The Drama of Three Hundred and Sixty Five Days/The Part Played by the Neutral Nations
THE PART PLAYED BY THE NEUTRAL NATIONS
And then the neutral countries—what is the
part which they have played in the drama of the
past 365 days? I think I may fairly claim to
have had better opportunities than most people
for studying one aspect of it, its moral aspect, and
therefore I trust I may be forgiven if I make a
personal reference. Seeing, in the earliest days
of the war, that Germany was doing her best to
divert the eye of the world from the crime she
had committed in Belgium, and being convinced
that Britain's hope both now and in the future
lay in keeping the world's eye fixed on that
outrage, I moved the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph
to the publication of "King Albert's Book."
What that great book was it must be quite unnecessary to say, but it may be permitted to the editor to claim that it constituted the first (as it may well be the final) impeachment of the Kaiser before the bar of the nations for a crime in Belgium as revolting as that of Frederick the Great in Silesia and a thousandfold more fatal. After the publication of "King Albert's Book," Germany knew that before the tribunal of the civilized world she stood tried and condemned. But though representative men and women in thirteen different countries united within the covers of the historic volume to express their abhorrence of Germany's iniquity, the whole weight of the world's condemnation could not be included.
From many of the neutral nations there came pathetic cries of inability to join in the general protest. Famous men wrote that the neutrality of their countries imposed upon them the duty and the penalty of silence. "My brother is a member of our Government," wrote one illustrious man of letters, "and if I am not to get him into trouble I must hold my tongue." Another, whose German name, if it could be published, would carry weight throughout the world, said: "I know where my sympathy lies, and so do you, but I dare not speak, for I am a German-born subject, and to tell what is in my mind would be treason to my country." This message came from a remote place in Spain, the writer having been compelled to fly from France, because his blood was German, while unable to take refuge in Germany because his heart was French.