TIT-BITS FROM ROUMANIA.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 231, 1 December 1916, Page 8 (Supplement)

TIT-BITS FROM ROUMANIA.

MEN AND MATERIAL BROUGHT IX BY OUR NEW ALLY. The population of Roumania this year was returned at 7,900,000. * * * The infantry rifle is the Mannlicher, and the field gun a Krupp quick-firer of 77m.in., with a maximum range of (i,ooo yards. * * * i Roumanian infantrymen are unriv- | ailed in the Balkans, and the Rouman- | ian cavalry are as good as any 'n Europe. The Roumanian is a fine i horseman and the cavalry spirit is born : in h.m. 1 * * * j Bucharest, the capital of Roumania. I has a population of 400,000, and is said ; to be the gayest city in the (world. The I RouniKumn.N are a Latin race, and I Bucharest is a deliberate imitation >f ! Paris. j * » • j The King and Queen of Roumania i have six children—two sons and four daughters. The heir to the throne. ; Prince Carol, will be twenty-three in October, and will probably take a command in the field. * * * Germany will no longer bte able to buy Roumanian corn, as hitherto. Petroleum, coal ; timber, horses, and cattle —all of wnich passed through Aus-tria-Hungary last year in large quantities—will pass no more. * * * In the lost Austro-Hungjirian prorinces of Transylvania and Bukonna, which the Roumanians are determined to regain, there are 3,224,755 Roumanians who have been systematically oppressed by the Magyar Government. * * * Although King Ferdinand of Roumania is a son of Prince Leopold of Hohcnzollern and a Prince of a nonreigning branch of the Kaiser's family, he has French blood in his veins, his grandfather having maried ajgreatniece of tba Empress JoSephme, consort of Napoleon. * * * Roumania's navy consists of one protected cruiser, Elisabeta, of 1,320, tons, .and armed with four 6in. guns, seven gunboats, six coastguard vessels, six first-class and two second-class tor-pedo-boats, and four river monitors. The merchant navy consists of 757 vessels of 238,748 tons. # # Queen Marie, Europe's most beautiful Queen, whom King Ferdinand married in 1893, is of British and Russian descent. She is the eldest daughter of the Duke of Edinburgh - and of the Grand Duchess Marie of Russia. She is thus a first cousin of both Kmg George and the Czar. * * ♦ Roumania will prove of inestimable value to the Allies. The late King Carol, who died in 1914, had 1 served his apprentice as an officer in the Prussian Guard, and began building up the Roumanian army on the Prussian model in 1866. To-day Roumania can at once put 800,000 fully-trained troops into the field, and altogether can call upon 1.100,000 men.