Chapter 602: Fascist Royalism: Romanian Michaelism (Mihaiism)
The ground work for the Romanian Fascist Royalism had been paved by the Royal Dictatorship of King Carol who had suspended the Constitution, seized emergency powers and declared martial lawafter the so called Goga-Codrenau pact, a plan of the Iron Guard to withdraw its candidates so that the anti-Semitic right would win the elections with a majority. Afterwards Carol proclaimed martial law and suspended all civil liberties under the grounds that the violent election campaign was running the risk of plunging the nation into civil war, while quickly getting rid of involved Prime Minister Goga in exchange for the Romanian Eastern Orthodox Church Patriarch Elie Cristea, who had widespread respect in the majorly orthodox country. Carol then drafted a more authoritarian and corporatist constitution, turning his nation into a de facto absolute monarchy, while legitimizing this step with a plebiscite under not so ideal conditions, as the verbal vote simply wrote down all who remained silent when asked if they were in support as yes votes. Carol then informed the Germans that he wished closer ties to their government and quickly afterwards did the same to Austria-Hungary too. In April 1938 he crushed the Iron Guard, by imprisoning their closest ally and Interior Minister Armand Călinescu trialing him for treason. However Carol's favor in the population was shrinking after he agreed to give Austria-Hungary back it's former territories in exchange for the Axis Central Powers supporting the remaining Romanian States integrity and independence, even guaranteeing so against Soviet Union claims. In exchange Romanian Oil would go to the Axis Cental Powers to form closer ties between the involved nations. At the same time Carol secretly plotted to place Romania into the British economic sphere. Chancellor Hitler then negotiated with Carol, demanding him to install Codrenau as Prime Minister, knowing that he could possible be replaced Carol killed all Iron Guard Leaders inside his prisons on 30 November 1938.
Afterwards the National Renaissance Front was formed as the only remaining legal party. The Axis Central Powers agreement and guarantees for Poland and other East European Nations against the Soviet Union brought Carol a little closer to their camp then. Around the same time Romanias old enemies Bulgaria and Hungary had surrounded the country with Axis Central Powers states, giving it no true chance then to sigh a economic treaty with Austria-Hungary and Germany, as the Axis Central Power influence on the Balkan Peninsula grew further. But just like in Poland before, Great Britain and France proposed Soviet Union Red Army forces to march trough this countries to defend them from German and Austrian-Hungarian ambitions. Something their governments were unwilling to accept as they did not trust Stalin to not annex them outright once his forces were inside their borders. Some like the German National Party (of the 800,000 people strong German minority), that joined the National Renaissance Front outright opposed King Carol and were in support of a Axis Central Powers guarantee for Romania, as the Soviet Union demanded Bessarabia from the kingdom. Carol meanwhile proposed a defense line around his country, only called the Imagiont Line by his subjects, as they suspected the line was considered to be a purely imaginary version of the Maginot line and that the money raised by higher taxes would go to the king's Swiss bank accounts. Still trying to negotiate between the Allies and the Axis Central Powers carol felt that a tamed Iron Guard could help support his rule, reforming it as the Royal Iron Guard and incorporating it as a paramilitary wing into the National Renaissance Front. With German and Austrian-Hungarian support Carol rejected the Soviet ultimatum for Bessarabia, knowing that the loss of the region without fight would be a national humiliation. That the British and French not guaranteed his independence the same way then Germany and Austria-Hungarian were willing to, brought him and his kingdom closer to the Axis Central Powers. By 1940 Carol's personal cult had reached extreme highs as did his his prestige.
