When Martti Ahtisaari walked into the European Union leaders' dinner in the magnificent, baroque surroundings of the Schloss Augustusburg, outside Cologne, on Thursday evening, his fellow heads of government greeted him with a burst of applause.
For a politician derided in his own country as a bibulous buffoon with no prospect of a second term in office, it was a rare and remarkable moment of triumph.
Two days before, on Tuesday, Gerhard Schroder telephoned the Finnish President and invited him to Bonn for a new round of talks on Kosovo. It was the last invitation President Ahtisaari of Finland wanted to receive. In constant pain following a hip operation, the 138 kg Finn was convinced that a further meeting with the Russian envoy, Viktor Chernomyrdin and the US Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott, would be both exhausting and futile.
"I told him I didn't hold out much hope for success but, despite my warnings, he invited me anyway. I am eternally grateful to him," Ahtisaari reflected later.
Within 72 hours of arriving in Bonn, he had brought to an end 72 days of war in the heart of Europe, persuading Slobodan Milosovic to accept all of NATO's fundamental demands and preventing a potentially fatal split within the Western alliance.
For the leaders of this alliance, his return in triumph from Belgrade was a moment of intense relief after 10 weeks of bombing that had, until then, shown little sign of success. In fact, it appeared to be creating new problems each day.
There was a very different mood the last time EU leaders met in Berlin in March. NATO's bombing campaign - unprecedented in the alliance's 50-year history - had just begun.
Despite the momentous nature of the course upon which they had embarked, in those early days of the campaign Alliance leaders were convinced that it would be over within a few days. According to one senior EU politician who was present at the March summit, they thought it would be "a doddle".
"They were sure that Milosovic would cave in straight away and they didn't stop to think what would happen if he held out."
After just six months in office, Schroder and his foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, were thrust into the centre of the world stage and, as holders of the EU's rotating presidency, charged with leading the search for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
For both men, the stakes could hardly have been higher: disaster might spell the end of Schroder's hold on power; for Fischer, never before had a Green Party member held ministerial office in Germany - and now he was about to go to war. Hardly the stuff of Green politics.
As the leading figure in the Greens, Fischer's position was particularly uncomfortable. Obliged to watch former allies at antiwar rallies denouncing him as a warmonger, he was, however, never in any doubt about the necessity of the need to stop Milosovic's campaign of terror in Kosovo.
But he was determined to bring the West's campaign within a legal framework by securing UN approval and he immediately set about soothing Russia's wounded pride by involving Moscow in the search for peace. The new government turned to an unlikely ally - the defeated chancellor, Helmut Kohl.
Kohl exploited his friendship with Boris Yeltsin to persuade Moscow that NATO's campaign against Yugoslavia was not part of a bigger strategy that could threaten Russia's strategic interests. Schroder turned to Kohl for advice on numerous occasions, often talking in the Bonn bungalow the two men shared until mid-April.
When Fischer unveiled his first peace plan, calling for a temporary halt to the bombing to allow peace talks to begin, he was dismissed as defeatist by Britain - the most hawkish member of the alliance - and by the United States.
But Bonn persisted in its endeavour to find a peaceful solution that would win Russian support - a persistence that was rewarded early last month when the Group of Eight, the leading industrialised countries and Russia, agreed to a number of principles to end the conflict.
These included the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo and the return home of the ethnic Albanian refugees under the protection of an international peace-keeping force. The devil was, unfortunately, in the detail of how to put these principles into practice.
Russia wanted a halt to NATO's bombing before Yugoslav forces withdrew from Kosovo and insisted that the peace-keeping force should be under UN rather than NATO command. The Western allies were adamant that the bombing would continue until Yugoslav forces started their withdrawal and that NATO must be at the heart of any peacekeeping operation.
Ahtisaari was appointed EU peace envoy, charged with finding common ground between Russia and the west.
As the president of a neutral country who had been involved in independence talks in Namibia and peace negotiations in Bosnia, Ahtisaari was viewed as a man both Chernomyrdin and Talbott could learn to trust.
"We met four times, twice in Helsinki, once in Moscow and once in Bonn," Ahtisaari recalled. At first, I held bilateral talks with each side but I decided that we should all be in the same room because I wanted to avoid any misunderstanding or doubts about what was being said."
