Chapter III: Treitschke and the Professors 230 (3)

How these shots--heard alas! farther and more disastrously than that of Emerson’s embattled farmers!--came to be fired is a plain story often told, and never disputed or disputable. It will be sufficient to recall the main features of it. On the 28th of June the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Emperor Francis Joseph, and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of the province of Bosnia, annexed to Austria-Hungary in 1909. Any reader of the English or French papers of that time will remember the sincere and universal sympathy expressed for the old unhappy Emperor, and his ill-starred realm and family. It was a crime that awakened horror throughout Europe. The annexation had been cynical, but crime is no cure for crime. In general character and consequences there is an historic act which presents remarkable resemblances to the Sarajevo outrage, I mean the Phœnix Park murders. In each case irresponsible men stained a good cause, and in each case an attempt was made to indict a nation. The assassins were arrested, Prinzip who had fired the fatal pistol-shots, and Cabinovitch who had thrown bombs. They were in the hands of the law, and exemplary justice might reasonably be expected. The seething pot of Balkan politics, said the average man in these countries, had boiled up once more in noxious scum. It was another tragic episode. And so people in the Entente countries turned back to their own troubles. How acute these troubles were we are now in danger of forgetting, but we have learned enough since then of the German political psychologist and his ways to conclude that they were a prime factor in subsequent decisions. The threat of civil war in “Ulster,” an unprecedented crisis in the Army, gun-running, arming and drilling public and secret, a woman suffrage and a labour movement, both so far gone in violence as to be on the immediate edge of anarchy, left the Government of these countries little leisure for the politics of the Near East. France was in serious difficulties as regards her public finance, violent fiscal controversies were impending, the Caillaux trial threatened to rival that of Dreyfus in releasing savage passions, the military unpreparedness of the country was notorious. Russia naturally stood far closer to Serbia, but labour riots in Petrograd, a revival of revolutionary activity, and widespread menace of internal disturbance seemed hopelessly to cripple her. Nothing could have been more remote from the desire of any of the Entente nations than a European war springing out of Sarajevo.

But there were other forces at work in the sinister drama. On the very morrow of the assassinations the Austro-Hungarian Press opened what Professor Denis well calls a systematic “expectoration of hatred” against Serbia--Prinzip and Cabinovitch were both Austrian, not Serbian subjects. The Serbian Government pressed the formal courtesy of grief so far as to postpone the national fêtes arranged in celebration of the battle of Kosovo. They had already warned the Austrian police of the Anarchist Associations of Cabinovitch, and now offered their help in bringing to justice any accomplices who might be traced within their jurisdiction. All this was of no avail. The Austro-Hungarian Red Book is not always discreet in its selections. Thus an incriminating passage from the _Pravda_ runs (3rd July, 1914)--

“The Policy of Vienna is a cynical one. It exploits the death of the unfortunate couple for its abominable aims against the Serbian people.”

The _Militärische Rundschau_ demanded war (15th July)--

“At this moment the initiative rests with us: Russia is not ready, moral factors and right are on our side as well as might.”

The _Neue Freie Presse_ demands “war to the knife, and in the name of humanity the extermination of the cursed Serbian race.”

The furious indictment of the whole Serbian nation continued in the Press of Vienna and Budapest, and found echoes even in that of these countries. The task was easy, for the ill repute, clinging to Serbian politicians since the murder of King Alexander and Queen Draga, had not been wholly banished by her later heroic deeds.

These journalistic outbursts and the protests of the Serbian Press, although unnoticed by the outside world, attracted, as was natural, the attention of diplomatists. But an interchange of barbed epithets across the Danube was no new thing, and the Austrian Foreign Office assumed an attitude of reassurance which deceived even Russia, and lulled the other Entente Powers into complete security (Serbian Book, No. 6, No. 12, No. 17). We now know that there were other observers less misled, such as M. D’Apchier le Mangin, who noted the massing of guns and munitions on the Serbian frontier as early as the 11th of July, and M. Jules Cambon, who had convinced himself by the 21st of July that Germany had set in train the preliminaries to mobilisation. But nothing open or public (for the police proceedings against the assassins had been held _in camera_) had prepared the way for the Austrian _coup_. It was an amazed Europe that learned the terms of the Note presented at Belgrade by the Austrian Ambassador on the 23rd of July. There were no illusions as to its meaning and implications, for none were possible. Newspapers so little akin as the _Morning Post_ and M. Clemenceau’s _L’Homme Libre_ characterised it in the same phrase: it was a summons to Serbia to abdicate her sovereignty and independence, and to exist henceforth as a vassal-state of the Dual Empire. This document is the Devil’s Cauldron from which have sprung all the horrors of the present war. As to its extravagant character and probable consequences, opinion is unanimous, even unofficial German opinion. The Berlin _Vorwärts_ writes (25th July)--

“From whatever point of view one considers the situation, a European War is at our gates. And why? Because the Austrian Government and the Austrian War Party are determined to clear, by a _coup de main_, a place in which they can fill their lungs.”

