herself to deliver her agricultural produce to the Central Powers for a certain number of years.  The plan for Germany to be in the permanent control of Roumanian finances was not carried out.  In the question of price, the Roumanian views held good.  The most impossible of the German demands, namely, the occupation of Roumania for five to six years after the conclusion of peace, gave rise to great difficulties.  This was the point that was most persistently and energetically insisted on by the German Supreme Military Command, and it was only with great trouble and after lengthy explanations and discussions that we settled the matter on the following lines:  That on the conclusion of peace the entire legislative and executive power of the Roumanian Government would be restored in principle, and that we should content ourselves with exercising a certain control through a limited number of agents, this control not to be continued after the general peace was made.  I cannot say positively whether this standpoint was adhered to by my successor or not, but certain it is that Marghiloman only undertook office on condition that I gave him a guarantee that the plan would be supported by me.

As already mentioned, the question of the Dobrudsha had prepared great difficulties for us in two respects.  First of all there was the relinquishing of their claim which, for the Roumanians, was the hardest term of all, and imparted to the peace the character of a peace of violence; and secondly, the matter had precipitated a dispute between Turkey and Bulgaria.

The Bulgarians’ view was that the entire Dobrudsha, including the mouth of the Danube, must be promised to them, and they insisted on their point with an obstinacy which I have seldom, if ever, come across.  They went so far as to declare that neither the present Government nor any other would be able to return to Sofia, and allowed it clearly to be seen that by refusing their claims we could never again count on Bulgaria.  The Turks, on the other hand, protested with equal vehemence that the Dobrudsha had been conquered by two Turkish army corps, that it was a moral injustice that the gains chiefly won by Turkish forces should be given exclusively to the Bulgarians, and that they would never consent to Bulgaria receiving the whole of the Dobrudsha unless compensation was given to them.  By way of compensation, they asked not only for that stretch of land which they had ceded to Bulgaria on their entry into the war (Adrianople), but also a considerable area beyond.

In the numerous conferences at which the question was discussed, Kuehlmann and I played the part of honest mediators who were making every effort to reconcile the two so divergent standpoints.  We both saw clearly that the falling off of the Bulgars or Turks might be the result if a compromise was not effected.  Finally, after much trouble, we succeeded in drawing up a programme acceptable to both sides.  It took this form:  That “old” Dobrudsha should at once be given back to Bulgaria, and the other parts of the area to be handed over as a possession to the combined Central Powers, and a definite decision agreed upon later.