Meanwhile the principal efforts of the Entente statesmen had been directed toward effecting a reconciliation between Bulgaria and the other Balkan States which, she maintained, had robbed her of Macedonia. Indeed, it may well be said that the Treaty of Bucharest, whereby the Macedonian Bulgars were largely handed over to Serbia, and Greece was, and continued to be, the main stumbling block in the path of the Allies to bring Bulgaria around to a union with Serbia and Greece and Rumania, for Rumania had also picked Bulgaria's pockets while she was down, by taking a strip of territory at the mouth of the Danube. In this she had not even had the excuse of reclaiming her own people, for here were none but pure Bulgarians. In January, 1915, Rumania began to show signs of shaping a definite policy that might later lead her to taking sides. Her King, Carol, a Hohenzollern by blood, had died shortly after the war and his nephew, Ferdinand, ascended the throne on October 11, 1914. Possibly he may have had something to do with the change. At any rate, though Rumania had previously accepted financial assistance from Austria, in January she received a loan of several millions from Great Britain, most of which was spent on the army, then partly mobilized. At the same time negotiations of a tentative nature were opened by the Foreign Office with Russia offering to throw the Rumanian troops into the conflict on the side of the Allies for a certain consideration. This consideration was that she receive Bukowina, part of the province of Banat, and certain sections of Bessarabia populated by Rumanians, The Allies considered these demands extortionate, and the negotiations were protracted. When the Austrians and Germans, later in the spring, succeeded in driving the Russians out of the Carpathians, Rumania hastily dropped these negotiations and seated herself more firmly on top of the fence. And so, under the guidance of Bratiano, her prime minister, she has continued throughout the whole year, listening to proposals, first from one side, then from the other, but always carefully maintaining her neutral position. Bulgaria had, at about the same time, accepted a loan from Germany. Attempts were made at the time to explain away the political significance of the transaction by representing the advance as an installment of a loan the terms of which had been arranged before the beginning of the war, but the essential fact was that the cash came from Germany at a time when she was herself calling in all the gold of her people into the Imperial treasury.