| The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07. |
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| Ferdinand, king of Romania |
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| 1865–1927, king of Romania (1914–27), nephew of Carol I. The second son of the Prussian prince, Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, he was designated successor to the heirless Carol I in 1880. In 1893 he married Marie, daughter of Alfred, duke of Edinburgh and of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (and granddaughter of Queen Victoria and Czar Alexander II.) Although related to the German imperial family, Ferdinand took Romania (1916) into World War I on the Allied side, and in 1922 he was crowned king of the enlarged Romania established by the peace treaties. Ferdinand annexed (1918) Bessarabia from Russia and in 1919 ordered the Romanian military intervention in Hungary that broke up the Communist government of Béla Kun. During his reign, universal male suffrage and agrarian reforms were introduced. Ferdinand’s son, Carol (see Carol II), renounced his succession in 1925, and Carol’s son Michael succeeded in 1927. |
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| | | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2007 Columbia University Press. |
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