In the Foreign Offices the same language was used. Sir Edward Grey said to the Austrian Ambassador that he “had never before seen one State address to another independent State a document of so formidable a character.” The reader can very easily verify for himself this impression by reference to the _Diplomatic Correspondence_. To such a document Serbia was given forty-eight hours to reply. As M. Denis points out, Prinzip, the assassin, taken in the act, was allowed three months to prepare his defence, for he was not brought to trial until October: the Serbian nation, exhausted by two wars, was allowed two days in which to decide between a surrender of its independence and an immediate invasion. Almost “to the scandal of Europe,” a reply was delivered within the time. The Austrian representative received it at Belgrade, and in half-an-hour had demanded his passports; fifteen minutes later he was on board the train. The _will to war_ of the Germanic Powers find many cynical and dramatic expressions in the interchanges between the Chancelleries, but none so nude of all decency as this.

In these two days M. Pashich, in his passionate anxiety for peace, had agreed to terms more humiliating than have often been dictated after a victorious war. The Austrian Note had opened with a long indictment of the Serbian nation. Complicity in the crime of Sarajevo was assumed without any tittle of evidence, however vague or feeble, then or since produced. Nevertheless the Serbian Prime Minister bowed to the storm. His surrender was so complete that it deserves to be read textually. These are, in skeleton, the main features (British Blue Book, No. 39).

The Serbian Government, having protested their entire loyalty past and present to their engagements, both of treaty and of neighbourliness towards Austria-Hungary, nevertheless “undertake to cause to be published on the first page of the _Journal Officiel_, on the date of the 13th (26th) of July, the following declaration--

‘The Royal Government of Serbia condemn all propaganda which may be directed against Austria-Hungary, that is to say, all such tendencies as aim at ultimately detaching from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy territories which form part thereof, and they sincerely deplore the baneful consequences of these criminal movements. The Royal Government regret that, according to the communication from the Imperial and Royal Government, certain Serbian officers and officials should have taken part in the above-mentioned propaganda, and thus compromised the good neighbourly relations to which the Royal Serbian Government was solemnly engaged by the declaration of the 31st of March, 1909, which declaration disapproves and repudiates all idea or attempt at interference with the destiny of the inhabitants of any part whatsoever of Austria-Hungary, and they consider it their duty formally to warn the officers, officials and entire population of the kingdom that henceforth they will take the most rigorous steps against all such persons as are guilty of such acts, to prevent and to repress Which they Will use their utmost endeavour.’

“This declaration will be brought to the knowledge of the Royal Army in an order of the day, in the name of His Majesty the King, by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince Alexander, and will be published in the next official army bulletin.”

The Serbian Government further undertakes--

1. To introduce severe Press laws against any anti-Austrian propaganda, and to amend the constitution so as to give more vigorous effect to these laws.

2. To dissolve the “Narodna Odbrana,” although none of its members have been proved to have committed criminal acts, and “every other society which may be directing its efforts against Austria-Hungary.”

3. To _remove without delay from their public educational establishments in Serbia all that serves or could serve to foment propaganda against Austria-Hungary_. (I print this in italics that the shades of the sins of the National Board may find comfort and be appeased.)

4. To remove from the Army all persons proved guilty of acts directed against Austria-Hungary.

5. “The Royal Government must confess that they do not clearly grasp the meaning or the scope of the demand made by the Imperial and Royal Government that Serbia shall undertake to accept the collaboration of the organs of the Imperial and Royal Government upon their territory, but they declare that they will admit such collaboration as agrees with the principle of international law, With criminal procedure, and with good neighbourly relations.

6. “It goes without saying that the Royal Government consider it their duty to open an enquiry against all such persons as are, or eventually may be, implicated in the plot of the 15th of June, and who happen to be within the territory of the kingdom. As regards the participation in this enquiry of Austro-Hungarian agents or authorities appointed for this purpose by the Imperial and Royal Government, the Royal Government cannot accept such an arrangement, as it would be a violation of the Constitution and of the law of criminal procedure; nevertheless, in concrete cases communications as to the results of the investigation in question might be given to the Austro-Hungarian agents.”

7. To arrest any incriminated persons.

8. To reinforce and extend the measures against illicit traffic of arms and explosives across the frontier, and to punish severely any official who has failed in his duty.

9. To deal with any anti-Austrian utterances of Serbian officials.

10. To keep the Austro-Hungarian Government informed of the carrying out of these engagements.

Then follows the offer which confirms the good faith of Serbia, and which damns the Central Empires before the Judgment of History.

“If the Imperial and Royal Government are not satisfied with this reply, the Serbian Government, considering that it is not to the common interest to precipitate the solution of this question, are ready, as always to accept a pacific understanding, either by referring this question to the decision of the International Tribunal of The Hague, or to the Great Powers which took part in the drawing up of the declaration made by the Serbian Government on the 18th (31st) of March, 1909.”

Of the ten points of the Austrian Note eight are conceded under conditions of unparalleled humiliation. No diplomatic triumph could be more complete. Serbia yields, well knowing that her immediate past is a good deal fly-blown and that nobody in Western Europe has the least intention of dying for her _beaux yeux_. But paragraphs 5 and 6, demanding the association of Austrian officials in judicial enquiries to be held within the territory and under the jurisdiction of the Serbian Government, aim at more than humiliation; they demand that Serbia shall abdicate her own independent sovereignty. M. Pashich rejects them, but in a mode that will remain as the final condemnation before history of the Germanic Powers.

M. Sazonof went to the root of the matter at once in a conversation with the Austrian representative in Petrograd. This is the Austrian version (24th July)--

“The participation of Imperial and Royal (Austrian) officials in the suppression of the revolutionary movements elicited further protest on the part of the minister. Serbia then will no longer be master in her own house. You will always be wanting to interfere again, and what a life you will lead Europe.”

