Union of Bessarabia with Romania
베사라비아의 루마니아 합병
The vote of Sfatul Țării on 9 April 1918 to unite the Moldavian Democratic Republic with the Kingdom of Romania, and the annexation that followed. At first conditional on Bessarabian autonomy, land reform and other guarantees, it was made unconditional in December 1918 by a meeting short of a quorum that dropped all conditions except land reform, and ratified by the Romanian Constituent Assembly in December 1919. Britain, France and Italy recognized it in the Treaty of Paris of 1920, which never came into force, and Soviet Russia and the United States never recognized it.
In depth
The union vote was taken with the Romanian army in control of Bessarabia. The county councils of Bălți, Soroca and Orhei, dominated by large landowners who preferred the royal government to the radical land reform of a Sfatul Țării dominated by left-wing populists, were the first to petition for union, and the Moldavian leaders Daniel Ciugureanu and Ion Inculeț negotiated with the Romanian government in Iași. The vote on 9 April was 86 for, 3 against, 36 abstaining (mostly non-Romanians) and 13 absent, and the national referendum required by law was not held; Russian Wikipedia writes that the building was surrounded by Romanian troops with machine guns and the vote was taken by open roll call. The eleven conditions included land reform; autonomy with a democratically elected diet of its own; control of local budgets, zemstvos and town councils and appointment of local administrators; territorial conscription; respect for minority rights; two Bessarabian ministers in the Romanian government; direct, equal, secret and universal suffrage; freedom of speech and belief; and an amnesty for political offences committed during the revolution. The Romanian prime minister of the day, Alexandru Marghiloman, later admitted that the union had been decided in Romania.
After the land reform was approved in November 1918, Sfatul Țării passed a motion removing all the other conditions; only 44 of its 125 members took part, all voting for, and the vote has been judged illegitimate for lack of a quorum. The assembly was soon dissolved and the protests of former deputies were rejected. In the autumn of 1919 Bessarabia elected 90 deputies and 35 senators, who on 20 December ratified the union acts together with the representatives of Transylvania and Bukovina. At the Paris Peace Conference the only Romanian question on which the American, British, French and Italian representatives agreed was that Bessarabia should belong to Romania, but the Treaty of Paris of 28 October 1920 never came into force because Japan failed to ratify it, and the United States refused to sign because Russia was not represented. Soviet Russia rejected the union as imposed under military occupation and took Bessarabia by the ultimatum of 26 June 1940. The British historian Bernard Newman held that the vote represented the prevailing wish in Bessarabia. Supporters of unification in Romania and Moldova today commemorate 27 March, the Old Style date of the vote, as the day of the union.