their services were not at once made available in the absence of Fitzmaurice was the absurd restriction to which I have alluded." The Press has also stated that the unsatisfactory precedent exhibited by the Embassy at Constantinople typified the British Legations at the Balkan capitals. We know how badly we were disappointed, deceived, and let down in the whole of that theatre of war. The best resumé may be found in an admirable series of articles, published, February 3rd to 8th, 1916, in the London _Daily Telegraph_, by that most brilliant and experienced of Continental correspondents, Dr. E.J. Dillon. They reveal the pitiful failings, weaknesses and miscalculations of our Balkan Diplomatists in such glaring vividness that the reader wonders at the marvels performed by our gallant troops and Navy in the face of the difficulties and obstructions they had to contend with. Dr. Dillon wrote: "High praise is due to the intentions of Entente diplomatists, which were truly admirable. They did their best according to their lights during the campaign as they had done their best before it was undertaken. That the best was disastrous was not the result of a lack of goodwill. What they were deficient in was insight and foresight. Their habit is not to study the mental and psychical caste of the peoples with whom they have to deal, but to watch and act upon the shifts of the circumstances. Amateurism is the curse of the British nation. Their vision of the political situation in the Balkans was roseate and blurred, and their moral maxims were better fitted for use in the Society of Friends than in intercourse with a hard-headed people whose morality begins where self-interest ends. By these methods, which, unhappily, are still in vogue, the diplomacy of Great Britain, France, and Russia lost the key to Constantinople, and contributed unwittingly to deliver over the Serbian people to the tender mercies of the Bulgar and the Teuton. Turkey is still fighting us in Europe and Asia. Roumania is neutral, and mistrustful, and the war is prolonged indefinitely. The facts on which our statesmen relied turned out to be fancies; their expectations proved to be illusions; and their solemn negotiations a humiliating farce devised by the Coburger, who moved the representatives of the Allied Powers hither and thither like figures on a chess-board."