“_Serbia would no longer be master in her own house._” There was the key to Austrian ambitions. The independence of Serbia was to be violated, her territory was to admit foreign officials, and gradually a small nation was to disappear into the patchwork-quilt possessions of the _Dual Monarchy_. There you have the sinister House of the Hapsburgs exposed in the very act of pressing the button, and releasing the current which has shattered the fabric of Europe.

Swaddle and disguise it as you will in words, there is the seed of origin of the European War. There is no plainer transaction in history: the clock has a crystal face that allow us to see all the works. You may, if you will, call up a mist of eloquence and people it with ghosts, the ghosts of wicked things done by English in Ireland and India, Russians in Finland, French in Morocco, Italians in Tripoli, Belgians in the Congo, and Serbians all the way back to Kosovo. You may write at length of the inherent perils of the “European system,” the expansion of races, the discharge of long accumulating thunder-clouds, of _Hauptströmungen_, of iron laws of destiny, and all the rest of the lurid, deterministic farrago of sham omniscience which forms the stock-in-trade of the German savant. You may point out that there is a sense in which all previous history is behind even the least important event in history, and that the Austrian ultimatum did but set a match to a long-laid train. Much of what you say will be true, and much will also be horrible. But nothing can alter the fact that this war originated in the attempt of a great Empire to exploit legitimate anger against crime in order to destroy the independence of a small State; that the small State, having accepted every other humiliation, offered to submit in this to the judgment of either of the recognised international tribunals, and that the great Empire refused.

The one theory, the only one, that explains the Austrian attitude, namely, that the Germanic Powers willed war, explains also the remainder of the _ante-bellum_ interchanges. From the first no illusion was possible as to what was at stake. M. Sazonof on behalf of Russia allowed none to arise. He pointed out with that brevity and frankness which will be found in this affair to characterise the whole course of Russian diplomacy that any invasion of the sovereign rights of Serbia must disturb the equilibrium of the Balkans and with it the equilibrium of all Europe, and that if it came to war it would be impossible to localise it. M. Sazonof, indeed, never fails in these transactions to hit on the right idea, and the right phrase. Serbia, he said to Count Szapary in words that can scarce miss moving an Irish Nationalist, would, if the Austrian demands were conceded, “no longer be master in her own house. ‘You will always be wanting to intervene again, and what a life you will lead Europe’” (Austrian Red Book, No. 14). He “had been disagreeably affected by the circumstance that Austria-Hungary had offered a dossier for investigation when an ultimatum had already been presented.” What Russia could not accept with indifference was the eventual intention of the Dual Monarchy “_de dévorer la Serbie_” (_Ibid._, No. 16). In all her reasonable demands he promised to support Austria-Hungary. So did France; so did Great Britain. All three of them counselled, that is to say as things stood, directed, Serbia, if she desired their countenance, to give every satisfaction consistent with her sovereign rights. It is precisely on this unallowable violation that Austria-Hungary insists. As for Germany, there is not one hint in all the diplomatic documents of any mediation at Vienna in the direction of a peaceful solution. “The bolt once fired,” said Baron Schoen at Paris, Germany had nothing to do except support her Ally, and support her in demands however impossible.

The will to war of the Germanies thus made manifest explains, and alone explains the rest of the sorry business. The earnest, constant, and even passionate efforts of the British and French Governments to find a formula for the assembling of a conference of the Powers were rebuffed at every turn. Sir Edward Grey persisted in his conciliatory course till the last moment. He refused to proclaim the solidarity of the United Kingdom in any and all circumstances with France and Russia, although earnestly urged by both to do so.

He risked the very existence of the Entente by showing himself ready in the interests of peace to consent to what Russia must have regarded as an almost intolerable humiliation. So late as the 29th of July he writes of a conversation with the German Ambassador: “In a short time, I supposed, the Austrian forces would be in Belgrade and in occupation of some Serbian territory. But even then it might be possible to bring some mediation into existence, if Austria, while saying that she must hold the occupied territory until she had complete satisfaction from Serbia, stated that she would not advance further, pending an effort of the Powers to mediate between her and Russia” (Blue Book, No. 88). At the same time, six days before the Anglo-German breach, he gave the Ambassador a very definite warning which is in itself sufficient to repel the charge, since made in some quarters in Ireland and America, that he designed by his ambiguous attitude to “lure” Germany on and then “crush” her. That such a charge, whether made honestly or not, is in formal contradiction with the facts is evident--

“The situation was very grave. While it was restricted to the issues at present actually involved, we had no thought of interfering in it. But if Germany became involved in it, and then France, the issue might be so great that it would involve all European interests; and I did not wish him to be misled by the friendly tone of our conversation--which I hoped would continue--into thinking that we should stand aside.

“I hoped that the friendly tone of our conversations would continue as at present, and that I should be able to keep as closely in touch with the German Government in working for peace. But if we failed in our efforts to keep the peace, and if the issue spread so that it involved practically every European interest, I did not wish to be open to any reproach from him that the friendly tone of all our conversations had misled him or his Government into supposing that we should not take action, and to the reproach that, if they had not been so misled, the course of things might have been different.

“The German Ambassador took no exception to what I had said; indeed, he told me that it accorded with what he had already given in Berlin as his view of the situation.”

