Brătianu and his government. Count von Czernin recommended that Vienna should offer the withdrawal of Siebenbürgen (now Transylvania) and parts of Bukovina in order to persuade Romania to prolong their neutrality, but the plan was strongly opposed by the Hungarian government. Romania entered the war on the side of the Allies in August 1916 and Count von Czernin returned to Vienna. Imperial Foreign Minister Following the accession of Karl I as the new emperor, Count von Czernin was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs on 23 December 1916, replacing Baron Burián von Rajecz. Both men shared the view that a rapid conclusion of peace was necessary to avoid the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire. Count von Czernin's main aim was therefore to seek a compromise peace while respecting the agreements made with Germany. However, he quickly discovered that the Dual Monarchy's increasing dependency on Germany rendered a truly independent foreign policy impossible. While he reluctantly agreed with the necessity of resuming unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917, he expended much effort that year unsuccessfully trying to persuade German political and military leaders of the need for a peace by compromise. At a conference between Germany and Austria-Hungary on 17–18 March 1917 on the goals of the war, he suggested inter alia the cession of territory of the Central Powers to arrange a fast peace with the Entente. In his view, the declaration of war by the United States was a disaster and a victory for the Central Powers became improbable. More precisely, he suggested that Germany should abandon Alsace-Lorraine and Belgium in return for large territorial gains in Poland. In Count von Czernin's scenario Austria-Hungary would be compensated with primarily Romanian territory. On 12 April, he drafted a memorandum with a gloomy prognostication of Austria-Hungary's war situation that was transmitted through Emperor Karl I to Matthias Erzberger, a member of the German Reichstag, outlining the reasons why the Dual Monarchy could not survive another winter of fighting. This resulted in the well-meaning but ineffective peace resolution of 19 July 1917. In a speech in Budapest on 2 October 1917, he spoke in favour of international justice, disarmament, arbitration and freedom of the seas as a basis for peace and as a legal basis for a new Europe. Following the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia, the workers across the Austro-Hungarian Empire became increasingly active around the issue of food shortages and