alaat and
Enver. Talaat told me in Bucharest, however, quite positively that he
would be forced to send in his resignation if he were to return
empty-handed, and in that case the secession of Turkey would be very
probable.

We tried then at Bucharest to steer our way through the many shoals;
not mortally to offend the Roumanians, to observe as for as possible
the character of a peace of understanding, and yet to keep both Turks
and Bulgars on our side.

The cession of the Dobrudsha was a terribly hard demand to make on the
Roumanians, and was only rendered bearable for them when Kuehlmann and
I, with the greatest difficulty and against the most violent
opposition from the Bulgarians, obtained for them free access to the
Black Sea.

When later, in one breath, we were reproached with having enforced a
peace of violence on the Roumanians and with not having treated the
Bulgarian claims and wishes with sufficient consideration--the answer
to the charge is obvious. _Because_ we were compelled to consider both
Bulgaria and Turkey we were forced to demand the Dobrudsha from the
Roumanians and treat them with greater severity than we should have
done otherwise, in order finally to gain the Turks and the Bulgars for
our negotiation plans. Judged according to the Versailles standard,
the Peace of Bucharest would be a peace of understanding, both as
regards form and contents.

The Central Powers' mediators, both at Versailles and St. Germain,
would have been glad had they been treated in the same way as the
Marghiloman Ministry was treated.

The Roumanians lost the Dobrudsha, but acquired safe and guaranteed
access to the sea; they lost a district of sparsely populated
mountainous country to us, and through us they acquired Bessarabia.

They gained far more than they lost.

CHAPTER XII

FINAL REFLECTIONS

The farther the world war progressed, the more did it lose the
character of the work of individual men. It assumed rather the
character of a cosmic event, taking more and more from the
effectiveness of the most powerful individuals.

All settlements on which coalitions were based were connected with
certain war aims by the Cabinets, such as the promises of compensation
given to their own people, the hopes of gain from the final victory.
The encouragement of intense and boundless hatred, the increasing
crude brutality of the world all tended to create a situation making
each individual like a small stone whi