In the note to another picture I have remarked on the farcical hypocrisy
of the German Emperor in presenting himself, as he so often does, as the
High Priest of several different religions at the same time. They are
nearly all of them religions with which he would have no sort of
concern, even if his religious pose were as real as it is artificial.
Being in fact the ruler and representative of a country which alone
among European countries builds with complete security upon the
conviction that all Christianity is dead, he can only be, even in
theory, the prince of an extreme Protestant State. Long before the War
it was common for the best caricaturists of Europe, and even of Germany,
to make particular fun of these preposterous temporary Papacies in which
the Kaiser parades himself as if for a fancy-dress ball; and in the
accompanying picture Mr. Raemaekers has returned more or less to this
old pantomimic line of satire.
The cartoon recalls some of those more good-humoured, but perhaps
equally contemptuous, sketches in which the draughtsmen of the French
comic papers used to take a particular delight; which made a whole comic
Bible out of the Kaiser's adventures during his visit to Palestine. Here
he appears as Moses, and the Red Sea has been dried up to permit the
passage of himself and his people.
It would certainly be very satisfactory for German world-politics if the
sea could be dried up everywhere; but it is unlikely that the incident
will occur, especially in that neighbourhood. It will be long before a
German army is as safe in the Suez Canal as a German Navy in the Kiel
Canal; and the higher critics of Germany will have no difficulty in
proving, in the Kiel Canal at all events, that the safety is due to
human and not to divine wisdom.