The appeal from force to law, from killing to reason--that substitution of the better new way for the bad old way which had for so long been the goal of democracy in international affairs--was rejected by the Germanies. Neither to the International Tribunal of the Hague, so proposed by Serbia, nor to a conference of the Great Powers, but to the sinister logic of Krupp and Zeppelin did the Central Empires resort for a settlement.

All the accumulated hatred of European history were let loose to fill the world with tumult and rapine. It is true that if you trace these hatreds back to their sources you will find no immaculate nations. True also that they were perilous stuff of which the European system had not purged itself. But the unchallengeable fact remains that while democracy was seeking a solution in terms of peace, “the old German God” forced it in terms of war. Nothing can ever displace or disguise the plain historical record which exhibits as the origin of our Armageddon the intransigent determination of the great Empire of Austria-Hungary to violate the sovereign rights of the small nation of Serbia.

III.--THE CRIME AGAINST BELGIUM

The case of Belgium is marked by the tremendous simplicity which characterises almost everything in human affairs that can be called really great. The choice put to her was a choice between right and wrong, so naked and clear, so stripped of all ambiguities, all subintents and saving-clauses as to resemble rather a battle between spiritual principles than a concrete situation in contemporary politics. And, further, Belgium was and till the end of time remains the touchstone of German _Kultur_. For generations the masters of Prussia had been elaborating a coherent doctrine of domination to be attained through scientific brutality. It is one of the sins of democracy to have thrust that doctrine out of its thoughts, whenever it so much as heard of it, as being too bad to be true, for the foul thing was meant down to its worst word. All the world knows now that although Prussia is not to be believed when she promises fidelity, she is most thoroughly to be believed when she threatens murder; it was assigned to Belgium that in her blood this discovery should be proclaimed, not to be forgotten while men live.

Belgium is the test by which every issue in this war stands or falls. The late Judge Adams used to relate how he once set up for a horse-stealer a complicated and eloquent defence ranging from the French Revolution to the Irish Land System. The Judge listened patiently to the last word of the ringing peroration, and then observed: “Very good, Mr. Adams, very good! But tell me now: Why did your client steal the horse?” In the same way you will hear your Prussian or pro-Prussian rambling on about the Slav menace to German “culture,” about the secret designs of France, and the robber Empire of Great Britain. To get to the heart of this question you have only to say: “Very fine, no doubt. Something in it, perhaps! But tell us now, why did your German friend break his solemn guarantee, and violate the frontier of neutral independent Belgium?” That trivial arrow is enough to bring to earth the Zeppelin of his _Welt-Politik_, with its whole cargo of metaphysics.

There was no illusion to cloud the minds of King Albert or his Government. The King knew his Kaiser; he had already been menaced by him, and his Chief of Staff von Moltke, in an interview reported by M. Jules Cambon nine months before the war (French Yellow Book, No. 6). He had had every opportunity afforded him of studying the gospel according to Krupp. He knew that, when the ultimatum was delivered at Brussels, the German Army of the Lower Rhine was already massed and was marching on Liége, and that no help could possibly reach him from France or England before the 42 cm.’s had ample time to batter his eastern defences to pieces. He knew also how inadequate were his own military resources; a scheme of reorganisation that would have enabled Belgium to put in the field an army of defence of a million men had indeed been formulated, but was not yet in operation. Every German and pro-German influence in the country was invoked to induce him to break his treaty obligations, and stand aside. The Social Democrats publicly and shamelessly appealed to their Belgian “comrades” to rise superior to “that bourgeois idea, honour.” But the King and his Government held fast.

The position of Belgium was as clear as it was terrible. One sometimes hears ill-informed people speak as if the neutrality of that country had been a matter of its own choice, from which it could depart by a new act of choice. This, of course, was not the case. Neutrality was imposed on Belgium, as the price and the correlative of guaranteed independence, by the five Powers whose signatures will be found appended to the treaties of 1831 and 1839. Situated at the cross-roads of Europe, Belgium had by the deliberate policy of Europe been established as a buffer-state, a buffer by land between France and Germany, and by sea between England and the heart of the Continent. Her neutrality was not a commodity to bargain with, but a fundamental condition of her independence; it was her formal duty to preserve it, or at least attempt to preserve it, by force of arms against any invasion. Should any of the guarantors assail it the others were bound to come to its defence. It has been suggested that both France and Great Britain were very ill-prepared to fulfil this obligation; German writers have, indeed, tauntingly gloated over the fact, for it is a fact. The bad faith of Germany was so long evident--her very army manœuvres having been, in fact, based on the hypothesis of a rapid invasion of Belgium--that defensive measures were plainly called for. But two points must be remembered. For one thing, the moral question remains unaltered. You do not justify a murderer by saying that the police ought to have been there to prevent him committing the crime. For another, any new defensive organisation adopted would certainly have been represented by Germany as a clear proof of intended aggression, and would in all likelihood have precipitated the outbreak.

It is necessary to bear all these circumstances in mind in order to appreciate at its full worth the heroic decision of Belgium. Deliberately, with the courage not of hot blood but of conscience and honour, she lost the world in order to gain her own soul. In the treachery of Germany there was lacking not even one episodical baseness. Her representatives lied up to the last moment. Two hours before he presented his ultimatum the German Minister at Brussels issued a message of reassurance through the columns of _Le Soir_; well do I remember how avidly the citizens of Brussels not so much bought as tore out of the hands of the newsboys that issue of the 2nd of August with Herr von Below Saleske’s message, and the sigh of relief that followed the reading of it. He employed an image the sinister fitness of which we did not then suspect.

