To find out the real condition of the alliance was my first task, and it was not difficult, as the first lengthy conferences I had with King Carol left no doubt in my mind that the old King himself considered the alliance very unsafe. King Carol was an exceptionally clever man, very cautious and deliberate, and it was not easy to make him talk if he intended to be silent. The question of the vitality of the alliance was settled by my suggesting to the King that the alliance should receive pragmatic sanction, i.e. be ratified by the Parliaments at Vienna, Budapest, and Bucharest. The alarm evinced by the King at the suggestion, the very idea that the carefully guarded secret of the existence of an alliance should be divulged, proved to me how totally impossible it would be, in the circumstances, to infuse fresh life into such dead matter. My reports sent to the Ballplatz leave no doubt that I answered this first question by declaring in categorical fashion that the alliance with Roumania was, under the existing conditions, nothing but a scrap of paper. The second question, as to whether there were ways and means of restoring vitality to the alliance, and what they were, was theoretically just as easy to answer as difficult to carry out in practice. As already mentioned, the real obstacle in the way of closer relations between Bucharest and Vienna was the question of Great Roumania; in other words, the Roumanian desire for national union with her "brothers in Transylvania." This was naturally quite opposed to the Hungarian standpoint. It is interesting, as well as characteristic of the then situation, that shortly after my taking up office in Roumania, Nikolai Filippescu (known later as a war fanatic) proposed that Roumania should join with Transylvania and the whole of united Great Roumania enter into relations with the Monarchy similar to the relation of Bavaria to the German Empire. I admit that I welcomed the idea warmly, for if it were launched by a party which justly was held to be antagonistic to the Monarchy there can be no doubt that the moderate element in Roumania would have accepted it with still greater satisfaction. I still believe that had this plan been carried out it would have led to a real linking of Roumania to the Monarchy, that the notification would have met with no opposition, and consequently the outbreak of war would have found us very differently situated. Unfortunately the plan failed at its very first stage owing to Tisza's strong and obstinate resistance. The Emperor Francis Joseph held the same standpoint as Tisza, and it was out of the question to achieve anything by arguing. On the other hand, nobody had any idea then that the great war, and with it the testing of the alliance, was so imminent, and I consoled myself for my unsuccessful efforts in the firm hope that this grand plan, as it seemed to me both then and now, would be realised one day under the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.