It was not foreseen, nor supposed possible, that heroism would be challenged by murder, that the glorious defenders of their country's rights would have to fight against sanguinary savages obeying the barbarian orders of a modern Attila. It was not foreseen that hundreds of children, women, old men, wounded soldiers, would be assassinated on the open sea and sent to their eternal watery graves. So far as the horrors of regular warfare were concerned, they were, as I have just said, very well known. And was it not on account of this knowledge that Great Britain and France had exhausted all their efforts in favour of the maintenance of peace? Was it not out of this knowledge that England had, for more than twenty years, implored the Berlin Government to agree at least to partial disarmament, to discontinue, or, at the least, to reduce war ship building operations? When Austria, bowing herself down to the ground under the German tyrannical lash, unjustly and cruelly declared war against weak Servia, she knew what the horrors of the conflict could not fail to be. How is it that at that time she was not moved by the sympathetic feelings expressed in her recent appeal for peace negotiations? How is it that Austria, and her inspiring angel, Germany, are getting so nervous about the misfortunes of war, just at the time when they are forced to admit that they are utterly unable to realize the aims for which they brought on the frightful struggle? How is it that those who could order with clear conscience and fiendish delight the violation of Belgium guaranteed neutrality, the sinking of the Lusitania and so many other ships carrying non-combatants, children, women and old men, the murder of so many innocent victims, the Belgian deportations, the destruction of the monuments of art--the work of human genius--are suddenly moved to pity just as they see the hand writing on the wall warning them that their days of foul enjoyments are at end? How is it that the voice who dictated the following sentence was not silenced and choked by the abominable lie it contains? How is it that the hand that wrote it was not instantly dried up at the impudent falsehood it expresses? Austria's official communication says in part:-- "_The Central Powers leave it in no doubt that they are only waging a war of defence for the integrity and the security of their territories._" But why is it that the Central Empires are now only waging a defensive war, if it is not because after having opened the game with the certainty of crushing their opponents by the tremendous power of their formidable military organization, they are getting beaten and overpowered by the unrivalled heroism called forth by their criminal attempt at destroying weak nations and enslaving Humanity?