Russia undertook to respect Rumania’s political rights, as well as ’to maintain and defend her actual integrity’.  ‘It is pretty certain’, wrote Prince Carol to his father, ’that this will not be to the liking of most of the great powers; but as they neither can nor will offer us anything, we cannot do otherwise than pass them by.  A successful Russian campaign will free us from the nominal dependency upon Turkey, and Europe will never allow Russia to take her place.’

On April 23 the Russian armies passed the Pruth.  An offer of active participation by the Rumanian forces in the forthcoming campaign was rejected by the Tsar, who haughtily declared that ’Russia had no need for the cooperation of the Rumanian army’, and that ’it was only under the auspices of the Russian forces that the foundation of Rumania’s future destinies could be laid’.  Rumania was to keep quiet and accept in the end what Russia would deign to give her, or, to be more correct, take from her.  After a few successful encounters, however, the Tsar’s soldiers met with serious defeats before Plevna, and persistent appeals were now urged for the participation of the Rumanian army in the military operations.  The moment had come for Rumania to bargain for her interests.  But Prince Carol refused to make capital out of the serious position of the Russians; he led his army across the Danube and, at the express desire of the Tsar, took over the supreme command of the united forces before Plevna.  After a glorious but terrible struggle Plevna, followed at short intervals by other strongholds, fell, the peace preliminaries were signed, and Prince Carol returned to Bucarest at the head of his victorious army.

Notwithstanding the flattering words in which the Tsar spoke of the Rumanian share in the success of the campaign, Russia did not admit Rumania to the Peace Conference.  By the Treaty of San Stefano (March 3,1878) Rumania’s independence was recognized; Russia obtained from Turkey the Dobrudja and the delta of the Danube, reserving for herself the right to exchange these territories against the three southern districts of Bessarabia, restored to Rumania by the Treaty of Paris, 1856.  This stipulation was by no means a surprise to Rumania, Russia’s intention to recover Bessarabia was well known to the Government, who hoped, however, that the demand would not be pressed after the effective assistance rendered by the Rumanian army.  ’If this be not a ground for the extension of our territory, it is surely none for its diminution,’ remarked Cogalniceanu at the Berlin Congress.  Moreover, besides the promises of the Tsar, there was the Convention of the previous year, which, in exchange for nothing more than free passage for the Russian armies, guaranteed Rumania’s integrity.  But upon this stipulation Gorchakov put the jesuitical construction that, the Convention being concluded in view of a war to be waged against Turkey, it was only against Turkey that Russia undertook to guarantee Rumania’s integrity; as to herself, she was not in the least bound by that arrangement.  And should Rumania dare to protest against, or oppose the action of the Russian Government, ’the Tsar will order that Rumania be occupied and the Rumanian army disarmed’.  ’The army which fought at Plevna’, replied Prince Carol through his minister, ’may well be destroyed, but never disarmed.’