1912] Anglo-Russian Intrigues against Turkey 405 



his novels are not those who will ever really rule the world, rather the 

 weak ones. They will never attract the men, and in the marriage 

 competition will be edged out, pussies who run about continually, but 

 fail to find corners. To me they are wearisome to read of, because 

 unreal. These letters show well the narrow limits of Meredith's per- 

 sonal experience. His knowledge of life was three parts of it acquired 

 at second hand. I am sorry all the same not to have known him better 

 than I did, for he was clearly one of the best of companions and of 

 friends. 



" 2yd Nov. — Rothstein and Ryan are here winding up the affairs 

 of ' Egypt.' The Bulgarian advance on Constantinople seems at a stand- 

 still, and it looks very much as if the war had been arranged before- 

 hand with the Powers. ... I suspect Kiamil Pasha of having pur- 

 posely left the army in Macedonia unprepared for fighting, so as to 

 serve English and Russian plans of dismemberment, on a promise of 

 retaining Constantinople. He is just the man to entertain the idea 

 of putting the Sultan in the same position of English dependence that 

 the Khedive had been reduced to at Cairo. It would not suit either 

 English or Russian plans to have so strong a fighting State as Bulgaria 

 in possession of the Dardanelles. What Russia principally wants is 

 to get free passage to the Mediterranean, and what Grey wants is to 

 please Russia. With a Sultan Caliph in leading strings on the Bos- 

 phorns, they would both be able to work their will, Cairo would be 

 held on a perpetual lease by us, and our Protectorate of the Persian 

 Gulf be acknowledged." 



This, I believe, is exactly what the position was at Constantinople 

 between our diplomacy there and Kiamil. It was certainly due to him 

 that the Ottoman army in Macedonia was left only half mobolized 

 until too late to escape defeat. 



"24th Nov. (Sunday). — Belloc dined in the evening alone with 

 me and Ryan, and was most agreeable. I like him better thus than 

 when he is showing off before a number of people, with noise and fire- 

 works, which is his usual form in a mixed company. He has just 

 brought out a new book called ' A Servile State,' whose principles 

 he expounded to us at the latest counterblast to State Socialism. Roth- 

 stein had just given us the socialist side of the democratic case, but 

 I have given up trying to solve the domestic conundrum of the Euro- 

 pean future. Things as they are will last my time, and beyond that 

 who can tell? 



" yd Dec. — Our armistice has been agreed to before Constanti- 

 nople, and the war with Bulgaria is probably over. It is said that the 

 Sultan is to keep Adrianople, as well as the Marmora coast and the 

 Dardanelles. If so, things will have been put back exactly to where 

 they were placed by the treaty of San Stefano in 1878, and it is just 



