of war, French aviators appeared above unfortified cities in South Germany and sought, by throwing bombs, to destroy the railways.  French detachments crossed the German border and occupied German villages.  French aviators flew across neutral Holland and the then neutral Belgium to carry out warlike plans against the lower Rhine district of Germany.  A considerable number of French officers, disguised in German uniforms, tried to cross the Dutch-German frontier in an automobile in order to destroy institutions in German territory.  It is plain that both France and Russia desired to compel Germany to make the first step in declaring war, so that the appearance of having broken the peace might, in the eyes of the world, rest upon Germany.  The Russian Government even attempted to disseminate through a foreign news agency the report that Germany had declared war on Russia, and it refused, contrary to the usage among civilized nations, to permit to be telegraphed the report of the German Ambassador that Russia had rejected the final German note concerning war and peace.

Germany for its part, in the hope that peace might yet be maintained, subjected itself to the great disadvantage of delaying its mobilization in the first decisive days in the face of the measures of its probable enemy.  When, however, the German Emperor realized that peace was no longer possible, he declared war against France and Russia honorably, before the beginning of hostilities, thus bringing into contrast the moral courage to assume the responsibility for the beginning of the conflict as against the moral cowardice of both opponents, whose fear of public opinion was such that they did not dare openly to admit their intentions to attack Germany.

Germany, moreover, cared in a humane and proper manner at the outbreak of the war for those non-combatant subjects of hostile States—­traveling salesmen, travelers for pleasure, patients in health resorts, &c.—­who happened to be in the country at the time.  In isolated cases, where the excitement of the public grew disquieting, the authorities immediately intervened to protect persons menaced.  In Russia, however, in France and especially in Belgium the opposite of decency and humanity prevailed.  Instead of referring feelings of national antipathy and of national conflicting interests to the decision of the battlefield, the French mishandled in the most brutal manner the German population and German travelers in Paris and other cities, who neither could nor wished to defend themselves, and who desired solely to leave the hostile country at once.  The mob threatened and mishandled Germans in the streets, in the railway stations and in the trains, and the authorities permitted it.