Ionel Brătianu

Ionel Brătianu (born Aug. 20, 1864, Florica, Rom.—died Nov. 24, 1927, Bucharest) was a politician who six times served as prime minister of Romania (1909, 1910–11, 1914–18, 1918–19, 1922–26, 1927) and was the chief spokesman for the ideal of Greater Romania—i.e., the union of the old Regat (Moldavia and Walachia) with the Romanian lands of the Habsburg and Russian empires.

Son of the leading Romanian statesman Ion Brătianu, Ionel was appointed minister of the interior in 1907 and, two years later, prime minister. As leader of the Liberal Party, he marshaled party support for the realization of Greater Romania through territorial aggrandizement. His first and second premierships lasted until 1911; he was subsequently recalled to office in 1914 as the proponent of large-scale land reform to assuage the land hunger of the peasantry. Through the early stages of World War I, he hoped to avoid conflict with Germany and Austria-Hungary, but he eventually agreed to Romania’s siding with the Allies (August 1916) in return for promises of territory, notably Transylvania from Austria-Hungary. After resigning the premiership in February 1918, he was again recalled the following December.

An insistent champion of a Greater Romania at the postwar peace negotiations at Paris, Brătianu once more resigned his office in September 1919 rather than accept a compromise on disputed territory with Yugoslavia and Allied interference in internal Romanian affairs. Again prime minister from 1922 to 1926, he was responsible for the adoption of a new constitution and the confirmation of national agrarian reform, and he promoted economic modernization, especially industrialization and urbanization. He formed a final, short-lived government in June 1927.