Modern Rumania consists mainly of three territories previously separate though sharing a common religion, Greek Orthodoxy, and the Rumanian language. These territories are known to English-speakers as Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania. In 1859 Moldavia and Wallachia were united to form the state of Rumania, to which Transylvania was ceded by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920.
During the Paris Peace Conference, in 1919, most of the British delegation found Balkan politics intolerably confusing and Lloyd George was heard to ask irritably, ‘Where the hell is that place [Transylvania] Rumania is so anxious to get?’ Probably only Harold Nicolson, Britain’s Balkan expert, could have told him that – for the Conference’s purposes – Transylvania was the land between the bend of the Carpathians and the Apuseni Mountains, plus Crisana, Maramures and part of the Banat – some 40,685 square miles.