he standpoint that the party desirous of peace
negotiations must be supported.

The episode of the Roumanian peace must not be taken out of the great
picture of the war. Like the Peace of Brest-Litovsk, the Roumanian
peace was necessary from a military point of view, because it seemed
desirable to release troops in the East as quickly as possible and
transfer them to the Western front. It was urgently desired and
repeatedly demanded that we should come to a final settlement with
Roumania as soon as possible. In order to secure a speedy result I had
already, from Brest-Litovsk, advised the Emperor to send word
privately to King Ferdinand that he could reckon on an honourable
peace should he wish to enter into negotiations. The Emperor took my
advice, and Colonel Randa had one or two interviews with a member of
the immediate entourage of the King. But the German opinion was that
King Ferdinand must be "punished for his treachery" and no
negotiations entered into with him. For this reason, and to avoid
fruitless controversy, I first imparted to Herr von Kuehlmann the
accomplished fact and informed him that we had put ourselves secretly
into communication with King Ferdinand. This event was quite in
accordance with the standard of equality in our Federation, by which
every member was privileged to act according to the best of his
ability and was merely bound to inform the friendly Powers of the
proceedings. It was not our duty to apply to Germany for permission to
take such a step.

There was a three-fold reason why I did not share Germany's opinion on
this question. In the first place, my point of view was that it was
not our duty to mete out divine justice and to inflict punishment,
but, on the contrary, to end the war as quickly as possible. Therefore
my duty was to seize every means possible to prevent a continuance of
the war. I must mention here that the idea prevailing in many circles
that the Roumanians were quite at the end of their strength, and were
compelled to accept all the conditions, is entirely false. The
Roumanians held very strong positions, the _moral_ in the army was
excellent, and in the last great attack on Maracesci, Mackensen's
troops had suffered very severely. This success turned the Roumanians'
heads, and there were many leading men in the ranks of the Roumanian
army who sided entirely with those who wished to carry on the war _a
l'outrance_. They did not count so much on an actual victory, but