To the Princes and Peoples of my Indian Empire:
During the past few weeks the peoples of my whole Empire at home and overseas have moved with one mind and purpose to confront and overthrow an unparalleled assault upon the continuity of civilization and the peace of mankind.
The calamitous conflict is not of my seeking. My voice has been cast throughout on the side of peace. My Ministers earnestly strove to allay the causes of strife and to appease differences with which my Empire was not concerned.
Had I stood aside when in defiance of pledges to which my Kingdom was a party the soil of Belgium was violated, and her cities laid desolate, when the very life of the French nation was threatened with extinction, I should have sacrificed my honour and given to destruction the liberties of my Empire and of mankind. I rejoice that every part of the Empire is with me in this decision.
Paramount regard for treaty faith and the pledged word of rulers and peoples is the common heritage of England and of India.
Among the many incidents that have marked the unanimous uprising of the populations of my Empire in defence of its unity and integrity, nothing has moved me more than the passionate devotion to my Throne expressed both by my Indian subjects and by the Feudatory Princes and the Ruling Chiefs of India, and their prodigal offers of their lives and their resources in the cause of the Realm.
Their one-voiced demand to be foremost in the conflict has touched my heart, and has inspired to the highest issues the love and devotion which, as I well know, have ever linked my Indian subjects and myself.
I recall to mind India’s gracious message to the British nation of goodwill and fellowship, which greeted my return in February, 1912, after the solemn ceremony of my Coronation Durbar at Delhi, and I find in this hour of trial a full harvest and a noble fulfilment of the assurance given by you that the destinies of Great Britain and India are indissolubly linked.
The history of the Kaiser’s dealings with Belgium is but a single episode in the long series of lessons taught us by German militarism, with its two sets of weights and measures and its Asiatic maxims of foreign policy. The paramount interest of this incident is to be ascribed to the circumstance that it marks the central moment of the collision between Germany and Britain. It also struck a keynote of difference between the new Pan-Germanic code of morals and the old one still common to the remainder of the human race. Lastly, it opened the eyes of the purblind in this country and made them see at last.
Belgium and Luxemburg are neutral States, and all Europe is bound to respect their neutrality. But this obligation in the case of Prussia is made more sacred and more stringent still by the circumstance that she herself is one of the guarantors of that neutrality. Not only is she obliged to refrain from violating Belgian territory, but it is her duty to hinder, with force if necessary, a breach by other nations. This twofold obligation Germany set at naught, and then affected wonder at the surprise of her neighbours. “By necessity we have occupied Luxemburg, and perhaps have already entered Belgian territory,” the Chancellor said calmly. “This is an infraction of international law.... We are ... compelled to overrule the legitimate protest of the Luxemburg and Belgian Governments. We shall repair the wrong we are doing as soon as our military aims have been achieved.” Military aims annul treaties, military necessities know no law, and the slaughter of tens of thousands of peaceable citizens and the destruction of their mediæval monuments constitute a wrong which “we Germans shall repair as soon as our military aims are achieved.”
In such matter-of-fact way this German Bayard, as he once was called by his English admirers, undertakes, if he be allowed to break two promises, that he will make a third by way of compensation.
Not content with having brought six Powers into line against her destructive doctrines and savage practices, Germany would fain throw the blame for the war now on Great Britain, now on Russia. Here, again, it is the Imperial Chancellor who propounds the thesis. On September 12th he sent the following curious statement to the Danish Press Bureau for publication:—
The English Prime Minister, in his Guildhall speech, reserved to England the rôle of protector of the smaller and weaker States, and spoke about the neutrality of Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland as being exposed to danger from the side of Germany. It is true that we have broken Belgium’s neutrality because bitter necessity compelled us to do so, but we promised Belgium full indemnity and integrity if she would take account of this state of necessity. If so, she would not have suffered any damage, as, for example, Luxemburg. If England, as protector of the weaker States, had wished to spare Belgium infinite suffering she should have advised Belgium to accept our offer. England has not “protected” Belgium, so far as we know; I wonder, therefore, whether it can really be said that England is such a disinterested protector.
