ently
concluded mission to the United States had been a tremendous success.
Junior officers who had not met him spoke of him almost with bated
breath, and a hint that he might be at the terminus to greet the party
caused unbounded satisfaction. When we steamed into Paddington about 1
o'clock A.M. and his tall figure was descried on the platform, the
whole crowd burst out of the train in a disorderly swarm, jostling
each other in trying to get near him and have a chance of shaking his
hand; it was quite a business getting them sorted and under control
again so as to start them off in the waiting cars to Claridge's. We do
not always send the right man as envoy to foreign parts, but we had
managed it that time.

CHAPTER VIII

THE NEAR EAST

The first talk about Salonika -- The railway and the port -- The
question of operations based on Macedonia at the end of 1914 --
Failure of "easterners" to realize that the Western Front was
Germany's weakest front -- Question whether it might not have
been better to go to Salonika than to go to the Dardanelles --
Objections to such a plan -- The problem of Bulgaria --
Consequences of the Russian _debacle_ -- Difficulty of the Near
Eastern problem in the early summer -- An example of how the
Dardanelles Committee approached it -- Awkwardness of the problem
after the failure of Sir I. Hamilton's August offensive -- The
Bulgarian attitude -- Entente's objection to Serbia attacking
Bulgaria -- I am ordered to Salonika, but order countermanded --
The disaster to Serbia -- Hard to say what ought to have been
done -- Real mistake, the failure to abandon the Dardanelles
enterprise in May -- The French attitude about Salonika --
General Sarrail -- French General Staff impressed with War Office
information concerning Macedonia -- Unsatisfactory situation at
the end of 1915 -- The Salonika business a blunder all through --
Eventual success does not alter this.

"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed nought
else," Rudyard Kipling's old soldier sings, mindful of spacious days
along the road to Mandalay. The worst of the East, however, is that
people hear it calling who have never been there in their lives. That
there were individuals in high places who were subject to this
mysterious influence, became apparent at a comparatively early stage
of the World War.

The first o