One day in times away back before Jacques had joined the Legion,
Count Aerenthal, that well-groomed diplomat, sitting in his private
room at the Bal Platz in Vienna, and in conference with parties not
wholly un-German, came to a grave decision, a decision to tear up the
Treaty of Berlin and rob Serbia of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
That decision, ratified by the God of Rogues, had very far-reaching
consequences. It was the match that set a light to a long, long
train of consequences. It was the voice that found echoes in every
pocket of the Balkan mountains and an answer to-day in the blaring
bugles of the Foreign Legion.