a doctrine which would condemn war has certainly never been part of the Christian creed, any more than a doctrine which would justify outrages on non-combatants has been a part of the creed of the European warrior.

War, as Christendom has always recognized it as allowable, is an affair conducted under certain strict rules. Some of these rules are dictated by the claims of the Christian virtues of justice and mercy. Others are dictated by that conception of which I spoke in a previous chapter, which is not in itself specifically a Christian virtue, but is necessary to the practice of any high virtue-the conception of honor. The essence of that conception is reciprocity. The rules may vary, but, such as they are, they must be well known and apply to both sides. Each must be able to count on the other observing them. Now the essence of the Prussian theory is the denial of reciprocity. The Prussian, as acknowledged superior to the race in general, claims in war, as in peace, to do what he chooses, and at the same time counts, as did Frederick the Great, on the advantage which he will derive from other men being hampered by scruples from which he is free. That fundamental conception is the key to the whole ghastly record of Prussian atrocities.

It is quite certain that the campaign in Belgium and in northern France has been conducted by the Prussian military authorities with a savage cruelty altogether inconsistent with the traditions of civilized warfare. I am not at all concerned to deny that in this connection there has been exaggeration and falsehood. Some stories have been proved to be untrue, and others are of such a nature as to raise doubts on their first hearing. We may well admit that idle rumor, journalistic love of sensation, and, even deliberate falsehood and fraud (as often as not devised by the enemy for the purpose of discrediting the real case against the Prussian system) have had their share in many of the stories which are current here.

But this does not touch the indisputable minimum contained, for instance, in the official Belgian report, drawn up under the supervision of men of unquestionable judgment and integrity, including the chief justice of Belgium. Nor does it touch the stories of eye-witnesses, including some of our own soldiers as well as those who have actually taken in mutilated Belgian children, which we have all heard personally. Finally, it does not and cannot touch the official admissions of the Prussian government itself.

The Prussian theory and practice is quite simple and logical. Morals being as inapplicable to war as to diplomacy, no considerations should enter into the conduct of a war except a calculation of the material factor likely to promote success. Now in the present war it was of the essence of the Prussian plan of campaign to strike an instant and overwhelming blow at France. The resistance of Belgium was an obstacle. To overcome that obstacle by the thorough military conquest and occupation of Belgium meant delay, and it meant the employment of men who were needed for the projected march on Paris. Therefore Belgium must be held, not by a regular military occupation, but by a reign of terror sufficiently savage to cow its inhabitants into submission.

The Prussian, with his “master morality” and “slave morality," virtually divides the human race into bullies and cowards. He did not appear to be aware, until this war had broken out and had been carried to a certain point, that any other kind of man existed. Possibly that truth is beginning to dawn on him now. Before the war is over he may begin to realize that Christendom is essentially a military thing; not a sheep, but a lion. I think that history will see that it would have paid the Prussians much better to have treated Belgium with greatest respect and consideration, and to have refrained from inflicting any hardships not inseparable from the state of war. Had they done so it is quite possible that there would have been many Belgians who would have been inclined to say that enough had been done for honor, and that further resistance could not reasonably be expected of them. As it is, there is no Belgian, and for a matter of that no Englishman or Frenchman, who has not had the horrors of the Prussian occupation, the slaughtered non-combatants, the desecrated churches, the outraged women and the mutilated children, branded into his mind, and who does not feel that it would be unspeakable if peace were made until Prussia had paid to the last farthing for her crimes.

I have said so much of the atrocity of the Prussian spirit that I have hardly left myself space to speak of its other and much less important quality, which is also the consequence of its loss, or rather repudiation, of the idea of "honor," its curious vulgarity. But that quality is very apparent whether in the emperor's crude and effeminate sneers at his "contemptible" enemies, or in the action of his son, the heir to the Prussian throne, who when ensconced in a French country house, takes

the opportunity to make away with the family plate after the fashion of a common burglar. Morals apart, what has become of the common sense of human dignity in royal personages who do such things? The answer is that it has gone the way of chivalry, humanity and honor, as result of that denial of the reciprocal rights of man and man which is the Prussian first principle. The crown prince doubtless thinks that in looting peaceful houses he is showing himself in the light of a splendid and renowned conqueror. The only answer is that civilized people do not feel like that.

