During the early stages of World War I, as Romania remained a neutral country, Caragiale's notes record that his friend Bogdan-Pitești was acting as a political agent of the Central Powers, and that money he made available had been provided by German propaganda funds. Nevertheless, the two figures were especially close to one another during and after 1915, and, in 1916, even visited Berlin together. At the time, Caragiale also visited the Germanophile literary circle set up by Mărgărita Miller Verghy, and borrowed a reported 10,000 lei from Bogdan-Pitești, which he never returned. Caragiale's own Germanophile preferences and traditionalist conservatism had by then extinguished his cultural Francophilia, and rumors spread that he himself was a spy for the German Empire.