Bratiano, as leader of the Liberal Party, became Prime Minister at the end of 1913; he realized more clearly than his predecessors that Rumania’s peasant population was one of the country’s greatest assets, and that, under the then existing conditions, this asset was not being fully utilized. His Government was pledged to a scheme of agrarian reform, and began its task with a characteristic act--money was needed, but increased taxation meant loss of popularity, and so the Army vote was drawn upon, and the equipment of the troops neglected. Like many others, Bratiano had refused to believe that the German people would so abase themselves before the Junkers as to permit the latter to provoke a European war; he had been mistaken, he had erred by rating common sense too high. When Germany’s criminal folly became an accomplished fact, it found the Rumanian Army unprepared, and shattered Bratiano’s plans. Rumania, though a neutral State, lived in the shadow of the cataclysm, perpetually a prey to excursions and alarms; reforms in such an atmosphere were impossible, the old abuses lingered, the middle classes reaped a golden harvest, and further claims were made on the patience of the poor. Mad misdirection and abuse of human effort were disintegrating Central Europe, and had paralysed progressive legislation in every neighbouring State. During his frequent pilgrimages, a disappointed statesman had time for sombre meditations, he may have seen a symbol of them in a wide stretch of sleeping waters stagnating round a disused mill. An avenue of elm trees leads westward from the mill, skirting the water’s edge; it runs in a straight line on level ground, and so, a pilgrim entering by the gate could see at the far end, although it was a kilometre distant, a walnut tree against a white background. When blazing sunlight beat down on the fields and swirls of dust choked travellers on the road, this avenue was always cool and green and, like a vast cathedral’s nave, soothed anxious, troubled spirits and rested dazzled eyes. At all seasons of the year, an innumerable host of rooks circled above the elms, and from a choir in the clouds bird-voices pealed in deep-toned rapturous crescendos, lulling the memories of petty strife and discord brought from the city in the plain.