Raemaekers, the master of an infinite variety of moods and touch,
reserves a special category of scorn for von Tirpitz. Savage cruelty in
war, the wanton destruction of life and property, the whole gospel of
frightfulness--these things have been abandoned (so the historians tell
us), not because savagery was bad morals, but because it was the worst
way of making war. It was wiser to take the enemy’s property and put it
to your own use than to destroy it. If it was plundered it was wasted.
It was wiser to spare men, women, and children, so that they should
be better subjects if they remained conquered, less irreconcilable
enemies, if they were restored to their old allegiance. Besides,
murder, plunder, and rapine demoralised your men. They made them less
efficient troops for fighting. Doubtless the argument is sound. But it
would never have been accepted had not the horrors of savagery been
utterly loathsome and repulsive to the nations that abandoned them.
Conventions in the direction of humanity are not, then, _artificial_
restrictions in the use of force. They are natural restrictions,
because all Christian and civilised people would far rather observe
them than not. Germany has revelled in abandoning every restraint.
Raemaekers shows the cruelty, the wickedness of this in scores of his
drawings. Here it is its folly that he emphasises.
The submarine is no longer a death-dealing terror. It has become
a blubbering fish. And the author of its crimes is no diabolical
triton, but a semi-imbecile old dotard, round whom his evil--but
terrified--brood have clustered; they fawning on him in terror, he
fondling them in shaky, decrepit fondness. Note the flaccid paunch,
the withered top, and the foolish, hysterical face. How the full-dress
cocked hat shames his nakedness!
And this, remember, is the German High Admiral as history will know
him, when the futility of his crimes is proved, their evil put out of
memory, and only their foolishness remains!