A scrap of paper

by Emile Joseph Dillon

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.