I found the Chancellor very agitated. His Excellency at once began a harangue which lasted for about twenty minutes. He said that the step taken by His Majesty's Government was terrible to a degree; just for a word--"neutrality," a word which in war time had so often been disregarded--just for a scrap of paper, Great Britain was going to make war on a kindred nation who desired nothing better than to be friends with her. When he added that it was a matter of "life and death" to Germany to advance through Belgium, the British Ambassador replied that it was "a matter of life and death for the honor of Great Britain that she should keep her solid engagement to do her utmost to defend Belgium's neutrality if attacked." Her utmost! Aye, she has done it! A last gasp from the German Chancellor: "But at what price will that compact have been kept? Has the British Government thought of that?" Sir Edward Goschen replied that "fear of consequences could hardly be regarded as an excuse for breaking solemn engagements," but these words were lost. The German Chancellor had abandoned himself to the contemplation of the truth: that morning Germany had been beaten when a soldier stepped across a line. How long the decision might be in dispute Bethmann-Hollweg could not know, but he must have known that, cheating, Germany had loaded the dice at the wrong side. If she had struck fairly at France, England would have had to stand by, neutral. The seas would be open to Germany. If France had violated Belgium's neutrality--as Germany professed to believe she intended to do--England would have attacked France, keeping the pledge made in the Treaty of London. But now, because England weighed a promise and not the price of keeping it, there could be no swift stroke at lone France, no dash eastward to subdue Russia. To-day, when Germany sees how ripe Russia was then for revolution, the remembrance of that 4th of August must be the bitterest drop in the deep cup of her regret. The items at which we have glanced were not all or even the most important acts of Germany's dawning tragedy. It was not merely that she revealed herself to the world, but that she revealed herself to herself. The moving picture of Kultur, of fake idealism, of humaneness, which she had unreeled before our charitable eyes was stopped, and stopped forever. The film, exposed momentarily to the flame of truth, exploded and left on the screen the hideous picture of Germany as she was. No more sham for a naked nation. In went the unmasked Prussian to outrage and murder, to bind and burn. When a Government violated its word to the world, why should the individual check his passions? All the world, at first unbelieving, watched the procession of horror, and then, against its wishes, against all the ingrained faith that the long years had stored within the human breast, the world saw that it was dealing with nothing less than a monster.