Raemaekers' Cartoons Part 19

EDEN PHILLPOTTS.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I say, do suggest something new. This is becoming too boring."]

"The Peace Woman"

In this humorous yet pathetic cartoon--humorous because of its truth to the type, and pathetic because of the futility of the effort depicted--with unfailing skill the artist shows the folly of the cry "Peace! Peace!" when there is none. In the forefront is a type of woman publicist who can never be happy unless the limelight secured by vocal effort and the advocacy of a "crazy" cause is focussed upon her. She calls "Peace!" that the world may hear, not attend. Behind her stands that other type of detached "peace woman," who has, judging from her placid yet grieved expression, apparently scarcely realized that the War is too serious and has its genesis in causes too deep-rooted to be quelled by her or her kind. One can imagine her saying: "A war! How terrible! It must be stopped."

The soldier, who is wise enough to prefer armour-plate even to a s.h.i.+eld provided by substantially built peace women clad in white, looks on amused. The thinking world as a whole so looks on at "Arks" launched by American millionaire motor manufacturers, and at Pacifist Conferences held whilst the decision as to whether civilization or savagery shall triumph, and might be greater than right, yet hangs in the balance.

There must be no thought of peace otherwise than as the ultimate reward of gallant men fighting in a just cause, and until with it can come permanent security from the "Iron Fist" of Prussian Militarism and aggression, and the precepts of Bernhardi and his kind are shown to be false. Those who talk of peace in the midst of "frightfulness," of piracy, of reckless carnage and colossal sacrifices of human life which are the fruits of an attempt to save by military glory a c.r.a.pulous dynasty, however good their intention, lack both mental and moral perspective.

CLIVE HOLLAND.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

THE PEACE WOMAN: "We will march in white before our sons."

THE NEUTRAL SOLDIER: "Madam, we would prefer the protection of an armour-plate."]

THE SELF-SATISFIED BURGHER

The artist has depicted the ordinary att.i.tude of a self-satisfied burgher not only in Holland but in other countries also. "What does it matter 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 the neutral countries, especially those of Scandinavian origin. It is really a variety of the old text: "Let us eat, drink, and be merry; for to-morrow we die." Why not, it is urged, make the best of present facilities? As long as we are left alone we can pursue our ordinary industrialism. We can heap up our percentages and profits. Our trade is in a fairly flouris.h.i.+ng condition, and we are making money. No one knows what the future may bring; why, therefore, worry about it? Besides, if the worst comes to the worst and Germany annexes us, are we quite sure that we shall be in a much worse condition than we are now? It will be to the interest of Berlin that we should carry on our usual industrial occupations. 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 mere matter of getting enough to eat and drink and of having a balance at the banker's, his view of the case might pa.s.s muster. But a national life depends 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 princ.i.p.al of growth, and freedom is the one thing which German militarism desires to make impossible for all those whom she gathers into her fold. The loss of liberty means the ruin of all those ends for which a State exists. Even the material prosperity which the self-satisfied burgher desires will be definitely sacrificed by a submission to Teutonic autocracy.

W. L. COURTNEY.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SELF-SATISFIED BURGHER

"What does it matter if we're annexed afterwards, so long as we remain neutral now?"]

THE DECADENT

War is a fiery winnower of incapacities. Many reputations have gone to the sc.r.a.p-heap since August, 1914. None more surely than that of the braggart Crown Prince. It is said that this terrible catastrophe was largely 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 lead the 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 since developed many stars in it. He has been held, wasting men, time, opportunity, and his own little apology for a soul. He has done nothing to justify his position or even his existence. He has wrecked his home-life by wanton indulgence. He has made himself notorious by his private lootings of the chateaux cursed with his presence.

Even in 1870 the native cupidity of the far finer breed of conquerors could 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 in the course of their nefarious operations.

But we never heard of "Unser Fritz," the then Crown Prince, ransacking the mansions he stayed in. He was a great man and a good--the very last German gentleman. And this decadent is his grandson!

