How 1,228 delegates united a country in one day

At Oradea, on 12 October 1918, Vasile Goldiș's pen drafted the self-determination declaration before the Executive Committee of the Romanian National Party: Budapest would no longer speak for the Romanians at the coming peace conference. Six days later, on 18 October, Alexandru Vaida-Voevod read it aloud in the Hungarian parliament.

At Arad, on 30–31 October, the Central National Romanian Council took shape as the Romanians' provisional lead, and on 6 November it published its manifesto to the nation. A memorandum followed on 9 November, demanding Eastern Hungary's handover; the talks with Budapest's ministers at Arad, on 13–15 November, failed. The Council then convened the National Assembly for 18 November old style, 1 December new style.

On 23 November a Farman F.40 biplane landed at Blaj carrying letters about the union, including from Ion I. C. Brătianu, and flew the union decision back the next day. The call was out; the elections for the Assembly ran through November, district by district.

District by district, over twelve days in November 1918, the Romanians of Transylvania, Banat, Crișana and Maramureș raised their hands for their people: 600 deputies, five from each electoral district drawn in 1910, and 628 more for the churches, the teachers' unions, the soldiers and the cultural associations. Together: 1,228 credentials.

The convocation of 7/20 November, printed in Românul no. 10 at Arad and in Unirea at Blaj, called the Assembly to Alba Iulia and hoped the Romanian people itself would attend in numbers worthy of the cause. Delegations formed in Arad and Bistrița, in Brașov and Sibiu; one set out from București, across the Carpathians.

The road ran through snow: carts creaked toward Alba in the frozen ruts while a German army withdrew the same way, gun after gun. Samoilă Mârza, a peasant veteran from Galtiu, rode 11 km by bicycle with his camera to join his village delegation on the morning of 1 December.

On the morning of 1 December 1918, 18 November on the old calendar the delegates still used, the military Casino hall received 1,228 credentials, each elected or appointed in November. Outside, on Câmpul lui Horea, over 100,000 people waited in the winter cold; one account raises them above 120,000.

In the hall Gheorghe Pop de Băsești presided while Vasile Goldiș presented the Resolution: nine articles, the union first, the democratic conditions with it. The vote was unanimous. Then Bishop Iuliu Hossu carried the text to the field and read it to the multitude.

The Assembly's writ ran over 26 counties of the old Kingdom of Hungary, and its last article instituted the Great National Romanian Council to speak for the nation before all the nations of the world. The union it decreed was conditional: autonomy first, a constituent assembly after, rights for all who lived in the new state.

The day after the vote, on 2 December, the High National Romanian Council – 200 Assembly members plus 50 co-opted – gathered to form a government for the united lands: the Directing Council under Iuliu Maniu. On 11 December King Ferdinand signed the Union Law of Transylvania, Banat, Crișana and Maramureș with Romania.

Not everyone had voted at Alba. On 22 December a Hungarian assembly at Cluj, organised around István Apáthy, reasserted the will to remain in Hungary; the Romanian army entered Cluj two days later, on 24 December. The Székely assembly of 28 November had already voted the same way at Târgu-Mureș.

The Saxons answered otherwise. After the neutrality of 25 November, their National Assembly met at Mediaș on 8 January 1919 and adhered to the union, trusting article III's first point: full national freedom for the co-inhabiting peoples. The Jews adhered in January 1919, the Swabians in August.