Meanwhile it is evident that the immense outlay of money and energy expended on the propaganda publications of the Entente fully accomplished their object and contributed most effectively towards winning what President Wilson has described as "a commercial and industrial war." Nevertheless the impartial historian of the future will, I think, present the story of the German invasion of Belgium in a somewhat different light from that in which this chapter of history has been portrayed in the official propaganda of the Allied Powers. * * * * * The final conclusions arrived at will perhaps be shaped on these lines:-- (1) That the Allied propagandists adopted methods of investigation which were often superficial and inadequate and accepted, together with certain evidence which was valid, much that was unsound and worthless. (2) That the official defence put forward by the enemy was to a very large extent ignored or suppressed. (3) That according to the recognised usages of war the German troops were fully justified in taking reprisals on the persons or property of those Belgian civilians who actually attacked them. (4) That in some cases this right was exercised with unreasonable severity, and without adequate discrimination. (5) That in certain instances, _e.g._, the shooting of the hostages at Les Rivages, the invaders acted in a manner condemned by the general consensus of civilised opinion. * * * * * The civilised world was invited to condemn the German reprisals of 1914 in Belgium. What verdict will it record with reference to British reprisals in Ireland six years later? The analogies inevitably suggested between the two cases are not as clear as they might at first sight appear to be.