Page:Great Speeches of the War.djvu/57

Rh world. All of these are obligations on us, just as binding as to defend our own honour or to fight for our own national existence.

I go further, and say that with the fall of Antwerp the obligation is even stronger than it has been at any time before. We see a good deal in the papers about the Germans having bombarded and taken Antwerp in order to cover their own line of retreat from Belgium. I believe it to be much more than that. I regard it as a deliberate movement with reference to this country. Germany has taken Antwerp to keep it, to fortify, and turn it into a naval port, which she may use as a jumping-off place for future attacks upon us. You may say that it is merely a temporary occupation which she will presently relinquish. In my view she means to retain her grip upon it, if she can, and to make herself master of the surrounding country. She will compel Holland to obey her will, even if she does not destroy her independence. She will push down the coast to Dunkirk and Calais, and then, unless we can stop it, the great campaign for the destruction of England will begin.

I want you therefore to realize that we are not in for any light or soon-to-be-terminated war. I am shocked when I hear people talking airily about the war being over by Christmas, and of our soldiers being welcomed back to their homes. In my judgment more than one Christmas will pass before this war is over. We are fighting an enemy of desperate courage, of great tenacity, of overwhelming forces, with a power, especially in artillery, greater than anything dreamed of in the world before, and imbued with a national spirit quite as keen as our own. The whole German people seem to be inoculated with the poison which has been poured into their veins by the German philosophers. We in this country must not flatter ourselves that there will be division between the German Emperor and the German people, or between the war party and the peace party. Germany is united, and we must realize that we have to fight the whole nation. Then look at the task that lies before us. We have first to turn the Germans out of France, an operation we have been engaged upon for some weeks, not without success. And when we have done that we have to turn them out of Belgium. We have to recapture the great cities of Brussels, Antwerp, etc.; and then, when we have done that, we have to force the Rhine, and, step by step, to make our way to Berlin. Finally, we have to punish the enemy for his crime, to extirpate the curse of a false