to form a Cabinet at all. And when he had been
informed, from German sources, that the German Supreme Army Command
insisted on these terms, he only agreed to form a Cabinet on the
assurance of the Austrian Foreign Minister that a solution of the
occupation problem would be found. In this question also we did
ultimately succeed in coming to agreement with Roumania.

One of the decisive points in the conclusion of peace with Roumania
was, finally, the cession of the Dobrudsha, on which Bulgaria insisted
with such violence that it was impossible to avoid it. The ultimatum
which preceded the preliminary Treaty of Buftea had also to be altered
chiefly on the Dobrudsha question, as Bulgaria was already talking of
the ingratitude of the Central Powers, of how Bulgaria had been
disillusioned, and of the evil effects this disillusionment would have
on the subsequent conduct of the war. All that Count Czernin could do
was to obtain a guarantee that Roumania, in case of cession of the
Dobrudsha, should at least be granted a sure way to the harbour of
Kustendje. In the main the Dobrudsha question was decided at Buftea.
When, later, Bulgaria expressed a desire to interpret the wording of
the preliminary treaty by which the Dobrudsha "as far as the Danube"
was to be given up in such a sense as to embrace the whole of the
territory up to the northernmost branch (the Kilia branch) of the
Danube, this demand was most emphatically opposed both by Germany and
Austria-Hungary, and it was distinctly laid down in the peace treaty
that only the Dobrudsha as far as the St. George's branch was to be
ceded. This decision again led to bad feeling in Bulgaria, but was
unavoidable, as further demands here would probably have upset the
preliminary peace again.

The proceedings had reached this stage when Count Czernin resigned his
office.

7

=Wilson's Fourteen Points=

I. Open covenants of peace openly arrived at, after which there shall
be no private international understandings of any kind, but diplomacy
shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas outside territorial
waters alike in peace and in war except as the seas may be closed in
whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of
international covenants.

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the
establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations
consenting to