Constantine the Great introduced Christianity, and by the year 360 A.D. Dacia was one of the most thoroughly civilized parts of Christendom, but there was no peace for the people until they obtained their present government. For century after century no settled authority seems to have existed in the country, which was the shuttle-cock of the rival sovereigns of Russia, Hungary, Poland, and Turkey. Peter the Great took the country under his protection, and Catherine the Great soon after her accession began to prepare the Roumanians for annexation to Russia. She was not able to carry out her designs, because Austria had become restive at the rapid expansions of Russia in her direction, and it was solely to pacify Austrian fears that Russia in 1774 consented to place Moldavia and Wallachia under the protectorate of the sultan of Turkey.
In that relation the people lived until the great revolution of 1848, which, sweeping over Europe, aroused the national spirit among the Roumanians and revived their pride in their ancient origin, their native language, their literature and their history. The wealthier families, the land owners, called boyards, as in Russia, sent their young men to the universities of Germany and France, where they developed ideas of liberty and patriotism and came home to educate the people. The same spirit aroused the neighbouring nations to civil liberty and advocated independence from Russia and Turkey, and Roumanian patriots offered their lives as a sacrifice for the freedom of their country. The revolutionary leaders, however, were compelled to flee, but proclaimed the grievances of their country wherever they were scattered and awakened practical sympathy in France and in England and wherever the friends of liberty were found.
The Crimean war gave them a chance to escape from the control of both the principal participants in that great struggle, and one of the articles in the treaty of peace guaranteed the autonomy of the two provinces along the northern bank of the Danube. This action was soon followed by a mutual agreement between Wallachia and Moldavia to unite as a single state under a single government with a foreign prince, a member of some reigning family of Europe, as their king. In 1859 they both elected Col. Alexander Couza as their "hospodar," or lord, who assumed the throne as Alexander John I, Prince of Roumania.
Couza was a failure. He did not please anybody, and in 1866 was forced to abdicate in a dramatic manner. The incident was repeated almost in detail twenty years after at Sofia, capital of the neighbouring kingdom, when Prince Alexander of Bulgaria was compelled to resign his throne. On the night of Feb. 23, 1866, a party of army oflScers,
members of the national assembly, and leading citizens of Roumania entered the palace, forced open the door of the prince's bedroom and demanded his abdication. The document had already been prepared, and when the prince was handed a pen wet with ink he signed it promptly.
He was allowed to dress and pack a few necessities for travelling, was placed in a carriage and driven by relays of horses to the nearest railway station, where he was shipped off to Paris, and Roumania saw him no more.
A provincial government was organized, a national assembly was called and proceeded to elect the Count of Flanders, younger brother of the late King Leopold of Belgium, as hospodar. The sultan protested, and the Count of Flanders declined the honour. Prince Charles of Hohenzollern, a member of the royal family of Prussia, was chosen in his stead and the choice was unanimously ratified by a vote of the whole people. Again the neighbouring nations remonstrated, but Bismarck sent for Prince Charles, who was then a colonel of dragoons in the Prussian army, and advised him to hurry to Bucharest in disguise, saying:
" If you fail, you will at any rate have a pleasant reminiscence for the rest of your life."
One month later Prince Charles appeared at Bucharest and was received with great enthusiasm. He had slipped through Austria in disguise.
Prince Charles was proclaimed ruler of Roumania on his twenty-seventh birthday. His father was the head of one of the non-reigning branches of the Hohenzollern family of Prussia, and a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm the Great. His grandmother was a Bonaparte. He was educated at Dresden and had served for several years in a crack regiment of Prussian cavalry. He was a personal favourite at the courts of Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Paris. He was a man of broad ideas, accurate judgment, and keen intelligence.