My mind is naturally full of recollections, recollections a little chaotic owing largely to the fact that to have taken a single note would have been very dangerous for me during the search I had to undergo. There was certainly an enormous difference between London and Berlin after three months' war. The optimism which in Germany is very strong among the people in the street and very moderate in the army is here in London exactly in opposite proportions. As for the economic position, the commercial possibilities and industrial crisis, no comparison is possible between the two countries; the geographical position of Britain and the action of her Fleet give her an enormous superiority over her enemies. Signs of financial distress, it is true, are not very evident in Berlin; the increase in prices has been small, and has begun only during the last few weeks. I don't know if things will go on like this when the winter has almost paralysed the production of German foodstuffs, the reserves are exhausted, and the importation through Denmark and Holland has somehow been stopped. It is needless to say that Germany has no Colonial contingent to put on against our Colonial troops, and that the fighting power of our enemies, owing to the strictly applied recruiting system, and to the above fact, is essentially limited, while Britain's can have no end of resources. Certainly this war will be very, very long. The high spirit of the German nation, the decision of the Army to fight to the very last, the fact that the Kaiser knows perfectly that the _débâcle_ would be the end of the Prussian hegemony and of his family's power, and the military education given to the German people during the whole of the last century, make of this nation an extremely difficult enemy to tame. Endless sacrifices of comforts, of money, of life, will be needed not only from England, France, Russia, and Belgium, but from all other nations on earth who have simply been considering Germany as a huge latent danger during the last forty years. CHAPTER III CONSTANTINOPLE, _October 31st, 1914_. Here I am, after all! From the large window of my room at the Tokatlian Hotel, the wonderful city, the Bosphorus, and, far away, the woods and the mosques of Scutari, look like a dream-vision in the blue, transparent light which seems to come not from the sky only but from the trees, from the sea, from everywhere. It is midnight, and everything is perfectly quiet. If an artist had to choose a landscape which should symbolise the perfect peace of men and things, he would choose the one on which I am now looking. And yet even here there is war! On my way from Dedeagach to Constantinople I got news of the declaration of war by Turkey. Perhaps if I had tried to cross the Turkish frontier only a few hours later I should not have succeeded; as a matter of fact, to-day I saw any number of foreigners, English, French, Italians, Russians, and Greeks, trying to leave Constantinople by train.