l, to secure for beaten Bulgaria
the best terms. My object was to obtain a new coalition of all the
Balkan States, including Roumania. Had I succeeded in this the situation
would be much better. No reasonable man will deny that the Balkan States
are neutralizing each other at the present time, which in itself makes
the whole situation all the more miserable.

"In October, 1913, when I succeeded in facilitating the conclusion of
peace between Greece and Turkey, I was pursuing the same object of the
Balkan coalition. On my return from Athens I endeavored, though without
success, to put the Greco-Turkish relations on a basis of friendship,
being convinced that the well-understood interest of both countries lies
not only in friendly relations, but even in an alliance between them.

"The dissensions that exist between the Balkan States can be settled in
a friendly way without war. The best moment for this would be after the
general war, when the map of Europe will be remade. The Balkan country
which would start war against another Balkan country would commit, not
only a crime against her own future, but an act of folly as well.

"The destiny and future of the Balkan States, and of all the small
European peoples as well, will not be regulated by fratricidal wars,
but, with this great European struggle, the real object of which is to
settle the question whether Europe shall enter an era of justice, and
therefore happiness for the small peoples, or whether we will face a
period of oppression more or less gilt-edged. And as I always believed
that wisdom and truth will triumph in the end, I want to believe, too,
that, in spite of the pessimistic news reaching me from the different
sides of the Balkan countries, there will be no war among them in order
to justify those who do not believe in the vitality of the small
peoples."

The conference at Rome, April 10, 1918, to settle outstanding questions
between the Italians and the Slavs of the Adriatic, drew attention to
those Slavonic peoples in Europe who were under non-Slavonic rule. At
the beginning of the war there were three great Slavonic groups in
Europe: First, the Russians with the Little Russians, speaking languages
not more different than the dialect of Yorkshire is from the dialect of
Devonshire; second, a central group, including the Poles, the Czechs or
Bohemians, the Moravians, and Slovaks, this group thus being separated
under the four crowns of Russia, Germany, Aus