sorrow and pity upon the sufferings of Mankind.
However we may regard that Face, whether as a precious symbol of the
Love which redeemed the world or as a Real and Divine Presence, this
much is certain. What It stands for in the history of civilization
cannot be ignored. It sustained the early martyrs and countless myriads
since during bitter hours of suffering and torment; It has illumined all
battlefields; It shines most steadfastly in storm and stress; It loses
its incomparable splendor only in the sunshine of a too smug prosperity.
The doctors of Wittenberg may have glimpsed It, and glimpsing It reviled
It! Even to them that Face, divested by them of divine attributes, must
possess a material significance, inasmuch as none can escape sorrow and
pain. The cartoonist portrays the “All-Highest” hiding behind the
colossal image of Culture, the culture which has sprung to life at his
touch, the machine which has mastered its monarch, the machine which
defies God!
Cowering behind that machine, aghast at the power he is unable to
control, we may leave the “All-Highest,” who boasts that he is God’s
vice-regent upon earth.
Culture at Wittenberg!
Culture bolting from Wittenberg!
Perhaps Raemaekers will give us a cartoon showing the back of Culture.
We behold her in this cartoon crowned: we should like to see her
uncrowned.
HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL.
[Illustration]
_The “Civilians”_
Here, with a vengeance, is majesty shorn of its externals. Although in
this cartoon we get Raemaekers in lighter vein, yet the irony and force
of the artist are as fully expressed as in those grimmer studies from
which he who runs may read the fate of Belgium, of Serbia, and of the
many non-combatants who have found death at sea through Germany’s mad
dream of conquest.
The elder Willie, obviously, does not like the set of his coat, after
the glory of his many uniforms; the younger Willie, apparently, has
finished his trying on, and from his expression the result is as much as
he could expect, and no more. In both there is that suggestion of
posturing, of playing to the gallery and being determined that the
clothes shall be suited to the part, for which William Hohenzollern was
noted before ever this war showed him as the most infamous ruler of
modern time.
There is a certain bitter correctness in Raemaekers’ estimate of these
exalted personages. Shorn of their uniforms, posturing before a mirror
in a slightly Parisian (using the adjective in the pre-war, foppish
sense) garb, they show as very little men--rather contemptible, in fact,
as, of course, they are. For it is open to any man to dream of ruling
the world, and of setting nations by the throat for the sake of an
ambition that civilization cannot tolerate; it is open to any head of a
government to set the machinery in motion which might gratify that
ambition--but it is open only to a _man_, in the very best of that one
syllable, to bring his ambition to fruition, and even then only by
strict adherence to natural law. And these two, posturing as Raemaekers
makes them posture here, have ignored law; they had the wit to dream,
but not the brain to make reality of dream, nor the moral sense through
which they might have made the world acknowledge the dream as worth
while translating into actualities. Probably, if they were set in a St.
Helena of to-day, they would fold their arms and try on cocked hats, as
once they tried on uniforms. But though the clothes declare the man,
they cannot make of him other than he is, and these two are mere
posturers, whatever may be their attitudes.
E. CHARLES VIVIAN.
[Illustration]
_Two Peals of Thunder_
Here the artist has depicted the Kaiser as a modern Ajax, not defying
the lightning but afraid of it. The arch Hun sees the neutral Powers one
by one abandoning their neutrality and entering the lists against him
and his gospel of force and world-power for Germany. Italy, after slow
progress and positive and seemingly disastrous set-backs, has emerged to
the fullness of a success which has proved invaluable to her Allies as a
whole. In Rumania’s dark hour there is yet a gleam of hope and the
indications of a dawn which shall see her triumphant and reaping where
she has sown, and ultimately honored among the nations for the part she
has determined to play in the struggle for freedom and for international
integrity. The reward of high courage and faith is often not at the
moment, but is none the less certain for all that. Truly the keenest of
all edges is upon the sword drawn in the cause of freedom. Rumania has
drawn that sword, and it will not be sheathed until freedom from tyranny
has been won, not alone for her but for the nations of Europe as a
whole.
CLIVE HOLLAND.
