On the occasion of the Roumanian peace in the spring of 1918, too severe a test of the loyalty of Bulgars and Turks to the alliance was dangerous. For some time past the former had been dealing in secret with the Entente. The alliance with Turkey rested mainly on Talaat 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 which, breaking away from an avalanche of stones, hurls itself downwards without a leader and without goal, and is no longer capable of being guided by anyone.