he did
not fail to work toward a better understanding with Russia, 'who might
become as well a reliable friend as a dangerous enemy to the Rumanian
state'. The sympathy shown him by Napoleon III was not always shared by
the French statesmen,[1] and the unfriendly attitude of the French
ambassador in Constantinople caused Prince Carol to remark that 'M. de
Moustier is considered a better Turk than the Grand Turk himself'. Under
the circumstances a possible alliance between France and Russia, giving
the latter a free hand in the Near East, would have proved a grave danger
to Rumania; 'it was, consequently, a skilful, if imperious act, to enter
voluntarily, and without detriment to the existing friendly relations with
France, within the Russian sphere of influence, and not to wait till
compelled to do so.'

[Footnote 1: See _Revue des Deux Mondes_, June 15, 1866, article by Eugene
Forcade.]

The campaigns of 1866 and 1870 having finally established Prussia's
supremacy in the German world, Bismarck modified his attitude towards
Austria. In an interview with the Austrian Foreign Secretary, Count Beust
(Gastein, October 1871), he broached for the first time the question of an
alliance and, touching upon the eventual dissolution of the Ottoman
Empire, 'obligingly remarked that one could not conceive of a great power
not making of its faculty for expansion a vital question'.[2] Quite in
keeping with that change were the counsels henceforth tendered to Prince
Carol. Early that year Bismarck wrote of his sorrow at having been forced
to the conclusion that Rumania had nothing to expect from Russia, while
Prince Anthony, Prince Carol's father and faithful adviser, wrote soon
after the above interview (November 1871), that 'under certain
circumstances it would seem a sound policy for Rumania to rely upon the
support of Austria'. Persevering in this crescendo of suggestion,
Austria's new foreign secretary, Count Andrassy, drifted at length to the
point by plainly declaring not long afterwards that 'Rumania is not so
unimportant that one should deprecate an alliance with her'.

[Footnote 2: Gabriel Hanotaux, _La Guerre des Balkans et l'Europe_ (Beust,
Memoires), Paris, 1914, p. 297.]

Prince Carol had accepted the throne with the firm intention of shaking
off the Turkish suzerainty at the first opportunity, and not unnaturally
he counted upon Germany's support to that end. He and his country were
bitterly disappointed, therefore,