same position the wisest policy was to follow Germany, neglecting impracticable national ideals.  King Carol outlined his views clearly in an interview which he had in Vienna with the Emperor Franz Joseph in 1883:  ’No nation consents to be bereaved of its political aspirations, and those of the Rumanians are constantly kept at fever heat by Magyar oppression.  But this was no real obstacle to a friendly understanding between the two neighbouring states.’

[Footnote 1:  Many prominent statesmen like Sturdza, Maiorescu, Carp, &c. were educated in Germany, whereas the school established by the German community (Evangelische Knaben und Realschule), and which it under the direct control of the German Ministry of Education, is attended by more pupils than any other school in Bucarest.]

Such was the position when the Balkan peoples rose in 1912 to sever the last ties which bound them to the decadent Turkish Empire.  King Carol, who had, sword in hand, won the independence of his country, could have no objection to such a desire for emancipation.  Nor to the Balkan League itself, unfortunately so ephemeral; for by the first year of his reign he had already approached the Greek Government with proposals toward such a league, and toward freeing the Balkans from the undesirable interference of the powers.[1] It is true that Rumania, like all the other states, had not foreseen the radical changes which were to take place, and which considerably affected her position in the Near East.  But she was safe as long as the situation was one of stable equilibrium and the league remained in existence.  ’Rumania will only be menaced by a real danger when a Great Bulgaria comes into existence,’ remarked Prince Carol to Bismarck in 1880, and Bulgaria had done nothing since to allay Rumanian suspicions.  On the contrary, the proviso of the Berlin Convention that all fortifications along the Rumania frontier should be razed to the ground had not been carried out by the Bulgarian Government.  Bulgarian official publications regarded the Dobrudja as a ‘Bulgaria Irredenta’, and at the outset of the first Balkan war a certain section of the Bulgarian press speculated upon the Bulgarian character of the Dobrudja.

[Footnote 1:  See Augenzeuge, op. cit., i. 178]

The Balkan League having proclaimed, however, that their action did not involve any territorial changes, and the maintenance of the status quo having been insisted upon by the European Concert, Rumania declared that she would remain neutral.  All this jugglery of mutual assurances broke down with the unexpected rout of the Turks; the formula ’the Balkans to the Balkan peoples’ made its appearance, upon which Bulgaria was at once notified that Rumania would insist upon the question of the Dobrudja frontier being included in any fundamental alteration of the Berlin Convention.  The Bulgarian Premier, M. Danev, concurred in this point of view, but his conduct of the subsequent London negotiations was so ‘diplomatic’ that their only result was to strain the patience of the Rumanian Government and public opinion to breaking point.  Nevertheless, the Rumanian Government agreed that the point in dispute should be submitted to a conference of the representatives of the great powers in St. Petersburg, and later accepted the decision of that conference, though the country considered it highly unsatisfactory.