Baron Plessen, the Danish Minister at St. Petersburg, was a man of great ability, calm, just and moderate in his views. One day he talked to me for a long time about the war and the causes which led to it. The pith of his remarks is worth transcribing. “If France and England had been able to agree upon this affair the war might have been prevented. Russia would not have remained idle, and it is known to which side her sympathies lean. But France and England could not agree. Meanwhile England has been perpetually making apparent advances towards action which have encouraged the Danes to prolong their obstinate resistance. The Danes at Copenhagen see matters far differently from us, who, calmly and at a distance, can weigh the truth of reports and judge of the exact bearing of protests and propositions. At Copenhagen the public mind is so inflamed that a mere piece of newspaper tittle-tattle is enough to convince men that England and France will actually send a fleet to the Baltic, and this it is which caused the Danes so stubbornly to refuse an armistice which would have saved Düppel and spared thousands of lives. But with the best intentions, England has been a bad friend to Denmark, for she has raised expectations which she could not realize. Even if she had determined upon helping Denmark, she could not have spared an adequate land force. “As for Sweden, she promised her twenty thousand men and did not send them; but if she had performed her promises, the Germans would have called in forty thousand troops, and she would have been of no use. Besides, it must be admitted that the dismemberment of Denmark would never be really displeasing to Sweden, who has always had an eye upon the islands.... England has throughout treated Germany with too little respect—she thought that she had only to speak to be obeyed. But the Germans are strong, and too proud to bear dictation.” Obviously Baron Plessen disapproved of the action of his Government in “prolonging their obstinate resistance” at the bidding of the Copenhagen mob, whom they feared; and much as I admired the gallant defence of Düppel, I could not help sharing his view. But the important point for us in what he said lay in his remarks about the fast-and-loose policy for which Lord Russell was responsible, and the wavering encouragement without which the Danes might “have saved Düppel and spared thousands of lives.” That unstable swinging of the pendulum was a blame which no special pleading could remove. And what it cost! And what it is costing now, fifty-one years later!