Part 5

We know the story of the oracles of Balaam as narrated in chapters XXII and XXIII of “Numbers.” Balaam is sent for by Balak, king of the Moabites, in order that he might curse the children of Israel whose invasion threatened Moab with dire peril. Balaam first refuses to journey to Balak; then, subsequently, he is induced to change his mind. Riding on his ass the prophet accompanies the princes of Moab, and on his way is confronted by the angel of the Lord. The ass, much wiser than his master, dares not pass. Balaam, who could not see the obstacle in the path, struck his ass three times. Thereupon his eyes were opened, and the ass, speaking with the mouth of a man, rebuked the prophet for his senselessness and his brutality. In the sequel, though Balaam meets with Balak, he is not permitted to curse; he can only bless the children of the Lord.

This is the story which is in Raemaekers’ mind in his spirited cartoon. Balaam is, of course, the German emperor; his ass is the long-suffering German people, forced by threats to advance over millions of strewn corpses and rotting skulls, and the angel in the path bears on its shield the words Justice, Liberty, Humanity.

Unlike the prototype whom Raemaekers has selected, the German emperor refuses to recognize that his real opponent in the tremendous war is the civilized conscience of mankind. But the German people is beginning to understand and realize at what appalling cost it is being sent to the shambles. Perhaps in time the eyes of the Kaiser himself may be opened, and when that day of enlightenment comes he will discover that no amount of iron crosses or lying telegrams will induce the German fatherland to fight any longer against the ordinances of God.

Far away on the horizon are to be observed the funeral crosses which reveal so eloquently the history of the war. For, indeed, the best and bravest youth of most of the nations of Europe is being sacrificed to suit the truculent ambition of a blind and reckless autocrat.

W. L. COURTNEY.

_A Genuine Dutchman_

Ever since the great poet, Willem Bilderdijk, more than a hundred years ago, finding the intellectual life of his country submerged in Teutonic sentimentality, turned the German doves out of the temple of the Dutch Muses, Holland has followed the intellectual example of France more than that of any other country. The Dutch have a passion for individualism which carries them in a direction exactly opposite to the moral and artistic tyranny of Prussian _Kultur_, and gives a totally different coloring to their respect for mental distinction. But the insidious propaganda of Berlin had of late done fresh mischief, and when the war broke out a considerable portion of the Dutch clergy and a small but violently militant university clique of professors showed themselves surprisingly bitter against the Allies, and particularly against France. There was a reflection of this in the ruling class, while the conduct of the Government, although perfectly correct in regard to the Entente Powers, was not considered by the mass of the Dutch people to protect the nation vigilantly enough against the coarse propaganda of Germany.

In Raemaekers’ cartoon we see this propaganda in action. A corpulent journalist, _boche_ of the _boches_, fitted out with plenty of money and a suit of Dutch peasant clothes provided by Wilhelmstrasse, struts about in Holland, and being now “a genuine Dutchman,” will start a newspaper in the German interest. But the real Dutch see through him and laugh at his pretensions.

The fall of Mr. Trub, the eminent statesman whose sympathies were openly with the Allies, was considered in Germany to be a triumph for Teutonic intrigue in Holland. The success of Mr. Cort van der Linden seemed to confirm this impression. But the corpulent and bearded _boche_, in whom Raemaekers symbolizes the secret journalistic work of Germany in Holland, acted too insolently and went too far. He awakened the Vaderlandsche Club, or Club of Patriots, which has been formed specifically to guard Dutch interests and to oppose with vigor the advances of Germany. The response with which this association has been greeted in all parts of the country; the discomfiture of the “Toekomst,” the newspaper mainly financed by our stout friend in the baggy breeches; and the sustained prosperity of the “Telegraaf,” the patriotic journal which Germany attempted first to purchase and then to suppress, show that Holland can distinguish a travestied Prussian from “a genuine Dutchman.”

EDMUND GOSSE.

_Another Victory for the Germans_

There is not much laughter in this war, but when Raemaekers chooses he can recall to us for a little while the hearty, lung-filling delight of other days. And here we have it. A Kaiser so prayerfully, passionately ridiculous, a Tirpitz so stupendously, monumentally coy, and a cause for rejoicing so very slender, must tickle even a hyphenated sense of humor. Since the Battle of Jutland, of course, the joke is better still. But even before that the German Navy was the one item in the German array which could legitimately be found amusing, rather than painful.

Did not the Germans, bottled up in Kiel, announce that they were roving the seas looking for the British Navy, which at the same time, they said, was cowering in its East Coast harbors? And did not our official report of the Battle of the Bight begin with that sublimely unselfconscious phrase, “Starting from a point near Heligoland, a squadron of our fleet,” etc., etc.? Look at Heligoland on the map, for every time one looks at it it is really farther from England and nearer Germany than one had remembered; farther from our East Coast havens, and nearer to that corked bottle of German fizz, the Kiel Canal. Those first six words are a naval victory in themselves.

