The Dutchman who could see this cartoon and not admit its simple truth
would have to be a very blind pro-German. At the present time it pays
Germany to pretend a friendship for Holland, but the premeditated
murder of Belgium is a plain object-lesson of the sort of friendship
and agreement that Germany makes with a country and people which stand
in her way and are too small to withstand her brute force. Can any
Dutchman doubt what would be Holland’s fate if Germany emerged even
moderately victorious from this war? The German War Staff would give
a good deal to have the control of Holland and a free passage to the
sea from Antwerp. They refrain from using force to gain that control
only because they cannot afford to have a fresh frontier to guard and
because it is quite useful to have Holland neutral and a forbidden
ground and water to the Armies and Navies of the Allies, a shield over
the heart of Berlin and Germany. It would pay the Germans to have
Holland with them and openly against the Allies, and they would no
doubt gladly make an “agreement” to that effect; but there is little
likelihood of that as long as the Dutch can visualise the “agreement”
as clearly as the cartoonist has done here.
There are many people who for years past have suspected Germany’s
sinister designs on the whole of the Netherlands. The brutal ravaging
of Belgium, the talk that already runs, openly or in whispers, in
Germany of “annexation of conquered territories” and “extended
borders,” tell plainly the same tale--that any agreement between a
small country and Germany means merely the swallowing-up of the small
nation, the “agreement” of a meal with the swallower-up.