“I have not done so, and personally I do not see any reason why I should have done so, seeing that it was superfluous. The view has always been accepted by us that the neutrality of Belgium will not be violated. If the French Minister had made a formal declaration to that effect it is doubtless because he wished to reinforce obvious fact by some words of reassurance. _The German troops will not march over Belgian territory. We are on the eve of grave events. Perhaps you will see your neighbor’s house on fire, but the flames will spare yours._”

The vision of burning towns has come to have a sinister fitness.

We know now that already, on the 31st of July, Germany had declined to give any undertaking to respect Belgian neutrality because any reply to the British demand made in that sense “could not but disclose a certain amount of their plan of campaign in the event of war ensuing.” There is no more illuminating phrase in the whole body of correspondence. The violation, it thus plainly appears, was no improvisation under stress of circumstances; on the contrary, it had long since been assumed as a postulate by the German General Staff in the drafting of their war-plan. The declaration of war by a guaranteering Great Power on a guaranteed small nation is a thing so infrequent, it is such a salient in the long line of iniquity, that it must once again be quoted in full. Any guardian in private life who finds himself reluctantly compelled in the interests of a higher morality to murder his ward, any trustee obliged by _Notwehr_ to steal the trust-property, may well enrol it among his forms and precedents. It was delivered at Brussels at seven o’clock on the evening of the 2nd of August. It is worth noting that it was drawn up in German, by way of compliment, no doubt, to the “Teutonic kinship” of Belgium--

“(Very confidential.)

“Reliable information has been received by the German Government to the effect that French forces intend to march on the line of the Meuse by Givet and Namur. This information leaves no doubt as to the intention of France to march through Belgian territory against Germany.

“The German Government cannot but fear that Belgium, in spite of the utmost goodwill, will be unable without assistance to repel so considerable a French invasion with sufficient prospect of success to afford an adequate guarantee against danger to Germany. It is essential for the self-defence of Germany that she should anticipate any such hostile attack. The German Government would, however, feel the deepest regret if Belgium regarded as an act of hostility against herself the fact that the measures of Germany’s opponents force Germany, for her own protection, to enter Belgian territory.

“In order to exclude any possibility of misunderstanding, the German Government make the following declaration--

“1. Germany has in view no act of hostility against Belgium. In the event of Belgium being prepared in the coming war to maintain an attitude of friendly neutrality towards Germany, the German Government bind themselves, at the conclusion of peace, to guarantee the possessions and independence of the Belgian Kingdom in full.

“2. Germany undertakes, under the above-mentioned condition, to evacuate Belgian territory on the conclusion of peace.

“3. If Belgium adopts a friendly attitude, Germany is prepared, in co-operation with the Belgian authorities, to purchase all necessaries for her troops against a cash payment, and to pay an indemnity for any damage that may have been caused by German troops.

“4. Should Belgium oppose the German troops, and in particular should she throw difficulties in the way of their march by a resistance of the fortresses on the Meuse, or by destroying railways, roads, tunnels, or other similar works, Germany will, to her regret, be compelled to consider Belgium as an enemy.

“In this event, Germany can undertake no obligations towards Belgium, but the eventual adjustment of the relations between the two States must be left to the decision of arms.

“The German Government, however, entertain the distinct hope that this eventuality will not occur, and that the Belgian Government will know how to take the necessary measures to prevent the occurrence of incidents such as those mentioned. In this case the friendly ties which bind the two neighbouring States will grow stronger and more enduring.”

I beg the reader to notice carefully the nature of the “evidence” against France set forth in the first paragraph. The Belgian Army is weaker than that of France, _therefore_ France is going to invade Belgium. Since the time of the grave-digger in _Hamlet_ there was never such logic as this. All Prussian “culture” is in the document: the coarse offer of ready cash, the clumsy lie, the empty promise, and the mailed fist.

King Albert called his Ministers together, and at seven o’clock the following morning great “little Belgium” handed this proud reply to the unmoral Goliath. [I omit the formal first paragraph.]--

“This notification has profoundly and painfully astonished the King’s Government.

“The intentions which she attributes to France are in contradiction to the formal declarations made to us under date of the 1st of August in the name of the Government of the Republic.

“_Moreover, if, contrary to our expectation, the country’s neutrality should be violated by France, Belgium would fulfil its international duties and her army would oppose a most vigorous resistance to the invader._

“The treaties of 1839, confirmed by the treaties of 1870, perpetuate Belgium’s independence and neutrality under the guarantee of the Powers, and especially under the guarantee of the Government of His Majesty the King of Prussia.

“Belgium has always faithfully observed her international obligations; she has fulfilled her duties in a spirit of loyal impartiality; she has neglected no opportunity to maintain her neutrality and to cause it to be respected by others.

“The attack upon her independence with which Germany menaces her is a flagrant violation of the law of Nations.

“No strategic interest can justify the violation of that right.

“The Belgian Government, by accepting the propositions mentioned, would sacrifice its national honour and betray at the same time its duty towards Europe.

“Conscious of the rôle which Belgium has played for more than eighty years in the civilised world, it refuses to believe that its independence can only be preserved at the price of a violation of its neutrality.

