Chapter 216： Rising Nationalism (Part 1)

At a time when the European war situation was undergoing tremendous changes, Romania's domestic economy continued to develop rapidly due to the European war.

In fact, the economic development of other European countries that have not yet participated in the war is pretty good, but Romania is too prominent among them. With the general growth rate of 6%-15% in other neutral countries in Europe, Romania's growth rate of more than 20% is extremely eye-catching. However, the main reason is that Romania can provide the necessities needed by the military and people's livelihood in the surrounding countries. Food, oil, vehicles, etc. needed by Germany and Austria, and daily necessities, vehicles, fuel, etc., needed by Russia.

Even after Russia was seized of Poland this year, Russian ambassador Ferralovsky took the British and French ambassadors to visit Prime Minister Bretianu. When talking with the prime minister, the Russian ambassador strongly hinted that Romania would sell a batch. Arms, and is willing to increase the current price by another 20%. However, Prime Minister Bretianu didn't dare to make a hasty decision. He took the Romanian neutrality to export arms to Russia and required careful consideration, and temporarily delayed it. This matter will eventually need to be dealt with by Edel.

But from here, the Russian military materials are about to bottom out, and even the neutrals rarely export arms, Romania also pays attention. In fact, Russia suffered heavy losses in several consecutive defeats, and a large number of soldiers were captured. A large number of weapons and ammunition were captured together with the soldiers, which made the Russian army, which was not prepared in their own lives, even worse. Now the Russian government can't even guarantee the supply of rifles for the soldiers. A large number of supplementary soldiers on the front line have no weapons yet, and they need to share the same weapon with their comrades.

What’s even more frightening is that the Russian government has reduced the training period for newly recruited soldiers from the originally short 6-week limit to 4 weeks. The recruits after the compressed training period can't even complete rifle shooting, let alone simple tactical training. So the chances of these recruits surviving on the battlefield can be imagined.

But who made Russia lose too much on the battlefield? Russia has lost more than one million people after participating in the war for a year. Now the Russian government can only compensate for the losses encountered by the army by compressing the training period.

Now Edel has not given up his neutral plan, even if he is ready to let Romania participate in the Allies. Nor will it be a small profit for this, which will affect the allies' sense of Romania. You must know that Romania is now surrounded by the Allies on three sides.

At the same time, he is not interested in Russia's proposal now. Now Romania has an annoyance that really bothers him.

In the past few years, Romania has developed well. There is a voice in Romanian society. Now the Kingdom of Romania has become stronger, so the Kingdom needs to protect every Romanian from harm. Simply speaking, Romania has become stronger and nationalist sentiment has expanded. trend.

However, the organization that made this sound was called the Patriotic Youth Association, which was originally founded by a few fanatical patriotic students on campus. However, with radical slogans (Romania needs Transylvania in Austria-Hungary and Bessarabia in Russia), it also attracts many radical nationalists to join. However, in the mainstream of society, there is such a radical proposition. Very dissatisfied, and most people in Romania do not agree with it. Because most people are very sensible about Austria-Hungary and Russia, which occupy the Romanian settlements, and know that Romania’s national power cannot provoke any of them.

It’s just that the economic development of Romania is now accelerating. The most important thing is that the neighboring Austria-Hungary and Russia have fallen into a war, which made the idea of ​​this patriotic youth association become attractive again, and more and more people began to slowly accept the views of this small organization. Gradually, this small party became more and more prominent in Romania, and finally attracted Edel's attention.

Edel is very wary of the slogan of this radical party, because no one but him will know that Austria-Hungary will disintegrate, Russia will change color, and the two European powers will fall in this war. The mainstream view now is that one of them will be defeated and withdraw from the war, and one of them will be victorious. Therefore, in this case, Edel thinks the slogan of the Patriotic Youth Association is suspicious and needs to send someone to investigate.

Soon the chief of guard Carust put the preliminary investigation into the intelligence of the Young Patriotic Association and placed it in front of Edel's table. In this report, Carust introduced the situation of the Patriotic Youth Association in detail, from the initial development in the middle to the flat, and then to the present big development.

The Patriotic Youth Association was originally established at Iasi University. Although this university established in 1832 is not the most famous university in Romania, it has also produced many famous people. At present, the main backbones of the Patriotic Youth Association, the chairman of the Youth Association; Yang Uskov, the chairman of the board; Bostomy, etc., are all figures who graduated from this school.

According to the survey data, the Patriotic Youth Association has been focusing on local development since the establishment of Iasi University, and only put a small part of its energy on recruiting members from the school. It seems that the high-level thinking of the YMCA is very clear, knowing that students can easily hurt themselves with double-edged swords. A situation like this lasted until the outbreak of World War I.

Since the outbreak of the First World War, the development speed of the YMCA has risen to a higher level, rapidly increasing from more than 10,000 before the war to 30,000, but at this time the development of the YMC is still within the scope of Edel's approval~ www.novelhall.com~ It’s just that at the beginning of this year the youth club’s development momentum in Romania has become very strange. They published a lot of their opinions in newspapers, and they began to hold rallies in various cities to promote their views, and the senior leaders of the youth club also Frequent lectures in various cities.

Edel can see from it that this is a master of propaganda who is building momentum for the Youth Association. Moreover, the Al-Shabaab has frequent activities this year, and the cost is no longer within the range that the Al-Shabaab, which only needs to collect membership fees, can afford. This is what Edel is most worried about. How terrible a radical organization funded by external forces is beyond what these people can imagine now.

Therefore, Edel asked Carust to find out the funder behind him. Whether he is a domestic person or a foreign institution, he cannot let Edel relax his investigation.

After several days of investigation, Carust puts a report at his desk, making Edel a little dumbfounded. The YMCA is not funded by a foreign power, but people from both the Allied Powers and the Allied Powers are funding its development. After thinking about it carefully, Edel knew why this organization was so popular with both parties.

The slogan put forward by the Youth Association is that the Kingdom of Romania needs to protect every Romanian from persecution. There are still a large number of Romanians living in Transylvania in Austria-Hungary and Bessarabia in Russia, and the Romanians belong to the majority in both regions. Then after the Al-Shabaab organization expands, it must meet the requirements of its members. At this time, Romania must choose between the two camps. This is why both parties support a radical political party. They want to stir up Romania’s national sentiment. Let the Kingdom of Romania have to choose sides.