Yours faithfully,
Cecil Spring Rice.
The Editor
Collier's Weekly,
New York.
AMBASSADE
DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE
AUX ÉTATS-UNIS
Washington, le July 10, 1916.
Dear Sir:
I had not failed to forward to my Government your request for a statement concerning the war on the occasion of its impending second anniversary.
I am instructed to convey to you, in answer, the expression of the Prime Minister's regret at his inability to comply with the wish of a review so honorably known as Collier's Weekly. The case of France is so plain that it is not felt there can be need for explanations, much less for pleadings; and it is enough to refer to public documents.
They show how that war, which France had done her utmost to prevent, was declared on her by the Germans on the 3rd of August, 1914, for such frivolous motives as a shelling by her aeros of places as distant as Nurenberg: an imaginary deed of which she never dreamt, which she has never been able to duplicate, and which an inspection of the local newspapers has proved to have passed unmentioned by them and unnoticed by the inhabitants. As she was considered a prey to be dealt with at once and at all cost, the invasion of her territory was effected through Belgium, and that invasion, entailing on the Belgian and French populations untold misery, still continues.
It still continues; not for very long, a day will soon dawn which will be the day of Justice.
I have the honor to be, dear Sir,