"I cannot understand," he continued, "why Germany has not been contented with her wonderful progress since the Battle of Waterloo. For the last half century she has been the centre of Europe; courted by many; feared by many; treated with deference by all. No country has had such a reign of prosperity and splendour, yet all the time she has been discontented; solicitous of admiration; careless of International Law; worshipping force and giving us all to understand that her triumphs in the past and her power in the present were little compared to what she sought in the future.
"And now the great collision has come, and it is well that the democratic nations of the world—the nations, I mean, where the peoples own the Government, and not the Government the people—should realise what is at stake. The French, English, and American systems of government by popular election and parliamentary debate with the kind of civilisation which flows from such institutions are brought into direct conflict with the highly efficient Imperialist bureaucracy and military organisation of Prussia. That is the issue. No partisanship is required to make it plain. No sophistry can obscure it."
I asked whether the democracy of the United States, apart from the moral issues involved, had any direct interests in the result of the war.
"You are the judges of that," replied the First Lord. "You do not require me to talk to you of your interests. If England were to be reduced in this war, or another which would be sure to follow from it if this war were inconclusive, to the position of a small country like Holland, then, however far across the salt water your country may lie, the burden which we are bearing now would fall on to your shoulders.
"I do not mean by that that Germany would attack you, or that if you were attacked you would need to fear the result so far as the United States was concerned. The Monroe Doctrine, however, carries you very far in South as well as North America; and is it likely that victorious German militarism, which would then have shattered France irretrievably, have conquered Belgium, and have broken for ever the power of England, would allow itself to be permanently cut off from all hopes of that oversea expansion and development with which South America alone can supply it?
"Now the impact is on us. Our blood which flows in your veins should lead you to expect that we shall be stubborn enough to bear that impact. But if we go down and are swept in ruin into the past, you are the next in the line.
"This war is for us a war of honour; of respect for obligations into which we have entered; and of loyalty towards friends in desperate need. But now that it has begun it has become a war of self-preservation. The British democracy, with its limited monarchy, its ancient Parliament, its ardent social and philanthropic dreams, is engaged for good or for ill in deadly grapple with the formidable might of Prussian autocratic rule. It is our system of civilisation and government against theirs. It is our life or theirs.
"We are conscious of the greatness of the times. We recognise the consequence and proportion of events. We feel that, however inadequate we may be, however unexpected the ordeal may be, we are under the eye of history, and, the issue being joined, England must go forward to the very end."
While I was speaking to Mr. Churchill a telegram came in from Belgium announcing the total destruction of the town of Louvain as an act of military execution. Handing it to me, he said: "What further proof is needed of the cause at issue? Tell that to your American fellow-countrymen. You know," he added, "I am half American myself."