Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/88

 sooner the unworthiness of this familiar attitude is recognised by everybody in Ireland the better.

No man has the right to offer an opinion on any subject that is a matter of evidence until he has read the evidence. Upon anyone who has read it in this instance the twin niaiseries just cited make the impression merely of blank unreason. What would one make of a man, and a writer to boot, who began modern French history by dismissing the alleged existence of Napoleon with a shrug and a gibe? Or who "didn't believe" that there ever were evictions in Ireland? The parallel is exact. The evidence in proof of the first pair of propositions differs from that in proof of the second pair only in being fresher and more abundant. Going upon that evidence, any branch of which can be pursued in detail by any enquirer, I propose to establish this following argument.

This war originated in an attempt by Austria-Hungary, a large Empire, to destroy the independence of Serbia, a small nation.

It grew to its present dimensions because Germany, and under German pressure Austria-Hungary, rejected every proposal making for peace suggested by the present Allied Powers but especially by the United Kingdom through Sir Edward Grey.

Germany offered bribes to the United Kingdom, and to Belgium herself, to induce them to consent to a violation of the European treaty which pro