will ever hold a foremost place in
Rumanian history.

In this great work the late ruler derived advantage, not only from his
eminent personal qualities, but from his foreign origin. As a German
Prince, powerfully connected, he stood outside and above Rumanian
party factions, and succeeded gradually in imposing his will on them
all. Born on April 20, 1839, at Sigmaringen, near the source of the
Danube, he was barely 27 when he accepted the call to rule an unknown
country with which his only connection was that, like the estates of
his family, it, too, was watered by the Danube. Of middle height, well
built, pronounced features, and clear, gray eyes, his personality
expressed quiet energy. His statecraft he learned by experience and
from the excellent counsel of his father, Prince Charles Anthony of
Hohenzollern, head of the senior and Roman Catholic branch of the
Hohenzollerns. Only once did he falter. In March, 1871, when the
French sympathizers of his subjects exposed him as a German Prince and
a Hohenzollern to great unpopularity, while the bankruptcy of the
Jewish speculator to whom his railway schemes had been intrusted threw
discredit upon his ideas of economic development, he summoned the
members of the Provisional Government from whom he had accepted the
crown and announced to them his decision to abdicate. Fortunately for
Rumania, they succeeded in dissuading him from his purpose. The
famous Conservative statesman, Lascar Catargi, formed a Ministry which
held office for five years and enabled the ruler to turn the most
dangerous corner of his reign. Thenceforward the path was
comparatively clear, though by no means easy. It led to Rumanian
participation in the Russo-Turkish war, to the conquest of national
independence, and eventually, on May 22, 1881, to his coronation as
King of Rumania, with a crown made of steel from a Turkish gun
captured by Rumanian troops at Plevna.

Yet the Rumanian triumph was not unalloyed. Russia injudiciously and
ungratefully insisted on depriving Rumania of the portion of Rumanian
Bessarabia of which Russia had been deprived after the Crimean war,
and allotted the Dobrudja, a swampy region south of the Danube, to the
principality as compensation. The indignation in Rumania was
indescribable and has never entirely subsided. The Senate in the
Chamber declared the resolve of the country to defend its integrity by
force. The Czar threatened to disarm the Rumanian Army--a threat which