thunder of the guns that came down all the winds.
JOSEPH THORP.
[Illustration]
_See the Conquering Hero Comes_
A bitter satire on the moral and intellectual claims of Germany. The
conquering hero of the twentieth century and the bearer of _Kultur_ is
no mere Hun. He is a “throw-back” to an ancestral type far more remote
than Attila, who was a comparatively polished person. He is primitive
Man, not Rousseau’s imaginary _l’homme naturel_, but the _Urmensch_, a
veritable monster, gross, bloated, abominable, compact of evil, and more
repulsive than the wild beasts he has tamed to do his hideous will. They
are monstrous creatures too, but dull and brutish. They are incapable of
moral judgment; they follow their instincts and know no better. But he
knows. He is Man, to whom has been given understanding and lordship over
all the beasts. He is their master by reason of his superior brain, and
that superiority is the measure of his depravity. By choosing these
savage creatures to be his companions and to do his pleasure he
proclaims himself far lower than they, because he might have chosen
otherwise.
We know those favorite satellites of his. One flies overhead--a vulture
with gore dripping from beak and claws. Two others walk behind their
master in docile servitude and ape his bearing as well as their dull
senses and uncouth forms allow. One is a gorilla, with bared fangs and
the glare of senseless destructiveness in his eyes; the other is a
whiskered wolf, sly, murderous and ruthless. They bear the hero’s train
and wear the marks of approbation he has bestowed upon them for the
services they have rendered by the exercise of the qualities proper to
their kind.
And there is one other. Ever as he goes, there wriggles along by his
side a snake--that old serpent, the devil and the father of lies.
So accompanied and swelling with pride the conquering hero swaggers on
over the bleached bones that bear witness to his triumph. He has decked
his repulsive form with the incongruous trappings of civilization, and
his foul visage wears an air of ineffable self-satisfaction and arrogant
disdain. In his own conceit he cuts a splendid figure and is the object
of universal admiration. From his girdle hang the heads of his latest
victims and in his right hand he carries, delicately poised as a scepter
and sign of sovereignty, a cudgel tipped with the hand of a child hacked
off at the wrist. This is his title of honor. The savage beasts that
accompany him cannot aspire to such majesty; they do not prey on their
own kind.
And that is how a neutral sees the German hero.
ARTHUR SHADWELL.
[Illustration]
_Belgium_
It appears to me that Raemaekers’ wonderful cartoons more often than not
fall naturally into two main classes: the subtle and the direct. In both
methods of appeal he is a past-master, and his message never fails to
drive itself home, either through the medium of one’s intellect or one’s
heart. Here we have a good and vivid example of the direct method of
gaining our sympathy. An appeal to the emotional rather than to the
intellectual within us.
The woes of devastated Belgium, of its starving population, of its
desolate homes, of its orphaned children, may be said by some to be an
“oft told tale.” But surely none looking upon this most poignant drawing
can fail to understand much of the tragedy and misery brought about by
the German occupation of Belgian soil and the methods of _Kultur_ which
for a period of three years now have held sway in that unhappy land.
Those of us who know the facts--the things which do not always get into
the papers, as the phrase is--the wilful starvation of the poor by their
relentless conquerors, can best understand and appreciate the artist’s
message.
What a pathetic picture this is! The starved woman--all the roundness
and beauty of womanhood and motherhood brutally stamped out of her face
and figure by the state of things brought about by the rule of the Hun;
the child clinging to her mother with the terror and amazement which is
the most piteous of all expressions that can come into and be graven
upon the face of childhood. Both bear in their faces and forms the cruel
marks of starvation and suffering.
And yet there are those abroad in the land who can talk and write of
“saving Germany from too much humiliation.” Too much humiliation! For
one, I say that if Germany can be dragged in the dust; if her rulers can
be made to eat the bread of humiliation; if her bestial-minded military
officials, who have deported women and girls from Belgium and France to
God only knows where and to what end, can be brought to adequate
punishment, then there is still some justice left in this warring world
and some hope for poor, struggling, vexed, and fearful humanity. Unless
Germany is conquered and humiliated, unless the wrongs of Belgium and
the other devastated territories are avenged, we and the millions of our
Allies will have suffered, fought, and died for the greatest cause the
world has ever known--and in vain.
