duced an active difference of opinion such as that which, in fact, prevailed during the South African struggle. And even if there had been ground for thinking that our Allies, France and Russia, had with deliberate purpose engineered a great conspiracy against Germany, the effect would have been equally disastrous. The information available at the time seemed completely to exclude either of those hypotheses. There appeared to be an enormous preponderance of evidence to show that it was the spirit and the action of the German Government that was responsible for the great catastrophe. This being so, it was right and inevitable that those who specially occupied themselves with these matters should take every step to make known what they believed to be the truth.

Even at that period, however, it was obvious that there were many points of obscurity. To some extent, though not altogether, the acts of the German Government were patent; but, as must always be the case, their motives and objects were more difficult to understand. There was much on which enlightenment was necessary, but for that we should have to wait for quieter times when much which had been hidden would be revealed, and the matters which were then of the most acute political interest and importance might be reinvestigated by historians working in a calmer atmosphere.

It might have been hoped that such time would have now arrived. If it has not, the responsibility, as must be recognised, lies largely with the Allies. By incorporating in the Treaty of Peace a forced confession by the Germans of their responsibility and by renewing and elaborating the charge in an official document, the covering letter to the Germans, they issued a challenge which must inevitably be taken up. When in subsequent speeches the leaders of the Allies stated that the terms of the treaty found their justification in the war guilt of Germany, how easy it was for the Germans to draw the conclusion that if they could disprove the charge made against them, then the whole moral basis on which the treaty was built up would be cut away! Moreover, the very fact that an official pronouncement is made on a highly complicated historical and psychological problem

will at once arouse a spirit of opposition in every independent mind. These things cannot be settled by an ex officio judgment issued ex cathedra, especially when the evidence available was necessarily very incomplete. Least of all would a judgment of this kind be accepted by a nation, such as the Germans, who are prone to controversy and have an unlimited supply of historical students searching for a subject to which they may devote their time and abilities. Whatever internal differences there might be among them, they could all join in attempting to disprove an accusation which they professed to believe was most dishonouring to their country. Let us say in passing that the point of dishonour is rather overdone; when we remember the methods by which Bismarck carefully engineered the war with Austria in 1866, we should scarcely expect the Germans to say that action of this kind in 1914 necessarily dishonours the whole nation.

And so we get a new mass of propagandist literature similar in character, and perhaps almost equal in amount, to that of the war-time days. There are in Germany dozens of societies, many of them obviously with considerable means at their disposal, issuing books and pamphlets which are distributed broadcast not only at home but in foreign countries. The centre of the movement is the monthly journal, Die Kriegsschuldfrage,' which is entirely devoted to this subject; it is an invaluable guide to the whole literature; in it every new document, every particle of evidence, is analysed and discussed; but the writers have no discrimination, they never allow a single point, however unimportant, to be made against Germany. Their great fault as propagandists is that they always overstate their case and, in fact, many of the writers become so obsessed with their subject that they seem to have lost the power to think outside the prescribed groove. The spirit of the whole thing is really not historical investigation but political propaganda. The object is not to disentangle what really happened, but to make the best possible case for Germany with the avowed desire of undermining the authority of the Peace settlement.

The strongest weapon in the German armoury was one repeatedly urged, even in 1919, by the German

Delegation at Versailles. You assert,' they said, 'that it was Germany, and Germany alone, which was responsible for the outbreak of the war. How can you be sure of this until the whole of the facts have been disclosed? You are arguing on insufficient evidence. If there is to be a final judgment, then it must be by an impartial tribunal which has access to the documents of all the Governments concerned.' Since then they have set to work on their side to provide the requisite material in the fullest way. We have first of all the four volumes containing a full publication of the documents for the few weeks before the outbreak of war-the so-called Kautsky Documents-and then the great work which has just been completed in fifty-four volumes, containing a very voluminous selection of the German official correspondence from the years 1871 to 1914. In these two collections we find the answer to much which was formerly obscure, both as regards the immediate outbreak of war and the course of policy during the years before it. Let us recognise that, so far as it is possible to judge, the editing of these publications shows the high qualities which in dealing with the text of documents has become a tradition in Germany. It does not follow that we shall be equally able to accept the interpretation of the new evidence which German writers put forward. But even in regard to this matter, the best historians confess that on the whole the conclusions to be drawn are very unfavourable to the skill and wisdom by which German policy was directed. The most important individual editor of documents is Herr Stieve, who deals specially with the relations between Russia and France during the few years before the war, when M. Isvolsky was Ambassador in Paris. The method adopted is first to publish an admirable edition of the whole of the Isvolsky correspondence, which has completely superseded the Livre Noir.' This would, however, obviously not be sufficient. There are not many who have the skill and industry to wade through and interpret a great mass of documents, letters, despatches, and telegrams, and then there is always a danger that the uninitiated reader might, if left to himself, come to a wrong conclusion. Herr Stieve has brought out a shorter and more popular work consisting of well-chosen

