harest,
whereby the Macedonian Bulgars were largely handed over to Serbia, and
Greece was, and continued to be, the main stumblingblock 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.

Bulgaria now plainly let it be understood under what conditions she
would join a union of the Balkan neutrals against the Teutonic Powers.