Paris the question is being asked on all sides why Sir Edward Grey, after such repeated fiascoes, did not follow his late colleague, M. Delcasse, into retirement, and what everyone is saying in Paris, from the Quai d'Orsay to the Academie Française, surely need no longer be concealed from London. The German Chancellor was unwise enough to hint this in his speech, when he ascribed Germany's Balkan success in large measure to our mistakes. The fall of Sir Edward Grey, as the result of a demand for a more energetic conduct of the war and for still closer co-operation with our Allies, and the substitution of a man of energy and first-rate ability, would be far the most serious and disconcerting blow which the Germans had yet received." The halting, hesitating, vacillating "wait-and-see" policy which seems to be revealed in such startling vividness by Mr. Seton-Watson causes a deep thinker to ponder further. Is it not possible that Sir Edward Grey, like the late Lord Kitchener, may not have been his own master? That he in turn may have been held down and dictated to by the one man whose own valuation of his personal services so greatly exceeded the worth put upon them by the nation at large? It is easy to state in the House of Commons, "I accept entire responsibility," as Mr. Asquith did when the Gallipoli disaster was questioned, but he surely ought then to have been the questioner! _His statement_, which the members of the House were bound down by national loyalty not to attack as they would have liked to have done, _proved_ that the Prime Minister had been _meddling with military matters_ which should have been left absolutely and entirely to military experts. Hence it was that the nation learnt that the halting, hesitating, vacillating "wait-and-see" policy had paralysed not only the whole Gallipoli campaign, but particularly the Suvla Bay expedition, which if properly exploited would undoubtedly have given our arms one of the greatest victories of the war.[18] FOOTNOTES: [15] As evidence in support of this, see the papers seized from von Papen at Falmouth, December, 1915; the papers seized at Salonika, January, 1916; the reports from Washington, U.S.A., 1915-6; and the numerous paragraphs in the Press to date since November, 1914. [16] Cotton was not made absolute contraband until 381 days after the war had broken out, August 20th, 1915. Sir Edward Grey, speaking in the House of Commons on January 7th, 1915, said: "His Majesty's Government have never put cotton on the list of contraband; they have throughout the war kept it on the free list; and on every occasion when questioned on the point they have stated their intention of adhering to this practice." [17] "Romany Rye," chapter 39.