From the welter of battle, after the shouts of the fighting men have
died away, must emerge a new basis of society and a set of new ideals in
international conduct. And it is up to all of us to see to it that this
comes about.
CLIVE HOLLAND.
[Illustration]
_The Giant’s Task_
“I see you can hold them up, but----”
The whole world sees that Germany can hold them up. Strength is
concentrated first on one side, and then on the other, and at the time
this cartoon was first published the little figure sitting up on the
Western side watched, unmoved alike by German promises and German
threats. It watched while the days of the Marne went by and proved that
German efforts in the West would be confined to “holding up”--that the
capture of Paris and of Calais were mere dreams that must pass
unfulfilled. It watched the steady thrusting back of Russia, the
apparent success in building an Eastern defense that could be held up
indefinitely. Then it added its weight to the Western boulder, and the
holding up process went on.
Neither boulder has yet fallen; the strong man is not yet exhausted, but
the whole world knows what the end must be. Germany could not afford a
mere defensive war--from the outset she knew that decision must be won
in the first months, and that the alternative to this was defeat. This
grim figure, bent on “holding up” the two main fronts, is typical of
Germany to-day, a raging barbarian, wearying under the impossible task.
For such a task there was needed not only physical strength, but
spiritual strength, ideals as well as machinery, and soul as well as
brain. By his methods of war this soulless barbarian has added to the
weights that he must hold up; he has misinterpreted the meaning of
civilization, misunderstood the aims common to humanity outside Germany.
The weight that he must hold up and away is not merely that of Britain,
Russia, France, and the rest of the Allies; it is the weight of all men
who understand freedom rightly, steadily crushing freedom’s antithesis.
E. CHARLES VIVIAN.
[Illustration]
“_I Must Have Something for My Trouble_”
You shall, Germany, you shall!
You shall have even more than ever you expected--but not after the
manner of your expectation.
Even the burglar who, after long and arduous and risky training in his
profession, and careful plotting and planning, and detailed hard work
with jimmies and blowpipes and center-bits, has collared the swag and
been caught in the act, does not whine like this. If he is a wise man he
surrenders at discretion, puts a philosophic face on it, and plans more
artistic work while in confinement. If he is a hothead, he puts up a
fight and gets it in the neck.
But he never whines for recompense for the nefarious trouble he has gone
to.
Germany has not yet learned her lesson. She has burglariously and
treacherously broken into her neighbors’ houses and seized them and
their contents.
The cost to herself, in life, money--and, more than all, in the
estimation of the world at large--is as yet hidden from her. When the
bill is presented and her bloodshot eyes are opened to it, it will
astound her.
For--somehow or other--it will have to be paid--to the last farthing.
And while she is in confinement for her diabolical misdeeds, the world,
it is to be fervently hoped, will see to it that all further power for
mischief will be taken from her forever.
This burglar has intrenched himself among his plunder. He would
negotiate with the besieging police to be allowed to keep something at
all events for all his trouble.
He shall. He shall keep what he has earned--the loathing and contempt of
every honest man under the sun.
JOHN OXENHAM.
[Illustration]
“_Cinema Chocolate_”
It seems to be the irony of fate that Germany possesses everything good
in an inverted, it may perhaps be said a “perverted,” form.
We all know the charms of the “Chocolate Soldier,” who originated, if we
remember rightly, like the best flavored chocolate, in France.
Here we have a “Chocolate Soldier” of a very different kind. A young
officer, of the familiar decadent Lothario type, is presenting a
handsome stick of chocolate to a little Belgian or French girl.
At the side is an old man, evidently got up as a stage property, his
face exceedingly cross as though he disliked the job, but his attitude
rather ambiguous.
In the distance is the official military “filmer,” smug and grinning,
waiting to turn the handle in order to obtain a “moving” picture for the
German “movies.”
