It may not be amiss to record an instance of the methods of the Supreme Council, for by putting himself in the place of the Rumanian Premier the reader may the more clearly understand his frame of mind toward that body.  In June the troops of Moritz (or Bela) Kuhn had inflicted a severe defeat on the Czechoslavs.  Thereupon the Secret Council of Four or Five, whose shortsighted action was answerable for the reverse, decided to remonstrate with him.  Accordingly they requested him to desist from the offensive.  Only then did it occur to them that if he was to withdraw his armies behind the frontiers, he must be informed where these frontiers were.  They had already been determined in secret by the three great statesmen, who carefully concealed them not merely from an inquisitive public, but also from the states concerned.  The Rumanian, Jugoslav and Czechoslovak delegates were, therefore, as much in the dark on the subject as were rank outsiders and enemies.  But as soon as circumstances forced the hand of all the plenipotentiaries the secret had to be confided to them all.[176] The Hungarian Dictator pleaded that if his troops had gone out of bounds it was because the frontiers were unknown to him.  The Czechoslovaks respectfully demurred to one of the boundaries along the river Ipol which it was difficult to justify and easy to rectify.  But the Rumanian delegation, confronted with the map, met the decision with a frank protest.  For it amounted to the abandonment of one of their three vital irreducible claims which they were not empowered to renounce.  Consequently they felt unable to acquiesce in it.  But the Supreme Council insisted.  The second delegate, M. Misu, was in consequence obliged to start at once for Bucharest to consult with the King and the Cabinet and consider what action the circumstances called for.  In the meantime, the entire question, and together with it some of the practical consequences involved by the tentative solution, remained in suspense.

When certain clauses of the Peace Treaty, which, although they materially affected Rumania, had been drafted without the knowledge of her plenipotentiaries, were quite ready, the Rumanian Premier was summoned to take cognizance of them.  Their tenor surprised and irritated him.  As he felt unable to assent to them, and as the document was to be presented to the enemy in a day or two, he deemed it his duty to mention his objections at once.  But hardly had he begun when M. Clemenceau arose and exclaimed, “M.  Bratiano, you are here to listen, not to comment.”  Stringent measures may have been considered useful and dictatorial methods indispensable in default of reasoning or suasion, but it was surely incumbent on those who employed them to choose a form which would deprive them of their sting or make them less personally painful.