M. Chéradame states with great reason that France, Italy, Russia, England, and all the minor Powers are vitally interested in frustrating the German project of establishing their dominion from the Persian Gulf to the North Sea. He also warns us against making a separate peace with either Austria-Hungary or Turkey, both of these Powers being merely vassals of Germany. He is very clearly of opinion that the mere cession of Alsace-Lorraine to France and the rehabilitation of Belgium cannot form the foundations of a durable peace. If peace were concluded on this basis, the Germans would have achieved their main object, and, as Herr Harden pointed out last February, even if Germany was obliged, under pressure, to cede Alsace-Lorraine, there would still be seventy millions of Germans firmly determined to regain possession of those provinces at the first suitable opportunity. In fact, the realization of the German project, although accompanied by certain temporary disabilities from the German point of view, would eventually enable Germany to strangle Europe. I need not dwell upon all the proposals set forth by M. Chéradame with a view to the frustration of this plan, but the corner-stone of his programme is similar to that advocated with great ability in this country by Mr. Wickham Steed and Mr. Seton Watson. It is to create a Southern Slav State, which will afford an effectual barrier to German advance towards the East. It is essential that the immense importance of dealing with the territories of the Hapsburgs as a preliminary to a final settlement of all the larger aspects of the Eastern question should be fully realized. It constitutes the key of the whole situation. For these reasons, I hope that M. Chéradame’s work, which develops more fully the arguments which I have very briefly stated above, will receive in this country the attention which it certainly merits. I should add that the book is written in a popular style, and that M. Chéradame’s arguments can be easily followed by those who have no special acquaintance either with Eastern policy or with the tortuous windings of Austrian and German diplomacy during the last quarter of a century. CROMER. SEPTEMBER 4, 1916. PREFACE.