You may ask me why are not those overwhelming forces put into
the field at once and this terrible war brought to a triumphant
conclusion at the earliest possible moment. In the answer to that
question lies the cause of the war. The reason why Germany declared war
is in the answer to that question.
In the old days when a nation's liberty was menaced by an aggressor a
man took from the chimney corner his bow and arrow or his spear, or a
sword which had been left to him by an ancestry of warriors, went to the
gathering ground of his tribe, and the nation was fully equipped for
war. That is not the case now. Now you fight with complicated, highly
finished weapons, apart altogether from the huge artillery. Every rifle
which a man handles is a complicated and ingenious piece of mechanism,
and it takes time. The German arsenals were full of the machinery of
horror and destruction. The Russian arsenals were not, and that is the
reason for the war. Had Russia projected war, she also would have filled
her arsenals, but she desired above everything peace. ["Hear, hear!"] I
am not sure that Russia has ever been responsible for a war of
aggression against any of her European neighbors. Certainly this is not
one of them.
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