On 24 November 1938, King Carol II of Romania visited Germany to meet Hitler at the Berghof, where the principle subject was German-Romanian economic relations, especially oil. Weinberg wrote: "Carol made the needed concessions, but he demonstrated his concern for his country's independence by driving a very hard bargain". The British historian D.C. Watt wrote that Carol had a "trump card" in his control of the oil Germany needed so badly and that the Germans were willing to pay a very high price for Romanian oil without which their military could not function. The Four Year Plan was intended to make Germany self-sufficient in artificial oil by 1940, but had run into major delays and cost overruns. Hermann Göring, the chief of the Four Year Plan organisation, had been forced to inform Hitler in November 1938 that the synthetic oil plants that would make oil from coal would be not be operating by September 1940 as planned owing to problems with the new technology and that 1942 would be a more likely date. During the Hitler-Carol summit at the Berghof, Hitler demanded that Carol free Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the leader of the fascist Legion of the Archangel Michael whom Carol had imprisoned in May 1938, and appoint him Prime Minister. On the same of the Hitler-Carol summit, Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to begin plans to occupy the Free City with the aim of restoring it to Germany. On 25 November 1938, Bonnet ordered the French Ambassador in Warsaw Léon Noël, to find an excuse for terminating the 1921 Franco-Polish alliance, but discovered that his views on this issue created considerable opposition within the Quai d'Orsay, where it was argued that Poland was too valuable an ally to be abandoned, and that if France renounced the Polish alliance, Warsaw would align herself with Berlin.
