in the case of the French
has especially astonished Americans; for we expected the French to be
more excitable. Taken as a whole, the Teutonic literature has from the
first been characterised by an uncontrollable bitterness and violent
denunciation of the enemy and of neutrals; which has also surprised
Americans, for we expected you to be more logical and self-contained
than the French, instead of less so.

Americans believe that the German people are a great people, capable of
great and good things. They honour and admire the Germany which finds
her best expression in the literature, music, and science which has
justly made you famous. But they distrust and abhor the German
Government which has made the name of Germany infamous. The heroic
bravery of the German soldiers dying for their Fatherland, and the
heroic fortitude of the German women who bear and suffer--all fail to
evoke any enthusiasm in this country, or in other neutral countries,
because of the stain which the German military Government has put upon
their sacrifices. Your greatest victories bring no world honour to your
armies because of the cloud of dishonour which hangs over every
achievement of the German military machine. There is no enthusiasm, and
very little praise, for the captors of Warsaw and Vilna, for Americans
remember that it was German soldiers who murdered innocent hostages from
"military necessity," who destroyed much of Louvain from "military
necessity," who violated every rule of civilised warfare and humanity in
Belgium from "military necessity," who executed a noble English nurse
from "military necessity," who wrecked priceless monuments of
civilisation in France from "military necessity," who have dropped bombs
from the sky in the darkness upon sleeping women and children in
unfortified places, and slaughtered hundreds of innocent non-combatants
from "military necessity," who sent babes at the breast and their
innocent mothers shrieking and strangling to a watery grave in mid-ocean
from "military necessity," and who have defended every barbarous act,
every crime against humanity on the specious and selfish plea that it
was justified by "military necessity." Your Government has robbed your
soldiers of all honour in the eyes of the world by making them the
instruments of a military policy which the rest of the world unanimously
condemns as brutal and barbarous.

It seems to thoughtful Americans who know Germany and Germans best, that