Romanian Diplomacy in the 20th Century

III.1. Between the central administration and positions abroad

Dimitrie C. Penescu worked – even after obtaining the position of Legation attaché – in the offices of the ministry in Bucharest. This came with its own advantages, as he was near those able to influence some nominations for positions abroad. Precisely for this reason, his colleagues within the diplomatic corps wished to learn details about the “movements” within the ministry. Starting in early September 1899, Langa-Rășcanu assaulted him with questions related to the contest for third-class Legation secretary:

“Have you not been able to learn anything about the secretary position? I believe it will be held in October or November, for we are several waiting […] I have done my reading, alright, but I’m still terrified, for I have no idea about the topic for the written test. I’ve heard that under Alexandru Lahovari, there was no written test; the law says nothing. What do you say? Couldn’t we have it eliminated? ”²⁰.

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The contest was held in late November. Six applicants appeared; following the assessment comprising both a written and an oral test, the commission – presided over by Alexandru G. Florescu – declared all of them “passed,” in the following order: Dimitrie C. Penescu, D. Stavridi, C. Langa-Rășcanu, C. Conțescu, N. Filodor, and T. Lipatti²¹.

Through a decree signed on December 3, 1899 by King Carol I, Penescu was conferred the rank of third-class Legation secretary²². He remained in the central administration, but not for long. After two months, he was notified that he would be sent to Athens, within the Legation of Greece. His first diplomatic mission abroad was rather difficult in the beginning. He went to the Greek capital as a chargé d’affaires, because the previous holder of this title, Dimitrie I. Ghica, had been demoted by the minister of Foreign Affairs, Ion Lahovari. The meeting with the head of mission was far from pleasant. Ghica wrote in his diary on April 8/21, 1900 the following:

“I saw right on time this perfumed dude […] walking like a diplomat and very anxious to notify the Ministry of his arrival and to receive the Legation nomination. I told him that he could hurry up all he wanted and that I was ready to hand things over to him, the chancellery included, the very first thing the next morning; and that I would write to the Greek Government announcing that he would be charged with business administration”²³.

Ghica was dissatisfied with Penescu’s behavior, as the latter had competed in the contest for the position of Legation attaché while holding the title of Legation secretary, thus presiding over the contest commission²⁴.

After Ghica’s departure, Penescu remained in Athens as chargé d’affaires until the arrival of Constantin G. Nanu, the head of mission starting in May 1900. The two collaborated very well, as evidenced by the lines written by the head of mission upon Penescu’s departure from Athens, in March 1901: “for as long as he has worked in this Legation, Mr. Penescu has accomplished as zealously as possible the activity and duties of his position. I, personally, can only praise the spirit that animated him, in both the exercise of his position and ←23 | 24→his relationships with local society and his colleagues within the diplomatic corps.”²⁵

Upon returning to Romania, Penescu did not remain in the central administration for long. In late July 1901, he was notified that he had been appointed to manage the affairs of the Belgrade Legation for two months, starting on August 1, during a leave taken by Edgar Mavrocordat, the holder of the position²⁶. Upon the latter’s return, Penescu did not leave for Bucharest, but remained within the mission in his capacity as third-class Legation secretary, following the dispositions given by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This time, the “roles” of the colleagues within the diplomatic corps changed: Penescu was abroad, while Bilciurescu was in the Bucharest offices. In a letter dated August 18, 1901, the latter gave Penescu news concerning the activity within the ministry: “What news can I tell you from the Ministry? Nanu²⁷ is leaving on holiday tonight and Pâclianu will replace him starting on Monday […] The Minister returned to the capital yesterday morning and he promised us to… with the affairs of the Danube and Pruth Commissions.”²⁸ In exchange, Penescu notified him of the “diplomatic parties” that he attended and of his meeting with the Serbian royal couple²⁹. He remained in the Serbian capital until April 1903; on April 10, 1902, he had been conferred the honorary title of second-class Legation secretary³⁰.

