And it is something akin to this very doctrine which Germany has made her own and applied in her conduct of this war as she has done in none of her previous wars. _The conviction that everything, literally everything, which tends to ensure victory is permitted to her, and indeed called for, has now evidently assumed the power of a national obsession._ Thus, the violation of innocent Belgium in defiance of solemn treaty; the unspeakable treatment inflicted on her people; the bombardment, without warning, of open places (which Germany was the first to practise); the destruction of great monuments of art which belonged to all humankind, as in Rheims, and Louvain; the _Lusitania_ horror, the strewing of mines broadcast, the use of poisonous gases causing death by torture or incurable disease; the taking of hostages; the arbitrary imposition of monetary indemnities and penalties, and so forth. It is these facts that the non-combatant nations charge against Germany, and quite apart from the responsibility for the war, it is in them that may be found the main reason why public opinion in neutral countries has more and more turned against Germany as the war has continued. I say "innocent Belgium," for it is entirely evident that the Belgian-English pourparlers, of which Germany discovered documentary evidence, _related merely to the eventuality of Germany's violating Belgian neutrality_, and therefore in no way constituted a relinquishment of neutrality on Belgium's part. _In so far as these pourparlers did not keep strictly within these limits_ (manifestly as a result of excessive zeal on the part of the English military attaché in question) _they were formally and categorically rejected and disavowed, by both the Belgian and English Governments_. This is shown by official papers which have been published. It cannot be doubted that these proceedings of disavowal were entirely _bona fide_, for they took place at a time and under circumstances such that no one could possibly have imagined that the correspondence evidencing them would ever see the light of day. Inasmuch as you mention these Anglo-Belgian pourparlers as among the reasons justifying Germany's invasion of Belgium, it is worth pointing out that this treaty defying invasion was perpetrated _before_ Germany had discovered the existence of the documents which evidenced that such pourparlers had taken place. Germany's reasoning that she was compelled to take the initiative in violating the treaty of neutrality in order to avoid the imminent danger that England and France would do so first and thereupon advance troops against her through Belgium, is, even if such reasoning were morally admissible, no valid argument; for, only a few days before, England and France had solemnly pledged themselves in the face of the whole world to respect Belgium's neutrality.