After returning from the evening banquet following the brief but intense meeting with Wilson, those who were already in France were waiting for me in one ce.


    "How was the meeting?"


    The unofficial meeting with Wilson, whom I hadn''t met with any particr purpose.


    However, this talk made me smile more than any recent good news.


    "Satisfactory. Quite so."


    Though Wilson was somewhat aggressively rude toward the end and I responded in kind, the talk was more primal and honest because of it.


    "Thanks to it, I gained confidence I never had before."


    "Confidence about what?"


    "Confidence that the United States is a constant."


    That country hasn''t changed. No, it seems it cannot change.


    Their rigid inertia like stubborn persistence was so different from how the Russian Empire transformed.


    ''I still haven''t twisted that country''s orbit.''


    Even though Japan fell and the Great War was twisted, the United States remains the same.


    Their severe istionism, Monroe Doctrine.


    The nation itselfcking even the will to follow the direction set by its national leader.


    Finally, their view seeing this war as an absolute end rather than beginning.


    "Kokovtsov, as you said, they won''t oppose us with guns and swords. Furthermore, they won''t actively gather allies like the British Empire to encircle Russia."


    "I feel much relieved that Your Majesty agrees."


    That was one of the biggest reasons for wanting the Allied forces and League of Nations dissolved.


    Imperial encirclement.


    Though direct expansion ended, indirect expansion policy toward the Balkans and Mediterranean is just beginning.


    It means if in grandfather''s and father''s time they expanded the empire through eastward and southward advances, nowes an era of expanding by drawing in friendly nations and embracing them as subordinate allies.


    And the United States still has no will to stop Russia''s expansion, whether direct or indirect.


    ''They have power but don''t know how to wield it.''


    Perhaps the country that would be the biggest obstacle when deliberately bing hostile to our country.


    They haven''tpleted a pure alliance system like Britain.


    Neither expansionist spirit gathered norbor force to weed out potentialpetitors exists.


    "If the United States doesn''t join the League of Nations, we can consider them essentially removing their hands from the European structure."


    "While Asia is another story, the Balkans and Eastern Europe are safe. Should I understand it this way?"


    "Exactly."


    What''s more ridiculous is that the United States believes not intervening and staying neutral is independence and ''good.''


    At least America''s leader and officials below him talking with me certainly believe so.


    "The United States, truly friends thoroughlymitted to the spirit of independence."


    "Just a year ago, they were ones who said ''receiving transfusions of inferior foreign weapons enrages the people and War Department'' to France''s offer of military support, and insisted on developing-producing domestic products to bring to Europe. If even war was like that, how could diplomacy be different?"


    They said imperialist desires were so vicious?


    I realized the Monroe Doctrine''s neglect could be just as stubborn.


    "The United States is militarily like a massive Britain. This war confirmed that though scattered and divided, the moment they unite they have potential to raise military power iparable to the BEF. However, they''d need a bigger cause than the British Empire to project that military power."


    "So we needn''t worry much about that country as long as we don''t provoke them."


    "Timely, appropriatepromise. That should be enough."


    As Kokovtsov and I reached the same conclusion, the framework was immediately built upon it from all directions.


    However, before that we had something to do.


    "Kokovtsov. I heard their people are here too."


    "Gruji? from Hungary, and Nik Pa?i? is staying in Paris as representative for negotiations."


    "Good, let''s meet them right away."


    A country we canpletely control without the United States.


    It was about Serbia''s disposition.


    ==


    King Peter I of Serbia, who I hear is now bedridden.


    As befitting a king who celebrated the Romanov tercentenary like his own affair more than anyone, we had quite thick official friendship.


    Especially in this Pan-vism, Peter I was an indispensable figure - just ten years ago he was the spiritual pir of the South vic people, a king receiving great support from Serbian and Montenegrin peoples.


    Peter I''s ability was that excellent and he too valued rtions with the Russian Empire.


    ''Well,cking legitimacy right after ascending the throne was probably the biggest reason.''@@novelbin@@


    Anyway, with Austria-Hungary above and the Ottoman Empire to the side and below, perhaps South vic integration was an essential element for Serbia then.


    Time passed.


    Though Peter I''s reign hit new highs daily, Serbia''s stance changed as much as the situation changed.


    Peter I, who emphasized Balkan harmony and integration, came to view Albanians as objects of hatred to be ruled.


    He betrayed Bulgaria, once an ally, for national expansion and had to watch everything he built copse throughout the Great War that broke out in his twilight years.


    Thus Peter I''s era came to an end.


    Though the throne is still his, his health deteriorated after the ''Great Retreat'' and he became a king who rarely leaves his bedroom.


    The war ended.


    And Peter I seems to want to gain even more beyond recovering what was lost in the Great War just before death.


    To this, I asked Serbia''s second-inmand Pa?i? who shared Peter I''s golden age:


    "Even after 5 years passed, I still can''t understand. Why didn''t you negotiate or try to talk with them while clearly knowing the ck Handposed of Serbian army officers killed Archduke Ferdinand?"


    "T-Tsar! They had already decided the oue before notifying our country of the ultimatum!"


    "I know. However, what makes me unpleasant isn''t that."


    Would the German delegation have looked like this when concluding the Treaty of Versailles?


    Amid distinguished figures like Roman, Kokovtsov, and Roediger looking down oppressively at Pa?i?, he seemed barely holding onto his senses during my interrogation.


    However, this was neither groundwork nor nitpicking but something I genuinely wanted to ask them for a long time.


    "Did you perhaps think the Russian Empire''s national power was something you could freely use for your expansion?"