Upon returning to the central administration in the spring of 1903 as deputy manager, Penescu again found Constantin G. Nanu – his former chief of mission in Athens – now holding the position of general secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Penescu was active for only two years in the Bucharest offices, with a brief interruption in July-August 1904, when he was sent to manage the Legation’s affairs in Rome, during Nicolae Fleva’s leave³¹. It was his first ←24 | 25→nomination to the Italian capital, though brief. His colleagues complimented him: “I hurried to send you a postcard, to express my sincere and cordial congratulations for this distinction, which honors you and offers you prestige among your peers. It also highlights and underlines your apparent capabilities and merits, which your superiors seem to assess as they should.”³²

III.2. The “Balkan phase”

On August 25, 1906, Penescu was notified by the minister, Iacob Lahovari, that he would be promoted on the first day of September (the same year) to first-class Legation secretary and general consul of the Bitolia Consulate³³. Thus began the “Balkan phase” in the diplomat’s career, which continued on March 1, 1907, with a position in Thessaloniki. From our perspective, the mission south of the Danube in Macedonia was the first important mission abroad for the 32-year-old diplomat. In a period when the “Aromanian issue” still played a significant role in the agenda of decision-making factions in Bucharest, Penescu’s departure to Bitolia was carefully calculated by the minister of Foreign Affairs, Iacob Lahovari. Furthermore, in a letter dated September 1906, Penescu’s colleague in Vienna, N.D. Ghermani, wrote to him: “However, the fact that our supreme leader has chosen you for such an important and delicate position under the current circumstances would be for anyone […] proof of the minister’s faith in your qualities, which we – the persons who worked alongside you – had the opportunity to see on a regular basis.”³⁴

According to the laws organising the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which witnessed numerous changes in the period between the Congress of Berlin and the Great War, the Romanian consulates were of two categories: career consulates, helmed by Romanian citizens, and honorary consulates, led by foreigners. Their purpose was well defined: to bolster the interests of Romanian nationals on the territory of foreign states, and to preserve the Romanian national identity (culture, language, and school); to these, a series of economic, juridical and notarial functions were added³⁵. In 1881, for instance, ←25 | 26→there were six consulates of First Class, in Constantinople, Budapest, Odessa, Thessaloniki, Ismail, and Ruse. Hence, there were consulates in the three neighboring empires where Romanian communities lived: The Russian Empire, The Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Thirty years later, in 1911, three were added: Czernowitz, Janina and Bitolia (Monastir)³⁶. As we can see, consulates were founded only in Austro-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, as the “Aromanian issue” became an important point in the agenda of decision makers in Bucharest in the late 19^th century. The creation of consulates in these cities was not accidental. These were “outposts” of Romanian diplomacy. Furthermore, up to the First World War, there were no general consulates in Greece, only honorary ones, while in Serbia there were no consular offices.

The consulates in Thessaloniki, Janina, and Bitolia were subordinated to the Constantinople Legation, and the consuls corresponded with the head of mission in the capital of the Ottoman Empire. In some cases, correspondence was also direct with the minister of Foreign Affairs. The moment Penescu was named head of the consulate in Bitolia, Ion Papiniu – the minister plenipotentiary from Constantinople – was notified, too³⁷.

Constantin Zănescu joined Penescu – who replaced Constantin Conțescu – as a chancellor. Penescu’s presence as head of the consulate was not notable. In early 1907, he sent a telegram to Ion Papiniu requesting his approval for a leave of 5–6 weeks, citing medical issues:

“either the tiresome and ongoing work within these past four months or the lifestyle filled with worries and emotions during all this time – very hard to get accustomed to – have influenced my health status. A general and progressive weakness prevents me from managing as zealously as I would the affairs of the Consulate and of the General Inspectorate of Schools, and physicians – as shown in the certificate attached hereto – recommend 5–6 weeks of rest in a quiet environment, to prevent a worsening of my general state”³⁸.

Because he obtained the leave, Penescu was able to return to the country, maybe hoping to get another position, which did in fact happen.

On March 1, 1907, Penescu was named head of the Thessaloniki consulate – thus replacing Constantin Conțescu – and was still subordinate to Ion Papiniu. ←26 | 27→Papiniu wanted, in mid-March, for Penescu to begin working at his new position as quickly as possible; this occurred a few days later³⁹. One of Penescu’s predecessors in Thessaloniki, Dimitrie I. Gr. Ghica, noted in his memoirs the importance of the Macedonian issue for the decision-making faction in Bucharest:

“For Romania, the Macedonian issue was important in the eyes of the government due to the Aromanians in Macedonia – the Romanian-speaking population grouped on the Pindus Mountains and in the compact communities within the rest of Macedonia, thus accounting for more than 200,000 people in total and animated by highly nationalist feelings […] The Romanian government – which, unlike other states neighbouring Turkey, was not animated by annexation urges – believed it to be a racial solidarity issue to become interested officially in the far-away Romanians”⁴⁰.

