A year after "Rusia în fața cugetărei românești", Romania signed its pact with the Entente, declaring war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. Following initial successes in the Battle of Transylvania, the Romanian Land Forces were pushed back, and southern Romania fell to the Central Powers. Karnabatt stayed behind in occupied Bucharest. Together with Arghezi, Ioan Slavici, Saniel Grossman and Dem. Theodorescu, he began writing for the collaborationist daily, "Gazeta Bucureștilor", in December 1916. His first articles there proclaimed that the Romanian armies still putting up a fight in Moldavia did so not out of conviction, but because they had become "slaves to the Ruskies".