“If the Belgian Government be disappointed in its expectations, it is resolved to repulse by every means in its power any attack upon its rights.”

Of these documents we in Brussels were at the time, of course, wholly ignorant. But on Tuesday, August 4th, we became aware that some terrible darkness had come upon the sun. There was galloping and the glitter of swords and lances in the streets; the King was on his way to take counsel with a specially summoned session of his Parliament. In a little while the newsboys were crying the papers madly through the streets; we tore them from their hands, and the smudged print blazed into our souls that speech with which Albert rose to take his place among the heroes of European freedom. I make no apology for printing here every word of it. It is the case of Belgium, the case of the Allies, and the case of civilisation.

“Never, since 1830, has a more serious hour struck for Belgium: the integrity of our territory is threatened!

“The very strength of our right, the sympathy which Belgium, proud of her free institutions and of her moral conquests, has uninterruptedly enjoyed at the hands of other nations, the necessity of her autonomous existence for the equilibrium of Europe, still make us hope that the threatening events will not take place.

“However, if our expectations be deceived, if we are obliged to resist the invaders of our soil and to defend our menaced homes, this duty, however hard, will find us armed and prepared for the greatest sacrifices.

“Already our gallant youth, in anticipation of every eventuality, is ready, firmly resolved, with the traditional tenacity and coolness of the Belgians, to defend the endangered country.

“In the name of the nation, I fraternally salute the army. Everywhere, Flemings and Walloons, in the cities and in the country, one sole sentiment binds our hearts: Patriotism; one sole vision fills our spirits: our endangered independence; one sole duty imposes itself upon us: a stubborn resistance.

“Under these circumstances two virtues are indispensable: a cool courage, but a strong courage, and a close union of all the Belgian people.

“Both of these virtues have already been demonstrated brilliantly under the eyes of the nation, filled with enthusiasm.

“The perfect mobilisation of our army, the number of voluntary enlistments, the devotion of the civil population, the self-denial of families, have shown, beyond dispute, the consoling bravery which animates the whole Belgian people.

“The time for action has come.

“I have assembled you, Gentlemen, in order to allow the Legislative Chambers to unite with the people in the same spirit of sacrifice.

“You will therefore immediately take measures necessary for war as well as for preservation of public order, under the present circumstances.

“When I look upon this enthusiastic assembly, an assembly in which there is but one party, the side of the Fatherland, where every heart beats in unison, my mind goes back to the Congress of 1830, and I ask you, Gentlemen, are you firmly resolved to maintain the sacred patrimony of your forefathers?

“None in this country but will do his duty.

“The army, strong and disciplined as it is, is equal to its task. My Government and myself have the utmost confidence in its leaders and its soldiers.

“Closely allied with the population, and supported by it, the Government is conscious of its responsibilities and will assume them to the very end with the deliberate conviction that the efforts of each and every one, if united in a spirit of most fervent patriotism, will safeguard the supreme welfare of the country.

“If the foreigner, trampling upon our neutrality, the duties of which we have always scrupulously observed, violates, the territory, he will find every Belgian around his Sovereign, who will never betray his Constitutional Oath, and around the Government invested with the supreme confidence of the entire nation.

“I have faith in our destiny: a country which defends itself cannot but gain the respect of everyone: that country cannot perish.

“German troops have occupied Luxemburg, and are perhaps even now trampling upon Belgian soil. This act is contrary to the law of Nations.”

The rumour ran through Brussels from end to end as with the swift vibrations that at such times shake the sensitive organism of all Latin cities. Nobody who was there will ever forget the torrential and swirling crowds before the Gare du Nord, the fierce cheers and the foreboding silence. The peace of eighty years was broken. Honour and the law of Europe had summoned Belgium into the red ways of war; she went singing and unafraid, but the vision of blood was not hidden from her or from us. As we stood on the café tables roaring “La Brabançonne” we knew that there was a midnight to traverse before the dawn. But we did not know that the upbuilding of three generations of human labour was to be broken by three months of scientific brutality. We did not know that Belgium was passing into her Gethsemane.

On the same day von Emmich had marched his columns across the Rubicon that divides honour from infamy. On the same day some hours later Sir Edward Grey had drawn the sword, and flung away the scabbard.

UNDER THE HEEL OF THE HUN

I.--A WORLD ADRIFT

_Brussels, August 5, 1914._

All Europe is a study in strain. The unexpected swing of events has brought Belgium--Belgium which for eighty years has lived only for a neutral independence--to the centre of the arena. The Waterloo of 1914, as that of 1815, may very well be fought on Belgian soil.

It is impossible to exaggerate the sincere amazement of the man in the street, the man in the café. “We have gorged the Albuches with money. They have blacklegged us in business. We are stuffed with them--bah! our national life is choked with these German sausages. And now! Traitors, cowards, violators of honour and the free Belgian frontier!”

The anti-German feeling is heating rapidly to a frenzy. No more demi-Munichs in the restaurants. Even if the beer be of German nativity, which is sometimes a little in doubt, it must be sold as Belgian. The more discreet patrons had already painted out, or draped in patriotic bunting, all advertisements for German products. But the ruse was not general nor always successful. The window-breakers had already appeared, waving the tricolour, chanting “La Brabançonne.” Every street, and, indeed, every buttonhole, has blossomed as suddenly as the staff of Tannhäuser. Cockades, rosettes, bows, the tricolours of France and Belgium, the red, white and blue of England, flower inexplicably into being. At ten centimes a time we manifest our sympathies, and make dazzling fortunes for the street-sellers.

