The cartoons which appear on the following pages up to and including
page 86 call for special reference.
They represent Raemaekers' impression of the behaviour of the German
troops in Belgium during the first weeks of the invasion. The great
majority of them were drawn long before any Official Reports were
published, and not, as would seem natural, as illustrations of the
Reports which were eventually published by the Belgian, French, and
British Governments. The cartoon on page 86 was drawn after the
publication of the British Government's Official Report. It is important
to realise this. It is also necessary to remember that the German
atrocities began actually at the moment that the German troops crossed
the frontier on the evening of August 3rd and continued in unabated
violence until the defeat at the Marne.
After the retreat of the Germans from Paris the German General Staff
appear to have altered its cold-blooded policy in Belgium and France.
From that moment, when the carefully prepared blow at the heart of
France had failed and when the possibility of defeat began to dawn upon
the Potsdam mind, organised robbery, murder, arson and rape were
discontinued or at least toned down as a feature of German warfare.
Whilst that method--the Official Reports of the Allied Governments'
Commissions of Enquiry prove conclusively it was a method--continued,
Raemaekers concentrated his pencil upon it and neglected the strictly
military and political happenings. That is why I have grouped the
Belgian cartoons at the beginning of this volume. They do really
represent the first phase of the war. With regard to the extracts that I
have selected to face the Belgian cartoons I would ask the reader to
remember that they have been taken largely from Official Reports issued
after the drawings were published. Raemaekers' pictorial indictment came
first. He was justified later by the sworn evidence of eye-witnesses.
I think perhaps that it is necessary to make these observations in case
the letterpress facing the Belgian cartoons should not in many cases be
considered quite apt.