Now, Russia stood badly in need of two things. War-torn and threatened by revolution, the government could rehabilitate itself only by a liberal amount of money. But where to get it? France, her ally, and normally her banker, was slow, in this instance to lend—and it was only through England’s intervention that the Czar secured from a group of Paris and London bankers the money with which to finance his government and defeat the revolution. But more than money, Russia needed an ice-free seaport to take the place of Port Arthur, which she had lost; and for this there were only two possible choices: Constantinople or a port on the Persian Gulf. In either of these aims she was opposed by Britain, the traditional enemy of a Russian Constantinople, on the one hand, and the possessor of a considerable “sphere of interest” in the Persian Gulf on the other. So matters stood, when in August, 1907, _but a few weeks after my masquerade_, Sir Arthur Nicholson, acting for England, and Alexander Iswolsky, acting for Russia, signed the famous Anglo-Russian Agreement, providing for the distribution of Persia into three strips, the northern and southern of which would be respectively Russian and British zones of influence; providing also, in a secret clause, that _Russia would give England military aid in the event of a war between Germany and England_! Meantime what was Germany doing? She had, you may be sure, no intention of allowing England to best her in the game of intrigue. Her interests in the Near East were commercial rather than military; but she could not see them threatened by an Anglo-Russian occupation of Persia, such as the Agreement portended. Then, too, she was bound to consider the possible effect on Turkey, in whom she was taking an ever-increasing (and none too altruistic) interest. The details of what followed I can only surmise. I know that in the time between my trip to Russia and the signing of that Agreement, on August 31, the Kaiser held two conferences: one on August 3, with the Czar at Swinemunde; the other on August 14, with Edward VII, at the Castle of Wilhelmshohe. And when, on September 24th, the terms were published, they were bitterly attacked by a portion of the English press, not so much because of the danger to Persia, as because of the fact that Russia got the best of the bargain![1]