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Updated: April 30, 2025
There was also a pro-German and anti-democratic party, led by Carp and Marghiloman and supported by the landlords, which harped upon Rumania's grievances against Russia and placed Bessarabia in the scales against Transylvania.
But upon this stipulation Gorchakov put the jesuitical construction that, the Convention being concluded in view of a war to be waged against Turkey, it was only against Turkey that Russia undertook to guarantee Rumania's integrity; as to herself, she was not in the least bound by that arrangement.
About twenty-four hours after Rumania's entrance into the war on the side of the Allies a Zeppelin, accompanied by an aeroplane, appeared during the night of August 28, 1916, over Rumania's capital, Bucharest. After a short bombardment, which caused but little damage, they were both forced to withdraw by the fire of antiaircraft guns.
Prime Minister Bratianu, who went to Paris as the head of the Rumanian peace delegation, told me, his voice hoarse with indignation, that the "Big Four," in settling Rumania's future boundaries, had not only not consulted him but that he had not even been informed of the terms decided upon.
From there I motored to New London, where Colonel House had been spending the summer. The conversation brought out that the President considered a postponement of mediation unavoidable, because the Entente were now filled with hopes of victory in consequence of Rumania's entry into the war.
Silistria farther down the river was thereupon evacuated, and on the 16th Mackensen stood on the line Rasova-Kobadinu-Tuzla, a dozen miles from the important railway running from Bukarest across the Tchernavoda bridge to Constanza; Tchernavoda was the only bridge across the Danube in the Balkans, and Constanza was Rumania's only Black Sea port.
The next day Germany declared war on Rumania, and the issue was squarely joined in the Balkans, which then became the scene of a mighty struggle for the possession of Germany's road to Constantinople and the East. Tremendous activity at once began on the Balkan front, with Rumania's endeavor to aid Russia in cutting off Bulgaria and Turkey from the Central Powers.
Rumania's insistence on the delivery of live-stock, corn, agricultural machinery, and rolling-stock for railways was, it was argued, necessitated by want and justified by equity. For it was no more than partial reparation for the immense losses wantonly inflicted on the nation by the Magyars and their allies. Until then no other amends had been made or even offered.
On the 14th Rumanian troops replaced the Russians in front of Okna in the Trotus valley and counterattacked with vigour. But the decisive battle was fought farther south, where Mackensen, advancing from Focsani, was seeking to cross the Sereth in the direction of Marasesti and Tecuciu. It was the most heroic of Rumania's struggles.
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.
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