aviators flying over Belgian territory; and to try to make out a case in
defence of Germany--when your Chancellor has officially admitted
Germany's guilt. Americans have no doubt that on the basis of the
well-known facts of the case, supplemented by your Chancellor's
admission of guilt, History will for ever record Germany's brutal
disregard of her treaty obligations and her murderous assault on a
small, innocent nation as one of the most terrible crimes ever committed
by a nation claiming to rank high among civilised peoples.

The plea that "military necessity" justified the destruction of an
innocent people, that the invasion of Belgium was necessary as a measure
of "self-defence," Americans consider as striking proof of the essential
barbarity of the German Government. A man who would shoot down an
innocent girl in order to get at another man would be condemned as the
worst kind of a brute. A Government which slaughters an innocent and
peaceful people in order to get at an enemy Government is universally
regarded by Americans as the worst type of a barbarous Government. No
truly civilised Government could be so brutally selfish as to protect
itself by inflicting the horrors of fearful war upon a helpless and
unoffending people.

You dismiss the question of atrocities by asking if Americans can
believe that such Germans as I know would commit such awful deeds. The
reply to this is that, while Americans realise that there are many
Germans who would rather die than do a cruel act, Germany possesses a
military Government which has convinced Americans and the rest of the
world that, under the plea of "military necessity," it will commit the
most barbarous crimes. History demonstrates that a military Government
stifles the finer instincts of the people which support it. Many Germans
struggled to overthrow the military clique in Germany, and some of them