French and Russian, they matter not, For England only your wrath is hot; But little Belgium is so small You never mentioned her at all-- Or did her graveyards, yawning deep, Whisper that silence was discreet?
For Belgium is waste! Ay, Belgium is waste! She welters in the blood of her sons, And the ruins that fill the little place Speak of the vengeance of the Huns. "Come, let us stand at the Judgment place," German and Belgian, face to face. What can you say? What can you do? What will history say of you? For even the Hun can only say That little Belgium lay in his way. Is there no reckoning you must pay? What of the Justice of that "Day"? Belgium one voice--Belgium one cry Shrieking her wrongs, inflicted by _GERMANY!_
In her ruined homesteads, her trampled fields, You have taken your toll, you have set your seal; Her women are homeless, her men are dead, Her children pitifully cry for bread; Perchance they will drink with you--"To the Day!" Let each man construe it as he may. What shall it be? They, too, have but one enemy; Whose work is this? Belgium has but one word to hiss-- _GERMANY!_
Take you the pick of your fighting men Trained in all warlike arts, and then Make of them all a human wedge To break and shatter your sacred pledge; You may fling your treaty lightly by, But that "scrap of paper" will never die! It will go down to posterity, It will survive in eternity. Truly you hate with a lasting hate; Think you you will escape that hate? "Hate by water and hate by land; Hate of the head and hate of the hand." Black and bitter and bad as sin, Take you care lest it hem you in, Lest the hate you boast of be yours alone, And curses, like chickens, find roost at home _IN GERMANY!_
By T. von Bethmann-Hollweg, German Imperial Chancellor.
_Following is the full text of the speech delivered by the German Chancellor at the session of the Reichstag in Berlin on Dec. 2, 1914:_
The Emperor, who is absent with the army, has charged me to transmit his best wishes and cordial greetings to the German Reichstag, with whom he is known to be united till death in the stress of danger and in the common concern for the weal of the Fatherland.
Our first thought goes out to the Kaiser and the army and navy--our soldiers who are fighting for the honor and greatness of the empire. Full of pride and unshakable confidence, we look to them and to our Austro-Hungarian comrades in arms, who are firmly united to us, to fight great battles with brilliant bravery.