The Bulgarians' view was that the entire Dobrudsha, including the mouth of the Danube, must be promised to them, and they insisted on their point with an obstinacy which I have seldom, if ever, come across. They went so far as to declare that neither the present Government nor any other would be able to return to Sofia, and allowed it clearly to be seen that by refusing their claims we could never again count on Bulgaria. The Turks, on the other hand, protested with equal vehemence that the Dobrudsha had been conquered by two Turkish army corps, that it was a moral injustice that the gains chiefly won by Turkish forces should be given exclusively to the Bulgarians, and that they would never consent to Bulgaria receiving the whole of the Dobrudsha unless compensation was given to them. By way of compensation, they asked not only for that stretch of land which they had ceded to Bulgaria on their entry into the war (Adrianople), but also a considerable area beyond. In the numerous conferences at which the question was discussed, Kuehlmann and I played the part of honest mediators who were making every effort to reconcile the two so divergent standpoints. We both saw clearly that the falling off of the Bulgars or Turks might be the result if a compromise was not effected. Finally, after much trouble, we succeeded in drawing up a programme acceptable to both sides. It took this form: That "old" Dobrudsha should at once be given back to Bulgaria, and the other parts of the area to be handed over as a possession to the combined Central Powers, and a definite decision agreed upon later. Neither Turkey nor Bulgaria was quite satisfied with the decision, nor yet averse to it; but, in the circumstances, it was the only possible way of building a bridge between the Turks and the Bulgars. Just as England and France secured the entry into the war of Italy through the Treaty of London, so did the Emperor Francis Joseph and Burian, as well as the Government in Berlin, give binding promises to the Bulgars to secure their co-operation, and these promises proved later to be the greatest obstacles to a peace of understanding. Nevertheless, no sensible person can deny that it is natural that a state engaged in a life-and-death struggle should seek an ally without first asking whether the keeping of a promise later will give rise to important or minor difficulties. The fireman extinguishing flames in a burning house does not first ask whether the water he pumps on it has damaged anything. When Roumania attacked us in the rear the danger was very great, the house was in flames, and the first act of my predecessor was naturally, and properly, to avert the great danger. There was no lack of promises, and the Dobrudsha was assigned to the Bulgarians. Whether and in what degree the Turks had a right, through promises, to the territory they, on their part, had ceded to the Bulgars I do not know. But they certainly had a moral right to it.