Zionism had been at work in England for two full years without its coming to know anything of Sykes, who himself worked on his own lines for a year and a half, without knowing anything of Zionist organisation or a definite programme of Zionism. What happened resembled the construction of a tunnel begun at two sides at once. As the workers on each side approach one another they can hear the sound of blows through the earth. It seems at first a strange enough story; a certain Sir Mark appears, he makes some enquiries, and then expresses a wish to meet the Zionist leaders. Finally a meeting actually takes place and discussions are entered upon. Sir Mark showed a keen interest and wanted to know the aims of the Zionist Organisation, and who were its representatives. The idea assumed a concrete form; but this acquaintance, however, valuable as it was, had as yet no practical significance. Acquaintanceships were made and discussions took place during the years 1914‒16 by the hundred with influential people and with some who had more voice in affairs than Sir Mark ever had. They constituted certainly a most important introductory chapter, and one without which the book itself could not have been written, but they were naturally fragmentary, preliminary, without cohesion and without sanction. The work itself began only after the 7th of February, 1917. The subsequent chapters describe this work in general outlines. A thousand details remain for the pen of some future historian, when the time comes for the archives of the Foreign Office, of the Ministries for Foreign Affairs of the other Entente Powers, and of the political offices of the Zionist Organisation in London and Paris to be made public. In the whole proceedings there are no secret treaties, no secret diplomacy, in fact neither diplomacy nor conspiracy; but they constitute a series of negotiations, schemes, suggestions, explanations, measures, journeys, conferences, etc., to which each of those who took a part gave something of the best in himself.