This further blow in Asia Minor, and the exhausted condition of his country, induced the Czar to make the preliminary proposals for a general peace. It was very soon found, however, that practically Russia was isolated—France was thoroughly disenchanted with the alliance. Russia had attempted too much and too many things at first, and had consequently suffered everywhere. It was evident that, if on the merits of the question either of the two allies was to suffer, it was Russia who would have to pay the piper. The Austrian and German Governments were too deeply pledged to the Poles, and had too much interest in being secure from Russian aggression, not to insist definitely upon the creation of Poland into a buffer State. Though Russia demurred to these terms as long as she could, the unanimity of the allies in insisting upon them, and the secret sympathy with Poland of a large proportion of the French people, obliged her to give way. THE SERVICES OF ENGLAND. England insisted as a preliminary to all discussion of peace proposals that the Russians should vacate absolutely all the territory of Afghanistan, and retire to the previously deliminated frontier. The services which England had rendered to the Alliance, even as they appear on the surface of the story, were sufficiently considerable. The original purpose of Russia had been to attack Bulgaria. Thanks to the facility with which her fleet had cut the communications of the Russian Army that landed there, and had limited the force which Russia was able to employ, it had fallen to the lot of the English to do what no other army could have done with equal facility, that is, render the necessary assistance to the Bulgarians, occupied as they had been by the Macedonian troubles. The facilities for striking right and left presented by the command of the sea has enabled her to deliver the second deadly blow in combination with the Turkish army in Asia Minor. But, apart from the enormous general value which England’s command of the sea conferred upon the Central Alliance, these were by no means the only or the most important services which England had directly rendered towards strengthening the land forces of the Continental powers. Up to the time of the battle of Sardinia it would have been impossible for the Italian army to advance against France at all. Her whole coast line, without the defence of the English fleet, would have been at the mercy, not only of the French Fleet, but of an expeditionary force of the French Army; and the Italian Army, in order to be able to meet such an attack wherever it might be made, must be all kept at home. Now, at the critical moment, when Germany was hurrying up every man that she could to the frontier to check the advance of the victorious French, it was precisely the fact that the whole Italian Army was available to join her in moving against France, which created that excess of force that France was not able to resist.