HUNS IN ROUMANIA

Waikato Times, Volume 89, Issue 13893, 19 October 1918, Page 2

HUNS IN ROUMANIA

INTERVIEW WITH M. JONESCU

"No, I am not an exile, as has been wrongly stated, from mv country " said to me smilingly. M. T.-ikc Jouesc'u, th e famous Roumanian statesman, upon whom iin interviewer nailed o:j the occasion of his visit to London. "1 left Roumania of mv own free will, because I could not'hear to live under a Boche regime. As a matter of fact I should have left last December but for the request of the Entente Ministers that 1 should remain at Jass\ a little louder. ''Tiue, the German* Were anxious lor me to go, and Marshal Mackensen actually asked Genera! Ayerescu, when the latter was i'rimc Minister, to clear me out. But the General declined to act. "Now that I am away and free to speak and write openly in d, \-n<v of mv oppressed land and the Boche brutality I hear that .Mackensen bitterly repents having allowed me to deonrt "' HUN BRUTALITY.

M. Jonescu spoke eloquently on the Bubject of liis oppressed, counts vmon. "Remember," h 0 said, "thatevc>- sirrcc December, 191(5, two-thirds of rnv country have been occupied by the Germans who have stripped the country districts of everything, including wheat, cattle, and metals, especially cooper. They have cut down tlw tre.s of our glorious forests. They have just lext our peasants enough to keen them from absolute starvation. Hut at present, owing to the drought which has ruined our crops, the danger of starvation is verv great indeed. Our population of 7,500,000 has been reduced by 800,000 since the war, through casualties and typhus. In Moldavia 330 out of 1000 doctors have died of this plague. and often 1500 or 1600 men out of a regiment of 3000. Hut the Bodies are the worst plague, and by their conduct; have succeeded in making themselves more hated than our hereditary foes, the Magyars. Of our prisoners in German camps 60 per cent have died, and of those who have returned home half are now consumptive. Only Bulgar brntalit*' can equal German. In Bulgaria, Roumanian officer prisoners, oven captains, have been stripped and publicly flogged in the market places for refusing to work as navvies, after being deprived of food for three or four davs."

"You ask me how the Germans behaved in the great cities, like Bucharest. '"Well, here, like elsewhere, then- didn't hesitate to loot private bouses. .My own house experienced quite, special treatment. The Germans entered Bucharest at noon. At 4 p.m. on the same day there remained of mv house nothing but the bare brick. My books bad been torn and thrown into the street below, my furniture, tapestries, pictures and other valuables sent to •Berlin - the ceilings and floors all destroyed with the axe. Mackcnsen in person came to gloat over the sack! Still, 1 shall not complain. The Boche no doubt owed me a grudge! T onlv hope that when the Allied armies reach Germany they will apply a little of fbo panic treatment there, and teach the German people what war is as by Gem 'is. This war, like every other war in history, will and must end on the battlefield. Blockades and famine are merely auxiliary factors. Only the sword can conquer. You ask me whether T believe in a Russian patriotic and military revival' 1 do most certainly, but only with th" assistance of a Jal*e Allied military e-<ncditioi>. Russia herself is hdploss. Nor should you attach too much importance to the reported dissensions among Germany's Eastern allies Turkey and Bulgaria.