One sees plainly from these, and too many other examples, what was the object of our enemies: (_a_) They wished to terrorize the population, in order to make them more amenable to requisitions and demands of all kinds; (_b_) they wished to make their own troops believe that in fighting the Belgians--which they at first did with great unwillingness--they were merely defending themselves against treacherous attacks; (_c_) they wished to multiply opportunities of pillage; (_d_) finally, perhaps, they reckoned that by displaying to the Belgian Government the horrors to which its first refusal had exposed the country, they would induce it to reconsider its position and could obtain from it a free passage. _Were there any "Francs-tireurs"?_ It would be impossible at this moment to state that the Belgians never, at any point of the frontier, fired upon the invaders. Let us remark, moreover, that if they did they would have been, from the purely human point of view, perfectly excusable.[14] What! here is Germany, who, pretending to be in a state of legitimate defence, falls unawares upon an inoffensive third party! And this third party had no right to oppose force to violence! In all logic, was it not Belgium that was in a state of legitimate defence; was it not for Belgium that all means were good? And notice, please, that it was not against an imagined and imaginary menace that we were defending ourselves: the Germans had most undeniably invaded Belgium. Would it have been astonishing if the Belgians, exasperated by this unspeakable aggression, had seized their rifles? In sane justice, one could not regard such action as a grievance; on the contrary. Does this mean that we believe in the story of civilians attacking the German army? Most certainly not; because we know from reliable sources that in _every_ case where it has been possible to hold an inquiry, this inquiry has shown that the "francs-tireurs" were merely the pretext; the real motive for all the devastation and massacre was the desire to terrorize the population. It is, therefore, in a fashion entirely theoretical, and with the most express reserves, that we admit, in default of opportunity to investigate, in each case, the affirmations of our enemies, that in some cases, certainly extremely rare, isolated civilians, or small groups of civilians, may have been taken with arms in their hands. But our enemies will please admit also that the attitude of these civilians would have been amply excused by the more than brutal fashion in which the Germans behaved from the very first moments of the war. Let us add that when one erects terror into a system, as the Germans do, one should understand the defensive reflexes of the victims.