arrangements with agents of the British and French Admiralties for possible combined naval action. Yes, those eighteen months were very busy months for Russia. True, she came out at the end of them an "unprepared and unsuspecting" nation, presumably, for was not all Europe unprepared and unsuspecting? Is it not so nominated in the Versailles treaty? One can not help wondering, however, how it is that Germany, "carefully, skilfully, insidiously, clandestinely planning in every detail" a murderous attack on the peace of Europe, should have given Russia the inestimable advantage of those eighteen months. XI Mr. E. D. Morel, editor of the British monthly, _Foreign Affairs_, performed more than a distinguished service--it is a splendid, an illustrious service--to the disparaged cause of justice, when recently he translated and published in England through the National Labour Press, a series of remarkable State documents.[6] This consists of reports made by the Belgian diplomatic representatives at Paris, London and Berlin, to the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, covering the period from 7 February, 1905 to 2 July, 1914. Their authenticity has never been questioned. They have received no notice in this country; their content and import were carefully kept from the American people as long as it was possible to do so, and consequently they remain unknown except to a few who are students of international affairs or who have some similar special interest. It can hardly be pretended by anyone that Belgian officials had, during that decade, any particular love or leaning towards Germany. The Belgian Foreign Office has always been as free from sentimental attachments as any other. It has always been governed by the same motives that govern the British, French, German and Russian Foreign Offices. Its number, like theirs, was number one; it was out, first and last, for the interests of the Belgian Government, and it scrutinized every international transaction from the viewpoint of those interests and those only. It was fully aware of the position of Belgium as a mere "strategic corridor" and battle-ground for alien armies in case of a general European war, and aware that Belgium had simply to make the best of its bad outlook, for nothing else could be done. If the Belgian Foreign Office and its agents, moreover, had no special love for Germany, neither had they any special fear of her. They were in no more or deeper dread of a German invasion than of a British or French invasion. In fact, in 1911, the Belgian Minister at Berlin set forth in a most matter-of-fact way his belief that in the event of war, Belgian neutrality would be first violated by Great Britain.[7] These observers, in short, may on all accounts, as far as one can see, be accepted as neutral and disinterested, with the peculiar disinterestedness of one who has no choice between two evils.