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.