Situaţia cetăţenilor britanici în timpul statului naţional-legionar din România
The Status of British Citizens During the National-Legionary State in Romania

Summary/Abstract: Political relations between Great Britain and Romania were strained during all the period of the national-legionary state (September 1940-January 1941). Precarious bi-lateral relationships was definitely determined by two issues: the detention of British vessels on the Danube by Romanian authorities, but especially because of the arrest of some British citizens and their subsequent maltreatment by the Legionary Movement. Because of British investments made in oil extraction and processing here existed a significant number of British subjects, together with their families, being in most cases engineers for the oil companies. Considering that these subjects are nothing more than saboteurs under cover, having the mission to repeat the operations of blowing up of oil installations from Valea Prahovei as it happened in WWI, the members of the Legionary Movement kidnapped some of them and subsequently maltreated them at the end of September and beginning of October 1940. Nurturing the conviction that Romania needs to get rid of those with “British blood” in their veins, the inquest of the legionaries was extremely brutal, this attitude being justified, as they said, by the killing of more than 2 thousand legionaries under King Charles II, among whom Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, as well as by the poor relationships between Germany and Romania. In these, it was considered that the British involvement was undeniable, and consequently, they did not behave nicely in none of the cases of the British people. The inquest procedure consisted in, firstly, asking a question, or rather suggesting a course of answer. Not getting the desired answer, the investigators used to beat the investigated person quite badly, after which the question was asked again, until they got the desired answer. It is also worthwhile to say that psychological tortures were applied. Because of the forceful interventions made with Romanian authorities by the British plenipotentiary minister at Bucharest, Sir Reginald Hoare, as well as by the Consul Norman Mayers, the British citizens kidnapped by the legionaries were returned to the competent authorities, who established their complete innocence. They were all released and left the Romanian territory, for fear they should fall again prey to the legionaries. They arrived at the American Hospital in Istanbul, where they needed long medical care. The general crisis created by the illegal arrest of the British citizens represented the first serious problem of the legionary government’s foreign affairs, which led to the creation of huge resentment both in public opinion in Great Britain, and among the diplomats, which will fully contribute, a few months later, to the break-up of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

• Details
• Contents