17 OCTOBER 1914, Page 3

King Carol of Roumania died suddenly at the Castle of

Pelesh, Sinaia, on Saturday last, in his seventy-sixth year, and is succeeded by his nephew, Prince Ferdinand, born in 1865, who married in 1893 Princess Marie, daughter of the Duke of Edinburgh. King Carol, as a Hohenzollern, undoubtedly cast all his weight into the scale of neutrality ; he was even credited with the remark that he would sooner abdicate than consent to his country's taking the field against Germany. And the weight of his authority was greatly enhanced by the gratitude of his subjects, who recognized in him the founder of the kingdom and one of the chief architects of its pro- sperity. The proclamation of his successor gives no hint of a change of policy, but the statement of his desire to rule in accordance with the ideals of his people may well be inter- preted as compatible with concessions to their anti-Hungarian and irredentist aspirations.