the root facts, from which, whenever he or she considers them afresh—­and they should be constantly considered afresh—­every citizen of the Allied nations can only draw fresh courage to endure.  The long and passionate preparation for war in Germany; the half-mad literature of a glorified “force” headed by the Bernhardis and Treitschkes, and repeated by a thousand smaller folk, before the war; the far more illuminating manifestoes of the intellectuals since the war; Germany’s refusal of a conference, as proposed and pressed by Great Britain, in the week before August 4th, France’s acceptance of it; Germany’s refusal to respect the Belgian neutrality to which she had signed her name, France’s immediate consent; the provisions of mercy and of humanity signed by Germany in the Hague Convention trampled, almost with a sneer, under foot; the jubilation over the Lusitania, and the arrogant defence of all that has been most cruel and most criminal in the war, as necessary to Germany’s interests, and therefore moral, therefore justified; let none—­none!—­of these things rest forgotten in our minds until peace is here, and justice done!

The German armies are capable of “no undisciplined cruelty,” said the 93 Professors, without seeing how damning was the phrase.  No!—­theirs was a cruelty by order, meditated, organised, and deliberate.  The stories of Senlis, of Vareddes, of Gerbeviller which I have specially chosen, as free from that element of sexual horror which repels many sensitive people from even trying to realise what has happened in this war, are evidences—­one must insist again—­of a national mind and quality, with which civilised Europe and civilised America can make no truce.  And what folly lies behind the wickedness!  Let me recall to American readers some of the phrases in the report of your former Minister in Belgium—­Mr. Brand Whitlock—­on the Belgian deportations, the “slave hunts” that Germany has carried out in Belgium and “which have torn from nearly every humble home in the land, a husband, father, son, or brother.”

These proceedings [says Mr. Whitlock] place in relief the German capacity for blundering almost as sharply as the German capacity for cruelty.  They have destroyed for generations any hope whatever of friendly relations between themselves and the Belgian people.  For these things were done not, as with the early atrocities, in the heat of passion and the first lust of war, but by one of those deeds that make one despair of the future of the human race—­a deed coldly planned, studiously matured, and deliberately and systematically executed, a deed so cruel that German soldiers are said to have wept in its execution, and so monstrous that even German officers are now said to be ashamed.