Naturally the destiny-weavers of peoples and nations in Paris were dismayed at the prospect and apprehensive lest the Rumanians should end the war in their own way.  They despatched three notes in quick succession to the Bucharest government, one of which reads like a peevish indictment hastily drafted before the evidence had been sifted or even carefully read.  It raked up many of the old accusations that had been leveled against the Rumanians, tacked them on to the crime of insubordination, and without waiting for an answer—­assuming, in fact, that there could be no satisfactory answer—­summoned them to prove publicly by their acts that they accepted and were ready to execute in good faith the policy decided upon by the Conference.[167]

That note seemed unnecessarily offensive and acted on the Rumanians as a powerful irritant,[168] besides exposing the active members of the Supreme Council to scathing criticism.  The Rumanians asked their Entente friends in private to outline the policy which they were accused of countering, and were told in reply that it was beyond the power of the most ingenious hair-splitting casuist to define or describe.  “As for us,” wrote one of the stanchest supporters of the Entente in French journalism, “who have followed with attention the labors and the utterances, written and oral, of the Four, the Five, the Ten, of the Supreme and Superior Councils, we have not yet succeeded in discovering what was the ‘policy decided by the Conference.’  We have indeed heard or read countless discourses pronounced by the choir-masters.  They abound in noble thought, in eloquent expositions, in protests, and in promises.  But of aught that could be termed a policy we have not found a trace."[169] This verdict will be indorsed by the historian.

The Rumanians seemed in no hurry to reply to the Council’s three notes.  They were said to be too busy dealing out what they considered rough and ready justice to their enemies, and were impatient of the intervention of their “friends.”  They seized rolling-stock, cattle, agricultural implements, and other property of the kind that had been stolen from their own people and sent the booty home without much ado.  Work of this kind was certain to be accompanied by excesses and the Conference received numerous protests from the aggrieved inhabitants.  But on the whole Rumania, at any rate during the first few weeks of the occupation, had the substantial sympathy of the largest and most influential section of the world’s press.  People declared that they were glad to see the haze of self-righteousness and cant at last dispelled by a whiff of wholesome egotism.  From the outspoken comments of the most widely circulating journals in France and Britain the dictators in Paris, who were indignant that the counsels of the strong should carry so little weight in eastern Europe, could acquaint themselves with the impression which their efforts at cosmic legislation were producing among the saner elements of mankind.