One
could make a kind of comic calendar of what would have happened to the
English diplomatist, if he had been silenced every time by Prussian
diplomacy. Suppose we arrange it in the form of a kind of diary:
July 24: Germany invades Belgium.
July 25: England declares war.
July 26: Germany promises not to annex Belgium.
July 27: England withdraws from the war.
July 28: Germany annexes Belgium, England declares war.
July 29: Germany promises not to annex France, England withdraws from the
war.
July 30: Germany annexes France, England declares war.
July 31: Germany promises not to annex England.
Aug. 1: England withdraws from the war. Germany invades England.
How long is anybody expected to go on with that sort of game; or keep peace
at that illimitable price? How long must we pursue a road in which promises
are all fetishes in front of us; and all fragments behind us? No; upon the
cold facts of the final negotiations, as told by any of the diplomatists in
any of the documents, there is no doubt about the story. And no doubt about
the villain of the story.
These are the last facts; the facts which involved England.
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