military ends are accomplished." In these words your Chancellor
blundered out a truth which has for ever silenced all your apologists
for the crime. American opinion considers it discreditable and futile to
invent charges against French soldiers on Belgian soil and French
aviators flying over Belgian territory; and to try to make out a case in
defence of Germany--when your Chancellor has officially admitted
Germany's guilt. Americans have no doubt that on the basis of the
well-known facts of the case, supplemented by your Chancellor's
admission of guilt, History will for ever record Germany's brutal
disregard of her treaty obligations and her murderous assault on a
small, innocent nation as one of the most terrible crimes ever committed
by a nation claiming to rank high among civilised peoples.

The plea that "military necessity" justified the destruction of an
innocent people, that the invasion of Belgium was necessary as a measure
of "self-defence," Americans consider as striking proof of the essential
barbarity of the German Government. A man who would shoot down an
innocent girl in order to get at another man would be condemned as the
worst kind of a brute. A Government which slaughters an innocent and
peaceful people in order to get at an enemy Government is universally
regarded by Americans as the worst type of a barbarous Government. No
truly civilised Government could be so brutally selfish as to protect
itself by inflicting the horrors of fearful war upon a helpless and
unoffending people.

You dismiss the question of atrocities by asking if Americans can
believe that such Germans as I know would commit such awful deeds. The
reply to this is that, while Americans realise that there are many
Germans who would rather die than do a cruel act, Germany possesses a
military Government which has convinced Americans and the rest of the
world that, under the plea of "military necessity," it will commit the
most barbarous crimes. History demonstrates that a military Government
stifles the finer instincts of the people which support it. Many Germans
struggled to overthrow the military clique in Germany, and some of them
are among the most gentle-hearted, kindly souls it has ever been my good
fortune to meet. Others have exalted the military and the idea of war;
and while boarding in the home of a German army officer I witnessed
heartless and cruel acts which I do not believe could have occurred in
any other civilised co