In order to make sure of this complete victory, we need only draw the appropriate lesson from the mistakes that have been made. As M. Briand said in Rome, the solidarity of the Allies should be closer than ever. “They ought to pool all their resources, all their energies, all their vital forces.” But that co-ordination of the efforts of the Allies, which is called for on every side, would be greatly facilitated, if the common objective of the common action of all the Allies were thenceforth clearly defined in its geographical, military, and political aspects. The German aggression took the Allies by surprise, and their first duty was to resist it. Afterwards, through the mere force of circumstances, the operations of each of them were directed mainly to the particular objects which each had in view. England and France have reasons of honour and of interest for defending the absolute independence of Belgium. France must recover its invaded departments and liberate Alsace-Lorraine. Russia must not only reconquer its frontiers on the West, but free the whole of Poland, to which she has promised autonomy. The empire of the Tsars must also put an end, once for all, to the Turco-German menace on the south of the Caucasus. Italy must recover her lost lands—_Italia irredenta_—from the clutch of the Hapsburgs. But all these particular objects, however legitimate and necessary, have long prevented the Allies from seeing the war in its European dimensions, and have therefore diverted their attention from what, alike from the geographical, the military, and the political point of view, should be the common objective of all their efforts, an objective of supreme importance, since its attainment would deliver them at once from the menace of the “Hamburg to the Persian Gulf” project, which threatens all the Allies alike; and by striking a decisive blow at Prussian militarism it would assure the accomplishment and the permanence of the practical results aimed at by each of the Allies individually. [Illustration: THE CRUCIAL POINT OF THE EUROPEAN PROBLEM.]