The stores were established by England, with the permission of the French and Belgian Governments, _before_ the war, in the midst of peace. What a tempest of horror would have broken out in Belgium, the "neutral country," and what a rumpus England and France would have kicked up, if we had wished to establish stores of German soldiers' greatcoats and maps in Spa, Liège, and Namur! Among the statesmen who, besides Poincaré, particularly helped unleash the World War, the Sazonoff-Isvolsky group probably should take first rank. Isvolsky, it is said, when at Paris, proudly placed his hand upon his breast and declared: "I made the war. Je suis le père de cette guerre" ("I am the father of this war"). Delcassé also has a large share in the guilt for the World War, and Grey an even larger share, since he was the spiritual leader of the "encirclement policy," which he faithfully pushed forward and brought to completion, as the "legacy" of his dead sovereign. I have been informed that an important rôle was played in the preparation of the World War directed against the monarchical Central Powers by the policy of the international "Great Orient Lodge"; a policy extending over many years and always envisaging the goal at which it aimed. But the German Great Lodges, I was furthermore told--with two exceptions wherein non-German financial interests are paramount and which maintain secret connection with the "Great Orient" in Paris--had no relationship to the "Great Orient." They were entirely loyal and faithful, according to the assurance given me by the distinguished German Freemason who explained to me this whole interrelationship, which had, until then, been unknown to me. He said that in 1917 an international meeting of the lodges of the "Great Orient" was held, after which there was a subsequent conference in Switzerland; at this the following program was adopted: Dismemberment of Austria-Hungary, democratization of Germany, elimination of the House of Hapsburg, abdication of the German Emperor, restitution of Alsace-Lorraine to France, union of Galicia with Poland, elimination of the Pope and the Catholic Church, elimination of every state Church in Europe.