24 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-IX 



ernment declaring my skepticism as to the probability of 

 any war in Europe for a considerable time to come. When 

 I arrived in Berlin eleven years ago all the knowing people 

 said that a general European war must break out within 

 a few months : in the spring they said it must come in the 

 autumn ; and in the autumn they said it must come in the 

 spring. All these years have passed and there is still no 

 sign of war. We hear the same prophecies daily, but I 

 learned long since not to believe in them. War may come, 

 but it seems to me more and more unlikely. He answered, 

 I think you are right. I advise my own government in the 

 same sense. The fact is that war in these days is not what 

 it once was; it is infinitely more dangerous from every 

 point of view, and it becomes more and more so every day. 

 Formerly a crowned head, when he thought himself ag 

 grieved, or felt that he would enjoy a campaign, plunged 

 into war gaily. If he succeeded, all was well; if not, he 

 hauled off to repair damages, very much as a pugilist 

 would do after receiving a black eye in a fist fight, and 

 in a short time the losses were repaired and all went on as 

 before. In these days the case is different : it is no longer 

 a simple contest in the open, with the possibility of a black 

 eye or, at most, of a severe bruise ; it has become a matter 

 of life and death to whole nations. Instead of being like 

 a fist fight, it is like a combat between a lot of champions 

 armed with poisoned daggers, and in a dark room ; if once 

 the struggle begins, no one knows how many will be drawn 

 into it or who will be alive at the end of it ; the probabili 

 ties are that all will be injured terribly and several fatally. 

 War in these days means the cropping up of a multitude 

 of questions dangerous not only to statesmen but to mon- 

 archs, and even to society itself. Monarchs and statesmen 

 know this well ; and, no matter how truculent they may at 

 times appear, they really dread war above all things.&quot; 



One of my colleagues at St. Petersburg was interesting 

 in a very different way from any of the others. This was 

 Pasitch, the Servian minister. He was a man of fine pres 

 ence and, judging from his conversation, of acute mind. 



