States," M. Hartwig's Balkan League, had already completed its organization in February. Not only so, but the very first step taken by this exemplary organization provided for a division of spoils in the event of a successful war with Turkey; and six months after the organization of the League was concluded, it served an ultimatum upon Turkey over Albania, and in October went to war. The German Government could quite plainly see the future about to be inaugurated through this consolidation of Balkan policy into the hands of the Russian Foreign Office—any one even an attentive reader of newspapers, could see it—and it could see the vastly increased responsibility of its Austrian ally, in case of a quarrel, should it have to take on a coalition of the Balkan States instead of a single one.
Count de Lalaing reported from London, 24 February, 1918, that the British Foreign Office took the same sensible view of the German military increases as, according to Baron Guillaume, was taken by M. Jonnart. "The English press," he says, "is of course anxious to saddle Germany with the responsibility for the fresh tension caused by her schemes—a tension which may give Europe fresh reasons for uneasiness." But, he goes on—
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