the shaking of the train.  Meanwhile, we had every comfort on the special train, and variety as well, especially when, on Bratianu’s orders, we were detained at a little station called Baratinskaja, near Kieff.  The reason of this was never properly explained, but it was probably owing to difficulties over the departure of the Roumanian Ambassador in Sofia and to the wish to treat us as hostages.  The journey right through the enemy country was remarkable.  Fierce battles were just then being fought in Galicia, and day and night we passed endless trains conveying gay and smiling soldiers to the front, and others returning full of pale, bandaged wounded men, whose groans we heard as we passed them.  We were greeted everywhere in friendly fashion by the population, and there was not a trace of the hatred we had experienced in Roumania.  Everything that we saw bore evidence of the strictest order and discipline.  None of us could think it possible that the Empire was on the eve of a revolution, and when the Emperor Francis Joseph questioned me on my return as to whether I had reason to believe that a revolution would occur, I discountenanced the idea most emphatically.

This did not please the old Emperor.  He said afterwards to one of his suite:  “Czernin has given a correct account of Roumania, but he must have been asleep when he passed through Russia.”

3

The development of Roumanian affairs during the war occurs in three phases, the first of which was in King Carol’s reign.  Then neutrality was guaranteed.  On the other hand, it was not possible during those months to secure Roumania’s co-operation because we, in the first period of the war, were so unfavourably situated in a military sense that public opinion in Roumania would not voluntarily have consented to a war at our side, and, as already mentioned, such forcible action would not have met with the King’s approval.

In the second phase of the war, dating from King Carol’s death to our defeat at Luck, conditions were quite different.  In this second phase were included the greatest military successes the Central Powers ever obtained.  The downfall of Serbia and the conquest of the whole of Poland occurred during this period, and, I repeat, in those months we could have secured the active co-operation of Roumania.  Nevertheless, I must make it clearly understood here that if the political preliminaries for intervention on the part of Roumania were not undertaken, the fault must not be ascribed to the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, but to the vis major which opposed the project under the form of a Hungarian veto.  As previously stated, Majorescu, as well as Marghiloman, would only have given his consent to co-operation if Roumania had been given a slice of the Hungarian state.  Thanks to the attitude of absolute refusal observed at the Ballplatz, the territory in question was never definitely decided on, but the idea probably was Transylvania