The Finnish president judged well to link up with Chernomyrdin. Appointed by President Yeltsin as his Balkan envoy, as the war progressed the former Russian prime minister shuttled between Moscow and Belgrade, and west European cities, trying to broker common ground that might end hostilities.
On May 28th he flew to Belgrade and held substantial discussions with Milosevic. Chernomyrdin was met at Surcin Airprot by Serbia's Prime Minister, Mirko Marjanovic, an old business crony of the Russian. The two men are partners in Progres-Gas, a highly lucrative company which imports Russian petrol and gas to Yugoslavia.
In the car on the way to meet Milosevic at Beli Dvor Palace, Chernomyrdin asked Marjanovic why the Serbs were being so stubborn. "I agree with you, but it's the boss who is taking the decisions," Marjanovic replied.
Chernomyrdin was indiscreet enough to mention the exchange later during negotiations. Milosevic was so furious that he forbade Marjanovic from going back to the airport with the Russian envoy.
The May 28th meeting, for which Milosevic assembled a delegation of army generals and close allies from his own Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), was video-taped. When seen later, Milosevic appeared frail. Astute observers noticed Milosevic shook hands only with his right hand; in the past, he had always greeted visitors with a firm, two-hand grip. Now his left hand hung limply by his side.
In the fevered atmosphere of Belgrade sustaining almost nightly bombardment, his appearance fuelled rumours of a stroke.
Clearly, however, the Yugoslav president was able to conduct the meeting and progress was made, for it was at this meeting that the two men devised the mechanism of a parliamentary vote to ratify any accord Milosevic might sign. The Yugoslav leader saw this as a crucial way of spreading the responsibility for agreeing on a settlement far short of the oft-stated Serbian position.
By the time Ahtisaari, Chernomyrdin and Talbott had gathered on Tuesday in the elegant, German government guest-house in Petersberg, high above the Rhine, the gap between Russia and the West appeared so narrow that Ahtisaari and Chernomyrdin were preparing to travel to Belgrade with a peace offer.
But the trip was abruptly postponed for a day after the Russians accused Talbott of introducing new conditions that were unacceptable to their military leaders. The talks continued, moderated by the genial figure of Schroder, until almost four in the morning.
They resumed after just three hours sleep and Chernomyrdin seemed suddenly willing to compromise, agreeing to NATO's demand that all Yugoslav forces must withdraw from Kosovo and that the withdrawal would have to start before the bombing stopped.
It was a compromise too far, as far as some of the Russian military leaders were concerned - as they were to make plain later.
German officials believe that Chernomyrdin's sudden change of heart owed more to weariness with the Kosovo problem than any strategic decision and they claim there was no secret deal to win Russian support.
"The Russians just want to be rid of this problem and they're tired of defending Milosovic. After all, he has nothing to offer them," said one official.
WHEN Ahtisaari and Chernomyrdin boarded their flight to Belgrade on Wednesday, June 2nd, they were still pessimistic about their chances of persuading Milosovic to capitulate.
"I was mentally prepared for the fact that I would have to go there more than once," said Ahtisaari.
It seems that by now Milosevic had decided to take what was on offer. Instead of receiving his visitors in a room full of Rococo sofas and armchairs as he had done up hitherto in the war, he wanted to project a serious, statesmanlike image.
Thus, the final talks were held at a long table, with the Serb delegation of Milosevic, the Serb President, Milan Milutinovic, Serb Prime Minister, Marjanovic, the federal Foreign Minister, Zivadin Jovanovic, the Army Chief of Staff, Gen Dragoljub Ojdanic, and a group of lesser generals on one side and, facing them over a bowl of bright red gladiolis, Ahtisaari and Chernomydrin.
Serbs described the atmosphere in the meetings as straight-forward and businesslike. Each delegate had a tiny coffee cup and a bottle of Rosa mineral water in front of him on the table. (The Rosa company is linked to Milosevic's SPS and cornered the market for mineral water during the war.)
It seems that earlier discussions during the shuttle diplomacy had worked: by June 2nd, there was almost nothing left to be discussed. Ahtisaari read aloud the two-page document agreed in Bonn with Talbott and then handed it over. He and Chernomyrdin then answered outstanding questions in three sessions totalling about four hours - brief by Balkan standards.
Milosevic asked if it was possible to make some alterations or improvements to the document and Ahtisaari explained politely but emphatically that it was not.
