Germany had, even before the commencement of negotiations in Bucharest, considered the question of imposing on Roumania, when treating for peace, a series of obligations especially in connection with the economical relations amounting to a kind of indirect war indemnity.  It was also contemplated that the occupation of Wallachia should be maintained for five or six years after the conclusion of peace.  Roumania should then give up its petroleum districts, its railways, harbours and domains to German companies as their property, and submit itself to a permanent financial control.  Austria-Hungary opposed these demands from the first on the grounds that no friendly relations could ever be expected to exist with a Roumania which had been economically plundered to such a complete extent; and Austria-Hungary was obliged to maintain amicable relations with Roumania.

This standpoint was most emphatically set forth, and not without some success, on February 5 at a conference with the Reichskansler.  In the middle of February the Emperor sent a personal message to the German Emperor cautioning him against this plan, which might prove an obstacle in the way of peace.  Roumania was not advised of these demands until comparatively late in the negotiations, after the appointment of Marghiloman.  Until then the questions involved gave rise to constant discussion between Germany and Austria-Hungary, the latter throughout endeavouring to reduce the German demands, not only with a view to arriving at a peace of mutual understanding, but also because, if Germany gained a footing in Roumania on the terms originally contemplated, Austro-Hungarian economical interests must inevitably suffer thereby.  The demands originally formulated with regard to the Roumanian railways and domains were then relinquished by Germany, and the plan of a cession of the Roumanian harbours was altered so as to amount to the establishment of a Roumanian-German-Austro-Hungarian harbour company, which, however, eventually came to nothing.  The petroleum question, too, was reduced from a cession to a ninety years’ tenure of the state petroleum districts and the formation of a monopoly trading company for petroleum under German management.  Finally, an economic arrangement was prepared which should secure the agricultural products of Roumania to the Central Powers for a series of years.  The idea of a permanent German control of the Roumanian finances was also relinquished owing to Austro-Hungarian opposition.  The negotiations with Marghiloman and his representatives on these questions made a very lengthy business.  In the economic questions especially there was great difference of opinion on the subject of prices, which was not disposed of until the last moment before the drawing up of the treaty on March 28, and then only by adopting the Roumanian standpoint.  On the petroleum question, where the differences were particularly acute, agreement was finally arrived at, in face of the extreme views of the German economical representative on the one hand and the Roumanian Foreign Minister, Arion, on the other, by a compromise, according to which further negotiations were to be held in particular with regard to the trade monopoly for petroleum, and the original draft was only to apply when such negotiations failed to lead to any result.