I urged the former course from the beginning, but the German Foreign Office very much preferred the latter. The chief question was Albania. Our allies desired the establishment of an independent State of Albania, as Austria would not allow Serbia to reach the Adriatic, and Italy did not wish the Greeks to reach Valona or even the territory north of Corfu. On the other hand, Russia, as is known, favored Serbian, and France Greek, desires. My advice was now to consider the question as outside the alliance, and to support, neither Austrian nor Italian wishes. Without our support the establishment of Albania, whose incapability of existence might have been foreseen, was an impossibility. Serbia would have pushed forward to the coast; then the present world war would have been avoided. France and Italy would have remained definitely divided as to Greece, and the Italians, had they not wished to fight France, alone, would have been obliged to consent to the expansion of Greece to the district north of Durazzo. The greater part of civilized Albania is Greek. The southern towns are entirely Greek, and, at the time of the conference of Ambassadors, deputations from the larger towns came to London to carry through the annexation to Greece. In Greece today whole groups are Albanian, and the so-called Greek national dress is of Albanian origin. The amalgamation of the preponderating Orthodox and Islamic Albanians with the Greek State was, therefore, the best solution and the most natural, if one leaves out of account Scutari and the northern part of Serbia and Montenegro. His Majesty was also in favor of this solution on dynastic grounds. When I encouraged the monarch by letter to this effect, I received violent reproaches from the Chancellor for supporting Austria's opponents, and he forbade all such interference in the future, and even direct correspondence. We had eventually, however, to abandon the tradition of carrying out the Triple Alliance policy in the East and to acknowledge our mistake, which consisted in identifying ourselves with the Turks in the south and the Austro-Magyars in the north; for the continuance of that policy, which we began at the Congress in Berlin and subsequently carried on zealously, was bound in time, should the necessary skill in conducting it fail, to lead to a collision with Russia and a world war. TURKEY, RUSSIA, ITALY