Alexandru Averescu
Alexandru Averescu (Romanian pronunciation: [alekˈsandru aveˈresku] ⓘ; 9 March 1859 – 2 October 1938) was a Romanian marshal, diplomat and populist politician. A Romanian Armed Forces Commander during World War I, he served as Prime Minister of three separate cabinets (as well as being interim Foreign Minister in January–March 1918 and Minister without portfolio in 1938). He first rose to prominence during the peasants' revolt of 1907, which he helped repress with violence. Credited with engineering the defense of Moldavia in the 1916–1917 Campaign, he built on his popularity to found and lead the successful People's Party, which he brought to power in 1920–1921, with backing from King Ferdinand I and the National Liberal Party (PNL), and with the notable participation of Constantin Argetoianu and Take Ionescu.
Alexandru Averescu
Himself
March 9, 1859
Babele, United Principalities (today Ozerne, Ukraine)
October 2, 1938 (aged 79)
Bucharest, Kingdom of Romania
Clotilda Averescu
Officer
First Infantry Division
Second Army Corps
Second Army
Third Army
His controversial first mandate, marked by a political crisis and oscillating support from the PNL's leader Ion I. C. Brătianu, played a part in legislating land reform and repressed communist activities, before being brought down by the rally of opposition forces. His second term of 1926–1927 brought a much-debated treaty with Fascist Italy, and fell after Averescu gave clandestine backing to the ousted Prince Carol. Faced with the People Party's decline, Averescu closed deals with various right-wing forces and was instrumental in bringing Carol back to the throne in 1930. Relations between the two soured over the following years, and Averescu clashed with his fellow party member Octavian Goga over the king's attitudes. Shortly before his death, he and Carol reconciled, and Averescu joined the Crown Council.
Averescu, who authored over 12 works on various military topics (including his memoirs from the frontline),[1] was also an honorary member of the Romanian Academy and an Order of Michael the Brave recipient. He became a Marshal of Romania in 1930.
Early life and career[edit]
Averescu was born in Babele, United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (later renamed to Alexandru Averescu, today Ozerne, a village northwest of Izmail, 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 Gendarmes in Izmail.[2]
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).[2] He was, however, reinstated later in 1878, and subsequently received a military education in Romania, at the military school of Târgoviște (Dealu Monastery), and in Italy, at the Military Academy of Turin.[1][2][3][4] Averescu married an Italian opera singer, Clotilda Caligaris, who had been the prima donna of La Scala.[1][2][3] His future collaborator and rival Constantin Argetoianu stated that Averescu "chose Mrs. Clotilda at random".[3]
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.[1][2]
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).[2][4][5] According to the recollections of Eliza Brătianu, a split occurred between him and the PNL after Averescu attempted to advance various political goals — the conflict erupted when he sought support with King Carol I and then, as the National Liberals deeply resented Romania's alliance with the Central Powers, he approached the Germans for backing.[6]
Subsequently, he was commander of the First Infantry Division (stationed in Turnu Severin) and, later, of the Second Army Corps in Craiova.[2] In 1912, he became a major general, and, in 1911–1913, he was Chief of the General Staff.[1][2] 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).[1][2]
People's Party[edit]
Character[edit]
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.[9] 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):
Second cabinet[edit]
Establishment[edit]
Initially, Brătianu approached Averescu using their shared displeasure over the Alexandru Vaida-Voevod Romanian National Party (PNR)-Peasants' Party (PȚ) cabinet; the National Liberals managed to obtain the general's renunciation 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.[5][15]
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.[10][16] These 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).[16][17] It carried the vote with 206 seats (223 together with Take Ionescu's Conservative-Democratic Party).[16]
As agreements between the PNR and PȚ broke down (with the PNR awaiting for new developments), the PȚ joined Iorga's party, the Democratic Nationalists, in creating the Federation of National-Social Democracy (which also drew support from the group around Nicolae L. Lupu).[17]
Policies[edit]
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 members who voted in favor of joining the Comintern (arrested on suspicion of "attempt against the state's security" on May 12, 1921).[2][18][19] This came after a long debate in Parliament over the imprisonment of Mihai Gheorghiu Bujor, a Romanian citizen who had joined the Russian Red Army in Bessarabia during the later stages of the October Revolution, and who had been tried for treason.[17] Argetoianu, who proclaimed communism to be "over in Romania",[18][19] later indicated that Averescu and other members of the cabinet were hesitant about the crackdown, and that he ultimately resorted to taking initiative for the arrests — thus presenting his fellow politicians with a fait accompli.[18]
The regions coming under Romania's administration at the end of the war still maintained their ad hoc administrative structures, including the Transylvanian Directory Council, set up and dominated by the PNR; Averescu ordered these dissolved in April, facing protest from local notabilities.[20] At the same time, he ordered all troops to be demobilized.[3] He unified currency around the Romanian leu, and imposed a land reform in the form in which it was to be carried out by the new Brătianu executive.[3][20] In fact, the latter measure had been imposed by the outgoing PNL cabinet through the order of Ion G. Duca, in a manner which Argetoianu described as "destructive".[3] As an initial step, Averescu's government appointed the noted activist Vasile Kogălniceanu, a deputy for Ilfov County, as rapporteur; Kogălniceanu used this position to give an account of the agrarian situation in Romania, stressing the role played by his ancestor, Constantin, in abolishing Moldavian serfdom, as well as that of his father, Mihail Kogălniceanu, in eliminating corvées throughout Romania.[21]
The People's Party found itself hard pressed to limit the effects of the reform as promised by Duca — reason why Constantin Garoflid, seen by Argetoianu as "the Conservative and theorist of large-scale landed property", was promoted as Minister of Agriculture.[3] Argetoianu also accused the Premier of endorsing reform in an even more radical shape,[3] and contended that:
Third cabinet[edit]
New political alliances[edit]
In early 1926, the general was again named Premier, and 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).[5][15][26]
Averescu's party was instead joined by PNR dissidents, Vasile Goldiș and Ioan Lupaș, who represented a Romanian Orthodox segment of the Transylvanian voters (rather than the Greek Catholics supporting Iuliu Maniu).[25] The 1926 elections, which Averescu's cabinet organized in March and won with a landslide (269 mandates) also brought a massive defeat for the PNL, who held just 16 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.[5][25][26]
Italian-Romanian Treaty[edit]
Although not fascist itself, the new government he formed displayed gestures of friendship towards Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy,[2][13][23] 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".[27] Contacts established (as early as June 1926, when Mihail Manoilescu had negotiated a loan in Rome)[23][25] were one of the major points of divergence between the policies of Averescu and those of Brătianu: the former attempted to overcome 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.[23]
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,[22][23][28] and created tension inside the Little Entente (Yugoslavia feared that Italy had attempted to gain Romania's neutrality in case of a potential irredentist conflict).[23][28]: 108 Writing at the time, Constantin Vișoianu also criticized the vague terms in which the sections of the document dealing with mutual defense had been drafted: