I see Romanians are showing fancy GDP numbers, where the Romanian GDP is the same as the GDP of Poland, Croatia, and Hungary 120 years ago... this is quite impossible. If we check images from Polish, Hungarian and Romanian cities from 120 years ago. We can compare those cities and we can see the Hungarian cities in Transylvania were much more developed than the cities in old Romania. The Romanian propaganda tries to say that small Romania in Balcan had the same industry as Austria - Hungary or Hungary 120 years ago. Even the Kingdom of Hungary has a higher ratio of railway length per capita than the UK before WWI. Austro - Hungarian railway map, 1911: Compare the dense Hungarian and the poor Romanian railway network: This fake GDP map shows the Romanian industry was similar to the Hungarian industry, if we see the railway maps and if we compare the city images, it is clear that this is impossible: In 1900 Budapest, the capital of Hungary was among the biggest, the most developed cities in Europe, while if we check images of Bucharest, the capital of Romania you cannot find too many similar buildings or city life. Even today, Budapest is more developed than Buc harest. However, Hungary lost 2/3 of its 1000 years of land and 1/3 of its Hungarian population since 1920 by the Dictate of Trianon. Indeed, Transylvania was the less developed part of the Kingdom of Hungary due to the mountainous and forested landscape and its east facing. It also had a big Romanian population where the illiterate rate was high. But full Hungary, including Transylvania , was much more developed than Romania. Kingdom of Hungary: blue border, Transylvanian region: 2899 List of countries by GDP (PPP) in the nineteenth century - Wikipedia GDP 1880: (Kingdom of Hungary = Transleithania) https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.361.386&rep=rep1&type=p df In 1918, there were 2,043 Romanian schools for the approximately 2.8 million Romanians in Hungary. More than that the 7 million Romanians (!) had in the Kingdom of Romania at that time. The aggressor and irredentist Romania attacked Hungary in 1916. Romania took nothing of the neutrality treaty with the Austro - Hungarian Monarchy, and when Romania considered that the A llied Powers had a better chance of victory, Romania entered into a secret treaty with the Entente Powers and attacked Hungary in 1916. The Russians had a victory during the heavy Brusilov offensive, so the Romanians wanted to exploit the achievement of th e Russians. The Hungarians made heavy fights on many different fronts against the Russians, and Italians, thus Romania attacked the unprotected Transylvania. Hungarian state offices were evacuated, a huge wave of refugees set off westward, and two - thirds o f the population of forty thousand set out from Nagyszeben (Sibiu). The refugees included not only Hungarians and Saxons but also a significant number of Romanians, who understandably feared their existence and status from the armies of Romania, whose sold iers arriving in the second or third waves began to plunder the more developed Hungarian settlements from the first hours of the invasion. The main drawbacks of the Romanian Army were its technological backwardness and lack of experience, also the lootings were slowed the army. But Romania lost World War 1 at record speed, after the counterattack, the Hungarian and German soldiers were in the capital of Romania, Bucharest within 3 months. When World War 1 ended the German and Hungarian troops went home from Bucharest. In Hungary was chaos, and coups, due to the full disarmament of its army, Hungary was to remain without a national defense at a time of particular vulnerability. The Hungarian self - disarmament made the occupation of Hungary directly possible for the relatively small armies of Romania, the Franco - Serbian army, and the armed forces of the newly established Czechoslovakia. So when the war ended the aggressor Romania attacked again Hungary in 1919, just this time Hungary was disarmed by the Entente without proper leadership. The Romanians marched through disarmed Hungary and occupied Budapest and plundered Hungary. As a witness to all these events, General Bandholtz , an American mem ber of the Entente military mission accredited to Budapest, summarized in his diary the extent of the robbery and the occupation: “The Romanians have begun plundering Hungary, all cars, locomotives, railroads and other rolling stock were taken away, all fo und weapons, ammunition, and munitions were stolen and transported to Romania, and then the private cars, shop fittings, goods, clothes, clothes, sugar, sugar and everything which has value. Their