The city which figured most prominently in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 and the intervening diplomacy was Adrianople, the city founded by the Emperor Adrian. It has seen more bloodshed probably than any other city of the world. It was before Adrianople that the Roman Emperor Valerius and his army were destroyed by the Goths, and the fate of the Roman Empire sealed (a.d. 378). It was Adrianople that was first captured by the Turkish invaders of the Balkans to serve as their capital until they could at a later date capture Constantinople. Many sieges and battles it saw until 1912, when the Bulgarians and Serbians gathered around its marshy plains, and after several months of siege finally carried it by assault. Finally it was re-captured by a mere cavalry patrol of the Turks. Adrianople has its beauties seen from afar. The great mosque with four slender minarets shines out from the midst of gardens and picturesque villas over the wide plain which marks the confluence of the Maritza and the Tchundra Rivers. But on nearer examination Adrianople, like all other Turkish towns, is dirty, unkempt, squalid. Most Turkish towns in the Balkans--Mustapha Pasha on the Maritza was an exception, looking dirty and unattractive from any point of view--have a certain enchantment when they first catch the eye of the traveller. It is the custom of the richer Turks to build their villas on the high ground around a town if there is any, and to surround them with gardens. These embowered houses and the slender fingers pointing skyward of the minarets, give a first impression of ample space, of delicacy in architecture. Closer knowledge discloses the town as a herd of hovels, irregularly set in a sea of mud (in dry weather a dirty heap of dust), with the hilly outskirts alone tolerable. I regret the wild Balkan diplomacy which doomed that Adrianople should go back to the Turks. The Bulgarians would have made a fine clean city of it: and had a project to canalise the Maritza and bring to the old city of Adrian all the advantages of a seaport. Possibly, that will come in the near future if, in renewing their strength, the Bulgarian nation learn also some sense of diplomacy and moderation in using it. Now the position is that for the first time for very many years the old principle has been broken that the Turkish tide may retreat but must never advance in Europe. During the negotiations of the first session of the Balkan Peace Conference, the Balkan Committee--a London organisation which exists to befriend the Balkan States--urged: