A considerable element of independent thinkers in Germany have had the wisdom to realise the perfectly obvious truth that no Government is willing to admit responsibility for the war, and that therefore your Government’s assertion that it did not start the present conflagration can carry no weight until the whole truth is revealed to the German people, and they are thus given the opportunity to form an intelligent judgment, like men, instead of being forced to believe mere assertions and partial evidence, like children.  To-day you believe in the innocence of the Prussian military power; but few people in the rest of the world doubt its guilt.  Tomorrow, when the war is over, and you can get an outside view of the whole question, you will have the chance to form an intelligent judgment as to what nation History will for ever record as the one guilty of this fearful crime against humanity.

The violation of Belgian neutrality shocked Americans as it did the rest of the civilised world, and turned the tide of sentiment against Germany more strongly than ever.  Americans are practically unanimous in regarding the belated excuses of your Government, to the effect that Belgian neutrality was already violated by the Allies, as mere clumsy subterfuges, trumped up to stem the terrible tide of universal condemnation heaped upon Germany for this crime against an innocent people.  Nothing that any German can ever say or write will efface from the memory of the world the uncontrovertible fact that your Chancellor officially admitted your country’s guilt in this matter.  “The wrong—­I speak openly, gentlemen—­the wrong we have done Belgium will be righted when our 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.