Goschen, to Sir Edward Grey, containing these words: "It appears from
what he [the German Secretary of Foreign Affairs] said that the German
Government consider that certain hostile acts have already been
committed by Belgium. As an instance of this, he alleged that a
consignment of corn for Germany had been placed under an embargo
already." The date of this dispatch is July 31, days before the Germans
entered Belgium.
But placing these two things entirely aside, as well as the new
evidence, said to have just been found in the archives at Brussels, that
Belgium had by her agreements with Great Britain forfeited every claim
to even ordinary neutrality in case of a war between Germany and Great
Britain, I find in the British "White Paper" itself, No. 123, not only
ample justification, but absolute necessity, from a military point of
view, for a German army advancing against France, not only to pass
through Belgium, but to occupy Belgium. This number of the "White Paper"
is a communication dated Aug. 1 from Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen,
British Ambassador in Berlin. In it Sir Edward Grey informed Sir E.
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