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282
ON THE EVE OF WAR [chap. xvi.
very limited degree. After having been for two years
Minister to Athens, where the whole Royal Family
headed by the wise King George adored him; where
every one was enchanted by his receptions, as
fashionable as they were hospitable, and where M. Venizelos—an
eminently honest politician and a true friend to Russia
—found in him an ever kind and attentive partner, M.
Sverbeieff was inclined to believe that his part in Berlin
would only be a natural extension of the one he had
played at the foot of Mt. Hymettus. He was intensely
absorbed in his house and household, in his new social
environment; he succeeded in making himself liked
and even up to a point esteemed by his German official
partners; but he did not arrive at what was going on in
Germany, what was being hatched in Berlin ; he did not
raise the alarm in time.
This alarm had been raised by Count Osten-Sacken
in a masterly letter written by him in 1907, in which the
eminent diplomat, so firmly attached to the Court of
Berlin and surrounded by the personal attentions of
William II., nevertheless foretold, with the absolute
plain-speaking of an exalted patriot, that henceforth
the Kaiser would seek to injure Russia and would choose
the Near East as the theatre in which to inflict serious blows
on its. The deduction was logical: if we did not wish for
war with Germany, a ground for mutual understanding
must be found. This letter had probably been forgotten
since 1908. New ambitions had come to divert the
direction of Russian foreign policy, and the question :
" What advantages can we procure for ourselves ?" had
relegated the question: "What immediate perils ought
we to avoid ?" to a secondary place.
I suppose that when M. Jules Cambon went to
impart his doubts and fears to his Russian colleague,
the latter listened to him attentively, but calmed
himself by thinking that on the French side every one was
generally inclined to exaggerate the German peril and
the agitation of William. He probably also thought
that one of the best ways of avoiding dangers was by
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