand, which suspended Parliament (the first legislative body in Greater Romania) for ten days — the measure was intended to give Averescu the time to negotiate a new majority in the chambers.[28] The moves caused a vocal response from the opposition: Nicolae Iorga, who was president of the Chamber of Deputies and sided with the National Party, called for a motion of no confidence to be passed on March 26; in return, Averescu obtained the support of the monarch in dissolving the Parliament, and invested his cabinet's energies into winning the early elections by enlisting the help of county-level officials (local administration came to be dominated by People's Party officials).[29] It carried the vote with 206 seats (223 together with Take Ionescu's Conservative-Democratic Party).[30]

[edit] External policies

His mandate was marked by the signing of the Treaty of Trianon with Hungary, and initial steps leading to the creation of the Little Entente - formed by Romania with Czechoslovakia and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. It was also at this stage that Romania and the Second Polish Republic inaugurated their military alliance (see Polish-Romanian Alliance). The goal to create a cordon sanitaire against Bolshevist Russia also brought him and his Minister of the Interior Argetoianu to oversee repression measures against the group of Socialist Party of Romania delegates to the Comintern (arrested on suspicion of "attempt against the state's security" on May 12, 1921).[31]

In October 1920, Averescu reached an agreement with the Allied Powers, recognizing Bessarabia's union with Romania — expressing a hope for the Bolshevik government to be overthrown, it also imposed the region's cession on a projected democratic government in Russia (while calling for further negotiations between it and Romania); throughout the interwar period, the Soviet Union refused to bind itself to the provisions of the agreement.[32] Italy also refused to ratify the document, citing, alongside various foreign interests (including its friendship with the Soviet Union),[33] the 250 million Italian lire owed by to Italian investors in Romanian state bonds.[34]

[edit] Scandals and fall

With Nicolae Titulescu as Finance Minister, Averescu resumed the interventionist course in economic policies, but broke with tradition when he attempted to legislate a major increase in taxes and proposed nationalizations — with potential negative effects on the PNL-voting middle class.[35]

The National Liberals, through the voice of Alexandru Constantinescu-Porcu, helped exploit the rivalry between the Peasants' Party and Iorga, using the latter's rejection of Constantin Stere (a conflict sparked by Stere's support for Germany during the World War); Stere won partial elections for the deputy seat in Soroca, Bessarabia, causing a political scandal which saw all parties (including the PNR) declare their dissatisfaction.[36] The conflict worsened during a prolonged parliamentary debate over Averescu's proposal to nationalize enterprises in Reşiţa (an initiative the opposition mistrusted, alleging that the new owners were to be People's Party members), when Argetoianu addressed a mumbled insult to the Peasants' Party Virgil Madgearu.[37] Ion G. Duca of the PNL expressed his sympathies to Madgearu (who had repeated out an obscene word whispered by Argetoianu), and all opposition groups appealed to Ferdinand, asking for Averescu's recall (July 14, 1921).[38]

Ferdinand then attempted to facilitate a fusion between the Romanian National Party and the National Liberals, but negotiations broke down after disagreements over the possible leadership.[39] Eventually, Brătianu convened with Ferdinand his return to power, and the king called on Foreign Minister Take Ionescu to resign, thus causing a political crisis that profited the PNL and put an end to the Averescu cabinet.

Shows of popular support in Bucharest were called of by Averescu himself, after he had negotiatied with Brătianu for a People's Party cabinet to be formed "at a proper time".[40] Ionescu took over as premier until late January 1922, when he was replaced by Brătianu.[41]

[edit] Third cabinet and Italian-Romanian Treaty

As new elections were called in 1926, the general approached the PNR and its close ally, the Peasants' Party, proposing a merger around his leadership. This met with a stiff refusal, as it seemed that the two were about to win the elections with additional support, but the king, suspicious of the left-wing credentials of the Peasants' Party, used his Royal Prerogative and nominated Averescu as premier (with PNL support).[42] Averescu's party was instead joined by PNR dissidents, Vasile Goldiş and Ioan Lupaş, who represented a Romanian Orthodox segment of the Transylvanian voters (rather than the Greek Catholics supporting Iuliu Maniu).[43] The elections also brought a massive defeat for the PNL, who held just 16 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.[44]

