Disconcerting fecundity of Kultur! The Germans have reason to be proud of their chemical industry. Thanks to a special fertilizer prepared in the offices of Wilhelmstrasse, the famous phrase, which occurs only once in the original document, is promptly multiplied and is able to appear twice over.
The Attitude of the Belgians toward the German Falsifications.
Note that to give more weight to their explanations the Germans were careful to have them printed in Flemish and in French, on the paper and with the type habitually employed by the Moniteur belge. It is then, in the last resort, the Belgian public which has paid the cost of printing this falsification of a public document. Well, well! they have mistaken our psychology, for despite these "revelations" our conviction is unshaken. Not a Belgian has criticized the actions of his Government in respect of the defensive agreement with England. It would be like blaming a man whose house was destroyed by fire for having insured it with a reliable insurance company.
Confronted by the failure of their endeavours to discourage the Belgians and to embroil them with their legitimate Government, Germany returned to the charge. A placard dated 10th March, 1915, posted in Brussels, stated that the Belgian statesmen replied to the publication of the Ducarne and Jungbluth reports only after the lapse of three months. The placard evidently alludes to the Belgian Note of the 13th January, 1915 (see the 2nd Grey Book, No. 101). Now the first sentence of this Note states that the Belgians had already replied on the 4th December, 1914. Germany could not have been unaware of this reply; let us add that we ourselves knew of it on the 10th December, thanks to the issue for the 7th of L'Indépendance Belge (appearing in London), which was smuggled into Brussels.
The third document contained in the pamphlet of the German Government related to the military geographical manuals.[9] It shows that a final collaboration (after the violation of her engagements by Germany) was carefully devised by the British and Belgian staffs. Truly it ill becomes the Germans, so proud of the introduction of their scientific method into the art of war, which leaves nothing unthought of, to reproach others for acting in the same way, and for making meticulous preparations at an opportune time! In two places the article insists on the fact that the preparations of these manuals was effected in "time of peace." But come! should the Belgians and the British have waited until the Germans were in Belgium before thinking of measures of defence?
Finally, the pamphlet contains Fresh and Serious Proofs demonstrating the complicity of Belgium and England. Documents were found on the escritoire of the British Legation in Brussels relating to the Belgian mobilization, the defence of Antwerp, and the French mobilization. The accusation is this: these documents were found in the British Legation, a proof that the Belgian Government had no military secrets from the British Government, and that they had a close military understanding.
Once again: was Belgium, aware of the Germanic peril, to deliver herself bound hand and foot to the invader, who, not content with forgetting his international obligations, was about to run precisely counter to them? It would evidently have been more agreeable to Germany to have found in Belgium a lamb all ready to allow itself to be sacrificed on the altar of Kultur. Unhappily for Kultur, Belgium behaved like an enraged ram, determined to sell its life dearly.
Whatever aspect of the question of Belgian neutrality we may consider, we always come back to this fact: Germany violated this neutrality on the 4th August, although Belgium had given her no plausible excuse for doing so. Since then the Germans have undertaken a campaign for the purpose of justifying their "injustice," as their Chancellor termed it. But none of the accusations invented after the event can in the slightest degree extenuate this injustice; their only effect has been to render still more execrable the treachery of the perjured protector.