“Our departure is being delayed by every sort of pretext.  One moment it seems as though we should reach home via Bulgaria.  This idea suited Bratianu extremely well, as the Bulgarian willingness to grant permission was a guarantee that they had no plans of attack.  But he reckoned in this without his host.  E. and W. are greatly alarmed because the Roumanians intend to detain them, and will probably hang them as spies.  I have told them, ’Either we all stay here or we all start together.  No one will be given up.’  That appears to have somewhat quieted their fears.

“As might be expected, these nocturnal visits had disagreeable consequences for us.  The Roumanians apparently thought that it was not a question of Zeppelins, but of Austro-Hungarian airships, and that my presence in the town would afford a certain protection against the attacks; after the first one they declared that for every Roumanian killed ten Austrians or Bulgarians would be executed, and the hostile treatment to which we were subjected grew worse and worse.  The food was cut down and was terribly bad, and finally the water supply was cut off.  With the tropical temperature that prevailed and the overcrowding of a house that normally was destined to hold twenty, and now housed 170, persons, the conditions within the space of twenty-four hours became unbearable and the atmosphere so bad that several people fell ill with fever, and neither doctor nor medicine was obtainable.  Thanks to the energetic intervention of the Dutch Ambassador, Herr von Vredenburch, who had undertaken the charge of our State interests, it was finally possible to alter the conditions and to avert the outbreak of an epidemic.”

* * * * *

It was just about that time that our Military Attache, Lieut.-Colonel Baron Randa, made a telling remark.  One of our Roumanian slave-drivers was in the habit of paying us a daily visit and talking in the bombastic fashion the Roumanians adopted when boasting of their impending victories.  The word “Mackensen” occurred in Randa’s answer.  The Roumanian was surprised to hear the name, unknown to him, and said:  “Qu’est-ce que c’est que ce Mackensen?  Je connais beaucoup d’Allemands, mais je n’ai jamais fait la connaissance de M. Mackensen.”  “Eh bien,” replied Randa, patting him on the shoulder, “vous la ferez cette connaissance, je vous en guarantie.”  Three months after that Mackensen had occupied all Wallachia and had his headquarters at Bucharest.  By that time, therefore, his name must have been more familiar to our Roumanian friend.

At last we set off for home via Russia and had a very interesting journey lasting three weeks, via Kieff, Petersburg, Sweden, and Germany.  To spend three weeks in a train would seem very wearisome to many; but as everything in this life is a matter of habit we soon grew so accustomed to it that when we arrived in Vienna there were many of us who could not sleep the first few nights in a proper bed, as we missed