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302
THE TRAGIC WEEK [chap. xvii.
On Saturday morning I accompanied the members
ofithe Russian delegation to the Spitsberg Conference,
which was just over at Christiania, MM. Bentkowski and
Mandelstamm, to the boat which was leaving for Abo.
With them went my eldest son, attached to the Foreign
Office, who had just come on leave but who had been
hastily recalled on account ol the enormous amount of
work at the Office. I entrusted these gentlemen, but
especially M. Mandelstamm who was so well up in the
position at Constantinople, with a message from me to
M. Sazonoff, which ran as follows : In the event of war
breaking out and if Turkey’s attitude became threatening,
I was taking on myself to advise a prompt Russian
descent on the coast of Southern Bulgaria ; this descent
should be effected by considerable forces, one large army
corps at the least; simultaneously with this forcing of
the gates of Bulgaria a proclamation should be addressed
to the people and to the Bulgarian Army, telling them
that the Russians were arriving to restore to them
Adrianople, Lozengrad and Thrace that the Turks had
unjustly taken from them, profiting by the misfortunes
of Bulgaria. I guaranteed that if the descent was
successful the Bulgarian Army would place itself on our
side and that King Ferdinand would be obliged to
submit to this movement. I was quite aware that at the
Foreign Office no one would pay the slightest attention
to this advice; that it would be looked on as
presumptuous interference on my part in matters which
were no longer my business. But I thought it my duty,
at this solemn hour, not to keep back an idea which
might be beneficial to our cause. A few days later I
repeated the same advice in a letter to Baron Schilling,
the only person in Sazonoff’s set whose character,
intelligence and patriotism I thoroughly trusted.
The subsequent events of the terrible war have
proved that I was not wrong. Bulgaria did play the
decisive role of the secondary weight which finally
upset the scales ; her geographical position predestined
her to this role. It was in October, 1915, that, by
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