If you'd warned me that you were supporting Italy into Serbia to sow confusion, then I wouldn't have been so bothered. But even so, I think you needed to pick sides between Italy and me that season. You looked like you had picked Italy, so I was correct to warn the West about IR.> quoted text

This sums up my mistake pretty well. My deception had no purpose and I gained nothing from it. I attribute this to the way that I was compartmentalizing negotiations at the time. The agent in charge of Turkish negotiations considered us as already allied, and wanted to signal accordingly. Self-deception is a wonderful signalling tool sometimes, except when you actually succeed in deceiving yourself.

That's right. I was a bit confused about why my emails didn't move the West. Did they think that I would stab you myself to get revenge, even though I made it very clear that I wouldn't act alone against you? Did I manage to annoy them with my messages? Did they fail to understand the significance of a strong IR (which switched to an RT in 1904)? Or both: they failed to understand the significance of the growing alliance in the East, which led them to interpret me as being a big windbag?

I know France and I were pretty closely allied until England resigned, and Germany has talked about her take on your e-mails, but I don't know why England didn't take you up on the offer.