Even the wise, who loathe war, and regard it as such a dishonour and
disgrace in itself that all its laurels cannot hide its brand of Cain,
had to admit that police duty is necessary and that war must be made on
such war as the Germans had made by attacking France in an avowed
attempt to substitute a hegemony of cannon for the comity of nations.
There was no alternative. Had the Foreign Office been the International
Socialist Bureau, had Sir Edward Grey been Jaures, had Mr. Ramsay
MacDonald been Prime Minister, had Russia been Germany's ally instead of
ours, the result would still have been the same: we must have drawn the
sword to save France and smash Potsdam as we smashed and always must
smash Philip, Louis, Napoleon, _et hoc genus omne_.

The case for our action is thus as complete as any _casus belli_ is ever
likely to be. In fact its double character as both a democratic and
military (if not Militarist) case makes it too complete; for it enables
our Junkers to claim it entirely for themselves, and to fake it with
pseudo-legal justifications which destroy nine-tenths of our credit, the
military and legal cases being hardly a tenth of the whole: indeed, they
would not by themselves justify the slaughter of a single Pomeranian
grenadier. For instance, take the Militarist view that we must fight
Potsdam because if the Kaiser is victorious, it will be our turn next!
Well: are we not prepared to fight always when our turn comes? Why
should not we also depend on our navy, on the extreme improbability of
Germany, however triumphant, making two such terrible calls on her
people in the same generation as a war involves, on the sympathy of the
defeated, and on the support of American and European public opinion
when our turn comes, if there is nothing at stake now but the difference
between defeat and victory in an otherwise indifferent military
campaign? If the welfare of the world does not suffer any more by an
English than by a German defeat who cares whether we are defeated or