At the house of a public official one finds a sort of synopsis of the general desolation. The family has just scrambled back from Switzerland. The eldest son, a captain of engineers, had already left for the front, ordered to action too urgently to wait even for a last handshake, a last kiss. His children cannot go out to breathe the air because the governess is German, and therefore liable to patriotic assault. The household is keyed up to any disaster.

At the Post Office there is a tumult that soon settles down into a patient queue outside the savings bank and money-order offices. The cashiers pay out the new five-franc notes; fresh and crisp, obviously and attractively new, they are fingered with distrustful fingers. Then the fingers grow suddenly ashamed of their distrust in the star of Belgium, stuff their notes into their wallets, and step briskly out to the music of the drums that beat in all hearts.

The English declaration of war has evoked extraordinary enthusiasm, and at the same time brought so near the sombre and terrible crisis as to still the expression of that enthusiasm. It was no light-hearted crowd that stood to watch the Red Cross go to the front this morning. They streamed by in commandeered or volunteered motor-cars. Soldiers, unshaven and unslept, lounged with their boots upon cushions that a few days ago ministered to the very dainty masters of luxury. Limousines, taxis, trade-cars all went by laden with stretchers and medicine-cases. Everywhere the smell of rubber and antiseptics. And everywhere the desolating thought that before midnight these snowy bandages will be bloodied, and these stretchers laden with human debris. À la guerre comme à la guerre!

Everywhere girls are hurrying through the streets with tin collecting-boxes. We subscribe to the Red Cross, to funds to support those about to become widows of the sword, to buy milk for the infants. Many of the great hotels have already been offered as hospitals. The gleaming symbol of Geneva--that inexplicable lapse of the soldiers of Europe into plain Christian mercy--is already displayed on them. Shops, big and small, are being prepared to serve as depots for the distribution of food in case of need.

It is impossible not to be with Belgium in the struggle. It is impossible any longer to be passive. Germany has thrown down a well-considered challenge to all the deepest forces of our civilisation. War is hell, but it is only a hell of suffering, not a hell of dishonour. And through it, over its flaming coals, Justice must walk, were it on bare feet.

II.--“EUROPE AGAINST THE BARBARIANS”

_Brussels, August 8._

We may well doubt whether any imagination is large enough to contain the issues of the war. It overwhelms us and freezes our blood fast like a vision of terror from the Apocalypse. What is, perhaps, most terrible of all is the complete and necessary banishment of peace from the scene of Europe. Hereafter there may be a time for such a word, but not now. The arbitration movement to which we had committed so many hopes has gone up in flames like a cardboard Elysium. Europe, we said, was a monstrous contradiction in terms--an armed peace. There is no contradiction now, it is a manual of pure logic after Krupp. The Norman Angell evangel to the money-masters has failed; there is even something noble in the sudden appeal of the financiers of every country to a higher plane of values. You may suspend your International Bureau of Labour which used to function at Brussels. Jaurès is dead; Vandervelde, cherishing _la patrie_ beyond everything else, has joined the Ministry; in Germany, as in France, Belgium, and Great Britain, the comrades are with the colours. When next the committee-room of the Maison du Peuple receives the European chiefs of labour what a change will be there!

As for Serbia, it seems probable that nobody will have time to go to war with her. Her function has been that of the electric button which discharges the great gun of a fortress. And now that the lightnings have been released, what is the stake for which we are playing? It is as simple as it is colossal. It is Europe against the barbarians. The authentic Teuton touch betrayed itself in the gross proposition of bribes, followed by the instant violation of the Belgian frontier. The “big blonde brute” stepped from the pages of Nietzsche out on to the plains about Liége. Brought suddenly to think of it, one realises the corruption of moral standards for which Germany has in our time been responsible. Since Schopenhauer died nothing has come from her in the region of philosophy except that gospel of domination.

And now we suddenly understand that the Immoralists meant what they said. We were reading, not as we thought a string of drawing-room paradoxes, but the advance proof-sheets of a veritable Bullies’ Bible. The General Bernhardis who have been teaching Germany to desire war, to provoke it, to regard it as a creative and not a destructive act, to accept it as merely the inevitable prologue to German domination, have proved to be not only brutal, but formidable. Since Belgium, and its protecting treaty, barred the way, both simply had to go. “Nothing is true, everything is permitted to the strong.” Afterwards it will be the turn of the others. And at the end of the process a monster, gorged with blood and with the torn limbs of civilisation, is to lie sprawled over all Central Europe, while some new metaphysician from Berlin booms heavily into his self-intoxicated brain some new fable of preordination.

I do not wish in any way to exaggerate. France has her corruptions. But the whole set of her thought, even when it abjured Christian “illusions,” was towards solidarity, towards reasonableness, and co-operation. Russia has her vile tyrannies. But from all Russian literature there comes an immense and desolating sob of humility and self-reproach. Great Britain has not yet liquidated her account with Ireland, nor altogether purified her relations with India and Egypt. But Great Britain does not, at any rate, throw aside all plain, pedestrian Christian standards as rubbish. In the Rhineland, too, and in the south there are millions of hearty men and women who are not yet Prussified, and who still think it possible that there may exist a Being greater in some respects than the Imperial Kaiser. But all the central thought of Germany has been for a generation corrupt. It has been foul with the odour of desired shambles.

