WHO ARE THE HUNS?

34 The Neutrality of Belgium.
Deeds alone have any influence over these arrogant gentry.
They have even the power of compelling them to act with naked
egotism in every dealing with their allies.
One may, however, be thankful to the "Times" that it
explained on the 12th of October that neutrality was a fatal
gift to Belgium, and that the English and Belgian General Staffs
(not only those of 1906, 1911, but those of 1914) could
discuss military preparations only by means of a violation of
Belgian neutrality.
That secret arrangements had in fact taken place and
agreements been entered into and that these alone were sufficient
to determine the conclusive breach of Belgium's neutrality,
we believe the foregoing to have proved. It is also true
that a state of necessity and defence had at the same time
forced Germany so to act, as before God and her own rights as
well as from the viewpoint of international law, she should
and must have acted. 1
The Revelations of the "Norddeutsche Allgemeine
Zeitung" of the 24 th of November, 1914.
In a fashion still more drastic than in the publications of
the 12th of October, the new revelations which the German
1 The way England and its powerful press regard the neutrality of
small states, that is to say, with what lack of consideration the"perfida gens
Britonum" deals with this neutrality, is proved in a most forceful manner
by the Dutch "Allgemeen Handelsblad" in its sharp protest against an article
in the "Saturday Review." In this article it was proposed that England should
lease or purchase Zeeland, and give it to the Belgians. This should form
the future boundary of Holland, as soon as there was talk of peace. The
"Handelsblad" calls the attention of the British Minister at the Hague to
the shameful insult offered to a neutral country, which was honestly endeavoring
to perforin its duty to all its neighbors, which was holding fast to
its neutrality at the greatest cost to itself, and was certainly giving the British
shipwrecked sailors and interned men not the slightest ground for complaint
regarding the neutrality of Holland.
The newspaper then attacks that portion of the article in the "Saturday
Review" which declares that in times of war, justice must yield to military
law, that this was the right of the stronger, and declares: "When weekly
journals, such as the "Saturday Review" talk like the most brutal militarists,
we must come to the conclusion that all regard for international law is already
shaken to its very centre."