BRITISH-ROMANIAN RELATIONS 1944-65 Mark Landon Percival,BA, MA. Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London University, School of Slavonic and East European Studies March 1997 Supervisors: Prof. Dennis Deletant Dr Maurice Pearton ProQuest Number: 10055359 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10055359 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to Dr Martyn Rady and Bojana Asanovic for exceptional friendship, moral support and sound academic advice. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am particularly grateful to Professor Laszlo Peter (School of Slavonic and East European Studies) for valuable written and oral information clarifying C. A. Macartney's views on the Romanian- Hungarian frontier question, and Roderick Braithewaite, who I interviewed. Tony Benn MP kindly sent me uncut extracts from his diaries referring to Romania. Nick Cross, Archivist of the Harlequins Rugby Club supplied me with information on the team's visit to Romania in 1956. Professors Robert Service and Robert Pynsent have given helpful advice. I would also like to thank my supervisors. Professor Dennis Deletant and Dr Maurice Pearton for their help in the preparation of this thesis. On a personal level I am especially grateful to Claire Byers for her friendship and support and likewise to all my friends and former colleagues at Hughes Parry Hall, London. 4 ABSTRACT Throughout the period 1944-65, Britain confined itself to protecting its direct interests in Romania and these were fairly narrowly defined. Moreover, relations with Romania were always dominated by wider considerations of foreign policy and the state of the domestic economy. Thus from 1944 to 1948, they were determined by London's desire firstly to maintain the Anglo- Soviet alliance against Hitler and afterwards to achieve a post-war modus-vivendi with Moscow which would preserve British influence in the Mediterranean. British policy makers were therefore keen to avoid any East-West tension over political developments in Romania. While there was some British interest in resuming trade, possibilities were severely constrained by Soviet economic domination of the country. Romanian expropriation without compensation of British commercial assets in 1948, together with the regime's failure to honour pre-war debts and wartime damages obligations provided an irritant to British-Romanian trading relations, which was only partly resolved by the 1960 trade arrangement and payments agreement. This accord was the result of increased interest by both Britain and Romania in bilateral trade from the late 1950s, when Bucharest's industrialisation programme created opportunities for British companies and the climate of East-West relations improved. The period 1956-60 was the most promising one in British-Romanian relations. However, the related problems of Romania's bilateralist approach to trade and Britain's strict quotas on Romanian agricultural exports prevented the 1960 accord from having any major effect in expanding commercial exchanges between the two countries in the long term. Britain was unwilling to grant trade concessions to Romania for political reasons when Bucharest began to demonstrate some independence of Moscow in the 1960s. Thus, in spite of Romania’s dispute with Moscow, by 1965 it was clear that there were limits to the possibilities for the development of British-Romanian relations. CONTENTS PAGE NOTE ON PRIMARY SOURCES AND ROMANIAN SPELLING 7 CHAPTER 1: Introduction 9 CHAPTER 2: The Romanian Percentage. (1944-45) 33 CHAPTER 3: Britain and the Groza Government. 77 (1945-47) CHAPTER 4: Britain and the Hungarian-Romanian Frontier 122 Settlement. (1944-47) CHAPTER 5: Britain, the Romanian "Historic” Parties and the 148 Monarchy. (1944-47) CHAPTER 6: The most subservient satellite. Britain's vain 175 attempt to reassert its interests. (1948-56) CHAPTER 7: The Khrushchev thaw. Possibilities for 216 normalisation of relations. (1956-60) CHAPTER 8: Political Development and Economic 253 Disappointment. (1961-2) CHAPTER 9: The limits of relations established. (1963-65) 283 CHAPTER 10: Conclusion. 