[Illustration]
_A Universal Conscience_
Nothing should have more utterly “staggered humanity” in the conduct and
prosecution of a war that has been from first to last an exhibition of
Hunnish ferocity than the elasticity of the Hun “conscience.” The
Prussian, indeed, seems to have assembled in his person all the most
ignoble qualities of the untutored savage, and the most despicable vices
of the political and moral Chadband and Stiggins of common quotation.
Deeds which should have served to bring the whole neutral world actively
upon the side of the Allies, which should have called forth protests
that could not be misunderstood by the offenders, have been made even
more revolting and unforgivable by reason of the horrible association by
the Kaiser and his myrmidons of the Divine Being with them.
“Gott mit Uns” has not merely been adopted as a motto by a people who
have been guilty of atrocities which rank with those of Nero and Attila,
but has been used as a cloak for deeds of diabolism which have caused a
shudder to run through the civilized world. And in this cartoon the
artist has sought to depict an outraged conscience pointing the finger
of accusation at the world which has looked on, contenting itself with
mild protests. Grasped in the hand of this accusing figure is the Hun; a
dripping dagger, which has been used to assassinate innocent women,
children, and civilians is in one hand, and a bomb containing poison gas
in the other. A Hun with his favorite motto inscribed upon his belt.
Surely a sight to make angels weep, and the Recording Angel to seek to
veil her face.
The Hun at bay has added to the list of crimes to be ultimately laid at
his door that of slave-raider. And the tears of women and girls, and the
blood of the men who resisted the slave-raiders, cry aloud to Heaven
from the stricken land of Belgium and the conquered Provinces of France.
And the slave-raider’s cry is, “Gott mit Uns,” accompanied by the crack
of rifle, the agonized cry of mothers and daughters separated from their
men folk, and the wail of little children left to starve and die.
There is an old saying, “Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make
mad.” That madness, productive of diabolical wickedness, is eating into
the very brain and vitals of Germany. And like a mad dog she must, in
the persons of her responsible leaders, be destroyed utterly.
CLIVE HOLLAND.
[Illustration]
_Joan of Arc and St. George_
Not only those who are fighting the battle of tyranny and defending
force against the arms of civilization have failed to see this dazzling
white light in which they stand. Many who now support the Central
Kingdoms, to the extent of desiring an indecisive peace, are similarly
blind to the pure ray which bathes these allegorical figures. The
foulness of the shadowed protagonists comes from within. It belongs to
their spirits; and yet those who desire peace can survey facts and, in
the name of righteousness, wish that no humility or indignity should
fall upon them. The hearts of men are being searched out and by their
deeds shall men be judged. Vain, then, to beg that Germany be not thrust
beyond the pale of nations, for who put her there? Vain to pray that no
humiliation or indignity fall to her lot when peace returns, for who
have brought them upon her? She has outraged herself and stands
humiliated before her own conscience. “Let no wound fall upon her
inviolate land,” cry the peacemakers. As well might they pray that a man
shall escape the harvest he has sown. Not Belgium, not Serbia, not
Armenia stream with innocent blood and lie polluted under the filthiness
of these premeditated crimes; but Germany, Austria, Turkey reek to the
hearts of their capitals. Their kingdoms are defiled, their streets
shadowed and stained by their own abominations; the unnumbered ghosts of
murdered women and children haunt their homes.
Let us hear no more cant that Germany is a great and noble nation, that
the Turk is an honorable, clean fighter and a good friend. We cannot see
one or other of them for the blood and tears of their defenseless
victims; nor do we desire to see them, nor breathe the same air with
them until the lustral waters have washed and the cleansing fires have
purged. We must know with whom we are called to make peace before the
word can touch our lips; for shall honest kingdoms be ordered to treat
with this horned murderer, or the leprous reptile crawling away from the
light into familiar darkness? Let the defeated nations cast out the
devils that have led them into their present degradation before they
dare to call upon the sacred name of Peace.
A distinguished Academician, Mr. Nicholas Butler, President of Columbia
University, has very effectively voiced the situation in a recent
utterance. He holds that “no greater opportunity for an act of
constructive and far-reaching statesmanship has ever presented itself in
modern history than that now presented to the Governments of the Allied
Powers.”
