It is not true that only in the case of Germany were the war aims imperialist, and that the Entente countries came in without desire of conquest. Putting aside for the moment what one sees in the treaties which have followed the War, it is worth while considering what would have happened if Russia had won the War instead of being torn to pieces before victory came. Russia would have had all the Poland of the eighteenth century (with the apparent autonomy promised by the Tsar), nearly all Turkey in Europe, Constantinople, and a great part of Asia Minor. Russia, with already the greatest existing land empire and at least half the population not Russian, would have gained fresh territories with fresh non-Russian populations, putting the Mediterranean peoples, and above all Italy, in a very difficult situation indeed. It cannot be said that in the ten years preceding the War Russia did not do as much as Germany to bring unrest into Europe. It was on account of Russia that the Serbian Government was a perpetual cause of disturbance, a perpetual threat to Austria-Hungary. The unending strife in the Balkans was caused by Russia in no less degree than by Austria-Hungary, and all the great European nations shared, with opposing views, in the policy of Eastern expansion. The judgment of peoples and of events, given the uncertainty of policy as expressed in parliament and newspapers, is variable to the last degree. It will be enough to recall the varying judgment upon Serbia during the last ten years in the Press of Great Britain, France and Italy: the people of Serbia have been described as criminals and heroes, assassins and martyrs. No one would have anything to do with Serbia; later Serbia was raised to the skies. The documents published by Kautsky in Germany and those revealed from time to time by the Moscow Government prove that the preparation for and conviction of war was not only on the part of the Central Empires, but also, and in no less degree, on the part of the other States. One point will always remain inexplicable: why Russia should have taken the superlatively serious step of general mobilization, which could not be and was not a simple measure of precaution. It is beyond doubt that the Russian mobilization preceded even that of Austria. After a close examination of events, after the bitter feeling of war had passed, in his speech of December 23, 1920, Lloyd George said justly that the War broke out without any Government having really desired it; all, in one way or another, slithered into it, stumbling and tripping.