Page:The Great War.djvu/276

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POSTSCRIPT THE FALL OF ANTWERP TT was the moral rather than the military aspect -■■ of the fall of Antwerp which on October lO necessarily appealed to the whole civilized world. For if the military consequences were bound to be immediate, possibly considerable, conceivably felt along the whole tremendous battle lines which were the present frontiers of European nations, the moral value was permanent, destined to take its place among the few imperishable failures of the weak to resist the strong, which from Thermopylae to Lex- ington and Saragossa have captured the admiration and the imagination of mankind. Indeed, from the moment the first cannon of the Kaiser was heard in the Valley of the Vesdre and Liege, openly challenged the German millions. It was Belgium which had contributed the real moral note in a war that on all other sides had seemed, con- tinued to seem, the battle of rival races, nations, cul- tures, ambitions for " places in the sun." France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Great Britain, each was fighting for something which if acquired meant greater power, influence, prosperity, grandeur. 244

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