In the endeavour to give a connected statement of the very dangerous German offensive, conducted by their spies and agents in Paris, at the most critical period of the whole war, I have been obliged to some extent to anticipate events in order to show Clemenceau's share in the exposure of this organised treachery. By 1917, as already recorded, anti-patriotic and pro-German intrigues in Paris and France had become more and more harmful to that "sacred unity" which had been constituted to present an unbroken front to the enemy. After the miserable breakdown of Russia, largely due to the Bolshevik outbreak fostered by German intrigue and subsidised by German money, the position was exceedingly dangerous. German troops withdrawn from the Eastern front were poured into France and Flanders by hundreds of thousands, and the Allied armies were hard put to it to hold their own. At this time, when it was all-important to maintain the spirit of the French army, the enemy offensive in Paris and throughout France became more and more active. What made the situation exceptionally critical was the fact that the rank and file of the French soldiery began to feel that, however desperately they might fight at the front, they were being systematically betrayed in the rear. While, therefore, Clemenceau, in his capacity as Senator and President of the Inter-Allied Parliamentary Committee, voiced the great and growing discontent of the country with the lack of real statesmanship displayed in the conduct of the war, he also fulminated against the weakness of the wobbling Ministers who, knowing that defeatism and treachery were fermenting all round them, took no effective steps to counteract this pernicious propaganda. The notorious _Bonnet Rouge_ group, however, with M. Joseph Caillaux, Bolo Pasha, Almereyda and others in close touch with M. Jean Longuet and his pacifist friends of the Socialist Party, were allowed to carry on their virulent anti-French campaign in the Press and in other directions practically unchecked. It might even have been thought that these persons had the sympathy and support of members of the Government.