The Evidence in the Case Part 22

The first can easily be substantiated by The Supreme Court of Civilization by an investigation of the prisoners of war taken in Belgium. Until an impartial investigation becomes possible no further proof than the claim made by the German Government can be produced.

As the French officers taken in Belgium are presumably in German detention camps, it would seem that Germany should first substantiate its defense by names, dates, and places, although even then the mere capture of French officers in Belgium after the invasion had begun does not necessarily indicate that they were in Belgium before the invasion.

Dr. von Mach adds in the reply, which he made in the New York _Times_ to an article contributed by the writer to that journal:

_It is impossible to say here exactly what these proofs are which Germany possesses, and which for military reasons it has not yet been able to divulge...._ This is an important question, and the answer must be left to The Supreme Court of Civilization. The weight of the evidence would seem to point to a justification of Germany. Yet no friend of Germany can find fault with those who would wish to defer a verdict until such time when Germany can present her complete proof to the world, and this may be when the war is over.

This nave suggestion, that the vital question of fact should be postponed, and in the meantime judgment should be entered for Germany, is refres.h.i.+ng in its novelty. Its only parallel was the contention of the celebrated Dr. Cook, who contended that the world should accept his claim as to the discovery of the North Pole and await the proofs later.

Professor von Mach, in his book, "_What Germany Wants_," further explains this dilatory defense and amplifies it in a manner that is certainly unusual in an historian. He recognizes that the speech of the German Chancellor in the Reichstag on August 4th, in which von Bethmann-Hollweg admitted that the action of Germany in invading Belgium was wrong and only justified it on the ground of self-preservation, was a virtual plea of guilty by Prussia of the crime, of which it stands indicted at the bar of the civilized world.

Germany's scholarly apologist, as _amicus curiae_, then suggests that in criminal procedure, when a defendant pleads guilty, the Court often refuses to accept his plea, enters a plea of not guilty for him, and a.s.signs counsel to defend the case. He therefore suggests that the Chancellor's plea of guilty should be disregarded and the Court should a.s.sign counsel.

One difficulty with the a.n.a.logy is that courts do not ordinarily refuse to accept a plea of guilty. On the contrary, they accept it almost invariably, for why try the guilt of a man when he himself in the most formal way acknowledges it?

The only instance in which a court does show such consideration to a prisoner is when the defendant is both poor and ignorant. Then, and only then, with a fine regard for human right, is the procedure suggested by Prof. von Mach followed.

To this humiliating position, Professor von Mach as _amicus curiae_ consigns his great nation. For myself, as one who admires Germany and believes it to be much greater and truer than its ruling caste or its over-zealous apologists, I refuse to accept the justification of such an absurd and degrading a.n.a.logy.

The blunt acknowledgment of the German Chancellor in the Reichstag, already quoted, is infinitely preferable to the disingenuous defenses of Germany's ardent but sophistical apologists. Fully recognizing the import of his words, von Bethmann-Hollweg, addressing the representatives of the German nation, put aside with admirable candor all these sophistical artifices and rested the defense of Germany upon the single contention that Germany was beset by powerful enemies and that it was a matter of necessity for her to perpetrate this "wrong"

and in this manner to "hack her way through."

This defense is not even a plea of confession and avoidance. It is a plea of "Guilty" at the bar of the world. It has one merit. It does not add to the crime the aggravation of hypocrisy.

After the civilized world had condemned the invasion of Belgium with an unprecedented approach to unanimity, the German Chancellor rather tardily discovered that public opinion was still a vital force in the world and that the strategic results of the occupation of Belgium had not compensated for the moral injury. For this reason he framed five months after this crime against civilization a belated defense, which proved so unconvincing that the Bernhardi plea of military necessity is clearly preferable, as at least having the merit of candor.

After proclaiming to the world that the German Foreign Office had discovered in Brussels certain secret doc.u.ments, which disclosed the fact that the neutrality of Belgium at the time of the invasion was a sham and after the civilized world had refused to accept this bald and unsupported a.s.sertion, as it had also refused to accept the spurious evidence of a well-known Arctic explorer, the German Foreign Office in December, 1914 published its alleged proofs.

The first purported to be a report of the Chief of the Belgian General Staff to the Minister of War and reported his conversations in 1906 with a military attache of the British Legation in Brussels.

The second purported to be a report of similar conversations in 1912 between the same officials.

In an authorized statement, published on January 27, 1915, Sir Edward Grey states that there is no record of either of these negotiations in the English Foreign Office or the War Office; but this fact is not in itself conclusive and as there is no evidence that the doc.u.ments were forged, their genuineness should be a.s.sumed in the absence of some more specific denial.

