On March 5 20 February 1918, in a secret agreement signed along the Treaty of Buftea, the German Empire allowed Romania to annex Bessarabia in exchange for free passage of German troops toward Ukraine. The county councils of Bălți, Soroca and Orhei were the earliest to ask for unification of the Moldavian Democratic Republic with the Kingdom of Romania, and on April 9 March 27 1918, in the presence of the Romanian Army, Sfatul Țării voted in favour of the union, with the following conditions: