conquer the western world before that world grew too strong to be
conquered, having no other motive than to annex the territories and
steal the wealth of neighboring nations who had done her no harm, she
embarked upon a course of crime on so vast and appalling a scale that
she was doomed to exemplify in her own monstrous person the whole
psychology of crime. It is quite likely that the first murders committed
in Belgium were done not for the love of killing, but with the excellent
(?) military purpose of terrorizing a conquered population, and so
lessening the necessity for a garrison to keep them in order. The first
murders of English men, women, and children, perpetrated at the
bombardment of Yarmouth, Scarborough, and Whitby, may have been intended
merely as a demonstration that Germany could strike even at an island
that was impregnable. The first use of the submarine against a merchant
ship may have been made in the hope that a mere demonstration of
frightfulness would save her from the necessity of repeating it, by
frightening every trading ship off the sea. But indulgence in blood
brought upon our enemy the cruellest of all punishments. It brought an
insatiable appetite, until the killing of old men and boys, but
particularly of women and small children, has become a thing necessary
to the men that do it and to the nation that sends them on their mission
of murder.
ARTHUR POLLEN.
[Illustration]
_Within the Pincers_
Raemaekers is a citizen of a small neutral nation, and it is a great
part of his European significance that he has perceived that such
nations cannot really remain neutral in an ultimate and spiritual sense
in a conflict like the present one. Whether they shall remain neutral in
a purely political sense is a matter for them and for them alone to
decide; and the Allies--in marked contrast to the consistent policy of
Prussia--have made many sacrifices in this war rather than violate
justice by attempting to interfere with their liberty of decision.
The fact remains that there is no small, free State in Europe which does
not know that the victory of Prussia would be the end of its freedom.
Were so abominable a conclusion to this war still thinkable, it is
certain that the independent self-governing thing called Holland would
exist no more. Her fate would, indeed, be ultimately worse than that of
the martyred and ravaged Belgian nation; for she would not even be able
to point to a heroic legend of resistance such as has always presaged
the resurrection of murdered nationalities. She would simply be a part
of the Prussian Empire. No Dutchman, with the memory of the great
historic achievements of his race before his eyes, desires her to become
that.
Indeed, it is the whole condemnation of Prussia that no human being
outside the limits of her direct control could possibly desire such a
fate for his own people. Yet that is unquestionably the fate that would
have befallen every free people in Europe had the conspiracy, so long
matured by Prussia, and so nearly successful, accomplished what its
promoters hoped.
CECIL CHESTERTON.
[Illustration]
_German Poison_
“Now’s our chance; he’s asleep.” Mr. Raemaekers is, it must be
remembered, a Dutchman, and a certain percentage of his “picture
sermons” is addressed especially to the “congregation of faithful Dutch
people” and meant first and foremost to be understood, and taken to
heart, by them. This is one. A German officer, whose spurs act as a sort
of cloven hoof and betray his real character, is posing as a Dutch
pastor, or _Predikant_. He wears the preacher’s gown and the white bands
of his sacred office, and holds before his face an elaborate and
ingenious mask, representing the fat and foolish face, the snowy
whiskers and innocent “goggles” of a pastor, surmounted by his
professional tall hat, which it will be noticed is only the front half
of the “cylinder.” The contrast of the real face behind the mask, with
its grin of low cunning, is very clever.
Armed with this disguise, he has crept up to a Dutch fisherman, a
Vollendammer or some one of this sort, in his fur cap, and broad-beamed
breeches, peacefully sleeping on the shores of the Zuyder Zee, and, like
_Hamlet’s_ treacherous stepfather, “stealing upon his secure hour” pours
into his ear from a phial the “leperous distilment” of falsehood, which,
if it is not to take his life, is to poison his mind and whole being.
For the Dutch, doubtless, there is some special allusion, and perhaps
the mask may suggest a portrait. But for all men everywhere the meaning
is patent enough. Poison gas and poisoned wells are not the only
poisoned weapons the German has used against the Allies--including our
Dutch compatriots in Southwest Africa--or against neutrals the world
over. The moral air we breathe, the wells of truth--he has sought to
poison these also, and has not hesitated to enlist either the Catholic
priest or the Lutheran pastor in his sinister service.
HERBERT WARREN.
[Illustration]
_The Organization of Victory by Imposture_
The professorial pedant who directs the internal administration of the
Prussian autocracy has created a system which justly rouses the
admiration of all who study the methods of cleverness and ingenuity. The
last ounce of food is weighed out, the last egg is counted and
distributed, and the last pfennig is taken from the safe of the private
individual for the use of the State and replaced by the paper of War
Loans. It is an astonishing triumph of economy and skill, but to
Raemaekers it is all imposture. Such achievements of mere cleverness
mean nothing to him; he knows that this is not the truth of the world,
for he cannot hear in it any trace of the harmony and the divine music
of the universe; and here he points the real fact that lies under and
behind this whole pretentious sham. The very ham which lies on the table
is merely wood, painted to look like a ham, while the safe is labelled
in Dutch with the words: “All is gold that glitters in here.” The wisdom
of experience struck out the proverb “All is not gold that glitters,”
but the official direction of the German Empire will have it that
everything that glitters in the German _bureau_ is gold. The future will
reveal whether that proverb or the new professorial dictum is correct.
The Dutch artist has no doubt about it.
The official who is now putting on his coat is going to button it over a
great cushion of imposture, which will give him the appearance of good
feeding and good condition of body. He has arranged his wares to deceive
the people and to make them think that they have everything, when they
have only the barest minimum. What more should they require? Everything
that is needed is at their disposal, whether it be food or wood. What
more could they want? The world wants a good deal more, but the docile
German is content--up to a certain point.
WILLIAM MITCHELL RAMSAY.
[Illustration]
_Wittenberg_
The “Black Hole of Calcutta” and the “Well of Cawnpore,” those dark
spots on the history of India, stand out in their blackness against
fairly light surroundings. Wittenberg, as dark in its way as either,
scarcely stands out in the History of Brutality which is the history of
the German conduct of the great war.
The terrible thing about Germany is the fact that she seems to have
taken out letters patent for vileness; that vileness has become her
right and prerogative, and that the neutral nations have accepted the
fact as a natural one.
A very mean man, once he gets a reputation for meanness, can commit mean
acts without raising much adverse comment.
In the same way Germany, by a system of uniform brutality, can commit
“Wittenbergs” without creating any great excitement in the minds of
neutral onlookers.
If England were to starve her German prisoners and set dogs on them and
thrash them, and force them to labor after the fashion of Germany, the
howl of outraged neutrals would be heard through the two Americas and
the Scandinavias.
Germany does these things and worse, and there is no excitement over the
business. It is the German method.
But, thank God, the future of humanity is not in the hands of the
neutrals, and the men whose part it will be to punish crimes will
remember Wittenberg. If not, Raemaekers will remind them.
H. DE VERE STACPOOLE.
[Illustration]
_The Broken Alliance_
The birth of Italy as a national unity was one of the great events of
Europe, and nowhere was this struggle of a people toward freedom and a
right to decide the future destiny of Italy more sympathetically
encouraged, more warmly applauded, than in England. Then were laid and
firmly set the foundations of friendship which were later to bring Italy
and England into close and lasting alliance. Italian freedom was,
however, long hampered by the yoke of forced subservience to the Central
European Powers.
Germany, more positive in her policy than Great Britain, lost no time in
riveting on Italy’s wrists the fetters of financial, industrial, and
commercial thraldom. Englishmen, who could have prevented this, did
nothing, and the new country, without developed resources, fell an easy
prey to the barbarous German and the bullying Austrian. In this cartoon
Raemaekers has succeeded in typifying the dominant feature of Austrian
rule. The face of Austria is that of the bullying, brutal, and bestial
police official, who sought to drive Italy as he has been accustomed to
drive the unfortunate races which a series of cold-blooded and
calculating international conferences and agreements have put under his
heel.
The German type, the bland Hun, we are familiar with; the Austrian is
new. He stands, _kourbash_ in hand, baffled and snarling at the thought
of freedom--for to him freedom is anathema. It is true that nothing was
more certain than that Italy would break her manacles. Strong in the
virile force of a people sentient with national purpose and every day
more truly finding themselves, no greater blow has been struck at the
military despots of Berlin than the breaking free of Italy. The war has
brought into being the real, new Italy--serious of purpose and ardent of
aspiration--who till now has been unable to show herself, cramped and
fettered by the medieval military chains of Germany and Austria.
ALFRED STEAD.
[Illustration]
_The Shower-Bath_
President Wilson lends himself to caricature and the art of the
cartoonist almost as readily as does the Kaiser himself. We fancy that
the war will be over ere the average British mind grasps either the
magnitude of the task of the President of the United States or the
underlying principles which have actuated him throughout.
It has been the custom with many people (and this has been as marked in
the United States as in Great Britain) to condemn the President for “kid
glove” diplomacy, weakness, and indecision. And upon the surface one is
bound to admit that there appear to be grounds for both criticism and
disappointment. One would need to have the archives of the Foreign
Office at one’s disposal to form a just and perfectly informed judgment
concerning President Wilson’s “line of least resistance.”
Perhaps an American has put the matter as succinctly as anyone. “It
needs a really strong man,” he said, “to keep one’s fingers out of a pie
like the European War. A free people do not see another free people, and
a weak nation at that, trampled, murdered, and destroyed, at least for
the time being, by the greatest fighting machine in Europe without
wanting to cut in. But I guess the best day’s work America and Wilson
have done for the Allies has been to keep out of it. Some day you’ll see
that we were cutting ice for you all the time.”
Time will perhaps make clear what some of us only suspect.
Whatever shortcomings President Wilson may appear to us to have as an
active champion of right and civilization against hideous wrong and
barbarism, he is a past-master in the art of the diplomatic shower-bath,
as the Kaiser and his unscrupulous minions in the United States have
discovered more than once. Every attempt to lead him into hostile acts
toward the Allies, every skilful diplomatic ruse which was engendered
with the object of involving America in hostilities, has been quietly
but effectively countered by the President. He appears to have had the
chain of the shower-bath ever in his hand. And the verbal “douches”
administered, though couched in the unemotional phraseology of
diplomacy, have always been effective. The officials of the
Wilhelmstrasse must have abandoned hope long ago. And, in the words of
an American friend, “they must turn up their collars and get out
umbrellas and prepare for some rain when a diplomatic note arrives from
Wilson.”
CLIVE HOLLAND.
[Illustration]
_The Anniversary Bouquet_
There remain yet a few people who state that, in beginning this world
war, Germany did not anticipate such slaughter as she has had to
compass; but these are the people who have not studied the apostle of
war whom Raemaekers portrays as presenting this bouquet of babies’
heads. This cartoon was first published in August, 1915, and was
commemorative of the results of one year of war. It gained in
significance during the second year, for to Belgium must be added
Serbia, scene of unspeakable crimes against the civilian populace, and
Armenia, of which the full horrors will never be told, since none of the
victims remain to tell them.
In these later days, when the whole world can see that Germany is
fighting a losing fight, one might admire the grim way in which the
victors are made to pay for every step of the path they have yet to
tread; if their hands were clean one might call magnificent the dogged
courage of the fighting men who resist our own. But the list of
slaughtered women and children is too long, the violation of the laws of
humanity is too complete. This grinning barbarian with his bouquet is
the German that the world will remember, not those exceptions to his
kind who, by humanity in the presence of wounded enemies, have made
themselves noteworthy--merely by their rarity.
In the last phase of the war, that in which approaching defeat is
plainly evident, the German fights well--and so does a rat when it is
cornered. Raemaekers’ symbol of the bouquet is not less to be kept in
mind, nor would there be any hope of justice in the settlement if the
victors, in generosity to a beaten foe, should forget it.
E. CHARLES VIVIAN.
[Illustration]
_The Stranded Submarine_
The circumstances of the incident depicted in this cartoon are well
known. A British submarine was stranded, helpless, on the Danish coast.
Its men were lined up--as men once lined up on the _Birkenhead_--and
stood at attention while German guns poured shell on them and their
craft. Further, this happened in Danish territorial waters, where, by
all the laws of humanity, and by the law of nations as well, the crew of
the submarine were entitled to consider themselves immune. Had there
been any respect for international law on the part of their aggressors,
they would have been immune.
