----------------------------------------------------------------------- RAEMAEKERS' CARTOONS ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [Illustration: (Transcriber's note: a signed Portrait of Louis Raemaekers) Photograph by Miss D. Compton Collier] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- RAEMAEKERS' CARTOONS WITH ACCOMPANYING NOTES BYWELL-KNOWN ENGLISH WRITERS WITH AN APPRECIATION FROM H. H. ASQUITH, PRIME MINISTER OF ENGLAND GARDEN CITY NEW YORKDOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY1916 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright, 1916, byDOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreignlanguages, including the Scandinavian. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LIST OF CARTOONS AND THE DESCRIPTIVE NOTES PAGEPORTRAIT OF LOUIS RAEMAEKERSINTRODUCTION Francis StopfordAN APPRECIATION FROM THE PRIME MINISTER H. H. AsquithCHRISTENDOM AFTER TWENTY CENTURIES Francis Stopford 8A STABLE PEACE Eden Phillpotts 10THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS E. Charles Vivian 12BERNHARDIISM Hilaire Belloc 14FROM LIÈGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE Francis Stopford 16SPOILS FOR THE VICTORS Hilaire Belloc 18THE VERY STONES CRY OUT Bernard Vaughan, S. J. 20SATAN'S PARTNER G. K. Chesterton 22THROWN TO THE SWINE The Dean of St. Paul's 24THE LAND MINE Herbert Warren 26"FOR YOUR MOTHERLAND" Eden Phillpotts 28THE GERMAN LOAN E. Charles Vivian 30EUROPE, 1916 G. K. Chesterton 32THE NEXT TO BE KICKED OUT--DUMBA'S MASTER Arthur Pollen 34THE FRIENDLY VISITOR H. DeVere Stacpoole 36"TO YOUR HEALTH, CIVILIZATION!" The Dean of St. Paul's 38FOX TIRPITZ PREACHING TO THE GEESE Herbert Warren 40THE PRISONERS Eden Phillpotts 42IT'S UNBELIEVABLE Hilaire Belloc 44KREUZLAND, KREUZLAND ÜBER ALLES The Dean of St. Paul's 38THE EX-CONVICT Hilaire Belloc 48MISS CAVELL G. K. Chesterton 50THE HOSTAGES John Oxenham 52KING ALBERT'S ANSWER TO THE POPE E. Charles Vivian 54THE GAS FIEND Eden Phillpotts 56THE GERMAN TANGO John Buchan 58THE ZEPPELIN TRIUMPH W. L. Courtney 60KEEPING OUT THE ENEMY H. DeVere Stacpoole 62THE GERMAN OFFER Hilaire Belloc 64THE WOLF TRAP Herbert Warren 66AHASUERUS II John Buchan 68OUR CANDID FRIEND The Dean of St. Paul's 70PEACE AND INTERVENTION Boyd Cable 72LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD H. DeVere Stacpoole 74THE SEA MINE Arthur Pollen 76"SEDUCTION" G. K. Chesterton 78MURDER ON THE HIGH SEAS Arthur Pollen 80AD FINEM John Oxenham 82"U'S" Arthur Pollen 84MATER DOLOROSA Eden Phillpotts 86"GOTT STRAFE ITALIEN!" Ralph D. Blumenfeld 88SERBIA Sir Sidney Lee 90"JUST A MOMENT--I'M COMING" Boyd Cable 92THE HOLY WAR Boyd Cable 94"GOTT MIT UNS" Eden Phillpotts 96THE WIDOWS OF BELGIUM The Dean of St. Paul's 98THE HARVEST IS RIPE William Mitchell Ramsay 100"UNMASKED" Boyd Cable 102THE GREAT SURPRISE G. K. Chesterton 104THOU ART THE MAN! John Oxenham 106SYMPATHY Ralph D. Blumenfeld 108THE REFUGEES Joseph Thorp 110"THE JUNKER" Clive Holland 112"AU MILIEU DE FANTÔMES TRISTES ET SANS NOMBRE" Alice Meynell 114BLUEBEARD'S CHAMBER William Mitchell Ramsay 116THE RAID Arthur Pollen 118BETTER A LIVING DOG THAN A DEAD LION Arthur Shadwell 120"THE BURDEN OF THE INTOLERABLE DAY" William Mitchell Ramsay 122EAGLE IN HEN-RUN Boyd Cable 124THE FUTURE Sidney Lee 126CHRIST OR ODIN? Bernard Vaughan 128FERDINAND Edmund Gosse 130JUGGERNAUT John Oxenham 132MICHAEL AND THE MARKS W. M. J. Williams 134THEIR BERESINA John Oxenham 136NEW PEACE OFFERS W. L. Courtney 138THE SHIELDS OF ROSSELAERE William Mitchell Ramsay 140THE OBSTINACY OF NICHOLAS Joseph Thorp 142THE ORDER OF MERIT Ralph D. Blumenfeld 144THE MARSHES OF PINSK Alice Meynell 146GOD WITH US John Buchan 148FERDINAND THE CHAMELEON G. K. Chesterton 150THE LATIN SISTERS Horace Annesley Vachell 152MISUNDERSTOOD Joseph Thorp 154PROSPERITY REIGNS IN FLANDERS Cecil Chesterton 156THE LAST HOHENZOLLERN E. Charles Vivian 158PIRACY Arthur Pollen 160"WEEPING, SHE HATH WEPT" Father Bernard Vaughan 162MILITARY NECESSITY Eden Phillpotts 164LIBERTÉ! LIBERTÉ, CHÉRIE! John Oxenham 166I--"A KNAVISH PIECE OF WORK" George Birdwood 168II--"SISYPHUS, --HIS STONE" George Birdwood 170CONCRETE FOUNDATIONS A. Shadwell 172PALLAS ATHENE Herbert Warner 174THE WONDERS OF CULTURE Clive Holland 176FOLK WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND THEM Bernard Vaughan 178ON THE WAY TO CALAIS Eden Phillpotts 180VON BETHMANN-HOLLWEG AND TRUTH Herbert Warren 182VAN TROMP AND DE RUYTER Arthur Pollen 184WAR AND CHRIST Cecil Chesterton 186BARBED WIRE E. Charles Vivian 188THE HIGHER POLITICS Boyd Cable 190THE LOAN GAME W. M. J. Williams 192A WAR OF RAPINE E. Charles Vivian 194THE DUTCH JUNKERS A. Shadwell 196THE WAR MAKERS John Oxenham 198THE CHRISTMAS OF KULTUR A. Shadwell 200SERBIA Horace Annesley Vachell 202THE LAST OF THE RACE Arthur Pollen 204THE CURRICULUM W. M. J. Williams 206THE DUTCH JOURNALIST TO HIS BELGIAN CONFRÈRE G. K. Chesterton 208A BORED CRITIC Eden Phillpotts 210"THE PEACE WOMAN" Clive Holland 212THE SELF-SATISFIED BURGHER W. L. Courtney 214THE DECADENT John Oxenham 216LIQUID FIRE Clive Holland 218NISH AND PARIS Sidney Lee 220GOTT STRAFE ENGLAND! Cecil Chesterton 222THE PACIFICIST KAISER Sidney Lee 224DINANT W. R. Inge 226"HESPERIA" (WOUNDED FIRST) H. DeVere Stacpoole 228GALLIPOLI G. K. Chesterton 230THE BEGINNING OF THE EXPIATION G. K. Chesterton 232THE SHIRKERS Sidney Lee 234ONE OF THE KAISER'S MANY MISTAKES John Oxenham 236BELGIUM IN HOLLAND Edmund Gosse 238SERBIA William Mitchell Ramsay 240JACKALS IN THE POLITICAL FIELD Herbert Warren 242A LETTER FROM THE GERMAN TRENCHES Cecil Chesterton 244HIS MASTER'S VOICE A. Shadwell 246HUN GENEROSITY Horace Annesley Vachell 248EASTER, 1915 G. K. Chesterton 250PAN GERMANICUS AS PEACE MAKER Alfred Stead 252GOTT MIT UNS Cecil Chesterton 254OUR LADY OF ANTWERP W. L. Courtney 256DEPORTATION Cecil Chesterton 258THE GERMAN BAND John Oxenham 260ARCADES AMBO Horace Annesley Vachell 262"IS IT YOU, MOTHER?" Sidney Lee 264THE FATE OF FLEMISH ART AT THE HANDS OF KULTUR Arthur Morrison 266THE GRAVES OF ALL HIS HOPES H. DeVere Stacpoole 268"MY SIXTH SON IS NOW LYING HERE--WHERE ARE YOURS?" H. DeVere Stacpoole 270BUNKERED W. R. Inge 272GOTT STRAFE VERDUN W. R. Inge 274THE LAST THROW E. Charles Vivian 276THE ZEPPELIN BAG Clive Holland 278"COME IN, MICHAEL, I HAVE HAD A LONG SLEEP" Horace Annesley Vachell 280FIVE ON A BENCH G. K. Chesterton 282WHAT ABOUT PEACE, LADS? W. R. Inge 284THE LIBERATORS Joseph Thorp 286TOM THUMB AND THE GIANT E. Charles Vivian 288"WE HAVE FINISHED OFF THE RUSSIANS" E. Charles Vivian 290MUDDLE THROUGH Clive Holland 292MY ENEMY IS MY BEST FRIEND William Mitchell Ramsay 294HOW I DEAL WITH THE SMALL FRY Clive Holland 296THE TWO EAGLES A. Shadwell 298LONDON INSIDE THE SAVOY E. Charles Vivian 300LONDON OUTSIDE THE SAVOY E. Charles Vivian 302THE INVOCATION A. Shadwell 304 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION Louis Raemaekers will stand out for all time as one of the supremefigures which the Great War has called into being. His genius has beenenlisted in the service of mankind, and his work, being entirely sincereand untouched by racial or national prejudice, will endure; indeed, itpromises to gain strength as the years advance. When the intensepassions, which have been awakened by this world struggle, have fadedaway, civilization will regard the war largely through these wonderfuldrawings. * * * * * Before the war had been in progress many weeks the cartoons in theAmsterdam _Telegraaf_ attracted attention in the capitals of Europe, many leading newspapers reproducing them. The German authorities, quickto realize their full significance, did all in their power to suppressthem. Through German intrigue Raemaekers has been charged in the DutchCourts with endangering the neutrality of Holland--and acquitted. Aprice has been set on his head, should he ever venture over the border. When he crossed to England, his wife received anonymous post-cards, warning her that his ship would certainly be torpedoed in the North Sea. The Cologne _Gazette_, in a leading article on Holland, threatens thatcountry that "after the War Germany will settle accounts with Holland, and for each calumny, for each cartoon of Raemaekers, she will demandpayment with the interest that is due to her. " Not since Saul and themen of Israel were in the valley of Elah fighting with the Philistineshas so unexpected a champion arisen. With brush and pencil this Dutchpainter will do even as David did with the smooth stone out of thebrook: he will destroy the braggart Goliath, who, strong in his ownmight, defies the forces of the living God. When Mr. Raemaekers came to London in December, he was received by thePrime Minister, and was entertained at a complimentary luncheon by theJournalists of the British capital. Similar honour was conferred on himon his second visit. He was the guest of honour at the Savage Club; theRoyal Society of Miniature Painters elected him an Honorary Member. Butit has been left to France to pay the most fitting recognition to hisgenius and to his services in the cause of freedom and truth. The Crossof the Legion of Honour has been presented to him, and on his visit toParis this month a special reception is to be held in his honour at LaSorbonne, which is the highest purely intellectual reward Europe canconfer on any man. * * * * * The great Dutch cartoonist is now in his forty-seventh year. He was bornin Holland, his father, who is dead, having been the editor of aprovincial newspaper. His mother, who is still alive and exceedinglyproud of her son's fame, is a German by birth, but rejoices that shemarried a Dutchman. Mr. Raemaekers, who is short, fair, and of a ruddycountenance, looks at least ten years younger than his age. He took uppainting and drawing when quite young and learnt his art in Holland andin Brussels. All his life he has lived in his own country, but withfrequent visits to Belgium and Germany, where, through his mother, hehas many relations. Thus he knows by experience the nature of thepeoples whom he depicts. For many years he was a landscape painter and a portrait painter, andmade money and local reputation. Six or seven years ago he turned hisattention to political work, and became a cartoonist and caricaturist onthe staff of the Amsterdam _Telegraaf_, thus opening the way to a famewhich is not only world-wide but which will endure as long as the memoryof the Great War lasts. His ideas come to him naturally and withouteffort. Suggestions do not assist him; they hinder him when heendeavours to act on them. He is an artist to his finger-tips and throwsthe whole force of his being into his work. Some years ago he married aDutch lady, who is devoted to music, and they have three children, twogirls and a boy (the youngest); the eldest is now twelve. Very happy inhis home, Mr. Raemaekers has no ambitions outside it, except to go onwith his work. A Teuton paper has declared that Raemaekers' cartoons areworth at least two Army Corps to the Allies. The strong religious tendency which so often distinguishes his workmakes one instinctively ask to what Church does the artist belong. Hereplies that he belongs to none, but was brought up a Catholic, and hiswife a Protestant, and the differences which in later life severed eachfrom their early teaching caused them to meet on common ground. But theintense Christian feeling of these drawings is beyond cavil or dispute:they again and again bring home to the heart the vital truths of theFaith with irresistible force, and the artist ever expresses theChristianity, not perhaps of the theologian, but of the honest andkindly man of the world. Praise has been bestowed upon his work by several Germanpapers--qualified praise. The _Leipziger Volkszeitung_ has declared thatRaemaekers' cartoons show unimpeachable art and great power ofexecution, but that they all lack one thing. They have no wit, nospirit. Which is true--in a sense. They do lack wit--German wit; they dolack spirit--German spirit. And what German wit and German spirit may beone can comprehend by a study of Raemaekers' cartoons. * * * * * It has been well said that no man living amidst these surging seas ofblood and tears has come nearer to the rôle of Peacemaker thanRaemaekers. The Peace which he works for is not a matter of arrangementbetween diplomatists and politicians: it is the peace which theintelligence and the soul of the Western world shall insist on in theyears to be. God grant it be not long delayed, but it can only come whenthe enemy is entirely overthrown and the victory is overwhelming andcomplete. Empire House, FRANCIS STOPFORD, Kingsway, London. Editor, _Land and Water_. February, 1916. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- AN APPRECIATION FROM THE PRIME MINISTER Downing Street, Whitehall, S. W. Mr. Raemaekers' powerful work gives form and colour to the menace whichthe Allies are averting from the liberty, the civilization, and thehumanity of the future. He shows us our enemies as they appear to theunbiassed eyes of a neutral, and wherever his pictures are seendetermination will be strengthened to tolerate no end of the war savethe final overthrow of the Prussian military power. Signed H. H. ASQUITH. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CHRISTENDOM AFTER TWENTY CENTURIES These pictures, with their haunting sense of beauty and their bitingsatire, might almost have been drawn by the finger of the AccusingAngel. As the spectator gazes on them the full weight of the horriblecruelty and senseless futility of war overwhelms the soul, and, sinkinghelplessly beneath it, he feels inclined to assume the same attitude ofdespair as is shown in "Christendom After Twenty Centuries. " "War is war, " the Germans preached and practised, and no matter howclement and correct may be the humanity of the Allies, we realizethrough these pictures what the human race has to face and endure oncepeace be broken. Is "Christendom After Twenty Centuries" to be even asChristianity was in the first century--an excuse for the perpetration ofmad cruelties by degenerate Cæsars or Kaisers (spell it as you will) attheir games? Cannot the higher and finer attributes of mankind bedeveloped and strengthened without this apparently needless waste ofagony and life? Is human nature only to be redeemed through the Cross, and must Calvary bear again and again its heavy load of human anguish? One cannot escape from this inner questioning as one gazes onRaemaekers' cartoons. FRANCIS STOPFORD. [Illustration: CHRISTENDOM AFTER TWENTY CENTURIES] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A STABLE PEACE Were I privileged to have a hand at the Peace Conference, my cooperationwould take the part of deeds and I should only ask to hang the walls ofthe council chamber with life-size reproductions of Raemaekers inblood-red frames. For human memory is weak, and as mind of man cannotgrasp the meaning of a million, so may it well fail to keep steadilybefore itself the measure of Belgium--the rape and murder, the pillageand plunder, the pretences under which perished women and priests andchildren, the brutal tyranny--the left hand that beckoned in friendlyfashion, the right hand, hidden with the steel. We can very safely leave France to remember Northern France and Russianot to forget Poland; but let Belgium and Serbia be at the front of theBritish mind and conscience; let her lift her eyes to these scorchingpictures when Germany fights with all her cunning for a peace that shallleave Prussia scotched, not killed. Already one reads despondent articles, that the English tradition, toforgive and forget, is going to wreck the peace; and students ofpsychology fear that within us lie ineradicable qualities that will savethe situation for Germany at the end. To suspect such a national weakness is surely to arm against it and seethat our contribution to the Peace Conference shall not stultify ourcontribution to the War. The Germans have been kite-flying for six months, to see which way thewind blows; and when the steady hurricane broke the strings and flungthe kites headlong to earth, those who sent them up were sufficientlyproclaimed by their haste to disclaim. But when the actual conditions are created and the new "Scrap of Paper"comes to light, since German honour is dead and her oath in her ownsight worthless, let it be worthless in our sight also, and let theterms of peace preclude her power to perjure herself again. Make herhonest by depriving her of the strength to be dishonest. There is onlyone thing on earth the German will ever respect, and that is superiorforce. May Berlin, therefore, see an army of occupation; and may "peace"be a word banished from every Allied tongue until that preliminarycondition of peace is accomplished, and Germany sees other armies thanher own. Reason has been denied speech in this war; but if she is similarlybanished from the company of the peace-makers, then woe betide theconstitution of the thing they will create, for a "stable peace" must bethe very last desire of those now doomed to defeat. EDEN PHILLPOTTS. [Illustration: A STABLE PEACE THE KAISER: "And remember, if they do not accept, I deny altogether. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS Some "neutrals, " and even some of the people here in England, stilldoubt the reality of the German atrocities in Belgium, but Raemaekershas seen and spoken with those to whom the scene depicted in thiscartoon is an ugly reality. One who would understand it to the full mustvisualize the hands behind the thrusting rifle butts, and the facesbehind the hands, as well as the praying, maddened, despairing, vengefulwomen of the picture--and must visualize, too, the men thrust backanother way, to wait _their_ fate at the hands of these apostles of acivilization of force. Yet even then full realization is impossible; the man whose pencil haslimned these faces has only caught a far-off echo of the reality, andthus we who see his picture are yet another stage removed from the fullhorror of the scene that he gives us. Not on us, in England, have therifle butts fallen; not for us has it chanced that we should beshepherded "men to the right, women to the left"; not ours the trenchedgraves and the extremity of shame. Thus it is not for us to speak, asthe people of Belgium and Northern France will speak, of the limits ofendurance, and of war's last terrors imposed on those whom war shouldhave passed by and left untouched. We gather, dimly and with but a titheof the feeling that experience can impart, that these extremities ofshame and suffering have been imposed on a people that has done nowrong, and we may gain some slight satisfaction from the thought that tothis nation is apportioned a share in the work of vengeance on thecriminals. E. CHARLES VIVIAN. [Illustration: THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS "We _must_ do everything in good order--so men to the right, women tothe left. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BERNHARDIISM It is the most bestial part of this most bestial thing that it iscalculated and a matter of orders. The private soldier takes his shareof the loot, and is generally the instrument of the cold and orderedkilling; but it is the officer-class which most profits in goods, and itis the higher command which dictates the policy. It was so in 1870. Itis much more so to-day. This note of calculation is particularly to be seen in the fluctuationsthrough which that policy has passed. When the enemy was absolutelycertain of victory, outnumbering the invader by nearly two to one andsweeping all before him, we had massacres upon massacres: Louvain, Aerschot, the wholesale butchery of Dinant, the Lorraine villages (andin particular the hell of Guébervilliers). Even at the very extremity ofhis tide of invasion, and in the last days of it, came the atrocitiesand destruction of Sermaize. In the very act of the defeat which haspinned him and began the process of his destruction he was attemptingyet a further repetition of these unnameable things at Senlis under thevery gates of Paris. Then came the months when he felt less secure. The whole thing was atonce toned down by order. Pillage was reduced to isolated cases, andmurder also. Few children suffered. A recovery of confidence throughout his Eastern successes last summerrenewed the crimes. Poland is full of them, and the Serbian land aswell. In general, you have throughout these months of his ordeal a regularsuccession, of excess in vileness when he is confident, of restraint init when he is touched by fear. This effect of fear upon the dull soul is a characteristic familiar toall men who know their Prussian from history, particularly the wealthiergoverning classes of Prussia. It is a characteristic which those who arein authority during this war will do well to bear in mind. Properlyused, that knowledge may be made an instrument of victory. HILAIRE BELLOC. [Illustration: BERNHARDIISM "It's all right. If I hadn't done it some one else might. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FROM LIÈGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE Moreover, by the means of Wisdom I shall obtain immortality, and leave behind me an everlasting memorial to them that come after me. "I shall set the people in order, and the nations shall be subject unto me. "Horrible tyrants shall be afraid, when they do but hear of me; I shall be found good among the multitude, and valiant in war. " (Wisdom viii. 13, 14, 15. ) * * * * * Wisdom and Wisdom alone could have painted this terrible picture themost terrible perhaps which Raemaekers has ever done and yet thesimplest. That he should have dared to leave almost everything to theimagination of the beholder is evidence of the wonderful power which heexercises over the mind of the people. Each of us knows what is in thatgoods-van and we shudder at its hideous hidden freight, fearing lest itmay be disclosed before our eyes. Wisdom is but another name for supremegenius. So apposite are the verses which are quoted here from "TheWisdom of Solomon" in the "Apocrypha" that they seem almost to have beenwritten on Louis Raemaekers. Moreover, this picture brings home to all of us in the most forciblemanner possible the full reality of the horror of war. FRANCIS STOPFORD. [Illustration: FROM LIÈGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SPOILS FOR THE VICTORS The feature that will stamp Prussian War forever, and make this group ofcampaigns stand out from all others, is the _character_ of its murderand pillage. Of all the historical ignorance upon which the foolish Pacifist's caseis founded, perhaps the worst is the conception that these abominationsare the natural accompaniment of war. They _have_ attached to war whenwar was ill organised in type. But the more subject to rule it hasbecome, the more men have gloried in arms, the more they have believedthe high trade of soldier to be a pride, the more have they eliminatedthe pillage of the civilian and the slaughter of the innocent from itsactions. Those things belong to violent passion and to lack of reason. Modern war and the chivalric tradition scorned them. The edges of the Germanies have, in the past, been touched by thechivalric tradition: Prussia never. That noblest inheritance ofChristendom never reached out so far into the wilds. And to Germany, nowwholly Prussianized--which will kill us or which we shall kill--soldieris no high thing, nor is their any meaning attached to the word"Glorious. " War is for that State a business: a business only to beundertaken with profit against what is certainly weaker; to beundertaken without faith and with a cruelty in proportion to thatweakness. In particular it must be a terror to women, to children, andto the aged--for these remain unarmed. This country alone of the original alliance has been spared pillage. Ithas not been spared murder. But this country, though the process hasperhaps been more gradual than elsewhere, is very vividly alive to-dayto what would necessarily follow the presence of German soldiery uponEnglish land. HILAIRE BELLOC. [Illustration: SPOILS FOR THE VICTORS "We must despoil Belgium if only to make room for our own culture. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE VERY STONES CRY OUT If the highly organized enemy with whom we are at grips in alife-and-death struggle would only play the war game in accordance withthe rules drawn up by civilized peoples, he would, indeed, command ouradmiration no less than our respect. Never on this earth was there sucha splendid fighting machine as that "made in Germany. " The armiesagainst us are the last word in discipline, fitness, and equipment; andare led by men who, born in barracks, weaned on munitions, have but oneaim and end in view "World-Dominion or Downfall. " As a matter of fact, instead of winning our admiration they have drawnour detestation. Not content with brushing aside all international lawsof warfare, they have trampled upon every law, human and divine, standing in their way of conquest. Indeed, Germany's method of fightingwould disgrace the savages of Central Africa. Prussianized Germany has the monopoly of "frightfulness. " When not"frightful, " Prussian troopers are not living down to the instructionsof their War-lords to leave the conquered with nothing but eyes to weepwith. Not content to crucify Canadians, murder priests, violate nuns, mishandle women, and bayonet children, the enemy torpedoescivilian-carrying liners, and bombs Red Cross hospitals. More, sinningagainst posterity as well as antiquity, Germans stand charged before manand God with reducing to ashes some of the finest artistic output ofChristian civilization. When accused of crimes such as these, Germanyanswers through her generals: "The commonest, ugliest stone put to markthe burial-place of a German grenadier is a more glorious and venerablemonument than all the cathedrals of Europe put together" (General vonDisfurth in _Hamburger Nachrichten_). "Thus is fulfilled the well-knownprophecy of Heine: 'When once that restraining talisman, the Cross, isbroken . .. Thor, with his colossal hammer, will leap up, and with itshatter into fragments the Gothic cathedrals'" (_Religion and Philosophyin Germany in the Nineteenth Century_). What, I ask, can you do with such people but either crush or civilizethem? The very stones cry out against them. BERNARD VAUGHAN, S. J. [Illustration: THE VERY STONES CRY OUT] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SATAN'S PARTNER The cartoon bears the quotation from Bernhardi "War is as divine aseating and drinking. " Yes; and German war is as divine as German eatingand drinking. Any one who has been in a German restaurant during thatmammoth midday meal which generally precedes a sleep akin to ahibernation, will understand how the same strange barbarous solemnityhas ruined all the real romance of war. There is no way of conveying thedistinction, except by saying vaguely that there is a way of doingthings, and that butchering is not necessary to a good army any morethan gobbling is necessary to a good dinner. In our own insularshorthand it can be, insufficiently and narrowly but not unprofitably, expressed by saying that it is possible both to fight and to eat like agentleman. It is therefore highly significant that Mr. Raemaekers has inthis cartoon conceived the devil primarily as a kind of ogre. It is amatter of great interest that this Dutch man of genius, like that othergenius whose pencil war has turned into a sword, Will Dyson, lends inthe presence of Prussia (which has been for many moderns their firstglimpse of absolute or positive evil) to depriving the devil of all thatmoonshine of dignity which sentimental sceptics have given him. Evildoes not mean dignity, any more than it means any other good thing. Thestronger caricaturists have, in a sense, fallen back on the medievaldevil; not because he is more mystical, but because he is more material. The face of Raemaekers' Satan, with its lifted jowl and bared teeth, hasless of the half-truth of cynicism than of mere ignominious greed. Thearmies are spread out for him as a banquet; and the war which hepraises, and which was really spread for him in Flanders, is not aCrusade but a cannibal feast. G. K. CHESTERTON. [Illustration: SATAN'S PARTNER BERNHARDI: "War is as divine as eating and drinking. "SATAN: "Here is a partner for me. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THROWN TO THE SWINE The Germans have committed many more indefensible crimes than themilitary execution of the kind-hearted nurse who had helpedwar-prisoners to escape. They have murdered hundreds of women who hadcommitted no offence whatever against their military rules. But thoughnot the worst of their misdeeds, this has probably been the stupidest. It gained us almost as many recruits as the sinking of the _Lusitania_, and it made the whole world understand--what is unhappily thetruth--that the German is wholly destitute of chivalry. He knows indeedthat people of other nations are affected by this sentiment; but hedespises them for it. Woman is the weaker vessel; and therefore, according to his code, she must be taught to know her place, which is tocook and sew, and produce "cannon-fodder" for the Government. Readers ofSchopenhauer and Nietzsche will remember the advice given by thosephilosophers for the treatment of women. Nietzsche recommends a whip. Itnever occurred to German officialdom that the pedantic condemnation ofone obscure woman, guilty by the letter of their law, would stir theheart of England and America to the depths, and steel our soldiers tofurther efforts against an enemy whose moral unlikeness to ourselvesbecomes more apparent with every new phase in the struggle. THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S. [Illustration: THROWN TO THE SWINE The Martyred Nurse] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE LAND MINE What does this cartoon suggest? I am asked and I ask myself. At firstvery little, almost nothing, only uninteresting, ugly death, gloomy, ghastly, dismal, but dull and largely featureless, blank and negative. Has the artist's power failed him? No, it is strongly drawn. Has hisinspiration? What does it mean? Is it indeed meant? As I gaze and poreon it longer, I seem to see that it is just in this blank negation thatits strength and its suggestion lie. It is meant. It has meaning. Ablast has passed over this place, and this is its sequel, its derelictrubbish. It is death unredeemed, death with no very positive suggestion, with nohint of heroism, none of heroic action, little even of heroic passion;just death, helpless, hopeless, pointing to nothing but decomposition, decay, disappearance, _anéantissement_, reduction of the fair frame oflife to nothingness. That is the peculiar horror of this war. Were thepicture, as it well might be, even more hideous, and did it suggestsomething more definite, a story of struggle, say, recorded incontortion, or by wounds and weapons, it might be better. But men killed by machines, men killed by natural forces unnaturallyemployed, are indeed a fact and a spectacle squalid, sorry, unutterablysad. All wars have been horrible, but modern wars are more in extremes. Heroism is there, but not always. It is possible only in patches. Thereis much of the mere sacrifice of numbers. Strictly, there are scenes farworse than this, for death unredeemed is not the worst of sufferings orof ills. But few are sadder. This is indeed war made by those who holdit and will it to be "not a sport, but a science. " There is no sporthere. Men killed like this are like men killed by plague or the eruptionof a volcano. And, indeed, what else are they? They are victims of adiseased humanity of the eruption--literal and metaphorical--of itshidden fires. And wars will grow more and more like this. What can stopthem and banish these scenes? Only the hate of hate, only the love thatcan redeem even such a sight as this when at last we remember that it isfor love's sake only that flesh and blood are in the last retort contentto endure it. HERBERT WARREN. [Illustration: THE LAND MINE] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "FOR YOUR MOTHERLAND" England's your Mother! Let your life acclaim Her precious heart's blood flowing in your heart;Take ye the thunder of her solemn name Upon your lips with reverence; play your part By word and deed To shield and speedThe far-flung splendour of her ancient fame. England's your Mother! Shall not you, her child, Quicken the everlasting fires that glowUpon your birthright's altar? England smiled Beside your cradle, trusting you to show, With manhood's might, The undying lightThat points the road her free-born spirits go. England's your Mother! Man, forget it not Wherever on the wide-wayed earth your fateCalls you to labour; whatsoe'er your lot-- In service, or in power, in stress or state-- Whate'er betide, With humble pride, Remember! By your Mother you are great. England's your Mother! What though dark the day Above the storm-swept frontier that you tread?Her vanished children throng the glorious way; A myriad legions of her living dead Those starry trains That shared your painsShall set their crown of light upon your head. England's your Mother! When the race is run And you are called to leave your life and die, Small matter what is lost, so this be won: An after-glow of blessed memory, Gracious and pure, In witness sure"England was this man's Mother: he, her son. " EDEN PHILLPOTTS. [Illustration: "MY SON, GO AND FIGHT FOR YOUR MOTHERLAND!"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE GERMAN LOAN The bubble is very nicely balanced, for German "kultur, " which is inreality but another word for "system" or "organization, " rather thanthat which English-speaking people understand by "culture, " has built upa system of internal credit that shall ensure the correct balance of thebubble--for just as long as the militarist policy of Germany can endurethe strain of war. But money alone is not sufficient for victory; thepeasant hard put to it to suppress his laugh, and the crowned Germaniathat built up the paper pedestal of the bubble, needed many other thingsto make that pedestal secure; there was needed integrity, and therespect of neighbouring nations, and the understanding of other pointsof view beside the doctrine of force, and liberty instead of coercion ofa whole nation, and many other things that the older civilizations ofEurope have accepted as parts of their code of life--the things thisnew, upstart Germany has not had time to learn. Thus, with the papercredit--and even with the gold reserve of which Germany has boasted, thepedestal is but paper. And the winds that blow from the flooded, corpse-strewn districts of the Yser, from Artois, from Champagne and theVosges hills and forests, and from the long, long line of Russia's grimdefences--these winds shall blow it away, leaving a nation bankrupt notonly in money, but in the power to coerce, in the power to inspire fear, and in all those things out of which the Hohenzollern dynasty has builtup the last empire of force. E. CHARLES VIVIAN. [Illustration: THE GERMAN LOAN "Don't breathe on the bubble or the whole will collapse. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- EUROPE, 1916 There are some English critics who have not yet considered so simple athing as that the case against horrors must be horrible. In this respectalone this publication of the work of the distinguished foreigncartoonist is a thing for our attention and enlightenment. It is thewhole point of the awful experience which has to-day swallowed up allour smaller experiences, that we are in any case confronted with theabominable; and the most beautiful thing we can hope to show is only anabomination of it. Nevertheless, there is horror and horror. Thedistinction between brute exaggeration and artistic emphasis couldhardly be better studied than in Mr. Raemaekers' cartoon, and the use hemakes of the very ancient symbol of the wheel. Europe is represented asdragged and broken upon the wheel as in the old torture; but the wheelis that of a modern cannon, so that the dim background can be filled inwith the suggestion of a wholly modern machinery. This is a very truesatire; for there are many scientific persons who seem to be quitereconciled to the crushing of humanity by a vague mechanical environmentin which there are wheels within wheels. But the inner restraint of theartist is suggested in the treatment of the torment itself; which issuggested by a certain rending drag in the garments, while the limbs arelimp and the head almost somnolent. She does not strive nor cry; neitheris her voice heard in the streets. The artist had not to draw pain butto draw despair; and while the pain is old enough the particular despairis modern. The victim racked for a creed could at least cry "I amconverted. " But here even the terms of surrender are unknowable; and shecan only ask "Am I civilized?" G. K. CHESTERTON. [Illustration: EUROPE, 1916 "Am I not yet sufficiently civilized?