Immediately the German newspapers invented stories of French troops disentraining in Belgium from the 30th July, 1914, and of French officers teaching us how to handle Krupp guns!—of French airmen flying over Belgium, of French and Belgian soldiers attacking the Landwehr at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 2nd August, 1914. These pitiful accusations were demolished by M. Waxweiler in La Belge Neutre et Loyale. We will content ourselves with remarking that all these infractions of neutrality are anterior to the 4th of August. If they had really been committed the innumerable spies scattered about Belgium would have warned the German Minister in Brussels, who would have telegraphed to the Chancellor, and the latter would have taken good care to make them the basis of a serious complaint against Belgium in his speech to the Reichstag. What weight would not these revelations have lent to his arguments? If he did not do thus it was because he was not informed, and if he was not informed it was because the facts were non-existent. They were invented—very clumsily, moreover—after the event.
If now we cast a glance at the tales which the Germans have imagined to extenuate their crime against justice, we shall say, with a certain professor of Utrecht (K.Z., 4th November, first morning edition), that one might with difficulty have pardoned the German rulers for violating Belgian neutrality if it had been proved that imperious strategic necessities compelled them to it, but that they should have stuck to their original declarations, "for," he adds, "we have been painfully impressed by all the offences which have been alleged after the event to demonstrate that Germany had the right to act as she did."
To insult and calumniate an innocent person in order to excuse oneself is an attitude little worthy of a self-respecting nation.
A Change of Tactics. The Revelations of the N.A.Z.
Week by week the German journals add an item to the indictment of Belgium. One would say that their method of reasoning must be as follows: "Since we cannot bring forward a single convincing proof, let us accumulate as many as possible of any degree of value; we shall end by crushing Belgium with the weight of evidence." In order that we might judge of the efficacy of this procedure, Germany ought, of course, to tell us how many bad arguments are to her thinking worth one good one.
Yet it was extremely important that Germany should be able to bring forward proof of the crime of Belgium; for directly the neutrals, and in particular America, began to doubt our political honesty they would withdraw their sympathies and leave our executioners full liberty of action. At the same time Germany would be able to pretend that she knew of Belgium's intrigues, and that by invading our territory in spite of treaties she was not, properly speaking, committing a treacherous act.
There are reasons for supposing that Germany herself was conscious of the insufficiency of these accusations. Hence the change of tactics which we observe after the month of October 1914.
The Government itself entered into the lists. In its official organ, the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, it commented upon the documents discovered in the Ministries of Brussels.
To judge of the relevance of this collection of documents we must keep in mind the two following points: (1) That England played the part of protector of Belgian neutrality; (2) the probability of a German invasion in case of war between France and Germany. Let us rapidly examine these.