Ah! If the sponge were to be passed over all the crimes that have been committed, over all the outrages and all the violations of the rights of nations, if this war were to be ended by an ordinary treaty modifying the frontiers, and stipulating for financial and economic conditions and nothing more, and if, after this treaty, wearied of hating and giving in to a great craving for moral peace, the hostile Nations were to blot from their memories the recollection of the Evil accomplished, and were to throw themselves into each other’s arms and exchange a mighty kiss of concord and of love—let us take every precaution against such a possibility! A misfortune would overtake humanity far more serious for it than all the catastrophes which it has suffered in the course of its sorrowful history. I say that if we do not strike at the head of the most exalted, the most powerful among the responsible authors of these crimes—those who let loose the war, those who gloried in tearing up treaties like “scraps of paper,” those who ordered the sinking of the _Lusitania_ and the _Persia_ and their thousands of passengers, those who first bombarded open towns, those who for the first time launched aeroplanes and Zeppelins over our industrial cities on both sides of the Channel (to speak only of our own front) those who burnt Louvain, who murdered the Cathedral of Reims, those who gave the order for the first acts of incendiarism and pillage and assassination, those who splashed the statue of Charity with the noble blood of Miss Cavell, those who started the _régime_ of asphyxiating gases and liquid fire, and all who have placed themselves beyond the pale of the law, and of humanity—if the sword of the law does not fall on all these men personally, this is what will happen: man will no longer believe in honour, he will no longer believe in right, he will no longer believe in justice, he will no longer believe in anything. His faith in a better future will vanish and be dispelled for ever, along with the beautiful dreams which—whether they were realizable or not—were our joy, our hope, and our pride, in which we were constructing, on the foundation of Law and of Right, better national and international organizations than those by which man up to our day had protected himself. If the criminals do not bear the punishment of their crimes the principle of responsibility gives way, carrying with it all our codes and laws. It will remain a settled principle that only Force counts. The force of Germany will not have triumphed this time, but its hateful doctrine will remain all-powerful, and that would be for humanity a terrible moral relapse.