APPEAL TO THE CIVILISED WORLD
Now that we have reached the close of this book of horrors, let us impanel the 93 Germans of light and learning, and confront them with the words of their own manifesto:
"As representatives of German Science and Art, we the undersigned, declare that:—
"It is not true that Germany provoked this War….
"It is not true that we have criminally violated the neutrality of
Belgium….
"It is not true that our soldiers have made any attack on the life or property of a single Belgian citizen without being forced to it by sheer necessity….
"It is not true that our troops brutally destroyed Louvain….
"It is not true that we have conducted warfare in defiance of International Law. Our soldiers commit neither undisciplined acts nor cruelties….
" … In this struggle we shall continue to the end to act as a civilised nation, to whom the heritage of a Goethe, a Beethoven or a Kant is as sacred as our own hearth and home. We answer for that in our own name and on our honour."[31]
And since irony is more powerful than abuse, let us set down here, without a word of comment, a few German utterances:—