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io 112 INTRIGUES AT SOFIA [chap.viii.
it was not part of the duty of a Russian representative
in a Slav country to offer opposition to the reconciliation
or even the alliance of this country with another Slav
country. Of course our policy was bound to check
beforehand all the warlike tendencies of Bulgaria and
Serbia and was capable of doing so; but this role
belonged to the central organ of our diplomacy, which
moreover had been warned in good time and repeatedly
by me.
Our new Ambassador to Constantinople in our
interviews also emphasised—with the obvious intent that I
should pass the information on to Sofia—the enormous
danger that according to him war with Turkey would
present to the two Slav kingdoms themselves.
According to M. de Giers the Ottoman Army was quite
different from what it had been in Abdul Hamid’s time.
Admirably equipped and perfectly trained, under the
command of German generals and senior officers and
of young Turkish officers, well trained and drilled, it
constituted a real power which might cause disagreeable
surprises to Serbian and Bulgarian optimists. The
Ambassador maintained this opinion till the actual war
of 1912, or rather till the first decisive defeat of the
Turks. Always concientious in his work as in the
expression of his opinions, M. de Giers usually placed
entire confidence in his professional collaborators in
any branch. His opinion of the Turkish Army was based
entirely on the reports and information of our military
agent in Constantinople, General Holmsen, an honest
Finno-Swede, married to the daughter of the former
Governor-General of Finland, Bobrikoff. Holmsen was
on very intimate terms with the military attache and
the German senior officers, who were very attentive
to him and who furnished him with all sorts of
information on the Ottoman Arm}’. And in representing to
their Russian colleague the state of this Army as a
truly brilliant one, the German officers were far from
displaying premeditated duplicity : they were simply
guided by that very natural feeling which consists in
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