to respect the recognized right of the weaker, or if the stronger could use his might to work his will in violation of the right of the weaker. It follows that no state is justified in making war except in the vindication of its rights. Such is, in truth, the principle recognized and observed by civilized states. What if the strong does, notwithstanding, appeal to arms and disregard the right of a weaker state? Has international law any means to check the violator? Yes; a means less direct and less immediate than in the case of violations of national law, though none the less sure in its effect. Public opinion throughout the world will work against the culprit, and in favor of the oppressed, until perhaps some combination of states is found to intervene and check the aggression. At times it is not easy to discover which side is right, so that other states are cautious lest they make a mistake and lest their intervention be considered a cloak to hide political designs. Unfortunately, in the past the political element in intervention has often been predominant. Each state is eager to protect the policies which lie closest to the hearts of the people, as being the expression of views peculiarly their own; that is, the views which they think right and wish to have adopted. To maintain the law pertaining to all the states and accepted by them does not require the same effort.

When a state has recourse to force, it is not possible to know at once the real motive, and to judge how far the action is justified. It results from this situation that when a state takes the law into its own hands and attacks another, there is no effective way of determining on the instant whether the action is a proper vindication of its rights or a more or less disguised violation of international law. This inability to discern the rights of the question and the consequences which will result from the prevalence of either of the opposing views led to the development of the condition of neutrality. Where two

political views are opposed to each other, it is natural that superior force should have its effect. It is only in the realm of law that the equality of weak and strong is reasonable.1

In the presence of a conflict between two opposing political views, interest and expediency alone determine whether a given state will throw its support to one side or the other. When in doubt, neutrality would be by far the safest course. Since the greater number of international disputes have related to political questions, neutrality has proved a useful institution, and has developed into a system recognized as part of the law of nations. This system of neutrality could never be meant to justify the nations in standing aside and in letting the strong crush the weak by violating clearly recognized principles of international law. If that were true, neutrality might serve in practice to authorize or make possible any violation of the law of nations. In the face of such a contradiction the whole system of the law of nations would fall to pieces.

The old conception of international law recognized this obligation of the nations, in the event of war, to take up arms against the unjust. In the case of political disputes, which were most frequently the cause of conflict, this principle could not be satisfactorily applied, and the idea of neutrality gradually ceased to be held in disrepute, until to-day it has become the rule for third states to adopt this status upon the outbreak of a war. By a natural confusion of ideas, the general practice of neutrality has been mistaken as a license for any state to have recourse to war at will. This would constitute a right to make war irre

1 The great jurist Westlake remarks à propos of the action of States in adopting new rules of international law: "Therefore, from time to time new rules have to be proposed on reasonable grounds, acted on provisionally, and ultimately adopted or rejected as may be determined by experience, including the effect, not less important in international than in national affairs, of interest coupled with preponderating power." (John Westlake, International Law, part 1, p. 15. Cambridge, 1910.)

spective of the cause. There could be no graver error, since the recognition of such a right would vitiate the highest law of humanity. It would make impossible the continued survival of small states, to the great detriment of mankind.

When we come to the question of settling conflicting views of rights, we find at once a difficulty in that the stronger state always finds some advantage in its strength to secure a better recognition of what it calls its right, sometimes to the total disregard of the superior right of a weaker state. The defect is not in the substantive law of nations, which is sufficiently well defined and discernible to indicate the right. It is due to the fact that when the interests, prejudices, and passions of a strong country cause it to take a view at variance with that held by another state, if this other be weaker, there is no direct means by which it can make good its rights. Its only champion is the opinion of other governments and the public opinion of the world, which may directly or indirectly compel some action in support of the weaker's right. At the present time, when the stronger comes into conflict with the weaker, if its view be not accepted, it often finds it possible to have recourse to war to enforce its views.

As we have seen, international law does not authorize the strong state thus to make use of its force to the disparagement of the right of the weaker. With no means of control for enforcing its rules, except the general public opinion which we have considered, international law has often to leave the conflict to run its course. This situation is to blame for that serious error of those who believe that international law allows the strong to have recourse to war to impose his will; in other words, that it constitutes a right to make war. The only rightful use of force is to establish right. Out of respect to this underlying principle there have slowly been developed certain methods of procedure. No state may rightly have recourse to force

until every peaceful means, reasonably possible of application, has been tried to settle the dispute.

5. Anglo-Belgian conversations

A pamphlet called "The Case of Belgium," containing facsimiles of documents found in the Belgian archives after the occupation of Brussels, has been widely circulated, with an introduction by Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, and a translation of an article in the North-German Gazette commenting upon them. A similar translation has been given out to the press, and may be considered as the inspired or semi-official defense of the German Government.

For the sake of convenience I reproduce here the translation, given in the pamphlet referred to above, of document 2 containing the minutes of a conference between the Belgian Chief of the General Staff, General Jungbluth, and the British Military Attaché, Lieutenant-Colonel Bridges:1

1 The other document (1) and the extract of another (3) are given among the Documents (see post, chap. XII). Document 2 is reproduced here because it seems to be the briefest and most important of the three and contains the evidence upon which the charge against Belgium and England is rested. In the following summary adjoined to the documents, the most disputed assertions are contained in the italicized portion and one other sentence which I have underlined:

"SUMMARY OF THE SECRET DOCUMENTS

“I. The first document is a report of the Chief of the Belgian General Staff, Major-General Ducarme, to the Minister of War, reporting a series of conversations which he had had with the Military Attaché of the British Legation, Lieutenant-Colonel Barnardiston, in Brussels. It discloses that, as early as January, 1906, the Belgian Government was in consultation with the British Government over steps to be taken by Belgium, Great Britain and France against Germany. A plan had been fully elaborated for the landing of two British army corps in French ports to be transferred to the point in Belgium necessary for operations against the Germans. Throughout the conversation the British and Belgian forces were spoken of as “allied armies"; the British Military Attaché insisted on discussing the question of the chief command; and he urged the establishment, in the mean time, of a Belgian spy system in Germany.

"II. When in the year 1912 Lieutenant-Colonel Barnardiston had been succeeded by Lieutenant-Colonel Bridges as British Military Attaché in

"Confidential

"The British Military Attaché asked to see General Jungbluth. The two gentlemen met on April 23d. "Lieutenant-Colonel Bridges told the General that England had at her disposal an army which could be sent to the Continent, composed of six divisions of infantry and eight brigades of cavalry-together 160,000 troops. She has also everything which is necessary for her to defend her insular territory. Everything is ready.

"At the time of the recent events, the British Government would have immediately effected a disembarkment in Belgium (chez nous), even if we had not asked for assistance.

"The General objected that for that our consent

was necessary.

Brussels, and the Chief of the Belgian General Staff, Major-General Ducarme, had been succeeded by General Jungbluth as Chief of the Belgian General Staff, the conversations proceeded between the two latter officials. That is to say, these were not casual conversations between individuals, but a series of official conversations between representatives of their respective governments, in pursuance of a well-considered policy on the part of both governments.

"III. The above documents are given additional significance by a report made in 1911 by Baron Greindl, Belgian Minister in Berlin, to the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, from which it appears that this representative of the Belgian Government in Berlin was familiar with the plans above set forth and protested against them, asking why like preparations had not been made with Germany to repel invasion by the French and English.

"Taken together, these documents show that the British Government had the intention, in case of a Franco-German war, of sending troops into Belgium immediately, that is, of doing the very thing which, done by Germany, was used by England as a pretext for declaring war on Germany.

"They show also that the Belgian Government took, in agreement with the English General Staff, military precautions against a hypothetical German invasion of Belgium. On the other hand, the Belgian Government never made the slightest attempt to take, in agreement with the German Government, military precautions against an Anglo-French invasion of Belgium, though fully informed that it was the purpose of the British Government to land and dispatch, across French territory into Belgium, 160,000 troops, without asking Belgium's permission, on the first outbreak of the European war. This clearly demonstrates that the Belgian Government was determined from the outset to join Germany's enemies."