Prince Carol.  Early that year Bismarck wrote of his sorrow at having been forced to the conclusion that Rumania had nothing to expect from Russia, while Prince Anthony, Prince Carol’s father and faithful adviser, wrote soon after the above interview (November 1871), that ’under certain circumstances it would seem a sound policy for Rumania to rely upon the support of Austria’.  Persevering in this crescendo of suggestion, Austria’s new foreign secretary, Count Andrassy, drifted at length to the point by plainly declaring not long afterwards that ’Rumania is not so unimportant that one should deprecate an alliance with her’.

[Footnote 2:  Gabriel Hanotaux, La Guerre des Balkans et l’Europe (Beust, Memoires), Paris, 1914, p. 297.]

Prince Carol had accepted the throne with the firm intention of shaking off the Turkish suzerainty at the first opportunity, and not unnaturally he counted upon Germany’s support to that end.  He and his country were bitterly disappointed, therefore, when Bismarck appealed directly to the Porte for the settlement of a difference between the Rumanian Government and a German company entrusted with the construction of the Rumanian railways; the more so as the Paris Convention had expressly forbidden any Turkish interference in Rumania’s internal affairs.  It thus became increasingly evident that Rumania could not break away from Russia, the coming power in the East.  The eyes of Russia were steadfastly fixed on Constantinople:  by joining her, Rumania had the best chance of gaining her independence; by not doing so, she ran the risk of being trodden upon by Russia on her way to Byzantium.  But though resolved to co-operate with Russia in any eventual action in the Balkans, Prince Carol skilfully avoided delivering himself blindfold into her hands by deliberately cutting himself away from the other guaranteeing powers.  To the conference which met in Constantinople at the end of 1876 to settle Balkan affairs he addressed the demand that ’should war break out between one of the guaranteeing powers and Turkey, Rumania’s line of conduct should be dictated, and her neutrality and rights guaranteed, by the other powers’.  This demarche failed.  The powers had accepted the invitation to the conference as one accepts an invitation to visit a dying man.  Nobody had any illusions on the possibility of averting war, least of all the two powers principally interested.  In November 1876 Ali Bey and M. de Nelidov arrived simultaneously and secretly in Bucarest to sound Rumania as to an arrangement with their respective countries, Turkey and Russia.  In opposition to his father and Count Andrassy, who counselled neutrality and the withdrawal of the Rumanian army into the mountains, and in sympathy with Bismarck’s advice, Prince Carol concluded a Convention with Russia on April 16, 1877.  Rumania promised to the Russian army ’free passage through Rumanian territory and the treatment due to a friendly army’; whilst