For those of the diplomatic corps who came in contact with people from the Near East, or with the Turkish diplomatists, the great question was--the designs of Germany in the East. One of the advantages of diplomatic life is that one comes in contact with the most interesting people. In spite of a determination to follow all the rules of the protocol as closely as possible Terence's announcement, through the lips of Chremes, was good enough for me,--'Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto,' and consequently, I made profit out of good talk wherever I found it. I saw too little of Dr. Morris Jastrow, of the University of Pennsylvania, in 1908, when he came to Copenhagen with a group of distinguished orientalists; but one of his sentences remained in my mind (I quote from memory), 'The crucial question, and a terrible answer it may be when Germany gives it to the world, is, Who shall control Bulgaria and Serbia and Constantinople. Settle the matter of the road to the East, so that Germany and Austria may not join in monopolising it, and then, we can begin to talk of a tranquil Europe.'
Much later, I had a long talk with Rudolph Slatin, who had been a close friend of King Edward's, and who knew the East. He had had too many favours from England to be willing to take arms against her; he was Austrian, but not pro-Prussian. His views were not exactly those of Dr. Jastrow's, as Dr. Jastrow afterwards expressed them,[17] but one could read between the lines. The Eastern route was the real core of the war. Russia knew this when she began to make preparations for mobilisation in the early spring of 1914. All the Turks I met, including the two ministers, confirmed this.
[17] In _The War and the Bagdad Railway_. J. B. Lippincott & Co.
Lady Paget, the wife of the British Minister, who came to Copenhagen in 1916, knew more of the inside history of the war in the Balkans than the _soi-disant_ experts who talked. She seldom talked; but the Serbians, who adored her, did not hesitate to sing the praises of her knowledge and of her efforts to save them. To her very few intimates it was plain that she, as well as her husband, looked on the Balkans as the key to the cause of the war. The Serbians that I knew, men of all classes, said that, if Lady Paget had been listened to, Serbia would have been saved to herself and the Allies. Whether this was true or not, the Serbians believed it.