has she done? Did she send an ultimatum
to Germany? Did she challenge Germany? Was she preparing to make war
on Germany? Had she ever inflicted any wrongs upon Germany which the
Kaiser was bound to redress? She was one of the most unoffending
little countries in Europe. She was peaceable, industrious, thrifty,
hard-working, giving offence to no one; and her cornfields have been
trampled down, her villages have been burned to the ground, her art
treasures have been destroyed, her men have been slaughtered, yea, and
her women and children, too. What had she done? Hundreds of thousands
of her people have had their quiet, comfortable little homes burned to
the dust, and are wandering homeless in their own land. What is their
crime? Their crime was that they trusted to the word of a Prussian
King. I don't know what the Kaiser hopes to achieve by this war. I
have a shrewd idea of what he will get, but one thing is made certain,
that no nation in future will ever commit that crime again.

I am not going to enter into these tales. Many of them are untrue; war
is a grim, ghastly business at best, and I am not going to say that
all that has been said in the way of tales of outrage is true. I will
go beyond that, and say that if you turn two millions of men forced,
conscripted, and compelled and driven into the field, you will
certainly get among them a certain number of men who will do things
that the nation itself will be ashamed of. I am not depending on them.
It is enough for me to have the story which the Germans themselves
avow, admit, defend, proclaim. The burning and massacring, the
shooting down of harmless people--why? Because, according to the
Germans, they fired on German soldiers. What business had German
soldiers there at all? Belgium was acting in pursuance of a most
sacred right, the right to defend your own home.

But they were not in uniform when they shot. If a burglar broke into
the Kaiser's Palace at Potsdam, destroyed his furniture, shot down his
servants, ruined his art treasures, especially those he made himself,
burned his precious manuscripts, do you think he would wait until he
got into uniform before he shot him down? They were dealing with those
who had broken into their households. But their perfidy has already
failed. They entered Belgium to save time. The time has gone. They
have not gained time, but they have lost their good name.

But Belgium was not the only little nation that has been attacked