who feared the most serious consequences. M. Tocheff, the Bulgarian Minister, one of the ablest members of the diplomatic corps, was much disturbed. At that time Bulgaria was neutral, and M. Tocheff used to tell me that his country hoped to maintain this neutrality. Each side, he said, expected that Bulgaria would become its ally, and it was Bulgaria's policy to keep each side in this expectant frame of mind. Should Germany succeed in starting a "Holy War" and should massacres result, Bulgaria, added M. Tocheff, would certainly join forces with the Entente.
We arranged that he should call upon Wangenheim and repeat this statement, and that I should bring similar pressure to bear upon Enver. From the first, however, the Holy War proved a failure. The Mohammedans of such countries as India, Egypt, Algiers, and Morocco knew that they were getting far better treatment than they could obtain under any other conceivable conditions. Moreover, the simple-minded Mohammedans could not understand why they should prosecute a holy war against Christians and at the same time have Christian nations, such as Germany and Austria, as their partners. This association made the whole proposition ridiculous. The Koran, it is true, commands the slaughter of Christians, but that sacred volume makes no exception in favour of the Germans and, in the mind of the fanatical Mohammedan, a German rayah is as much Christian dirt as an Englishman or a Frenchman, and his massacre is just as meritorious an act. The fine distinctions necessitated by European diplomacy he understands about as completely as he understands the law of gravitation or the nebular hypothesis. The German failure
