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II
In examining the evidence let us first take Mr. Lloyd George's own statement of the theory. Except in one particular, it presents the case against Germany quite as it has been rehearsed by nearly every institutional voice in the United States. On 4 August, 1917—after America's entry into the war—the British Premier said:
What are we fighting for? To defeat the most dangerous conspiracy ever plotted against the liberty of nations; carefully, skilfully, insidiously, clandestinely planned in every detail, with ruthless, cynical determination.
Except for one point, this statement sums up what we have all heard to be the essential doctrine of the war. The one missing point in Mr. Lloyd George's indictment is that the great German conspiracy was launched upon an unprepared Europe. In Europe itself, the official propagandists did not make much of this particular point, for far too many people knew better; but in the
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