If the German Chancellor is truthful in his statement that on August the 4th, when he spoke in the Reichstag and an hour later had his conversation with Goschen, he had “certain indications” that Belgium had forfeited its rights as an independent nation by hostile acts, then the German Chancellor took such a serious view of “Germany’s responsibilities” that, without any necessity or justification, he indicted his country at the bar of the whole world of a flagrant wrong. If he could not at that time justify the act of the German General Staff, he should at least have been silent, but, according to his incredible statement, although he had these “certain indications” and thus knew that Germany, in invading Belgium, was simply attacking an already hostile country, he deliberately explains, not only to his nation but to the whole world, that such invasion was a wrong and had no justification in international law. How can any reasonable man, whose eyes are not blinded with the passions of the hour, accept this explanation?
It is even more remarkable that immediately following the session of the Reichstag, when he had his interview with Goschen, the German Chancellor never suggested in his own defense or that of his country, that he had “certain indications,” which justified the action that day taken, although he then knew that, unless he could justify it, England would immediately join the already powerful foes of Germany.
The reader need only reread Goschen’s report of that interview (ante, p. [214]) to know how disingenuous this belated explanation is. With the whole world ringing with the infamous phrase, the German Chancellor, after five months of reflection, can only make this pitiful defense. Its acceptance subjects even the most credulous to a severe strain. It exhausts the limit of gullibility.
The defense wholly ignores the fact that the Chancellor had previously sought to bribe England to condone in advance the invasion of Belgium by Germany, and that Germany had also coerced Luxemburg into a passive acquiescence in a similar invasion, and there is as yet no pretense that Luxemburg had failed in its obligation of neutrality.
Should the judgment of the civilized world turn from the terrible fate of Belgium and consider the wrong that was done to Luxemburg, then the German Chancellor may, unless better advised, frame further maladroit excuses with reference to that country.
All these explanations, as senseless as they are false, and savoring more of the tone of a criminal court then that of an imperial chancellery, should shock those who admire historic Germany. They are unworthy of so great a nation. Bismarck would never have stooped to such pitiful and transparent deception. The blunt candor of Maximilian Harden, which we have already quoted on page [12], is infinitely preferable and the position of Germany at the bar of the civilized world will improve, when its maladroit Chancellor has the courage and the candor to say, as Harden did, that all this was done because Germany regarded it as for its vital interests and because “we willed it.”
Unless our boasted civilization is the thinnest veneering of barbarism; unless the law of the world is in fact only the ethics of the rifle and the conscience of the cannon; unless mankind, after uncounted centuries, has made no real advance in political morality beyond that of the cave dweller, then this answer of Germany cannot satisfy the “decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” It is the negation of all that civilization stands for.
Belgium has been crucified in the face of the world. Its innocence of any offense, until it was attacked, is too clear for argument. Its voluntary immolation to preserve its solemn guarantee of neutrality will “plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against the deep damnation of its taking off.”
It may be questioned whether, since the fall of Poland, Civilization has been stirred to more profound pity and intense indignation than by this wanton outrage. Pity, radiating to the utmost corners of the world by the “sightless couriers of the air,”