ches behind the
Western front or to turn shells in a German factory. Any fool--any
Goliath--might have done that.

Every German crime is preceded by a series of false promises and
followed by a series of calumnies. Between such a prelude and such a
finale, you may perform a symphony of frightfulness with Dr. Strauss'
orchestration--it will sound as innocent and artless as the three notes
of a shepherd's pipe. The violation of Belgian neutrality is bad enough,
but if you begin to lull Belgium to slumber by repeating, on every
occasion, that she has nothing to fear, and if you end by declaring to
the civilised world that Belgium was plotting with England and France a
traitorous attack against Germany, then it becomes quite plausible. To
massacre 6,000 civilians and burn 20,000 houses in cold blood looks
rather harsh, but if you begin by giving "a solemn guarantee to the
people that they will not have to suffer from the war" (General von
Emmich's first proclamation) and end by saying that women have emptied
buckets of boiling water on the heads of your soldiers and that children
have put out the eyes of your wounded, it becomes almost a kind
proceeding. In the same way, to seize and deport hundreds of thousands
of men and compel them to work in exile against their country seems the
act of Barbarians, but if you accumulate assurances that "normal
conditions will be maintained" and that nobody need fear deportation,
and if you end by declaring that the Belgian working classes are
exclusively composed of loafers and drunkards, it becomes a measure of
providence and wisdom for which your victims in particular, and the
whole civilised world in general, ought to be deeply grateful.

The promise testifies to your good intentions and the calumny explains
how you were regretfully obliged not to fulfill them. The promise keeps
your victims within reach, the calumnies shift to them the
responsibility for your crime. Who doubts that every town visited by a
Zeppelin is fortified, that every ship sunk by a U boat carries troops
or guns? The old Hun killed everything which stood in his way; the
modern Hun does the same and then declares that _he_ is the victim. The
old Hun left the dead bodies of his enemies to the crows; the modern Hun
throws mud at them. The old Hun tried to kill the body; the modern Hun
tries to ruin the soul.

* * * * *

For this last and most monstrous of all Germany's crimes we ha