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE NEXT TO BE KICKED OUT--DUMBA'S MASTER Uncle Sam is no longer the simple New England farmer of a century ago. He is rich beyond calculation. His family is more numerous than that ofany European country save Russia. His interests are world-wide, histrade tremendous, his industry complex, his finance fabulous. Above all, his family is no longer of one race. The hatreds of Europe are notechoed in his house; they are shared and reverberate through hiscorridors. It is difficult, then, for him to take the simple views ofright and wrong, of justice and humanity, that he took a century ago. Heis tempted to balance a hundred sophistries against the principles offreedom and good faith that yet burn strongly within him. He is drivento temporize with the evil thing he hates, because he fears, if he doesnot, that his household will be split, and thus the greater evil befallhim. But those that personify the evil may goad him once too often. Dumba the lesser criminal--as also the less dexterous--has betrayedhimself and is expelled. When will Bernstorff's turn come? That it willcome, indeed _must_ come, is self-evident. The artist sees things tooclearly as they are not to see also what they will be. He thereforeskips the ignoble interlude of prevarication, quibble, and intrigue, andgives us Uncle Sam happy at last in his recovered simplicity. So we seehim here, enjoying himself, as only a white man can, in a wholeheartedspurning of lies, cruelty, and murder. Note that Bernstorff--the victim of a gesture "fortunately rare amongstgentlemen"--is already in full flight through the air, while Uncle Sam'sleft foot has still fifteen inches to travel. The promise of an addedvelocity indicates that the flight of the unmasked diplomatist will befar. The sketched vista of descending steps gives us the satisfaction ofknowing that the drop at the end will be deep. Every muscle of oursinewy relative is tense, limp, and projectile--the mouthpiece ofPrussia goes to his inevitable end. There is no need of a sequel to showhim shattered and crumpled at the bottom of the stairway. ARTHUR POLLEN. [Illustration: THE NEXT TO BE KICKED OUT--DUMBA'S MASTER] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE FRIENDLY VISITOR Raemaekers is never false, and he never works for effect alone. That iswhat makes him so terrible to the people he criticises, and soeffective. When he wants to depict the sturdy Dutch soul he draws a sturdy DutchBody--ready to defend her home. No flags, no highfalutin, no symbolicalfigure posed for show; just cleanliness, determination, and good sensefacing bestiality and oppression. The figure that stands for the Freedom of the Home opposed to the figurethat stands for the Freedom of the Seas. Many an Englishman might take this picture to heart. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE. [Illustration: THE FRIENDLY VISITOR THE GERMAN: "I come as a friend. " HOLLAND: "Oh, yes. I've heard that from my Belgian sister. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "TO YOUR HEALTH, CIVILIZATION!" This terrible cartoon points its own lesson so forcibly that its effectis more likely to be weakened than strengthened by any verbal comment. Death quaffs a goblet of human blood to the health of Civilization. Death has never enjoyed such a carnival of slaughter before, and it isCivilization that has made the holocaust possible. The comparativelysimple methods of killing employed by barbarians could not havedestroyed so many lives; nor could barbarian states have raised suchhuge armies. The artist makes us feel that such a war as this is an actof moral madness, a disgrace to our common humanity. It is true thatsome of the nations engaged are guiltless, and others almost guiltless;but there is a solidarity of European civilization which obliges us allto share the shame and sorrow of this monstrous crime. Universal war isthe _reductio ad absurdum_ of false political theories and false moralideals; and the _reductio ad absurdum_ is the chief argument whichProvidence uses with mankind. Perhaps it is the only argument whichmankind in the mass can understand. THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S. [Illustration: "TO YOUR HEALTH, CIVILIZATION!"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FOX TIRPITZ PREACHING TO THE GEESE There is nothing more pathetic in some ways to-day than the position ofthe small neutral countries in Europe, and especially those whichdirectly adjoin Germany. And there is nothing more galling than theinability of the Allies to give them any help. For the hour they areabsolutely at the mercy of Germany, or would be, if she had any, andthey know it. They are certainly liable and exposed to all her floutsand cuffs and to any displays of bad temper or bullying or terrorism itmay please her to exercise. And none perhaps is worse off in thisrespect than Holland. It suits Germany to be fairly civil toSwitzerland, who could give her a good deal of trouble by joining Franceand Italy; and no doubt it suits her too to some extent to considerDenmark, for Denmark commands the entrance to the Baltic; and, further, Germany does not wish to bring all Scandinavia down upon herself just atpresent. That can wait; but Holland is in the worst plight of all. Shehas the terrible spectacle of Belgium, ruined and ravaged, just on theother side of the way. And she has a very considerable and valuablemercantile marine. The great and good Germany cannot be troubled to distinguish betweenDutch and other boats, and if occasionally a Dutch ship is captured orsent to the bottom, it is a useful reminder of what she might do to her"poor relation" if she really let herself go. Fighting for the freedomof the seas! Holland has fought for them herself. Holland has a greatnaval tradition. She knows quite well what England has been and is. Sheknows too, and can see, how her sons and brothers in South Africa weretreated by the British in England's last war, and how they regardEngland and Germany now. Raemaekers' cartoon is very skilful. If we had not seen it done, weshould not have believed it possible to produce at once so clever alikeness of Von Tirpitz and so excellent an old fox. But the goose is byno means a foolish bird, though its wisdom may sometimes be shown inknowing its own weakness. It was they, and not the watchdogs, that savedthe Capitol. In old days it was the custom to call the Germans the "HighDutch" and the inhabitants of Holland the "Low Dutch. " It was ageographical distinction. The contrast in moral elevation is the otherway. HERBERT WARREN. [Illustration: FOX TIRPITZ PREACHING TO THE GEESE "You see, my little Dutch geese, I am fighting for the freedom of theseas. " (The Germans illegally captured several Dutch ships. )] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE PRISONERS A Vile feature of German "frightfulness" is this: that she mixes poisonwith her prisoners' rations. Not content with starving their bodies, shehides truth from them and floods their minds with lies. Those incommand--officers, educated men, claiming the service of their soldiersand civil guard and the respect of their nation--deliberately hash adaily meal of falsehood and serve up German victories and triumphs onland and sea as sauce to the starvation diet of their defencelesscaptives. In the earlier months of the war, while yet the spiritual slough intowhich Germany had sunk was unguessed, and the mixture of child and devilexemplified by "frightfulness" continued unfathomed, these daily liesundoubtedly answered their cowardly purpose, cast down the spirit ofthousands, and added another pang to their captivity. But our armiesknow better now, and those diminishing numbers likely to be takenprisoner in the future see the end more clearly than the foe can. Lieswill be met with laughter henceforth, for our enemies have putthemselves beyond the pale. They may starve and insult our bodies; buttheir power to poison our brains has passed from them forever. We knowthem at last. They have spun a web of barbed villainy between theirsouls and ours; and the evil committed for one foul purpose alone--toterrify free men and break the spirit of the sons of liberty--hasproduced results far different and created a situation more terrible forthem than for their outraged enemies. For in this matter of misrepresentation and lying, born of Prussia andby her spoon-fed pack of martinets, professors, and Churchmen, mingledwith Germany's daily bread for a generation, it is she and not we whowill reap the whirlwind of that sowing; it is she and not we who mustsoon pant and tear the breast in the pangs of the poison. Between the mad and the sane there can be only one victor; and when thetime comes, may Germany's robe of repentance be a strait-waistcoat ofthe Allies' choosing. For she has drunk deep of the poison, and thosewho anticipate a speedy cure will be as mad as she. When the escapedtigress is back in her cage, men look to the bars, for none wants asecond mauling. EDEN PHILLPOTTS. [Illustration: THE PRISONERS] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- IT'S UNBELIEVABLE I am not sure that in this cartoon of Raemaekers the most pleasingdetail is not the servant's right eye. You will observe in thatservant's right eye an expression familiar in those who overhear thissort of comment upon the peculiar bestialities of the Prussian inBelgium and Poland, this extenuation of his baseness. When the war wasyoung the opportunity for giving that glance was commoner than it isnow. There were many even in a belligerent country who would tell you insuperior fashion how foolishly exaggerated were the so-called"atrocities. " The greater number of such men (and women) talked of "twoGermanies"--one the nice Germany they knew and loved so well, and theother apparently nasty Germany which raped, burned, stole, broke faith, tortured, and the rest. Their number has diminished. But there is alittle lingering trace of the sort of thing still to be discovered: menand women who hope against hope that the Prussian will really prove goodat heart after all. And it is usually just after some expression of thekind that the most appalling news arrives with a terrible irony topunctuate their folly. It reminds one a little of the man in the storywho was sure that he could tame a wild cat, and was in the act ofrecording its virtues when it flew in his face. To an impartial observerwho cared nothing for our sufferings or the enemy's vices, there wouldbe something enormously comic in the vision of these few remaining (forthere are still some few remaining) that approach the wild beast withsoothing words and receive as their only reward a very large bombthrough the roof of their house, or the news that some one dear to themhas been murdered on the high seas. But to those actively suffering inthe struggle the comic element is difficult to seize, and it is replacedby indignation. This fantastic misconception of the thing that is beingfought is bound to be burned right out by the realities of the enemyacts in belligerent countries. It will be similarly destroyed--and thatin no very great space of time--in all neutral countries as well. Prussia will have it so. She is allowing no moral defence to remain forher future. It is almost as though the men now directing her affairslent ear carefully to every word spoken in praise of them abroad, andmet it at once by the tremendous denial of example. It is almost asthough the Prussian felt it a sort of personal insult to receive thepraise of dupes and fools, and perhaps it is. HILAIRE BELLOC. [Illustration: IT'S UNBELIEVABLE DUTCH OFFICER: "How can they have soiled their hands by suchatrocities?" SHE: "Can they have done it, my dear? German officers areso nice. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- KREUZLAND, KREUZLAND ÜBER ALLES This war has produced examples of every kind of misery which humanbeings can inflict upon each other, except one. Europe has mercifullybeen spared long sieges of populous towns, ending in the surrender ofthe starving population. But many towns and villages have been burnt;and masses of refugees have fled before the invader, knowing too wellthe brutal treatment which they had to expect if they remained. Verymany of the unhappy Belgians have taken refuge in Holland; aconsiderable number have found an asylum in this country. They arehomeless and ruined; if the war were to end to-morrow, many of themwould not know where to go or how to live. Families have been broken up;husbands and wives, parents and children, are ignorant of each other'sfate. In this picture we see a crowd of children, herded together like aflock of sheep, with nobody to take care of them. Their _via dolorosa_is marked by long rows of crosses on either side, emblems of suffering, death, and sacrifice. In the distance rise the smoke and flames from oneof the innumerable incendiary fires which the Germans, like the cruelbanditti of the Middle Ages, have kindled wherever they go. THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S. [Illustration: KREUZLAND, KREUZLAND ÜBER ALLES BELGIUM, 1914: "Where are our fathers?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE EX-CONVICT Prussia in every war has betrayed that peculiar mark of barbarismconsisting in using the intellectual weapons of a superior, but notknowing how to use them. It is still a matter of mystery to thedirecting Prussian mind why the sinking of the _Lusitania_ should haveshocked the world. A submarine cannot take a prize into port. The_Lusitania_ happened to be importing goods available in war, thereforethe _Lusitania_ must be sunk. All the penumbræ of further considerationwhich the civilized man weighs escape this sort of logic. Similarly, thePrussian argues, if an armed man is prepared to surrender, conventiondecrees that his life should be spared. Therefore, if an armed man bejust fresh from the murder of a number of children, he has but to cry"Kamerad" to be perfectly safe. And Prussia foams at the mouth withindignation whenever this strict rule of conduct is forgotten in theheat of the moment. The use of poison in the field which Prussia for thefirst time employed (and reluctantly compelled her civilized opponentsto reply to) is in the same boat. A shell bursts because solid explosivebecomes gaseous. To use shell which in bursting wounds and kills men isto use gas in war; therefore if one uses gas in the other form ofpoison, disabling one's opponent with agony, it is all one. Preciselythe same barbaric use of logic--which reminds one of the antics of ananimal imitating human gestures--will later apply to the poisoning ofwater supplies, or the spreading of an epidemic. It is soldierly andexcites no contempt or indignation to strike at your enemy with a swordor shoot a pellet of lead at him in such a fashion that he dies. What isall this foolish pother about killing him with bacilli in his cisternsor with a drop of poison in his tea? Men in war have burned groups ofhouses with the torch in anger or for revenge. Why distinguish betweenthat and the methodical sprinkling of petroleum from a hose by one gangand the equally methodical burning of the whole town house by house withlittle capsules of prepared incendiary stuff? The rule alwaysapplies--but only against the opponent: never to one's self. From thatattitude of mind the Prussian will never emerge. We shall, please God, see that mood in all its beauty in later stages of the war, when thecoercion of the Prussian upon his own soil leads to acts indefensible byPrussian logic. We have already had a taste of this sort of reasoningwhen the royalties fled from Karlsruhe and when the murderers upon thesinking Zeppelin received the reward due to men who boast that they willnot keep faith. HILAIRE BELLOC. [Illustration: THE EX-CONVICT "I was a 'lifer, ' but they found I had many abilities for bringingcivilization amongst our neighbours, so now I am a soldier. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- MISS CAVELL Most of the English caricaturists are much too complimentary to theGerman Emperor. They draw his moustaches, but not his face. Now hismoustaches are exactly what he, or the whole Prussian school herepresents, particularly wishes us to look at. They give him the fierceair of a fighting cock; and however little we may like fierceness, therewill always be a certain residual respect for fighting, even in a cock. Now the Junker moustache is a fake; almost as much so as if it werestuck on with gum. It is, as Mr. Belloc has remarked, curled in amachine all night lest it should hang down. Raemaekers, in the sketchwhich shows the Kaiser as waiting for Nurse Cavell's death to say, "Nowyou can bring me the American protest, " has gone behind the moustache tothe face, and behind the face to the type and the spirit. The Emperor isnot commanding in a lordly voice from a throne, but with a leer andbehind a curtain. In the few lines of the lean, unnatural face iswritten the real history of the Hohenzollerns, the kind of history notoften touched on in our comfortable English humour, but common to therealism of Continental art: the madness of Frederick William, theperversion of Frederick the Great, the hint, mingled with subtlertalents, of the mere idiocy that seems to have flowered again in thelast heir of that inhuman house. The Hohenzollerns have varied fromgeneration to generation in many things and like many families; some ofthem have been tyrants, some of them geniuses, some of them merelyboobies; but they have shared in something more than that hereditarypolicy which has been the poison in Christendom for two hundred years. There is a ghost who inhabits these perishing tenements, and in such apicture as this of Raemaekers men can see it looking out of the eyes. And it is neither the spirit of a tyrant nor of a booby; but the spiritof a sly invalid. G. K. CHESTERTON. [Illustration: MISS CAVELL WILLIAM: "Now you can bring me the American protest. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE HOSTAGES Ay', boy--you may well ask. And the world asks also, and in due time will exact an answer to thelast drop of innocent blood. What have you done? You have fallen into the hands of the most scientifically organizedbarbarism the world has ever seen, or, please God, ever will see--towhom, of deliberate choice, such words as truth, honour, mercy, justice, have become dead letters, by reason of the pernicious doctrines on whichthe race has been nourished--by which its very soul has been poisoned. Dead letters?--worn-out rags, the very virtues they once represented, even in Germany, long since flung to the dust-heaps of the past in thesoulless scramble for power and a place in the sun which no one deniedher. Deliberately, and of malice prepense, the military caste of Prussia hastaught, and the unhappy common-folk have accepted, that as a nation theyare past all that kind of thing. There is only one right in theworld--the might of the strongest. The weak to the wall! Make way forthe Hun, whose god is power, and his high-priests the Kaiser and theKrupps. And so, every nation, even the smallest, on whom the eye of the Minotaurhas settled in baleful desire, has said, "Better to die fighting thanfall into the hands of the devil!" And they have fought--valiantly, andsaved their souls alive, though their bodies may have been crushed outof existence by overwhelming odds. As nations, however, they shall riseagain, and with honour, when their treacherous torturers have beencrushed in their turn. And, wherever the evil tide has welled over a land, indemnities, incredible and unreasonable, have been exacted, and hostages for theirpayment, and for good behaviour under the yoke meanwhile, have beentaken. Woe unto such! In many cases they have simply been shot in coldblood--murdered as brazenly as by any Jack-the-Ripper. Murder, too, ofthe most despicable--murder for gain--the gain that should accruethrough the brutal terrorism of the act and its effect on the rest. And, if deemed advisable to gloss the crime with some thin veneer ofimitation justice for the--unsuccessful--hoodwinking of a shocked andastounded world, what easier than an unseen shot in some obscure cornerfrom a German rifle? Then--"Death to the hostages!--destruction to thevillage!--a fine of £100, 000 on the town!" Those provocative shots from German rifles have surely been the mostprofitably engineered basenesses in the whole war. They havejustified--but in German eyes only--every committable crime, and theycost nothing--except the souls of their perpetrators. "It's your money we want--and your land--and your property--and, ifnecessary, your lives! You are weak--we are strong--and so----!" That isthe simple Credo of the Hun. But for all these things there shall come a day of reckoning and theaccount will be a heavy one. May it be exacted to the full--from the rightful debtors! "What have you done?" You have at all events put the rope round thenecks of your murderers, and the whole world's hands are at the otherend of it. JOHN OXENHAM. [Illustration: THE HOSTAGES "Father, what have we done?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- KING ALBERT'S ANSWER TO THE POPE The war has been singularly barren of heroic figures, perhaps becausethe magnitude of the events has called forth such a multitude ofindividually heroic acts that no one can be placed before the rest; yet, when this greatest phase of history comes to be written down withhistoric perspective, one figure--that of King Albert of Belgium--willstand as that of a twentieth-century Bayard, a great knight without fearand without reproach. Action on such far-flung lines as those of the European conflict hascalled for no great leaders in the sense in which that phrase hasapplied to previous wars; no Napoleon has arisen, though WilliamHohenzollern has aspired to Napoleonic dignity; war has become moremechanical, more a matter of mathematics--and the barbarians of Germanyhave made it more horrible. But, as if to accentuate German brutalityand crime, this figure of King Albert stands emblematic of the virtuesin which civilization is rooted; to the broken word of Germany itopposes untarnished honour; to the treacherous spirit of Germany itopposes inviolable truth; to the relentless selfishness of Germany itopposes the vicarious sacrifice of self, of a whole country and nationfor the sake of a principle. And, in later days, men will remember howthis truly great king held steadfastly to the little portion of hiskingdom that the invasion left him; how he remained to inspirit his menby noble example, stubbornly rejecting peace without honour, andholding, when all else was wrecked, to the remnants of that army whichsaved Europe in the gateway of Liége. Amid violation, desecration, anddestruction, Albert of Belgium has won imperishable fame. E. CHARLES VIVIAN. [Illustration: KING ALBERT'S ANSWER TO THE POPE "With him who broke his word, devastated my country, burned my villages, destroyed my towns, desecrated my churches, and murdered my people, Iwill not make peace before he is expelled from my country and punishedfor his crimes. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE GAS FIEND There is an order of minds that intuitively distrusts Science, detractsfrom the force of her achievements, and contends that devotion tomachinery ends by making men machines. Many who argue thus have fastenedon Germany's new war inventions as proof that Science makes formaterialism and opposes the higher values of humanity and culture. This is special pleading, for against the destructive forces discoveredand liberated by German chemists in this war, one has only to considerthe vast amelioration of human life for which modern science has to bethanked. Because art has been created to evil purpose, shall we condemnpictures or statues? Because the Germans have employed gas poisons inwarfare, are we to condemn the incalculable gifts of organic chemistry? Look at the eye of Louis Raemaekers' snake. That is the answer. It isthe force behind this application of it that has brought German Scienceto shame. A precious branch of human knowledge has been prostituted bylust of blood and greed of gain until Science, in common with alllearning, comes simply to be regarded by the masters of Germany as onemore weapon in the armoury, one more power to help win "The Day. " Everyculture is treated in their alembic for the same purpose. We may picture the series of experiments that went to perfection oftheir poison gas; we may see their Higher Command watching the death ofguinea-pig, rabbit, and ape with increasing excitement and enthusiasm asthe hideous effects of their discovery became apparent. Be sure an ironcross quickly hung over the iron heart that conceived and developed thisfilthy arm; for does it not offer the essence--quintessence of all"frightfulness?" Does it not challenge every human nerve-centre by itshorror? Does it not, once proclaimed, by anticipation awake those veryemotions of dread and dismay that make the stroke more fatal when itfalls? These people pictured their snake paralyzing the enemy into frozenimpotence; the floundering Prussian psychology that cuts blocks with arazor and regards German mind as the measure of all mind, anticipatedthat poison gas would appeal to British and French as it has appealed tothem. But it was not so. Their foresight gave them an initial success inthe field; it slew a handful of men with additions of unspeakableagony--and rekindled the execration and contempt of Civilization. As an arm, poison gas cannot be considered conspicuously successful, since it is easily encountered; but for the Allies it had some value, since it weighted appreciably the scale against Germany in neutral mindsand added to the universal loathing astir at the heart of the world. Only fear now holds any kingdom neutral: there is not an impartialnation left on earth. EDEN PHILLPOTTS. [Illustration: THE GAS FIEND] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE GERMAN TANGO A blond woman, wearing the Imperial crown and with her hair braided inpigtails like a German _backfisch_, is whirling in the tango with askeleton partner. Her face is livid with terror and fatigue, her limbsare drooping, but she is held by inexorable bony claws. On the feet ofthe skeleton are dancing pumps, a touch which adds to the grimness. Thisghoulish dance does not lack its element of ghastly ceremonial. The Dance of Death has long been the theme of the moralist in art, fromOrcagna's fresco on the walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa to Holbein'sgreat woodcuts and our own Rowlandson. In Germany especially have these_macabre_ imaginings flourished. The phantasmagoria of decay has hauntedGerman art, as it haunted Poe, from Dürer to Boecklin. But the mediævalDance of Death was stately allegory, showing the pageant of life broodedover by the shadow of mortality. In M. Raemaekers' cartoon there is nodignity, no lofty resignation. He shows Death summoned in a mad capriceand kept as companion till the revel becomes a whirling horror. It is the profoundest symbol of the war. In a hot fit of racial prideDeath has been welcomed as an ally. And the dance on which Germanyenters is no stately minuet with something of tragic dignity in it. Itis a common modern vulgar shuffle, a thing of ugly gestures and violentmotions, the true sport of degenerates. Once begun there is no halting. From East to West and from West to East the dancers move. There is norest, for Death is a pitiless comrade. From such a partner, lightly andarrogantly summoned, there can be no parting. The traveller seeks agoal, but the dancers move blindly and aimlessly among the points of thecompass. Death, when called to the dance, claims eternal possession. JOHN BUCHAN. [Illustration: THE GERMAN TANGO "From East to West and West to East I dance with thee!"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ZEPPELIN TRIUMPH When the future historian gives to another age his account of all thatis included in German "frightfulness, " there is no feature upon which hewill dilate more emphatically than the extraordinary use made by theenemy of their Zeppelin fleet. In the experience we have gained in thelast few months we discover that the Zeppelins are not employed--or, atall events, not mainly employed--for military purposes, but in order toshake the nerves of the non-combatant population. The history of thelast few Zeppelin raids in England is quite sufficient testimony to thisfact. London is bombarded, although it is an open city, and a largeamount of damage is done to buildings wholly unconnected with thepurposes of the war. The persons who are killed are not soldiers, theyare civilians; the buildings destroyed are not munition works, butdwelling-houses, and some of the points of attack are theatres. The same thing has happened in the provinces. In the last raid over theMidlands railway stations were destroyed, some breweries were injured, but, with exceedingly few exceptions, munition works and factories forthe production of arms were untouched. Here again the victims are noteither soldiers or sailors, or even workmen employed in turning outinstruments of war, but peaceable citizens and a large proportion ofwomen and children. Some such act of brutality is illustrated in the accompanying cartoon. Aprivate house has been attacked, the mother has been killed, the fatherand child are left desolate. The little daughter at her father's knee, who cannot understand why guiltless people should suffer, asks theimportunate question whether her mother had done anything wrong todeserve so terrible a fate. To the childish mind it seemsincomprehensible that aimless and indiscriminate murder should fall onthe guiltless. Indeed the mother had done no wrong. She only happened to belong to oneof the nations who are struggling against a barbaric tyranny. In thatreckless crusade which the Central Powers are waging against all thehigher laws of morality and civilization, some of the heaviest of theblows fall on the defenceless. It is this appalling inhumanity, thisgodless desire to maim and wound and kill, which nerves the arms of theAllies, who know that in a case like this they are fighting for freedomand for the Divine laws of mercy and loving-kindness. And it is for the young especially that the war is being waged, youngboys and young girls like the motherless child in the picture, in orderthat they may inherit a Europe which shall be free from the horribleburden of German militarism, and be able to live useful lives in peaceand quietness. No, little girl, mother did no wrong! But _we_ should beguilty of the deepest wrong if we did not avenge her death and that ofother similar victims by making such unparalleled crimes impossiblehereafter. W. L. COURTNEY. [Illustration: THE ZEPPELIN TRIUMPH "But Mother had done nothing wrong, had she, Daddy?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- KEEPING OUT THE ENEMY The Prussian turns everything to account, from the scrapings of thepig-trough to the Austrian Emperor. The Bavarian lists, the Saxon lists, the Austrian lists--these are allonly indications of injuries to the Prussian's life-saving waistcoat. Ifthis war is to be a war to the last penny and the last man, the lastAustrian will die before the last Saxon, the last Saxon before the lastBavarian, the last Bavarian before the last Prussian--and the lastPrussian will not die: he will live to clutch at the last penny. And the pity of it is that the Austrian is quite a good fellow, theSaxon is a decent sort of man, the Bavarian is chiefly a brute in drink, whilst the Prussian--we all know what the Prussian is, the black centreof hardness, the incarnation of the shady trick, and the very complexsoul of mechanical efficiency. The Hohenzollern here makes a sandbag of the Hapsburg, of whom Fate hasalready made a football. Fate has always been behind the Hapsburg for his own sins and those ofhis house. She has made him kneel at last. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE. [Illustration: "You see how I manage to keep the enemy out of _my_country!"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE GERMAN OFFER The German claim--not the Austrian nor the Turk, for the alliancefollowing Germany is to be allowed little force--is that, thecivilization of Europe now being defeated, a Roman pride may be generousto the fallen. Before modern Germany is routed, as may be seen in thefeatures of its citizens, the nobility of its public works, and theadmirable, restrained, and classic sense of its literature, thisgenerosity to a humbled world will take the form of letting nations, ofright independent, enjoy some measure of freedom under a Germansuzerainty. In the matter of property the magnanimous descendants ofFrederick and William the Great will restore the machines which cannotbe wrenched from their concrete beds, and the walls of themanufactories. More liquid property, such as jewellery, furniture, pictures--and coin--it will be more difficult to trace. In any case, Europe may breathe again, though with a shorter breath than it didbefore Germany conquered at the Marne. .. . This is the majestic visionwhich the subtle diplomats of Berlin present to the admiration of theneutral Powers, happily free from wicked passions of war, and notblinded, as are the British, French, Russians, Italians, Belgians, andthe Serbians, by petty spite. Their audience, their triple audience, ispart of Greece, some of the public of Spain, and sections of that of theUnited States. To the French and the British armies in the West, to theRussians in the East, and to the Italians upon their frontiers, theterms appear insufficient. Therein would seem to lie the gravity ofPrussia's case. These belligerent Powers will go so far as to demandmore than the mere restoration of stolen property, from cottagefurniture to freedom. And their anger has risen so high that they evenpropose to make the acquirer of these goods suffer very bitterly indeed. What plea he will then raise under discomforts more serious than thosehe has caused to the peasants of Flanders and of Poland, and how thosepleas will affect his neutral audience, will have no effect whatever onthe result of the war, or on his own unpleasing fate. Those appeals willhave a certain interest, however, because we know from the past that theGerman mind is unstable. Within fifteen short months it proposed theannihilation of the French armies and the occupation of Paris. Itfailed. It next offered terms upon suffering defeat. It withdrew them. It next made certain at least of a conquest of Russia, failed again, offered terms again, withdrew them again; was directed to the blockadingof England, failed; thought Egypt better, and then changed its mind. Itwas but yesterday in the mood that this cartoon suggests; to-morrow itsmood will have utterly changed again, probably to a whine, perhaps to ascream. Such instability is rare in the history of nations which purposea conquest of others, and it is a very poor furniture for the mind. HILAIRE BELLOC. [Illustration: THE GERMAN: "If you will let me keep what I have, I willlet _you_ go. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE WOLF TRAP The wolf is not perhaps the beast by which one would most wish one'scountry to be represented. But the wolf, like every animal whendefending its dearest, and when assailed with treachery, has itsnobility. And the Roman she-wolf certainly has had in all ages herdignity and her force. "Thy nurse will hear no master, Thy nurse will bear no load, And woe to them that spear her, And woe to them that goad. When all the pack loud baying Her bloody lair surrounds, She dies in silence biting hard Amidst the dying hounds. " Italy certainly calls not only for our sympathy, but for our admiration. She has had a very difficult course to steer. The ally for so long ofGermany and Austria, if owing them less and less as time went on, it wasdifficult for her to break with them. But the day came when she had tobreak with them, and once again "act for herself. " She told them a yearago she would be a party to no aggressive or selfish war, she would beno bully's accomplice. She "denounced"--it is a good word--such acompact. _Non haec in foedera veni. _ Then it was, when the she-wolf showed her teeth, that they offered togive her what was her own. But what would the Trentino be worth ifGermany and Austria were victorious? No, the wolf is right, "she mustfight for it, " and behind Austria's underhanded treachery standsGermany's open violence and guns. And Italy loves freedom. This war is a war made by her people. As of oldher King and her diplomats go with them in this new _Resorgimento_. Andthe she-wolf must beware the trap. She needs the spirit again not onlyof her people and of Garibaldi and of Victor Emmanuel, but of Cavour. And she has it. The cartoon suggests all the elements of the situation. The wolf ponderswith turned head, half doubtful, half desperate. The poor little cubwhimpers pitifully. The hunters dissemble their craft, the trap waits inthe path ready to spring. It is not even concealed. Is that the irony ofthe artist, or is it only due to the necessity of making his meaningplain? Whichever it is, it is justified. HERBERT WARREN. [Illustration: THE WOLF TRAP "You would make me believe that I shall have my cub given back to me, but I know I shall have to fight for it. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- AHASUERUS II. The legend of the Wandering Jew obsessed the imagination of the MiddleAge. The tale, which an Armenian bishop first told at the Abbey of St. Albans, concerned a doorkeeper in the house of Pontius Pilate--or, assome say, a shoemaker in Jerusalem--who insulted Christ on His way toCalvary. He was told by Our Lord, "I will rest, but thou shalt go ontill the Last Day. " Christendom saw the strange figure in manyplaces--at Hamburg and Leipsic and Lubeck, at Moscow and Madrid, even atfar Bagdad. Goodwives in the little mediæval cities, hastening homewardagainst the rising storm, saw a bent figure posting through the snow, with haggard face and burning eyes, carrying his load of penalimmortality, and seeking in vain for "easeful death. " There is aprofound metaphysic in such popular fancies. Good and evil are alikeeternal. Arthur and Charlemagne and Ogier the Dane are only sleeping andwill yet return to save their peoples; and the Wandering Jew staggersblindly through the ages, seeking the rest which he denied to his Lord. In George Meredith's "Odes in Contribution to the Song of FrenchHistory" there is a famous passage on Napoleon. France, disillusioned atlast, "Perceives him fast to a harsher Tyrant bound; Self-ridden, self-hunted, captive of his aim; Material gradeur's ape, the Infernal's hound. " That is the penalty of mortal presumption. The Superman who wouldshatter the homely decencies of mankind and set his foot on the world'sneck is himself bound captive. He is the slave of the djinn whom he hascalled from the unclean deeps. There can be no end to his quest. Weariness does not bring peace, for the whips of the Furies are in hisown heart. The Wandering Jew of the Middle Age was a figure sympatheticallyconceived. He had still to pay the price in his tortured body, but hissoul was at rest, for he had repented his folly. Raemaekers in hiscartoon follows the conception of Gustave Doré rather than that of theold fabulists. The modern Ahasuerus has no surety of an eventual peace. We have seen the German War Lord flitting hungrily from Lorraine toPoland, from Flanders to Nish, watching the failure of his troops beforeNancy and Ypres, inditing grandiose proclamations to Europe, prophesyinga peace which never comes. He is a figure worthy of Greek tragedy. The[Greek: hubris] which defied the gods has put him outside the homelyconsolations of mankind. He has devoted his people to the Dance ofDeath, and himself, like some new Orestes, can find no solace though heseek it wearily in the four corners of the world. JOHN BUCHAN. [Illustration: AHASUERUS RETURNS "Once I drove the Christ out of my door, now I am doomed to walk fromthe Northern Seas to the Southern, from the Western shores to theEastern mountains, asking for Peace, and none will give it to me. "--Fromthe Legend of the "Wandering Jew"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- OUR CANDID FRIEND The position of Holland and Denmark is one of excruciating anxiety tothe citizens of those countries. They know that the Allies are fightingthe battle of their own political existence, but they are so hypnotizedwith well-founded terror of the implacable tyrant on their flank thatthey are not only bound to neutrality, but are afraid to express theirsympathies too plainly. Dutch editors have been admonished and punishedunder pressure from Berlin; the brilliant artist of these cartoons is indanger on his native soil. A leading German newspaper has latelyannounced that "we will make Holland pay with interest for these insultsafter the war. " A German victory would inevitably be followed in a fewyears by the disappearance from the map of this gallant and interestinglittle nation, our plucky rival in time past, our honoured friendto-day. No nation has established a stronger claim to maintain itsindependence, whether we consider the heroic and successful struggles ofthe Dutch for religious and political liberty, their triumphs indiscovery, colonization, and naval warfare, their unique contributionsto art, or the manly and vigorous character of their people. It isneedless to say that we have no designs upon any Dutch colony! THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S. [Illustration: OUR CANDID FRIEND GERMANY, TO HOLLAND: "I shall have to swallow you up, if only to preventthose English taking your colonies. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- PEACE AND INTERVENTION Here is pictured a grim fact that the Peace cranks would do well to seeplainly. The surgeon who is operating on a cancer case cannot allowhimself to be satisfied with merely the removal of the visible growthwhich is causing such present agony to the patient. He must cut and cutdeep, must go beyond even the visible roots of the disease, slice downinto the clear, firm flesh to make sure and doubly sure that he has cutaway the last fragment of the tainted tissues. Only by doing so can hereasonably hope to prevent a recurrence of the disease and the necessityof another operation in the years to come. And so only by carrying onthis war until the last and least possibility of the taint of militarismremaining in the German system is removed can the Allies be satisfiedthat their task is complete. Modern surgery has through anæstheticstaken away from a patient the physical pain of most operations, butmodern War affords no relief during its operation. That, however, can beheld as no excuse for refusing to "use the knife. " What would be said ofthe surgeon who, because an operation--a life-saving operation--wascausing at the time even the utmost agony, stayed his hand, patched upthe wound, was content only to stop the momentary pain, and to leavefirm-rooted a disease which in all human probability would some timelater break out again in all its virulence? What would be said of such asurgeon is only in lesser degree what would be said by posterity of theAllies if they consented or were persuaded to apply the bandage andhealing herbs of Peace to the disease of Militarism, to make a surfacecure and leave the living tentacles of the disease to grow again deepand strong. But here at least the doctors do not disagree. Once and forall the Ally surgeons mean to make an end to Militarism. The sooner thePeace cranks and Germany realize that the sooner the operation will beover. BOYD CABLE. [Illustration: PEACE AND INTERVENTION--GERMAN MILITARISM ON THEOPERATING-TABLE "For the sake of the world's future we must first use the knife. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD If you wish to see the position of Holland look at the map of Europe asit was before August 4, 1914, and the map of Europe as it is to-day. In 1914 Holland lay overshadowed by the vast upper jaw-bone of amonster--Prussia--a jaw-bone reaching from the Dollart toAix-la-Chapelle. In August and September, 1914, Prussia, by the seizure of Belgium, developed a lower jaw-bone reaching from Aix-la-Chapelle to Cassandriaon the West Schelde. To-day Holland lies gripped between these twoformidable mandibles that are ready and waiting to close and crush her. For years and years Prussia has been waiting to devour Holland. Why? Forthe simple reason that Holland is rich in the one essential thing thatPrussia lacks--coast-line. Look again at the map and see how Holland and Belgium togetherabsolutely wall Prussia in from the sea. Belgium has been taken on byPrussia; if we do not tear that lower jaw from Prussia, Holland will belost, and the sea-power of England threatened with destruction. The ruffian with the automatic pistol waiting behind the tree requiresthe life as well as the basket of the little figure advancing towardhim. He has been in ambush for forty years. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE. [Illustration: LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD Germany lying in wait for Holland. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE SEA MINE When Raemaekers pictures Von Tirpitz to us, he does so with savagescorn. He is not the hard-bitten pirate of story--but a senile, crapulous, lachrymose imbecile; an object of derision. He fits more withone of Jacob's tales of longshore soakers, than with the tragedies thathave made him infamous. But when he draws Von Tirpitz's victims, thetouch is one of almost harrowing tenderness. The Hun is a master of manymodes of killing, but however torn, or twisted, or tortured he leavesthe murdered, Raemaekers can make the dreadful spectacle bearable by thepiercing dignity with which he portrays the dead. In none of thesecartoons is his _sæva indignatio_ rendered with more sheer beauty ofdesign, or with a craftsmanship more exquisite, than in this monument tothe sea-mined prey. The symbolism is perfect, and of the essence of thedesign. The dead sink slowly to their resting-place, but the mercifultwilight of the sea veils from us the glazed horror of the eyes that nopiety can now close. Even the dumb, senseless fish shoots from the scenein mute and terrified protest, while from these poor corpses there risesurfaceward the silver bubbles of their expiring breath. One seems tosee crying human souls prisoned in these spheres. And it is, indeed, such sins as these that cry to Heaven for vengeance. Blood-guiltinessmust rest upon the heads of those that do them, upon the heads of theirchildren--aye, and of their children's children too. This exquisite andtender drawing is something more than the record of inexpiable crime. Itis a prophecy. And the prophecy is a curse. ARTHUR POLLEN. [Illustration: THE SEA MINE] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "SEDUCTION" The cartoon in which the Prussian is depicted as saying to his bound andgagged victim, "Ain't I a lovable fellow?" is one of the most pointedand vital of all pictorial, or indeed other, criticisms on the war. Itis very important to note that German savagery has not interfered at allwith German sentimentalism. The blood of the victim and the tears of thevictor flow together in an unpleasing stream. The effect on a normalmind of reading some of the things the Germans say, side by side withsome of the things they do, is an impression that can quite truly beconveyed only in the violent paradox of the actual picture. It isexactly like being tortured by a man with an ugly face, which we slowlyrealize to be contorted in an attempt at an affectionate expression. Inthose soliloquies of self-praise which have constituted almost the wholeof Prussia's defence in the international controversy, the brigand ofthe Belgian annexation has incessantly said that his apparent hardnessis the necessary accompaniment of his inherent strength. Nietzsche said:"I give you a new commandment: Be hard. " And the Prussian says: "I amhard, " in a prompt and respectful manner. But, as a matter of fact, heis not hard; he is only heavy. He is not indifferent to all feelings; heis only indifferent to everybody else's feelings. At the thought of hisown virtues he is always ready to burst into tears. His smiles, however, are even more frequent and more fatuous than his tears; and they are allleers like that which Mr. Raemaekers has drawn on the face of theexpansive Prussian officer in the arm-chair. Compared with such anexhibition, there is something relatively virile about the tiger crueltywhich has occasionally defaced the record of the Spaniard or the Arab. But to be conquered by such Germans as these would be like being eatenby slugs. G. K. CHESTERTON. [Illustration: SEDUCTION "Ain't I a lovable fellow?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- MURDER ON THE HIGH SEAS The recent descent of so many of her citizens from the people nowwarring in Europe has of necessity prevented America from looking onevents in Europe with a single eye. But the predominant American typeand the predominant American frame of mind are still typified by thelithe and sinuous figure of the New England pioneer. It is his traditionto mind his own business, but it is also his business to see that noneof the old monarchies make free with his rights or with his people. Andhe stands for a race that has been cradled in wars with savages. No oneknows better the methods of the Apache and the Mohawk, and when womenand children fall into such pitiless hands as these, it goes against thegrain with Uncle Sam to keep his hands off them, even if the women andchildren are not his own. He would like to be indifferent if he could. He would prefer to smoke his cigar, and pass along, and believe thosewho tell him that it is none of his affair. But when he does look--andhe cannot help looking--he sees a figure of such heavy bestiality thathis gorge rises. He must keep his hands clenched in his pockets lest hesoils them in striking down the blood-stained gnome before him. Can he restrain himself for good? That angry glint in his eye would makeone doubt it. Here, surely, the artist sees with a truer vision than thepolitician. And if Uncle Sam's anger does once get the better of him, ifdoubts and hesitations are ever thrust on one side, if he takes hisstand where his record and his sympathies must make him wish to be, thenlet it be noted that this base butcher stands dazed and paralyzed by thethreat. ARTHUR POLLEN. [Illustration: MURDER ON THE HIGH SEAS "Well, have you nearly done?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- AD FINEM Ay--to your end!--to your end amid the execrations of a ravaged world!Through all the ages one other only has equalled you in the betrayal ofhis trust. May your sin come home to you before you go, as did his! Mayhis despair be yours! It is most desperately to be regretted that nopersonal suffering on your part, in this life at all events, can everadequately requite you for the desolations you have wrought. Outrage on outrage thunders to the sky The tale of thy stupendous infamy, -- Thy slaughterings, --thy treacheries, --thy thefts, -- Thy broken pacts, --thy honour in the mire, -- Thy poor humanity cast off to sate thy pride;-- 'Twere better thou hadst never lived, --or died Ere come to this. I heard a great Voice pealing through the heavens, A Voice that dwarfed earth's thunders to a moan:-- Woe! Woe! Woe, to him by whom this came! His house shall unto him be desolate And, to the end of time, his name shall be A by-word and reproach in all the lands He repined. .. . And his own shall curse him For the ruin that he brought. Who without reason draws the sword-- By sword shall perish! The Lord hath said . .. _So be it, Lord!_ JOHN OXENHAM. [Illustration: TO THE END WAR AND HUNGER: "Now you must accompany us to the end. " THE KAISER: "Yes, to my end. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "U'S" It is the essence of great cartooning to see things simply, and tocommand the technical resources that shall show the things, so simplyseen, in an infinite variety of aspects. No series of Raemaekers'drawing better exemplifies his quality in both these respects than thosewhich deal with Germany's sea crimes. In the cartoon before us the immediate message is of the simplest. TheKaiser counts the head of British merchantmen sunk. Von Tirpitz countsthe cost. But note the subtlety of the personation and environment. TheKaiser has those terrible haunted eyes that have marked the seer'spresentment of him from quite an early stage of the war. There can be noultimate escape from the dreadful vision that has set the seal ofdespair on this fine and handsome visage. He is shown, not as a seamonster, but as some rabid, evasive, impatient thing, dashing from pointto point--as from policy to policy--with the angry swish that tells theunspoken anger failure everywhere compels. For the victories do notbring surrender, nor does frightfulness inspire terror. The merchantships still put to sea--and the U boats pay the penalty. The futility of this campaign of murder is typified by making VonTirpitz, its inventor, an addle-headed seahorse, the nursery comedian ofthe sea. Stupid and ridiculous bewilderment stares from his foolisheyes. Another submarine has failed to find a safe victim in a tradingship, but has been hoisted with its own sea petard. The impotence of thething! This conference of the Admirals of the Atlantic, held in the sombredepths, is a biting satire, in its mingled comedy and tragedy, on theeffort to win command of the sea from its bottom. ARTHUR POLLEN. [Illustration: "U'S" HIS MAJESTY: "Well, Tripitz, you've sunk a great many?" TIRPITZ: "Yes, sire, here is another 'U' coming down. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- MATER DOLOROSA You thought to grasp the world; but you shall keep Its crown of curses nailed upon your brow. You that have fouled the purple, broke your vow, And sowed the wind of death, the whirlwind you shall reap. Shout to your tribal god to bless the blood Of this red vintage on the poisoned earth; Clash cymbals to him, leap and shout in mirth; Call on his name to stay the coming, cleansing flood. We are no hounds of heaven, nor ravening band Of earthly wolves to tear your kingdom down. We stand for human reason; at our frown The coward sword shall fall from your accursed hand. We do not speak of vengeance; there shall run No little children's blood beneath our heel. No pregnant woman suffers from our steel; But Justice we shall do, as sure as set of sun. Or short, or long, the pathway of your feet, Stamped on the faces of the innocent dead, Must lead where tyrant's road hath ever led. Alone, O perjured soul, your Justice you shall meet. No sacrifice the balance of her scale Can win; no gift of blood and iron can weigh Against this one mad mother's agony: In her demented cry a myriad women wail. The equinox of outraged earth shall blaze And flash its levin on your infamous might. Man cries to fellow-man; light leaps to light, Till foundered, naked, spent, you vanish from our gaze. EDEN PHILLPOTTS. [Illustration: MATER DOLOROSA] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "GOTT STRAFE ITALIEN!" When Italy, still straining at the leash which held her, helpless, tothe strange and unnatural Triplice, began to show signs of awakeningconsciousness, Germany's efforts to lull her back to the unhappyposition of silent partner in the world-crime were characteristic of hermethods. Forthwith Italy was loaded with compliments. The country wasoverrun with "diplomats, " which is another name in Germany for spies. Bribery of the most brazen sort was attempted. The newspapers recalledin chorus that Italy was the land of art and chivalry, of song andheroism, of fabled story and manly effort, of honour and loyalty. Harkto the _Hamburger Fremdenblatt_ of February 21, 1915: "The suggestion is made that Italy favours the Allies. Preposterous!Even though the palsied hand of England--filled with robber gold--beheld out to her, Italy's vows, Italy's sense of obligation, Italy's_word once given_, can never be broken. Such a nation of noblemen couldhave no dealings with hucksters. " Germany is, indeed, a fine judge of a nation's "word once given" and anation's "vows, " which its Chancellor unblushingly declared to be merescraps of paper. Now let us see what the _Hamburger Nachrichten_ had tosay about Italy immediately after her secession from the TripleAlliance: "_Nachrichten_, June 1, 1915. That Italy should have joinedhands with the other noble gentlemen, our enemies, is but natural. Itwould, of course, be absurd--where all are brigands--were the classicalname of brigandage not included in the number. .. . We do not propose tosoil our clean steel with the blood of such filthy Italian scum. Withour cudgels we shall smash them into pulp. " _"Gott strafe Italien"_ indeed! Bombs on St. Mark's in Venice, on theSquare of Verona, on world treasures unreplaceable. The poisoned breathof Germany carries its venom into the land of sunshine and song, whosebest day's work in history has been to wrest itself free from the gripof the false friend. RALPH D. BLUMENFELD. [Illustration: "GOTT STRAFE ITALIEN!"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SERBIA Serbia has suffered the fate of Belgium. Germany and Austria, withBulgaria's aid, have plunged another little country "in blood anddestruction. " Another "bleeding piece of earth" bears witness to therecrudescence of the ancient barbarism of the Huns. Serbia's wounds, "Like dumb mouths, Do ope their ruby lips, " to beg for vengeance on "these butchers. " Turkey, whom the artistportrays as a hound lapping up the victim's blood, is fated to share thepunishment for the crime. But the prime instigator is the GermanEmperor, whose Chancellor, with bitter irony, claims for his master thetitle of protector of the small nationalities of Europe. Herr vonBethmann-Hollweg can on occasion affect the mincing accents of the wolfwhen that beast seeks to lull the cries of the lamb in its clutches. TheGerman method of waging war has rendered "dreadful objects so familiar"that the essential brutality of the enemy's activities runs a risk ofescaping at times the strenuous denunciation which Justice demands. Butthe searching pencil of Mr. Raemaekers brings home to every seeing eyethe true and unvarying character of Teutonic "frightfulness. " Allinstincts of humanity are cynically defied on the specious ground ofmilitary necessity. Mr. Raemaekers is at one with Milton in repudiatingthe worthless plea: "So spake the fiend, and with necessity, The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds. " SIR SIDNEY LEE. [Illustration: OCTOBER IN SERBIA The Austro-German-Bulgarian attack on Serbia began in October, which inHolland is called the "butcher's month, " as the cattle are then killedpreparatory to the winter. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- JUST A MOMENT--I'M COMING Here is a drawing that ought to be circulated broadcast throughoutAustralia and New Zealand, that ought to hold a place of honour on thewalls of their public chambers; should hang in gilded frames in thehouses of the rich; be pinned to the rough walls of frame-house and barkhumpy in every corner of "The Outback. " It should thrill the heart ofevery man, woman, and child Down Under with pride and thankfulness andsatisfaction, should even bring soothing balm to the wounds of those whoin the loss of their nearest and dearest have paid the highest and thedeepest price for the flaming glory of the Anzacs in Gallipoli. Here in the artist's pencil is a monument to those heroes greater thanpinnacles of marble, of beaten brass and carven stone; a monument thathas travelled over the world, has spoken to posterity more clearly, moreconvincingly, and more rememberingly than ever written or word-of-mouthspeech could do. It is to the everlasting honour of the people of theAnzacs that they refrained from echoing the idle tales which ranwhispering in England that the Dardanelles campaign was a cruel blunder, that the blood of the Anzacs' bravest and best had been uselessly spilt, that their splendid young lives had been an empty sacrifice to thedemons of Incompetence and Inefficiency. To those in Australia who intheir hearts may feel that shreds of truth were woven in therumours--that the Anzacs were spent on a forlorn hope, were wasted on atask foredoomed to failure--let this simple drawing bring the comfort ofthe truth. The artist has seen deeper and further than most. The Turkish armiesheld from pouring on Russia and Serbia, from thumping down the scales ofneutrality in Greece and Roumania perhaps, from massing their troopswith the Central Powers; the Kaiser chained on the East and West for thecritical months when men and munitions were desperately lacking to theAllies, when the extra weight of the Turks might have freed the Kaiser'spower of fierce attack on East and West this is what we already know, what the artist here tells the wide world of the part played by theheroes of the Dardanelles. In face of this, who dare hint they sufferedand died in vain? BOYD CABLE. [Illustration: "JUST A MOMENT--I'M COMING. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE HOLY WAR Surely the artist when he drew this was endowed with the wisdom of theseer, the vision of the prophet. For it was drawn before the days inwhich I write, before the Russian giant had proved his greatness on thebody of the Turk, before the bludgeon-strokes in the Caucasus, theheart-thrust of Erzerum, the torrent of pursuit of the broken Turks toMush and Trebizond. We know--and I am grateful for the chance to voice our gratitude tohim--the greatness of our Russian Ally. We remember the early days whenthe Kaiser's hosts were pouring in over France, and the Russian thrustinto Galicia drew some of the overwhelming weight from the WesternFront. We realize now the nobility of self-sacrifice that flung an armywithin reach of the jaws of destruction, that risked its annihilation todraw upon itself some of the sword-strokes that threatened to pierce tothe heart of the West. Our national and natural instinct of admirationfor a hard fighter, and still greater admiration for the apex of goodsportmanship, for the friend or foe who can "take a licking, " who is a"good loser, " went out even more strongly to Russia in the dark dayswhen, faced by an overwhelming weight of metal, she was forced andhammered and battered back, losing battle-line after battle-line, stronghold after stronghold, city after city; losing everything exceptheart and dogged punishment-enduring courage. And how great the Russian truly is will surely be known presently to theTurk and to the masquerading false "Prophet of Allah. " "No one is great save Allah, " says William, and even as the Turk spokemore truly than he knew in calling the Russian great, even as he wasbitterly to realize the greatness, so in the fullness of time mustWilliam come to realize how great is the Allah of the Moslem, theChristian God Whom he has blasphemed, and in Whose name he and hispeople have perpetrated so many crimes and abominations. BOYD CABLE. [Illustration: THE HOLY WAR THE TURK: "But he is so great. " WILLIAM: "No one is great, save Allah, and I am his prophet. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- GOTT MIT UNS When we consider the public utterances of the German clergy, we can veryeasily substitute for their symbol of Christian faith this malignant, grotesque, and inhuman monster of Louis Raemaekers. Indeed, ourinclination is to thrust the green demon himself into the pulpit of theFatherland; for his wrinkled skull could hatch and his evil mouth utterno more diabolic sentiments than those recorded and applauded fromLutheran Leipsic, or from the University and the chief Protestant pulpitin Berlin. Such sermons are a part of that national _débâcle_ of reasoning facultywhich is the price intellectual Germany has paid for the surrender ofher soul to Prussia. An example or two may be cited from the outrageous mass. Professor Rheinhold Seeby, who teaches theology at Berlin University, has described his nation's achievements in Belgium and Serbia as a workof charity, since Germany punishes other States for their good and outof love. Pastor Philippi, also of Berlin, has said that, as God allowedHis only Son to be crucified, that His scheme of redemption might beaccomplished, so Germany, God with her, must crucify humanity in orderthat its ultimate salvation may be secured; and the Teutonic nation hasbeen chosen to perform this task, because Germany alone is pure and, therefore, a fitting instrument for the Divine Hand. Satan, who hasreturned to earth in the shape of England, must be utterly destroyed, while the immoral friends and allies of Satan are called to share hisfate. Thus evil will be swept off the earth and the German Empirehenceforth stand supreme protector of the new kingdom of righteousness. Pastor Zoebel has ordered no compromise with hell; directed his flock tobe pleased at the sufferings of the enemy; and bade them rejoice whenthousands of the non-elect are sent to the bottom of the sea. Yes, we will give the green devil his robe and bands until Germany is inher strait-jacket; after which experience, her conceptions of a SupremeBeing and her own relation thereto may become modified. EDEN PHILLPOTTS. [Illustration: "GOTT MIT UNS"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE WIDOWS OF BELGIUM This deeply pathetic picture evokes the memory of many sad and patientfaces which we have seen during the last eighteen months. It is thewomen, after all--wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters--who have theheaviest load to bear in war-time. The courage and heroism which they have shown are an honour to humannature. The world is richer for it; and the sacrifices which they havebravely faced and nobly borne may have a greater effect in convincingmankind of the wickedness and folly of aggressive militarism than allthe eloquence of peace advocates. We must not forget that the war has made about six German widows forevery one in our country. With these we have no quarrel; we know thatfamily affection is strong in Germany, and we are sorry for them. They, like our own suffering women, are the victims of a barbarous ideal ofnational glory, and a worse than barbarous perversion of patriotism, which in our opponents has become a kind of moral insanity. These pictures will remain long after the war-passion has subsided. Theywill do their part in preventing a recrudescence of it. Who that hasever clamoured for war can face the unspoken reproach in these pitifuleyes? Who can think unmoved of the happy romance of wedded love, soearly and so sadly terminated? THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S. [Illustration: THE WIDOWS OF BELGIUM] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE HARVEST IS RIPE The artist spreads before you a view such as you would have on the greatwheat-growing plains of Hungary, or on the level plateau of AsiaticTurkey--the vast, unending, monotonous, undivided field of corn. In thebackground the view is interrupted by two villages from which greatclouds of flame and smoke are rising--they are both on fire--and as youlook closer at the harvest you see that, instead of wheat, it consistsof endless regiments of marching soldiers. "The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few": here is only one, but he is quite sufficient--"the reaper whose name is Death, " a skeletonover whose bones the peasant's dress--a shirt and a pair of raggedtrousers--hangs loose. The shirt-sleeves of the skeleton are turned wellup, as if for more active exertion, as he grasps the two holds of thehuge scythe with which he is sweeping down the harvest. This is not war of the old type, with its opportunities for chivalry, its glories, and its pride of manly strength. The German development ofwar has made it into a mere exercise in killing, a business ofslaughter. Which side can kill most, and itself outlast the other? Whenone reads the calculations by which careful statisticians demonstratethat in the first seventeen months of the war Germany alone lost over amillion of men killed in battle, one feels that this cartoon is notexaggerated. It is the bare truth. The ease with which the giant figure of Death mows down the harvest oftiny men corresponds, in fact, to the million of German dead, probablyas many among the Russians, to which must be added the losses among theAustrians, the French, the British, the Belgians, Italians, Serbs, Turks, and Montenegrins. The appalling total is this vast harvest whichcovers the plain. WILLIAM MITCHELL RAMSAY. [Illustration: THE HARVEST IS RIPE] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "UNMASKED" The "Yellow Book, " it may be remembered, was the official publication ofsome of the details of atrocities committed by the Huns on thedefenceless women and children of ravished Belgium. It told in cold andunimpassioned sentences, in plain and simple words more terrible thanthe most fervid outpourings of patriot or humanitarian, the tale ofbrutalities, of cold-blooded crimes, of murders and rape and mental andphysical tortures beyond the capabilities or the imaginings of savages, possible only in their refinements of cruelty to the civilized apostlesof Kultur. There are many men in the trenches of the Allies to-day whowill say that the German soldier is a brave man, that he must be braveto advance to the slaughter of the massed attack, to hold to histrenches under the horrible punishment of heavy artillery fire. As a nation we are always ready to admit and to admire physical courage, and if Germany had fought a "clean fight, " had "played the game, "starkly and straightly, against our fighting men, we could--and ourfighting men especially could, and I believe would--have helped her toher feet and shaken hands honestly with her after she was beaten. Butwith such a brute beast as the unmasking of the "Yellow Book" hasrevealed Germany to be we can never feel friendship, admiration, orrespect. The German is a "dirty fighter, " and to the British soldier that aloneputs him beyond the pale. He has outraged all the rules and theinstincts of chivalry. His bravery in battle is the bravery of aravening wolf, of a blood-drunk savage animal. It is only left to theAllies to treat him as such, to thrash him by brute force, and then toclip his teeth and talons and by treaty and agreement amongst themselvesto keep him chained and caged beyond the possibility of anotheroutbreak. BOYD CABLE. [Illustration: UNMASKED The Yellow Book. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE GREAT SURPRISE In the note to another picture I have remarked on the farcical hypocrisyof the German Emperor in presenting himself, as he so often does, as theHigh Priest of several different religions at the same time. They arenearly all of them religions with which he would have no sort ofconcern, even if his religious pose were as real as it is artificial. Being in fact the ruler and representative of a country which aloneamong European countries builds with complete security upon theconviction that all Christianity is dead, he can only be, even intheory, the prince of an extreme Protestant State. Long before the Warit was common for the best caricaturists of Europe, and even of Germany, to make particular fun of these preposterous temporary Papacies in whichthe Kaiser parades himself as if for a fancy-dress ball; and in theaccompanying picture Mr. Raemaekers has returned more or less to thisold pantomimic line of satire. The cartoon recalls some of those more good-humoured, but perhapsequally contemptuous, sketches in which the draughtsmen of the Frenchcomic papers used to take a particular delight; which made a whole comicBible out of the Kaiser's adventures during his visit to Palestine. Herehe appears as Moses, and the Red Sea has been dried up to permit thepassage of himself and his people. It would certainly be very satisfactory for German world-politics if thesea could be dried up everywhere; but it is unlikely that the incidentwill occur, especially in that neighbourhood. It will be long before aGerman army is as safe in the Suez Canal as a German Navy in the KielCanal; and the higher critics of Germany will have no difficulty inproving, in the Kiel Canal at all events, that the safety is due tohuman and not to divine wisdom. G. K. CHESTERTON. [Illustration: THE GREAT SURPRISE Moses II leads his chosen people through the Red Sea to the promised(Eng)land. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THOU ART THE MAN! The Man of Sorrows is flogged, and thorn-crowned, and crucified, andpierced afresh, by this other man of sorrows, who has brought greaterbitterness and woe on earth than any other of all time. And in hissoul--for soul he must have, though small sign of it is evidenced--heknows it. Deceive his dupes as he may--for a time--his own soul must bea very hell of broken hopes, disappointed ambitions, shattered pride, and the hideous knowledge of the holocaust of human life he hasdeliberately sacrificed to these heathen gods of his. No poorest man onearth would change places with this man-that-might-have-been, for histime draws nigh and his end is perdition. Let That Other speak: "Their souls are Mine. Their lives were in thy hand;-- Of thee I do require them! "The fetor of thy grim burnt-offerings Comes up to Me in clouds of bitterness. Thy fell undoings crucify afresh Thy Lord--who died alike for these and thee. Thy works are Death:--thy spear is in My side, -- O man! O man!--was it for this I died? Was it for this?-- A valiant people harried to the void, -- Their fruitful fields a burnt-out wilderness, -- Their prosperous country ravelled into waste, -- Their smiling land a vast red sepulchre, -- --Thy work! "Thou art the man! The scales were in thy hand. For this vast wrong I hold thy soul in fee. Seek not a scapegoat for thy righteous due, Nor hope to void thy countability. Until thou purge thy pride and turn to Me, -- As thou hast done, so be it unto thee!" JOHN OXENHAM. [Illustration: THOU ART THE MAN "We wage war on Divine principles. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SYMPATHY The cartoon requires no words to tell the story. It holds chapter uponchapter of tragedy. "I will send you to Germany after your father!"Where is the boy's father in Germany? In a prison? Mending roads? Lyingmaimed and broken in a rude hospital? Digging graves for comrades aboutto be shot? Or, more likely still, in a rough unknown stranger's grave?Was the father dragged from his home at Louvain, or Tirlemont, or Vise, or one of the dozen other scenes of outrage and murder--a harmless, hard-working citizen-dragged from his hiding-place and made to suffer"exemplary justice" for having "opposed the Kaiser's might, " but inreality because he was a Belgian, for whose nasty breed there must bedemonstrations of Germany's frightfulness _pour encourager les autres_? And the child's mother and sisters--what of them? He is dejected, butnot broken. There is dignity in the boy's defiant pose. The scene has, perhaps, been enacted hundreds of times in the cities of Belgium, wherepoignant grief has come to a nation which dared to be itself. Follow this boy through life and observe the stamp of deep resolve onhis character. Though he be sent "to Germany after your father, " thoughhe be for a generation under the German jack-boot, his spirit willsustain him against the conqueror and will triumph in the end. RALPH D. BLUMENFELD. [Illustration: SYMPATHY "If I find you again looking so sad, I'll send you to Germany after yourfather. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE REFUGEES The wonder is not that women went mad, but that there are left any sanecivilians of the ravished districts of Belgium after all those infamiesperpetrated under orders by the German troops after the firstinfuriating check of Liége and before the final turning of the Germanline at the battle of the Marne. We have supped full of horrors since, and by an insensible process grown something callous. But we never camenear to realizing the Belgian agony, and Raemaekers does us service byhelping to make us see it mirrored in the eyes of this poor raving girl. This indeed is a later incident, but will serve for reminder of theearlier worse. It is really _not_ well to forget. These were not the inevitable horrorsof war, but a deliberately calculated effect. There seems no hope of thefuture of European civilization till the men responsible for such thingsare brought to realize that, to put it crudely and at its lowest, theydon't pay. What the attitude of Germany now is may be guessed from the blankrefusal even of her bishops to sanction the investigation which CardinalMercier asks for. It is still the gentle wolf's theory that thetruculent lamb was entirely to blame. JOSEPH THORP. [Illustration: THE REFUGEES FROM GHEEL Gheel has a model asylum for the insane. On the fall of Antwerp theinmates were conveyed across the frontier. The cartoon illustrates anincident where a woman, while wheeling a lunatic, herself developedinsanity from the scenes she witnessed. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "THE JUNKER" There were few things that Junkerdom feared so much in modern Germany asthe growth and effects of Socialism; and it is certain that the possibleattitude of the German Socialists--who were thought by some writers tonumber somewhere in the neighbourhood of two million--in regard to theWar at its outset greatly exercised the minds of Junkerdom and theChancellor. A few days after the declaration of War a well-known EnglishSocialist said to us, "I believe that the Socialists will be strongenough greatly to handicap Germany in the carrying on of the War, andpossibly, if she meets with reverses in the early stages, to bring aboutPeace before Christmas. " That was in August, 1914, and we are now well on in the Spring of 1916. We reminded the speaker that on a previous occasion, when Peace stillhung in the balance, he had declared with equal conviction that therewould be no War because "the Socialists are now too strong in Germanynot to exercise a preponderating restraining influence. " He has provedwrong in both opinions. And one can well imagine that the Junker classadmires Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg for the astute manner in whichhe has succeeded in shepherding the German Socialist sheep for theslaughter, and in muzzling their representatives in the Reichstag. CLIVE HOLLAND. [Illustration: THE JUNKER "What I have most admired in you, Bethmann, is that you have madeSocialists our best supporters. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "MILIEU DE FANTÔMES TRISTES ET SANS NOMBRE" There is something daunting, even to the mind of one not guilty of waror of massacres, in the thought of multitudes: the multitude of thedead, of the living, of one generation of men since there have been menon earth. And war brings this horror to us daily, or rather nightly, because such great companies of men have suddenly died together, passingin comradeship and community from the known to the unknown. Yet dare wesay "together?" The unparalleled solitariness and singleness of death isnot altered by the general and simultaneous doom of battle. And it is with the multitude, and all the _ones_ in it, that the makerof war is in unconscious relation. He does not know their names, he doesnot know them by any kind of distinction, he knows them only bythousands. Yet every one with a separate life and separate death is inconscious relation with _him_, knows him for the tyrant who has takenhis youth, his hope, his love, his fatherhood. What a multitude to meet, whether in thought, in conscience, or inanother world! We all, no doubt, try to make the thought of massacreless intolerable to our minds by telling ourselves that the suffererssuffer one by one, to each his own share, and not another's; that thoughthe numbers may appeal, they do not make each man's part more terrible. But this is not much comfort. There is not, it is true, a sum ofmultiplication; but there is the sum of addition. And that addition--themultitude man by man--the War Lord has to reckon with: Frederick theGreat with his men, Napoleon with his, the German Emperor with his--eachone of the innumerable unknown knowing his destroyer. ALICE MEYNELL. [Illustration: "Mais quand la voix de Dieu l'appela il se voyait seulsur la terre au milieu de fantômes tristes et sans nombre. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BLUEBEARD'S CHAMBER The Committee of Enquiry, like another Portia, clothed in theermine-trimmed robe of Justice and the Law, has unlocked with the key ofTruth the door of the closed chamber. The key lies behind her inscribedin Dutch with the name that tells its nature. The Committee then pullsback the curtain, and reveals the horrors that are behind it. Before thecurtain is fully drawn back, Enquiry sinks almost in collapse at theterrible sight that is disclosed. There hang to pegs on the wall thebodies of Bluebeard's victims, a woman, an old man, a priest, two boys, and a girl still half hidden behind the curtain. The blood that hastrickled from them coagulates in pools on the ground. Bluebeard himself comes suddenly: he hurries down the steps brandishinghis curved sword, a big, burly figure, with square, thick beard, andstreaming whiskers, wearing a Prussian helmet, his mouth open to utter aroar of rage and fury. The hatred and scorn with which the artistinspires his pictures of Prussia are inexhaustible in their variety:Prussia is barbarism attempting to trample on law and education, brutality beating down humanity, a grim figure, the incarnation of"frightfulness. " I can imagine the feelings with which all Germans mustregard the picture that the Dutch artist always gives of their country, if they regard Prussia as their country. "For every cartoon ofRaemaekers, " said a German newspaper, "the payment will be exacted infull, when the reckoning is made up. " To this painter the Prussianruling power is incapable of understanding what nobility of naturemeans. He can practise on and take advantage of the vices and weaknessesof his enemies; he can buy the services of many among them, and have allthe worser people in his fee as his servants and agents; but he isalways foiled, because he forgets that some men cannot be bought, andthat these men will steel their fellow-countrymen's minds to resisttyranny to the last. The mass of men can be led either to evil or togood. The Prussian military system assumes the former as certain, and is wellskilled in the way. But there is the latter way, too, which Prussianever knew and never takes into account as a possibility; and men as awhole prefer the way to good before the way to evil, when both are fullyexplained and made clear. This saves men, and ruins Prussia. WILLIAM MITCHELL RAMSAY. [Illustration: BLUEBEARD'S CHAMBER The horrors perpetrated by the Germans were brought to light by theBelgian Committee of Enquiry. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE RAID The seaman of history is a chivalrous and romantic figure, a gallant andrelentless fighter, a generous and a tender conqueror. In Codrington'sfirst letter to his wife after the battle of Trafalgar, he tells her tosend £100 to one of the French captains who goes to England from thebattle as a prisoner of war. The British and French navies cherish ahundred memories of acts like these. If the German navy survives the warwhat memories will it have? It must search the gaols for the exemplarsin peace of the acts that win them the Iron Cross in war. Note in this drawing that the types selected are not in themselves baseunits of humanity. They have been made so by the beastly crimes superiororders have forced them to commit. But even this has not brought them solow but they wonder at the topsy-turvydom of war that brings them honourwhere poor Black Mary only got her deserts in gaol. The crimes of the higher command have passed in Germany uncondemned andunbanned by cardinals and bishops. But the conscience of Germany cannotbe wholly dead. Nor will six years only be the term of Germany'shumiliation and remorse. The spotless white of the naval uniform, sullied and besmirched by those savage cruelties, cannot, any more thanthe German soul, be brought back "whiter than snow" by any bestowal ofthe Iron Cross. The effort to cleanse either would "the multitudinousseas incarnadine. " ARTHUR POLLEN. [Illustration: THE RAID "Do you remember Black Mary of Hamburg?" "Aye, well. " "She got six years for killing a child, whilst we get the Iron Cross forkilling twenty at Hartlepool. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BETTER A LIVING DOG THAN A DEAD LION Here is the grim choice of alternatives presented to other nations bythe creed of _Deutschland über Alles_--the cost of resistance and thereward of submission. On one side lies the man who has fought a goodfight "for Freedom. " He has lost his life but won an immortal memoryinscribed upon the cross. The other has saved his life, and lo! it is a"dog's life. " He is not even a well-treated dog. Harnessed, muzzled, chained, he crawls abjectly on hands and knees and drags painfully alongthe road, not only the cart, but his heavy master too. In the Netherlands and other parts of the Continent, where dogs are usedto pull little carts, the owner generally pulls too; it is a partnershipin which the dog is treated as a friend and visibly enjoys doing hisshare. Partnership with Germany is another matter. The dog does all thework, the German takes his ease with his great feet planted on thesubmissive creature's back. The belligerent nations have made their choice. Germany's partners havechosen submission and are playing the dog's part, as they havediscovered. The Allies on the other side are paying the price ofresistance in the sacrifice of life for Freedom. And what of theneutrals? They are evading the choice under cover of the Allies andwaxing fat meanwhile. It is not a very heroic attitude and will excludethem from any voice in the settlement. But we understand their position, and at least they are ready to fight for their own freedom. There are, however, individuals who are not ready to fight at all. They callthemselves conscientious objectors, prate of the law of Christ, and poseas idealists. If they followed Christ they would sacrifice their livesfor others, but they are only concerned for their own skins. Their placeis in the shafts The true idealist lies beneath the Cross. ARTHUR SHADWELL. [Illustration: BETTER A LIVING DOG THAN A DEAD LION THE DRIVER: "You are a worthy Dutchman. He who lies there was a foolishidealist. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "THE BURDEN OF THE INTOLERABLE DAY" Most people have wondered from time to time what the Kaiser thinks inhis inmost heart and in the solitude of his own chamber about thecondition of Germany and about the War. What impression has been made onhim by the alternation of victories and failures during the last twentymonths? After all he has staked everything--he has everything to lose. What does he feel? What impression do the frightful losses of his ownpeople make on him? Raemaekers tells in this cartoon. The Kaiser has this moment beenwakened from sleep by the entrance of a big gorgeously dressed footman, carrying his morning tea. The panelling of the royal chamber in thepalace at Potsdam is faintly indicated. The Kaiser sits up in bed, and alook of agony gathers on his face as he realizes that he has wakened upto the grim horror of a new day, and that the delightful time which hehas just been living through was only a dream. He had dreamed that thewhole thing was not true--that the War had never really occurred, andthat he could face the world with a conscience clear from guilt; and nowhe has wakened up to bear the burden for another day. It is written inhis face what he thinks. You see the deep down-drawn lines in the lowerpart of the face, the furrows upon the forehead, and the look almost ofterror in the eyes. But a smug-faced flunkey offers him a cup of teawith buttered toast, and he must come back to the pretence of thattragi-comedy, the life of the King-Emperor. The Dutch artist is fully alive to the comic element which underliesthat tragedy. The King-Emperor, as he awakes from sleep and sits forwardfrom that mountain of pillows, would be a purely comic figure were itnot for the terrible tragedy written in his face. A footman in brilliantlivery is a comic figure. The splendour of this livery brings out thecomic element by its contrast to, and yet its harmony with, the stupidself-satisfaction of the countenance and the curls of the powdered hair. The Kaiser, however, awakens to more than the pretences and shams ofcourt life. The vast dreams which he cherished before the War ofworld-conquest and an invincible Germany are fled now, and he must face, open-eyed and awake, the stern reality. WILLIAM MITCHELL RAMSAY. [Illustration: THE AWAKENING "I had such a delightful dream that the whole thing was not true. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- EAGLE IN HEN-RUN The Dutchman who could see this cartoon and not admit its simple truthwould have to be a very blind pro-German. At present time it paysGermany to pretend a friendship for Holland, but the premeditated murderof Belgium is a plain object-lesson of the sort of friendship andagreement that Germany makes with a country and people which stand inher way and are too small to withstand her brute force. Can any Dutchmandoubt what would be Holland's fate if Germany emerged even moderatelyvictorious from this war? The German War Staff would give a good deal tohave the control of Holland and a free passage to the sea from Antwerp. They refrain from using force to gain that control only because theycannot afford to have a fresh frontier to guard and because it is quiteuseful to have Holland neutral and a forbidden ground and water to theArmies and Navies of the Allies, a shield over the heart of Berlin andGermany. It would pay the Germans to have Holland with them and openlyagainst the Allies, and they would no doubt gladly make an "agreement"to that effect; but there is little likelihood of that as long as theDutch can visualize the "agreement" as clearly as the cartoonist hasdone here. There are many people who for years past have suspected Germany'ssinister designs on the whole of the Netherlands. The brutal ravaging ofBelgium, the talk that already runs, openly or in whispers, in Germanyof "annexation of conquered territories" and "extended borders, " tellplainly the same tale--that any agreement between a small country andGermany means merely the swallowing-up of the small nation, the"agreement" of a meal with the swallower-up. BOYD CABLE. [Illustration: THE EAGLE IN THE HEN-RUN GERMAN EAGLE: "Come along, Dutch chicken, we will easily arrange anagreement. " THE CHICKEN: "Yes, in your stomach. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE FUTURE There can be no doubting of the future. The Allied forces, who inRaemaekers' drawing stand for Liberty, are assuredly destined to wringthe neck of the Prussian eagle, which typifies the tyranny of bruteforce. "For freedom's battle, once begun . .. Though baffled oft, is ever won. " "There is only one master in this country, " the Kaiser has said ofGermany. "I am he, and I will not tolerate another. " He has also toldhis people: "There is only one law--my law; the law which I myself laydown. " It is supererogatory to dispute either of these imperialpronouncements. The Future contents herself with the comment: "Out ofthine own mouth will I judge thee. " The Kaiser and his counsellors have now translated words into deeds, andevery instrument of savagery has been since August, 1911, enlisted byTyranny in the attempt to overthrow Liberty. "A thousand years ago, " theKaiser once declared to his Army, "the Huns under their king Attila madethemselves a name which still lives in tradition. " The Future replies tohim that he and his fighting hordes will also live in tradition. Theywill be remembered for their defiance of the conscience of the world, which obeys no call but that of Liberty. SIDNEY LEE. [Illustration: L'AVENIR] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CHRIST OR ODIN? You cannot well conceive a science, whether it be mathematics, orarchitecture, or philosophy, without its axioms, dogmas, or firstprinciples. Without them there is no basis on which to raise thesuperstructure. So it is with the science of religion. TakeChristianity: if it is to be taught scientifically, it must start withthe most tremendous dogma, the Divinity of Christ. Either Christ was orHe was not what He claimed to be. If He was not, you must shout with theSanhedrim: "Crucify Him!" If He was, you must sing with the Church:"Come, adore Him. " One thing is certain, you cannot be indifferent toHis claim or to Him; you must either hate Him and His creed, like thePrussian warring Superman, or love Him and it, like England's CrusadingKings. The cartoon before us is the finished picture which I can trace from itsfirst rough sketch in the hands of Kant, through its different stages ofdevelopment in the schools of Hegel, of Schopenhauer, of Strauss, tillit was ready for its final touches in the hands of Nietzsche. In fancy Isee it hung, on the line, in the Prussian picture-gallery under thedirection of War Lords, whose boasted aim it is that the world shall begoverned only by Prussian Kultur and Prussian Religion. The fatal mistake made by the Teutonic race in the past was, we aretold, the adoption of Roman culture and Roman religion. Germany oncesubmitted to an alien God and to an alien creed. She, the mistress ofthe earth, the mightiest of the mighty, and the most Kultured of theKultured, had actually once worshipped "an uncultured peasant Galilean, "and made profession of "His slave morality. " Now they had altogether done with Christ, the Nazarene. The shout hadgone forth: "We will not have this Man to rule over us. " In the futureno gods but Thor and Odin shall rule the "world-dominating race. "Prussia seemed to think the world's need to-day was the religion not ofVirtue, but of Valour. "In a day now long fled was heard the cry:'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, ' but to-daythere shall go forth the word: 'Blessed are the valiant, for they shallmake the earth their throne. ' In the past ye heard it said: 'Blessed arethe poor in spirit, ' but now I say to you: 'Blessed are the great insoul, for they shall enter into Valhalla. ' Again, in the dark ages itwas said to you: 'Blessed are the peace-makers, ' but now in the blaze ofday I say unto you: 'Blessed are the war-makers, for they shall becalled, if not the children of Jahve, the children of Odin, who isgreater than Jahve. '" For those who want more of this mad jargon on thesame lines let me refer them to the late Professor Cramb's book onGermany and England. With this cartoon before me, I am driven to fear that when the war isdone there will rise up in Germany a louder and stronger cry against theChristianity of Christ than ever was attempted after the Franco-PrussianWar. The "man of blood and iron, " the man with the mailed fist and theiron heel, I much apprehend, will not be satisfied with tearing down theemblem of the physical Body of Christ, but to slake his bloodthirstyspirit he will want to go on to belabour His Mystical Body no less. Godavert it! BERNARD VAUGHAN. [Illustration: "I crush whatever resists me. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FERDINAND In this war, where the ranks of the enemy present to us so manyformidable, sinister, and shocking figures, there is one, and perhapsbut one, which is purely ridiculous. If we had the heart to relieve ourstrained feelings by laughter, it would be at the gross Coburg traitor, with his bodyguard of assassins and his hidden coat-of-mail, his shakinghands and his painted face. The world has never seen a meaner scoundrel, and we may almost bring ourselves to pity the Kaiser, whom circumstanceshave forced to accept on equal terms a potentate so verminous. But we no longer smile, we are tempted rather to weep, when we think ofthe nation over whom this Ferdinand exercises his disastrous authority. Forty years will have expired this spring since the Christian peasantsof Bulgaria rose in arms against the Turkish oppressor. After a year ofwild mountain fighting, Russia, with fraternal devotion, came to theirhelp, and at San Stefano in March, 1877, the aspirations of Bulgariawere satisfied under Russia auspices. Ten years later Ferdinand theusurper descended upon Sofia, shielded by the protection of Austria, andsince then, under his poisonous rule, the honour and spirit of the oncepassionate and romantic Bulgarian nation have faded like a plant inpoison-fumes. Raemaekers presents the odious Ferdinand to us in the act of startingfor the wars--he who faints at the sight of a drawn sword. His hiredassassins guard him from his own people and from the revenge of thethousands whom he has injured. But will they always be able to secure sovile a life against the vengeance of history? How soon will Fatecondescend to crush this painted creature? EDMUND GOSSE. [Illustration: Ferdinand s'en va t'en guerre ne salt s'il reviendra. (Old French song adapted. )] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- JUGGERNAUT Yes, Kultur, the German Juggernaut, has passed this way. There is nomistaking the foul track of his chariot-wheels. Kultur is the GermanGod. But there is a greater God still. He sees it all. He speaks, -- "_Was it for this I died?_ --Black clouds of smoke that veil the sight of heaven; Black piles of stones which yesterday were homes; And raw black heaps which once were villages; Fair towns in ashes, spoiled to suage thy spleen; My temples desecrate, My priests out-cast:-- Black ruin everywhere, and red, --a land All swamped with blood, and savaged raw and bare; All sickened with the reek and stench of war, And flung a prey to pestilence and want; --Thy work! "_For this?_-- --Life's fair white flower of manhood in the dust; Ten thousand thousand hearts made desolate; My troubled world a seething pit of hate; My helpless ones the victims of thy lust;-- The broken maids lift hopeless eyes to Me, The little ones lift handless arms to Me, The tortured women lift white lips to Me, The eyes of murdered white-haired sires and dames Stare up at Me. And the sad anguished eyes Of My dumb beasts in agony. --Thy work!" JOHN OXENHAM. [Illustration: KULTUR HAS PASSED HERE] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- MICHAEL AND THE MARKS "The Loan: good for 100 marks!" Look at him! He is the favoured of theEarth, lives in Germany, where Kultur is peerless, and educationcomplete (even tho' the man may become a martyr of method). War comes!and he is seen, as an almond tree in blossom his years tell, when lo! aWar Loan is raised with real Helfferichian candour, and Michael has juststepped out of the Darlehnskasse, at Oberwesel-on-the-Rhine, or otherseat of Kultur and War Loan finance. Are visions about? said an Americanhumorist now gone to the Shades; and Michael, Loan note in hand, eyesreversed, after a visit to two or three offices, wants to know, andwonders whether this note can be regarded as "hab und gut, " and if so, good for how much? Is it a wonder that an artist in a Neutral Countryshould depict German affairs as in this condition, and business done inthis manner? Michael is puzzled; and in the language of the Old KentRoad, "'e dunno where 'e are!" He is puzzled, and not without cause. All who have followed Germany's financing of the War share Michael'sperplexity. Brag is a good dog: but it does not do as a foundation forcredit. Gold at Spandau was trumpeted for years as a "war chest"; butwhen the "best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft agley, " especiallywhen a war does not end, as it should, after a jolly march to Paris insix weeks, through a violated and plundered Belgium, then comes therub--and the paper which puzzles Michael. A German, possibly Dr. Helfferich, the German Finance Minister, may believe, and some dobelieve, that it does not matter how much "paper, " in currency notes, aState, or even a Bank, may issue. The more experienced commercial andbanking concerns of the world insist upon a visible material, as well asthe personal security, to which the German is prone. The round-aboutmethod of issuing German War Loans unquestionably puzzles Michael; butwill not impose on the world outside. Let it be marked also, that German credit methods have been, in part, the proximate cause of this War; a system of credit-trading may last forsome years only to threaten disaster and general ruin. Now, it is "neckor nothing"; Michael goes the round of the Loan offices, and behold him!Germany herself fears a crash in credit, and even the German Michaelfeels that it is impending. Already the mark exchanges over 30 belowpar. W. M. J. WILLIAMS. [Illustration: LOAN JUGGLERY MICHAEL: "For my 100 marks I obtained a receipt. I gave this for asecond 100 marks and I received a second receipt. For the third loan Igave the second receipt. Have I invested 300 marks and has theGovernment got 300, or have both of us got nothing?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THEIR BERESINA _"Is it still a long way to the Beresina?"_ The whole civilized world sincerely hopes not. Death, with the grin on his fleshless face, is hurrying them along to itas fast as his troika can go. Three black horses abreast hedrives--Dishonour, Disappointment, and Disgrace--and the more audaciousof the carrion-crows fly croaking ominously alongside. Little Willie, with the insignia of his family's doom on his head, isnot happy in his mind. "Father's" plans have not worked smoothly, hispromises have not been fulfilled. Little Willie is concerned for his ownfuture. He is the only soul in the world who is. When the First--the real--Napoleon entered Russia, on June 24, 1812, heled an army of 414, 000 men--the grande armée. When the great retreatbegan from burnt-out Moscow he had less than 100, 000. By the time theBeresina was reached but little of the grand army was left. "Of thecavalry reserve, formerly 32, 000 men, only 100 answered themuster-roll. " The passage of the river, which was to interpose itsbarrier between him and the pursuing Russians, was an inferno of panic, selfishness, and utter demoralization. Finally, to secure his ownsafety, Napoleon had the bridges burnt before half his men had crossed. The roll-call that night totalled 8, 000 gaunt spectres, hardly to becalled men. _"Father, is it still a long way to the Beresina?"_ We may surely and rightly put up that question as a prayer to the Godwhom Kaiser William claims as friend, but whom he has flouted andbruised as never mortal man since time began has bruised and floutedfriend before. _"Is it still a long way to the Beresina?"_ God grant them a short quick course, an end forever to militarism, tothe wastage it has entailed, and to all those evils which have made suchthings possible in this year of grace 1916. JOHN OXENHAM. [Illustration: "Father, is it still a long way to the Beresina?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW PEACE OFFERS The present policy of Germany is a curious mixture of underhanddiplomacy and boastful threats. If she desires to impress the neutralStates, she vaunts the great conquests that she has been able toaccomplish. She points out, especially to Roumania and to Greece, howterrible is her vengeance on States which defy her, such as Belgium andSerbia, while vague promises are given to her Near-EasternAllies--Bulgaria and Turkey--that they will have large additions totheir territory as a reward for compliance with the dictates of Berlin. But, on the other hand, it is very clear that, as part and parcel ofthis vigorous offensive, Germany is already in more quarters than onesuggesting that she is quite open to offers of peace. As every oneknows, Von Bülow in Switzerland is the head and controlling agent of agreat movement in the direction of peace; while lately we have heard ofoffers made to Belgium that if she will acknowledge a commercialdependence on the Central Empires her territory will be restored to her. Similar movements are going on in America, because throughout Germanystill seeks to pose as a nation which was attacked and had to defendherself, and is therefore quite ready to listen if any reasonable offerscome from her enemies to bring the war to a close. The unhappy German Imperial Chancellor has to play his part in thissorry comedy with such skill as he can manage. To his German countrymenhe has to proclaim that the war has been one brilliant progress from thestart to the present time. This must be done in order to allay theapprehensions of Berlin and to propitiate the ever-increasing demand formore plentiful supplies of food. Secretly he has to work quite as hardto secure for the Central Empires such a conclusion of hostilities aswill leave them masters of Europe. And, without doubt, he has to put upwith a good many indignities in the process. "The worst of it is, I mustalways deny having been there. " Kicked out by the Allies, he has topretend that no advances were ever made. Perhaps, however, such a taskis not uncongenial to the man who began by asserting that solemnlyratified treaties were only "scraps of paper. " W. L. COURTNEY. [Illustration: NEW PEACE OFFERS VON BETHMANN-HOLLWEG "The worst of it is, I must always deny havingbeen there. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE SHIELDS OF ROSSELAERE The climax of meanness and selfishness would seem to be reached when anarmed man shelters himself behind the unarmed; yet it is not the climax, for here the artist depicts a body of German troops shelteringthemselves behind women, calculating that the Belgians will not fire ontheir own countrywomen and unarmed friends, and that so the attack maysafely gain an advantage. There is a studied contrast between the calm, orderly march of thetroops with shouldered arms and the huddled, disorderly progress towhich the townspeople are compelled. These are not marching; they aregoing to their death. Several of the women have their hands raised infrantic anguish, their eyes are like the eyes of insanity, and one atleast has her mouth open to emit a shriek of terror. Two of the men arein even worse condition; they are collapsing, one forward, one backward, with outstretched hands as if grasping at help. The rest march on, courageously or stolidly. Some seem hardly to understand, someunderstand and accept their fate with calm resignation. One old woman walks quietly with bowed head submissive. In the frontwalks a priest, his hand raised in the gesture of blessing his flock. The heroism of the Catholic priesthood both in France and in Belgiumforms one of the most honourable features of the Great War, and standsin striking contrast with the calculating diplomatic policy of thePapacy. There is always the same tendency in the "chief priests" ofevery race and period to be tempted to sacrifice moral considerations toexpediency, and to prefer the empty fabric of an imposing Churchestablishment to the people who make the Church. But the clergy ofBelgium are there to prove what the Church can do for mankind. Thiscartoon would be incomplete and would deserve condemnation as inartisticif it were not redeemed by the priest and the old woman. WILLIAM MITCHELL RAMSAY. [Illustration: THE SHIELDS OF ROSSELAERE At Rosselaere the German troops forced the Belgian townsfolk to march infront of them] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE OBSTINACY OF NICHOLAS The venerable quip that what is firmness in ourselves is obstinacy inour opponents is illustrated with a ludicrous explicitness in the wholetenor of German official utterance since the failure of the greatdrives. The obtuseness of the Allies is so abysmal (it is again andagain complained in the Reichstag and through Wolff) that they areunable to see that Germany is the permanently triumphant victor. Whereasfor Germany, whose cause even the neutrals judge to be lost, to hold outat the cost of untold blood and treasure is merely the manifestation ofheaven-conferred German steadfastness. The Army into whose obstinatecorporate head it is hardest to drive the idea of German militaryall-powerfulness is the Russian, of which retreating units, actuallyarmed with staves against a superbly equipped (but innocent and wantonlyattacked) foe, were so stupid as to forget how to be broken anddemoralized. And this long, imperturbable, _verdamte_ Nicholas, who was declared onthe highest German authority (and what higher?) to be annihilated twice, having turned a smashing tactical defeat into strategical victory, bobsup serenely in another and most inconvenient place. Absurd; particularlywhen "what I tell you three times is true. " . .. Neonapoleon didn'tremember Moscow. But he will. JOSEPH THORP. [Illustration: "Why, I've killed you twice, and you dare to come backagain. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ORDER OF MERIT Turkey had no illusions from the beginning on the subject of the war. Ifthe choice had been left to the nation she would not have becomeGermany's catspaw. Unfortunately for Turkey, she has had no choice. Foryears upon years the Sultan Abdul Hamid was Turkey. Opposition to hiswill meant death for his opponent. Thus Turkey became inarticulate. Hervoice was struck dumb. The revolution was looked upon hopefully as thedawn of a new era. Abdul Hamid was dethroned; his brother, a puppet, wasexalted, anointed, and enthroned. Power passed from the Crown, not, asexpected, to the people and its representatives, but into the hands of ayouthful adventurer, in German pay, who has led his country from onefolly to another. Turkey did not want to fight, but she had no choice, and so she wasdragged in by the heels. She has lost much besides her independence. Thecrafty German has drained her of supplies while giving naught in return. The German's policy is to strive throughout for a weak Turkey. Theweaker Turkey can be made, the better will it be for Germany, whichhopes still, no matter what may happen elsewhere, so to manipulatethings as to dominate the Ottoman Empire after the war. Turkey is still a rich country, in spite of her enormous sacrifices inthe past decade. She has been exploited from end to end by the Germanadventurer, who will continue the process of bleeding so long as thereis safety in the method; but Turkey is beginning to ask herself, as doesthe figure of the fat Pasha in the cartoon: "And is this all thecompensation I get?" An Iron Cross does not pay for the loss of half amillion good soldiers. Yet that is the exact measure of Turkey's reward. RALPH D. BLUMENFELD. [Illustration: THE ORDER OF MERIT TURKEY: "And is this all the compensation I get?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE MARSHES OF PINSK In what are we most like our kinsmen the Germans, and in what mostunlike? I was convicted of Teutonism when first, in Germany, I ate "brodund butter, " and found the words pronounced in an English way, slurred. But if we are like the Germans in the names of simple and childishthings, we grow more unlike them, we draw farther apart from them, as wegrow up. We love war less and less, as they love it more. We love ourword of honour more and more as they, for the love of war, love theirword less. There is no nation in the world more unlike us; because there is no warso perfect, so conscious, so complete as the German. And being thusall-predominant, German war is the greatest of outrages on life anddeath. We English have a singular degree of respect for the dead. It hasno doubt expressed itself in some slight follies and vulgarities, suchas certain funeral customs, not long gone by; but such respect is anational virtue and emotion. No nation loving war harbours that virtue. And in nothing do the kinsmen with whom we have much language in commondiffer from us more than in the policy that brought this Prussian hostto cumber the stagnant waters of the Marshes of Pinsk. The love of war has cast them there, displayed, profaned, in the "coldobstruction" of their dissolution. Corruption is not sensible corruptionwhen it is a secret in earth where no eye, no hand, no breathing can beaware of it. There is no offence in the grave. But the lover of war, thePower that loved war so much as to break its oath for the love of war, and for the love of war to strike aside the hand of the peace-maker, Arbitration, that Power has chosen thus to expose and to betray themultitude of the dead. ALICE MEYNELL. [Illustration: THE MARSHES OF PINSK, NOVEMBER, 1915. The Kaiser said last spring: "When the leaves fall you'll have peace. "They have!] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- GOD WITH US Three _apaches_ sit crouched in shelter waiting the moment to strike. One is old and _gaga_, his ancient fingers splayed on the ground tosupport him and his face puckered with the petulance of age. One is asoft shapeless figure--clearly with small heart for the business, for hesquats there as limp as a sack. One is the true stage conspirator with along pendulous nose and narrow eyes. His knife is in his teeth, and hewould clearly like to keep it there, for he has no stomach for a fight. He will only strike if he can get in a secret blow. The leader of thegang has the furtive air of the criminal, his chin sunk on his breast, and his cap slouched over his brows. His right hand holds a stiletto, his pockets bulge with weapons or plunder, his left hand is raised withthe air of a priest encouraging his flock. And his words are the wordsof religion--"God with us. " At the sign the motley crew will get towork. It is wholesome to strip the wrappings from grandiose things. Publiccrimes are no less crimes because they are committed to the sound oftrumpets, and the chicanery of crowned intriguers is morally the same asthe tricks of hedge bandits. It is privilege of genius to get down tofundamentals. Behind the stately speech of international _pourparlers_and the rhetoric of national appeals burn the old lust and greed andrapine. A stab in the dark is still a stab in the dark though courts andcouncils are the miscreants. A war of aggression is not less brigandagebecause the armies march to proud songs and summon the Almighty to theiraid. Raemaekers has done much to clear the eyes of humanity. The monarch of_Felix Austria_, with the mantle of the Holy Roman Empire still draggingfrom his shoulders, is no more than a puzzled, broken old man, crowdedin this bad business beside the Grand Turk, against whom his fathersdefended Europe. The preposterous Ferdinand, shorn of his bombast, isonly a chicken-hearted assassin. The leader of the band, the All Highesthimself, when stripped of his white cloak and silver helmet, shows theslouch and the furtive ferocity of the street-corner bravo. And the cry"God with us, " which once rallied Crusades, has become on such lips thesignal of the _apache_. JOHN BUCHAN. [Illustration: GOD WITH US "At the command 'Gott mit uns' you will go for them. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FERDINAND THE CHAMELEON There is one whole field of the evil international influence of Germanyin which Ferdinand of Bulgaria is a much more important and symbolicperson than William of Prussia. He is, of course, a cynicalcosmopolitan. He is in great part a Jew, and an advanced type of that_mauvais juif_ who is the principal obstacle to all the attempts of themore genuine and honest Jews to erect a rational status for theirpeople. Like almost every man of this type, he is a Jingo without being apatriot. That is to say, he is of the type that believes in bigarmaments and in a diplomacy even more brutal than armaments; but themilitarism and diplomacy are not humanized either by the ancientnational sanctities which surround the Czar of Russia, or thespontaneous national popularity which established the King of Serbia. Heis not national, but international; and even in his peaceful activitieshas been not so much a neutral as a spy. In the accompanying cartoon the Dutch caricaturist has thrust with hispencil at the central point of this falsity. It is something which isprobably the central point of everything everywhere, but is especiallythe central point of everything connected with the deep quarrels ofEastern Europe. It is religion. Russian Orthodoxy is an enormouslygenuine thing; Austrian Romanism is a genuine thing; Islam is a genuinething; Israel, for that matter, is also a genuine thing. But Ferdinand of Bulgaria is not a genuine thing; and he represents thewhole part played by Prussia in these ancient disputes. That part is thevery reverse of genuine; it is a piece of ludicrous and transparenthumbug. If Prussia had any religion, it would be a northern perversionof Protestantism utterly distant from and indifferent to thecontroversies of Slavonic Catholics. But Prussia has no religion. Forher there is no God; and Ferdinand is his prophet. G. K. CHESTERTON. [Illustration: FERDINAND THE CHAMELEON "I was a Catholic, but, needing Russian help, I became a Greek Orthodox. Now I need the Austrians, I again become Catholic. Should things turnout badly, I can again revert to Greek Orthodoxy. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE LATIN SISTERS The Latin Sisters! Note carefully the expression of France as contrastedwith that of Italy. France, violated by the Hun, exhibits grimdetermination made sacrosanct by suffering. Italy's face glows withenthusiasm. One can conceive of the one fighting on to avenge hermartyrs, steadfast to the inevitable end when Right triumphs over Might. One can conceive of the other drawing her sword because of the blood tiewhich links them together in a bond that craft and specious lies havetried in vain to sunder. What do they stand for, these two noblesisters? Everything which can be included in the word--ART. Everythingwhich has built up, stone upon stone, the stately temple ofCivilization, everything which has served to humanize mankind and todifferentiate him from the beasts of Prussia. Looking at these two sisters, one wonders that there are still to befound in England mothers who allow their children to be taught German. One hazards the conjecture that it might well be imparted toexceptionally wicked children, if there be any, because none canquestion that the Teutonic tongue will be spoken almost exclusively inthe nethermost deeps of Hades until, and probably after, the Day ofJudgment. For my sins I studied German in Germany, and I rejoice to think that Ihave forgotten nearly every word of that raucous and obscene language. Had I a child to educate, and the choice between German and Choctaw wereforced upon me, I should not select German. French, Italian, andSpanish, cognate tongues, easy to learn, delightful to speak, hold outsweet allurements to English children. Do not these suffice? If anymother who happens to read these lines is considering the propriety ofteaching German to a daughter, let her weigh well the responsibilitywhich she is deliberately assuming. To master any foreign language, itis necessary to talk much and often with the natives. Do Englishwomenwish to talk with any Huns after this war? What will be the feeling ofan English mother whose daughter marries a Hun any time within the nexttwenty years? And such a mother will know that she planted the seedwhich ripened into catastrophe when she permitted her child to acquirethe language of our detestable and detested enemies. HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL. [Illustration: THE LATIN SISTERS ITALY: "Indeed she is my sister"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- MISUNDERSTOOD It need not necessarily be supposed that the directors of Germandestiny, who are not devoid of intelligence, took the ravings ofBernhardi over-seriously. He had his special uses no doubt before theday. But on the morrow of the day, when questions of responsibility cameto be raised, he became one of many inconvenient witnesses; and therehas scarcely been a better joke among the grim humours of thiscatastrophe than the mission of this Redhot-Gospeller of the NewUnchivalry of War to explain to "those idiotic Yankees" that he wasreally an ardent pacifist. The most just, the most brilliant, the mostbitter pamphlet of invective could surely not say so much as thisreeking cleaver, those bloody hands, that fatuous leer and gesture, thisrigid victim. Bernhardism was not a mere windy theory. It was exactlypractised on the Belgian people. And this spare, dignified figure of Uncle Sam, contemptuouslyincredulous, is, I make bold to say, a more representative symbol of theAmerican people than one which our impatience sometimes tempts us now todraw. Most Americans now regret, as Pope Benedict must regret, that thefirst most cruel rape of Belgium was allowed to pass without formalprotest in the name of civilization. But that occasion gone, none other, not the _Lusitania_ even, showed so clear an opportunity. A people'ssentiments are not necessarily expressed by the action of itsGovernment, which moves always in fetters. Nor has President Wilson'stask been as simple as his critics on this or the other side of theAtlantic profess to believe. JOSEPH THORP. [Illustration: MISUNDERSTOOD BERNHARDI: "Indeed I am the most humane fellow in the world. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- PROSPERITY REIGNS IN FLANDERS Wherever Prussia rules she has only one method of ruling--that ofterror. Wherever she finds civilization and the wealth whichcivilization creates, she can do nothing but despoil. She is asincapable of persuasion as of creation. No people forced to endure herrule have ever been won to prefer it as the Alsatians came to prefer therule of France or as many Indians have come to prefer the rule ofEngland. In Belgium she has been especially herself in this respect. A wise policy would have dictated such a careful respect for privaterights and such a deference to native traditions as might conceivablyhave weakened the determination of the Belgians to resist to the deaththose who had violated their national independence. But Prussia isincapable of such a policy. In any territory which she occupies, whethertemporarily or permanently, her only method is terror and her only aimloot. She did indeed send some of her tame Socialists to Brussels toembark on the hopeless enterprise of persuading the Belgian Socialiststhat honour and patriotism were _ideologies bourgeoises_ and that the"economic interests" of Belgium would be best promoted by a submission. These pedantic barbarians got the answer which they deserved; but ontheir pettifogging thesis Raemaekers' cartoon is perhaps the bestcommentary. The "prosperity" of Belgium under Prussian rule has consisted in thesystematic looting, in violation of international law, of the wealthaccumulated by the free citizens of Belgium, for the advantage of theirPrussian rulers; while to the mass of the people it has brought and, until it is forever destroyed, can bring nothing but that slavery whichthe Prussians have themselves accepted and which they would now imposeupon the whole civilization of Europe. CECIL CHESTERTON. [Illustration: PROSPERITY REIGNS IN FLANDERS Four hundred and eighty millions of francs have been imposed as a wartax, but soup is given gratis. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE LAST HOHENZOLLERN Behind him stands the embodiment of all that Prussian kultur andefficiency mean, wooden uninventiveness, clockwork accuracy ofmovement--without soul or inspiration. He himself is thin andscraggy--Raemaekers has intensified these characteristics, but even sothe caricature of the reality is more accurate than unkind. Many monthsago, this vacuous heir of the house of Hohenzollern set to work on thetask of overcoming France, and the result . .. May be found in bundles offour, going back to the incinerators beyond Aix, in the piled corpsesbefore the French positions at and about Verdun; some of the results, the swag of the decadent burglar, went back in sacks from the châteauxthat this despicable thing polluted and robbed as might any Sikes fromPortland or Pentonville. He is the embodiment, himself, of the last phase of Prussian kultur. Somewhere back in the history of Prussia its rulers had to invent and tocreate, and then kultur brought forth hard men; later, it becamepossible to copy, and then kultur brought forth mechanical perfectionrather than creative perfection, systematized its theories of life andwork, and brought into being a class of men just a little meaner, morerigid, more automaton-like, than the original class; having reduced lifeto one system, and that without soul or ideal, kultur brought forthtypes lacking more and more in originality. Here stands the culminatingtype; he will copy the good German Gott--he is incapable of originatinganything--and will "do the same to France. " As far as lies in his power, he has done it; in the day of reckoning, Germany will judge how he has done it, and it is to be hoped thatGermany will give him his just reward, for no punishment could be morefitting. The rest of the world already knows his vacuity, his utteruselessness, his criminal decadence. As his father was stripped of theGarter, so is he here shown stripped of the attributes to which, inearlier days, he made false claim. There remains a foolish knaveposturing--and that is the real Crown Prince of Germany. E. CHARLES VIVIAN. [Illustration: GOTT STRAFE ENGLAND! "Father says I have to do the same with France. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- PIRACY In the summer of 1914 Germany stood before the world, a nation ofimmense, and to a great extent of most honourable, achievement. Hermilitary greatness had never been in dispute. But in the previous twentyyears she had developed an internal industry and an external commerce ona scale and with a rapidity entirely unprecedented. She had to build anavy such as no nation had ever constructed in so short a time. Sheseemed destined to progress in the immediate future as she hadprogressed in the immediate past. What has the madness for world conquest done for her now? She has madeenemies of all, and made all her enemies suffer. Like the strong blindman of history, she has seized the columns of civilization and broughtthe whole temple down. But has she not destroyed herself utterly amidthe ruins? Her industry is paralyzed, her commerce gone. Her navy isdishonoured. Some force she still possesses at sea, but it is force tobe expended on sea piracy alone. And it is not piracy that can save her. At most, in her extremity, it will do for her what a life belt does fora lone figure in a deserted ocean. It prolongs the agony that precedesinevitable extinction. It is the throw of the desperate gambler thatGermany has made, when she flings this last vestige of her honour intothe sea. ARTHUR POLLEN. [Illustration: TIRPITZ'S LAST HOPE--PIRACY] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- WEEPING, SHE HATH WEPT While a world of mourners is plaintively asking, "What has become of ourbrave dead, where are they? Alas! how dark is the world without them, how silent the home, how sad the heart"; whilst the mourner is gropinglike the blind woman for her lost treasure, the Belgian mother, and theBelgian widow, and the Belgian orphan are on their knees, praying, "Eternal rest give to them, O Lord; let a perpetual light shine uponthem, " the Christian plea that has echoed down the ages from the day ofthe Maccabees till now, exhorting us to pray for the dead that they maybe loosed from their sins. I would remind the broken-hearted motherbeseeching me to tell her where can her brave boy be gone, adding, "Hiswas such a lonely journey; did he find his way to God?" of the words ofthe poet, who finds his answer to her question in the flight of a seabird sailing sunward from the winter snows: There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along the pathless coast, The desert and illimitable air, Lone, wandering but not lost: He who from zone to zone Guides, through the boundless sky, thy certain flight, In the lone way which thou must tread alone Will lead thy steps aright. The brave soldier, who in the discharge of high duty has been suddenlyshot into eternity by the fire of the enemy, will surely, far moreeasily than the migrating bird, wing his flight to God, Who, let uspray, will not long withhold him the happy-making vision of Heaven. Pilgrims homeward-bound, as you readily understand, at different stagesof their journey will picture Heaven to themselves differently, according as light or darkness, joy or sorrow encompass them. Some willpicture Heaven as the Everlasting Holiday after the drudgery of schoollife, others as Eternal Happiness after a life of suffering and sorrow, others again as Home after exile, and some others as never-endingRapture in the sight of God. But to-day, when " frightfulness" is the creed of the enemy, and warfarewith atrocities is his gospel, very many amongst us, weary with thelong-drawn battle, sick with its ever-recurring horrors, and broken byits ghastly revelations, will lift up their eyes to a land beyond thestars. FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN. [Illustration: THE WIDOWS OF BELGIUM] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- MILITARY NECESSITY It may be asserted that the plea of "Frightfulness" will not berecognized a "military necessity" when Germany is judged, and that thisenemy of civilization, even as the enemy of society, will be heldresponsible for its crimes, though they stand as far above theimagination as beyond the power of a common felon. Bill Sikes may justlyclaim "military necessity" for his thefts and murders, if Germany can doso for hers. Under Article No. 46 of the Regulations of The Hague, we learn that"Family honour and rights, individual life and private property must berespected, " and, under Article No. 47, "all pillage is expresslyforbidden. " But while it was a political necessity to subscribe to thatfundamental formula of civilization, Germany's heart recognized no realneed to do so, and secretly, in cold blood, at the inspiration of hereducated and well-born rulers, she plotted the details of a campaign ofmurder, rape, arson, and pillage, which demanded the breaking of heroath as its preliminary. Well might her Chancellor laugh at "the scrapof paper, " which stood between Germany and Belgium, when he reflected onthe long list of sacred assurances his perjured country had alreadyplanned to break. No viler series of events, in Northern France alone, can be cited thanthose extracted from the note-books of captured and fallen Germans. Suchblood-stained pages must be a tithe of those that returned to Germany, but they furnish a full story of what the rank and file accomplished atthe instigation and example of their officers. Space precludesquotation; but one may refer the reader to "Germany's Violations of theLaws of War, "[A] published under the auspices of the French ForeignOffice. It is a book that should be on the tables at the PeaceConference. We cannot hang an army for these unspeakable offences, or treat thosewho burn a village of living beings as we would treat one who made abonfire of his fellow-man; nor can we condemn to penal servitude a wholenation for bestial outrages on humanity, ordered by its Higher Commandand executed by its troops; but at least we may hope soon to find theoffending Empire under police supervision of Europe, with aticket-of-leave, whose conditions shall be as strict as an outragedearth knows how to draw them. EDEN PHILLPOTTS. [Footnote A: English translation. Heinemann. ] [Illustration: ON TICKET-OF-LEAVE CONVICT: "The next time I'll wear a German helmet and plead 'militarynecessity. '"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LIBERTÉ! LIBERTÉ, CHÉRIE! There have been many surprises in this war. The evil surprises, patiently, scientifically, diabolically matured in the dark for theupsetting and downcasting of a too-trusting world by the enemy ofmankind, whose "Teuton-faith" will surely forever outrival that"Punic-faith" which has hitherto been the by-word for perfidioustreachery. The heartening surprises of gallant little Belgium andSerbia; the renascence of Russia; the wonderful upleap to the needs ofthe times by Great, and still more by Greater Britain; and, not least, the bracing of the loins of our closest Allies just across the water. In the very beginning, when the Huns tore up that scrap of paper whichrepresented their honour and their right to a place among decentdwellers on the earth, and came sweeping like a dirty flood over Belgiumand Northern France, the overpowering remembrance of 1870 still layheavy on our sorely-tried neighbours. They had not yet quite foundthemselves. The Huns had a mighty reputation for invincibility. Itseemed impossible to stand against them. There were waverings, evencrumplings. There were said to be treacheries in high places. The black flood swept on. Von Kluck was heading for Paris, and seemedlikely to get there. Then suddenly, miraculously as it seemed, hiscourse was diverted. He was tossed aside and flung back. And it is good to recall the reason he himself is said to have given forhis failure. "At Mons the British taught the French how to die. " That is a great saying and worthy of preservation for all time. WhetherVon Kluck said it or not does not matter. It represents and immortalizesa mighty fact. France was bending under the terrible impact. Britain stood and died. France braced her loins and they have been splendidly braced ever since. The Huns were found to be resistible, vulnerable, breakable. The oldverve and élan came back with all the old fire, and along with these, new depths of grim courage and tenacity, and, we are told, ofspirituality, which may be the making of a new France greater than theworld has ever known. And that we shall welcome. France, Belgium, Serbia, Russia have sufferedin ways we but faintly comprehend on this side of the water. When theGreat Settling Day conies, this new higher spirit of France will, it isto be devoutly hoped, make for restraint in the universal craving forvengeance, and prove a weighty factor in the righteous re-adjustment ofthings and the proper fitting together of the jig-saw map of Europe. JOHN OXENHAM. [Illustration: LIBERTÉ! LIBERTÉ, CHÉRIE!] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I--"A KNAVISH PIECE OF WORK" There can be no defence of the spirit of hatred in which the Germanshave, so fatally for their future, carried on this amazing mad war oftheirs, in violation of all human instincts of self-respect andself-preservation, to say nothing of the obligations of religion andmorality observed among mankind from the first dawnings of civilization. The knavery, the villainy, and the besotted bestiality of it can neverbe forgotten, and must never be forgiven, and Louis Raemaekers, giftedas he is with the rare dramatic genius that discriminates his Cartoons, has but discharged an obvious patriotic duty in publishing them to theworld at large, as true and faithful witnesses to the unspeakable andinexpiable abominations wrought throughout Belgium and French Flandersby the Germans--which, already, in the course of Divine retribution, have involved their own country in material losses it will take fromthree to four generations to repair; and their once honoured name incontempt, and reprobation, and infamy, wherefrom it can never beredeemed. Nevertheless, as an Englishman, I shrink from giving any emphasis theremay be in my "hand and signature" to these righteously condemnatory andwithering cartoons; and because, each one of them, as I turn to it, brings more and more crushingly home to me the transcending sin ofEngland--of every individual Englishman with a vote for Members ofParliament--in not having prepared for this war; a sin that hasimplicated us in the destruction of the whole rising generation of theflower of our manhood; and, before this date, would have brought usunder subjection to Germany but for the confidence placed by the rankand file of the British people and nation in Lord Kitchener of Khartum. Now--face to face with enemies--from the Kaiser downward to his humblestsubjects--animated by the highest, noblest ideals, but again pervertedfor a time--as in the case of their ancestors in the Middle Ages--by asecular epidemic of "Panmania, " they are to be faced not with idlereproaches and revilings, still less with undignified taunts and gibes, but with close-drawn lips and clenched teeth, in the determination that, once having cast Satan out of them, he shall be bound down to keep thepeace of Christendom--"for a thousand years. " GEORGE BIRDWOOD. [Illustration: WE'LL GIVE YOU THE TITLE OF MPRET OF POLAND The new Governor has had the title of Mpret given to him, the same thatwas given to the ill-starred Prince of Wied when made ruler of Albaniain 1914. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- II--"SISYPHUS, --HIS STONE" Sisyphus, as the story goes, was a King who widely extended thecommerce, and largely increased the wealth, of Corinth, but byavaricious and fraudful ways; for the sin whereof he was sentenced afterdeath to the unresting labour of rolling up a hill in Tartarus, a hugeunhewn block of stone, which so soon as he gets it to the hill top, forall his efforts, rolls down again. In classical representation of thescene he is associated with Tantalus and Ixion; Tantalus, who, presumingtoo much on his relations with Zeus, was after death afflicted with anunquenchable thirst amidst flowing fountains and pellucid lakes--likethe lakes of "The Thirst of the Antelope" in the marvellous mirages ofRajputana and Mesopotamia--that ever elude his anguished approaches; andwith Ixion, the meanest and basest of cheats, and most demoniac ofmurderers, whose posthumous punishment was in being stretched, andbroken, and bound, in the figure of the svastika, on a wheel which, self-moved--like the wheels of the vision of Ezekiel--whirls forevermoreround and round the abyss of the nether world. The moral of thesetortures is that we may well and most wisely leave vengeance to "thehigh Gods. " They will repay! GEORGE BIRDWOOD. [Illustration: SISYPHUS] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CONCRETE FOUNDATIONS Nothing has damned the Germans more in the eyes of other nations, belligerent and neutral alike, and nothing will have a more subtle andlasting influence on future relations, than the revelation of stealthypreparation for conquest under a mask of innocent and friendlyintercourse. The whole process of "peaceful penetration, " pursued in athousand ways with infernal ingenuity and relentless determination, isan exhibition of systematic treachery such as all the Macchiavellis havenever conceived. Germany has revealed herself as a nation of spies andassassins. To take advantage of a neighbour's unsuspecting hospitality, to enter his house with an air of open friendship, in order to stab himin the back at a convenient moment, is an act of the basest treachery, denounced by all mankind in all ages. No one would be more shocked by itin private life than the Germans themselves. But when it is undertakenmethodically on a national scale under the influence of _Deutschlandüber Alles_, the same conduct becomes ennobled in their eyes, they throwthemselves into it with enthusiasm and lose all sense of honour. Such isthe moral perversion worked by Kultur and the German theory of theState. An inevitable consequence is that in future the movements andproceedings of Germans in other countries will be watched with intensesuspicion, and if Governments do not prevent the sort of thing depictedby Mr. Raemaekers the people will see to it themselves. The cartoon isnot, of course, intended to reflect personally on the owner of Krupp'sworks, who is said to be a gentle-minded and blameless lady. It is hermisfortune to be associated by the chance of inheritance with the Germanwar machine and one of the underhand methods by which it has pursued itsaims. A. SHADWELL. [Illustration: ON CONCRETE FOUNDATIONSBIG BERTHA: "What a charming view over Flushing harbour! May I build avilla here?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- PALLAS ATHENE "Has it come to this?" Well may the Goddess ask this question. Times areindeed changed since the heroic days. Germany has still her great Greekscholars, one or two of them among the greatest living, men who know, and can feel, the spirit, as well as the letter, of the old Classics. Dothey remember to-day what the relation of the Goddess of Wisdom was tothe God of War, in Homer, when, to use the Latin names which are perhapsmore familiar, to the general reader than the Greek, Mars "indulged inlawless rage, " and Jove sent Juno and Minerva to check his"frightfulness?" "Go! and the great Minerva be thine aid; To tame the monster-god Minerva knows, And oft afflicts his brutal breast with woes. " and how the hero Diomede, with Minerva's aid, wounded the divine bullyand sent him bellowing and whimpering back, only to hear from his fatherthe just rebuke: "To me, perfidious! this lamenting strain? Of lawless force shall lawless Mars complain? Of all the gods who tread the spangled skies, Thou most unjust, most odious in our eyes! Inhuman discord is thy dear delight, The waste of slaughter, and the rage of fight!" It is most true. Such has ever been War for War's sake, and when theGermans themselves are wounded and beaten, they complain like Mars ofold of "lawless force. " But Raemaekers has introduced another touch more Roman than Greek, andreminding us perhaps of Tacitus rather than of Homer. Who was Caligula, and what does his name mean? "Little Jack-boots, " inhis childhood the spoiled child of the camp, as a man, and Cæsar, thefirst of the thoroughly mad, as well as bad, Emperors of Rome, the firstto claim divine honours in his lifetime, to pose as an artist and anarchitect, an orator and a _littérateur_, to have executions carried outunder his own eyes, and while he was at meals; who made himself a God, and his horse a Consul. Minerva blacking the boots of Caligula--it is a clever combination! But there is an even worse use of Pallas, which War and the GermanWar-lords have made. They have found a new Pallas of their own, not thesupernal Goddess of Heavenly Wisdom and Moderation, but her infernalcounterfeit, sung of by a famous English poet in prophetic lines thatcome back to us to-day with new force. Who loves not Knowledge, who shall rail Against her beauty, may she mix With men and prosper, who shall fix Her pillars? let her work prevail---- Yes, but how do the lines continue? What is she cut from love and faith But some wild Pallas from the brain Of Demons, fiery hot to burst All barriers in her onward race For power? Let her know her place, She is the second, not the first. Knowledge is power, but, unrestrained by conscience, a very awful power. This is the Pallas whom the "Demons, " from whose brain she has sprung, are using for their demoniac purposes. She too might have her portraitpainted--and they. Perhaps Raemaekers will paint them both before he hasdone. HERBERT WARNER. [Illustration: PALLAS ATHENE "Has it come to this?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE WONDERS OF CULTURE Of all forms of "Kultur" or "frightfulness" that which materializes inthe "the terror which flieth by night" is to the intelligent mind at oneand the same time the most insensate and damnable. It fails toaccomplish, either in Paris or in London, the subjugation by terror ofthe people for which Germans seem to hope. It is only in Germanimagination that it accomplishes "material and satisfactory damage toforts, camps, arsenals, and fortified towns. " In reality it inflictsmisery and death upon a mere handful of people (horrible as that may be)and destroys chiefly the homes of the poor. It serves no military end, and the damage done is out of all proportion to the expenditure ofenergy and material used to accomplish it. The fine cartoon which Raemaekers has drawn to bring home to theimagination what this form of "Kultur" stands for makes it easy for usin London to sympathize with our brothers and sisters in Paris. We haveas yet been spared daylight raids in the Metropolitan area, and so weneeded this cartoon to enable us to realize fully what "Kultur" byindiscriminate Zeppelin bombs means. Who cannot see the cruel drama played out in that Paris street? Theartist has assembled for us in a few living figures all the actors. Thedead woman; the orphaned child, as yet scarcely realizing her loss; thebereaved workman, calling down the vengeance of Heaven upon themurderers from the air; the stern faces of the _sergents de ville_, evidently feeling keenly their impotence to protect; and in thebackground other _sergents_, the lines of whose bent backs convey in amarvellous manner and with a touch of real genius the impression oftender solicitude for the injured they are tending. And faintlyindicated, further still in the background, the crowd that differslittle, whether it be French or English, in its deeper emotions. CLIVE HOLLAND. [Illustration: THE WONDERS OF CULTURE] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "FOLK WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND THEM" How often have I been asked by sorrow-stricken mothers and wives: "Whydoes not Providence intervene either to stop this war, or at least tocheck its cruelties and horrors?" If for many amongst us not yetbereaved this European massacre is a puzzle, it should not cause usdismay or surprise, if the widow or son-bereaved mother lifts up herhands exclaiming: "Why did not God save him? Why did He let him be shotdown by those Huns?" Truth to tell, God has, so to speak, tied up His own hands in settingours free. When He placed the human race upon the surface of this planetHe dowered them with freedom, giving to each man self-determining force, by the exercise of which he was to become better than a man or worsethan a beast. Good and evil, like wheat and cockle, grow together, inthe same field. The winnowing is at harvest-time, not before. Meanwhile, we ourselves have lived to see the fairest portions of this faircreation of God changed from a garden into a desert--pillaged, ravaged, and brought to utter ruin by shot and shell, sword and fire. When I havesaid this, I have but uttered a foreword to the hideous story, spokenthe prologue only of the "frightful" tragedy. We are all familiar withat least some of the revolting facts and details with which the Germansoldiery has been found charged and convicted by Commissions appointedto investigate the crimes and atrocities adduced against them. Theverdicts of French, Belgian, and English tribunals are unanimous. Theyall agree that Germany has been caught redhanded in her work of dyeingthe map of Europe red with innocent blood. When you bend your eyes to the pathetic cartoon standing opposite thisletterpress, is there not brought home to you in a way, touching even totears, the "frightful" consequences of the misuse of human powers, moreespecially of the attribute of freedom? If Germany had chosen to use, instead of brute force, moral force, what a great, grand, and gloriousmission might have been hers to-day. If, instead of trying theimpossible task of dominating the whole world with her iron hand uponits throat and her iron heel upon its foot, she had been satisfied withthe portion of the map already belonging to her, and had not byprocesses of bureaucratic tyranny driven away millions of her subjectswho preferred liberty to slavery, America to Germany, by this date shemight have consolidated an Empire second in the world to none but one. Alas! in her over-reaching arrogance she has, on the contrary, set outto de-Christianize, de-civilize, and even de-humanize the race for whichChrist lived and died. Our high mission it is to try to save her from herself. Already I canread written in letters of blood carved into the gravestone of hercorrupted greatness, "Ill-weaved ambition, How much art thou shrunk!" BERNARD VAUGHAN. [Illustration: LES BEAUTES DE LA GUERRE Folk who do not understand them. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ON THE WAY TO CALAIS They are coming, like a tempest, in their endless ranks of gray, While the world throws up a cloud of dust upon their awful way;They're the glorious cannon fodder of the mighty Fatherland, Born to make the kingdoms tremble and the nations understand. Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! the cannon fodder come Along their way to Calais, (God help the hearth and home) They'll do his will who taught them, on the earth and on the waves, Till land and sea are festering with their unnumbered graves. The garrison and barrack and the fortress give them vent;They sweep, a herd of winter wolves, upon the flying scent;For all their deeds of horror they are told that death atones, And their master's harvest cannot spring till he has sowed their bones. Into beasts of prey he's turned them; when they show their teeth and growl. The lash is buried in their cheeks; they're slaughtered if they howl; To their bloody Lord of Battles must they only bend the knee, For hard as steel and fierce as hell should cannon fodder be. Scourge and curses are their portion, pain and hunger without end, Till they hail the yell of shrapnel as the welcome of a friend;They drink and burn and rape and laugh to hear the women cry, And do the devil's work to-day, but on the morrow die. Drift! Drift! Drift! the cannon fodder go Upon their way to Calais, (God feed the carrion crow. ) They've done his will who taught them that the Germans shall be slaves, Till land and sea are festering with their unnumbered graves. EDEN PHILLPOTTS. [Illustration: THE YSER. "We are on our way to Calais. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- VON BETHMANN-HOLLWEG AND TRUTH _"Incorrupta Fides, nudaque Veritas"_ HORACE "Good Faith unstained, and Truth all-unadorned" _Nuda veritas_: it was Horace who in a famous Ode first presented thefigure of Truth thus. And whom did he make her companions and sisters?They were three, and their names were "Modesty, " "Fair Dealing, " and"Good Faith. " The four sisters do indeed go together in a quadruplealliance and _entente_, and when one is flouted or estranged, the othersare alienated and become enemies too. The Germans were believed to be--some few still believe them to be--a"truth-loving nation. " They had a passion, we were told, for truth, foraccuracy, for scientific exactness. Theirs might be a blunt and brutalfrankness, but they were at least downright and truthful. Well, they first flouted Modesty--they bragged and blustered, bluffedand "bounded. " They could not keep it up. They had to act. Fair Dealingwent by the board. Then Good Faith became impossible, for, as this veryvon Bethmann-Hollweg declared, "Necessity knew no law. " Now they haveforsaken Truth. They must deceive their own people. The "lie" hasentered into their soul. Never was so systematic a use made offalsehoods small and great. But Truth expelled is not powerless. Naked, she is still not weaponless. She has her little "periscope, " her magic mirror, which shows the liarhimself, as well as the world, what he is like. And she has anotherweapon, as those who know their "Paradise Lost" will remember: "Bright Ithuriel's lance Truth kindling truth where'er it glance" It is not shown here, for it is invisible, but none the less potent. With it Truth can indeed "shame the devil. " She not only shows what theliar is like outside, but reveals his inner hideousness, and actualshape, for all to see. There are many sayings about Truth, and they are all awkward for theliar. "Truth will out, " said a witty English judge, "even in anaffidavit. " It will out, even in a German Chancellor's _démenti_. The most famous is "_Magna est veritas et prævalet_" "Great is Truth and she prevails, " in the end. Yes, "She is on the path, and nothing will stop her. " She started on thehills of the little but free republic of Switzerland; she is slowlytraversing the plains of the vast free republic of America. Her lastcontest will be over the Germans themselves. HERBERT WARREN. [Illustration: VON BETHMANN-HOLLWEG AND TRUTH "Truth is on the path and nothing will stay her. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- VAN TROMP AND DE RUYTER A generation ago a little clique of wise men at Oxford patted themselveson the back for having discovered "The Historical Method. " But thecommon people of all countries have always known it. The names of thegreat dead are not forgotten, nor yet the great things for which theystood. There may be no strict liturgy for the ancestor worship of theWest, but that worship is a simple fact, and it is a thing that timorouspoliticians would do well to remember. Here Raemaekers appeals to hiscountrymen to regard their past, to be worthy of the great seamen whotook the Dutch fleet up the Medway, and lashed brooms to the mast-headof the ships that swept the sea clear of British enemies. The Dutch were fighting for their liberty then. Great Britain isfighting for liberty in Europe to-day--and for Dutch liberty to boot. The enemy of all liberty uses Holland as a short cut whereby her piratesof the air can get more quickly to their murder work in England. Wouldthe hero ancestors, of whom the Dutch so boast, have tolerated thisindignity? The artist seer supplies the answer. Note the mixture of the ghostly and the real in this vivid and vivaciousdrawing. But if it is easy to see through the faint outlines of thesailor spirits, it is easier for these gallant ghosts to see through theunrealities of their descendants' fears and hesitations. The anger ofthe heroes is plainly too great for words. How compressed the lips! Howtense the attitude! The hands gripped in the angriest sort ofimpatience! Mark the subtle mingling of seaman and burgher in the poiseand figures. Mark particularly Van Tromp's stiffened forefinger on hisstaff. Is the fate of L19 the fruit of our artist's stinging reminder thatHolland once had nobler spirits and braver days? ARTHUR POLLEN. [Illustration: VAN TROMP AND DE RUYTER "So long as you permit Zeppelins to cross our land you surely shouldcease to boast of our deeds. " Whenever a Dutchman wishes to speak of the great past of his country hecalls to mind the names of these heroes. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- WAR AND CHRIST The deliberate war made by Prussia in all those areas which she canreach or occupy against the symbols and sacred objects of the Christianfaith is a phenomenon in every way worthy of consideration. It isclearly not a matter of accident. The bombardment at Rheims Cathedral, for example, can be proved to have been deliberate. It had no militaryobject; and the subsequent attempts to manufacture a military reason forit only produced a version of the occurrence not only incredible but inflat contradiction to the original admissions of the Germans themselves. But such episodes as those of Rheims and Louvain merely attract theattention of the world because of the celebrity of the outraged shrines. All who are familiar with the facts know that deliberate sacrilege noless than deliberate rape and deliberate murder has everywhere markedthe track of the German army. The offence has been malignant. That does not, of course, mean that ithas been irrational; quite the contrary. One fully admits that Prussia, being what she is, has every cause to hate the Cross, and every motiveto vent the agonized fury of a lost soul upon things sacred to the Godshe hates. The moral suggested by this cartoon of Raemaekers' must not be confusedwith the ridiculous and unhistoric pretence that war itself isessentially unchristian. When Mr. Bernard Shaw, if I remember right, drew from the affair of Rheims the astonishing moral that we cannot haveat the same time "glorious wars and glorious cathedrals, " he mightsurely have remembered that the age in which Rheims Cathedral was built, whatever else it was, was not an age of Pacifism. The insult to JesusChrist is not in the sword (which in His own words He came to bring), but in the profanation of the sword. It is in cruelty, injustice, treachery, unbridled lust, the worship of unrighteous strength--in fact, in all that can be summed up in the single word "Prussia. " CECIL CHESTERTON. [Illustration: WAR AND CHRIST] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BARBED WIRE Save for the spiked helmets, the gruesome figures in the foreground ofthis cartoon might have belonged in life to any one of the warringnationalities. It is a noteworthy fact, however, that not one of thenations at war has shown so little care for its dead as Germany, whosecorpses lie and rot on every front on which they are engaged. The world cannot blame Germany for the introduction of barbed wire as anaccessory of war, though it is well known that German wire surpasses anyother in sheer devilish ingenuity; not that it is more effective as anentanglement, but its barbs are longer, and are set more closelytogether, than in the wire used by other nationalities; it is, in short, more frightful, and thus is in keeping with the rest of the accessoriesof the German war machine. But this in the cartoon is normal barbed wire, with its normal burden. One may question whether the All-Highest War Lord, who in the course ofhis many inspections of the various fronts must have seen sights likethis, is ever troubled by the thought that these, his men, lie and hangthus for his pleasure, that their ghastly fate is a part of his gloriousplan. He set out to remake the world, and here is one of the manyresults--broken corpses in the waste. Part of the plan, broken corpses in the waste. By the waste and thecorpses that he made shall men remember the author and framer of thisgreatest war. E. CHARLES VIVIAN. [Illustration: BARBED WIRE] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE HIGHER POLITICS There is a significance in this cartoon which I believe will appeal muchmore strongly to the firing line than to Home. The Front distrustspolitics, and especially the higher politics. That means the jugglingand wire-pulling of the Chancelleries, and the Front has an uneasyconviction that at the subtleties and craftiness and cunning of thediplomatic game we cannot compete with "The Bosche. " Hard knocks andstraight fighting the Front does understand, and at that game arecheerfully confident of winning in the long run. It would be bitter news to the fighting men that any peace had beenpatched up on any terms but those the Allies soon or late will be in aposition to dictate, to lay down and say flatly, "Take them and havePeace; or leave them and go on getting licked. " The Front doesn't likeWar. No man who has endured the horrors and savagery and "blood, mud, and misery" of civilized warfare could pretend to like it. No man whohas endured the long-drawn misery of manning the waterlogged trenchesfor days and weeks and months can look forward with anything butapprehension to another winter of war. No man who has attacked acrossthe inferno of the shell-and-bullet-swept "neutral ground, " or has hungon with tight-clenched teeth to the battered ruins of the forward firetrench under a murderous rain of machine-gun and rifle bullets, ahowling tempest of shells, an earth-shaking tornado of high explosives, can but long for the day when Peace will be declared and these horrorswill be no more than a past nightmare. But the Front will "stick it" for another winter or several winters, will go through many bitter attacks and counter-attacks to win thecomplete victory that will ensure, and alone will ensure, lasting peace. We know our limitations and our weaknesses. We admit that, as theAmerican journalist bluntly put it, we are "poor starters, " but we knowjust as surely he was right in completing the phrase, "but darn goodfinishers. " Let the "higher politicians" on our side stand down andleave the fighting men to finish the argument. Let them keep the ringclear, and let the Front fight it out. The Front doesn't mind "takingthe responsibility, " and it will give "Kaiser Bill" and "Little Willie"all the responsibilities they can handle before the Great Game is over. BOYD CABLE. [Illustration: THE HIGHER POLITICS THE KAISER "We will propose peace terms; if they accept them, we are thegainers, if they refuse them, the responsibility will rest with them. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE LOAN GAME Raemaekers is pitiless, but never oversteps the truth. National Debtsare ever national millstones, worn around the neck. They are wornunwillingly, and they are not ornamental; they are a burden, and theweight is sometimes crushing. A prospect of that sort seems to be thelot of several of the "Great Powers" of Europe for the remainder, andthe greater portion, of the Twentieth Century. Though German"civilization" were more worthy of such a term and its associations asKultur ten times over, would it become any Potentate and his advisers toimpose it on so many countries at such a cost in suffering as allthis--and more? But Kaiser Wilhelm and his crew of State-at-any-price men impose not onother peoples only: they impose on their own kith and kin. Look at thesethree sad and apprehensive figures playing the Loan Game--the first, thesecond, the third Loan! Children, says the artist, passing the coin fromone hand to another's, and getting richer at each pass!! Yes, children, the German people treated so by a few dominies. State dominies and theDirector (or dupe!) at Berlin! No people gains, every people loses byincurring a Debt; but in Germany, and to-day! to incur an indebtedness, contract a loss, does not suffice; the people must not know it. Even the children know that coin has not left them richer: many, verymany Germans know the Kultur War to be ruinous: but Berlin must play theGame still, and assume that the tricks and aims cannot be understood! Itis lack of regard for other nations carried into German Finance; and allbecause the bureaucratic military heart is a stone. The piling up ofState paper goes on, but not merrily, as Michael goes from Darlehnkasseto Reichsbank, one, two, three (and is about to go the fourth time!). This game of processions to the Kasse does not increase the availablewealth within beleaguered Germany: and the 100-mark Note has noreference to material wealth securing it. Now, the Commercial magnates of Germany realize the crushing fact--Noindemnity possible!! and what of the Notes which are held? When shadesof night fall heavily, and the Loan Game can be played no more, will theGerman people, tricked and impoverished, go to bed supperless andsilent? German finance IS "a scrap of paper. " W. M. J. WILLIAMS. [Illustration: WE DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS LOAN GAME In Germany there is a game by which children passing a coin from one toanother are supposed to but do not get richer. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A WAR OF RAPINE True, O Liebknecht, it is indeed a war of rapine, engendered, planned, and brought about by the nation to which you belong. Yet, foul as isthat nation, its foulness is not greater than your futility, by whichyou show up the strength of that which you oppose with as much effect asour own Snowden and Casement can claim for their efforts to arrest thework of the Allies. Men who claim British birth claim also the quality of loyalty, as arule, and thus there can be little sympathy with such a one as thisLiebknecht, whom Raemaekers shows as a little ascetic in the presence ofthe sombre War Lord. It is part of the plan of Nature that every countryshall breed men like this: men who are constitutionally opposed to thecurrent of affairs, ridiculously futile, blatantly noisy, the type ofwhich extreme Socialists and Syndicalists are made. Possessed of acertain obstinacy which is almost akin to courage, they accomplishnothing, save to remain in the public eye. Such is Liebknecht, apostle of a creed that would save the world by thegospel of mediocrity, were human nature other than it is. But, inconsidering this Liebknecht, let us not forget that he has no more lovefor England, or for any of the Allies, than the giant whom he attemptsso vainly to oppose: he is an apostle, not of peace, but of mereobstruction, perhaps well-meaning in his way, but as futile as the CrownPrince, and as ludicrous. E. CHARLES VIVIAN. [Illustration: LUTHER-LIEBKNECHT IN THE REICHSTAG "It is a war of rapine! On that I take my stand. I cannot do otherwise. "Liebknecht was the one member who protested against the war. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE DUTCH JUNKERS Some of these drawings remind us that the great cartoonist's message wasprimarily delivered to his own countrymen. They explain why he wasaccused, but not convicted, of endangering the neutrality of theNetherlands. He presents the German monster as a menace to all freedom, and not least to the freedom of the Dutch people. Germany's allies havesold theirs; they are harnessed to the Prussian war chariot, and mustdrag it whither the driver bids them, whip in hand. The nations in armsagainst Germany are fighting for their own and each other's freedom; andthe neutrals stand looking anxiously on. Raemaekers warns them thattheir freedom too is at stake. He sees that it will disappear if theAllies fail in the struggle, and he shows his countrymen what they mayexpect. In every country there are some ignoble souls who would rather embraceservitude than fight for freedom. They have a conscientious objectionto--danger. How far the Dutch Junkers deserve Raemaekers' satire it isnot for foreigners to judge. But we know the type he depicts--thesporting "nuts, " with their careful get-up, effeminate paraphernalia, and vacuous countenances. So long as they can wear a sporting costumeand carry a gun they are prepared to take a menial place under aPrussian over-lord and submit with a feeble fatalism to the loss ofnational independence. It is light satire in keeping with the subject, and it provides a relief to the sombre tragedy which is the artist'sprevailing mood. A. SHADWELL. [Illustration: THE DUTCH JUNKERS "At least we shall get posts as gamekeepers when Germany takes us afterthe war. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE WAR MAKERS _Who are the Makers of Wars?_ The Kings of the Earth. _And who are these Kings of the Earth?_ Only men--not always even men of worth, But claiming rule by right of birth. _And Wisdom?--does that come by birth?_ Nay then--too often the reverse. Wise father oft has son perverse, Solomon's son was Israel's curse. _Why suffer things to reason so averse?_ It always has been so, And only now does knowledge grow To that high point where all men know-- Who would be free must strike the blow. _And how long will man suffer so?_ Until his soul of Freedom sings, And, strengthened by his sufferings, He breaks the worn-out leading-strings, And calls to stricter reckonings Those costliest things--unworthy Kings. Here you have them!--Pilloried for all time! And what a crew! These pitiful self-seekers and their dupes! Not the least amazing phenomenon of these most amazing times is the factthat millions of men should consent to be hurled to certain death, andto permit the ruin of their countries, to satisfy the insensateambitions of rulers, who, when all is said and done, are but men, and insome cases even of alien birth and personally not specially beloved bythem. Surely one outcome of this world-war will be the birth of a newdetermination in every nation that its own voice and its own will shallcontrol its own destinies--that no one man or self-appointed cliqueshall swing it to ruin for his or their own selfish purposes. Who paysthe piper must in future call the tune. "The world has suffered much too long. O wonder of the ages-- O marvel of all time-- This wonderful great patience of the peoples! How long, O Lord, how long?" The answer cannot come too soon for the good of the world. JOHN OXENHAM. [Illustration: VOX POPULI SUPREMA LEX The Kaiser: "Don't bother about your people, Tino. People only have toapplaud what we say. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CHRISTMAS OF KULTUR, A. D. 1915 Mary, worn with grief and fear, covers her emaciated face with scarredhands, as she kneels in prayer before the infant Jesus. Joseph, grownold and feeble, nails up a barricade of planks to strengthen the dooragainst the missiles of Kultur already bursting through it andthreatening the sleeping child. So in that first Christmas, nineteencenturies ago, he saved Mary's child from the baby-massacre ordered byHerod to preserve his own throne. Kultur, the gathered wisdom of the ages, has brought us back to the sameHoly War. What a Christmas! What a Festival of Peace and goodwilltowards men! People ask: Why does God allow it? Is God dead? Foolish questions. WhenI was at school I had the good fortune to be under a great teacher whosename is honoured to-day. He used to tell us that the most terrible versein the Bible was: "So He gave them up unto their own hearts' lust andthey walked in their own counsels" (Ps. Lxxxi, 13). Man has the knowledge of good and evil; he has eaten of the tree andinsists on going his own way. He knows best. Is not this the age ofscience and Kultur? We must not cry out if the road we have chosen leadsto disaster. Yet still the Child of Christmas lives and a divine light shines roundHis head. He sleeps. A. SHADWELL. [Illustration: CHRISTMAS EVE JOSEPH: "The Holy War is at the door!"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SERBIA Genius has set forth the most brutal characteristic of the Hun. Inmoments of triumph, invariably he is the bully, and, as invariably, hewallows in brutality--witness Belgium under his iron heel and, in thiscartoon, stricken Serbia impotent to ward off the blow about to be dealtby a monstrous fist. That is the Teuton conception of War, Merry War(_Lustige Krieg_)! In the English prize-ring we have an axiom indeliblyimpressed upon novices--"Follow up one stout blow withanother--_quick_!" That, also, is the consummate art of war. But when aman is knocked out we don't savage him as he lies senseless at our feet. The Hun does. His axiom is--"As you are strong, be merciless!" In the small pig-eyes, in the gross, sensual lips, the mandril-like jaw, the misshapen ear, I see not merely a lifelike portrait of a Hun but acomposite photograph of all Huns, something which should hang in everyhouse in the kingdom until the terms of such a peace have been imposedwhich will make the shambles in Belgium, Poland, and Serbia an eternalnightmare of the past, never to be repeated in the future. And over theanæmic hearts of the Trevelyans, the Ramsay MacDonalds, the ArthurPonsonbys, who dare to prattle of a peace that shall not humiliateGermany, I would have this cartoon tattooed, not in indigo, but invermilion. If Ulysses Grant exacted from the gallant Robert Lee "UnconditionalSurrender, " and if our generation approves--as it does--that grimultimatum, what will be the verdict of posterity should we as anation--we who have been spared the unspeakable horrors under whichother less isolated countries have been "bled white"--descend to theinfamy of a compromise between the Powers of Darkness and Light? TheHuns respect Force, and nothing else. Mercy provokes contempt andlaughter. I hold no brief for reprisals upon helpless women andchildren; I am not an advocate of what is called the "commercialextermination of Germany"; but it is my sincerest conviction thatcriminals must be punished. The Most Highest War Lord and his people, not excluding the little children who held high holiday when the_Lusitania_ was torpedoed, are--CRIMINALS. HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL. [Illustration: SERBIA] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE LAST OF THE RACE Raemaekers, the master of an infinite variety of moods and touch, reserves a special category of scorn for Von Tirpitz. Savage cruelty inwar, the wanton destruction of life and property, the whole gospel offrightfulness--these things have been abandoned (so the historians tellus), not because savagery was bad morals but because it was the worstway of making war. It was wiser to take the enemy's property--and put itto your own use than to destroy it. If it was plundered it was wasted. It was wiser to spare men, women, and children, so that they should bebetter subjects if they remained conquered, less irreconcilable enemies, if they were restored to their old allegiance. Besides, murder, plunder, and rapine demoralized your men. They made them less efficient troopsfor fighting. Doubtless the argument is sound. But it would never havebeen accepted had not the horrors of savagery been utterly loathsome andrepulsive to the nations that abandoned them. Conventions in the direction of humanity are not, then, _artificial_restrictions in the use of force. They are natural restrictions, becauseall Christian and civilized people would far rather observe them thannot. Germany has revelled in abandoning every restraint. Raemaekersshows the cruelty, the wickedness of this in scores of his drawings. Here it is its folly that he emphasizes. The submarine is no longer a death-dealing terror. It has become ablubbering fish. And the author of its crimes is no diabolical triton, but a semi-imbecile old dotard, round whom his evil--butterrified--brood have clustered; they fawning on him in terror, hefondling them in shaky, decrepit fondness. Note the flaccid paunch, thewithered top, and the foolish, hysterical face. How the full-dresscocked hat shames his nakedness! And this, remember, is the German High Admiral as history will know him, when the futility of his crimes is proved, their evil put out of memory, and only their foolishness remains! ARTHUR POLLEN. [Illustration: THE LAST OF THE RACE VON TIRPITZ: No, my dears, I'm not sending any more of you to thosewicked English; the survivors shall go to the Zoo. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CURRICULUM The nations are being educated amain, let us hope. Germany has pridedherself on her education, her learning, and on her Kultur. To-day she isbeyond the calculation of all that foresight which has been her boast, and foible. Human nature, other than German, has not been on thenational curriculum, and, as in other departments of study, what has notbeen reduced to rule and line is beyond the ken and apprehension. Howstupendously wrong a Power which could count, and into a European War!on insurrection in India, the Cape, and other parts of the BritishEmpire! and how naïvely did Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg disclose the_Zeitgeist_ of German rulers when with passion he declared Britain to begoing to war for "a scrap of paper!" A purpose to serve, a treatybecomes "a scrap"--in German courtly hands. The artist depicts a scene, with masterly pencil, where VonBethmann-Hollweg himself is charged by the All-Highest to beschoolmaster. It is a grim department of the training. Think of theunseen as well as that shown. What you do see is the lordly, truculentKaiser, raising that menacing finger again. In spacious chair, he sitsdefiant, aggressive, as a ferocious captain; and there opposite is the"great Chancellor, " bent, submissive, apprehensive, tablet and pencilready to take down the very word of Kaiserly wisdom and will. What isit? The day's fare for a week! reaching a climax of "No dinner" onSaturday, and "Hate" on Sunday! Educative! of course it will be. Some day, not so far, even the German people will not regard the ordersof the Army and Navy Staff, the cruel mercies of the Junkers, as arevelation of Heaven's will. Three pounds of sugar for a family'smonthly supply will educate, even when the gospel of force has beenpreached for fifty years to a docile people. Many of us are in "a straitbetwixt two" as we see how thousands of inoffensive old men, women, andchildren are made to suffer, are placed by the All-Highest in thisCopper and Hate School. It is not this, that, and the other that causesthis, but the Director of the School, who does not, while the miserablescholars do, know what it is to endure "No dinner, " not only onSaturdays, but many other days. And all to gratify the mad projectorsimposing Kultur on an unwilling world! W. M. J. WILLIAMS. [Illustration: THE NEW SCHOOL CURRICULUM William: "Write it down, schoolmaster--Monday shall be Copper Day, Tuesday, Potato Day, Wednesday, Leather Day; Thursday, Gold Day, Friday, Rubber Day; Saturday, No Dinner Day; and Sunday, Hate Day!"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE DUTCH JOURNALIST TO HIS BELGIAN CONFRÈRE Whether the type here taken is a true criticism of a commercial attitudein a neutral State like Holland, it does not become us to discuss. Raemaekers is a Dutchman, and doubtless a patriotic Dutchman. And thepatriot, and the patriot alone, has not only the right but the duty ofcriticising his own country. For us it is better to regard the figure as an international, and oftenanti-national, character who exists in all nations, and who, even in abelligerent country like our own, can often contrive to be neutral andworse than neutral. A prosperous bully with the white waistcoat andcoarse, heavily cuffed hands, with which such prosperity very frequentlyclothes itself, is represented as thrusting food in the starved face ofan evicted Belgian and saying: "Eat and hold your tongue. " The situation is worthy of such record, if only because it emphasizes anelement in the general German plot against the world which is oftenforgotten in phrases about fire and sword. The Prussianized person isnot only a military tyrant; he is equally and more often a mercantiletyrant. And what is in this respect true of the German is as true ortruer of the Pro-German. The cosmopolitan agent of Prussia is a commercial agent, and works bythose modern methods of bribing and sacking, of boycott and blackmail, which are not only meaner, but often more cruel, than militarism. Forany one who realizes the power of such international combinations, thereis the more credit due to the artists and men of letters who, likeRaemaekers himself, have decisively chosen their side while the issuewas very doubtful. And among the Belgian confrères there must certainlyhave been many who showed as much courage as any soldier, when theydecided not to eat and be silent, but to starve and to speak. G. K. CHESTERTON. [Illustration: THE DUTCH JOURNALIST TO HIS BELGIAN CONFRÈRE: "Eat andhold your tongue. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A BORED CRITIC From Homeric warfare to subterranean conflict of modern trenches is afar cry, and Ares, God of Battles, may well yawn at the entertainmentwith which the Demon of War is providing him. But the spectator of thisgrim "revue" lacks something of the patience of its creator, and ourMephistopheles, marking the god's protest, will doubtless hurry thescene and diversify it with new devilries to restore his interest. Indeed, that has happened since Raemaekers made his picture. The etiquette of butchery has become more complicated since Troy fell, yet it has been so far preserved till now that the fiend measures Areswith his eyes and speculates as to how far the martial god may beexpected to tolerate his novel engines. Will asphyxiating gas, anddestruction of non-combatants and neutrals on land and sea, trouble him?Or will he demand the rules of the game, and decline to applaud thissatire on civilization, although mounted and produced regardless of costand reckoning? As the devil's own entertainment consists in watching the effects of hismasterpiece on this warlike spectator, so it may be that those who"staged" the greatest war in mankind's history derive some bitterinstruction from its reception by mankind. They know now that it iscondemned by every civilized nation on earth; and before these lines arepublished their uncivilized catspaws will have ample reason to condemnit also. Neutrals there must be, but impartials none. The sense and spirit of the thinking world now go so far with humanreason that they demand a condition of freedom for all men and nations, be they weak or powerful. That ideal inspires the majority of humankind, and it follows that the evolution of morals sets strongly on theside of the Allies. "War, " says Bernhardi, "gives a biologically just decision, since itsdecisions rest on the very nature of things. " So be it. EDEN PHILLPOTTS. [Illustration: "I say, do suggest something new. This is becoming tooboring. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "The Peace Woman" In this humorous yet pathetic cartoon--humorous because of its truth tothe type, and pathetic because of the futility of the effortdepicted--with unfailing skill the artist shows the folly of the cry"Peace! Peace!" when there is none. In the forefront is a type of womanpublicist who can never be happy unless the limelight secured by vocaleffort and the advocacy of a "crazy" cause is focussed upon her. Shecalls "Peace!" that the world may hear, not attend. Behind her standsthat other type of detached "peace woman, " who has, judging from herplacid yet grieved expression, apparently scarcely realized that the Waris too serious and has its genesis in causes too deep-rooted to bequelled by her or her kind. One can imagine her saying: "A war! Howterrible! It must be stopped. " The soldier, who is wise enough to prefer armour-plate even to a shieldprovided by substantially built peace women clad in white, looks onamused. The thinking world as a whole so looks on at "Arks" launched byAmerican millionaire motor manufacturers, and at Pacifist Conferencesheld whilst the decision as to whether civilization or savagery shalltriumph, and might be greater than right, yet hangs in the balance. There must be no thought of peace otherwise than as the ultimate rewardof gallant men fighting in a just cause, and until with it can comepermanent security from the "Iron Fist" of Prussian Militarism andaggression, and the precepts of Bernhardi and his kind are shown to befalse. Those who talk of peace in the midst of "frightfulness, " ofpiracy, of reckless carnage and colossal sacrifices of human life whichare the fruits of an attempt to save by military glory a crapulousdynasty, however good their intention, lack both mental and moralperspective. CLIVE HOLLAND. [Illustration: THE PEACE WOMAN: "We will march in white before our sons. " THE NEUTRAL SOLDIER: "Madam, we would prefer the protection of anarmour-plate. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE SELF-SATISFIED BURGHER The artist has depicted the ordinary attitude of a self-satisfiedburgher not only in Holland but in other countries also. "What does itmatter if we are annexed afterwards, so long as we remain neutral now?"That is the sort of speech made by selfish merchants in some of theneutral countries, especially those of Scandinavian origin. It is reallya variety of the old text: "Let us eat, drink, and be merry; forto-morrow we die. " Why not, it is urged, make the best of presentfacilities? As long as we are left alone we can pursue our ordinaryindustrialism. We can heap up our percentages and profits. Our trade isin a fairly flourishing condition, and we are making money. No one knowswhat the future may bring; why, therefore, worry about it? Besides, ifthe worst comes to the worst and Germany annexes us, are we quite surethat we shall be in a much worse condition than we are now? It will beto the interest of Berlin that we should carry on our usual industrialoccupations. Our present liberty will probably not be interfered with, and a change of masters does not always mean ruin. So argues the self-satisfied burgher. If life were no more than a merematter of getting enough to eat and drink and of having a balance at thebanker's, his view of the case might pass muster. But a national lifedepends on spiritual and ideal interests, just as a man's life"consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. "Freedom is the only principal of growth, and freedom is the one thingwhich German militarism desires to make impossible for all those whomshe gathers into her fold. The loss of liberty means the ruin of allthose ends for which a State exists. Even the material prosperity whichthe self-satisfied burgher desires will be definitely sacrificed by asubmission to Teutonic autocracy. W. L. COURTNEY. [Illustration: THE SELF-SATISFIED BURGHER "What does it matter if we're annexed afterwards, so long as we remainneutral now?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE DECADENT War is a fiery winnower of incapacities. Many reputations have gone tothe scrap-heap since August, 1914. None more surely than that of thebraggart Crown Prince. It is said that this terrible catastrophe waslargely of his bringing about and his great desire and hope. Well--he has got his desire, and more than he expected. He was going to do mighty things--to smash through the frontier and leadthe German hordes triumphantly through France. And what has he done? In the treacherous surprise of the moment he got across the frontier, and there the weighty French fist met the Imperial optic, and has sincedeveloped many stars in it. He has been held, wasting men, time, opportunity, and his own little apology for a soul. He has done nothingto justify his position or even his existence. He has wrecked hishome-life by wanton indulgence. He has made himself notorious by hisprivate lootings of the châteaux cursed with his presence. Even in 1870 the native cupidity of the far finer breed of conquerorscould not resist the spoils of war, and, to their eternal disgrace, trainloads of loot were sent away to decorate German homes--as burglars'wives might wear the jewellery acquired by their adventurous menfolk inthe course of their nefarious operations. But we never heard of "Unser Fritz, " the then Crown Prince, ransackingthe mansions he stayed in. He was a great man and a good--the very lastGerman gentleman. And this decadent is his grandson! "Unser Fritz" was a very noble-looking man. His grandson--oh, well, lookat him and judge for yourselves! Of a surety the sight is calculated toheighten one's amazement that any nation under the sun, or craving it, could find in such a personality, even as representative of a once greatbut now exploding idea, anything whatever even to put up with, much lessto worship and die for. The race of Hohenzollern has wilted and ravelled out to this. The wholeworld, outside Prussia, devoutly hopes ere long to have seen the last ofit. It has been at all times, with the single exception above noted, ahustling, grabbing, self-seeking race. May the eyes of Germany soon beopened! Then, surely, it will be thrust back into the obscurity whenceheaven can only have permitted it to escape for the flagellation of aworld which was losing its ideals and needed bracing back with a sharp, stern twist. JOHN OXENHAM. [Illustration: SEPTEMBER, 1914, AND SEPTEMBER, 1915 1914: "Now the war begins as we like it. " 1915: "But this is not as I wished it to continue. "(Published after the French success in Champagne)] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LIQUID FIRE When one sits down to think, there are few things in connection with thedevastating War now raging, wild-beast-like, almost throughout thelength and breadth of Europe, so appalling as the application of scienceand man's genius to the work of decimating the human species. Early in the conflict, which is being fought for the basal principles ofcivilization and moral human conduct, one was made to realize that theAllied Powers were opposed to an enemy whose resources were onlyequalled by his utter negation of the rules of civilized warfare. Soon, to the horrors of machine-guns and of high-explosive shells of a calibreand intensity of destructive force never before known, were added thediabolical engines for pouring over the field of battle asphyxiatinggases. We know the horrors of that mode of German "frightfulness, " andsome of us have seen its effects in the slowly dying victims inhospitals. But that was not enough. Yet other methods of "frightfulness"and savagery, which would have disgraced the most ruthless conquerors ofold, were to be applied by the German Emperor in his blasphemous "Gottmit uns" campaign. And against the gallant sons of Belgium, France, England, and Russia in turn were poured out with bestial ingenuity thejets and curtains of "liquid fire" which seared the flesh and blindedthe eyes. For this there will be a reckoning if God be still in heavenwhilst the world trembles with the shock of conflict, and the souls ofmen are seared. Raemaekers in this cartoon shows not only the horror of such a method ofwarfare, but also, with unerring pencil, the unwavering spirit of themen who have to meet this "frightfulness. " There is a land to beredeemed, and women and children to be avenged, and so the fighting menof the allied nations go gallantly on with their stern, amazed faces settowards victory. CLIVE HOLLAND. [Illustration: LIQUID FIRE] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- NISH AND PARIS Very happily and very graphically has Raemaekers here pointed thecontrast between the Gargantuan hopes with which the Kaiser and hisJunker army embarked on the War, and the exiguous and shadowy fruits oftheir boasted victories up to the present. They foretold a triumphalentry into the conquered capital of France within a month of the openingof hostilities. Yet the irony of Fate has, slowly but surely, cooled theearly fever of anticipation. The only captured town where theAll-Highest has found an opportunity of lifting his voice in exultantpæan is Nish, a secondary city of the small kingdom of Serbia. There, too, he perforce delayed his jubilation until the lapse of some eighteenmonths after the date provisionally and prematurely fixed in the firstebullition of overconfidence, for his triumphal procession throughParis. Nish is a town of little more than 20, 000 inhabitants; about the size ofTaunton or Hereford--smaller than Woking or Dartford. Working on a basisof comparative populations, the Emperor would have to repeat withoutmore delay his bravery at Nish in 150 towns of the same size before hecould convince his people that he is even now on the point of fulfillinghis first rash promises to them of the rapid overthrow of his foes. Pursuing the same calculation, he is bound to multiply his presentglories 350 times before he can count securely on spending a night asconquering hero in Buckingham Palace. Even the Kaiser must know in his heart that woefully, from his own andhis people's point of view, did he overestimate his strength at theoutset. For the time he contents himself with the backwater of Nish forthe scene of his oratory of conquest. His vainglorious words may wellprove in their environment the prelude of a compulsory confession offailure, which is likely to come at a far briefer interval than theeighteen months which separate the imaginary hope of Paris from theslender substance of Nish. SIDNEY LEE. [Illustration: THE TRIALS OF A COURT PAINTER "I commenced this as the entry into Paris, but I must finish it as theentry into Nish. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- GOTT STRAFE ENGLAND! In these sombre times one is grateful for a touch of humour, and itwould perhaps be impossible to conceive in all created nature aspectacle so exquisitely ludicrous as the appearance of the Prussian inthe guise of a Wronged Man. For, of course, it is the very foundation ofthe Prussian theory that there can be no such thing as a wronged man. Might is right. That which physical force has determined and shalldetermine is the only possible test of justice. That was the diabolicbut at least coherent philosophy upon which the Kingdom of Prussia wasoriginally based and upon which the German Empire created by Prussiaalways reposed. Nor was that philosophy--which among other things dictated thiswar--ever questioned, much less abandoned, by the Germans so long as itseemed probable to the world and certain to them that they were destinedto win. Now that it has begun to penetrate even into their mind thatthey are probably going to lose, we find them suddenly blossoming out aspacifists and humanitarians. Especially are they indignant at the "cruelty" of the blockade. It isnot necessary to examine seriously a contention so obviously absurd. Anyone acquainted with the history of war knows the blockade of an enemy'sports is a thing as old as war itself. Every one acquainted with therecords of the last half-century knows that Prussia owes half herprestige to the reduction of Paris in 1871--effected solely by thestarvation of its civilian inhabitants. But the irony goes deeper than that. Look at the face of the Prussian in"Raemaekers' Cartoons" and you will understand why Germans in America, Holland, and other neutral countries are now talking pacifism andexuding humanitarian sentiment. You will understand why the GermanChancellor says that in spite of the victorious march of Germany fromvictory to victory his tender heart cannot but plead for the dreadfulsufferings of the unhappy, though criminal, Allies. Then you will laugh;which is good in days like these. CECIL CHESTERTON. [Illustration: GOTT STRAFE ENGLAND! "Now she prevents my sending goods by the Holland route!"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE PACIFICIST KAISER (THE CONFEDERATES) From time to time of late the Kaiser has posed as the champion of peace. His official spokesman, Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, has announced theImperial readiness to stay the war--on his master's own terms, which hedisdains to define precisely. The Emperor and his advisers are involved in a tangle of miscalculationswhich infest the conduct of the war alike in the field of battle and thecouncil-chamber. But no wild imaginings could encourage a solid hopethat the Chancellor's peaceful professions would be taken seriously byanybody save his own satellites. Loudly the compliant Minister vauntedin the Reichstag his country's military successes, but he could point tono signs either of any faltering in military preparations on the part ofthe Allies, or of their willingness to entertain humiliating conditionsof peace. Even in Germany clear visions acknowledge that Time is fightingvaliantly on the side of Germany's foes, and that peace can only comewhen the Central Powers beg for it on their knees. It is improbable that the Kaiser and his Chancellor now harbour manyreal illusions about the future, although they may well be anxious todisguise even to themselves the ultimate issues at stake in the war. Their home and foreign policy seems to be conceived in the desperatespirit of the gambler. They appear to be recklessly speculating on thechances of a pacificist rôle conciliating the sympathy of neutrals. Theycount on the odds that they may convert the public opinion ofnon-combatant nations to the erroneous belief that Germany is theconqueror, and that further resistance to her is futile. But so far thegame has miscarried. The recent German professions of zeal for peacefell in neutral countries on deaf or impatient ears. The braggartbulletins of the German Press Bureau have been valued at their trueworth. Neutral critics have found in Bethmann-Hollweg's cry for peacemere wasted breath The Chancellor and his master are perilously near losing among neutralsthe last shreds of reputation for political sagacity. SIDNEY LEE. [Illustration: THE CONFEDERATES "Did they believe that peace story in the Reichstag, Bethmann?""Yes, but the Allies didn't. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- DINANT During the joint expedition to Peking, all the other contingents werehorrified at the cruelty of the German troops. I have heard how on oneoccasion a number of Chinese women were watching a German regiment atdrill, when suddenly the commanding officer ordered his men to open fireupon them. When remonstrated with, he replied that terrorism was humanein the end, because it made the enemy desire peace. For some reason, these atrocities were not very widely known in England; and no onedreamed that such infernal crimes would ever be perpetrated in Europeanwar. But such are indeed the calculated methods of Germany; and herofficers began to order them as soon as her troops crossed the Belgianfrontier. The German military authorities advise that terrorism shouldbe used sparingly when there is danger of reprisals. Accordingly, thoughmany abominable things have been done to civilians in France and Russia, and to ourselves when opportunity offered, the worst atrocities werecommitted in Belgium, because Belgium is a small country, which haddispensed with universal military service in reliance on theinternational guarantee of her security. These events of the first monthof the war are in danger of being forgotten, now that Germany iscontending on equal terms against the great nations of Europe. But theymust not be forgotten. We are fighting against a nation which thinks itgood policy to massacre non-combatants, provided only that the sons andbrothers of the victims are not in a position to retaliate. W. R. INGE. [Illustration: DINANT--I SEE FATHER. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "HESPERIA" (WOUNDED FIRST) Sailors of all nationality except German have from time immemoriallooked upon themselves as the guardians and protectors of land folk atsea. That is why every sailor in the world, outside the doggeries of Hamburg, felt his calling spat upon and his personal pride injured by the sinkingof the _Lusitania_--by a sailor. It seemed that nothing could be worse than that, and then came thesinking of the _Hesperia_, a ship filled with wounded soldiers andHospital nurses. Raemaekers brings the fact home to us in this cartoon, not the fact ofthe English nurses' heroism, which goes without saying, but of Germanlow-down common infamy. The fact has become so commonplace, soaccustomed, so everyday that pictures of burning cathedrals, murderedchildren, and terrified women no longer move us as they did, but thisartist, whose command of language seems as infinite and varied as thecrimes of the criminals whom God sent him to scourge, has always somestroke in reserve, something to add to what he has said, if need be. Inthe case of this picture it is the medicine bottle, glass, and spoonflying off the shelf, flung to the floor by the bursting charge ofTri-nitro-toluine that adds the last touch as distinctive as theartist's signature. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE. [Illustration: Another kind of heroism--the sinking of the Hospital Ship_Hesperia_ (Wounded First)] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- GALLIPOLI It is a fine touch, or a fortunate accident, in this sketch ofRaemaekers' that it depicts the officer who has made the mistake asexhibiting the spruceness of a Prussian, and the officer who has foundout the mistake as having the comparatively battered look of an oldTurk. The moustaches of the Young Turk are modelled on the Kaiser's, spikes pointing to heaven like spires; while those of his justlyincensed superior officer hang loose like those of a human being. Thedifference is in any case symbolic; for the sort of instinctive andinstantaneous self-laudation satirized in this cartoon is much more oneof the vices of the new Germany than of the antiquated Islam. Thatspirit is not easy to define; and it is easy to confuse it with muchmore pardonable things. Every people can be jingo and vainglorious; itis the mark of this spirit that the instinct to be so acts before anyother instinct can act, even those of surprise or anger. Every peopleemphasizes and exaggerates its victories more than its defeats. But thisspirit emphasizes its defeats as victories. Every national calamity hasits consolations; and a nation naturally turns to them as soon as itreasonably can. But it is the stamp of this spirit that it always thinksof the consolation _before_ it even thinks of the calamity. It aboundsthroughout the whole press of the German Empire. But it is most shortlyshown in this figure of the young officer, who makes a hero of himselfbefore he has even fully realized that he has made a fool of himself. G. K. CHESTERTON. [Illustration: GALLIPOLI TURKISH GENERAL: "What are you firing at? The British evacuated theplace twenty-four hours ago!" "Sorry, sir--but what a glorious victory!] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BEGINNING OF THE EXPIATION It is sometimes an unpleasant necessity to insult a man, in order tomake him understand that he is being insulted. Indeed, most strenuousand successful appeals to an oppressed populace have involved somethingof this paradox. We talk of the demagogue flattering the mob; but themost successful demagogue generally abuses it. The men of the crowd risein revolt, not when they are addressed as "Citizens!" but when they areaddressed as "Slaves!" If this be true even of men daily disturbed by material discomfort anddiscontent, it is much truer of those cases, not uncommon in history, inwhich the slave has been soothed with all the external pomp and luxuryof a lord. So prophets have denounced the wanton in a palace or thepuppet on a throne; and so the Dutch caricaturist denounces the gildedcaptivity of the Austrian Monarchy, of which the golden trappings aregolden chains. But for such a purpose a caricaturist is better than a prophet, andcomic pictures better than poetical phrases. It is very vital andwholesome, even for his own sake, to insult the Austrian. He ought to beinsulted because he is so much more respectable than the Prussian, whoought not to be insulted, but only kicked. If Austria feels no shame inletting the Holy Roman Empire become the petty province of an UnholyBarbarian Empire, if such high historic symbols no longer affect her, wecan only tell her, in as ugly a picture as possible, that she is alackey carrying luggage. G. K. CHESTERTON. [Illustration: THE BEGINNING OF THE EXPIATION] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE SHIRKERS Current experience is proving that war is a grim condition of life, andthat none can escape its effects. No religious or philosophic precept ispotent enough in practical application to prevent its outbreak or tostay its course. The strong man of military age, who claims the right topursue normal peaceful avocations when his country is at war, pleadsguilty, however involuntarily, to aberrations of both mind and heart. There are few who do not conscientiously cherish repugnance for war, butpractically none of those to whom so natural a sentiment makes mostforcible appeal deem it a man's part to refuse a manifest personal callof natural duty. The conscientious objector to combatant service may incertain rare cases deserve considerate treatment, but very short shriftshould await the able-bodied men who, from love of ease or fear ofdanger, simulate conscientious objection in order to evade a righteousobligation. Lack of imagination may be at times as responsible for the sin of theshirker as lack of courage. Patriotism is an instinct which works assluggishly among the unimaginative as among the cowardly and theselfish. The only cure for the sluggish working of the patrioticinstinct among the cowardly and the selfish is the sharp stimulus ofcondign punishment. But among the unimaginative it may be worthexperimenting by way of preliminary with earnest and urgent appeals toexample such as is offered not only by current experience, but also byliterature and history. No shirkers would be left if every subject ofthe Crown were taught to apprehend the significance of Henley'sinterrogation: What have I done for you, England, my England? What is there I would not do, England, my own? SIDNEY LEE. [Illustration: THE SHIRKERS] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ONE OF THE KAISER'S MANY MISTAKES Louis Botha--we touch our hats to you! You are supremely and triumphantly one of the Kaiser's many mistakes. You have proved yourself once again a capable leader and a man amongmen. You have proved him once more incapable of apprehending the meaningof the word honour. You are an honourable man. Even as a foe you foughtus fair and we honoured you. You have valiantly helped to dig the graveof his dishonour and have proved him a fool. We thank you! And we thankthe memory of the clear-visioned men of those old days who, in spite ofthe clamour of the bats, persisted in tendering you and yours that righthand of friendship which you have so nobly justified. You fought us fair. You have uprisen from the ashes of the past like thePhoenix of old. You are Briton with the best. Fair fight breeds no ill-will. It is the man, and the nation, thatfights foul and flings God and humanity overboard that lays up foritself stores of hatred and outcastry and scorn which the ages shallhardly efface. And Germany once was great, and might have been greater. Delenda est Germania!--so far as Germania represents the Devil and allhis works. The following lines were written fourteen years ago when we welcomed theend of the Boer War. We are all grateful that the hope therein expressedhas been so amply fulfilled. That it has been so is largely due to thewisdom and statesmanship of Louis Botha. No matter now the rights and wrongs of it; You fought us bravely and we fought you fair. The fight is done. Grip hands! No malice bear! We greet you, brothers, to the nobler strife Of building up the newer, larger life! Join hands! Join hands! Ye nations of the stock! And make henceforth a mighty Trust for Peace;-- A great enduring peace that shall withstand The shocks of time and circumstance; and every land Shall rise and bless you--and shall never cease To bless you--for that glorious gift of Peace. Germany, if she had so willed, could have come into that hoped-for Trustfor Peace. But Germany would not. She put her own selfish interests before all elseand so digs her own grave. JOHN OXENHAM. [Illustration: BOTHA TO BRITAIN "I have carried out everything in accordance with our compact atVereeniging. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BELGIUM IN HOLLAND In the present crisis of Belgian affairs there is much to remind thehistorical student of the events which led to the fall of Antwerp in1585, and the outrageous invasion of the Southern Netherlands by thearmy of Parma. Then, as now, Holland opened her arms to her wounded andcaptive sister. The best Flemish scholars and men of letters emigratedto the land where Cornheert and Spieghel welcomed them. Merchants and artisans flocked to a new sphere of energy in Amsterdam. Several of the professorial chairs in that city, and in the greatuniversities of Leyden and Harderwijk, were filled by learned Flemings, and the arts, that had long been flourishing in Brussels, fled northwardto escape from the desolating Spanish scourge. The grim pencil ofRaemaekers becomes tender whenever he touches upon the relation of thetortured Belgium to her sister, Holland, his own beloved fatherland. We do not know yet, in this country, a tithe of the sacrifices whichhave been made in Holland to staunch the tears of Belgium. "Yoursufferings are mine, and so are your fortunes, " has been the motto ofthe loyal Dutch. EDMUND GOSSE. [Illustration: THE PROMISE "We shall never sheath the sword until Belgium recovers all, and morethan all that she has sacrificed. "--Mr. Asquith, 9th November, 1914. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SERBIA The fight of the one and the four might, in view of the difference inthe size of the combatants, be called quite fairly "the fight of the oneand the fifty-three. " Each of the assailants has his own character. Germany is represented as a ferocious giant; Austria follows Prussia'slead, a little the worse for wear, with a bandaged head as the souvenirof his former campaign: he does his best to look and act like Germany. Bulgaria loses not a moment, but puts his rifle to his shoulder to shootthe small enemy: he acts in his own way, according to his own character:kill the enemy as quickly as possible and seize the spoil, that is hisprinciple. Turkey is a rather broken-down and dilapidated figure, who ispreparing to use his bayonet, but has not got it quite ready. Serbia, erect, with feet firmly planted, stands facing the chief enemy, a littleDavid against this big Goliath and his henchman, Austria; and the othertwo, so recently deadly foes, now standing shoulder to shoulder, attackhim while his attention is directed on Germany. The leader and "hero" of this assault is Prussia, big, brutal, remorseless. The Dutch artist always concentrates the spectator'sattention on him. You can almost hear the roar coming out of his mouth:"Gott strafe Serbien. " This is the figure, as Raemaekers paints him, that goes straight for his object, regardless of moral considerations. Serbia is in his way, and Serbia must be trampled in the mire. Theartist's sympathy is wholly with Serbia, who is pictured as the manfighting against the brute, slight but active and noble in build, facingthis burly foe. And poor old Turkey! Always a figure of comedy, never ready in time, always ineffective, never fully able to use the weapons of so-called"civilization. " Let it always be remembered that in the Gallipolipeninsula, when the Turks at first were taking no prisoners, but killingthe wounded after their own familiar fashion with mutilation, for thesake of such spoil as could be carried away, Enver Pasha issued an orderthat thirty piastres should be paid for every prisoner brought in alive, a noble and humane regulation. Let us hope that the reward was alwayspaid, not stolen on the way, as has been so often the case in Turkey. WILLIAM MITCHELL RAMSAY. [Illustration: SERBIA "Now we can make an end of him. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- JACKALS IN THE POLITICAL FIELD When the tiger, " says the naturalist, "has killed some large animal, such as a buffalo which he cannot consume at one time, the jackalscollect round the carcase at a respectful distance and wait patientlyuntil the tiger moves off. Then they rush from all directions, carousingupon the slaughtered buffalo, each anxious to eat as much as it cancontain in the shortest time. " The human jackal is one of the most squalid and sordid creatures andfeatures of war. We saw him in Dublin the other day emerging from hisslum den to loot Sackville Street. Every battlefield feeds its carrionbeasts and birds. This picture of Belgium and its jackals is doubtless only too true. Mr. Raemakers and the Dutch have better means of knowing than we. Thejackal, says the same naturalist, belongs to the _Canidæ_, the "dogtribe. " The scientific name of the true dog is _Canis familiaris, _ "thehousehold dog. " The jackal is _Canis aureus_, the "gold dog. " Theepithet describes no doubt his colour. The human _Canis aureus_ perhapsdeserves his title on not less obvious grounds. "The continent of Europe, " the naturalist goes on, "is free from thejackal. " It was supposed till yesterday to be free from the lion andtiger. But in the prehistoric times of the cave man, geologists say, there wasboth in England and Europe the great "sabre-tooth" tiger. Kipling, whoknows everything about beasts, knows him and puts him into his "Story ofUng": "The sabre-tooth tiger dragging a man to his lair. " To-day the cave tiger has come back and with him the cave jackal. Thereis a terrible beauty about the tiger. The jackal is a mean and hideousbrute. But both are out of date. Did not Monsieur Capus say the otherday that Europe "cannot allow a return of the cave epoch?" HERBERT WARREN. [Illustration: JACKALS IN THE POLITICAL FIELD JACKALS (Flemish Pro-Germans): "What he leaves of Belgium will beenough for us. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A LETTER FROM THE GERMAN TRENCHES In this cartoon Raemaekers has contrived to indicate powerfully what isafter all the dominant and peculiar note of the German people. NoEuropean nation has ever taken war--as people say so "seriously, " thatis, with so much concentration of attention and elaborate preparation, as has the German Empire. No people has ever had it so thoroughlydrilled into its collective mind as have the German subjects of thatEmpire that war is not only, as all Christian people have alwaysbelieved, an expedient lawful and necessary upon occasion, but a thinghighly desirable in itself, nay, the principal function of a "superior"race and the main end of its being. And yet after all the actual German is never, like the Frenchman, anatural and instinctive warrior--any more than he is, like theEnglishman, a natural and instinctive adventurer. The whole business ofPrussian militarism, with the half-witted philosophy by which it isjustified, has to be imposed upon him from without by his masters. Hefights just as he works, just as he tortures, violates, and murders, because he is told to do so by persons in a superior position, holdingthemselves stiffly, dressed in uniform, and able to hit him in the facewith a whip. Long before the war the absurd Koepenick incident gave us a glimpse ofthis astonishing docility on its farcical side. Its tragic side is wellillustrated by the droves of helpless and inarticulate barbarians driveninto the shambles daily (as at Verdun) for the sole purpose of coveringup the blunders of their very "efficient" superiors. One could pity thewretches if there were not so considerable a leaven of wickedness intheir stupidity. CECIL CHESTERTON. [Illustration: A LETTER FROM THE GERMAN TRENCHES "We have gained a good bit, our cemeteries now extend as far as thesea. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- HIS MASTER'S VOICE The manipulation of the Press is one of the weapons which Bismarcktaught German Imperialism to use. Like others it has been developed byhis successors into an instrument which the master himself would hardlyhave recognized. It is one of the most potent means of that "peacefulpenetration" of all other countries which was nothing but a preparationfor war. And it has been used in the war with a purposefulness of aimand a versatility of method that betoken long and systematic study. Itis a ubiquitous influence and the most subtle of all. Yet the Press isheld in greater contempt by official and other ruling circles in Germanythan in any other country. They despise the tool, while tacitlyacknowledging its utility by unsparing use. This curious state of things is the fault of the Press. What hasrendered it such a pliant tool in the hands of German Imperialism iseither credulity or venality; and both are contemptible qualities. Credulity is probably the more prevalent, at least in this country, where shoals of newspapers, blinded by their own prejudices, were thedupes of German duplicity. But there has been venality, too, both crudeand subtle. The case of the "Vlaamsche Sten, " here satirized byRaemaekers, is exceptional. So crude and gross a method of influencingthe Press as bribing the proprietor of a newspaper (probably with theaid of threats) to hand it over with its staff and goodwill could hardlybe practised where any independence survived. It was not practised withsuccess even in conquered Flanders, for the staff, to their eternalcredit, refused to listen to the new master's voice. But there arejournalists who, less intelligent than the terrier, faithfully acceptthe voice from the _Pickelhaube_ and wag their little tails when theyhear it. To them is offered the parable which shows their relation totheir master. A. SHADWELL. [Illustration: HIS MASTER'S VOICE The _Vlaamsche Stem_ (Flemish Voice), a Flemish paper, was bought by theGermans, whereupon the whole staff resigned, as it no longer representedits title. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- HUN GENEROSITY The All-Highest, so we are told, loves a joke at another's expense, atrait in his character essentially barbaric. Raemaekers reproduces thetwinkle in the Imperial eye as William of Potsdam offers to a quondamally the foot which belongs to his senile and helpless brother ofHapsburg. 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 towardthe Hohenzollerns. We know that the Turk cherishes no love for the Hunwho has beguiled him, but we cannot gauge as yet the real strength orweakness of the bond between the Huns on the one hand and the Austriansand Hungarians on the other. Raemaekers has portrayed Franz Josef flaton his back. In the language of the ring he is "down and out. " Possiblyit 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 ratherthan an accomplice, a weakling writhing beneath the jack-boot ofPrussia, impotent to hold his own. It may not be so. Time alone willreveal the truth. But this much is reasonably certain. When peace is declared, the sincerefriendship which once existed between ourselves and the Dual Monarchymay be reëstablished, but many years must pass before we forgive orforget the Huns. They are boasting to-day that as a nation they areself-sufficing and self-supporting. Amen! Most of us desire nothingbetter than to leave them alone till they have mended their manners andpurged themselves of a colossal and unendurable conceit. I cannotenvisage Huns playing tennis at Wimbledon, or English girls studyingmusic at Leipzig. The grass in the streets of Homburg will not, for manyyears, be trodden out by English feet; the harpies of hotel keepersthroughout the Happy Fatherland will prey, it may be presumed, upontheir fellow Huns. Then they will fall to "strafing" each other insteadof England. And then, as now, their mouthings will provokeinextinguishable laughter. HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL. [Illustration: "HAVE ANOTHER PIECE?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- EASTER, 1915 Ever since with the beginning of Christendom a new soul entered the bodyof exhausted Europe, it is true to say that we have not only had acertain idea but been haunted by it, as by a ghost. It is the ideacrystallized in legends like those of St. Christopher and St. Martin. But it is equally apparent in the most modern ethics and eloquence, as, for instance, when a French atheist orator urged the reconsideration ofa criminal case by pointing at the pictured Crucifixion which hangs in aFrench Law Court and saying: "Voilà la chose jugée. " It is the idea whenthat oppressing the lowest we may actually be oppressing the highest, and that not even impersonally, but personally. We may be, as it were, the victims of a divine masquerade; and discover that the greatest ofkings can travel incognito. Such a picture, therefore, as the cartoonist has drawn here can be foundin all ages of Christian history as a comment on contemporaryoppression. But while the central figure remains always the same, thetypes of the tyrant and the mocker hold our temporary attention; forthey are sketched from life and with a living exactitude. Upon one ofthem especially it would be easy to say a great deal: the grinningPrussian youth with the spectacles and the monkey face, who is using aPrussian helmet instead of the crown of thorns. Such a scientific gutter-snipe is the real and visible fruit oforganized German education; he is a much truer type than any gory andhairy Hun. In the face of that young atheist there is everything thatcan come from the congestion of the pagan with the _parvenu_; all theknowingness that is the cessation of knowledge; and that something whichalways accompanies _real_ atheism--arrested development. G. K. CHESTERTON. [Illustration: EASTER, 1915 "And they bowed the knee before Him. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- PAN GERMANICUS AS PEACE MAKER Imagine the feelings of the hindlegs of a stage elephant on being toldthat the performance is to be a continuous one and you will have someinkling of the dismay of the Kaiser and his henchman, concealed in theplumage of the War Eagle and the Dove of Peace respectively. The onebird is as useless as the other in bringing the war to the end desiredin Berlin. The stage eagle is daily losing its plumage, and is rapidlybecoming but a moulty apology for the king of birds. As for the dove, ithas been used so often, with constantly changing olive branch in itsbeak, that it now makes its appearance shamefacedly and absolutelywithout heart. Imperial eagle mask with half-mad military quasi-deity inside and doveof peace, on the German model, with calculating miscalculatingstatesman, you rang the curtain up, you cannot ring it down, either tothe music of the Hymn of Hate or the Te Deum for peace--the eagle can nolonger look boldly straight into the sun, looking for his place in it;the dove has taken permanent quarters in the German ark as it whirlsround and round in the whirlpool of impotent effort, ever drawing nearerto the final crash. When the Dove of Peace does come, it will be a realbird of good omen, not a German reserve officer masquerading as one. ALFRED STEAD. [Illustration: PAN GERMANICUS AS PEACE MAKER THE DOVE: "They say they do not want peace, as they have time enough. " THE EAGLE: "Alas! That is just what we haven't got. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- GOTT MIT UNS This picture is a perfectly accurate symbolic study of the GermanEmpire. Therefore, naturally, it is one of the most dreadful that wereever drawn. In all the gruesome "Dances of Death" in which the fifteenthcentury took so grim a pleasure, no artist ever conceived the horribleidea of a fat skeleton. But we have not only conceived the thought, wehave seen the thing--"a terror in the sunshine. " We know that chest, puffed up with a wind of pride, and that stomach heavy with slaughterand rich living; and above them the Death's Head. We have seen it. Wehave felt its foul breath. Its name is Prussia. Look at a portrait of Frederick the Great, the "onlie true begetter" ofthis abortion. It oddly suggests what Raemaekers has set down here: theface a skull, the staring eyes those of a lost soul. But the skeletonhas grown fat since Frederick's day--fat on the blood and plunder ofnations. Only there is no living flesh on its bones, nothing of humanityabout it. "Can these dry bones live?" was the question asked of the prophet. Itmight have been asked of Frederick: "Can this nation live, created ofyour foul witchcraft, without honour, without charity, without humanbrotherhood or fellowship, without all that which is the flesh and bloodof mankind?" The answer must have been that it could live, though with alife coming from below and essentially infernal. It could live--for atime. It could even have great power because its time was short. But now it has waxed fat--and kicked. And its end is near. CECIL CHESTERTON. [Illustration: IT'S FATTENING WORK] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- OUR LADY OF ANTWERP "Here I and sorrows sit. This is my throne, bid Kings come worship it. "Such seems to be an appropriate legend for Raemaekers' beautifultriptych which he has entitled "Our Lady of Antwerp. " Full of compassionand sympathy for all the sufferings of her people, she sits with theCathedral outlined behind her, her heart pierced with many agonies. Onthe left is one of the many widows who have lost their all in this war. On the right is a soldier stricken to death, who has done his utmostservice for his country and brings the record of his gallantry to thefeet of Our Lady of Antwerp. Antwerp, as we know, was at the height of its prosperity in thesixteenth century. We have been told that no fewer than five hundredships used to enter her port in the course of a day, while more than twothousand could be seen lying in her harbour at one time. Her peoplenumbered as many as one million, her fairs attracted merchants from allparts of Europe, and at least five hundred million guilders were putinto circulation every year. We know what followed. Its very prosperityproved a bait to the conqueror. In 1576 the city was captured by theSpaniards, who pillaged it for three days. Nine years later the Duke ofParma conquered it, and about the time when Queen Elizabeth wasresisting the might of Spain Antwerp's glory had departed and its tradewas ruined. At the close of the Napoleonic wars the city was handed overto the Belgians. A place of many memories, whose geographical position was wellcalculated to arouse the cupidity of the Germans, was bound to begallantly defended by the little nation to which it now belonged. Whether earlier help by the British might or might not have altered thecourse of history we cannot tell. Perhaps it was not soon enoughrealized how important it was to keep the Hun invader from the sacredsoil. At all events we do not look back on the British Expedition in aidof Antwerp in 1914 with any satisfaction, because the assistancerendered was either not ample enough or else it was belated, or both. Sothat Our Lady of Antwerp has still to bewail the ruthless tyranny ofBerlin, though perhaps she looks forward to the time when, once more inpossession of her own cities, Belgium may enter upon a new course ofprosperity. We are pledged to restore Belgium, doubly and treblypledged, by the words of the Prime Minister, and justice will not bedone until the great act of liberation is accomplished. W. L. COURTNEY. [Illustration: OUR LADY OF ANTWERP] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- DEPORTATION Nothing, when one analyzes it, could be imagined more thoroughlycharacteristic of Prussia than the particular stroke of policy by whicha large proportion of the male population of Belgium--as also in asomewhat lesser degree of Northern France--was separated from its familyties and hurried away into exile in Germany, there to be compelled towork for the profit of enemies. It had all the marks of Prussianism. Firstly, it was a violation of the civilized and Christian tradition ofEuropean arms. By the rules of such warfare the non-combatant wasspared, wherever possible; not only his life but his property andliberty were secure so long as he did not abuse his position. Secondly, it was an affront to decent human sentiment quite apart fromtechnical rules; the man, guilty of no offence save that of belonging toa country which Prussia had invaded without justice and ravaged withoutmercy, was torn from his family, who were left to the mercy of theiropponents. We all know what that mercy was like. Thirdly, it was an insult to the human soul, for the unfortunate victimswere not only to be exiled from their country, but to be driven by forceand terror to serve against it. Fourthly, and finally, like all the worst Prussian crimes, it was astupid blunder. Prussia has paid already a very high price for anyadvantage she may have gained from the mutinous and unwilling labour ofthese men, and for the swelling of her official return for theedification of her own people and of neutrals by the inclusion of"prisoners of war" of this description. To-day, when she knows not whereto turn for men, she is obliged to keep a huge garrison tied up inBelgium to guard her line of retreat. And when the retreat itself comes, the price will rise even higher, and the nemesis will be both just andterrible. CECIL CHESTERTON. [Illustration: HUSBANDS AND FATHERS Belgian workmen were forcibly deported to Germany. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE GERMAN BAND The German Band, as we know it in this country, has never been noted forharmonious music. Blatancy, stridency, false notes, and persistencyafter the coppers, have been its chief characteristics. And the same things prevail when it is at home. Never since the world began has there been such a campaign of barefacedhumbug and lying as that organized by William, Hindenburg, Hollweg andCo. For the deceiving and fleecing of the much-tried countriestemporarily under their sway. But the money had to be got in by hook or by crook, and by hook and bycrook and in every nefarious way they have milked their unfortunatepeoples dry. But there is another side to all this. In time, the veil of lies andfalse intelligence of victories in the North Sea, and at Verdun, and, indeed, wherever Germany has fought and failed, will be rent by thespear of Truth. Then will come the _débâcle_. And then, unless every scrap of grit andbackbone has been Prussianized out of the Teuton, the revulsion offeeling will sweep the oppressors out of existence; and Germany, released from the strangle-hold, may rise once more to take the placeamong the civilized nations of the world which, by her foul doings ofthe last two years, she has deliberately forfeited. JOHN OXENHAM. [Illustration: WAR LOAN MUSIC "Was blazen die Trompeten Moneten heraus?