May we be found equal to this tremendous task when the way to humanity’s
triumph has been flung open by the spirits of Joan of Arc and St.
George, who typify our united arms.
EDEN PHILLPOTTS.
[Illustration]
_The Bringers of Happiness_
“We will bring happiness to the conquered country after the war.”
Pomposity, ponderosity, machine-like movement, ruthless, cold, and
calculating logic, which sticks at nothing, not even the lowest of low
cunning, want of sense of humor, the absence of anything like
sportsmanship or chivalry--these are qualities which the average
Englishman does not admire, and finds it difficult even to understand.
He cannot help reading his own characteristics, which are for good and
bad so different, into other men and creatures. He cannot understand
their entire absence, and it is difficult for him to believe that men so
differently constituted can exist.
Mr. Raemaekers wants to make us realize the fact, to present it
embodied. The legitimate emphasis of his caricature has this for its
object.
Ponderous, pompous, pachydermatous, self-satisfied, fat, successful and
comfortable; but without feeling for the comfort of others. We have here
the type of German military domination. Submit to Germany and you will
be happy, in the German way, which is the best way, because it is
German. If you don’t like that, you must lump it. That is the message of
this speaking likeness.
HERBERT WARREN.
[Illustration]
_The Old Poilu_
Of all Raemaekers’ cartoons this is the one that pleases me most. It is
the French Army.
The Grand Army that tramped away into the night after the bugles of
1812-15 left behind it more than a sentiment and a story. It was the
spirit of that army that broke the Germans at the Marne and held them at
Verdun, and it is the same spirit that is holding them now on the Somme.
Here is the fighting face of France, recalling the baggage carts of the
Beresina no less than the guns of Austerlitz. The old soldier of the
Emperor, the old soldier of the Republic. Cambronne no less than Joffre.
It is the face that has seen the snows of Russia and the sunlight on the
Pyramids, victory and defeat, the heights and the depths, and always,
across all and through all, the fair land of France.
The secret is in the eyes. Look at them!
H. DE VERE STACPOOLE.
[Illustration]
_Humanity Torpedoed_
That really is the essence of the matter, the summing up of the World
War in an illuminating phrase. The Machine _versus_ the Man! Before the
outbreak of war, in those far-off days when we talked so glibly of human
progress and civilization, the machinery which controlled and
coördinated life seemed to be a bigger thing than life itself. The
Machine in politics, in our myriad industries, in our moments of
relaxation was scrapping men relentlessly. The very few perceived this
and protested vigorously, but quite in vain. Even in religion, using the
word in its highest sense, the Machine held human souls in its grip and
ground them out to an approved pattern.
Was the war inflicted upon a generation of fools to teach them wisdom?
It may well be so.
_Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas!_
Juvenal’s well-worn tag echoes down the centuries. We ask ourselves once
more the eternal question: What makes life worth the living? None of us,
to-day, dares to answer that question lightly, but all--even our enemies
in the field--know by bitterest experience that Man is greater than the
Machine, that he soars high above it and may be crushed but not killed
by it. Humanity may be torpedoed, but it remains immortal.
Our beloved dead still live.
And what message do they send us?
Surely the gospel of kindness, which has always triumphed gloriously
over cruelty. Indeed, the supreme lesson of the war would appear to be
this, and this only: that kindness is the supreme virtue and cruelty the
supreme vice.
If our enemies could be made to realize so fundamental a truth, if the
men who control the destinies of the Allies could make it plain to the
Central Powers that we are fighting against the Machine in life and not
against men, the Dove of Peace might begin to preen its wings for
flight.
Humanity has been torpedoed, but we look for its resurrection. Petard
must be hoisted by petard; that, for the moment, is inevitable. A
patched-up peace is unthinkable. Such a conclusion, most happily, has
become almost universal.
And afterward?
If the hopes and aspirations of to-day bear fruit to-morrow, may we not
envisage a brighter future during these dark hours?
To think otherwise, to maintain, with whatever specious argument, that
Force must dominate mankind, is not merely a negation of Christianity,
but a negation of Humanity. Such is the creed of the Hun. By it he has
been judged and found wanting.
HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL.
[Illustration]
_The Super-Hooligans_
The suggestion of this caricature is perhaps not so obvious to
Englishmen as might be wished, for it represents the Kaiser, and the
forces behind him, as more broken down than we have reason to think they
were, or at any rate, than they appeared to us at the time this cartoon
first appeared. It may be that to the neutrals their cause seemed less
hopeful, and more out-at-elbows, as here depicted. The continuous fall
of the mark in neutral countries may mean this.
The figure of President Wilson is at any rate exceedingly clever.
Detached, professorial, contemplative, slightly academic, not to say
donnish, he contemplates “Mr. Turveydrop” and “Bill Sykes,” for such
characters they appear to be, with pensive, amused speculation. He
certainly cannot expect more than swagger and sham gentility, scarcely
disguising brutal ruffianism, from such figures. But is not the reality
more serious and murderous?
The Kaiser is doubtless an actor, but not quite such a shabby-genteel
third-rater as this, and his bullies are no doubt burglars and ruffians,
but not of the old-fashioned, bludgeon type; rather the smart, modern
operators, armed with automatic revolvers, oxygen blowpipes, swift
motors, and other appliances of up-to-date science. “Super-Hooligans”
both doubtless are, but unfortunately not to be despised as enemies.
This, however, would be less easy to present in caricature, and perhaps
less telling.
The point is the folly of expecting any true “gentleness,” or anything
but a veneer of gentility, from Germany.
HERBERT WARREN.
[Illustration]
_Before the Fall_
When, in August of 1914, the German hosts set out on their way to
victory and yet greater victory, they had in their minds a figure which,
for them, had been girdled round with dignities almost sacred. Whatever
their secret thoughts regarding this figure might have been, it was
ostensibly something very nearly sacred; to the rest of the world it was
an imperial figure, portrayed in many attitudes, but in practically
every attitude there was the suggestion of illimitable pride. The world
that is not Germany had laughed at this figure a little: over certain
telegrams, over the assumption of genius in certain artistic fields, and
over a versatility that was almost Neronic. There was not wanting, among
free peoples, a certain amount of contempt for this figure.
Here you have the figure in a new attitude, and though at the time this
cartoon was published the triumphs in Rumania were still to come, and
the German lines of defense were apparently as strong as ever, yet the
cartoon expressed a truth, as do all these cartoons of Raemaekers. As
insecurely as is pictured here stood this man who aped Napoleon and
Alexander, at whose bidding women and children were fed into the furnace
of war, through whose senseless ambition countless homes were made
places of mourning for the men who would return no more. More than three
years of suffering, and the face of the world changed, the progress of
the world arrested--for this!
Beneath him is the gulf; he has hurled millions into it, and here
postures no more as second only to omnipotence, but waits the inevitable
fall. Thank God that it is inevitable.
E. CHARLES VIVIAN.
[Illustration]
_The Shirkers_
It is inevitable that there should be in every country degenerates who
decline to play the game. England has her disreputable leaven of
shirkers; France, whose heroism beggars description, has to reckon with
her _embusqués_. The serene cheerfulness with which the bitterest
sacrifices are faced daily by the mass of the nations engaged in the
terrible conflict, bring into powerful relief the obliquity and
depravity of the handful of men who seek to escape the heavy burden that
lies upon all. There is no possibility of exaggerating the mean infamy
of the men who seek their own safety by skulking behind the broad backs
of the defenders of their country, when every call of duty and right
demands their presence in the fighting-line. It is very difficult to
distinguish between the sinfulness of shirking at a crisis like the
present and the crime of overt treachery. No injustice would be done if
every shirker were made to understand that he is liable to the traitor’s
penalty if he persist in his offense.
The repetition of conscientious objections to war, at a time when a
nation is committed to a strife in which any slackening spells for it
practical annihilation, causes graver and graver perplexity. It is
doubtful whether any healthy mind can now plead a conscientious
objection without provoking suspicion of his powers of coherent
reasoning. A condition of things has arisen in which private sentiment,
however honestly cherished, is bound to yield to public needs. It is a
tradition of the country in normal times to treat the conscientious
objector with tenderness. As far as public safety allows, it is even now
a proper function of Government to discriminate between an honest
delusion, however anti-social, and a wilful defiance, from contemptible
motives of selfishness or cowardice, of right principle. A very
formidable danger clearly lurks in any continuance of the lax toleration
which is often extended to the conscientious objector, by virtue of the
opportunity such considerate treatment offers the shirker of indulging
his evil propensities.