"Unser Fritz" was a very n.o.ble-looking man. His grandson--oh, well, look at him and judge for yourselves! Of a surety the sight is calculated to heighten one's amazement that any nation under the sun, or craving it, could find in such a personality, even as representative of a once great but now exploding idea, anything whatever even to put up with, much less to wors.h.i.+p and die for.

The race of Hohenzollern has wilted and ravelled out to this. The whole world, outside Prussia, devoutly hopes ere long to have seen the last of it.

It has been at all times, with the single exception above noted, a hustling, grabbing, self-seeking race. May the eyes of Germany soon be opened! Then, surely, it will be thrust back into the obscurity whence heaven can only have permitted it to escape for the flagellation of a world which was losing its ideals and needed bracing back with a sharp, stern twist.

JOHN OXENHAM.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 the devastating War now raging, wild-beast-like, almost throughout the length and breadth of Europe, so appalling as the application of science and man's genius to the work of decimating the human species.

Early in the conflict, which is being fought for the basal principles of civilization and moral human conduct, one was made to realize that the Allied Powers were opposed to an enemy whose resources were only equalled by his utter negation of the rules of civilized warfare. Soon, to the horrors of machine-guns and of high-explosive sh.e.l.ls of a calibre and intensity of destructive force never before known, were added the diabolical engines for pouring over the field of battle asphyxiating gases. We know the horrors of that mode of German "frightfulness," and some of us have seen its effects in the slowly dying victims in hospitals. But that was not enough. Yet other methods of "frightfulness"

and savagery, which would have disgraced the most ruthless conquerors of old, were to be applied by the German Emperor in his blasphemous "Gott mit uns" campaign. And against the gallant sons of Belgium, France, England, and Russia in turn were poured out with b.e.s.t.i.a.l ingenuity the jets and curtains of "liquid fire" which seared the flesh and blinded the eyes. For this there will be a reckoning if G.o.d be still in heaven whilst the world trembles with the shock of conflict, and the souls of men are seared.

Raemaekers in this cartoon shows not only the horror of such a method of warfare, but also, with unerring pencil, the unwavering spirit of the men who have to meet this "frightfulness." There is a land to be redeemed, and women and children to be avenged, and so the fighting men of the allied nations go gallantly on with their stern, amazed faces set towards victory.

CLIVE HOLLAND.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LIQUID FIRE]

NISH AND PARIS

Very happily and very graphically has Raemaekers here pointed the contrast between the Gargantuan hopes with which the Kaiser and his Junker army embarked on the War, and the exiguous and shadowy fruits of their boasted victories up to the present. They foretold a triumphal entry into the conquered capital of France within a month of the opening of hostilities. Yet the irony of Fate has, slowly but surely, cooled the early fever of antic.i.p.ation. The only captured town where the All-Highest has found an opportunity of lifting his voice in exultant paean is Nish, a secondary city of the small kingdom of Serbia. There, too, he perforce delayed his jubilation until the lapse of some eighteen months after the date provisionally and prematurely fixed in the first ebullition of overconfidence, for his triumphal procession through Paris.

Nish is a town of little more than 20,000 inhabitants; about the size of Taunton or Hereford--smaller than Woking or Dartford. Working on a basis of comparative populations, the Emperor would have to repeat without more delay his bravery at Nish in 150 towns of the same size before he could convince his people that he is even now on the point of fulfilling his first rash promises to them of the rapid overthrow of his foes.

Pursuing the same calculation, he is bound to multiply his present glories 350 times before he can count securely on spending a night as conquering hero in Buckingham Palace.

Even the Kaiser must know in his heart that woefully, from his own and his people's point of view, did he overestimate his strength at the outset. For the time he contents himself with the backwater of Nish for the scene of his oratory of conquest. His vainglorious words may well prove in their environment the prelude of a compulsory confession of failure, which is likely to come at a far briefer interval than the eighteen months which separate the imaginary hope of Paris from the slender substance of Nish.

SIDNEY LEE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TRIALS OF A COURT PAINTER

"I commenced this as the entry into Paris, but I must finish it as the entry into Nish."]