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ARCADES AMBO Looking at this cartoon one can understand why Raemaekers is not_persona grata_ in the Happy Fatherland. With half a dozen touches hehas changed Satan from the magnificent Prince of Evil whom Gustave Doréportrayed into a--Hun. Henceforth we shall envisage Satan as a Hun, talking the obscene tongue--now almost the universal language inHades--and hailed by right-thinking Huns as the All Highest War Lord. Willy senior must be jealous. With the learned Professor, the cartoonist not only produces a compositeportrait of all the _Herren Professoren_, but also drives home the pointof his amazing pencil into what is perhaps the most instructive lessonof this monstrous war--the perversion to evil uses of powers originallydesigned, nourished, and expanded to benefit mankind. When the _FurorTeutonicus_ has finally expended itself, we do not envy the feelings ofthe illustrious chemists who perfected poison gas and liquid fire! Willthey, when their hour comes, find it easy to obey the poet's injunction, and, wrapping the mantle of their past about them, "lie down to pleasantdreams?" We are assured that these professors have not exhausted their powers offrightfulness. It may be so. This is certain: Such frightfulness willultimately exhaust them. With this reflection, we may leave them, gristto be ground by the mills of God. HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL. [Illustration: ARCADES AMBO THE PROFESSOR: "I have discovered a new mixture which will blind them inhalf an hour. " SATAN: "You are in very truth my master. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "IS IT YOU, MOTHER?" Since the opening of hostilities in the present war the Scottishregiments have given repeated proofs of a valour which adds new lustreto the great traditions of Scottish soldiership. Through all the earlyoperations--on the retreat from Mons and at the battles of the Marne andthe Aisne--the Royal Scots Guards, the Scots Greys, the Gordon, theSeaforth and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the King's OwnScottish Borderers gained many fresh laurels by their heroism andundaunted spirit. The London Scottish Territorials, too, have shown aprowess as signal as that of the Scots of the Regular Army; while themettle of men of Scottish descent has made glorious contribution inFrance and elsewhere to the fine records of the Overseas armies. It is the inevitable corollary that death should levy a heavy toll onScottish soldiers in the field. Thousands of kilted youth have sufferedthe fate which Raemaekers depicts in the accompanying cartoon. It isnot, of course, only the young Scot whose thought turns in the moment ofdeath to the hearth of his home with vivid memories of his mother. Butthe word "home" and all that the word connotes often makes a more urgentappeal to the Scot abroad than to the man of another nationality. Thereis significance in the fact that, far as the Scots are wont to wanderover the world's surface, they should, under every sky and in everyturning fortune, treasure as a national anthem the song which has therefrain:-- "For it's hame, an' it's hame, fain wad I be, O! it's hame, hame, hame, to my ain countrie!" The German soldier in this war would seem to have lost well nigh alltouch of humanity. Yet the draughtsman here suggests that even theGerman soldier on occasion yields to the pathos of the young Scot'sdeath-cry for home and mother. There is grim irony in the dying man'sblurred vision which mistakes the hand of his mortal foe for that of hismother. Of such trying scenes is the drama of war composed. SIDNEY LEE. [Illustration: "IS IT YOU, MOTHER?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE FATE OF FLEMISH ART AT THE HANDS OF KULTUR It will not be possible to estimate the injury suffered by the monumentsof art wherein Belgium was so rich till the war is ended and the ruinsexamined. Much of the irreparable loss we know, as in the cases ofLouvain and Ypres. In general we may fairly conjecture that whatever isportable behind the German lines is stolen, or will be, and the restdestroyed. What is portable is stolen for its cash value, just as aremoney, furniture, clothes, and watches. So much of respect for works ofart we may expect from the Prussians--the measure of respect for thecash shewn by the Prussian general at Termonde who robbed a helplesscivilian of the 5, 000 francs he had drawn to pay his workmen's wages, and then called earth and heaven to witness his exalted virtue in notalso murdering his victim. But what cannot be carried--a cathedral, amonument, an ancient window--that is destroyed with an apish zest. Evena picture in time or place, inconvenient for removal, that also will bedefiled, slashed to rags, burnt. And indeed why not? For the best use ofa work of art as understood among the Prussian pundits is to make it thepeg whereon to hang some ridiculous breach of statistics, some monstrousdisquisition of bedevilled theory; and for such purposes a work nolonger existing so as good as any--even better. And so the marvels of the centuries go up in dust and flames, and thememorials of Memling and Matsijs, Van Eyck, and Rubens are treated asthe masters' own bodies would have been treated, had fate delayed theirtime till the coming of the Boche. ARTHUR MORRISON. [Illustration: THE FATE OF FLEMISH ART AT THE HANDS OF KULTUR] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE GRAVES OF ALL HIS HOPES "Look at the map, " says the German Chancellor. Look at the map, and markwith a cross every German disappointment and you will have a history ofthe war more illuminating than many books on the subject. The Marne, Ypres, South Africa, West Africa, Egypt, Bagdad, India, Tripoli, Verdun. Look at the map indeed. The map of the world that Germany set out toconquer. Consider the vapouring and vainglory that marked each of these"successes" in political or military trickery and the fact that of themilitary crosses each upbears above a mountain of losses the refrain ofthe old German song Verdorben--Gestorben--Ruined--Dead. It is a wonderful map to consider, this map of the world in 1916. Awonderful map to be studied by the mothers of the Fatherland who havesuckled their children to manure the crops of the future, to feed thecrematoriums and blast furnaces of Belgium, to fill the mad houses, blind asylums, and homes for incurables, when the frosts of Russia andthe guns of the Allies have done with them. And every cross marks the grave of a hope. Paris Regrets eternels. That wonderful inscription was the first to be cut. Galliene was themason. Verdun was the last and will not be the least. But, whatever maycome to be written on stone, on the heart of the mourner when he comesto die only one inscription will be found: "Calais. " If he has a heartlarge enough to have even these six letters. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE. [Illustration: THE GRAVES OF ALL HIS HOPES] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "MY SIXTH SON IS NOW LYING HERE--WHERE ARE YOURS?" There is a picture in Brussels that the Kaiser ought to study on one ofhis visits to the Belgian capital. It is Wertz's picture of Napoleon inHades. Wertz was a madman, he knew something of the horrors of war, but heknew, also, something of the grandeur and nobility of Napoleon. Napoleon is surrounded by women holding up the mutilated remains ofsons, lovers, and fathers, and still he remains Napoleon, the child ofDestiny, the Inscrutable, the Calm, and, if one may say so, theGentleman. Women knew, at least, that their dead had fallen before the armies or atthe will of a great man in those Napoleonic days; there was something ofFate in the business. But to-day the widow or the mourning mother, whilst knowing that her sonor her husband has fallen in defending Humanity from the Beast can findno quarter in their hearts for the form or the shape of manhood thatstands, in the words of Swinburne: "Curse consecrated, crowned with crime and flame!" No taunt could be too bitter for their lips and none more bitter thanthe words of Raemaekers: "My sons are lying here--where are yours?" H. DE VERE STACPOOLE. [Illustration: "MY SIXTH SON IS NOW LYING HERE--WHERE ARE YOURS?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BUNKERED The Crown Prince is in a very awkward predicament. He has driven hisball into a deep sand-pit from which a very clever professional golfermight perhaps extricate himself by a powerful stroke with a niblick. Butyoung William is not a professional, and indeed knows nothing about thegame. So he takes his driver and his other wooden clubs, and smashesthem all, with much bad language, while he whacks at the ball, whichonly buries itself deeper in the sand. He is pondering what to do next. There is, however, only one thing to do. He must take up his ball andlose the hole. The real players on his side must be disgusted at beingsaddled with such a partner. But what is to be done when a fool is borna war-lord by right of primogeniture? In a few years, in the course ofnature, this fortunate youth will be the Supreme War-Lord himself; itwill be his business to "stand in shining armour" by some luckless allywho has been selected to pick a quarrel for Germany's benefit, and toshake a "mailed fist" in the face of a trembling world. That will be aspectacle for gods and men. But perhaps something will happen instead. W. R. INGE. [Illustration: BUNKERED] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- GOTT STRAFE VERDUN An impartial military verdict on the German strategy and tactics atVerdun has not yet been delivered. After the failure of the Allies tobreak through last year, the German higher command issued a paper, whichhas been printed in American newspapers, advocating "nibbling" tactics, instead of attempts to carry a strongly fortified line by a coup _demain_. The Germans have buoyed up their hopes by assuring each otherthat their troops have been making a slow but methodical progress towardthe "fortress, " according to program. But even if we grant that thedisproportion in casualties is probably not so great as some of ourcritics have supposed, it is difficult to believe that the enemy wasprepared for such resistance as he has met with. To all appearance, theGermans expected to break through in a few days, and hoped that thissuccess would rehabilitate the credit of the paltry young prince whom wehere see entangled in barbed wire, his uniform in rags, and despairdepicted on his haggard face. Another confessed failure would finish thecareer of the Crown Prince; and yet there are limits to the endurance ofany troops, and these limits have now been reached. There is nothingleft to young William but useless imprecations. He swaggered into thiswar, for which he is partly responsible, expecting to win the reputationof a general; he will sneak out of it with the reputation of a burglar. W. R. INGE. [Illustration: GOTT STRAFE VERDUN "If only I knew whether it is less dangerous to advance or to retire. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE LAST THROW The first throw, of course, was that great rush which was stayed at theMarne by the Genius of Joffre; then there was the throw of the greatattack on Russia, that which laid waste Serbia, and that which wouldhave thrust men down from the Alps on to the Italian plain. In each ofthese Raemaekers' symbolism is applicable, for in each case death threwhigher than either Germany or Austria could afford. But in none is the symbolism so terribly fitting as in this case ofVerdun, where the fighting men went forward in waves and died inwaves--here death threw higher in every attack than Germany could throw, and to such heights was the slaughter pushed that it was, in truth, thelast throw of which these war-makers were capable. It is significant, now that Germany can no longer afford such reckless sacrifices as weremade before Verdun, that the German press contains allusions to heavysacrifices on the part of the Allies, and tries to point to folly inallied policy. Surely, in the matter of sacrifice of life, no nation isso well qualified to speak from experience as Germany. There is clumsy anxiety expressed in every line of the figure that holdsthe dice box, and in every line of the figure in the background isnervous fear for the result of the throw--fear that is fully justified. But Death, master of the game, waits complacently to mark the score, knowing that these two gamblers are the losers--and that the loser pays. E. CHARLES VIVIAN. [Illustration: THE LAST THROW] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ZEPPELIN BAG Here the artist has depicted the Kaiser in one of his favourite rôles, that of a sportsman. In pre-war times it was one of "The All Highest's"chief ambitions to be taken for an English sportsman! We believe therewere people in those now seemingly remote days who took him at his ownvaluation in this regard. Our picture papers were full of photographs ofhim shooting at this or that nobleman's estate, lunching after themorning's battue, in the act of shooting, inspecting the day's "bag, "etc. ; and other pictures were reproduced from the German papers fromtime to time of a similar character showing him as a sportsman in hisnative land. There is still, thank God, something clean about British sport andsportsmen of which the Kaiser never caught the inwardness and spirit. Ithas come out on the battlefields to-day as it has on those of pastgenerations. It has taught the British soldier to fight clean, and evenchivalrously though the foe may be a past master in "knavish tricks, "and steeped in unspeakable methods of cruelty in warfare. How thin the veneer of a sportsmanship was upon the Kaiser, which isafter all but symbolic of the higher and sterner virtues, all the worldhas had a chance of judging. And in this remarkable and arrestingdrawing the genius of the artist has taken and used a sporting incidentwith telling and even horrifying effect. In the old days it was pheasants, partridges, grouse, hares, rabbits, and other feathered game, with the nobler stags and boars that formed"the Butcher of Potsdam's 'bag. '" To-day he has his battues by proxy onsea, land, and from the air. Thousands of victims, as innocent as thefeathered folk he slaughtered of yore; and women and little childrenform the chief items of the bag; and especially is this true of the"fruit of the Zeppelin raids. " He counts the bag and rewards the slayers of the innocent as hedoubtless did the beaters, huntsmen, and keepers of the estates overwhich he formerly shot. It has been his ambition to make Europe one vastKaiserdom estate. But the sands are running out, and each "bag, " whetherby Zeppelin or submarine, serves but to stiffen the backs of the Alliesand horrify neutral nations. Some day the accumulated horrors of theKaiser's ideas of sportsmanship will have taught the latter the lessonthat Kaiserdom with Europe as a Kaiser estate means the death ofliberty, the extinction of the smaller nations, and the setting up of adespotism as cruel as that of Attila and his Huns--the self-accepted andpreached examples of William II of Germany. CLIVE HOLLAND. [Illustration: THE ZEPPELIN BAG] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "COME IN, MICHAEL, I HAVE HAD A LONG SLEEP" Yes--a long and rejuvenating sleep! The expression upon John's faceindicates an amazing determination and alertness. It is told of certainremarkable men--De Lesseps amongst the number--that they had the facultyof sleeping for several days and nights and then remaining wide awakeand at full tension for an equally long period of time. We mayconfidently predict that John has this faculty. He is not likely toslumber again till his work is done, and done thoroughly. Michael'sexpression, I regret to note, is not quite so pleasing as John's. Itgives "furiously to think, " as our gallant and beautiful France puts it, that when Michael climbs through the window of the Happy Fatherland, hemay, perchance, inspire terror in the heart of the Hun, who doubtlessexpects that his enemies, if they do invade the sacred soil, willdisplay those Christian qualities of Mercy and Forbearance which havebeen so conspicuous, by their absence, in the treatment of unfortunateprisoners upon whom they inflicted the extreme rigour of "Kultur. " Our cartoonist, it will be noticed, has placed sledge hammers in thehands of both John and Michael, rather primitive weapons, but mostadmirably adapted for "crushing. " And nothing short of crushing willsatisfy the Allies, despite the futile wiles and whines of Messrs. Trevelyan, Ponsonby, Morel, and Macdonald. Crushed they will and must beto fine powder. The hammer strokes are falling now with a persistenceand force which, at long last, reverberates in the cafés and beergardens of Munich and Berlin. The Teuton tongue--a hideous concatenationof noise at its best--must be almost inarticulate to-day in its gutturalchokings and splutterings. "Frightfulness" is coming home to roost. With all our hearts we hold out the glad hand to Michael. Come in, and stay in--bless you! HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL. [Illustration: "COME IN, MICHAEL, I THINK I'M AWAKE NOW. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FIVE ON A BENCH All visions and poems of justice have been full of the refrain of_deposuit potentes de sede_; but the bracing reality of such arevolution is lost by certain effects of antiquity, by the mists whichmake the past somewhat monochrome, and by the exalted equality of death. To say that Belisarius became a beggar means little to us when it seemsonly the difference between a rich and a tattered toga. We do notpicture Belisarius in a patched pair of trousers: but then we have noreason to be angry with Belisarius. But whenever real tyranny and honestwrath are reborn among men, there will always be an instant necessity torepresent the great reversal in the graphic colours of contemporaryfact. Raemaekers' cartoon, representing the tyrants of Europe reduced tothat very hopeless modern beggary to which they have driven manythousands of very much better men, is perhaps of all his pictures themost grim, or what would be called vindictive. I think that such revengeis in truth merely realization. The victims of the war have to sit onsuch real benches in such real rags. And being one of the fiercest, itis also one of the most delicate of the Dutch artist's studies. Nothingcould be truer than the insolent and swollen decay of the Jew Ferdinant;or the more effeminate collapse of the Kaiser, the very spike on whosehelmet droops with sentiment. G. K. CHESTERTON. [Illustration: FIVE ON A BENCH In a year and a half. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT ABOUT PEACE, LADS? War--so certain of their own prophets have said--is a "national industryof Germany. " Here we see a German _chevalier d' industrie_ attempting toescape with his swag. Never in modern times has a nation gone to warwith a more cynical and shameless determination to make the campaign payfor itself by the plunder of private property. Quite recently an orderwas found on the body of a German, enjoining all officers to assist inthe "patriotic duty" of "draining financially the occupied territories. "We are dealing, not with an honourable and civilized nation, but with aband of murdering brigands. The keepers of the national conscience havedevised a monstrous and barbarous code of ethics, in which "patriotism"is the sole duty, and the tribal god the only arbiter of right andwrong. As in Roman law, the property of an enemy is for a German _resnullius_--it has no owner. And now the prospect of any further loot on alarge scale seems remote. The speculation has turned out badly, and therobber would be glad to cut his losses. The guardians of the law are athis heels, and do not mean to let him escape. But will they be able tomake him disgorge? That will not be easy; and what atonement can be madefor the innocent blood which drops from those pitiful spoils? W. R. INGE. [Illustration: WHAT ABOUT PEACE, LADS?] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE LIBERATORS This is one of those cartoons in which the neutral in Raemaekers speakswith peculiar force. Such a picture by a Britisher would reasonably bediscounted as unduly prejudiced, for it is none too easy for us in ourpresent stresses to see the other fellow's point of view--in thisdifficult business of the blockade for an instance. That friendly championing of the rights of neutrals suffering under theoutrageous tyranny of the British Navy is a thing to which only thedetached humour of a neutral can do justice. He can testify to the wayin which the giant strength of that navy, whether in peace or war, hasbeen used in the main not in the giants' tyrannous way; he can makeallowance for the exigencies which have caused occasional arbitrarinessunder the stress of war or even in some untactful moment of peace; hecan contrast the two main opposing navy's notions of justice, courtesy, seamanship--which is sportsmanship. He can recall that no single right whether of combatant or neutral, ofstate or individual, guaranteed by international law, which the Germanshave found it convenient or "necessary" to violate has been leftunviolated; that there is no single method or practice of war condemnedby the common consent of civilization but has been employed by men whoeven have the candour to declare that they stand above laws andguarantees. And therefore he can make grim, effective fun of the sinister banditwith his foot planted on the shackled prisoner that lies between twomurdered victims fatuously taking in vain the name of freedom. JOSEPH THORP. [Illustration: "Freedom of the land is ours--why should we not havefreedom of the sea?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- TOM THUMB AND THE GIANT The reference in this cartoon is to an incident which, at the time ofits occurrence, is said to have caused considerable indignation inGermany. A Zeppelin, having been on a raiding expedition to England, washit on the return journey, and dropped into the North Sea. The crew, clinging to the damaged airship, besought the captain of a Britishtrawler to take them off, but the captain, seeing that the Zeppelin crewfar outnumbered his own, declined to trust them, and left them to theirfate. Whether the trawler's captain actually "put his thumb unto hisnose and spread his fingers out" is a matter for conjecture, but underthe circumstances it is scarcely likely. The whole point lies in the German view of the trawler's captain and hisinhuman conduct. He knew, perfectly well, that if he rescued the crew ofthe Zeppelin, the probable reward for himself and crew would be a voyageto the nearest German port and interment in a prison camp for theremainder of the war--and plenty of reliable evidence is forthcoming asto the treatment meted out to men in German prison camps. He knew, also, that these men who besought his aid were returning from one of theexpeditions which have killed more women and children in England thanable-bodied men, that they had been sharing in work which could not bedescribed as even of indirect military value, but was more of the natureof sheer murder. And Germany condemned his conduct by every adjectivethat implied brutality and barbarity. The unfortunate thing about the German viewpoint is that it takes intoconsideration only such points as favour Germany, a fact of which thisincident affords striking evidence. E. CHARLES VIVIAN. [Illustration: TOM THUMB AND THE GIANT "Come and save me. You know I am so fond of children. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "WE HAVE FINISHED OFF THE RUSSIANS" Assuming that the statement with regard to finishing off the Russianswas actually written--and there is every reason to assume it--one mayconjecture what memories it recalled. The great battles of the Warsawsalient, the drive that lasted for many months through the flats ofPoland, the struggles of the Vilna salient, and all the time theknowledge that mechanism, the guns in which Germany put her trust, wereshattering Russian legions day after day. Then the gradual settling ofthe eastern line, well into Russia, with all the industrial districts ofPoland firmly gripped in German hands, and the certainty that thoughRussia had not been utterly broken and forced to a peace, yet so muchhad been accomplished that there was no longer any eastern menace, butboth Germany and Austria might go about their business of conquest inthe west, having "finished off" in the east. But that strong figure with the pistol pointed at the writer, thatimplacable, threatening giant, is a true type of Russia theunconquerable. It is a sign that the guns in which Germany put her trusthave failed her, that the line which was to hold firm during thebusiness of conquest in the west has broken--more, it is a sign of thedoom of the aggressor. The writing of that fat, complacent figure--sorryimitator of the world's great conquerors--is arrested, and in place ofstolid self-conceit there shows fear. Well-grounded fear. History can show no crimes to equal the rape ofBelgium and the desolation of Poland at the hands of Germany. The giantwith the pistol stands not only as a returned warrior, but also as anavenger of unspeakable crimes. E. CHARLES VIVIAN. [Illustration: WE HAVE FINISHED OFF THE RUSSIANS "Wait a moment. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- MUDDLE THROUGH Although this striking cartoon of Raemaekers may, since the consummationof Lord Derby's Scheme and the raising of the new armies, be said tohave lost its sting it cannot be said no longer to have a lesson. At the time of its first publication the sight of England assailed bythe central Empires bent on her destruction for having thrown the weightof her trident and her sword into the scales on the side of Justice andRight against Lawlessness and Might, failed to evoke in many of her sonsthe spirit of patriotism which has since manifested itself in manyglorious and immortal deeds. It was difficult for us to realize that we were at war. And at war notmerely to protect the weak and uphold ideals of national righteousness, but for national existence itself. The doctrine of "muddle through" wasnot confined to the War Office and other Government Departments, butseemed to permeate the whole nation to a lamentable extent. In thecartoon we have three typical men with that fatal "business (orpleasure) as usual" expression on their faces. That Germany should seekto wrest the trident and sovereignty of the seas from the hand ofBritain, or should have devastated Belgium and the North EasternDepartment of France was obviously no personal concern of theirs. Letthe other chaps fight if they would. Happily for England and for her gallant Allies the point of the cartoonhas been blunted, if not entirely destroyed, by subsequent events. Butthe lesson? It is not far to seek. Is it not that had "business asusual" not been so gladly adopted as the national creed in the earlydays of war, we might have been happy in the blessings of Peace by now, or at least have had Peace much nearer. We do not envy the men who might have gone but who stayed at home inthose early days, when their earlier presence on the field of battlemight have been the means not only of saving many thousands of valuablelives, but of shortening the terrible carnage. It would have been athousand times better had the mind which conceived the phrase "businessas usual" been acute enough to foresee the possible and disastrousmisapplications of the phrase. Rather would it have been better had theidea crystallized in "Do it now. " CLIVE HOLLAND. [Illustration: MUDDLE THROUGH] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- MY ENEMY IS MY BEST FRIEND These words of Emerson's express exactly the thought of this cartoon. The Netherlands is a country that has been slowly won from the ocean;the cruel sea has always been its enemy, at first completely triumphant, then gradually resisted and driven forth by the enterprise and toil ofmen; but it is always an enemy to be dreaded. Its inroads have to beguarded against by great dykes and by the never-ceasing care andindustry of the nation. Now and again the floods come, and people barelyescape in boats from the waters. Yet time and again the enemy has beenthe best friend of the Netherlands. This enemy has saved them from thedomination of Spain, and now, as the refugees on the floods of lastwinter are escaping from the jaws of death they feel that the waterwhich is now an enemy (_vijand_), may to-morrow be a friend (_vriend_);for an invasion by the Germans, that ever-dreaded danger to allpatriotic Dutchmen, can be guarded against only by the friendly help ofthe ocean which can be invoked in case of need to save its own people. It was only in the last resort that William the Silent consented to letin the sea. He resisted the Spaniards as long as he could, and only whenall possible chance of further resistance was at an end did he haverecourse to the sea as the last friend. He saved the country by allowingthe German Ocean to destroy it. In this cartoon the people in the boatsregard the sea as their enemy; but an invasion by German armies couldnot be resisted except with the help of the friendly sea, whose voice isthe voice of Freedom. WILLIAM MITCHELL RAMSAY. [Illustration: The Floods in Holland--now a fiend, to-morrow a friend. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW I DEAL WITH THE SMALL FRY Perhaps only those who have the opportunity of reading the paperspublished in neutral countries, and have made a study of the mendacious"news for neutrals" issued by the notorious Woolf Agency and GermanWireless Bureau, are able to grasp the powerful inner motive whichactuates Raemaekers in the persistence with which he seeks to drive homethe tragic stories of Belgium and Luxemburg. At this time of day itmight seem superfluous to issue a cartoon of this kind. But is it? Withneutral opinion apparently by no means convinced as yet of the sinisterdesigns of Prussianism upon the liberties of Europe and especially ofsmaller nations a drawing of such poignancy and force cannot fail toarrest the attention and bring home the lesson of that creed which hasfor its gospel such phrases as "Necessity knows no law" and "Force shallrule. " It is inconceivable to the thinking mind that there can be a manor woman who, with the story of the violation of Belgium and Luxemburgbefore them, can possibly hesitate to brand the German nation with themark of Cain, and tremble at the mere possibility that might shouldtriumph over right. Our wonderment is all the greater when we remember how the Kaiser andhis murderous hordes have made no secret of their methods. They may inthe end seek to deny them, to repudiate the deeds of blood and of unholysacrilege and violence which in the early days of war were avowedconcomitants of their policy, but such disavowal is not yet. Beneath the Kaiser's heel in bloody reality lie at the present timeBelgium and unprotected Luxemburg every whit as much as is shown by thepowerful pencil of the artist. The reign of lust, cruelty, and destruction is not yet done, though thesigns and portents of the end are not now a-wanting. The blood of men, women, and little children shall not cease to cry aloud for vengeanceuntil the Prussian eagle is humbled in the dust, and its power for evilis utterly destroyed. This is a good cartoon to bear in mind and lookupon should "War weariness" ever overtake one. It will be a good one tohave upon one's wall when peace talk is head in the land. Thomas Moore may be said to have composed an epitaph for Prussianismthree-quarters of a century ago when he wrote the lines: "Accursed is the march of that glory Which treads o'er the hearts of the free. " A great statesman has declared "the Allies will not sheathe the sworduntil Justice is vindicated. " Let us add "and until reparation isexacted to the uttermost farthing from these responsible for this bloodyconflict and its diabolical crimes, whether the perpetrators be high orlow. " CLIVE HOLLAND. [Illustration: How I deal with the small fry. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE TWO EAGLES A double-edged satire on both political birds. Neither is a true eagle. They have talons but nothing of the noble air proper to the king ofbirds. The German bird is not an eagle but a vulture; and he is in asorry plight, with torn and ruffled feathers, dishevelled, drippingblood. He is disappointed, angry, soured, and unhappy. Yet he isstraightforward about it. He makes no attempt to disguise his feelings, but glares at the other with the indignation of one who has beendeceived written on his face and vibrating in his voice. And his reproach gets home. The American bird, who is bigger and standson a bigger rock, is sleek enough except about the head which is a bitruffled. But he is more of a raven than an eagle in his sable plumes ofprofessional cut, and he is obviously not at ease. He does not look theother in the face. He stares straight in front of him at nothing with aforced, hard and fixed smile, obviously assumed because he has no replyto make. During the war many indiscreet phrases have dropped from the lips ofprominent persons who must bitterly regret them and wish them burieddeep in oblivion. But they stand on record, and history will not letthem die. "Too proud to fight" is the most unfortunate of all, and whenothers are forgotten it will remain, because it has a generalapplication. Mr. Raemaekers exposes its foolishness here with a singlemasterly touch and he puts the exposure in the right mouth. The cartoonis an illuminating epitome of the interminable exchange of notes betweenthe two Powers on submarine warfare. A. SHADWELL. [Illustration: "I thought you said you were too proud to fight. "] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LONDON--INSIDE THE SAVOY At first glance this cartoon would seem to imply that the people insidethe Savoy had little interest in the war, for the figures in eveningdress are well in the foreground; a count of heads, however, will showsix, and possibly seven men in uniform and only four in civilian attire, and of the soldiers not one is dancing--they are lookers-on at thesestrange beings who pursue the ordinary ways of life. Of such beings, not many are left--certainly not this proportion of fourto six, or four to seven. Compulsion has thinned the ranks of theshirkers down to an irreducible minimum, and a visit to the Savoy at anytime in the last six months of 1916 would show khaki entirelypreponderant, just as it is in the streets. These correctly dressed andmonocled young men have been put into the national machine, and mouldedinto fighting material--their graves are thick in Flanders and along theheights north of the Somme, and they have proved themselves equal andsuperior to what had long been regarded as the finest fighting forces ofEurope. It is in reality no far cry from the Somme fighting area to the lightand the music of the Savoy, and a man may dance one night and die undera German bullet the next--many have already done so. Here the artistshows the lighter side of British life to-day, but one has only to turnto the companion cartoon to this, "Outside the Savoy, " to see that herealizes London as thoroughly in earnest about the war. E. CHARLES VIVIAN. [Illustration: LONDON--INSIDE THE SAVOY] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LONDON--OUTSIDE THE SAVOY The newsboy, under military age; one man, well over military age; threewomen--and all the rest in uniform--even the top of the bus that showsin the distance is filled with soldiers. Thus Raemaekers sees theStrand, one of the principal thoroughfares of the heart of the BritishEmpire. For the sake of contrast with the companion cartoon, "Inside the Savoy, "there is a slight exaggeration in this view of London street life inwar-time--the proportion of civilians to soldiers is necessarily greaterthan this, or the national life could not go on. A host of industriesare necessary to the prosecution of the war, and it falls to some men tostay behind--many of them unwillingly. There was a time, in the early days, when Britain suffered from anunder-estimate of the magnitude of this task of war--a time which thecartoon "Inside the Savoy" typifies in its presentment of carelessenjoyment. But that attitude was soon dispelled, and it is significantof the spirit of the nation that only when nine-tenths of the necessaryarmy had been raised by voluntary--indeed, this is a certainty, for notuntil long after the cartoon was published did any conscripts appear inthe streets. Though, in the proportion of soldiers to civilians, thecartoon may exaggerate, in its presentment of the spirit of the nation, and of the determination of the nation with regard to the war, it istrue to life. E. CHARLES VIVIAN. [Illustration: LONDON--OUTSIDE THE SAVOY] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE INVOCATION This drawing touches the highest level of the draughtsman's art anddemonstrates the unique power of the pencil in a master hand. So simple, so true, so complete, so direct and so eloquent is the message thatwords can add nothing to it. They can only pay a tribute ofappreciation. Everybody can read the meaning at a glance; none can read it whollyunmoved. For here is pure humanity, which none can escape, the primalinstinct without which man that is born of woman would not be. Beforethis weak, bowed, and homely figure Knowledge is silent, Pride andPassion are rebuked. Strength is shamed. Motherhood and mother-lovetranscend them all. There is here nothing of anger, no thought of hostility or revenge, notrace of evil passion. Only a mother yearning after her son and pleadingto another mother, the Divine type of motherhood, the Mother of God. Andwhat she asks is so little, only to see him again. She has given him, asthe mother to whom she prays gave her Son, and she does not demand himback. She reproaches no one, accuses no one, makes no complaint and noclaim for herself, but meekly pleads that she may be allowed to see himagain to still the longing in her breast. She is a woman of the people, a simple peasant, but she personifies all mothers in every war, as shebows her silvered head in humble prayer at the way-side shrine. A. SHADWELL. [Illustration: MON FILS--BELGIUM, 1914 "Let me see him again, Holy Virgin!"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESSGARDEN CITY, N. Y.