trees. My fingers itched to pull the lever and to scatter withering death
among them. It slowly came into my mind how good it would be to kill
these defilers. I suppose that somewhere deep down in us there
remains an elemental lust for blood, and though in the protected lives
we live it rarely sees the light, when the bonds of civilization are
broken it rises up and dominates. And who shall say that it is not right?
There are things in Belgium for which blood alone can atone. Woe
to us if when our interests are satisfied we sheath the sword, and
forget the ruined homes, the murdered children of Belgium, the
desecrated altars of the God in whose name we fight! He has placed
the sword in our hands for vengeance, and not for peace.

I no longer wonder at the dogged courage of the Belgian soldiers, at
their steady disregard of their lives, when I think of the many such
pictures of wanton outrage which are burned into their memories, and
which can never be effaced so long as a single German remains in
their beloved land. I no longer wonder, but I do not cease to admire.
Let anyone who from the depths of an armchair at home thinks that I
have spoken too strongly, stimulate his imagination to the pitch of
visualizing the town in which he lives destroyed, his own house a
smoking heap, his wife profaned, his children murdered, and himself
ruined, for these are the things of which we know. Then, and then
only, will he be able to judge the bravery of the nation which,
preferring death to dishonour, has in all likelihood saved both France
and ourselves from sharing its terrible but glorious fate.




VII. Malines