In saying that Sir E. Grey did not know the terms of the Franco-Russian agreement, Lord Loreburn is generous, probably more generous than he should be; but that is no matter. The thing to be remarked is that Lord Loreburn's summing-up comes to something wholly different from Mr. Lloyd George's "most dangerous conspiracy ever plotted against the liberty of nations." It comes to something wholly different from the notion implanted in Americans, of Germany pouncing upon a peaceful, unprepared and unsuspecting Europe. The German nation, we may be sure, is keenly aware of this difference; and therefore, any peace which, like the peace of Versailles, is bottomed on the _chose jugée_ of laying the sole responsibility for the war at the door of the German nation, or even at the door of the German Government, is simply impracticable and impossible. FOOTNOTES: [3] Six months after the armistice, the bodies of the three assassins were dug up, according to a Central News dispatch from Prague, "with great solemnity, in the presence of thousands of the inhabitants. The remains of _these Serbian officers_ are to be sent to their native country." This is a naïve statement. It remains to be explained why these "German agents" should be honoured in this distinguished way by the Serbs! [4] See footnote to chapter XVIII. VI If the theory upon which the treaty of Versailles is based, the theory of a single guilty nation, were true, there would be no trouble about saying what the war was fought for. The Allied belligerents would have a simple, straight story to tell; they could describe their aims and intentions clearly in a few words that any one could understand, and their story would be reasonably consistent and not vary greatly from year to year. It would be practically the same story in 1918 as in 1915 or at any time between. In America, indeed, the story did not greatly vary up to the spring of 1917, for the reason that this country was pretty much in the dark about European international relations. Once our indignation and sympathies were aroused, it was for the propagandists mostly a matter of keeping them as hot as possible. Few had the information necessary to discount the plain, easy, understandable story of a robber nation leaping upon an unprepared and defenceless Europe for no cause whatever except the lofty ambition, as Mr. Joseph Choate said, "to establish a world-empire upon the ruins of the British Empire." Those who had this information could not make themselves heard; and thus it was that the propagandists had no need to vary the one story that was most useful to their purpose of keeping us in a state of unreasoning indignation, and accordingly they did not vary it.