We may take it, then, that the atrocities of the Prussians are in the main calculated and deliberately ordered.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that human nature is so made that if you force men on the pain of death or savage punishment to behave like devils the probable result in most cases will be that, if they obey you, they become like devils. I have already pointed out that the twisting of the moral instincts which the whole Prussian system involves, tends to produce that fearful moral disease which we call perversion. If this is so with civilians, it is much more so with soldiers, for the traditions of the profession of arms are chivalrous, and a soldier sins against his nature much more by such acts as the slaughter of women and children than an ordinary man would.

It seems certain that the element of perverted malice mingled with that of deliberate political calculation in the case of many outrages both on human beings and on historic monuments. To take the less grave case of the latter: while the burning of Louvain seems to have had a definite object-the intimidation of the other historic Belgian towns where the Prussians wished to establish an undisputed dominion-the bombardment of Rheims cathedral, though it must have been ordered by a high authority-seems to have been purely wanton. The lie that a post of observation had been stationed on the tower has been refuted by the French War Office, but it hardly needed refutation. The fact that it was not put forward until several days had passed and until several other and quite contradictory explanations of the incident had been given, stamps it as an afterthought. On the other hand, the deliberation with which shells were aimed at the noblest of all heritages of Christendom is fully proved. There seems to have been no possible motive, political or military, for the outrage. It must have been simply malicious; that is to say, it proceeded from an evil will.

And yet there was a sense in which these Prussian soldiers were right. In attacking the monuments of the old civic freedom in Flanders and the monuments of the old European religion in France they were really attacking their enemy, the enemy which stands behind Cossack lances and French "75's" and British bayonets, the enemy that will conquer them at last: the soul of Europe.

GERMANY UNCIVILIZABLE1

Germany behaves as though it were the most backward among nations. And indeed it is in spite of appearances essentially feudal. There is perhaps a German culture, but there is no German civilization.

One may be well informed and yet be hardly civilized. A sense of duty to humanity, a sense of pride, a sense of liberty are independent, certainly not of intelligence, but are independent of mere knowledge of accumulated facts.

If the German people had been truly civilized they would never have maintained silence before the assassination of Belgium. Even among those whose ideas are contrary to the existing political order in Germany, none has risen up against this crime admitted and proclaimed at the beginning of the war in full Parliament by the Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg himself. The universal astonishment at such a silence was so great that even today the world has not recovered from it.

The individual German is the least subtle and the least susceptible to education of any in the world.

It has been my lot to take part in certain European capitals in a number of reunions where English, French, Italians, and Germans came together and conversed. They were all, I was assured, distinguished people, of whom their respective nations might be proud. Now, the German was rarely to be seen in an excellent attitude. He was at once embarrassed and arrogant. He lacked refinement. His politeness was clumsy. He was as though afraid of seeming not to know everything. The most eccentric taste seemed to him the best taste. To him to be up to date was to be up to the minute. He would have been

1 By Emile Verhaeren. The article from which these extracts are taken was written for Les Annales. It was afterward rewritten and published in a volume entitled "Belgium's Agony," by Houghton Mifflin Company.

wretched if any one in his presence had claimed to be up to the second.

As soon as he had the chance to speak and got a hearing, he inaugurated, as it were, a course of lecture. Clearness was not at all necessary to him. One rarely understood precisely what he meant. The fastidiousness and subtlety which led others to seek perfection in phrase and thought had little attraction for him. Germany is essentially the persona ingrata everywhere it presents itself. It knows only the methods that divide, and not those which unite. Germany makes proclamations that act upon the mind as frost acts upon plants. Germany knows neither how to attract nor how to charm nor how to civilize, because she has no personal and profound moral force.

Europe under the successive spiritual hegemonies of Athens, Rome, and Paris remained the most admirable center of human development that has ever been.

Under German hegemony Europe would move toward a sort of gloomy and hard organization under which everything would be impeccable, arranged only because everything would be tyrannized over from above.

Germany is the dangerous nation because it is the uncivilizable nation, because its castles, its fields, and its barracks have remained the inexhausted, and perhaps the inexhaustible, reservoirs of human ferocity.

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CIVILIZATION1

These are the facts as shown by the record, and upon them, in my judgment, an impartial court would not hesitate to pass the following judgment:

I. That Germany and Austria in a time of profound peace secretly concerted together to impose their will upon Europe and upon Servia in a matter affecting the balance of power in Europe. Whether in so doing they intended to precipitate a European war to determine the mastery of Europe is not satisfactorily established, although their whole course of conduct suggests this as a possibility. They made war almost inevitable by (a) issuing an

1 James M. Beck's argument, based on the diplomatic correspondence of the nations involved was very widely circulated. His conclusions are here given.