ccasion on which, apart from a few outpost affairs over the
Dardanelles with Mr. Churchill to which reference has already been
made, "easternism" (as it came to be called later) raised its head to
my knowledge to any alarming extent, was when Colonel Hankey asked me,
one day early in December 1914, to go across to Treasury Buildings to
meet Sir E. Grey and Mr. Lloyd George. There is not a more depressing
structure in existence than Treasury Buildings. The arrangement of the
interior is a miracle of inconvenience, on the most cloudless of days
its apartments are wrapped in gloom, and no decorator has been
permitted to pass its portals since it was declared fit for occupation
in some forgotten age. But Mr. Lloyd George, who was Chancellor of the
Exchequer at this time, is ever like a ray of sunshine illumining
otherwise dark places, and on this occasion he was at his very
brightest. He had made a discovery. He had found on a map that there
was quite a big place--it was shown in block capitals--called
Salonika, tucked away in a corner of the Balkans right down by the
sea. The map furthermore indicated by means of an interminable
centipede that a railway led from this place Salonika right away up
into Serbia, and on from thence towards the very heart of the Dual
Monarchy. Here was a chance of starting an absolutely new hare. The
Chancellor, _allegro con fuoco_, was in a buoyant mood, as was indeed
only to be expected under such circumstances, and he was geniality
itself when I appeared in the apartment where Sir E. Grey and Hankey
were awaiting me together with himself. We should be able to deal the
enemy a blow from an entirely unexpected direction, the days of
stalemate in the half-frozen morasses of Flanders would be at an end,
we would carry the Balkans with us, it would be absolutely top-hole.
Although obviously interested--it could hardly be otherwise when the
words "Near East" were mentioned--the Foreign Secretary was careful
not to give himself away. You have to make a practice of that when you
are Foreign Secretary.

Now, it so happened that I had been at Salonika more than once, and
also that I had travelled along this very railway more than once and
had carefully noted matters in connection with it so long as daylight
served. Much more important than that, there were in the archives of
my branch at the War Office very elaborate reports on the railway,
and there was moreover full information as to the capabilities