Mr. Raemaekers’ satire is most strongly displayed in the child’s face
and clenched fists, fully visible to the spectator, but which _will not
appear_ in the film. It appears also, though less obviously, in the
cross old gentleman who will come out there as a benevolent pastor
blessing the whole proceeding.
It is another instance of the systematic deception practised on the
German people and the neutrals.
Monsieur Forain, the French Raemaekers, has something like it in his
“_Haltez-la, et souriez_.” It is not quite the same, but suggests that
both cartoons are based on fact, as doubtless they are.
HERBERT WARREN.
[Illustration]
_The Doctrine of Expediency_
At the beginning of his reign Ferdinand was, or pretended to be, an
ardent Russophile. Then something happened which made him think that he
had been backing the wrong horse. Perhaps it was the result of the
Russo-Japanese War; perhaps it was because little Prince Boris did not
receive the usual decoration from St. Petersburg when he was made
honorary colonel of the Russian Regiment of Minsk. We may be sure, at
any rate, that the motive was not affection for Germany or the German
Empire. That great nation has not the gift of inspiring affection, least
of all in small peoples within reach of her claws.
Ferdinand was bribed, and bribed heavily, we may be certain; and, like
the rulers of other Balkan States, he and his advisers thought for a
time that the Central Powers were going to win. He thought he saw his
way to an increase of territory at the expense of Serbia, perhaps also
of Greece. Some say that he dreamed of reigning at Constantinople. These
hopes must be wearing rather thin now. The time has not yet come for
turning his coat; but if, or when, it seems to him safe and expedient to
leave the Kaiser in the lurch, he will do it without the slightest
scruple.
Meanwhile, there was no danger in making the Emperor of Austria his
confidant; the poor old gentleman, if he understood what was said to
him, probably thought the idea a very sensible one, and wished heartily
that he had come to terms with Russia.
W. R. INGE.
[Illustration]
_Murder on the High Seas_
Germany stands convicted of such bestial crime upon land and sea that
one can only come to the conclusion her offence results not from passing
aberration or the ebriety of war, but indicates an infection deep-seated
and chronic. Her recent Imperial Government statistics of crime before
the war indicated very surely that some deep, moral distemper was
conquering the German character and running like a plague through her
spiritual and sociological life.
It has been said that the problem is one for the anthropologist rather
than the lawyer; yet even if the Prussian be not a Teuton, but a Tatar,
his indifference to every human instinct would still remain
inexplicable. For others of the Tatar stock are amenable to the
evolution that time brings, and now pursue the business of war under
modern conditions that embrace respect for prisoners and wounded,
non-combatants, women and children.
Among the numberless instances of murder and piracy on the high seas
space permits here but to dwell upon one, which has by no means received
the attention it deserves. International problems involved by the
destruction of American citizens have tended to focus public opinion on
the “Lusitania” and “Essex” murders; but consider again a crime in the
Black Sea and the depraved temper it implies.
On the thirtieth day of March, while lying motionless off Cape Fathia,
the Russian hospital ship “Portugal” was destroyed in broad daylight by
a submarine, despite the fact that she bore all necessary marks demanded
by the Geneva Convention and Hague Covenant.
There perished fourteen ladies of the Red Cross; fifty surgeons and
physicians; many male and female nurses; many Russian and French
sailors. But for the fact that a Russian destroyer was in the vicinity,
the fatalities must have been larger. A great hospital equipment was
also lost to humanity.
Well might the Russian Government declare this outrage a flagrant
infraction of the rights of man and an act of common piracy, while
asking the judgment of all civilized countries on such barbarism.
The people that perpetrated and applauded this act denies civilization,
and one may fairly argue that the national conscience, not only of her
fighting forces, but of those behind them, will soon reach a pitch where
disintegration must follow. The evolution of morals alone must break
them, for human nature cannot suffer this reaction.
Meantime we wait in vain for the Allies’ Note informing Germany of our
intention with respect to her shipping. Did she know that we designed an
eye for an eye, a ton for a ton, she might yet hesitate upon a course
that promised to deplete her merchant marine after the war in the ratio
of her destruction. The point is equally vital to the weak maritime
neutrals, who see their merchant fleets dwindle and their protests
ignored by a nation that respects nothing on earth but force.
