Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/214

210 war. Even the composition of the last sentence of the proclamation of war had caused difficulties.

A proposal had been made to say:

""S.M. VEmpereur t mon auguste souverain, au nom de V Empire declare accepter la guerre qui Lui est octroyee" (" H.M. the Kaiser, my illustrious Sovereign, announces, in the name of the Empire, his acceptance of the war which is forced upon him ")."

This was bad French, for it is only in German that octroyieren means to "force upon," while in French octroyer means to "grant" or "vouchsafe."

Perhaps for this reason octroyeé was replaced by forcée sur lui, which says "forced upon" in better French.

But the difficulty lay not in the words, but in the substance. It was felt that after all that had happened, it was impossible to describe the war as forced upon Germany. Only later, when the necessary "hurra" atmosphere had been created, the courage was found to do so. The quaint form given above was therefore chosen:

""S.M. l'Empereur, mon auguste souverain, au nom de l' Empire relève de défi et Se considère en état de guerre avec la Russie.""

The "forcing of the war upon him" became a simple "challenge to war," which the Kaiser regarded as having broken out. In this feeble and distorted form, the declaration of the most terrible of all wars, which could only have been justified by the most cogent of motives, was couched. But such could not be raised,