Although not fascist itself, the new government he formed displayed gestures of friendship towards Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy,[45] a state which advertised itself as a rising force - The Nation called Averescu "Romania's Mussolini", as "an epithet which the new premier of Rumania bestowed upon himself".[46] Contacts established (as early as a June 1926, when Mihail Manoilescu had negotiated a loan in Rome)[47] were one of the major points of divergence between the policies of Averescu and those of Brătianu: the former attempted to leave behind the embarrassment provoked by Mussolini when, due to Romania's debt, the Italian government had recalled the ambassador and had refused to permit King Ferdinand's pre-convened visit.[48]

The loan convened by Manoilescu and Mussolini made important concessions to Italy in return for a clarification of Romania's debt status; it also led to the signing of a five-year Friendship Treaty (September 16), widely condemned by Romanian public opinion for not having called on Italy to state its support for Romanian rule in Bessarabia,[49] and created tension inside the Little Entente (Yugoslavia feared that Italy had attempted to gain Romania's neutrality in case of a conflict over a potential irredentist conflict).[50] Writing at the time, Constantin Vişoianu also criticized the vague terms in which the sections of the document dealing with mutual defense had been drafted:

"What have we gained from Italy through this pact? Nothing. In truth, article 3 — which does not [even] refer to Bessarabia — makes provisions for the eventuality of a violent incursion and organizes a system of mutual assistance system [that is] original through its Platonic love-like character."[51]

The treaty expired in 1932, and, after being prolonged by six months, it was not renewed.[52] Overall, the political impact of contacts was minor, given that the Italians mistrusted the Romanian movement for its traditional role as instrument for Brătianu.[53]

Averescu continued to offer his support to far right groups (especially to the National-Christian Defense League formed by A. C. Cuza, his early collaborator), and probably considered assuming dictatorial powers.[54]

The cabinet clashed with Brătianu when it was discovered that it had been negotiating in secret with the disinherited Prince Carol (a traditional adversary of the PNL) as Ferdinand's health was taking a turn for the worse;[55] Averescu later claimed that he had been asked by Brătianu: "So, after I have brought you to power, you wish to rise and dominate?".[56] The PNL retreated its support, and Averescu's was replaced by the broad coalition government of Barbu Ştirbey. The general's fall created a vacuum on the Right, soon filled by the Iron Guard, a fascist movement formed by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (formerly an associate of Cuza's).[57]

[edit] Final years

The People's Party involved itself in solving the dynastic crisis after Ferdinand's death in July 1927, again approaching Carol to replace the child-king Michael and Prince Nicholas' regency. The group lost much of its supporters to the newly-formed National Peasants' Party,[58] and scored under 2% in the 1927 elections.[59]

Around 1930, Averescu began opposing the universal suffrage he had endorsed earlier, and issued an appeal to the intellectuals in order to have it discarded from legislation on the basis that it was easily influenced by the parties in power.[60] He and his supporter, the pro-authoritarian poet Octavian Goga,[61] received criticism from the left-wing Poporanist journal Viaţa Românească, who claimed that Averescu had in fact provoked and encouraged widespread electoral irregularities during his time in office.[62]

He was promoted to Marshal of Romania in the same year,[63] during the time when Carol returned to rule as King. He showed himself hostile to Carol's inner circle, and especially to the king's lover Magda Lupescu; consequently, Goga was instigated by Carol to take over as leader of the People's Party, and the latter attacked Averescu for "subverting [...] the traditional respect enjoyed by the Crown".[64] The clash led to Goga's creation of the splinter National Agrarian Party, which, although never an important force, obtained more of the vote in the 1932 elections (ca. 3% compared to Averescu's 2%).[65]

Around 1934, as the Guard proclaimed its allegiance to Nazi Germany, the Italians (still rivals of Adolf Hitler), approached Averescu (as well as Nicolae Iorga, Mihail Manoilescu, Nichifor Crainic, Cuza, Goga, and other non-Guardist reactionaries), with an offer for collaboration (see Comitati d'azione per l'universalità di Roma).[66] This apparent alliance was, in fact, marked by major dissentions — Averescu and Iorga were routinely attacked by Crainic's Calendarul.[67] Eventually, Averescu's group formed, in 1934, the Constitutional Front, a nationalist electoral alliance with the National Liberal Party-Brătianu, which was joined by Mihai Stelescu's Iron Guard ofshoot, Mihai Stelescu's Crusade of Romanianism, and the minor party created by Grigore Forţu (the Citizen Bloc); after the latter two parties disappeared, the Front survived in its original form until 1936, when it disbanded.[68]

