All these episodes were signs of a very unsatisfactory spirit, and were calculated to make the French Government ever more doubtful of Sarrail’s military qualities. Another incident was now to prove the last straw. We have already spoken of General Sarrail’s situation with regard to the Allies and to French policy. Partly from a legitimate desire to see the Armée d’Orient treated with more consideration and adequately supplied with reinforcement and material, but still more from his incorrigible tendency to political intrigue, he tried, while M. Briand was still in office, to provoke a political campaign against him in France, as he considered him responsible for the troubles of his Army and attributed to his influence the fact that the French Government often gave way to the Allies in matters concerning the Macedonian Campaign. He had sent to Paris a report on the Armée d’Orient whose conditions he described in the darkest colours, insisting that this state of things should be remedied adequately, so as to avoid an otherwise inevitable disaster. So far there was, of course, no harm. But when the _Bonnet Rouge_ scandal broke out it appeared from the papers of the traitor Almereyda that he had had a copy of the Sarrail report in his hands and that he had communicated it to agents of the German Government, who thus came to know the state of weakness of the Macedonian force; had the enemy been in a position to act upon this knowledge the Macedonian campaign might have ended in a very disastrous manner. But who had communicated the precious document to Almereyda? It was discovered in the course of the inquiry that he had received it from a certain Sergeant Paix-Séailles, a journalist and politician, who in all probability ignored the fact that Almereyda was a traitor, but wished to make use of him for the campaign against M. Briand. Paix-Séailles had obtained the document from Captain Mathieu, an officer attached to the Staff of General Sarrail. Mathieu took upon himself the whole responsibility for the affair, and received a disciplinary punishment from the court martial, but it was impossible to eliminate the general conviction that he would never have made such use of so confidential a document if he had not been authorized to do so by his Chief, whose full confidence he enjoyed and whose hostility to Briand was notorious. About the same time the famous Caillaux _dossier_ came to light, in which was a plan for the appointment of General Sarrail as Commander-in-Chief of the French Army; the appointment was to be made after the _coup d’état_ which Caillaux was contemplating. Even if Sarrail himself had no knowledge of this scheme, the mere fact that his name appeared among the persons in whom Caillaux had confidence made a very bad impression.