Another and much more insidious untruth, emanating from the same source and fabricated for a like purpose, turned upon the withdrawal of our warships from the Mediterranean, where our interests were confided to the care of the French navy. This disposition was, of course, taken with a view to the general sea-defences of Great Britain and France in case of an emergency such as that which has since had to be faced. It was certainly not directed against Italy, with whom our Government neither had nor expected to have any grounds for a quarrel. None the less, it supplied too attractive an occasion to be lost by the ever-ready Prussian, who made haste to use it in order to generate mistrust between Italy and her friends of the Entente. Sundry Italian diplomatists were initiated, in seemingly casual ways, into the “true meaning” of that “insidious” move. It was not directed against Germany and Austria, they were assured, but had Italy, and Italy alone, for its object. France, jealous of the growing power and prestige of Italy in the Midland Sea, had sought and obtained Great Britain’s assent to the concentration of France’s warships there. This innovation constituted, and was meant to constitute, a warning to Italy to slacken her speed in the Midland Sea. And I was requested to make private representations to our Foreign Office, accompanied by a request that this unfriendly measure should be discontinued. My assurances that it contained neither a threat nor a warning to Italy were but wasted breath. Information of a “trustworthy” character had been obtained--it was not volunteered, and could not, therefore, be suspected--that the initiative had been taken by France, whose dominant motive was jealousy of Italy. To my mind this misstatement, which derived the poison of its sting from the truly artful way in which it was conveyed through “a disinterested source,” was one of the most mischievous of Prussian wiles. Italy was led to believe that the real design of the Republic was the establishment of French hegemony in the Mediterranean; that M. Poincaré, whose regrettable speech about the French steamers _Carthage_ and _Manuba_, which had been detained by Italy during the Lybian campaign, stung Italians to the quick, was the promoter of the scheme, and that the shelving of M. Pichon, who was a friend of Italy’s, was its corollary.