So we can enjoy with special zest the idea of the Kaiser, bold and noble baron, violating the modesty of village-maiden Tirpie with his ardent embraces, because she has played _Una_ so beautifully that even the lion did not know she was there!

H. PEARL ADAM.

_Submarine “Bags”_

Most of the horrors committed in civilized societies are the work of men or women who loathe the things they do, but would rather do the thing they loathe than endure some other evil that seems intolerable. The wretched Crippen poisons his wife, not because he hates her, or takes any pleasure in killing her, but because her continued existence makes the kind of life he wishes to lead impossible. But crime--and particularly murder--seems to have a fascination of its own. It is a truth preserved to us in the popular phrase, “tasting blood.” Those who come under the spell grow into maniacs, fiends in human shape, who, having plotted their first murder to gain some end that seems irresistibly desirable, find an unexpected and terrible excitement in it, and go on to the second from an irresistible desire to taste that dreadful pleasure again. These men are the legendary figures of horror--Bluebeard of the nursery, Jack the Ripper of history.

When Germany resolved to assault the civilization of the centuries and conquer the western world before that world grew too strong to be conquered, having no other motive than to annex the territories and steal the wealth of neighboring nations who had done her no harm, she embarked upon a course of crime on so vast and appalling a scale that she was doomed to exemplify in her own monstrous person the whole psychology of crime. It is quite likely that the first murders committed in Belgium were done not for the love of killing, but with the excellent (?) military purpose of terrorizing a conquered population, and so lessening the necessity for a garrison to keep them in order. The first murders of English men, women, and children, perpetrated at the bombardment of Yarmouth, Scarborough, and Whitby, may have been intended merely as a demonstration that Germany could strike even at an island that was impregnable. The first use of the submarine against a merchant ship may have been made in the hope that a mere demonstration of frightfulness would save her from the necessity of repeating it, by frightening every trading ship off the sea. But indulgence in blood brought upon our enemy the cruellest of all punishments. It brought an insatiable appetite, until the killing of old men and boys, but particularly of women and small children, has become a thing necessary to the men that do it and to the nation that sends them on their mission of murder.

ARTHUR POLLEN.

_Within the Pincers_

Raemaekers is a citizen of a small neutral nation, and it is a great part of his European significance that he has perceived that such nations cannot really remain neutral in an ultimate and spiritual sense in a conflict like the present one. Whether they shall remain neutral in a purely political sense is a matter for them and for them alone to decide; and the Allies--in marked contrast to the consistent policy of Prussia--have made many sacrifices in this war rather than violate justice by attempting to interfere with their liberty of decision.

The fact remains that there is no small, free State in Europe which does not know that the victory of Prussia would be the end of its freedom. Were so abominable a conclusion to this war still thinkable, it is certain that the independent self-governing thing called Holland would exist no more. Her fate would, indeed, be ultimately worse than that of the martyred and ravaged Belgian nation; for she would not even be able to point to a heroic legend of resistance such as has always presaged the resurrection of murdered nationalities. She would simply be a part of the Prussian Empire. No Dutchman, with the memory of the great historic achievements of his race before his eyes, desires her to become that.

Indeed, it is the whole condemnation of Prussia that no human being outside the limits of her direct control could possibly desire such a fate for his own people. Yet that is unquestionably the fate that would have befallen every free people in Europe had the conspiracy, so long matured by Prussia, and so nearly successful, accomplished what its promoters hoped.

CECIL CHESTERTON.

_German Poison_

“Now’s our chance; he’s asleep.” Mr. Raemaekers is, it must be remembered, a Dutchman, and a certain percentage of his “picture sermons” is addressed especially to the “congregation of faithful Dutch people” and meant first and foremost to be understood, and taken to heart, by them. This is one. A German officer, whose spurs act as a sort of cloven hoof and betray his real character, is posing as a Dutch pastor, or _Predikant_. He wears the preacher’s gown and the white bands of his sacred office, and holds before his face an elaborate and ingenious mask, representing the fat and foolish face, the snowy whiskers and innocent “goggles” of a pastor, surmounted by his professional tall hat, which it will be noticed is only the front half of the “cylinder.” The contrast of the real face behind the mask, with its grin of low cunning, is very clever.

Armed with this disguise, he has crept up to a Dutch fisherman, a Vollendammer or some one of this sort, in his fur cap, and broad-beamed breeches, peacefully sleeping on the shores of the Zuyder Zee, and, like _Hamlet’s_ treacherous stepfather, “stealing upon his secure hour” pours into his ear from a phial the “leperous distilment” of falsehood, which, if it is not to take his life, is to poison his mind and whole being.