Now, if one observes the faces of the two German naval officers in the
cartoon, it is easy to understand why such outrages as this have come
about. Raemaekers knows his German, and, whether he is portraying
officer or man, emperor or soldier, he takes care in each case to bring
out the fact that the man represented belongs to a nation that has
either lost, or has not yet found, a soul. These two who stand above the
guns are two of the world’s materialists, men who understand only that
the end must be accomplished, no matter what the means may be.
From their soulless philosophy has arisen not only incidents like these,
but the manufacture of a German God, such as the speeches of the Kaiser
describe. There has arisen, too, the denial of Western Christianity
altogether in a certain patronage of Islam, designed to placate Turkish
opinion, a patronage that is inconsistent even with the worship of the
German God. It is all means to the one end, world domination. Germany
has set out to gain the whole world, and has lost what soul she had.
Striving to set herself above the law, she has merely placed herself
outside the law, and for this her punishment is at hand.
E. CHARLES VIVIAN.
[Illustration]
_Herod’s Nightmare_
Certain publications in neutral countries, notably in America, have
given room in their pages during the course of the war to little
sketches--obviously part of the German system of propaganda--designed to
show that the Allied estimate of German barbarities is at the very least
a huge exaggeration, and is possibly altogether fabricated. The term
“undue sentimentality” is frequently used; travelers in the occupied
territories are represented as seeing the inhabitants quite contented
under German rule and surprised at the mention of atrocities. Their
conquerors are quite good people, necessarily subjecting them to strict
discipline, but in no way unjust. There _may_ have been atrocities
somewhere, at some time, but these travellers cannot get any reliable
accounts of them.
Many of the papers that publish this sort of thing are probably quite
ignorant of its source; others, of course, do so with full knowledge of
the merits of the case and of the reason for its publication. Evidence
collected on oath from sufferers is ignored, and so cleverly are these
little sketches done that one is inclined to believe the German is not
so black as he has been painted.
But not one of these sketches ever ventures near the subject of the
_Lusitania_, the _Arabic_, the Scarborough bombardment, or Louvain--or
any other of those horrors that are established beyond question in the
minds of men. And wherever these German efforts at lulling the world’s
conscience by sophistries appear, there should this cartoon appear also,
as a corrective. Throughout half the world these murdered children lie
under earth and water, and to forget them in the day when Germany fears
to add more to their number would be to share this modern Herod’s
infamy.
E. CHARLES VIVIAN.
[Illustration]
_“My Beloved People”_
The old emperor of Austria was said to have very vague ideas about the
present war. According to one fairly well authenticated story, he
sometimes fancied himself in 1866, and hoped that his troops were
killing a great many of those infernal Prussians. But Ferdinand of
Bulgaria is no imbecile. He is not a very able man, though certain
journalists have extolled his talents; he is merely cunning and
ambitious. His subjects do not love him. He is very extravagant, and
preferred, even before the war, to spend some eight months of the year
in other countries, where the opportunities for amusement are greater
than at Sofia. He is also a great stickler for etiquette, which his
subjects despise, and his court is a queer mixture of complicated
ceremony and bohemian license.
The Bulgarians have always disliked him, and his policy in involving
them in a war with Russia is not likely to stimulate their loyalty. We
cannot wonder that he feels safer in a neutral country, such as
Switzerland. Bulgaria is a classic land of political assassination;
every year several unpopular politicians are “removed,” and no one
thinks much about it. Ferdinand’s chances of dying in his bed are not
favorable, unless he decides to say good-bye to his “beloved people.” In
that case, he may find distraction at Monte Carlo, which knows him well;
and the sturdy peasants of Bulgaria, who have many good qualities, will
be well rid of a knave.
W. R. INGE, _Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral_.
[Illustration]
_On Their Way to Verdun_
Some time ago Louis Raemaekers drew a cartoon entitled “On Their Way to
Calais,” representing German corpses floating toward the sea. It will be
remembered that the Belgians let water into their dykes and so flooded
great tracts of the northern country. The inundation was one of the
obstacles--added to the determination of the Allies-which balked the
second great ambition of the Kaiser. If he failed in winning Paris, he
thought that at least he might win Calais.
