Translations:CP 02996/7/en

If I don’t dare speculate on the future (except like everybody else on the certainty of final victory) I am happy to justify myself about the past. When you told me that the Courland expedition was an eccentric whim on the part of the Germans I replied that in the case of a people who prepared meticulously for something that they could not foresee (munitions for the duration of a war which they alone believed would be short and were the only ones to be fully equipped, retreat at Lens in order to take it from us and to help themselves to it when they did not think they would retreat, taking the Dardanelles to cut off Russia who they thought defeated etc.) one should not imagine that it is a disorderly whim and that the Courlande expedition was, in the long term, be it a pincer movement against the Russian army or at least against Warsaw, be it a counterpart to the Dardanelles (but Bardou who said two weeks ago that events in Riga were a proof, has written a marvellous article since then pointing out the symmetry between the Dardanelles, the shutting down of Russia, in imitation of the War of Secession). If Emmanuel is with you give him my very best wishes.