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After all, neither side was in August 1916 in a position to dictate to neutrals; and the Rumanian Army counted for too much in the delicate balance for any belligerent Power to invite its hostility by undue pressure. The decision was Rumania's own, and it was not unnatural. She had been on the eve of intervention more than a year before, but German successes in 1915 had constrained her to caution.
On June 13, 1914, the progress of the Russian armies continued along the entire 250-mile front from the Pripet River to the Rumanian border. The capture of twenty officers, 6,000 men, six cannon, and ten machine guns brought the total, captured by the Russian troops, up to about 120,000 men, 1,720 officers, 130 cannon and 260 machine guns, besides immense quantities of material and munitions.
Though individually some of them may not deserve blame, yet considering what the Phanariotes took out of the country, what they introduced into it, and to what extent they prevented its development, their era was the most calamitous in Rumanian history. In 1774 Austria acquired from the Turks, by false promises, the northern part of Moldavia, the pleasant land of Bucovina.
At this time Russia had concentrated a great army near the Rumanian frontier, and it was understood that a large number of heavy guns had arrived at Odessa for its use. The direction in which this Russian army would move depended entirely upon the policy adopted by the Rumanian government.
Whereas up to the date of the Berlin Congress such tracts were confined to Austria-Hungary, by that Congress a similar sphere of attraction for Rumanian aspirations was created in Russia.
I deeply grieve that my country has so much delayed in paying her due contribution to the struggle for these most precious benefits of humanity, and trust the influence caused by Rumanian intervention will render it absolutely impossible for the existing Greek authorities any further to persist in their policy of neutrality, and that at the earliest moment Greece too will join the camp of her proved and traditional friends for the purpose of accomplishing her own national ideals."
Owing to the demoralization prevailing in Thrace and Bulgaria, railway communications between Constantinople and the Rumanian frontier were so disorganized that we decided to travel by steamer to Constantza, taking the railway thence to Bucharest. Before the war the Royal Rumanian mail steamer Carol I was as trim and luxuriously fitted a vessel as one could have found in Levantine waters.
I have been praying for this for many a day. Now we shall soon see a blessed change. It took the Rumanian disaster to bring it about, no less, and that is the meaning of it, though I could not see it before. There will be no more shilly-shallying. I consider that the war is as good as won, and that I shall tie to, whether Bucharest falls or not."
By prohibiting Turkey, however, from entering Rumanian territory, save with the consent of the great powers, it was recognized indirectly that the suzerainty was merely a nominal one.
But that was not the course taken. The statesmen of the Secret Council had recourse to the radio, and, without consulting M. Bratiano, despatched a message "to the government in Bucharest" enjoining on it the withdrawal of the Rumanian army. For they were minded scrupulously to redeem their promise to the Bolshevists.
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