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So far all had worked well for German plans.  Those of the British public who were familiar with the past and could look into the future might be well aware that our interests were firmly bound with those of France, and that if our faggots were not tied together they would assuredly be snapped each in its turn.  But the unsavory assassination which had been so cleverly chosen as the starting point of the war bulked large in the eyes of our people, and, setting self-interest to one side, the greater part of the public might well have hesitated to enter into a quarrel where the cause seemed remote and the issues ill-defined.  What was it to us if a Slav or a Teuton collected the harbor due of Saloniki!  So the question might have presented itself to the average man who in the long run is the ruler of this country and the autocrat of its destinies.  In spite of all the wisdom of our statesmen, it is doubtful if on such a quarrel we could have gained that national momentum which might carry us to victory.  But at that very moment Germany took a step which removed the last doubt from the most cautious of us and left us in a position where we must either draw our sword or stand forever dishonored and humiliated before the world.  The action demanded of us was such a compound of cowardice and treachery that we ask ourselves in dismay what can we ever have done that could make others for one instant imagine us to be capable of so dastardly a course.  Yet that it was really supposed that we could do it, and that it was not merely put forward as an excuse for drawing us into war, is shown by the anger and consternation of the Kaiser and his Chancellor when we drew back from what the British Prime Minister had described as “an infamous proposal.”  One has only to read our Ambassador’s description of his interview with the German Chancellor after our decision was announced, “so evidently overcome by the news of our action,” to see that through some extraordinary mental aberration the German rulers did actually believe that a vital treaty with Britain’s signature upon it could be regarded by this country as a mere “scrap of paper.”

The Treaty of 1839.

What was this treaty which it was proposed so lightly to set aside?  It was the guarantee of the neutrality of Belgium signed in 1839 (confirmed verbally and in writing by Bismarck in 1870) by Prussia, France, and Britain, each of whom pledged their word to observe and to enforce it.  On the strength of it Belgium had relied for her security amid her formidable neighbors.  On the strength of it also France had lavished all her defenses upon her eastern frontier, and left her northern exposed to attack.  Britain had guaranteed the treaty, and Britain could be relied upon.  Now, on the first occasion of testing the value of her word it was supposed that she would regard the treaty as a worthless scrap of paper, and stand by unmoved while the little State which had trusted her was flooded by the armies of the invader.  It was unthinkable, and yet the wisest brains of Germany seem to have persuaded themselves that we had sunk to such depths of cowardly indolence that even this might go through.  Surely they also have been hypnotized by those foolish dreams of Britain’s degeneration, from which they will have so terrible an awakening.