“U’s”
It is the essence of great cartooning to see things simply, and to
command the technical resources that shall show the things, so simply
seen, in an infinite variety of aspects. No series of Raemaekers’
drawings better exemplifies his quality in both these respects than
those which deal with Germany’s sea crimes.
In the cartoon before us the immediate message is of the simplest. The
Kaiser counts the head of British merchantmen sunk. Von Tirpitz counts
the cost. But note the subtlety of the personation and environment.
The Kaiser has those terrible haunted eyes that have marked the seer’s
presentment of him from quite an early stage of the war. There can be
no ultimate escape from the dreadful vision that has set the seal of
despair on this fine and handsome visage. He is shown, not as a sea
monster, but as some rabid, evasive, impatient thing, dashing from
point to point--as from policy to policy--with the angry swish that
tells the unspoken anger failure everywhere compels. For the victories
do not bring surrender, nor does frightfulness inspire terror. The
merchant ships still put to sea--and the U boats pay the penalty.
The futility of this campaign of murder is typified by making von
Tirpitz, its inventor, an addle-headed seahorse, the nursery comedian
of the sea. Stupid and ridiculous bewilderment stares from his foolish
eyes. Another submarine has failed to find a safe victim in a trading
ship, but has been hoisted with its own sea petard. The impotence of
the thing!
This conference of the Admirals of the Atlantic, held in the sombre
depths, is a biting satire, in its mingled comedy and tragedy, on the
effort to win command of the sea from its bottom.