Romanian government moves to Iași

The British chronology of the war records under 1 December 1916 that the Romanian government moved from Bucharest to Iași, the old capital of Moldavia (PL), more than 300 kilometres to the north-east, right by the border with Russia. The move did not take place in a single day, however. It lasted several weeks. In the last days of November and at the beginning of December the ministries, the banks and the legations of the Allied states left Bucharest. The cabinet of Prime Minister Ion I. C. Brătianu left the capital only on 3 December, when it had lost the Battle of the Argeș. In Romania, which kept time by the Julian calendar, 1 December was 18 November.

The evacuation of the capital

The authorities began preparing to leave Bucharest long before December. As early as the beginning of October, when German air raids had killed about a thousand people in the city according to the Austrian official history, moving the high command and the government elsewhere was being considered. The Romanian historian Constantin Kirițescu describes how the depot units of the regiments and untrained recruits were sent to Moldavia first, and then, as the danger grew, the state treasury, the deposits of the Deposit Bank and the banks, the archives of government offices and the most valuable museum collections. The headquarters and gold reserves of the National Bank of Romania were also taken to Iași. According to Romanian studies, on 24 November (11 November Old Style) it was decided to move the archives of the central offices to Iași and to convene parliament there.

Everything was accelerated by Mackensen’s crossing of the Danube at Zimnicea and the retreat of the Romanian First Army behind the Aluta. According to Kirițescu, on 25 November the ministries received word that the government was moving to Iași. Some of the senior officials were to leave by special trains that same evening or the next day. All officials, both those leaving and those staying behind to keep the public services running under occupation, were paid three months’ salary in advance. All day long the ministries were the scene of a struggle for a place on the list of those leaving. The direction of the offices that stayed in Bucharest was taken over by the secretaries-general.

That is why the dates in the sources differ. American yearbooks of the period say the government left Bucharest on 27, 28 or 29 November, and the war historian John Buchan writes that by 1 December the ministers, the banks and the Allied legations had already moved to Iași. According to Kirițescu, however, the government itself waited in Bucharest for the whole week from 26 November to 3 December for the outcome of the counter-attack being prepared on the Argeș. Only on the afternoon of 3 December, when the battle had turned against the Romanians, did a government proclamation appear on the walls of the city. It announced that in the interest of the country’s defence the government had to leave the capital and move to Iași.

The court and the refugees

The royal family left Bucharest in mourning. On 2 November the youngest son of King Ferdinand I, the three-year-old Prince Mircea, had died of typhoid at Buftea. Queen Marie left for the east with her other children, and the King, according to her biographers, joined her at the beginning of December. “For weeks on end we lived in the train, not knowing how far we would have to go to be safe,” the Queen recalled. She consoled herself that she would return at least once more to her son’s grave, but Bucharest soon fell.

Thousands of refugees followed the authorities. Kirițescu describes the storming of the trains at the North Station in Bucharest: people walked several kilometres out of the station and jumped into the carriages on the tracks, so that by the time a train pulled up at the platform it was already full. Others fled by car, in carriages and carts, or on foot. Wagons of peasants from the counties of Teleorman and Vlașca, evacuated ahead of the approaching front, also streamed eastwards through the city. Most of the inhabitants of the capital, who had neither money nor connections, stayed where they were.

Iași was not prepared for such an influx. According to Romanian studies it had about 75,000–78,000 inhabitants before the war, and by the beginning of December some 200,000 refugees had arrived, together with the authorities. People crowded into the homes of residents, into attics, warehouses and monastery cells. In case of further defeats, even evacuating the government across the Prut into Russia was seriously considered.

The wartime capital

Iași remained the capital of unoccupied Romania until the end of the war. On 22 December (9 December Old Style) the King opened the sittings of the relocated parliament in the hall of the National Theatre with a speech from the throne, in which he declared his faith in the victory of the Allies. The Senate met in the university’s great hall. Two days later Brătianu formed a coalition government that included Take Ionescu. Still in December, the decision was taken to send the gold of the National Bank to Moscow for safekeeping. In the winter of 1916–1917 the overcrowded city was struck by an epidemic of typhus. The authorities and the court returned to Bucharest only at the end of 1918.