For the Dutch, doubtless, there is some special allusion, and perhaps the mask may suggest a portrait. But for all men everywhere the meaning is patent enough. Poison gas and poisoned wells are not the only poisoned weapons the German has used against the Allies--including our Dutch compatriots in Southwest Africa--or against neutrals the world over. The moral air we breathe, the wells of truth--he has sought to poison these also, and has not hesitated to enlist either the Catholic priest or the Lutheran pastor in his sinister service.

HERBERT WARREN.

_The Organization of Victory by Imposture_

The professorial pedant who directs the internal administration of the Prussian autocracy has created a system which justly rouses the admiration of all who study the methods of cleverness and ingenuity. The last ounce of food is weighed out, the last egg is counted and distributed, and the last pfennig is taken from the safe of the private individual for the use of the State and replaced by the paper of War Loans. It is an astonishing triumph of economy and skill, but to Raemaekers it is all imposture. Such achievements of mere cleverness mean nothing to him; he knows that this is not the truth of the world, for he cannot hear in it any trace of the harmony and the divine music of the universe; and here he points the real fact that lies under and behind this whole pretentious sham. The very ham which lies on the table is merely wood, painted to look like a ham, while the safe is labelled in Dutch with the words: “All is gold that glitters in here.” The wisdom of experience struck out the proverb “All is not gold that glitters,” but the official direction of the German Empire will have it that everything that glitters in the German _bureau_ is gold. The future will reveal whether that proverb or the new professorial dictum is correct. The Dutch artist has no doubt about it.

The official who is now putting on his coat is going to button it over a great cushion of imposture, which will give him the appearance of good feeding and good condition of body. He has arranged his wares to deceive the people and to make them think that they have everything, when they have only the barest minimum. What more should they require? Everything that is needed is at their disposal, whether it be food or wood. What more could they want? The world wants a good deal more, but the docile German is content--up to a certain point.

WILLIAM MITCHELL RAMSAY.

_Wittenberg_

The “Black Hole of Calcutta” and the “Well of Cawnpore,” those dark spots on the history of India, stand out in their blackness against fairly light surroundings. Wittenberg, as dark in its way as either, scarcely stands out in the History of Brutality which is the history of the German conduct of the great war.

The terrible thing about Germany is the fact that she seems to have taken out letters patent for vileness; that vileness has become her right and prerogative, and that the neutral nations have accepted the fact as a natural one.

A very mean man, once he gets a reputation for meanness, can commit mean acts without raising much adverse comment.

In the same way Germany, by a system of uniform brutality, can commit “Wittenbergs” without creating any great excitement in the minds of neutral onlookers.

If England were to starve her German prisoners and set dogs on them and thrash them, and force them to labor after the fashion of Germany, the howl of outraged neutrals would be heard through the two Americas and the Scandinavias.

Germany does these things and worse, and there is no excitement over the business. It is the German method.

But, thank God, the future of humanity is not in the hands of the neutrals, and the men whose part it will be to punish crimes will remember Wittenberg. If not, Raemaekers will remind them.

H. DE VERE STACPOOLE.

_The Broken Alliance_

The birth of Italy as a national unity was one of the great events of Europe, and nowhere was this struggle of a people toward freedom and a right to decide the future destiny of Italy more sympathetically encouraged, more warmly applauded, than in England. Then were laid and firmly set the foundations of friendship which were later to bring Italy and England into close and lasting alliance. Italian freedom was, however, long hampered by the yoke of forced subservience to the Central European Powers.

Germany, more positive in her policy than Great Britain, lost no time in riveting on Italy’s wrists the fetters of financial, industrial, and commercial thraldom. Englishmen, who could have prevented this, did nothing, and the new country, without developed resources, fell an easy prey to the barbarous German and the bullying Austrian. In this cartoon Raemaekers has succeeded in typifying the dominant feature of Austrian rule. The face of Austria is that of the bullying, brutal, and bestial police official, who sought to drive Italy as he has been accustomed to drive the unfortunate races which a series of cold-blooded and calculating international conferences and agreements have put under his heel.

The German type, the bland Hun, we are familiar with; the Austrian is new. He stands, _kourbash_ in hand, baffled and snarling at the thought of freedom--for to him freedom is anathema. It is true that nothing was more certain than that Italy would break her manacles. Strong in the virile force of a people sentient with national purpose and every day more truly finding themselves, no greater blow has been struck at the military despots of Berlin than the breaking free of Italy. The war has brought into being the real, new Italy--serious of purpose and ardent of aspiration--who till now has been unable to show herself, cramped and fettered by the medieval military chains of Germany and Austria.

