hearsay evidence of refugees
who would be anxious to distinguish themselves as witnesses from the
general ruck of destitution; but it happens that the general charges of
German aggressiveness and German brutality are fully corroborated by
German literature.[66] Unfortunately these distinctions between brutal
and chevaleresque methods of warfare remain only questions of method;
they concern manners rather than morals, and are as irrelevant to our
hopes for the abolition of war as the questions of diplomatic method
already mentioned.[67] Equally irrelevant, in any discussion of the
possibility of substituting "compulsory arbitration" for war, is the
attempt to distinguish between aggressive and defensive war, or to
throw all the blame of aggression on either of the two belligerents; for
the simple reason that each belligerent will perhaps never believe and
will quite certainly never admit that his own intentions were anything
but defensive or altruistic.[68] The _locus classicus_ for such
protestations of innocence occurs in the Italian Green Book, where
Austrian diplomats may be found declaring, _with every appearance of
sincerity_, that the invasion of Serbia was a purely defensive measure.
And in a sense, in such a well-armed continent, every aggression is
indeed a fore-arming against the future. It might also be suggested that
the crime of aggression is an offence not against an individual but
against the peace of the community: and until the European community is
constituted the guilt of such a crime cannot be brought home to either
of the belligerents.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 65: _The Ruling Caste and Frenzied Trade in Germany_, by
Maurice Millioud, Professor of Sociology in the University of Lausanne.
(1915.) Reviewed in the _Manchester Guardian_ by R. C. K. E.]

[Footnote 66: All that we need know, for instance, of German military
conduct in Belgium is contained in the following communication made to
the _Koelnische Zeitung_ by Captain Walter Brum, adjutant to the
Governor-General of Belgium, who may be presumed to know the inner
history of these appalling transactions:--

"The principle according to which the whole community must be punished
for the fault of a single individual is justified by the theory of
_terrorisation_. The innocent must suffer with the guilty; if the latter
are unknown the innocent must even be punished in their place, and note
that the punishment is applied not _because_ a misdeed has be