connaissance, je vous en guarantie." Three months
after that Mackensen had occupied all Wallachia and had his
headquarters at Bucharest. By that time, therefore, his name must have
been more familiar to our Roumanian friend.

At last we set off for home via Russia and had a very interesting
journey lasting three weeks, via Kieff, Petersburg, Sweden, and
Germany. To spend three weeks in a train would seem very wearisome to
many; but as everything in this life is a matter of habit we soon grew
so accustomed to it that when we arrived in Vienna there were many of
us who could not sleep the first few nights in a proper bed, as we
missed the shaking of the train. Meanwhile, we had every comfort on
the special train, and variety as well, especially when, on Bratianu's
orders, we were detained at a little station called Baratinskaja, near
Kieff. The reason of this was never properly explained, but it was
probably owing to difficulties over the departure of the Roumanian
Ambassador in Sofia and to the wish to treat us as hostages. The
journey right through the enemy country was remarkable. Fierce battles
were just then being fought in Galicia, and day and night we passed
endless trains conveying gay and smiling soldiers to the front, and
others returning full of pale, bandaged wounded men, whose groans we
heard as we passed them. We were greeted everywhere in friendly
fashion by the population, and there was not a trace of the hatred we
had experienced in Roumania. Everything that we saw bore evidence of
the strictest order and discipline. None of us could think it possible
that the Empire was on the eve of a revolution, and when the Emperor
Francis Joseph questioned me on my return as to whether I had reason
to believe that a revolution would occur, I discountenanced the idea
most emphatically.

This did not please the old Emperor. He said afterwards to one of his
suite: "Czernin has given a correct account of Roumania, but he must
have been asleep when he passed through Russia."

3

The development of Roumanian affairs during the war occurs in three
phases, the first of which was in King Carol's reign. Then neutrality
was guaranteed. On the other hand, it was not possible during those
months to secure Roumania's co-operation because we, in the first
period of the war, were so unfavourably situated in a military sense
that public opinion in Roumania would not voluntarily have consented
to a war at our side, and, as alre