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generations. The more I thought about that, the better I liked it.
    So I set about persuading several newspaper editors to take me on to their staff as a freelance war correspondent, because war there surely would be, even the optimists agreed about that. I explained to them that I would be a highly suitable person to send to the troubled areas of Europe to write about the unrest. Not only was I able to write interesting and informative prose, I said, but I had travelled quite extensively. I had reasonable proficiency in French, I could make myself understood in German and I even had a smattering of English as well. ‘Smattering’ was something of an exaggeration there, but they accepted my claim, (fortunately without putting it to the test). What really clinched the matter, though, was that without actually saying so, I managed to convey that I had the entrée to a number of privileged houses. I do think I did that rather well, and if they ended up believing I dined at the Kaiser’s table regularly and was on intimate terms with several members of the Imperial Royal House of Habsburg, it was entirely due to their own naivety.
    So a number of agreements were made. The financial remuneration varied from paper to paper, but on one topic the editors spoke with the same voice. That was the matter of the censorship laws. Did I understand I must not write anything that might be construed as seditious or subversive?
    I did.
    And would I give my word as a gentleman (ha!) that I would not write or imply anything that might be regarded as propaganda or likely to incite anarchy?
    I said politely that my word could be considered to be given, and could be regarded as my bond.
    In fact I have met many anarchistic and even revolutionary-minded people who make delightful and stimulating companions, although sometimes inclined a little to bigotry and fanaticism, and curiously averse to regular washing, as if they consider their ideals too high-minded to be bothered about soap and water. For myself, I had then, and have now, no particular animosity towards the Romanovs.
    I did have considerable animosity towards the miserliness of some of the newspapers employing me, though. The travelling costs turned out to be paltry, barely enough for even the most basic of train journeys. Indeed, at one point I began to wonder if this entire scheme might as well be forgotten, but the compulsion to see what was happening in the world, to know about it at first-hand – to
record
it for others to read – still had me by the throat as viciously as a wolf in a winter forest.
    I should make it clear that my contempt for the meagre travelling expenses was not born from mere hedonism; I am perfectly prepared to sacrifice comfort if the cause is sufficient. What I am not prepared to do is travel in third-class railway carriages, where the only seating is wooden benches, where the washing facilities are non-existent, and where the only food is the greasy bread and fat bacon brought by other wayfarers for their private sustenance. It would have been undignified to ask for more money though, so before leaving I made a few judicious sorties into a number of rich homes. The careful selling of the items I removed provided funds for more acceptable travelling conditions, and I left Moscow in a first-class compartment, ate my meals in a well-appointed dining-car, and slept in the best hotels until I reached my destination.
    My destination. That exercised me a good deal. Simply, I could not decide where I should go. The kaleidoscope of power-balance and of friendship and enmity between countries had been shifting with bewildering rapidity throughout that summer – so much so that I changed my mind half a dozen times.
    But it was becoming clear that Germany wanted France. And to get France, the German armies had to take the neutral countries that lay between. Above all, they had to take Belgium – small, peaceable Belgium with its gentle defences