WE were inclined at the beginning of this war to be a little unreasonable in our demands on the sympathy of the neutral nations. This was particularly the case with Holland, whose geographical position with regard to Belgium and to ourselves is a most delicate one. We did not always consider sufficiently what too lively an expression of opinion friendly to the Allies might cost the Dutch. They saw themselves, three years ago, watched through the peep-holes of their eastern frontier by a neighbor without pity, without scruple, and without decency. To have given the Germans an opportunity of attacking them unawares would have been to see the tulips of Haarlem trampled into mud and the church-windows of Gouda smashed; to let the libraries of Leyden be pillaged and the art-treasures of The Hague be carried off to Berlin; to find the cathedral tower of Utrecht used as a target for cannon, and the canals of Amsterdam choked with the corpses of Dutch women and children. What Belgium has endured would be poured out in fourfold horror upon Holland. No wonder that the Dutch are prudent in their language, circumspect in their actions.

Moreover, till the autumn of 1914, Holland had cultivated a pacific spirit. She did not believe in military danger, and through the masses of the people there ran a kind of resentment against the army, as a body of men paid out of the taxes for doing nothing. In all this Holland was wittingly the opposite of her ferocious and gigantic neighbor. But all this is over now. Raemaekers shows us the sturdy Dutch soldier, with his back turned to wheedling German whisperers, guarding the long eastern frontier beyond the Maas. Holland has been roused out of her opiate dream of non-resistance, and she vibrates with heroic echoes from Ypres and from Dixmude. She is fully aware that she is called upon to be the arbiter of her own destiny, and that she must meet force with force. Holland is safe so long as she prepares her own defense, for Germany never attacks unless she believes herself to be sure of victory. She knows that the Dutch have “increased their army,” and that the hour of “easy” and insolent conquest is over.

EDMUND GOSSE.