military situation" while Romania was to offer logistical support. In return, the Allies offered to cancel the "unjust" Second Vienna Accord of 1940 and return northern Transylvania to Romania, promising to expel all German and Hungarian forces from Transylvania. In Bucharest, the Allied terms for an armistice were considered to be "hard" terms, and Antonescu wanted to reject them outright, saying he would rather fight on than sign an armistice that ceded Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. At a meeting at the Sangov Villa on 16 April 1944, Maniu wanted to accept the Allied terms, saying Știrbey had gotten the best terms that were possible given the current military situation, but Antonescu wanted to fight on, saying he believed if the Red Army could be stopped on the Dniester that Romania might get better armistice terms. On 7 May 1944, Antonescu argued at a cabinet meeting that he felt that the Royal Romanian Army together with the Wehrmacht were still capable of holding out on the Dniester, which led him to argue that Romania should continue the war until the Allies presented better armistice terms. Upon his return to Bucharest, the elder statesman Știrbey advised King Michael that Romania would get better armistice terms if Antonescu was not prime minister. Știrbey was involved in the plans by King Michael to depose Antonescu and have Romania switch sides. Recognizing the Soviet Union would treat a post-Antonescu government better that included the Communists, Știrbey together with Maniu negotiated with Iosif Șraier, a Bucharest lawyer who was a member of the underground Romanian Communist Party, about how the Communists could have a member in the cabinet of the new government. It was agreed that Știrbey would return to Cairo to sign the armistice as soon as the king dismissed Antonescu. Shortly after the Royal coup of August 23, 1944, he traveled to Moscow with the Romanian delegation that signed on September 12 the Armistice Agreement between Romania and the Soviet Union. Știrbey was one of the plenipotentiary signatories of Agreement; the other signatories were Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu, Dumitru Dămăceanu, and Ghiță Popp on the Romanian side, and Rodion Malinovsky on the Soviet side. In February–March 1945, a political crisis erupted when the government of General Nicolae Rădescu was forced to resign. King Michael tried to name Știrbey as the new prime minister, but was prevented by the Soviet representative on the Allied Control Commission, Andrei