SIDNEY LEE.
[Illustration]
_For Merit_
There is no doubt a certain unfairness in the inevitable wartime method
of laying the burden of the crimes of war upon this or that pair of
shoulders. Princes in particular must pay this penalty attached to their
august station. And few can have less just reason to complain than this
slim heir of the Hohenzollerns who so thirsted for the glory of war. He
has found out by now that it is a less glorious affair than it seemed
when set forth in heady, unwise speech (after unwise dining) from the
box of a Danzig theater.
Deprived of his expected bays by the idiotic obstinacy of the so utterly
decadent French, his fond parent bestows on him the Order _pour le
Mérite_ with oak leaves. It is not quite easy to see why. Surely there
cannot have been any obscure sardonic reference to tanning.
But if, as the artist suggests, and the plainest reading of the facts of
the fruitless Verdun assault seems to confirm, lives of men were
squandered in a reckless attempt to save the princeling’s face (which
was, in fact, beyond saving), then does he richly deserve the grim
decoration with which in the name of infamy he is here invested--the
Order of Butchery, with knives. And you may view the crosses upon the
pathetic mounds before Verdun as so many entries in the Recording
Angel’s ledger.
JOSEPH THORP.
[Illustration]
_Duty v. Militarism_
Same here!
Same, I suppose, in every country.
The final necessity has put to the proof that which goes to the making
of a man and of a nation.
The man who is prepared to lay down his life for his country simply
regards it as a duty, and does it regardless of everything. And Duty is
a noble leader.
The man who is not prepared to give up his usual pleasures and
dissipations, even though his country be in extremity, looks askance at
the call, labels it militarism, and will have none of it.
Every age and every nation has its shirkers, who have been only too
willing to let any but themselves bear their burdens so that their own
personal comfort might not be interfered with. And shirkers such as
these have the deserved contempt of every honest man.
But, in strictest justice to the few--like the Friends, and those who
believe with them that force is no remedy--while one cannot but wonder
what would have become of the world if evil were to be allowed to ravage
it at will, and while one finds it difficult to view matters from their
standpoint, it must be acknowledged that the military coercion of
genuine conscience in these days is an anachronism which galls one’s
feelings.
The one thing we have now to guard against in this free land of ours is
lest in breaking by force the unspeakable tyranny of Prussian militarism
we lay our own necks under an equal yoke.
JOHN OXENHAM.
[Illustration]
_The Troubadour_
Germania loved music and so the troubadour sang to her.
Gaily the troubadour sang of glory and empire, and the good German
sword.
And he sang a song of _Kultur_, a pocketful of loot.
And a song of tears, the tears of widows and orphans in other lands,
widows of foolish men who had denied her omnipotent will; and of foolish
reluctant virgins to whom was given the shining compensation of bearing
sons to her flushed warriors.
And if he sang of her own sons that lay before Liége, and by the Yser,
and on the high road to Paris and to Calais, and Petrograd, it was still
a song of glory in a minor but triumphant key.
For also he sang a song of an all-highest promise that, wreathed with
the splendid bays of victory, her sons should return before the next
ripening of the harvest. But the harvest was gathered and they came not.
And then he sang a song of the sea with the moan of the winds in it, and
the cries of little children--which for a sea-song was not a pleasant
song.
And thereafter with a fine operatic vehemence he broke into a song of
glorious hate.
And again he sang (in a queer mocking voice) of the promise. But another
harvest was garnered (and eaten) and still her sons returned not.
And she began to be afraid.
So (for he had a pretty wit) he sang again a song of glory and feasting,
and there was laughter in his voice.
And at the last a song of thanks most indubitably sincere.
And she turned and looked upon the troubadour and found that he was
Death--in the high boots of a German Hussar.