You will agree with me, even now, that war, if not Hell, is cousin to it, cousin German. To condemn humanity to pass through that chamber of torture is a decision so grave and terrible that even emperors might well tremble before it. In the lineaments of the obscurest man slain in battle stands written the judgment of the rulers of the earth. Can your Austria face her conscience? I know that at the question you will be disposed to parry with a gibe at “English self-righteousness.” But, as it happens, I am not English, and mere self-righteousness does not survive the ordeal of battle. Living through this nightmare of blood you cannot but ask yourself how it began. The diplomatic correspondence is there to answer the question. These documents, the most memorable in secular history, are the charter of justification behind every decree of death that passes from the Allied lines to yours. Your Austria had grounds, tragical grounds, of complaint against some Serbians: you sought not justice, but the destruction of Serbian independence. You leagued yourself with Prussia--that blood-and-iron-monger--to break the faith of Europe and the homes of Belgium. You have heard all this before? You will hear it again, till the end of time. Not all the babbling savants of Berlin can ever erase the record of those two bully’s blows. They are the Alpha and the Omega of the war. Of course, it is true that there were other forces behind this reversion to violence and barbarism. All the explosive sediment of history was behind it, but it was your touch on the trigger that released all that imprisoned damnation. Your natural place was not with Prussia. You, who were once the master, are now the valet of Germanism. You had not elaborated through forty years a religion of murder. Like us Irish, you were perhaps more fascinating than successful; you were a nation of gentlemen. You had grace, delicacy and honour. You listened to the crowned commercial traveller from Potsdam, who promised you a short war and a golden guerdon of trade. We know now that it was he who forced your hand in the Serbian negotiations. To be allured by such a bribe is no new sin in our experience; every nation of the Alliance, at some time or other in the bad past, has fallen in similar wise. Does it seem to you that Mephistopheles is in the way of keeping his promise? I notice in your newspapers that your people are impressed by the area of enemy territory you occupy. The present truth of the military situation is that you occupy only as a detected burglar “occupies” the house he has attempted to rifle--that is to say, pending the arrival of the police. And, Franz, the police, although as usual somewhat slow, have arrived. There is no doubt of that.