The only parts of this book for which I claim any measure of authority are the parts which describe the English character.  No one of purely English descent has ever been known to describe the English character, or to attempt to describe it.  The English newspapers are full of praises of almost any of the allied troops other than the English regiments.  I have more Scottish and Irish blood in my veins than English; and I think I can see the English character truly, from a little distance.  If, by some fantastic chance, the statesmen of Germany could learn what I tell them, it would save their country from a vast loss of life and from many hopeless misadventures.  The English character is not a removable part of the British Empire; it is the foundation of the whole structure, and the secret strength of the American Republic.  But the statesmen of Germany, who fall easy victims to anything foolish in the shape of a theory that flatters their vanity, would not believe a word of my essays even if they were to read them, so they must learn to know the English character in the usual way, as King George the Third learned to know it from Englishmen resident in America.

A habit of lying and a belief in the utility of lying are often attended by the most unhappy and paralysing effects.  The liars become unable to recognize the truth when it is presented to them.  This is the misery which fate has fixed on the German cause.  War, the Germans are fond of remarking, is war.  In almost all wars there is something to be said on both sides of the question.  To know that one side or the other is right may be difficult; but it is always useful to know why your enemies are fighting.  We know why Germany is fighting; she explained it very fully, by her most authoritative voices, on the very eve of the struggle, and she has repeated it many times since in moments of confidence or inadvertence.  But here is the tragedy of Germany:  she does not know why we are fighting.  We have told her often enough, but she does not believe it, and treats our statement as an exercise in the cunning use of what she calls ethical propaganda.  Why ethics, or morals, should be good enough to inspire sympathy, but not good enough to inspire war, is one of the mysteries of German thought.  No German, not even any of those few feeble German writers who have fitfully criticized the German plan, has any conception of the deep, sincere, unselfish, and righteous anger that was aroused in millions of hearts by the cruelties of the cowardly assault on Serbia and on Belgium.  The late German Chancellor became uneasily aware that the crucifixion of Belgium was one of the causes which made this war a truceless war, and his offer, which no doubt seemed to him perfectly reasonable, was that Germany is willing to bargain about Belgium, and to relax her hold, in exchange for solid advantages elsewhere.  Perhaps he knew that if the Allies were to spend five minutes in bargaining about Belgium they would thereby condone the German crime and would lose all that they have fought for.  But it seems more likely that he did not know it.  The Allies know it.