In 1937, despite his ongoing feud with Carol, Averescu was appointed a member of the Crown Council. The following year, he was briefly Minister without portfolio in the cabinet of Premier Miron Cristea, created by Carol to combat the ascension of the Iron Guard,[69] and opposed the monarch's option to renounce the 1923 Constitution and proclaim his dictatorship (the latter move signalled the end of the People's Party, as all political groups were replaced by Carol's National Renaissance Front).[70] He died soon after in Bucharest, and was buried in the World War I heroes' crypt in Mărăşti.[71]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Otu, p.22-23
  2. ^ Parean
  3. ^ Parean
  4. ^ Parean
  5. ^ Bulei; Otu, p.22; Parean
  6. ^ Otu, p.22; Parean
  7. ^ Otu, p.22; Parean
  8. ^ Bulei; Hitchins, p.184-185; Parean
  9. ^ E. Brătianu
  10. ^ Parean
  11. ^ Otu, p.22; Parean
  12. ^ Otu, p.22; Parean
  13. ^ Otu, p.22
  14. ^ Otu, p.22-23
  15. ^ Hitchins, p.270
  16. ^ Otu, p.23; Parean
  17. ^ Esposito, text for map 40
  18. ^ Boia, p.210-211; E. Brătianu; Otu, p.22, 23; Parean
  19. ^ Parean
  20. ^ Boia, p.211
  21. ^ E. Brătianu
  22. ^ Ornea, p.48
  23. ^ Veiga, p.46-47
  24. ^ E. Brătianu
  25. ^ Founding document
  26. ^ Argetoianu, in Scurtu, "Mit şi realitate"
  27. ^ Hitchins, p.402; Scurtu, "Mit şi realitate"
  28. ^ Scurtu, "Prăbuşirea unui mit"
  29. ^ Scurtu, "Prăbuşirea unui mit"
  30. ^ Scurtu, "Prăbuşirea unui mit"
  31. ^ Parean; Troncotă, p.18
  32. ^ Hitchins, p.290-291
  33. ^ Clark; Hîncu, p.70
  34. ^ Hîncu, p.68
  35. ^ Hitchins, p.403; Scurtu, "Prăbuşirea unui mit"; Slabey Roucek, p.106
  36. ^ Scurtu, "Prăbuşirea unui mit"
  37. ^ Scurtu, "Prăbuşirea unui mit"
  38. ^ Scurtu, "Prăbuşirea unui mit"
  39. ^ Scurtu, "Prăbuşirea unui mit"
  40. ^ Scurtu, "Mit şi realitate"
  41. ^ Slabey Roucek, p.106
  42. ^ Hitchins, p.389; Scurtu, "Mit şi realitate"
  43. ^ Slabey Roucek, p.111
  44. ^ Hitchins, p.406; Slabey Roucek, p.112
  45. ^ Hîncu, p.68-69; Parean; Veiga, p.92
  46. ^ Fuchs
  47. ^ Hîncu, p.68-69; Slabey Roucek, p.112
  48. ^ Hîncu, p.68
  49. ^ Clark; Hîncu, p.69-70; Vişoianu, p.108
  50. ^ Hîncu, p.71; Vişoianu, p.108-109
  51. ^ Vişoianu, p.108 (Vişoianu's italics); Slabey Roucek (p.112) believed a protocol over Bessarabia to have been in fact concluded, probably based on the vague character of the text
  52. ^ Hîncu, p.71
  53. ^ Veiga, p.92, 98
  54. ^ Veiga, p.86, 89, 91
  55. ^ Hitchins, p.407
  56. ^ Averescu, in Scurtu, "Mit şi realitate"; Slabey Roucek (p.113) supports the version of events later dismissed by Averescu himself, according to which the general had opposed Carol's return.
  57. ^ Veiga, p.93
  58. ^ Hitchins, p.392
  59. ^ Hitchins, p.406; Scurtu, "Mit şi realitate"
  60. ^ Nicanor, p.139
  61. ^ Nicanor, p.138-139
  62. ^ Nicanor, p.139
  63. ^ Parean
  64. ^ Goga, in Scurtu, "Mit şi realitate"
  65. ^ Scurtu, "Mit şi realitate"
  66. ^ Veiga, p.252-253
  67. ^ Ornea, p.243
  68. ^ Gruber, Cap. V
  69. ^ Veiga, p.247-248
  70. ^ Scurtu, "Mit şi realitate"
  71. ^ Parean

[edit] References

[edit] External links


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