Union of Bessarabia with Romania

On 9 April 1918 (27 March in the Julian calendar, which Romania then used), in Kishinev, the Sfatul Țării, or National Council, the parliament of the Moldavian Democratic Republic, voted to unite Bessarabia with the Kingdom of Romania. 86 deputies voted for the union, 3 against, and 36 abstained. Of the assembly, which then had 138 members, 13 were absent. The resolution declared that the republic “within the borders between the Prut, the Dniester, the Black Sea and the old frontier with Austria”, torn by Russia from old Moldavia more than a hundred years earlier, “by virtue of historical right and the right of the people” and of the principle that peoples decide their own fate, “from today and for ever unites with its mother, Romania”. The act was signed by the President of the Sfatul Țării, Ion Inculeț, the Vice-President, Pantelimon Halippa, and the Secretary, Ion Buzdugan.

The vote in Kishinev

On 8 April the Romanian Prime Minister, Alexandru Marghiloman, arrived in Kishinev with the Minister of War, General Constantin Hârjeu. He addressed the Sfatul Țării. He argued that union was necessary, gave assurances that the Romanian government would respect the rights and freedoms won in the revolution, and said it would leave the agrarian question to the Sfatul Țării. He then left the chamber so that the assembly could deliberate without him. The vote was open, by roll call, although some deputies demanded a secret ballot. The union was supported by members of the Moldavian Bloc, several deputies of the peasant faction and the representative of the local Poles, Feliks Dudkiewicz. According to a Romanian roll-call list, it was backed by 83 Moldavians, one Ukrainian, one Russian and one Pole. Among those abstaining were 11 Moldavians and Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian, Jewish and German deputies. The representatives of the Ukrainian, German and Bulgarian minorities declared that they had no mandate to decide so important a matter, which should be settled by a referendum, and abstained. One of the spokesmen of the peasant faction and the representative of the Russian Cultural League argued in a similar way.

After the result was announced, greeted with an ovation and cheers for the union, Marghiloman was invited back into the chamber. He declared: “In the name of the Romanian people and its King, His Majesty Ferdinand I, I take note of the union of Bessarabia with Romania, henceforth and for ever.” In the evening Inculeț closed the sitting.

The circumstances of the vote were disputed from the start. Romanian troops had been in Kishinev since the end of January, when, at the call of the leaders of the Sfatul Țării, they entered Bessarabia against the Bolsheviks. In February, according to Romanian and Russian studies, Romanian soldiers shot several left-wing deputies who opposed closer ties with Romania. Russian authors stress that on the day of the vote the assembly building was surrounded by Romanian soldiers and Romanian officers were present in the chamber. Romanian historians see the resolution as an expression of the will of the Moldavian majority, whose leaders had been moving towards Romania for months, and explain the presence of troops by the need to keep order in a country full of deserters and armed bands.

The road to union

As recently as December 1917 the Sfatul Țării had proclaimed the republic as part of a federal Russia, and on 6 February 1918 it declared its independence. For a small state without an army, money or administration, however, independence proved a brief stage. Bessarabia lay between Romania, the Ukrainian People’s Republic, which also laid claim to it, and Soviet Russia, which did not accept the presence of the Romanians. The Odessa agreement, in which General Averescu’s government promised to withdraw its troops, turned out to be a dead letter. After the preliminary peace of Buftea was concluded, Romanian politicians sought in Bessarabia compensation for the lost Dobruja and the expected losses in the Carpathians.

Marghiloman’s government, formed on 18 March, raised the matter openly. At the beginning of March Inculeț, Halippa and the Bessarabian Prime Minister, Daniel Ciugureanu, discussed it in Jassy. According to Romanian studies, Halippa and Ciugureanu favoured unconditional union, while Inculeț, after some thought, favoured union with full autonomy. Marghiloman sounded out the diplomats of both camps. According to his notes, on 25 March the German Foreign Secretary, Richard von Kühlmann, promised Romania a “free hand” in Bessarabia, as long as it caused him no difficulties with Ukraine. The Entente envoys in Jassy raised no objection. In March and early April union with Romania was endorsed by the district zemstvo assemblies in Bălți, Soroca and Orhei, dominated by landowners who saw royal Romania as protection against the radical land reform announced by the left-wing majority of the Sfatul Țării.

The conditions

The union was not unconditional. The resolution stipulated that the Sfatul Țării would carry out a land reform and that the Romanian government would accept it. Bessarabia was to keep its autonomy and its own diet, democratically elected, which would pass the provincial budget, supervise the zemstvos and municipal councils and appoint the local administration. Recruitment to the army was to follow the territorial principle, and local laws and administration could be changed only with the consent of the province’s representatives. Romania was to respect the rights of minorities, take two ministers from Bessarabia into the government and give it representation in parliament proportionate to its population. All elections were to be held by universal, equal, direct and secret ballot, the constitution was to guarantee freedom of speech and religion, and political offences committed during the revolution were to be covered by an amnesty.

First consequences

Inculeț joined Marghiloman’s government as Minister for Bessarabia, and Constantin Stere became President of the Sfatul Țării. King Ferdinand I confirmed the union by a decree dated 22 April (9 April Old Style). The land between the Prut and the Dniester, annexed by Russia in 1812, found itself within the Romanian state after more than a hundred years. The Central Powers, which had earlier assured the Romanians of a free hand, took note of it. The Ukrainian government and the Soviet government protested in the following days and declared that they did not recognise the Kishinev resolution.

The conditions of 9 April lasted only a few months. After passing the land reform, the Sfatul Țării at its last session, on the night of 26/27 November 1918 (9/10 December in the Gregorian calendar), renounced the remaining conditions without the required quorum and proclaimed unconditional union, after which it dissolved itself. Soviet Russia, and later the Soviet Union, never recognised the union, and the dispute over Bessarabia weighed on relations between the two states throughout the interwar period.