The present picture portrays another of the German failures. The road to
Verdun is blocked not only by the gallant resistance of the French, but
by the heaps of German slain, amounting, we are told, to at least five
hundred thousand men. In six months the enemy gained only a mile or so
of country, and though the furious attacks continue, there is no reason
for thinking they will be more successful than those which have broken
down in the past.
Why the Germans elected to make their desperate assault on Verdun is
another matter. Probably many motives entered into the decision. The
German higher staff clearly underrated the fighting value of the French.
After the much-advertised determination to smash the Russians on the
Eastern frontier, and perhaps to press forward and capture Petrograd, it
seemed necessary to gain some triumph in order to satisfy the wishes of
Berlin and impress the Allies with the invincible character of the
Teuton hosts. Supposing the enemy succeeded in taking Verdun, it would
at all events be a spectacular victory, even though the military
advantages might not be great. If the attack failed, at all events it
might succeed in one of its objects--to destroy the French morale.
Therefore the Crown Prince, whose susceptibilities were also to be
considered, was set to work to destroy the French salient, and he has
sacrificed division after division to accomplish his purpose.
The Crown Prince has not obtained much distinction in the present war,
and if the object was to crown him with laurels of victory, the result
has been disastrous. To lose as many as five hundred thousand men, when
the question of man-power is becoming serious for the Central Empires,
is a reckless policy which could only be justified, if justified at all,
by a colossal success. As we know, in six months’ fighting the positions
remained very much the same--attack and counter-attack, loss and gain,
masses of Germans driven up to slaughter and the French still holding
the much-coveted positions. Both east and west of the Meuse the story
has been the same.
Mr. Raemaekers’ picture remains as true to the facts as ever it was. “On
Their Way to Verdun” is a history of enormous massacre and little
triumph for the Germans, to whom Verdun appeared originally an easy
prey.
W. L. COURTNEY.
[Illustration]
_Bethmann-Hollweg’s Peace Song_
One felt interested in the “Campaign for Honorable Peace,” until it was
learned that the propagandists designed to proceed on Herr
Bethmann-Hollweg’s formula. But the map to which the German Chancellor
referred has already altered since he offered it as a basis for
negotiation, and before the German speakers have stumped the Fatherland
it may happen that still deeper modifications will appear on the
existent lines. The “honorable peace” at present in the minds of Prince
Wedel and his committee bears a suspicious resemblance to a very
respectable victory for Germany, and it is only the continued, carefully
fostered ignorance of that country that can make the forthcoming
campaign less ridiculous to the German man-in-the-street than it appears
to ourselves. The Kaiser’s sham door is still stuffed with high
explosives, and Herr Bethmann-Hollweg’s tears will help to water no
olive branch.
Consider the only possible conditions of peace that do not involve a
treasonable attitude of mind in England and the Allies, and then observe
Germany’s attitude to those conditions.
We may reduce the vital points to three, with M. Gustave Hervé; and in
taking his terms, be it remembered that we speak with the lips of a
great man and a great pacifist.
He recognizes the awful need to destroy the domination of the Central
Powers and crush German militarism for the sake of his own ideals; and,
that done, dreams of the only possible peace and sees it based on a
triple foundation. The first and obvious need is that which the Union of
Democratic Control and those who think in its terms seem unable to
perceive as the most vital: a defeated Germany. Germany is the obstacle
that militates against any sort of future safety for great or small
States. It follows, therefore, that until we can impose our peace ideal
upon her, no Allied peace worthy the name is possible; and since our
terms must be profoundly distasteful to Germany and her first
accomplice, it is vain to present them until her power to decline them
has been destroyed.
Only from a vanquished Germany may the remaining vital conditions of
peace follow. With her defeat she must be called upon to scrap the fatal
poisons that led to her insanity, and take her daily food no more from
the hands of war lords, hireling professors, and publicists. She must be
cleansed, freed of her seven devils, and taught that the only sovereign
power human progress can henceforth recognize is the sovereignty of a
people’s will. For the fighting kingdoms know now at this bitter cost
one eternal truth: that not nations, but their rulers will wars and make
them.