332 BIBLIOGRAPHY 346 NOTE ON PRIMARY SOURCES AND ROMANIAN SPELLING The bulk of the research for this study, which mainly concerns diplomatic history, has been carried out at the Public Record Office, Kew Gardens. Most of the material concerning Romania is to be found in Foreign Office papers, although there are also a number of Board of Trade files with relevant information on the late 1940s and early 1960s. There are no files on Romania in this category for the 1950s, although a number of general documents concerning British trade policy towards the Eastern Bloc in this decade have yielded relevant information. A number of Prime Minister's and Cabinet Office papers have material which helps an understanding of British-Romanian relations, particularly concerning policy in 1944. Some War Office files exist on the work of the British Military Mission in Romania, but these deal with administrative matters concerning, for instance, travel arrangements and the political communications of the Mission are to be found in the Foreign Office papers. Extensive written and oral enquiries have led to the conclusion that there are no further documents relevant to Romania on the Treasury or MAFF files nor on the Board of Trade files for the 1950s. Thus the official material on British-Romanian relations has been treated comprehensively.1 ) The Public Record Office also contains the private papers of Sir Orme Sargent, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr and Anthony Eden (on microfilm), which have yielded information on British-Romanian relations. Other private collections at the Churchill Archive Centre, Cambridge and the Bodleian Library Oxford have also proved useful, while the BBC archive at Caversham contains material which adds to the picture provided 8 by government papers. Since this study concerns British- Romanian relations rather than exclusively British policy, a number of archives connected with non-government relations have proved relevant, notably that of the Labour Party in Manchester, Lambeth Palace and the State and Foreign Ministry Archives in Bucharest, Romania. In 1953, the Soviet-imposed Romanian communist dictatorship introduced changes to the spelling of certain words in the Romanian language in order to make it appear more Slavonic and less Latin. This was a demonstration of the domination which Moscow exercised over Romania at the time. In 1965, these changes were partially revoked by Nicolae Ceaujescu and in 1993 completely revoked by the Romanian Academy. For reasons of consistency the pre-1953 and post 1993 spellings are used throughout. 1) Correspondence from Dr Andrew Macdonald, Twentieth Century specialist. Public Record Office, February 1997. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION The Romanian coup of 23 August 1944 was a major turning point in the country’s history. On that date, the regime of Marshal Antonescu, who had brought his country into the war on Germany’s side, was overthrown and the country changed to fighting on the Allied side. The coup marks an obvious watershed in British-Romanian relations, since the two countries were no longer actively at war (even though the formal peace treaty was not signed until 1947). Consequently, 23 August 1944 marks the starting point of this research. However, in order to understand British-Romanian relations in the aftermath of Romania’s change of sides in the war, a number of generalities concerning British- Romanian and British-Soviet relations from 1941 need to be considered. In June of that year, Romania entered the war on the German side against the Soviet Union, which became an ally of Britain. From that point onwards, British policy towards Romania became merely a subsidiary of that towards the Soviet Union. Romania was now an enemy and the Soviet Union an important ally in the war against Hitler. It was recognised as counter productive to carry out military or political operations in Romania if these Jeopardised the Soviet alliance. It was also logical that at an early stage Britain should tacitly accept Soviet war aims with regard to Romania, which clearly included the reincorporation of Bessarabia and the Northern Bukovina, even though the annexation of the two regions had not been recognised in 1940.1) Britain’s concessions to Soviet ambitions in Eastern Europe during the war should be seen in the context of the military situation. Contrary to official British wartime propaganda designed I 0 to maintain morale, the Anglo-Soviet wartime relationship was far from easy.2) There had been distrust between the two countries since the Russian Revolution in 1917. Britain had attempted to crush the Bolshevik regime by its support for the White forces in the civil war in 1918-19, a policy which Churchill had strongly favoured.3) In the inter-war period, some British politicians had regarded the Soviet doctrine of world revolution, and the implication that subversion would be used to overthrow Western governments, as a greater threat to the security of the UK and its Empire than a resurgent Germany. This distrust appeared well founded when in spite of the efforts of Britain and France in the late summer of 1939 to woo Moscow into joining the anti-German camp, the Soviets combined with Berlin (their supposed ideological enemy) in a carve up of territory under the Molotov- Ribbentropp Pact. The USSR’s annexation of Polish territory under the Pact was a challenge to Britain’s March 1939 guarantee to the latter country, the violation of which by Germany had been a casus belli.