The episode of the Roumanian peace must not be taken out of the great picture of the war.  Like the Peace of Brest-Litovsk, the Roumanian peace was necessary from a military point of view, because it seemed desirable to release troops in the East as quickly as possible and transfer them to the Western front.  It was urgently desired and repeatedly demanded that we should come to a final settlement with Roumania as soon as possible.  In order to secure a speedy result I had already, from Brest-Litovsk, advised the Emperor to send word privately to King Ferdinand that he could reckon on an honourable peace should he wish to enter into negotiations.  The Emperor took my advice, and Colonel Randa had one or two interviews with a member of the immediate entourage of the King.  But the German opinion was that King Ferdinand must be “punished for his treachery” and no negotiations entered into with him.  For this reason, and to avoid fruitless controversy, I first imparted to Herr von Kuehlmann the accomplished fact and informed him that we had put ourselves secretly into communication with King Ferdinand.  This event was quite in accordance with the standard of equality in our Federation, by which every member was privileged to act according to the best of his ability and was merely bound to inform the friendly Powers of the proceedings.  It was not our duty to apply to Germany for permission to take such a step.

There was a three-fold reason why I did not share Germany’s opinion on this question.  In the first place, my point of view was that it was not our duty to mete out divine justice and to inflict punishment, but, on the contrary, to end the war as quickly as possible.  Therefore my duty was to seize every means possible to prevent a continuance of the war.  I must mention here that the idea prevailing in many circles that the Roumanians were quite at the end of their strength, and were compelled to accept all the conditions, is entirely false.  The Roumanians held very strong positions, the moral in the army was excellent, and in the last great attack on Maracesci, Mackensen’s troops had suffered very severely.  This success turned the Roumanians’ heads, and there were many leading men in the ranks of the Roumanian army who sided entirely with those who wished to carry on the war a l’outrance.  They did not count so much on an actual victory, but were upheld by the hope that for some time to come they could maintain the defensive and that, meanwhile, the decisive successes of their Allies on the West would secure victory for them.  They were probably afraid, too, that a peace concluded with us would place them in permanent disgrace with the Entente—­that they would lose the friendship of the Entente, fail to gain ours, and find themselves between two stools.  The second reason which decided me to insist on negotiating with the King was that, from a dynastic point of view, I considered it most unwise to dethrone a foreign