The doc.u.ments, however, do not appreciably advance the cause of Germany, for they disclose on their face that the conversations were not binding on the Governments of England or Belgium but were simply an informal exchange of view between the officials, and what is far more to the purpose, the whole of the first conversation of April 10, 1906, was expressly based upon the statement that "_the entry of the English into Belgium would take place only after the violation of our neutrality by Germany_."

The second doc.u.ment also shows that the Belgian Chief of Staff expressly stated that any invasion of Belgium by England, made to repel a prior German invasion, could not take place without the express consent of Belgium, to be given when the occasion arose, and it is further evident that the statement of the English military attache--clearly a subordinate official to define the foreign policy of a great Empire--expressly predicated his a.s.sumption, that England might disembark troops in Belgium, upon the statement that its object would be to repel a German invasion of Belgian territory.

If it be asked why England and Belgium were thus in 1906 and 1912 considering the contingency of a German invasion of Belgium and the method of effectually repelling it, the reply is obvious that such invasion, in the event of a war between Germany and France, was a commonplace of German military strategists. Of this purpose they made little, if any, concealment. The construction by Germany of numerous strategic railway lines on the Belgian frontier, which were out of proportion to the economic necessity of the territory, gave to Europe some indication of Germany's purpose and there could have been little doubt as to such intention, if Germany had not, through its Foreign Office, given, as previously shown, repeated and continuous a.s.surances to Belgium that such was not its intention.

The German Chancellor--whose stupendous blunders of speech and action in this crisis will be the marvel of posterity--has further attempted to correct his record by two equally disingenuous defenses. Speaking to the Reichstag on December 2, 1914, he said:

When on the 4th of August I referred to the wrong which we were doing in marching through Belgium, it was not yet known for certain whether the Brussels Government in the hour of need would not decide after all to spare the country and to retire to Antwerp under protest. You remember that, after the occupation of Liege, at the request of our army leaders I repeated the offer to the Belgian Government. For military reasons it was absolutely imperative that at the time, about the 4th of August, the possibility for such a development should be kept open. _Even then the guilt of the Belgian Government was apparent from many a sign, although I had not yet any positive doc.u.mentary proofs at my disposal._

This is much too vague to excuse a great crime. The guilt of Belgium is said to be "apparent from many a sign," but what these signs are the Chancellor still fails to state. He admits that they were not doc.u.mentary in character. If the guilt of Belgium had been so apparent to the Chancellor on August the 4th, when he made his confession of wrong doing in the Reichstag, then it is incredible that he would have made such an admission.

As to the overt acts of France, all that the Chancellor said in his speech of December 2 was "that France's plan of campaign was known to us and that it compelled us for reasons of self-preservation to march through Belgium." But it is again significant that, speaking nearly five months after his first public utterance on the subject and with a full knowledge that the world had visited its destructive condemnation upon Germany for its wanton attack upon Belgium, _the Chancellor can still give no specific allegation of any overt act by France which justified the invasion_. All that is suggested is a supposed "plan of campaign."

Following this unconvincing and plainly disingenuous speech, the Chancellor proceeded in an authorized newspaper interview on January 25, 1915 to state that his now famous--or infamous--remark about "the sc.r.a.p of paper" had been misunderstood.

After stating that he felt a painful "surprise to learn that my phrase, 'a sc.r.a.p of paper,' should have caused such an unfavorable impression on the United States," he proceeds to explain that in his now historic interview with the British Amba.s.sador,

he (von Bethmann-Hollweg) had spoken of the treaty not as a "sc.r.a.p of paper" for Germany, but as an instrument which had become obsolete through Belgium's forfeiture of its neutrality and that Great Britain had quite other reasons for entering into the war, compared with which the neutrality treaty appeared to have only the value of a sc.r.a.p of paper.

Let the reader here pause to note the twofold character of this defense.

It suggests that Germany's guaranty of Belgium's neutrality had become for Germany "a sc.r.a.p of paper" because of Belgium's alleged forfeiture of its rights as a neutral nation, although at the time referred to the German Chancellor had not only asked the permission of Belgium to cross its territory but immediately before his interview with the British Amba.s.sador he had publicly testified in his speech in the Reichstag to the justice of Belgium's protest.

The other and inconsistent suggestion is that, without respect to Belgium's rights under the treaty of 1839, the violation of its territory by Germany was not the cause of England's intervention; but obviously this hardly explains the German Chancellor's contemptuous reference to the long standing and oft repeated guaranty of Belgium's neutrality as merely a "sc.r.a.p of paper."

