[Note—­See Pp. 10-14 of the English translation and note the
     phrase:  “Aspirations for peace seem to poison the soul of the
     German people.”]

Nevertheless, the fact that the action referred to, which these doctrines seem to have prompted, and which cannot be defended except by them, has been actually taken and has thus brought into this war Great Britain, whose interests and feelings made her desire peace, renders it proper to call attention to them and to all that they involve.

I have certainly no prejudice in the matter, for I have been one of those who for many years labored to promote good relations between the German and English peoples, that ought to be friendly, and that never before had been enemies; and I had hoped and believed till the beginning of August last that between them at least there would be no war, because Belgian neutrality would be respected.

Nor was it only for the sake of Great Britain and Germany that English friends of peace sought to maintain good feeling.  We had hoped, as some leading German statesmen had hoped, that a friendliness with Germany might enable Great Britain, with the co-operation of the United States, our closest friends, to mitigate the long antagonism of Germany and of the French, with whom we were already on good terms, and to so improve their relations as to secure the general peace of Europe.

Into the causes which frustrated these efforts and so suddenly brought on this war I will not enter.  Many others have dealt with them; moreover, the facts, at least as we in England see and believe them, and as the documents seem to prove them to be, appear not to be known to the German people, and the motives of the chief actors are not yet fully ascertained.

One thing, however, I can confidently declare:  It was neither commercial rivalry nor jealousy of German power that brought Great Britain into the field, nor was there any hatred in the British people for the German people, nor any wish to break their power.  The leading political thinkers and historians of England had given hearty sympathy to the efforts made by the German people, from 1815 to 1866 and 1870, to attain political unity, and they had sympathized with the parallel efforts of the Italians.  The two nations, German and British, were of kindred race and linked by many ties.  To the German people even now we feel no sort of enmity.  In both countries there were doubtless some persons who desired war and whose writings, apparently designed to provoke it, did much to misrepresent general national sentiment; but these persons were, as I believe, a small minority in both countries.

So far as Great Britain was concerned, it was the invasion of Belgium that arrested all efforts to avert war and made the friends of peace themselves join in holding that the duty of fulfilling their treaty obligations to a weak State was paramount to every other consideration.