Schoen admitted he had a further duty to perform and, unfolding the document he carried, read its contents, which, as he was the “soul of honor” according to Poincaré, were the cause of his embarrassment. In consequence, it read, of French acts of “organized hostility” and of air attacks on Nuremberg and Karlsruhe and of violation of Belgian neutrality by French aviators flying over Belgian territory, “the German Empire considers itself in a state of war with France.”
