Raemaekers' Cartoons Part 5

And it is for the young especially that the war is being waged, young boys and young girls like the motherless child in the picture, in order that they may inherit a Europe which shall be free from the horrible burden of German militarism, and be able to live useful lives in peace and quietness. No, little girl, mother did no wrong! But _we_ should be guilty of the deepest wrong if we did not avenge her death and that of other similar victims by making such unparalleled crimes impossible hereafter.

W. L. COURTNEY.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ZEPPELIN TRIUMPH

"But Mother had done nothing wrong, had she, Daddy?"]

KEEPING OUT THE ENEMY

The Prussian turns everything to account, from the sc.r.a.pings of the pig-trough to the Austrian Emperor.

The Bavarian lists, the Saxon lists, the Austrian lists--these are all only indications of injuries to the Prussian's life-saving waistcoat. If this war is to be a war to the last penny and the last man, the last Austrian will die before the last Saxon, the last Saxon before the last Bavarian, the last Bavarian before the last Prussian--and the last Prussian 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, the Saxon 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 centre of hardness, the incarnation of the shady trick, and the very complex soul of mechanical efficiency.

The Hohenzollern here makes a sandbag of the Hapsburg, of whom Fate has already made a football.

Fate has always been behind the Hapsburg for his own sins and those of his house. She has made him kneel at last.

H. DE VERE STACPOOLE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 alliance following Germany is to be allowed little force--is that, the civilization of Europe now being defeated, a Roman pride may be generous to the fallen. Before modern Germany is routed, as may be seen in the features of its citizens, the n.o.bility of its public works, and the admirable, restrained, and cla.s.sic sense of its literature, this generosity to a humbled world will take the form of letting nations, of right independent, enjoy some measure of freedom under a German suzerainty. In the matter of property the magnanimous descendants of Frederick and William the Great will restore the machines which cannot be wrenched from their concrete beds, and the walls of the manufactories. 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 did before Germany conquered at the Marne.... This is the majestic vision which the subtle diplomats of Berlin present to the admiration of the neutral Powers, happily free from wicked pa.s.sions of war, and not blinded, as are the British, French, Russians, Italians, Belgians, and the Serbians, by petty spite. Their audience, their triple audience, is part of Greece, some of the public of Spain, and sections of that of the United States. To the French and the British armies in the West, to the Russians in the East, and to the Italians upon their frontiers, the terms appear insufficient. Therein would seem to lie the gravity of Prussia's case. These belligerent Powers will go so far as to demand more than the mere restoration of stolen property, from cottage furniture to freedom. And their anger has risen so high that they even propose to make the acquirer of these goods suffer very bitterly indeed.

What plea he will then raise under discomforts more serious than those he has caused to the peasants of Flanders and of Poland, and how those pleas will affect his neutral audience, will have no effect whatever on the result of the war, or on his own unpleasing fate. Those appeals will have a certain interest, however, because we know from the past that the German mind is unstable. Within fifteen short months it proposed the annihilation of the French armies and the occupation of Paris. It failed. 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 blockading of England, failed; thought Egypt better, and then changed its mind. It was but yesterday in the mood that this cartoon suggests; to-morrow its mood will have utterly changed again, probably to a whine, perhaps to a scream. Such instability is rare in the history of nations which purpose a conquest of others, and it is a very poor furniture for the mind.

HILAIRE BELLOC.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GERMAN: "If you will let me keep what I have, I will let _you_ go."]

THE WOLF TRAP

The wolf is not perhaps the beast by which one would most wish one's country to be represented. But the wolf, like every animal when defending its dearest, and when a.s.sailed with treachery, has its n.o.bility. And the Roman she-wolf certainly has had in all ages her dignity 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 of Germany and Austria, if owing them less and less as time went on, it was difficult for her to break with them. But the day came when she had to break with them, and once again "act for herself." She told them a year ago she would be a party to no aggressive or selfish war, she would be no bully's accomplice. She "denounced"--it is a good word--such a compact. _Non haec in foedera veni._

Then it was, when the she-wolf showed her teeth, that they offered to give her what was her own. But what would the Trentino be worth if Germany and Austria were victorious? No, the wolf is right, "she must fight for it," and behind Austria's underhanded treachery stands Germany's open violence and guns.

