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ce counted for restraining Bulgaria and preserving the balance established by the Treaty of Bucharest, maintained an equivocal attitude: both belligerent groups courted her, and it was as yet uncertain which would prevail.[4] For the present Rumanian diplomacy was directed to the formation of a Balkan _bloc_ of neutrality--between Rumania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece--which might enable those four States to remain at peace with each other and the whole world, exempt from outside interference. The first step to the realization of this idea, the Rumanian Government considered, was a settlement of the differences between Greece and Turkey; and, in compliance with its invitation, both States sent their plenipotentiaries to Bucharest. The only result of this mission was to enlighten the Hellenic Government on Turkey's real attitude. At the very first sitting, the Turkish delegate, Talaat Bey, in answer to a remark that the best thing for the Balkan States would be to keep out of the general conflagration, blurted out: "But Turkey is no longer free as to her movements"--an avowal of the Germano-Turkish alliance which the Greeks already knew from the Kaiser's own indiscretions. After that meeting, in a conversation with the Rumanian Minister for Foreign Affairs, which that gentleman reported to the Greeks, Talaat said that, in his opinion, Greece could ignore her Servian alliance, for, {19} as things stood, she might find herself at war, not only with Bulgaria, but also with Turkey--a contingency not foreseen when that alliance was made. From these utterances the Greeks derived a clear impression that Talaat acted on a plan drawn up in Berlin.[5] For the rest, the despatch of the _Goeben_ and the _Breslau_ to Constantinople, followed by the continued arrival of German officers and sailors for the Ottoman Navy, spoke for themselves. M. Sazonow shared the Greek conviction that Turkey had made up her mind, and that no amount of concessions would avail: "It is," he said to the Greek Minister at Petrograd, "an abscess which must burst." [6] The Greeks had even reason to suspect that Turkey was secretly negotiating an agreement with Bulgaria, and on this point also the information of the Russian Government confirmed theirs.[7] It was his intimate knowledge of the Balkan situation that had inspired King Constantine's proposal to the Entente Powers in August for common action against Turkey, qualified with the stipulation
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