an hour to two hours, I heard many points of view of real importance set forth. No doubt each of my various interlocutors only said to me what he wished to say; but, thanks to the multiplicity of the opinions expressed and to the variety of my sources of information, I was able at least to construct a general picture of the true Balkan situation, and to connect it afterwards with the problem of Central Europe and the general policy of Germany. This inquiry, which in returning I completed in Hungary and Austria, convinced me that, contrary to the opinion which has been held down to quite recent times in many Allied circles, the treaty of Bukarest by no means constituted an injustice, as the Allies have supposed—a belief which has been the source of most of their mistakes in the Balkans in 1915. On the contrary, the treaty of Bukarest, particularly because it for the first time drew Roumania out of the German orbit, appeared to me the most astonishingly favourable event which had happened on the Continent since 1870, and which was entirely in accordance with the interests of France, England, and Russia. The consequences of this treaty formed in fact, as we shall see, the most effectual arrangement that could be conceived for arresting the Pangerman danger and maintaining peace in Europe. But this pacific dam to keep back the Pangerman flood was only possible on condition that the Entente powers held themselves ready for war, which would probably have sufficed to prevent it, and that at the same time they resolutely and unanimously supported Greece, Roumania, and Serbia. On the other hand, the check which the treaty of Bukarest gave to the Pangerman plan in Europe, appeared to me so pregnant with consequences that I considered it highly probable that the Government of Vienna, instigated by that of Berlin, would not shrink from war for the purpose of undoing the treaty of Bukarest, with its far-reaching effects, at the earliest possible moment, unless the other powers put themselves on their guard. On my return to France I tried to explain the imminence of the danger, but no one would believe it. In truth, German aggression caught the present Allied countries napping for the following fundamental reason. No doubt, before the war, Pangermanism, as a doctrine, was well enough known in some circles, but the political and military Pangerman plan, the application of which has been pursued methodically by the government of Berlin since the opening of hostilities, had not been studied and taken very seriously except by an extremely small number of private persons in France, England, and Russia.