The issue, then, is Europe against the barbarians. It is not easy, perhaps, for anyone living at home in our islands to develop fully What may be called the European sense. You acquire it as you get your sea legs, quickly, but not without actual experience. There underlies the whole Continent a minutely reticulated system of nerves which convey, and multiply, every shock of feeling from one end of it to the other. Here in Brussels we are, for the time at least, at the central _sensorium_. The élan of Belgium takes possession of you. The courage and anguish of this glorious little nation, fighting now for its very life, stir one to something like the clear mood of its own heroism. In every direction there opens a vista of waste and suffering. Already the long trail of wounded has begun to wind its sorrowful way back to the capital. Prisoners arrive, too simple of aspect, one would think, to be the instruments by which Europe is to be tortured to the pattern of a new devilry. You say to yourself, as you hear all the world saying: C’est incroyable! It is not to be believed. It is a nightmare! And then the conviction shapes itself clearly, settles upon and masters your mind, that this German assault on civilisation has got to be repelled and utterly shattered once and for all.

Had Belgium consented to a free passage across her territory so that the French forts might be evaded, the problem was simply to profit by the slow mobilisation of France, and to strike straight and hard at Paris. On her refusal the problem was to hamstring Belgium. Liége was to be carried by a _coup de main_, and the advance pushed right on to Antwerp. This would have cut the country in two, made anything like an effective Belgian mobilisation impossible, detached outlying places from their supply depots, and left Belgium helpless under the heel of a comparatively small section of the German forces. Both gambits have been countered. There has been no free passage and no surprise victory. The Belgian mobilisation has not been even hampered. The whole German plan was founded on a swift and invincible dash; in the actual event both characteristics are lacking. General Leman and Liége have given the Allies day on invaluable day to come up. The prestige which since 1871 has enveloped the Prussians and their war methods has disappeared at a blow. “Ah!”, says the Belgian pioupiou to you, “those great Prussian teeth that chewed up France in the ’70, they have bitten themselves to fragments against the forts of Liége. Nous sommes un peu là! Eh?”

The great outstanding pinnacle of a fact is, perhaps, the definitive entrance of England into the comity of Europe. Regret it or not, there can be no more isolation. And the other fact, noted here also as of main importance, is the attitude of Ireland. Mr. Redmond’s proffer of friendship, in return for justice, had been made often before, but never in such dramatic circumstances. I am appalled to hear rumours to the effect that Sir Edward Carson proposes at this moment to force Mr. Bonar Law to bedevil the whole situation by a political trick. He actually proposes, one hears, that a course should be followed depriving Ireland of the Home Rule Bill, which is coming to her automatically by the mere efflux of a few weeks. Can such madness still be possible? Is there any imagination left in England?

Here, at the opening of this vast and bloody epic, Great Britain is right with the conscience of Europe. It is assumed that she has reconciled Ireland. A reconciled Ireland is ready to march side by side with her to any desperate trial. And suddenly the lawyer, with the Dublin accent, who had been the chief architect of destruction in the whole Empire, and who was thought to have come to reason, proposes for Ireland what I can only call a Prussian programme. England goes to fight for liberty in Europe and for Junkerdom in Ireland. It is incredible. Were it to come true it would become utterly impossible to act on Mr. Redmond’s speech. Another dream would have gone down into the abyss. Ireland, wounded anew, would turn sullenly away from you. Is that what a sound Tory ought to desire? Will Tory England, enlightened at last as to the real attitude of Ireland, allow such a fatal crime to be committed?

III.--TERMONDE

The fate of Termonde is already known. But I do not apologise for adding to the literature of its devastation an account of a visit which I paid to-day. Imagination lacks the stringency of the scandal actually seen, and we have got, by repeated strokes, to hammer into the imagination of the world the things that Prussia has done in Belgium.

I went from Ghent to Zele by train this morning, and from Zele to Termonde by carriage. They call Ghent the flower-town, and not without some reason. It lies in that part of Flanders in which cultivation is at its most intensive. That is to say, it is the centre of one of the greatest agricultural areas in the world. Near Ghent it was nursery-gardens all the way, a checker-board of colour. The geraniums, we thought, will never again look like fire; they will look like blood. Further into the country fewer flowers and more crops and cattle. Not a square millimetre wasted. All the familiar Flemish picture; the windmill that looks like two combs crossed, and revolving on a pepper-box; the old churches, the old castles, reminiscent of the Spanish persecution; the strong peasant-faces--like those of my own “Ulster,” but Catholic--lined with labour; the wayside statues; the villages, with little beauty save that of fruitful effort.

It is a flat country all the way to Termonde, and especially as one nears the Scheldt. It is well timbered. I noticed again a contrast I have often noticed before. In England the trees look like gentlemen of leisure. If they do any good it is by a sort of graceful accident. In Belgium they look like soldiers. They stand there in planned ranks, repelling the infantry of the winds, drawing the artillery of the rain, sheltering, protecting. Add to them the waving patches of hemp, the corn-stacks, the rich herbage, and you get a closely-tufted and almost impenetrable country. It is striped everywhere also with little canals and ditches, so that any sort of military movement, except over the cobbled roads, must be almost impossible. If one remembers that the environs of the towns are almost the only places open enough for a conflict between any substantial forces, a good many events become more intelligible.

WHAT TERMONDE WAS