On September 27, 1914, King Carol I died at Peleș Castle in Sinaia, after 48 years of reign, the longest in the country’s history. The creator of modern Romania, Carol I is also the one who obtained the country’s independence after the war of 1877-1878.
Carol I, creator of modern Romania PHOTO archive Adevărul
King Charles I had been suffering for several years. The press of the time wrote that thanks to the professionalism and attention of Dr. Ion Mamulea, the monarch’s health had improved after 1910. Almost six months before his death, on April 20, 1914, King Carol I had celebrated his 75th birthday and not a few there were those who expected that on May 10, 1916 he would celebrate 50 years of reign.
Unfortunately, the summer of 1914 was a terrible one. It was the first time the attack in Sarajevo, followed by the start of the First World War. King Carol I insisted that Romania fight alongside Germany and Austria-Hungary. But the liberals, who were at that time the strongest political force in Romania, demanded and imposed neutrality. And this neutrality consumed a lot of King Carol I, who was struggling to find a way of reconciliation between his desire to fight together with the Central Powers and what the Romanian people wanted, more precisely that Austria-Hungary should not be helped.
On the last day of his life, King Carol I was active, having, among other things, a meeting with the Prime Minister Brătianu. In the evening he was visited by doctor Mamulea. And the night died.
Here is what the liberal politician IG Duca wrote about the death of Carol I in his memoirs: “On the eve the King had been exceptionally brisk and in good spirits, had received Virgil Arion in a long audience, and had gone to bed cheerfully. At five in the morning he had woken up complaining that he couldn’t breathe. Queen Elizabeth called for help and quickly sent for Dr. Mamulea. After a few minutes the Sovereign sighed heavily two or three times and slightly bowed his head. The queen thought she was sleeping. Carol I of Hohenzollern Sigmaringen, the first King of Romania, had given his public end after 48 years of fruitful reign. The emotional upheavals of the last months had been beyond the powers of his aging body, they killed him”.
The future King Carol I of Romania was born on April 8/20, 1839, in Sigmaringen, in Germany. He had three brothers: Crown Prince Leopold (1835–1905), Prince Anton (1841–1866) and Friedrich (1843–1904), as well as two sisters, Princess Stéphanie (1837–1859; married to King Pedro V of of Portugal) and Marie Louise (1845–1912; married to Count Philip of Flanders, who refused the Throne of the United Principalities before it was offered to Prince Charles; they were the parents of King Albert I of Belgium).
“The man who started it all”
“Carol I is the man from whom everything started: the Royal Family, the modern state, the independent and sovereign country. One by one, year after year, under the rule of this European King, Romania acquired institutions, modernity and steadfastness. free nations”writes the website casamajestatiisale.ro.
After the refusal of Count Philippe of Flanders, the brother of King Leopold II of Belgium, to receive the Throne of Romania and after several consultations of the representative of the Royal Lieutenancy in Paris, Ion Bălăceanu, with Emperor Napoleon III of France, the Romanians’ options, encouraged by the full agreement of the Emperor of France and the moderate support of Prussia, they headed towards Sigmaringen.
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Carol I at Sinaia Carol Sports soldiers jpg
On March 19, 1866, IC Brătianu proposed to Prince Carol, on behalf of Romania, to become the head of the Romanian state. In less than three weeks, Brătianu announced to the prince, in Sigmaringen, that he had been elected Ruler of the United Principalities, with hereditary rights, through the plebiscite held between 2/14 and 8/20 April 1866. 685,969 votes had been cast in favor of Carol votes, and against only 2248.
On April 28, 1866, the newly elected Constituent Assembly voted almost unanimously to bring Prince Charles to the throne of the country: 109 votes in favor and 6 abstentions.
On May 8, 1866, a certain Karl Hettingen entered the country via Drobeta-Turnu Severin. It was the future King Carol, who, both at the recommendation of the Romanians and the Germans, traveled incognito.
Once he arrived in the Principality, he was picked up in a carriage by Ion C. Brătianu, the father of the future Prime Minister of Greater Romania, accompanying him all the way to the Capital.
“Ion C. Brătianu was the politician sent since 1865 to negotiate with Carol and his family the possibility of the prince coming to the throne of Romania. Young Carol traveled incognito, by train, on the route Düsseldorf – Bonn – Freiburg – Zürich – Vienna – Budapest, because of the conflict between his country and the Austrian Empire. Due to the force of circumstances, after entering the country via Orşova and Turnu Severin, among the first towns he crossed on his way to Bucharest were those of Argeş and Muscel, respectively Pitesti and Goleşti”says Iustin Dejanu, director of the Golești Museum.
The words spoken by Carol I to the inhabitants of Pitesti in May 1866 remained memorable: “From the minute I stepped on the land of my new homeland, I became a Romanian; I will devote my entire life to the happiness of the Romanians and their prosperity, who from now on have become my compatriots“.
Unprecedented economic development
“Through his simple presence, through the dignity of belonging to one of the most illustrious families in Europe, but also thanks to his personal courage, Sovereign Prince Carol has definitively shaken the last symbolic remains of vassalage to the Ottoman Empire. His visit to Constantinople, in October 1866, during which he behaved towards the Sultan as a head of state, and not as a vassal, confirmed the irreversible process of rupture with the Gate”it is also specified on the casamajestatiisale.ro website
The same dignity will be shown by Carol I when Tsar Alexander II threatened, in 1878, after the end of the War of Independence, with the disarmament of the Romanian army, if Romania opposed the annexation of southern Bessarabia by the Russians, Carol I replied that the Romanian troops could be destroyed, but not disarmed.
During his long reign, King Carol I laid the foundations of Romania as a modern state on the map of Europe. In 1875, Romania’s budget reached 100 million lei, double the budget of 1866, and in 1903, 218 million lei. In the period 1880-1914, Romania exported 80 million tons of grain, ranking among the most important grain exporting countries in the world (second in Europe, after Russia, and even in first place in the export of corn, before the United States). The number of larger industrial enterprises increased greatly, from only 39 in 1866 to 17,314 in 1877. Romania also had important oil deposits that placed it, around 1900, among the top three oil producing countries in the world, after the United States and Russia. And that’s not all. The Romanian leu was a strong currency, equivalent to the French franc and which could be used as a strong currency throughout Europe.
An essential contribution of King Charles I also in the field of architecture and construction. Numerous headquarters of important state institutions, universities, administrative palaces, libraries, railway stations, colleges and high schools, churches, hospitals were erected or rebuilt, during the 48 years in which he ruled Romania.
