is
excuse does not seem to have been very satisfactory even to those who
put it forward, though it was indubitably the real reason; so vice paid
homage to virtue, and Herr von Jagow urged to Prince Lichnowsky that he
had 'absolutely unimpeachable information' that the German army was
exposed to French attack across Belgium. On the other hand, the
Chancellor, as late as August 4th, seems to have known nothing of any
such action by France; at any rate he made no mention of it in his
speech to the Reichstag:--

'We are now in a state of necessity, and necessity knows no law. Our
troops have occupied Luxemburg and perhaps are already on Belgian
soil. Gentlemen, that is contrary to the dictates of international
law. It is true that the French Government has declared at Brussels
that France is willing to respect the neutrality of Belgium, as long
as her opponent respects it. We knew, however, that France stood
ready for invasion. France could wait but we could not wait. A
French movement upon our flank upon the Lower Rhine might have been
disastrous. So we were compelled to override the just protest of the
Luxemburg and Belgian Governments. The wrong--I speak openly--that
we are committing we will endeavour to make good as soon as our
military goal has been reached. Anybody who is threatened as we are
threatened, and is fighting for his highest possessions, can only
have one thought--how he is to hack his way through.'[129]

In this double-faced position of the German Government, we have an
example either of unsurpassed wickedness or of insurpassable folly. The
violation of Belgium must have been designed either in order to bring us
into the quarrel, or on the supposition that, in spite of treaties and
warnings, we should yet remain neutral. Yet the foolishness of such a
calculation is as nothing to that which prompted the excuse that Germany
had to violate Belgian neutrality because the French were going to do
so, or had done so. In such a case undoubtedly the wisest course for
Germany would have been to allow the French to earn the reward of their
own folly and be attacked not only by Belgium but also by Great Britain,
to whom not five days before they had solemnly promised to observe the
neutrality, and whom such a gross violation of the French word must
indubitably have kept neutral, if it did not throw her on to the side of
Germany. In regard to Belgium the Germans