The first talk about Salonika -- The railway and the port -- The question of operations based on Macedonia at the end of 1914 -- Failure of "easterners" to realize that the Western Front was Germany's weakest front -- Question whether it might not have been better to go to Salonika than to go to the Dardanelles -- Objections to such a plan -- The problem of Bulgaria -- Consequences of the Russian _debacle_ -- Difficulty of the Near Eastern problem in the early summer -- An example of how the Dardanelles Committee approached it -- Awkwardness of the problem after the failure of Sir I. Hamilton's August offensive -- The Bulgarian attitude -- Entente's objection to Serbia attacking Bulgaria -- I am ordered to Salonika, but order countermanded -- The disaster to Serbia -- Hard to say what ought to have been done -- Real mistake, the failure to abandon the Dardanelles enterprise in May -- The French attitude about Salonika -- General Sarrail -- French General Staff impressed with War Office information concerning Macedonia -- Unsatisfactory situation at the end of 1915 -- The Salonika business a blunder all through -- Eventual success does not alter this. "If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed nought else," Rudyard Kipling's old soldier sings, mindful of spacious days along the road to Mandalay. The worst of the East, however, is that people hear it calling who have never been there in their lives. That there were individuals in high places who were subject to this mysterious influence, became apparent at a comparatively early stage of the World War.