Wilson (September 1912) thought Haldane a fool for thinking that Britain would have a time window of up to six months in which to deploy the BEF. In September 1912 he inspected Warsaw with Alfred Knox, British military attaché in Russia, then met Zhilinsky in St Petersburg, before visiting the battlefield of Borodino, and Kiev, then – in Austria-Hungary – Lemburg, Krakow and Vienna. Plans to visit Constantinople had to be shelved because of the First Balkan War, although Wilson recorded his concerns that the Bulgars had beaten the Turks a month after the declaration of war – evidence that the BEF must be committed to war at once, not within six months as Haldane hoped.