And Italy loves freedom. This war is a war made by her people. As of old her King and her diplomats go with them in this new _Resorgimento_. And the she-wolf must beware the trap. She needs the spirit again not only of 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 ponders with turned head, half doubtful, half desperate. The poor little cub whimpers pitifully. The hunters dissemble their craft, the trap waits in the path ready to spring. It is not even concealed. Is that the irony of the artist, or is it only due to the necessity of making his meaning plain? Whichever it is, it is justified.

HERBERT WARREN.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Middle Age. The tale, which an Armenian bishop first told at the Abbey of St.

Albans, concerned a doorkeeper in the house of Pontius Pilate--or, as some say, a shoemaker in Jerusalem--who insulted Christ on His way to Calvary. He was told by Our Lord, "I will rest, but thou shalt go on till the Last Day." Christendom saw the strange figure in many places--at Hamburg and Leipsic and Lubeck, at Moscow and Madrid, even at far Bagdad. Goodwives in the little mediaeval cities, hastening homeward against the rising storm, saw a bent figure posting through the snow, with haggard face and burning eyes, carrying his load of penal immortality, and seeking in vain for "easeful death." There is a profound metaphysic in such popular fancies. Good and evil are alike eternal. Arthur and Charlemagne and Ogier the Dane are only sleeping and will yet return to save their peoples; and the Wandering Jew staggers blindly through the ages, seeking the rest which he denied to his Lord.

In George Meredith's "Odes in Contribution to the Song of French History" there is a famous pa.s.sage on Napoleon. France, disillusioned at last,

"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 would shatter the homely decencies of mankind and set his foot on the world's neck is himself bound captive. He is the slave of the djinn whom he has called 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 his own heart.

The Wandering Jew of the Middle Age was a figure sympathetically conceived. He had still to pay the price in his tortured body, but his soul was at rest, for he had repented his folly. Raemaekers in his cartoon follows the conception of Gustave Dore rather than that of the old fabulists. The modern Ahasuerus has no surety of an eventual peace.

We have seen the German War Lord flitting hungrily from Lorraine to Poland, from Flanders to Nish, watching the failure of his troops before Nancy and Ypres, inditing grandiose proclamations to Europe, prophesying a peace which never comes. He is a figure worthy of Greek tragedy. The [Greek: hubris] which defied the G.o.ds has put him outside the homely consolations of mankind. He has devoted his people to the Dance of Death, and himself, like some new Orestes, can find no solace though he seek it wearily in the four corners of the world.

JOHN BUCHAN.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AHASUERUS RETURNS

"Once I drove the Christ out of my door, now I am doomed to walk from the Northern Seas to the Southern, from the Western sh.o.r.es to the Eastern mountains, asking for Peace, and none will give it to me."--From the Legend of the "Wandering Jew"]

OUR CANDID FRIEND

The position of Holland and Denmark is one of excruciating anxiety to the citizens of those countries. They know that the Allies are fighting the battle of their own political existence, but they are so hypnotized with well-founded terror of the implacable tyrant on their flank that they are not only bound to neutrality, but are afraid to express their sympathies too plainly. Dutch editors have been admonished and punished under pressure from Berlin; the brilliant artist of these cartoons is in danger on his native soil. A leading German newspaper has lately announced that "we will make Holland pay with interest for these insults after the war." A German victory would inevitably be followed in a few years by the disappearance from the map of this gallant and interesting little nation, our plucky rival in time past, our honoured friend to-day. No nation has established a stronger claim to maintain its independence, whether we consider the heroic and successful struggles of the Dutch for religious and political liberty, their triumphs in discovery, colonization, and naval warfare, their unique contributions to art, or the manly and vigorous character of their people. It is needless to say that we have no designs upon any Dutch colony!

THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUR CANDID FRIEND

GERMANY, TO HOLLAND: "I shall have to swallow you up, if only to prevent those English taking your colonies."]