"I told him that this was the best offer that the international community was in a position to make," Ahtisaari said. He was willing to clarify points in the plan, however, and to listen to any points the Yugoslav leader wanted to raise.
Milosovic's first question surprised everyone in the room - and bemused Bertie Ahern when he heard about it the following evening. What would happen, Milosovic wanted to know, to Yugoslavia's soccer match with Ireland, if the peace deal went through?
Here was a man with the blood of thousands of innocent people on his hands, who could allow his people to endure 10 weeks of savage bombardment - but could not bear the indignity of a cancelled football match.
Ahtisaari, exhausted and drowsy on account of the strong painkillers he takes, suggested to Milosevic that, instead of talking further with the envoys, he should spend the evening with his own advisers and allies. Milosevic called the main Serb political party leaders to Beli Dvor to break the news to them.
"It must be yes," he said.
The only man to oppose the decision was the leader of the Serbian Radical Party and head of the White Eagles militia, Vojislav Seselj. He argued with Milosevic until midnight, saying that "if NATO enters Kosovo we leave the government", to which Milosevic replied, "Do whatever you want to."
In Washington, President Clinton went to bed not expecting to be woken with the news that the Yugoslav president was accepting the NATO terms for a peace settlement and the parliament was rubber stamping the decision.
The feeling in Washington was that Milosevic would begin a process of bargaining for better terms hoping to divide the NATO allies, some of whom were finding it increasingly hard to support the bombing campaign after 70 days without a crack in the Serbian resistance.
In a phone call to the White House on Wednesday evening, Talbott had given Clinton's national security staff what has been described as "a decidedly neutral assessment of the state of diplomatic activity".
Ahtasaari woke in Belgrade to the news that Milosevic had agreed to the plan. At 7.30 am Washington time, (1.30 pm in Belgrade), Sandy Berger, Clinton's National Security Adviser called with the good news.
The news came just as President Clinton was being forced to consider that the air campaign would not be sufficient and that planning for a ground invasion force would have to begin. A meeting had already been arranged for that afternoon with the Joint Chiefs of Staff which would discuss such planning. A statement emphasising caution was drafted for the US president to make in the Rose Garden of the White House in the early afternoon. The first draft was said to be so cautious that it "sounded downright pessimistic", according to the Washington Post.
When Clinton went on air, it was to "welcome" the movement by Belgrade but, he noted, "based on past experience, we must also be cautious". It wasn't plain sailing in the Russian camp either. After the deal was struck, Chernomyrdin was pictured on Russian TV, assuring viewers that it did not diverge from Russia's previously stated position - "by a single comma".
But even as he spoke, a uniformed member of the military section of the Russian delegation in Belgrade was seen to shake his head emphatically.
Russia's military, particularly Gen Leonid Ivashov, who heads the army's foreign relations department, had made no bones about its opposition to NATO's campaign and about its reluctance to send soldiers to Kosovo to serve under NATO's command.
Although he officially denied a split in the Russian delegation to Belgrade, Gen Ivashov said the military side was not satisfied with what he described as the "imposed role of NATO" in the settlement. While the Russian military did make its presence felt on Thursday in Belgrade, mainly by leaking its dissatisfaction with the deal to reporters from ItarTass and the independent NTV channel, the deal was cleared by Boris Yeltsin.
That, at least, is Chernomyrdin's story. And for the moment, he's sticking to it.
Ahtisaari, a little dazed by his own success, flew back to a hero's welcome in Cologne and prepared for the next step in his peace mission, a trip to Beijing to persuade China's government to endorse the peace deal.
So why did Milosevic settle? Did he fear for his money? Apparently not. Weeks before the war started on March 24th, Borka Vucic, the ageing woman who is head of the Yugoslav Bankers' Association and Milosevic's personal banker, transferred the family's fortune from Cyprus via Lebanon to accounts in the Shanghai free zone.
So his loot was safe.
It appears that brute force - plus the threat of much more to come - and his own rapidly deteriorating position may have prompted him to end it.
"He decided he had no other choice," a senior editor says. "Either he would remain the boss in Serbia and lose Kosovo, or there would be a ground intervention and troops in Belgrade and he would be sent for trial in The Hague. He had 24 hours to think it over. He knew NATO was approaching the moment of decision on a ground offensive and that meant the occupation of the whole country and the end for him. He did what he always does; he took the worst decision in the worst conditions - much worse than a year ago or even Rambouillet."