ing honesty, the doing of
right, because right is right, in scorn of consequence."

That the German people have rallied with enthusiastic unanimity to the
flag in this great crisis, I do not question. This is, in part, due to
the fact that the truth has never yet been disclosed to them, and is
not likely to be until the war is over. They have been taught that in
a time of profound peace England, France, and Russia deliberately
initiated a war of aggression to destroy the commercial power of
Germany. The documents hereinafter analyzed will show how utterly
baseless this fiction is. Even if the truth were known, no one can
blame the German, who now rallies to his flag with such superhuman
devotion, for whether the cause of his country is just or unjust, its
prestige, and perhaps its very existence, is at stake, and there
should be for the rank and file of the German people only a feeling of
profound pity and deep admiration. Edmund Burke once said, "We must
pardon something to the spirit of liberty." We can paraphrase it and
say in this crisis, "We must pardon something to the spirit of
patriotism." The whole-hearted devotion of this great nation to its
flag is worthy of the best traditions of the Teutonic race. Thor did
not wield his thunder hammer with greater effect than these
descendants of the race of Wotan. If the ethical question depended
upon relative bravery, who could decide between the German, "faithful
unto death"; the English soldier, standing like a stone wall against
fearful odds, the French or Russian not less brave or resolute, and
the Belgian, now as in Caesar's time the "bravest of all the tribes of
Gaul."

No consideration, either of sympathy, admiration, or pity, can in any
manner affect the determination of the great ethical question as to
the moral responsibility for the present crime against civilization.
That must be determined by the facts as they have been developed, and
the nations and individuals who are responsible for this world-wide
catastrophe must be held to a strict accountability. The truth of
history inexorably demands this.

To determine where this moral responsibility lies is the purpose of
these pages.

In determining this question Posterity will distinguish between the
military caste, headed by the Kaiser and the Crown Prince, which
precipitated this great calamity, and the German people.

The very secrecy of the plot against the peace of the world and the
failure to disclos