EDEN PHILLPOTTS.
[Illustration]
_Pounding Austria_
“I wonder how long my dear friend and ally will be able to stand this?”
So “Wilhelm” is made to remark, as he peers over from behind his
parapet, safely guarded with barbed wire, and sees the aged Francis
Joseph receiving blow after blow, on the one side from the Italians, on
the other from the Rumanians. The caricature, it must be admitted, is
not quite up-to-date in one respect, for Wilhelm has certainly done his
best, and so far only too successfully, to tear off the smaller of these
foes. But it is more than up-to-date in another, for the ancient “Dual
Monarch” has already succumbed to his years and his enemies. And for
reasons best known to himself, “Wilhelm” has run away from his funeral,
and thinks he will consult his delicate health and his no less delicate
dignity, by sending the Crown Prince instead, that young man being no
longer wanted imperatively or imperially on the French front. How young
Wilhelm will get on with young Carl remains to be seen. The experience
may have dangers of its own. Mr. Raemaekers might look out for a further
opportunity in this new situation.
HERBERT WARREN.
[Illustration]
_Durchhalten--“Hold Out”_
The Roman Emperor Tiberius, that gloomy tyrant, is said to have remarked
that governing the Roman people was like holding a wolf by the ears.
Here the position is reversed. The patient, obedient, and faithful
German people, for such, however infatuated, we must allow it has been,
is represented as by no means like a wolf, but more like the traditional
opposite, a sheep. But even the sheep may turn if driven beyond measure.
Meanwhile, this caricature may help to bring home to it the true
position.
The Kaiser, stout, with all his heavy, comfortable clothes, his military
cloak, his helmet, and boots and spurs, one of which he digs into his
beast of burden, rides comfortably on the back of “German Michael,” the
common soldier, and cheerfully bids him “hold out” and struggle up the
toilsome hill of victory, with its shifting, clogging soil.
The desperate agony and pain of the poor victim, the drops of sweat
falling from his brow, his eyes starting from his head, are well
depicted, and also the complacency of the emperor, blended with senile
vanity and self-glorification. His aspiration not long ago was to be the
“Young Man of the Sea.” Here he is depicted as the “Old Man” of that
element.
HERBERT WARREN.
[Illustration]
_The Satyr of the Sea_
It is always difficult, after a series of catastrophic events, to go
back to one’s mental outlook of the time before they happened. But if
the civilized world could recapture its pre-war view, I believe it would
realize the most startling of all the results of Armageddon to be that
we now take Germany’s outrages on neutrals for granted. At first the
bulk of us simply could not believe the tale of the horrors inflicted on
non-combatant men, women, and children of innocent and neutral Belgium.
But Germany had at any rate made Belgium a belligerent, before beginning
them. Now that similar horrors should fall on men, women, and children
of Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and America, surprises no more: it
has become a mere matter of course.
It is the business of the prophet, the seer, and the poet to awaken the
world when it is worshipping false gods, when from fear, or
self-interest, or sheer bewilderment, it fails to see the things that
are in their naked horror and their awful shame. But prophet, seer, and
poet can speak only through the printed word, and in the maze and mass
of conflicting appeals the words of truth are lost and ineffective. But
if the ear be deaf and the mind numb, the eyes of all retain their
childlike curiosity. It is Raemaekers’ secret that he can present his
own clear vision of the truth in figures that pierce instantly to the
conscience of the dullest. To kill a child at all for a political
purpose, is the sin of Herod. To kill the children of those with whom
you have no nominal quarrel, stipulates just that negation of soul which
we call beastly. The truth about Tirpitz, and all that that accursed
name stands for, is personified in the loathsome Satyr of the Sea
portrayed in this cartoon.
ARTHUR POLLEN.
[Illustration]
_War Council with Ferdinand and Enver Pasha_
Raemaekers is not merely a clever draftsman and a keen observer, but
also a deep and careful student of modern history and diplomacy. He
knows the by-paths, the _coulisses_, and the intrigues of the diplomatic
world, which are eternally going on behind the almost impenetrable
curtain with which the chancelleries of Europe seek to veil their
proceedings.
