On the other hand, thanks to the passage through the Balkans, the German fortress, early in 1916, had a wide open door on Persia, the Caucasus, Central-Russian Asia, Afghanistan, India and Egypt. After having armed all the Moslems on whom they could lay hands, and who were able to shoulder a gun, the German Staff reckoned on striking at Great Britain and Russia in all these directions. The successes obtained by the Tsar’s troops in Eastern Turkey have, since then, baffled these projects. On the other hand, as Germany has nothing whatever to gain by a prolongation of the war, she will continue to aim at a rupture of the Coalition by means of every possible political manœuvre. It is clear that the defection of one of the principal Allies would necessarily place all the others in vastly more difficult positions for continuing the struggle. Assuming that such a thing were to happen, the Germans could, indeed, hope to discuss peace on the base of the territories which they actually occupy. They will therefore repeat and increase their bids for a separate peace with one or other of their adversaries. When once their position becomes very difficult the Germans, so as to shatter at all cost the Coalition, will make propositions of separate peace to one of the Allies, offering that one country almost complete satisfaction in the hope that, swayed perhaps by a section of their people who have grown weary of war, that Allied country will lay down her arms. The Allied State which, contrary to its plighted faith, should separately treat with Berlin, would soon be punished for its infamy. By allowing Germany to conclude peace more or less on the basis of the territories she at present holds, the traitor State would find itself afterwards confronted by a formidable German Empire, and would inevitably become one of its first victims. The Germans will perhaps try to play on the Allies the “armistice trick.” Here, again, we should have a cunning calculation founded once more on the weariness of the combatants. It is, indeed, conceivable that a simple armistice might end in allowing Germany to hold finally most of her actual territorial acquisitions; but it could so end only by means of a manœuvre which we must now expose.