which had so
often been the victim of the 'holy' strife, to decide on which side it
would array itself. Indeed, Roumania had little choice in the matter;
the critics who have censured her policy, and have charged her with
breach of faith towards her suzerain the Porte (and we know there are
many such in this country), cannot have carefully considered her past
history; nor have reflected upon the position in which she was
placed.[173] As a matter of preference, the young nation which was about
being dragged into this ruthless strife could have none, and might with
justice have exclaimed, 'A plague on both your houses!' What cared they,
on the one hand (and this was the popular sentiment), for the
hypocritical crusade undertaken for purposes of aggrandisement; or, on
the other, what sympathy could they have with the moribund State which
had ever been to them as the daughters of the horseleech, and whose
atrocities were identical with those that were perpetrated in the days
when Huns and Vandals devastated their own fair plains? If Roumania in
her then condition (now it would be different) had opposed the passage
of the Russian forces, they would have entered her territory as enemies,
the war would have been carried on once more within her borders, and,
beggared and prostrate, she might at best have reckoned upon retaining
her political independence through the intervention of the European
Powers; though, looking at the fact that these had recognised Russia as
their executioner in Turkey, it is very questionable whether they would
have interfered for the protection of Roumania, and whether she would
not have fallen to Russia along with Bessarabia. On the other hand, if
she had actively sided with either Power, her national independence and
the happiness of her people would have been staked upon the result. She
chose the wise, and indeed the only course, namely, that of allowing her
powerful neighbour to pass through her dominions, stipulating that, so
far as Russia could help it, she should be spared the desolation and
horrors of war within her frontiers. But what course did the Porte
adopt? Not recognising the _force majeure_ which had driven Roumania to
this decision, she was suicidal enough to declare her an enemy, and to
threaten to depose the Prince, thus giving to her bitterest foe an ally
who, at a critical period, in self-defence, turned the scale against
her, and caused her to lose some of her fairest provinces. For