The malignant and perfidious English have again to eat their own
words. Indeed, they have eaten them. It will be remembered that on
every occasion of one of our glorious Zeppelin raids our official
report of the damage done, notwithstanding the meticulous accuracy
which those who draw up the reports impose upon themselves, has been
angrily contradicted by the English Press, always under some heading
attributing habitual mendacity and wilful and continuous dishonesty to
the German headquarters.
Germans do not lie. There is no need. Their deeds are so terrific
and sweeping as it is that the slightest embroidery or exaggeration
would produce an effect to stagger humanity. Hence when our reports
said on one occasion that our Zeppelins had irretrievably damaged the
fortified town of Margate, and on another occasion that our Zeppelins
had practically destroyed the formidable garrison of Ramsgate, and on
a third occasion that our Zeppelins had almost eliminated that English
Kronstadt, Yarmouth, and on a fourth occasion that the menacing citadel
of Cromer had been reduced to ruins, and on a fifth occasion that
the hitherto impregnable fortress of Lowestoft had become pregnable
owing to the wonderful science of the revered Count ZEPPELIN--when our
reports said these things they recorded facts, although the reptile
English Press instantly hissed out denials and attacks.
But justice will prevail, even in England, although one may have
to wait long for it. And now, some while after these magnificently
successful raids, the admission is made that our official reports, so
suspect and derided, were right all the time. In one of the leading
English papers we find the following words in an article entitled,
"Prospects for the Summer Holidays." For it seems that, in spite of
the famine and other hardships which the immortal German army and
supreme German navy are inflicting upon England, some of these trivial
islanders are proposing to go to the seaside as usual this year--either
out of a paltry bravado or by arrangement with the Government to create
an illusion of prosperity and composure. But, whereas normally the
watering-places of the whole country are open to them for their obscene
and brutish frolics, this year they are not expected to patronise the
East coast--that is to say the English shores of the German Ocean. And
why? The reason is not without its flattery to us; and it also carries
with it the damning admission of the absolute exactitude, the minute
veracity of the German official reports of the Zeppelin raids which
previously the English papers had conspired to impugn. We give the
precise words:--
"There is, we fear, every reason to anticipate a barren season
for the East Coast resorts, usually so popular. From Margate
and Ramsgate, right up through Lowestoft, Yarmouth, Cromer and
Cleethorpes to Scarborough and Whitby, they have, it cannot be
denied, been _badly hit_ by the Zeppelin raids."
The italics are ours. Note them well, for they are the measure of
English turpitude. When, after our shattering and comprehensive raids
had occurred, one by one, always with such devastating fury and
precision, our reports announced that these very towns had been "badly
hit" (mark the phrase!), the English Press once more accused us of
perversion and dissimulation. How right we were is now proved. In fact
it seems that we understated the case, for we gather that a very large
number of East Coast towns have been badly hit by our irresistible
machines of retribution--far more than we knew.
If we wait long enough we shall doubtless find somewhere in an English
paper the verification of other of our claims, which at the time were
treated with contempt--such, for example, as the glorious destruction
of Liverpool and Manchester by bombs from the sky. All that we need is
a little patience.
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