We knew perfectly well that the French plan of campaign involved a march through Belgium to attack the unprotected Rhineland. Does anyone believe England would have interfered to protect Belgian freedom against France?
We have firmly respected the neutrality of Holland and Switzerland; we have also avoided the slightest violation of the frontier of the Dutch province of Limburg.
It is strange that Mr. Asquith only mentioned the neutrality of Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland, but not that of the Scandinavian countries. He might have mentioned Switzerland with reference to France, but Holland and Belgium are situated close to England on the opposite side of the Channel, and that is why England is so concerned for the neutrality of these countries.
Why is Mr. Asquith silent about the Scandinavian countries? Perhaps because he knows that it does not enter our head to touch these countries’ neutrality; or would England possibly not consider Denmark’s neutrality as a noli me tangere for an advance in the Baltic or for Russia’s warlike operations?
Mr. Asquith wishes people to believe that England’s fight against us is a fight of freedom against might. The world is accustomed to this manner of expression. In the name of freedom England, with might and with the most recklessly egotistic policy, has founded her mighty Colonial Empire, in the name of freedom she has destroyed for a century the independence of the Boer Republics, in the name of freedom she now treats Egypt as an English colony and thereby violates international treaties and solemn promises, in the name of freedom one after another of the Malay States is losing its independence for England’s benefit, in the name of freedom she tries, by cutting German cables, to prevent the truth being spread in the world.
The English Prime Minister is mistaken. When England joined with Russia and Japan against Germany she, with a blindness unique in the history of the world, betrayed civilization and handed over to the German sword the care of freedom for European peoples and States.
The Germanistic conceptions of veracity and common honesty which this plea reveals makes one feel the new air that breathes over every department of the national cult—the air blowing from the borderland between the sphere of high scientific achievement and primeval barbarism. One is puzzled and amused by the solemn statement that if Germany has ridden rough shod over the rights of Belgium, she has committed no such breach of law against Holland, Denmark, and other small states. “We have firmly respected the neutrality of Holland and Switzerland.” It is as though an assassin should say: “True, I killed Brown, whose money I needed sorely. But at least give me credit for not having murdered Jones and Smith, who possess nothing that I could carry away at present, and whose goodwill was essential to the success of my stroke”!
The violation of Belgium’s neutrality was part of Germany’s plan of campaign against France. This fact was known long ago. It was implicitly confessed in the official answer given to Sir Edward Goschen’s question on the subject. Yet on Sunday, August 2nd, the German military Attaché in Brussels, in conversation with the Belgian War Minister, exclaimed: “I cannot, for the life of me, understand what you mean by mobilizing. Have you anything to fear? Is not your neutrality guaranteed?” It was, but only by a scrap of paper. For a few hours later the Belgian Government received the German ultimatum.[38] On the following day Germany had begun to “hack her way” through treaty rights and the laws of humanity. The document published by the Chancellor is the mirror of German moral teaching and practice.
The reply to it, issued by the British Press Bureau, with the authority of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, is worth reproducing:
“Does anyone believe,” asks the German Chancellor, “that England would have interfered to protect Belgian freedom against France?”
The answer is that she would unquestionably have done so. Sir Edward Grey, as recorded in the White Paper, asked the French Government “whether it was prepared to engage to respect the neutrality of Belgium so long as no other Power violates it.” The French Government replied that they were resolved to respect it. The assurance, it was added, had been given several times, and formed the subject of conversation between President Poincaré and the King of the Belgians.
The German Chancellor entirely ignores the fact that England took the same line about Belgian neutrality in 1870 that she has taken now. In 1870 Prince Bismarck, when approached by England on the subject, admitted and respected the treaty obligations in relation to Belgium. The British Government stands in 1914 as it stood in 1870; it is Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg who refused to meet us in 1914 as Prince Bismarck met us in 1870.