(2 of 2)
In Bucharest the reaction to this sudden recrudescence of Hungarian Irredentism was instantaneous. Rumanians thought it no coincidence that German troops were reported concentrating at just that time in the Nazi dependency of Slovakia, north of Hungary, and they suspected that the troops were meant not only as a reminder to Rumania to behave but also as a hint to Hungary that toughness toward Rumania was expected.
Nor was it a coincidence that a Nazi trade delegation in Bucharest demanded: 1) more Rumanian products; 2) cheaper prices; 3) increased transportation facilities. More than half the German-Rumanian trade in grain and oil used to go by sea from Constantsa to Hamburg. That route is now cut and the trade has to be rerouted up the Danube or across southeastern Europe's poor railroad system. But barges and railroad cars are scarce in Rumania, and, moreover, many are owned by France and Great Britain. When the German delegation requested the Rumanians to commandeer these, Rumania refused. The Germans departed, but scarcely had they passed the frontier before Rumania had changed Governments. Premier Constantin Argetoianu resigned, and King Carol appointed 47-year-old George Tata-rescu to head a new Government.
Poet and playwright, formerly identified with Rumania's very conservative Liberal Party, M. Tatarescu is known as a deadly foe of the pro-Nazi Iron Guards. At the war's outbreak, he was Rumanian Ambassador to France. King Carol considered him a Francophile, and so interested was the King in keeping Rumania neutral that he recalled the Ambassador for no other reason than that he was too much of an Allied partisan. His new appointment was accepted in France as good news, in Germany as bad; Rumania had at least entered the picket lines of the Allied camp. One good turn deserving another, 36 new British-made Blenheim bombers were delivered in Bucharest.
Belgrade was as sensitive as Bucharest to the Allied-German string-pulling in her part of Europe. Yugoslavia's most immediate problem was copper. The Yugoslav copper mines, largest of Europe, are operated by French and British companies which no longer sell to Germany. Moreover, a French trade delegation is scheduled to arrive soon in Belgrade with the explicit purpose of buying up all this copper output. The special Yugoslav dilemma is whether to expropriate the mines and let the output go to Germany, in which case the country may risk an Allied blockade, or whether to let the French buy the copper, in which case Führer Hitler might decide to create a diversion on the German-Yugoslav frontier.