The 1907 Romanian Peasants’Revolt took place in March 1907 in Moldavia and it quickly spread, reaching Wallachia. The main cause was the discontent of the peasants about the inequity of land ownership, which was in the hands of just a few large landowners.

The revolt began on the lands administered by one lessor, Mochi Fischer, in the village of Flămânzi (the name seems predestined, as it literally means "hungry men") due to Fischer’s refusal to renew the leasing with the local peasants. The Austrian-Jewish family of Fischer used to lease about 75 percent of the arable land in three Romanian counties in Moldavia (the so-called "Fischerland").

The peasants, fearing that they would remain without work and, more importantly, without food, began to act violently. Mochi Fischer was scared and fled to a friend of his in Cernăuți, leaving the peasants without signed contracts. The fear of remaining out of work, combined with the activities of some alleged Austro-Hungarian instigators, led the peasants to revolt. The revolt soon spread across most of Moldavia, with several landowners’properties destroyed and many lessors killed or wounded. The Conservative government (Partidul Conservator) couldn’t handle the situation and resigned, and the Liberals (Partidul Național-Liberal) of Dimitrie Sturdza assumed power.

On 18 March a state of emergency was declared, then general mobilization, with 140,000 soldiers being recruited by 29 March. The Romanian Army began firing on the peasants; thousands of peasants perished and more than 10,000 were arrested.

Source: Wikipedia, published under the GNU FDL. Retrieved 2014-03-04