association—the Entente—which represented a mutual insurance against the risk of war.

This was Sir E. Grey's plan. In his own words: Without interfering with our existing friendship with France and Russia, which has no aggressive aims and does not entail any binding obligations on England, to arrive at a friendly rapprochement and understanding with Germany, "to bring the two groups nearer."

As with us, there were two parties in England at that time—the Optimists, who believed in an understanding, and the Pessimists, who thought that sooner or later war was inevitable.

The former embraced Messrs. Asquith, Grey, Lord Haldane, and most of the Ministers in the Radical Cabinet; also the leading Liberal papers, such as the Westminster Gazette, Manchester Guardian, Daily Chronicle. The Pessimists were mainly Conservative politicians like Mr. Balfour, who repeatedly made this clear to me; also leading Army men, like Lord Roberts, who pointed out the necessity of universal military service ("The Writing on the Wall"); further, the Northcliffe Press and the eminent English journalist Mr. Garvin, of The Observer. During my period of office, however, they abstained from all attacks, and maintained both personally and politically a friendly attitude. But our naval policy and our attitude in 1905, 1908, and 1911 had aroused in them the conviction that after all it would some day come to war. Just as it is with us, the former are now being accused in England of short-sightedness and simplicity, whereas the latter are looked on as the true prophets.

The Albanian Question

The first Balkan War had led to the collapse of Turkey and thus to a defeat for our policy, which had been identified with Turkey for a number of years. Since Turkey in Europe could no longer be saved, there were two ways in which we could deal with the inheritance: either we could declare our complete disinterestedness with regard to the frontier delimitations and leave the Balkan Powers to settle them, or we could support our "Allies" and carry on a Triple Alliance policy in the Near East, thus giving up the rôle of mediator.

From the very beginning I advocated the former course, but the Foreign Office emphatically favoured the latter.

The vital point was the Albanian question. Our Allies desired the establishment of an independent Albanian state, as the Austrians did not want the Serbs to obtain access to the Adriatic, and the Italians did not want the Greeks to get to Valona or even to the north of Corfu. As opposed to this, Russia, as is known, was backing Serbia's wishes and France those of Greece.

My advice was to treat this question as outside the scope of the Alliance, and to support neither the Austrian nor the Italian claims. Without our aid it would have been impossible to set up an independent Albania, which, as anyone could foresee, had no prospect of surviving; Serbia would have extended to the sea, and the present world-war would have been avoided. France and Italy would have quarrelled over Greece, and if the Italians had not wanted to fight France unaided they would have been compelled to acquiesce in Greece's expansion to the north of Durazzo. The greater part of Albania is Hellenic. The towns in the south are entirely so; and during the Conference of Ambassadors delegations from principal towns arrived in London to obtain annexation to Greece. Even in present-day Greece there are Albanian elements and the so-called Greek national dress is of Albanian origin. The inclusion of the Albanians, who are principally Orthodox and Moslem, in the body of the Greek state was therefore the best and most natural solution, if you left Scutari and the north to the Serbs and Montenegrins. For dynastic reasons H.M. was also in favour of this solution. When I supported this view in a letter to the monarch I received agitated reproaches from the Chancellor; he said that I had the reputation of being "an opponent of Austria," and I was to abstain from such interference and direct correspondence.

The Near East and the Policy of the Triple Alliance

We ought at last to have broken with the fatal tradition of pursuing a Triple Alliance policy in the Near East also, and have recognised our mistake, which lay in identifying ourselves in the south with the Turks and in the north with the Austro-Magyars. For the continuance of this policy, upon which we had entered at the Berlin Congress, and which we had actively pursued ever since, was bound to lead in time to a conflict with Russia and to the world-war, more especially if the requisite cleverness were lacking in high places. Instead of coming to terms with Russia on a basis of the independence of the Sultan, whom even Petrograd did not wish to eject from Constantinople, and of confining ourselves to our economic interests in the Near East and to the partitioning of Asia Minor into spheres of influence while renouncing any intention of military or political interference, it was our political ambition to dominate on the Bosphorus. In Russia they began to think that the road to Constantinople and the Mediterranean lay via Berlin. Instead of supporting the active development of the Balkan States—which, once liberated, are anything rather than Russian, and with which our experiences had been very satisfactory—we took sides with the Turkish and Magyar oppressors.

The fatal mistake of our Triple Alliance and Near East policy—which had forced Russia, our natural best friend and neighbour, into the arms of France and England and away from its policy of Asiatic expansion—was the more apparent, as a Franco-Russian attack, which was the sole hypothesis that justified a Triple Alliance policy, could be left out of our calculations.

The value of the Italian alliance needs no further reference. Italy will want our money and our tourists even after the war, with or without an alliance. That this latter would fail us in case of war was patent beforehand. Hence the alliance had no value. Austria needs our protection in war, as in peace, and has no other support. Her dependence on us is based on political, national, and economic considerations, and is the greater the more intimate our relations with Russia are. The Bosnian crisis taught us this. Since the days of Count Beust no Vienna Minister has adopted such a self-confident attitude towards us as Count Aehrenthal during the later years of his life. If German policy is conducted on right lines, cultivating relations with Russia, Austria-Hungary is our vassal and dependent on us, even without an alliance or recompense; if it is wrongly conducted, then we are dependent on Austria. Hence there was no reason for the alliance.

I knew Austria too well not to be aware that a return to the policy of Prince Felix Schwarzenberg or Count Moritz Esterhazy was inconceivable there. Little as the Slavs there love us, just as little do they wish to return into a German Empire even with a Habsburg-Lorraine emperor at its head. They are striving for a federation in Austria on national lines, a state of things which would have even less chance of being realised within the German Empire than under the Double Eagle. The Germans of Austria, however, acknowledge Berlin as the centre of German Might and Culture, and are well aware that Austria can never again be the leading Power. They wish for as intimate a connection with the German Empire as possible, not for an anti-German policy.

Since the 'seventies the position has fundamentally changed in Austria, as in Bavaria. As, in the latter, a