Page:The Myth of a Guilty Nation.djvu/27

 is destroyed. . . . We wish, therefore, once and for all, to make it quite clear that German responsibility for the war must be treated by the Allies as a chose jugée.

Thus the British Premier explicitly declares that the treaty of Versailles is based upon the theory of Germany's sole responsibility.

Now, as against this theory, the main facts may be summarized as follows: (1) The British and French General Staffs had been in active collaboration for war with Germany ever since January 1906. (2) The British and French Admiralty had been in similar collaboration. (3) The late Lord Fisher [First Sea Lord of the British Admiralty], twice in the course of these preparations, proposed an attack upon the German fleet and a landing upon the coast of Pomerania, without a declaration of war. (4) Russia had been preparing for war ever since 1909, and the Russian and French General Staffs had come to a formal understanding that Russian mobilization should be held equivalent to a declaration of war. (5) Russian mobilization was begun in the spring of 1914, under the guise of "tests," and these tests were carried on continuously to the outbreak of the war. (6) In April, 1914, four months before the war, the [21]