Just at this awkward juncture Lord Kitchener instructed me to be prepared to proceed to Salonika, and all the necessary steps for starting on the journey were promptly taken; but it was not clear what capacity I was going in. It seemed a mistake, although one was naturally heartened at the prospect of activities in a new sphere, even if these were only to be of a temporary character. But, as it turned out, the Dardanelles Committee (or the War Council, I am not sure of the exact date when the Dardanelles Committee deceased) intervened, wishing me to remain at my post. In view of what followed, one was well out of intimate contact with the Macedonian imbroglio on the spot, because, as everybody knows now, the Franco-British forces arrived too late to save Serbia from reverses which amounted to an almost overwhelming disaster at the hands of the great hosts which the Central Powers and Bulgaria threw into the scale. We and the French had, judged by results, made a hideous mess of things between us. The Allies were late at a critical juncture--and in war that is the unpardonable sin. Sir E. Carson, who had for a brief period proved himself a tower of strength on the Dardanelles Committee, resigned from the Cabinet in disgust. Lord Milner, independent man of affairs at the time, spoke out strongly on the subject in the House of Lords. But although the opinion of either of them is well worth having on most questions, and although both know their own minds, I doubt whether they, either of them, had any clear idea then as to what ought to have been done to avert the catastrophe, and I doubt whether they, either of them, have a clear idea now. Subsequent to May we were confronted with a horribly complex military and political situation in the Near East (and by that time military forces were already committed to the Dardanelles venture); because it was only then that the position of affairs on the Eastern Front and in the Near East became transformed owing to the Russian _debacle_--a _debacle_ which turned out to be considerably greater than the available information as to our Ally's munition difficulties had led us to anticipate.