On the other hand, all Serbians realised that England had not yet begun to understand the groundwork of Serbian politics. Even admitting that England felt now goodwill towards Serbia, it was a goodwill which was accidental, and due to extraneous circumstances, rather than to appreciation of the motives which had actuated Serbia in taking the field against superior enemies. And nothing in all history is more wonderful than the way in which the Serbian people have, during centuries, struggled, then suffered passively when struggle was useless, then struggled again for their ideal; for an ideal which must have been sub-conscious in the minds of a people who had lived for centuries scattered amongst their tyrannical conquerors--the ideal of race freedom. The Serbian people could, at a price, have bought exemption from this present annihilation, but at a price which would have killed for ever, hope of the eventual freedom, not only of the four million Serbian and Montenegrin Slavs, but of the seven million Slavs, now living in a neighbouring and hostile State. All Serbians also realised that England still had only a superficial acquaintance with the Serbian character, and was still in the habit of judging them by the unfortunate act which had first brought their nation to the knowledge of the British public. Of that act they had heard only through newspaper comments circulated by their enemies: the extenuating circumstances had never been learned. But England had not only exaggerated the shortcomings of the Serbians, she had also exaggerated the virtues of the Bulgarians, and probably never believed till the latter crossed the Serbian frontier, that which every Serbian peasant had known from the beginning of the war--namely, that the ambitions of the German Ferdinand were not based upon the ideals of a democratic people, but upon the designs of a Prince who was in sympathy with the military autocracy of the Central Empires. Every Serbian knew that between Bulgo-German autocracy, and Serbian democracy, there could be no affinity. England would, they knew, discover this in time, but meanwhile Serbia was being sacrificed. The confidence with which Serbians believed that when England understood the ideal for which Serbia was struggling, she would extend, not only the little finger, but the whole hand, of fellowship, moved me almost more than their sufferings. And if, as a nation, we do not fulfil the expectation that we, who have won our own freedom, shall help the Serbians to win theirs, we can never look a democratic country in the face again.