Shortly after Carol invited a German military mission to train the Romanian Army and sworn in a new government headed by Ion Gigurtu with Sima Minister of Arts and Culture. Gigurtu had been a leading figure in the anti-Semitic National Christian Party in the 1930s, was a millionaire businessman with many connections to Germany and was a well-known Germanophile. For all these reasons, Carol hoped that having Gigurtu was Prime Minister would win him Hitler's good-will, and thus prevented any further loss of territory to Axis Central Powers like Bulgaria and Hungary. But inspired by the Hungarians, the Bulgarians soon demanded the return of the Dobruja territory, lost in the Second Balkan War of 1913. Having lost the Allies with his too close ties to the Axis Central Powers, Carol was forced to accept the ceding after nearly going to war over it. Around this time Carol had on 9 July 1940 imprisoned General Ion Antonescu after the latter had criticized the king, charging it was the corruption of the royal government that was responsible for the military backwardness of Romania, and hence the loss of territory to Hungary and Bulgaria. Both Fabricius and Hermann Neubacher, the man in charge of the Four Year Plan's operations in the Balkans intervened with Carol, saying that Antonescu's "accidental death" or being "shot while trying to escape" would "make a very bad impression on the German headquarters" as Antonescu was known to be a leading advocate of an alliance with Germany. On 11 July 1940, Carol had Antonescu freed, but kept under house arrest at the Bisțria monastery. The guarantees of the remaining Romanian state by the Axis Central Powers were quickly accepted by Carl.
By now however, his actions to give up Romanian territory to the Axis Central Powers had discreet him by his people, and in early September 1940 enormous demonstrations broke out all over Romania demanding that Carol abdicate. On 1 September 1940, Sima who had resigned from the government gave a speech calling upon Carol to abdicate, and the Iron Guard began to organize demonstrations all over Romania to press for king's abdication. On 2 September 1940, Valer Pop, a courtier and an important member of the camarilla first advised Carol to appoint General Ion Antonescu as Prime Minister as the solution to the crisis. Pop's reasons for advising Carol to have Antonescu as Prime Minister who was partly because Antonescu, who was known to be friendly with the Iron Guard and had been imprisoned under Carol, was believed to have enough of an op positional background to appease the public and partly because Pop knew that Antonescu for all his Legionary sympathies was a member of the elite and would never turn against it. As the increasingly large crowds started to assemble outside of the royal palace demanding the king's abdication, Carol considered Pop's advice, but was reluctant to have Antonescu as Prime Minister. As more and more people started to join the protests, Pop feared that Romania was on the verge of a revolution that might not only sweep away the king's regime, but also the elite who had dominated the country since the 19th century. To apply further pressure on Carol, Pop met with Fabricius on the night of 4 September 1940 to ask him to tell Carol that the Axis Central Powers wanted Antonescu as Prime Minister, which led to Fabricius promptly calling Carol to tell him to appoint the general as the prime minister. Additionally, the very ambitious General Antonescu who long coveted the Premiership now suddenly started to downplay his long-standing antipathy to Carol, and he suggested that he was prepared to forgive past slights and disputes.
On September 5, 1940, Antonescu became Prime Minister, and Carol transferred most of his dictatorial powers to him. As Prime Minister, Antonescu was a man acceptable to both the Iron Guard and the traditional elite. Carol planned to stay as king after appointing Antonescu and initially Antonescu did not support the popular demand for Carol's abdication. Antonescu had become Prime Minister, but he had a weak political base. As an Army officer, Antonescu was a loner, an arrogant and aloft man with an extremely bad temper who as a consequence was very unpopular with his fellow officers. Antonescu's relations with the politicians were no better, and as such Antonescu was initially unwilling to move against the king until he had some political allies. Carol ordered Antonescu and General Dumitru Coroamă who commanded the troops in Bucharest to shoot down demonstrators in front of the royal palace, an order that both refused to obey. It was only on 6 September 1940, when Antonescu learned of a plot to murder him headed by another member of the camarilla General Paul Teodorescu that Antonescu joined the chorus demanding Carol's abdication. With public opinion solidly against him and with the Army refusing to obey his orders, Carol was forced to abdicate. Carol who had been forced under Hungarian, Bulgarian, German and Austrian-Hungarian pressure to surrender parts of his kingdom to foreign rule, was finally outmaneuvered by the pro-German administration of Marshal Ion Antonescu, and abdicated in favour of Michael in September 1940. He went into exile, initially in Mexico, but ultimately settled in Portugal. Carol and Lupescu settled in Mexico City, where he purchased a house in one of Mexico City's more expensive districts. During the Second Great War, Carol tried to set up a Free Romania movement based in Mexico to overthrow General Antonescu. Carol had hopes that his Free Romania movement would be recognized as a government-in-exile by the Allies, and would ultimately lead to him being restored. The closest Carol ever got to having his Free Romania movement recognized came in 1942 when President Manuel Ávila Camacho allowed Carol to stand besides him while reviewing his troops. Carol would have liked to operate out of the United States, but the American government refused him permission to enter. However, Carol was in contact with two Eastern Orthodox priests living in Chicago, namely Father Glicherie Moraru and Father Alexandru Opreanu who organized an unsuccessful campaign in the Romanian-American community to pressure the American government to recognize the "Free Romania" committee as the legitimate government of Romania. To advance his cause, Carol published a magazine in America called The Free Romanian and published several books in both Romanian and English. A major problem for Carol's efforts to mobilize the Romanian-American community was in 1924 the U. S government brought in the Immigration Control Act, which drastically limited immigration from Eastern Europe into the United States. As such, the majority of Romanian-Americans in the 1940s were either people who immigrated prior to 1924 or their children; in either case, Carol did not mean much to them.
Thanks to that the Iron Guard and the Fascist Royalists in Romania under General and Conducător (Leader instead of Prime Minister) Antonescu created a new pro-German, pro-Austrian-Hungarian and pro-Fascist Romanian Nation State that officially joined the Axis Central Powers, leading to German and Austria-Hungarian troops entered the country, officially to secure it's sovereignty against the Soviet Union claims and ambitions. The new King Michael had once before ruled from 20 July 1927 to 8 June 1930 and now hoped that closer ties with the Iron Guard, as well as the foreign powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary to get rid of Ion Antonescu to rule once again like his predecessor, with a personal cult in a totalitarian monarchy. With help of the Germans who in return got the Ploiești oil refineries that provided about 30% of all Axis Central Powers oil production as Kaiseröl (Emperor's Oil). He had however also ambitions of becoming King of all Romanians once again, as well as expand his nation state by taking Russian or even Hungarian and Bulgarian territories if he had a chance. Therefore he supported the German-led invasion of the Soviet Union during the Eastern Crusade and Romania annexed Soviet territory as the Transnistria Governorate with Odessa as it's capital, clashing with claims by the Kingdom of Ukrainia in the region. Tensions grew and Austria-Hungary had to negotiate between both Axis Central Power member states. Romanian Forces fought alongside the other Axis Central Powers one in the Ukraine, Crimea and Caucasus Operations and Campaigns.
Michael was glad, when Austria-Hungarian turned into the United States of Greater Austria/ the United States of Austria-Hungary as a more democratic, parlamentarian monarchy and the Romanians inside Austria-Hungary's new States enjoyed widespread autonomy and independence. Michael understood that by joining the Danube Federation he could help the economy of his country and have closer ties to Austria-Hungary and the Axis Central Powers, who unlike the Allies had truly stood by their word to protect and defend Romanian independence. This close ties would later in 1948 lead to his marriage of Archduchess Charlotte of Austria (German: Erzherzogin Charlotte von Österreich), the sister of Austrian Emperor Otto II in 1948 that would further increase the close ties and alliances between Austria-Hungary and Romania and ultimately lead to the incorporation of Romania into the United States of Austria-Hungary after being a part of the same internal Axis Central Powers faction and alliance, the Danube Federation before. With the birth of his first of five sons, Crown Prince Gareth on 26 March 1949 Romania would officially become a part of the United States of Austria Hungary (also known as the United Danube States or United Balkan States) and King Michael would be the King of all Romanians under Austrian Emperor Otto once again.