what we ought to do, if requested by Belgium
to help, in case of her being invaded by another Power.

The documents will be found in the volume of Collected Diplomatic
Documents relating to the outbreak of the war, presented to Parliament
in May, 1915 (Cd. 7860). This volume includes a vigorous denial by Sir
Edward Grey of the insinuation.

CHAPTER V

EPILOG

The great war is over, and the Powers of the West have conquered. In the
earlier pages I have given my own view of why they won in the tremendous
struggle that now belongs to history. They had on their side moral
forces which were lacking to their adversaries.

Germany went into the war with a conviction that had been carefully
instilled into her people. It was that she was being ringed round with
the intention that she should be crushed, and that presently it would be
too late for her to deliver herself. The lesson so taught to her was not
a true one. She might easily have obtained guarantees of peace which
ought to have satisfied her, without undertaking a risk which in the end
was to prove disastrous. No one here wanted to ruin her, no one who
counted seriously in this country. And if we did not want to, no more in
reality did France or Russia. She brought her fate on her head by the
unwisdom of her methods. But her people hardly desired the dangers of
unnecessary war, and her rulers dared not have ventured these dangers
had they not first of all preached a wrong doctrine to those over whom
they ruled. They had their way in the end, and disaster to sixty-eight
millions of Germans was the consequence. The calculations of their
chiefs were bad from the beginning. It is almost certain that the best
and most eminent among even these really desired peace. They blundered
in method. It was not by continually flashing the saber that peace was
to be secured.

It is scarcely likely that the conditions under which this war became
possible will recur. It is more than unlikely that they will recur in
our time. But it is none the less worth while to consider how the
unlikelihood can be made to approach most nearly to a certainty.

Not, I think, by causing the millions of German-speaking people to feel
that they are in chains without possibility of freedom. More certainly,
surely, by leading them to the faith that if they will play a part in
the great world effort for permanent peace and for reconstruction they
will be welcomed to the brotherhood of nations. T