England, Canada and the Great WarDesjardins, L. G. (Louis Georges)
History
England, Canada and the Great War
Desjardins, L. G. (Louis Georges)
Great Britain -- Colonies -- Canada; Imperialism; World War, 1914-1918; World War, 1914-1918 -- Canada
It is well known how the very opposite took place. Russia, to be ready
for the emergency of the declaration of war by Austria against Servia,
ordered the mobilization of that part of her army bordering on the
Austrian frontier, answering to the Berlin request for explanations that
she had no inimical intention whatever against the German Empire, that
her only object was to protect weak Servia against Austria's most unjust
attack. The Kaiser's government replied by requesting Russia to cancel
her order for the mobilization of part of her army. And in the very
thick of this diplomatic exchange of despatches, whilst England and
France were sparing no effort, by day and night, to maintain peace and
protect Mankind from the threatening calamity, Germany suddenly threw
the gauntlet and declared war against Russia.
Foreseeing clearly that France was consequently in honour bound to
support Russia, in accordance with her international obligations towards
that great Eastern Power--in strict conformity with the second principle
enunciated by Mr. Bourassa and previously quoted--, Germany took the
initiative of a second unjust declaration of war, and this one against
France.
The military operations against France being very difficult, and
certainly to be very costly in a fearful loss of man-power, before the
strongly fortified French frontier could be successfully overrun,
Germany, after a most shameful attempt to bribe England into neutrality,
decided to take the easy route and ordered her army to invade Belgium's
neutral territory, in violation of her solemn treaty obligations. That
treacherous act filled the cup of teutonic infamy, and brought Great
Britain, and the whole British Empire, into the conflict.
So Germany was guilty of the most outrageous violation of the three
sound principles laid down by the "Nationalist" leader qualifying a just
war against an iniquitous one, whilst England and France won the
admiration of the world by their noble determination to stand by them at
all cost.
Still Mr. Bourassa, by an incomprehensible perversion of mind in judging
the application of his own loudly proclaimed principles, has not to
this day uttered one word openly condemning Germany's war policy and
eulogizing that of England and France. On the contrary, he has tried to
persuade his readers that both groups of belligerents were equally
responsible for the war, more especially giving vent to his, at the
least, very strange hostility to England and scarcely dissimulating his
teutonic evident sympathies. He never positively expressed his
disapproval of Austria's unjust attack against Servia, but condemned
Russia for her intervention to protect that weak country, concluding
that the Petrograd Government was the real guilty party which had thrown
the world into the vortex of the most deadly conflict of all times.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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