Since the war began I have watched it and England’s share in it from Belgium, Holland, France, Italy, and German and French Switzerland, and have talked about it with the inhabitants of various other countries, including Serbs, Greeks, Russians, Swedes, Montenegrins, and Americans. Never once have I heard it said, though I have seen it hinted in print—in German print—that we came into the war from anything but disinterested motives. And that is the one thing that matters. I was once called upon, when the war was less than a year old, to speak about it at a large meeting of French and German Swiss, specially arranged as a meeting of neutrals. Strictly speaking, it was neutral only in name and on the surface, in the sense that the men composing it were persuaded that their highest duty was to stand together for a United Switzerland, and to sink their differences and individual opinions for the sake of their common country. But the differences and individual opinions were there. Every man in the room, whatever his politics (they were mostly Socialists), consciously and strongly wanted one side or the other, France or Germany, to win. But the very fact that as individual jurymen they were not impartial made their verdict, provided that it was unanimous, all the more convincing. It was in the days when every one in Switzerland was still discussing the rights and wrongs of the war—and before a German airman had dropped bombs on that particular Swiss town. Having explained that I personally was not a neutral (an obvious remark which was greeted with loud laughter, as a characteristic specimen of English humour), I went on to the further statement, not necessarily quite so obvious to the whole of that particular audience, that England had come into the war because Germany had been guilty of the violation of Belgium’s neutrality, and that if we had not done so we could never have looked the other nations in the face again. Before the words were out of my mouth they had given their verdict in a unanimous burst of applause. Every man of them, and not only those who naturally sympathized with the Allies, showed as clearly as possible that on that point they needed no persuasion. Germany was guilty, and England had done the one thing possible. And that, as far as my observation goes, is the general opinion abroad, not only in Switzerland (in spite of the natural predisposition of many of the inhabitants to think well of Germany as well as to fear her) but in Holland, the Americas, Sweden, and practically the whole of the neutral world.