the
kingdom and dynasty would have ceased to exist.

The King did not oppose anything but thought the conditions terribly
hard. Without the Dobrudsha Roumania would hardly be able to draw
breath. At any rate, there could be further parley as to ceding "old"
Dobrudsha again.

I said to the King that if he complained about hard conditions I could
only ask what would his conditions have been if his troops had reached
Budapest? Meanwhile, I was ready to guarantee that Roumania would not
be cut off from the sea, but would have free access to Constanza.

Here the King again complained of the hard conditions enforced on him,
and declared he would never be able to find a Ministry who would
accept them.

I rejoined that the forming of a Cabinet was Roumania's internal
business, but my private opinion was that a Marghiloman Cabinet, in
order to save Roumania, would agree to the conditions laid down. I
could only repeat that no change could be made in the peace terms laid
before the King by the Quadruple Alliance. If the King did not accept
them, we should have, in a month's time, a far better peace than the
one which the Roumanians might consider themselves lucky to get
to-day.

We were ready to give our diplomatic support to Roumania that she
might obtain Bessarabia, and she would, therefore, gain far more than
she would lose.

The King replied that Bessarabia was nothing to him, that it was
steeped in Bolshevism, and the Dobrudsha could not be given up;
anyhow, it was only under the very greatest pressure that he had
decided to enter into the war against the Central Powers. He began
again, however, to speak of the promised access to the sea, which
apparently made the cession of the Dobrudsha somewhat easier.

We then entered into details, and I reproached the King for the
dreadful treatment of our people interned in Roumania, which he said
he regretted.

Finally, I requested that he would give me a clear and decided answer
within forty-eight hours as to whether he would negotiate on the basis
of our proposals or not.

The result of the interview was the appointment of the Marghiloman
Ministry and the continuation of the negotiations.

Before Marghiloman consented to form a Cabinet, he approached me to
learn the exact terms.

He declared himself to be in agreement with the first and hardest of
the conditions--the cession of the Dobrudsha, because he was quicker
than the King in seeing that in consequence of our