Two years after the Cuza edition, the Romanian Kingdom entered World War I as an Entente country; the alliance favored the Russian Empire over Austria-Hungary, and the cause of Transylvania over that of Bessarabia. During the subsequent campaigns. "La arme" was a soldiers' anthem, used for instance during Nerva I. Paul's charge on German positions (October 1916), while "Doina" was sung by the "Lăutar" Cristache Ciolac as a "pitiful song of ancient woes". Driven into a war of attrition, Romania contemplated defeat in early 1918. Writing at the time in "Chemarea", the Jewish critic Benjamin Fondane reminded Iorga and other nationalists of the anti-Russian content of "Doina", which, he argued, had been proven right.