Raemaekers' Cartoons Part 7

It is the essence of great cartooning to see things simply, and to command the technical resources that shall show the things, so simply seen, in an infinite variety of aspects. No series of Raemaekers'

drawing better exemplifies his quality in both these respects than those which deal with Germany's sea crimes.

In the cartoon before us the immediate message is of the simplest. The Kaiser counts the head of British merchantmen sunk. Von Tirpitz counts the cost. But note the subtlety of the personation and environment. The Kaiser has those terrible haunted eyes that have marked the seer's presentment of him from quite an early stage of the war. There can be no ultimate escape from the dreadful vision that has set the seal of despair on this fine and handsome visage. He is shown, not as a sea monster, but as some rabid, evasive, impatient thing, das.h.i.+ng from point to point--as from policy to policy--with the angry swish that tells the unspoken anger failure everywhere compels. For the victories do not bring surrender, nor does frightfulness inspire terror. The merchant s.h.i.+ps still put to sea--and the U boats pay the penalty.

The futility of this campaign of murder is typified by making Von Tirpitz, its inventor, an addle-headed seahorse, the nursery comedian of the sea. Stupid and ridiculous bewilderment stares from his foolish eyes. Another submarine has failed to find a safe victim in a trading s.h.i.+p, but has been hoisted with its own sea petard. The impotence of the thing!

This conference of the Admirals of the Atlantic, held in the sombre depths, is a biting satire, in its mingled comedy and tragedy, on the effort to win command of the sea from its bottom.

ARTHUR POLLEN.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 G.o.d 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MATER DOLOROSA]

"GOTT STRAFE ITALIEN!"

When Italy, still straining at the leash which held her, helpless, to the strange and unnatural Triplice, began to show signs of awakening consciousness, Germany's efforts to lull her back to the unhappy position of silent partner in the world-crime were characteristic of her methods. Forthwith Italy was loaded with compliments. The country was overrun with "diplomats," which is another name in Germany for spies.

Bribery of the most brazen sort was attempted. The newspapers recalled in chorus that Italy was the land of art and chivalry, of song and heroism, of fabled story and manly effort, of honour and loyalty. Hark to 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--be held out to her, Italy's vows, Italy's sense of obligation, Italy's _word once given_, can never be broken. Such a nation of n.o.blemen could have no dealings with hucksters."

Germany is, indeed, a fine judge of a nation's "word once given" and a nation's "vows," which its Chancellor unblus.h.i.+ngly declared to be mere sc.r.a.ps of paper. Now let us see what the _Hamburger Nachrichten_ had to say about Italy immediately after her secession from the Triple Alliance: "_Nachrichten_, June 1, 1915. That Italy should have joined hands with the other n.o.ble gentlemen, our enemies, is but natural. It would, of course, be absurd--where all are brigands--were the cla.s.sical name of brigandage not included in the number.... We do not propose to soil our clean steel with the blood of such filthy Italian sc.u.m. With our cudgels we shall smash them into pulp."

_"Gott strafe Italien"_ indeed! Bombs on St. Mark's in Venice, on the Square of Verona, on world treasures unreplaceable. The poisoned breath of Germany carries its venom into the land of suns.h.i.+ne and song, whose best day's work in history has been to wrest itself free from the grip of the false friend.

RALPH D. BLUMENFELD.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "GOTT STRAFE ITALIEN!"]

SERBIA

Serbia has suffered the fate of Belgium. Germany and Austria, with Bulgaria's aid, have plunged another little country "in blood and destruction." Another "bleeding piece of earth" bears witness to the recrudescence 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 artist portrays as a hound lapping up the victim's blood, is fated to share the punishment for the crime. But the prime instigator is the German Emperor, whose Chancellor, with bitter irony, claims for his master the t.i.tle of protector of the small nationalities of Europe. Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg can on occasion affect the mincing accents of the wolf when that beast seeks to lull the cries of the lamb in its clutches. The German method of waging war has rendered "dreadful objects so familiar"

that the essential brutality of the enemy's activities runs a risk of escaping at times the strenuous denunciation which Justice demands. But the searching pencil of Mr. Raemaekers brings home to every seeing eye the true and unvarying character of Teutonic "frightfulness." All instincts of humanity are cynically defied on the specious ground of military necessity. Mr. Raemaekers is at one with Milton in repudiating the worthless plea:

"So spake the fiend, and with necessity, The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds."

SIR SIDNEY LEE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OCTOBER IN SERBIA

The Austro-German-Bulgarian attack on Serbia began in October, which in Holland is called the "butcher's month," as the cattle are then killed preparatory to the winter.]

JUST A MOMENT--I'M COMING

Here is a drawing that ought to be circulated broadcast throughout Australia and New Zealand, that ought to hold a place of honour on the walls of their public chambers; should hang in gilded frames in the houses of the rich; be pinned to the rough walls of frame-house and bark humpy in every corner of "The Outback." It should thrill the heart of every man, woman, and child Down Under with pride and thankfulness and satisfaction, should even bring soothing balm to the wounds of those who in the loss of their nearest and dearest have paid the highest and the deepest price for the flaming glory of the Anzacs in Gallipoli.

Here in the artist's pencil is a monument to those heroes greater than pinnacles of marble, of beaten bra.s.s and carven stone; a monument that has travelled over the world, has spoken to posterity more clearly, more convincingly, and more rememberingly than ever written or word-of-mouth speech could do. It is to the everlasting honour of the people of the Anzacs that they refrained from echoing the idle tales which ran whispering 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 the demons of Incompetence and Inefficiency. To those in Australia who in their hearts may feel that shreds of truth were woven in the rumours--that the Anzacs were spent on a forlorn hope, were wasted on a task foredoomed to failure--let this simple drawing bring the comfort of the truth.

The artist has seen deeper and further than most. The Turkish armies held from pouring on Russia and Serbia, from thumping down the scales of neutrality in Greece and Roumania perhaps, from ma.s.sing their troops with the Central Powers; the Kaiser chained on the East and West for the critical months when men and munitions were desperately lacking to the Allies, when the extra weight of the Turks might have freed the Kaiser's power 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 the heroes of the Dardanelles. In face of this, who dare hint they suffered and died in vain?

BOYD CABLE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "JUST A MOMENT--I'M COMING."]

THE HOLY WAR

Surely the artist when he drew this was endowed with the wisdom of the seer, the vision of the prophet. For it was drawn before the days in which I write, before the Russian giant had proved his greatness on the body of the Turk, before the bludgeon-strokes in the Caucasus, the heart-thrust of Erzerum, the torrent of pursuit of the broken Turks to Mush and Trebizond.