Everyone knows, of course, that it was not merely affection or esteem
that has ranged Ferdinand of Bulgaria and Enver Pasha upon the side of
the Central Empires. In the case of the first, greed had not a little to
do with the final decision to which he came. He was not unwilling to be
persuaded by the blandishments of his “dear brother the Kaiser,” always
provided it was made worth his while at the time as well as _in futuro_.
In the case of the second, ambition played its part, backed up by years
of “ground baiting” of the kind in which German diplomacy excels.
It has been left to the pencil of this great artist and satirist to
bring home to the mind of the man-in-the-street a knowledge of the
actual situation that has been created, and of the methods by which it
was brought about. In this cartoon we have the Kaiser in shop-walker
attitude, an oily smile upon his lips, bending forward and washing his
hands with invisible soap, while he exclaims, “I hope you have been well
served and are satisfied.” His dupes are shown bound hand and foot, with
an expression of their doubts as to the ultimate genuineness and benefit
of the bargain which they have struck shown upon the face of the one and
the back of the other. Bound hand and foot they stand in the presence of
this “artful dodger” among crowned heads, and in that of the decrepit
Franz Joseph, in whose figure the artist has succeeded in so cleverly
conveying an idea of the unstable and effete nature of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The “dear friends and allies” show neither the feeling of comfort nor
confidence about which their imperial taskmaster speaks and inquires so
glibly.
Bound thus to the wheels of the car of Germany’s destiny, they begin
evidently to question the wisdom of their choice. Already Ferdinand’s
doubts must have commenced to take definite shape, for the luck of “the
great game” has begun to run against him at Monastir, and “crushed and
destroyed” Serbia is once more in fighting trim and eager to expel the
invader.
CLIVE HOLLAND.
[Illustration]
_The Burial of Private Walker_
On September 9, 1914, Joseph Walker enlisted for the duration of the
war; on January 11, 1916, the sea bore his dead body to the dyke at West
Capelle. Usually a body washed ashore in this neighborhood is buried at
the foot of the dunes, without coffin, without ceremony. But not this
time. This afternoon, at 1 P.M., while the northwest wind whistled over
Walcheren, the English soldier was buried in the churchyard of West
Capelle. Behind the walls of the tower where we sought protection from
the gale the burial service was read.
First the vice-consul in the name of England spread the British flag
over him who for England had sacrificed his young life. Four men of West
Capelle carried the coffin outside and placed it at the foot of the
tower, that old gray giant, which has witnessed so much world’s woe,
here opposite the sea. The Reverend Mr. Fraser, the English clergyman at
Kortryk, himself an exile, said we were gathered to pay the last homage
to a Briton who had died for his country. It was a simple, but touching
ceremony.
“Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live.... He cometh
forth like a flower and is cut down.” Thus spoke the voice of the
minister and the wind carried his words, and the wind played with the
flag of England, the flag that flies over all seas, in Flanders, in
France, in the Balkans, in Egypt, as the symbol of threatened
freedom--the flag whose folds here covered a fallen warrior. Deeply were
we moved when the clergyman in his prayer asked for a “message of
comfort to his home.”
Who, tell me, oh silent field,
Who lies buried here? Here?
Yes, who is Walker, No. 16092, Private Joseph Walker, Bedfordshire
regiment? Who, in loving thoughts, thinks of him with hope even now when
we, strangers to them, stand near to him in death? Where is his home? We
know it not, but in our inmost hearts we pray for a “message of comfort
and consolation” for his people.
And in the roaring storm we went our way. There was he carried, the
soldier come to rest, and the flag fluttered in the wind and wrapped
itself round that son of England. Then the coffin sank into the ground
and the hearts of us, the departing witnesses, were sore. Earth fell on
it, and the preacher said: “Earth to earth, dust to dust.”--_From the
Amsterdam_ “Telegraaf,” _January, 1916_.
[Illustration]
_The Supreme Effort_