lled on to fulfil whenever it became a real institution. And
their past experience of the Great Powers' mode of action was not
calculated to command their confidence. It was the Great Powers which,
for their own behoof and without the slightest consideration for the
interests of Rumania, had constrained that country to declare war
against the Central Empires[145] and had made promises of effective
support in the shape of Russian troops, war material of every kind,
officers, and heavy artillery. But neither the promises of help nor the
assurances that Germany's army of invasion would be immobilized were
redeemed, and so far as one can now judge they ought never to have been
made. For what actually came to pass--the invasion of the country by
first-class German armies under Mackensen--might easily have been
foreseen, and was actually foretold.[146] The entire country was put to
sack, and everything of value that could be removed was carried off to
Hungary, Germany, or Austria. The Allies lavished their verbal
sympathies on the immolated nation, but did little else to succor it,
and want and misery and disease played havoc with the people.

After the armistice things became worse instead of better. The
Hungarians were permitted to violate the conditions and keep a powerful
army out of all proportion to the area which they were destined to
retain, and as the Allies disposed of no countering force in eastern
Europe, their commands were scoffed at by the Budapest Cabinet. In the
spring of 1919 the Bolshevists of Hungary waxed militant and threatened
the peace of Rumania, whose statesmen respectfully sued for permission
to occupy certain commanding positions which would have enabled their
armies to protect the land from invasion. But the Duumviri in Paris
negatived the request. They fancied that they understood the situation
better than the people on the spot. Thereupon the Bolshevists, ever
ready for an opportunity, seized upon the opening afforded them by the
Supreme Council, attacked the Rumanians, and invaded their territory.
Nothing abashed, the two Anglo-Saxon statesmen comforted M. Bratiano and
his colleagues with the expression of their regret and the promise that
tranquillity would not again be disturbed. The Supreme Council would see
to that. But this promise, like those that preceded it, was broken.

The Rumanians went so far as to believe that the Supreme Council either
had Bolshevist leanings or underwent secret i