selections with a running commentary in which stress is laid on every point favourable to Germany, and those which might afford arguments against Germany are suppressed or ignored. We may give a single instance of the way in which this is done. He begins his book with an account of Isvolsky's earlier career, tracing the steps by which he came to be what he had not originally been, a confirmed opponent of Germany and Austria. Now, of course, in this development the essential point is the crisis of 1909, when the German Government, by a veiled ultimatum, forced Russia, practically by the threat of war, to accept the Austrian requirements regarding Serbia. As every one knows, that which made war almost inevitable in 1914 was the fact that the Germans were trying once again to do that which in 1909 they had done with success. About all this, however, Herr Stieve says not a word, and in so doing is of course followed by the sheep-like crowd who read and reproduce his writings.

Among the books published one of the most interesting is that by the Crown Prince. It is composed not without skill and is written in a style of rather engaging simplicity. The pose, too, is well selected. The son, moved by filial affection, sets out to defend his father from the unjust charges brought against him, and the Crown Prince, in his involuntary retirement, seeks for some method by which he can be of service to his Fatherland. The greater part of the book is a review of German history from 1871 onwards, with the object of disproving the accusation that Germany repeatedly threatened Europe with an unprovoked war. We cannot, of course, follow the Crown Prince through the whole of his historical investigations; there is, however, one fundamental point on which it seems necessary to correct him, namely, his treatment of article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles. He first assumes that this article is, and is meant to be, the foundation and justification of the whole of the treaty; and then he asks the question why this declaration, without which, according to the view of its authors, the whole of the treaty would have been impossible, was not placed at the head and beginning of the treaty. If this was not done, there must be some special reason for hiding it away. The reason

can be no other than the bad conscience of the men who devised it.' This picture of what happened is one in which the leaders of the Allies, desirous as they were to impose on Germany conditions which would otherwise have been quite unjustifiable, determined, although they knew that it was false, to put forward the justification of German responsibility for the war. At the same time, when they came to the drafting of the treaty they realised that solemnly to lay this down in the preamble would even for them be too gross a proceeding, so they hid it away in the 231st Article.

Could anything be more grotesque, or show a more complete misunderstanding of the attitude of the Allies on this point? One thing can be asserted positively, that there was not among them the slightest doubt as to the truth of the charges made against Germany in this matter. They may have been right or wrong in their belief, but the belief was there. There were great differences of opinion on such matters as to whether it should be included in the formal indictment brought against the German Emperor, but these differences turned on quite different matters, the responsibility of the head of the State, the difficulty of creating a court to try such a charge; but those who most strongly opposed the formu. lation of the charge never wavered in their insistence that the accusation was fully justified and proven. The suggestion that it was a deliberate fiction put up for political reasons is completely and absolutely baseless. As to the Crown Prince's question why it was placed in article 231 and not in the preamble to the treaty, the answer is simple. So far as most of the treaty went, this point was irrelevant, except for the particular matter of reparation. The rest of the treaty was not avowedly, and only to a partial extent really based upon the responsibility of Germany for the war. In regard to the most important section, the territorial settlement, this was discussed and argued on perfectly different grounds. The whole of the territorial clauses were based partly on the pre-armistice agreement and partly on a consideration of what would be the wisest for the future peace and security of Europe. The first of these considerations involved the general principle that no territory should be separated from Germany unless