Every German crime is preceded by a series of false promises and followed by a series of calumnies. Between such a prelude and such a finale, you may perform a symphony of frightfulness with Dr. Strauss' orchestration--it will sound as innocent and artless as the three notes of a shepherd's pipe. The violation of Belgian neutrality is bad enough, but if you begin to lull Belgium to slumber by repeating, on every occasion, that she has nothing to fear, and if you end by declaring to the civilised world that Belgium was plotting with England and France a traitorous attack against Germany, then it becomes quite plausible. To massacre 6,000 civilians and burn 20,000 houses in cold blood looks rather harsh, but if you begin by giving "a solemn guarantee to the people that they will not have to suffer from the war" (General von Emmich's first proclamation) and end by saying that women have emptied buckets of boiling water on the heads of your soldiers and that children have put out the eyes of your wounded, it becomes almost a kind proceeding. In the same way, to seize and deport hundreds of thousands of men and compel them to work in exile against their country seems the act of Barbarians, but if you accumulate assurances that "normal conditions will be maintained" and that nobody need fear deportation, and if you end by declaring that the Belgian working classes are exclusively composed of loafers and drunkards, it becomes a measure of providence and wisdom for which your victims in particular, and the whole civilised world in general, ought to be deeply grateful. The promise testifies to your good intentions and the calumny explains how you were regretfully obliged not to fulfill them. The promise keeps your victims within reach, the calumnies shift to them the responsibility for your crime. Who doubts that every town visited by a Zeppelin is fortified, that every ship sunk by a U boat carries troops or guns? The old Hun killed everything which stood in his way; the modern Hun does the same and then declares that _he_ is the victim. The old Hun left the dead bodies of his enemies to the crows; the modern Hun throws mud at them. The old Hun tried to kill the body; the modern Hun tries to ruin the soul. * * * * * For this last and most monstrous of all Germany's crimes we have to register not one promise only, but a series of promises, an accumulation of solemn pledges. It seemed worth while apparently to keep the Belgian workmen at home. Let us record them here, in chronological order: 1st. September 2nd, 1914. Proclamation of Governor von der Goltz posted in Brussels: _"I ask no one to renounce his patriotic sentiments..."_