The Hohenzollern King Who Remade Romania

After the double election of 1859 united Moldavia and Wallachia under Alexandru Ioan Cuza, the new Romanian state faced a crisis of leadership. In 1866, a coup forced Cuza into exile, and the throne was offered to a German prince: Carol I of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. Over the next half century, Carol transformed Romania from a struggling principality into a modern kingdom. He navigated the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, securing full independence from the Ottoman Empire. He oversaw the construction of the Cernavodă Bridge — at its completion in 1895, the longest bridge in Europe. He backed the building of the Carpathian railway lines and the development of the port of Constanța. He also modernized the military, modeled on the Prussian system. Carol's reign saw the rise of the National Liberal Party, the introduction of universal male suffrage (though limited), and the brutal 1907 peasant revolt, which exposed deep agrarian inequalities. In 1914, Carol faced his greatest test: World War I. Despite his personal ties to Germany, the Romanian public favored the Entente. Carol's decision not to intervene split the government, and when he died that October, his nephew Ferdinand took the throne and led Romania into war on the Allied side. This episode explores Carol's complex legacy — a modernizer who built institutions, but whose centralizing rule and pro-German sympathies left an ambiguous mark.

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