No such step was taken, and a great opportunity was lost. The action of each of the Great Powers was characteristic--the British Government suggested a conference of Balkan representatives in London; French agents, working in the interest of Schneider, secured orders from the Servian Government for guns and ammunition; Italy sent Servia a warning about the Adriatic; Austria-Hungary began a partial mobilization. If further proof had been needed, this mobilization should have convinced the most purblind observers of Austria-Hungary’s underlying motives; the veriest tyro in geography must have known that Salonika was more accessible to the fleets than to the armies of the Great Powers; a display of force in Bosnia and Herzegovina could not effect appeasement at Salonika, it could only terrorize the Montenegrins and the Serbs, and at the same time encourage the Turks still left in Europe to prolong their resistance. Nor did Austro-Hungarian policy overlook the possibilities presented by Bulgaria; the Bulgars, so far, had gained little by the war, the Greeks were at Salonika, and the Serbs at Monastir; they, the Bulgars, had not yet captured Adrianople, and their hearts were filled with bitterness and resentment. After all, they had some cause to grumble, and some excuse for listening to the tempter. The belligerent States accepted the invitation to confer in London. While the delegates conferred, wearied soldiers, immobilized by frost and snow, burrowed in holes like hibernating animals. I returned to Belgrade for Christmas, 1912. The town was full to overflowing, and, as usual, foreigners, posing as Balkan experts, did all the talking. The Serbs themselves were feeling the pinch of war, hunger and cold had brought typhus in their train; the angel of death was claiming many victims still. Walking back from dinner with a journalist who enjoyed a European reputation, I got what my companion called “a peep behind the scenes.” It was a most unedifying spectacle, and as remote from reality as the moon, which, sailing high in heaven, lit up that winter night. In all that concerned the Balkans the Great Powers were in truth _les Grandes Impuissances_.[8] Blinded by ignorance, greed and prejudice, they were laying the foundations of a pyramid, whose blocks would be errors piled on errors through seven succeeding years. The Great Powers were the master-builders, and the Balkan States their pupils. Apt pupils these, ready to learn and accustomed to obey. The lessons given and received were base, unworthy and a negation of all moral sense.