For the same diplomat, the position in Thessaloniki held special importance: it was the headquarters of the actions conducted by the Bucharest government on the Macedonian issue⁴¹.

Under these circumstances, the position held by Penescu starting in the spring of 1907 was rather important for the decision-makers in Bucharest. His activity during the three years he spent in the Balkans targeted several elements: support for subsidizing the vocational school in Thessaloniki, founded by four young graduates of the Fine Arts Faculty in Iași; support for the publication of journals (e.g., “Lumina”) and newspapers (e.g., “Deșteptarea” and “Le Courier des Balkans”)⁴²; and general support for Romanian propaganda in Macedonia⁴³. We suspect that the minister in Constantinople, Ion Papiniu, was not particularly satisfied with the activity carried out by Penescu in Thessaloniki; he would have wanted for the latter to be more involved in and sensitive to the realities of the Ottoman Empire. The correspondence between the two during the summer of 1909 is evidence of this.

On June 16/29, 1909, Penescu asked the head of mission in Constantinople to grant him a five-week leave starting on July 1, during which the office would be run by dragoman Ed. d’Andria, given that there was no vice-consul or ←27 | 28→chancellor. He suggested this solution because he had been told such an arrangement had been made for other Romanian consular representations. He also stated that only an impromptu arrival of the sultan in the city would postpone his departure. These aspects made Papiniu discontent; he did not agree to allow Penescu to leave Thessaloniki during a period filled with important internal political transformations in the Ottoman Empire, and he added that he would not agree to allow the office to be run by a dragoman⁴⁴. Maybe it was no coincidence that a month later, Penescu heard rumors of his possible replacement in Thessaloniki. He asked his superior in Constantinople whether to believe such rumored information. If true, he would have wanted to be given a heads up, in order to try and obtain a position in a Western Legation “that would be the most consistent with my wishes and interests.”⁴⁵ Though Papiniu denied the rumors⁴⁶, we believe he would not have been unhappy with the departure of the general consul from Thessaloniki.

Half a year later, in December 1909, Penescu traveled to Romania for a leave. He made efforts to extend his stay as long as possible; in early February 1910, the general secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, N.B. Cantacuzino, informed the minister in Constantinople that – for objective reasons – Penescu would remain in the Romanian capital until “new dispositions.”⁴⁷ Papiniu expressed his discontent for the general consul’s extended stay in Bucharest and wanted Penescu to return to his position; this happened a month later, when Penescu notified him on March 14, 1910 that he had returned as head of the consular office⁴⁸. During his stay in the Romanian capital, Penescu must have tried to discuss with the general secretary or with other colleagues a possible nomination to another position. Consequently, starting on April 1, he was transferred to the Legation of Brussels⁴⁹. Hence, his efforts were successful: he managed to obtain a position in a Western Legation. Thus ended the “Balkan stage” in Penescu’s career, during which he tried to gain better insight into the realities of the Ottoman Empire, especially Macedonia, but also during which he did not feel at ease and wanted to move on as quickly as possible.←28 | 29→

Also during this period, on February 25, 1908, Penescu married Maria Gheorghiadi⁵⁰. His wife had been born into a family of merchants from Galați; she had arrived in the Romanian Principalities, from south of the Danube, in the first half of the 19^th century. Maria was a daughter of Iordache Gheorghiadi and Ecaterina Gorănescu. Maria’s sisters had managed to marry into the political world, mainly to liberals. Eliza married the Brăila-based liberal Constantin Alessiu, while Valentina married the liberal Mihail G. Orleanu⁵¹, the minister of Industry and Commerce from 1909 to 1910. Matilda married George Orleanu, the brother of the liberal leader⁵². Penescu’s marriage to Maria Gheorghiadi brought long-term financial comfort, and the political factor may have played a certain role in Penescu’s career. In addition, the diplomat’s wife may have intervened by asking for her husband’s transfer to a Western capital.