Rumania Persists In Demand.

New York Times 100 years ago today, January 12, 1913:
Powers Likely to Get Swift Rebuff from Turkey.
    LONDON, Jan. 11.— Fears that the peace conference will end in failure and that the Balkan combatants will take up arms again are stronger to-night than at any time since the plenipotentiaries came to London.
    Unless Adrianople should fall within two or three days or "something should turn up," which none of the diplomatists can foresee, it seems likely that the delegates will leave England before the end of another week.
    The position of the powers is most difficult because all their decisions are vain unless all agree. Outside of the note to be presented to the Porte, none of the proposals made at the Ambassadors' conferences have been accepted, the objections being due chiefly to a desire on the part of some powers to maintain neutrality.
    Such was the fate of the much discussed naval demonstration. Besides being an evident breach of neutrality, it raised the question as to what the powers could do if Turkey refused to yield. Would it be possible to pass from moral to active coercion? Would any one power or all the powers undertake the work?
    The Turkish delegation openly declares that the Porte will not be moved by the powers' note and will answer with stronger refusals than heretofore.
    "What did Germany ask of France when she occupied Paris and proclaimed the German Empire there in 1870?" the Turks inquire, and they answer themselves: "She was satisfied with only two provinces, Alsace and Lorraine, amounting to perhaps one-fourth the area of what Turkey has ceded."
    The Rumanian demands continue to be an uppermost topic of interest. A Sofia dispatch says that Rumania has received energetic representations from Great Britain and Russia, which has decided her not to cross the border as she was prepared to do.
    M. Jonescu, the Rumanian Minister of the Interior, whose wife is English, has learned that public opinion is against Rumania and that Rumania's action is regarded in the nature of blackmail, which, if persisted in, might mean war with Bulgaria in the near future.
    The Bulgarians declare unhesitatingly that if Rumania puts the knife to her throat now she will pay dearly for it in the future.
    According to a Bucharest dispatch, King Charles said to the Austrian Minister to-day:
    "I have done everything possible to convince Bulgaria of the necessity for arriving at a peaceful understanding with Rumania. I have promised to wait three more days, and my word must be redeemed."
    A Paris dispatch gives an interview with M. Lahovary Rumanian Minister to France, who, while professing to believe that it is possible to avoid a rupture with Bulgaria, said:
    "Nevertheless, the military measures taken by Rumania provide against whatever may happen, whether Bulgaria cedes Silistria or whether Rumania takes it by force. If the pourparlers are broken off the order for concentration will be followed by an order for the occupation of Silistria and certain points on the frontier.
    "Rumania, however, will be conciliatory to the last. There is no question of a demand for cash down. The Rumanian Government wants a protocol whereby Bulgaria, will undertake to satisfy Rumania as soon as peace is concluded with Turkey."