Having thus somewhat vaguely suggested a twofold defense, the Chancellor, without impeaching the accuracy of Goschen's report of the interview, then proceeded to state that the conversation in question took place immediately after his speech in the Reichstag, in which, as stated, he had admitted the justice of Belgium's protest against the violation of its territory, and he adds that,

when I spoke, I already had _certain indications but no absolute proof_ upon which to base a public accusation that Belgium long before had abandoned its neutrality in its relations with England. Nevertheless I took Germany's responsibilities toward the neutral States so seriously that I spoke frankly of the wrong committed by Germany.

If the German Chancellor is truthful in his statement that on August the 4th, when he spoke in the Reichstag and an hour later had his conversation with Goschen, he had "certain indications" that Belgium had forfeited its rights as an independent nation by hostile acts, then the German Chancellor took such a serious view of "Germany's responsibilities" that, without any necessity or justification, he indicted his country at the bar of the whole world of a flagrant wrong. If he could not at that time justify the act of the German General Staff, he should at least have been silent, but, according to his incredible statement, although he had these "certain indications"

and thus _knew_ that Germany, in invading Belgium, was simply attacking an already hostile country, he deliberately explains, not only to his nation but to the whole world, that such invasion was a wrong and had no justification in international law. How can any reasonable man, whose eyes are not blinded with the pa.s.sions of the hour, accept this explanation?

It is even more remarkable that immediately following the session of the Reichstag, when he had his interview with Goschen, the German Chancellor never suggested in his own defense or that of his country, that he had "certain indications," which justified the action that day taken, although he then knew that, unless he could justify it, England would immediately join the already powerful foes of Germany.

The reader need only reread Goschen's report of that interview (_ante_, p. 214) to know how disingenuous this belated explanation is. With the whole world ringing with the infamous phrase, the German Chancellor, after five months of reflection, can only make this pitiful defense. Its acceptance subjects even the most credulous to a severe strain. It exhausts the limit of gullibility.

The defense wholly ignores the fact that the Chancellor had previously sought to bribe England to condone in advance the invasion of Belgium by Germany, and that Germany had also coerced Luxemburg into a pa.s.sive acquiescence in a similar invasion, and there is as yet no pretense that Luxemburg had failed in its obligation of neutrality.

Should the judgment of the civilized world turn from the terrible fate of Belgium and consider the wrong that was done to Luxemburg, then the German Chancellor may, unless better advised, frame further maladroit excuses with reference to that country.

All these explanations, as senseless as they are false, and savoring more of the tone of a criminal court then that of an imperial chancellery, should shock those who admire historic Germany. They are unworthy of so great a nation. Bismarck would never have stooped to such pitiful and transparent deception. The blunt candor of Maximilian Harden, which we have already quoted on page 12, is infinitely preferable and the position of Germany at the bar of the civilized world will improve, when its maladroit Chancellor has the courage and the candor to say, as Harden did, that all this was done because Germany regarded it as for its vital interests and because "we willed it."

Unless our boasted civilization is the thinnest veneering of barbarism; unless the law of the world is in fact only the ethics of the rifle and the conscience of the cannon; unless mankind, after uncounted centuries, has made no real advance in political morality beyond that of the cave dweller, then this answer of Germany cannot satisfy the "decent respect to the opinions of mankind." It is the negation of all that civilization stands for.

Belgium has been crucified in the face of the world. Its innocence of any offense, until it was attacked, is too clear for argument. Its voluntary immolation to preserve its solemn guarantee of neutrality will "plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against the deep d.a.m.nation of its taking off."

It may be questioned whether, since the fall of Poland, Civilization has been stirred to more profound pity and intense indignation than by this wanton outrage. Pity, radiating to the utmost corners of the world by the "sightless couriers of the air,"

"Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye That tears shall drown the wind."

Was it also, as with Macbeth, a case of

"Vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself And falls on the other"?

Time will tell.

Had Germany not invaded Belgium, it is an even chance that England would not have intervened, at least at the beginning of the war.

Germany could have detached a relatively small part of its army to defend its highly fortified Western frontier, and leaving France to waste its strength on frontal attacks on that almost impregnable line of defense, Germany with the bulk of its army and that of Austria could have made a swift drive at Russia.

Is it not possible that that course would have yielded better results than the fiasco, which followed the fruitless drive at Paris?

If Germany succeeds, it will claim that "nothing succeeds like success," and to the disciples of Treitschke and Bernhardi this will be a sufficing answer.