The chancellor [spoke] about twenty minutes. He said the step taken by Great Britain was terrible to a degree. Just for a word, “neutrality,” a word which in war time had been so often disregarded, just for a scrap of paper, Great Britain was going to make war on a kindred nation. What we had done was unthinkable. It was like striking a man from behind while he was fighting for his life against two assailants. I protested strongly against this statement, and said that in the same way as he wished me to understand that for strategical reasons it was a matter of life or death to Germany to advance through Belgium and violate the latter’s neutrality, so I would wish him to understand that it was, so to speak, a matter of life or death for the honor of Great Britain that she should keep her solemn engagement to do her utmost to defend Belgium’s neutrality if attacked. A solemn compact simply had to be kept, or what confidence could any one have in England’s engagement in the future? There is one nation, however, as to which there is no room for difference of opinion, whether we consider her wrongs or the justice of her actions. It seems to me impossible that any man can fail to feel the deepest sympathy with a nation which is absolutely guiltless of any wrong-doing, which has given proof of high valor, and yet which has suffered terribly, and which, if there is any meaning in the words “right” and “wrong,” has suffered wrongfully. Belgium is not in the smallest degree responsible for any of the conditions that during the last half century have been at work to impress a certain fatalistic stamp upon those actions of Austria, Russia, Germany, and France which have rendered this war inevitable. No European nation has had anything whatever to fear from Belgium. There was not the smallest danger of her making any aggressive movement, not even the slightest aggressive movement, against any one of her neighbors. Her population was mainly industrial and was absorbed in peaceful business. Her people were thrifty, hard-working, highly civilized, and in no way aggressive. She owed her national existence to the desire to create an absolutely neutral state. Her neutrality had been solemnly guaranteed by the great powers, including Germany as well as England and France.