The All-Highest, so we are told, loves a joke at another's expense, a
trait in his character essentially barbaric. Raemaekers reproduces the
twinkle in the Imperial eye as William of Potsdam offers to a quondam
ally the foot which belongs to his senile and helpless brother of
Hapsburg. The roar of anguish from the prostrate octogenarian provokes,
as we see, not pity but a grim smile. Italy's monarch, we may imagine,
is muttering to himself:--
_Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes._
The bribe, wrenched from another, was, of course, indignantly rejected,
but one wonders what the secret feelings of the Hapsburgs may be toward
the Hohenzollerns. We know that the Turk cherishes no love for the Hun
who has beguiled him, but we cannot gauge as yet the real strength or
weakness of the bond between the Huns on the one hand and the Austrians
and Hungarians on the other. Raemaekers has portrayed Franz Josef flat
on his back. In the language of the ring he is "down and out." Possibly
it may have been so from the beginning. At any rate, in this country,
there is an amiable disposition to regard Franz Josef as a victim rather
than an accomplice, a weakling writhing beneath the jack-boot of
Prussia, impotent to hold his own. It may not be so. Time alone will
reveal the truth.
But this much is reasonably certain. When peace is declared, the sincere
friendship which once existed between ourselves and the Dual Monarchy
may be reestablished, but many years must pass before we forgive or
forget the Huns. They are boasting to-day that as a nation they are
self-sufficing and self-supporting. Amen! Most of us desire nothing
better than to leave them alone till they have mended their manners and
purged themselves of a colossal and unendurable conceit. I cannot
envisage Huns playing tennis at Wimbledon, or English girls studying
music at Leipzig. The grass in the streets of Homburg will not, for many
years, be trodden out by English feet; the harpies of hotel keepers
throughout the Happy Fatherland will prey, it may be presumed, upon
their fellow Huns. Then they will fall to "strafing" each other instead
of England. And then, as now, their mouthings will provoke
inextinguishable laughter.