According to Bethmann himself, “my blood boiled at this hypocritical harping on Belgium which was not the thing that had driven England into war.” Indignation launched Bethmann into a harangue. He said that England was doing an “unthinkable” thing in making war on a “kindred nation,” that “it was like striking a man from behind while he was fighting for his life against two assailants,” that as a result of “this last terrible step” England would be responsible for all the dreadful events that might follow, and “all for just a word—‘neutrality’—just for a scrap of paper.