ALFRED STEAD.

_The Shower-Bath_

President Wilson lends himself to caricature and the art of the cartoonist almost as readily as does the Kaiser himself. We fancy that the war will be over ere the average British mind grasps either the magnitude of the task of the President of the United States or the underlying principles which have actuated him throughout.

It has been the custom with many people (and this has been as marked in the United States as in Great Britain) to condemn the President for “kid glove” diplomacy, weakness, and indecision. And upon the surface one is bound to admit that there appear to be grounds for both criticism and disappointment. One would need to have the archives of the Foreign Office at one’s disposal to form a just and perfectly informed judgment concerning President Wilson’s “line of least resistance.”

Perhaps an American has put the matter as succinctly as anyone. “It needs a really strong man,” he said, “to keep one’s fingers out of a pie like the European War. A free people do not see another free people, and a weak nation at that, trampled, murdered, and destroyed, at least for the time being, by the greatest fighting machine in Europe without wanting to cut in. But I guess the best day’s work America and Wilson have done for the Allies has been to keep out of it. Some day you’ll see that we were cutting ice for you all the time.”

Time will perhaps make clear what some of us only suspect.

Whatever shortcomings President Wilson may appear to us to have as an active champion of right and civilization against hideous wrong and barbarism, he is a past-master in the art of the diplomatic shower-bath, as the Kaiser and his unscrupulous minions in the United States have discovered more than once. Every attempt to lead him into hostile acts toward the Allies, every skilful diplomatic ruse which was engendered with the object of involving America in hostilities, has been quietly but effectively countered by the President. He appears to have had the chain of the shower-bath ever in his hand. And the verbal “douches” administered, though couched in the unemotional phraseology of diplomacy, have always been effective. The officials of the Wilhelmstrasse must have abandoned hope long ago. And, in the words of an American friend, “they must turn up their collars and get out umbrellas and prepare for some rain when a diplomatic note arrives from Wilson.”

CLIVE HOLLAND.

_The Anniversary Bouquet_

There remain yet a few people who state that, in beginning this world war, Germany did not anticipate such slaughter as she has had to compass; but these are the people who have not studied the apostle of war whom Raemaekers portrays as presenting this bouquet of babies’ heads. This cartoon was first published in August, 1915, and was commemorative of the results of one year of war. It gained in significance during the second year, for to Belgium must be added Serbia, scene of unspeakable crimes against the civilian populace, and Armenia, of which the full horrors will never be told, since none of the victims remain to tell them.

In these later days, when the whole world can see that Germany is fighting a losing fight, one might admire the grim way in which the victors are made to pay for every step of the path they have yet to tread; if their hands were clean one might call magnificent the dogged courage of the fighting men who resist our own. But the list of slaughtered women and children is too long, the violation of the laws of humanity is too complete. This grinning barbarian with his bouquet is the German that the world will remember, not those exceptions to his kind who, by humanity in the presence of wounded enemies, have made themselves noteworthy--merely by their rarity.

In the last phase of the war, that in which approaching defeat is plainly evident, the German fights well--and so does a rat when it is cornered. Raemaekers’ symbol of the bouquet is not less to be kept in mind, nor would there be any hope of justice in the settlement if the victors, in generosity to a beaten foe, should forget it.

E. CHARLES VIVIAN.

_The Stranded Submarine_

The circumstances of the incident depicted in this cartoon are well known. A British submarine was stranded, helpless, on the Danish coast. Its men were lined up--as men once lined up on the _Birkenhead_--and stood at attention while German guns poured shell on them and their craft. Further, this happened in Danish territorial waters, where, by all the laws of humanity, and by the law of nations as well, the crew of the submarine were entitled to consider themselves immune. Had there been any respect for international law on the part of their aggressors, they would have been immune.

Now, if one observes the faces of the two German naval officers in the cartoon, it is easy to understand why such outrages as this have come about. Raemaekers knows his German, and, whether he is portraying officer or man, emperor or soldier, he takes care in each case to bring out the fact that the man represented belongs to a nation that has either lost, or has not yet found, a soul. These two who stand above the guns are two of the world’s materialists, men who understand only that the end must be accomplished, no matter what the means may be.

From their soulless philosophy has arisen not only incidents like these, but the manufacture of a German God, such as the speeches of the Kaiser describe. There has arisen, too, the denial of Western Christianity altogether in a certain patronage of Islam, designed to placate Turkish opinion, a patronage that is inconsistent even with the worship of the German God. It is all means to the one end, world domination. Germany has set out to gain the whole world, and has lost what soul she had. Striving to set herself above the law, she has merely placed herself outside the law, and for this her punishment is at hand.

E. CHARLES VIVIAN.

_Herod’s Nightmare_