He was forced to return to England in January 1915, the "Daily Mail" sent him on a tour of neutral countries to try to uncover their intentions. His time in Greece, Bulgaria and Romania did not yield any very useful information, though while there he did send back some vivid reports of fighting between the Austrian and Russian forces and on one occasion had to escape from Chernivtsi in the middle of the night when he woke to find it had been taken by Russian forces as he had slept.