looting continued and will continue after the Supreme Counc il of the Peace Conference ordered them to stop such requisitioning. All branches of the administration, all railway, telegraph, telephone and postal systems have been occupied, and the whole of Hungary is currently being held in complete terror and forced to its knees.” At that time, US General Bandholtz spent six months in Hungary, he concluded in his Diary: “Personally I came here rather inclined to condone or extenuate much of the Roumanian procedure, but their outrageous conduct in violation of all int ernational law, decency, and humane considerations, has made me become an advocate of the Hungarian cause. Turning over portions of Hungary with its civilized and refined population will be like turning over Texas and California to the Mexicans. The great Powers of the Allies should hang their heads in shame for what they allowed to take place in this country after an armistice.” When the Romanian troops finally withdrew from Budapest on 14th November 1919, they looted the city. In early 1920, Romanian troo ps departed Hungary. They took with them resources including foodstuffs, mineral ores, and transportation, and factory equipment. The Hungarians had to hand over almost all their military equipment. It handed to Romania the entire armament industry of Hung ary as well as 50% of the railway rolling stock (800 locomotives and 19,000 cars), 30 percent of all livestock, 30 percent of all agricultural tools, and 35 000 wagons of cereals and fodder. Romania was an economically very underdeveloped Balkan country du ring the First World War. The Romanian political elite saw the plunder of Hungary as an opportunity to create the country's own foundations for economic and industrial modernization. Census 1910 Red: Hungarians, Yellow: Slovaks, Purple: Romanians, Blue: Se rbs, White: Uninhabited or regions with fewer than 20 persons/sq km Romania demanded 1000 years of Hungarian lands until this blue line, until the Tisza river. We can see it was not a problem for the irredentist Romanians to demand full Hungarian and non - R omanian populated lands. Literacy of Europe in 1900: Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Romania had one of the largest illiteracy rates in Europe. In the 1930s, 43% of the adults were illit erate and in October 1945, Romania still had 4.2 million illiterate adults (1.9 million men and 2.3 million women). The Romanian propaganda says that this illiterate Romania was “more developed” than Transylvania and Hungary around 1900... it means the mas s of illiterate people made a great industry and skyrocket GDP :) Literacy in Kingdom of Romania, 1930: In this literacy map, we can see clearly the former border of the Kingdom of Hungary, Transylvania, and the other occupied Hungarian lands had bette r literacy than the old Romanian regions. Hungarian and Saxon populated areas in Transylvania also had better literacy rates than the Romanian populated areas in Transylvania. Romania got Transylvania from the Entente in 1920 with a 54% Romanian population, but the majority of the city population was Hungarian and Saxon. Ernest Hemingway, The Toronto Star We ekly, 15th of September 1923: “Romania is the only country that no one in Europe takes seriously. When statesmen and their friends lived in the best hotels in Paris in 1919 and worked on a treaty designed to make the Balkan to European, which eventually ma de Europe to Balkan, the Romanians marched on a select collection of ready - to - deploy fast speakers and historical precedents. When all of these had already spoken, and the signing of the treaties ensued, it turned out that the Romanians had received all th e areas of their neighbors in all directions, the name of which a Romanian envoy had ever uttered on his mouth. Nor did the signatories of the treaty consider this a great price to get rid of the presence of fiery Romanian compatriots. In any case, Romania is now forced to maintain Europe's largest peace army to curb the rebellious "new - Romanians", whose only desire is not to be Romanian.” City regions in Transylvania had a Hungarian majority (Census 1910, Red: Hungarians, Yellow: Saxons, Cyan: Romanians): Even today 100 years later, we can see the Transylvanian border, otherwise, the border of the Kingdom of Hungary if we see the bath/shower map of today’s Romania. Even today, Transylvania is the most popular travel destination and the top tourist place in Romania and not the allegedly “120 years ago very developed” old Romanian regions. Almost all historical buildings in the Transylva nian cities were built by Hungarians and Saxons and not by the Romanians.