army and
our people, is distorted, everything is false, so false that in this
respect your open letter to me appears as an empty black surface.

War is war. You may lament war, but you should not wonder at the things
that are inseparable from the elementary fact itself. Assuredly it is
deplorable that in the conflict an irreplaceable Rubens is destroyed,
but--with all honor to Rubens!--I am among those in whom the shattered
breast of his fellow-man compels far deeper pain.

And, Herr Rolland, it is not exactly fitting that you should adopt a
tone implying that the people of your land, the French, are coming out
to meet us with palm branches, when in reality they are plentifully
equipped with cannon, with cartridges, yes, even with dumdum bullets. It
is apparent that you have grown pretty fearful of our brave troops! That
is to the glory of a power which is invincible through the justice of
its cause. The German soldier has nothing whatsoever in common with the
loathsome and puerile were-wolf tales which your lying French press so
zealously publishes abroad, that press which the French and the Belgian
people have to thank for their misfortune.

Let the idle Englishmen call us Huns; you may, for all I care,
characterize the warriors of our splendid Landwehr as sons of Attila; it
is enough for us if this Landwehr can shatter into a thousand pieces the
ring of our merciless enemies. Far better that you should call us sons
of Attila, cross yourselves in fear and remain outside our borders, than
that you should indict tender inscriptions upon the tomb of our German
name, calling us the beloved descendants of Goethe. The epithet Huns is
coined by people who, themselves Huns, are experiencing disappointment
in their criminal attacks on the life of a sound and valorous race,
because it knows the trick of parrying a fearful blow with still more
fearful force. In their impotence, they take refuge in curses.

I say nothing against the Belgian people. The peaceful passage of German
troops, a question of life for Germany, was refused by Belgium because
the Government had made itself a tool of England and France. This same
Government then organized an unparalleled guerrilla warfare in order to
support a lost cause, and by that act--Herr Rolland, you are a
musician!--struck the horrible keynote of conflict. If you are at all in
a position to break your way through the giant's wall of anti-German
lies, read the message to America, b