Raemaekers Cartoons With Accompanying Notes By Well Known Engli

Chapter 1

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RAEMAEKERS' CARTOONS

WITH ACCOMPANYING NOTES BY WELL-KNOWN ENGLISH WRITERS

WITH AN APPRECIATION FROM H. H. ASQUITH, PRIME MINISTER OF ENGLAND

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1916

LIST OF CARTOONS AND THE DESCRIPTIVE NOTES PAGE PORTRAIT OF LOUIS RAEMAEKERS INTRODUCTION Francis Stopford AN APPRECIATION FROM THE PRIME MINISTER H. H. Asquith CHRISTENDOM AFTER TWENTY CENTURIES Francis Stopford 8 A STABLE PEACE Eden Phillpotts 10 THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS E. Charles Vivian 12 BERNHARDIISM Hilaire Belloc 14 FROM LIEGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE Francis Stopford 16 SPOILS FOR THE VICTORS Hilaire Belloc 18 THE VERY STONES CRY OUT Bernard Vaughan, S. J. 20 SATAN'S PARTNER G. K. Chesterton 22 THROWN TO THE SWINE The Dean of St. Paul's 24 THE LAND MINE Herbert Warren 26 "FOR YOUR MOTHERLAND" Eden Phillpotts 28 THE GERMAN LOAN E. Charles Vivian 30 EUROPE, 1916 G. K. Chesterton 32 THE NEXT TO BE KICKED OUT--DUMBA'S MASTER Arthur Pollen 34 THE FRIENDLY VISITOR H. DeVere Stacpoole 36 "TO YOUR HEALTH, CIVILIZATION!" The Dean of St. Paul's 38 FOX TIRPITZ PREACHING TO THE GEESE Herbert Warren 40 THE PRISONERS Eden Phillpotts 42 IT'S UNBELIEVABLE Hilaire Belloc 44 KREUZLAND, KREUZLAND UeBER ALLES The Dean of St. Paul's 38 THE EX-CONVICT Hilaire Belloc 48 MISS CAVELL G. K. Chesterton 50 THE HOSTAGES John Oxenham 52 KING ALBERT'S ANSWER TO THE POPE E. Charles Vivian 54 THE GAS FIEND Eden Phillpotts 56 THE GERMAN TANGO John Buchan 58 THE ZEPPELIN TRIUMPH W. L. Courtney 60 KEEPING OUT THE ENEMY H. DeVere Stacpoole 62 THE GERMAN OFFER Hilaire Belloc 64 THE WOLF TRAP Herbert Warren 66 AHASUERUS II John Buchan 68 OUR CANDID FRIEND The Dean of St. Paul's 70 PEACE AND INTERVENTION Boyd Cable 72 LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD H. DeVere Stacpoole 74 THE SEA MINE Arthur Pollen 76 "SEDUCTION" G. K. Chesterton 78 MURDER ON THE HIGH SEAS Arthur Pollen 80 AD FINEM John Oxenham 82 "U'S" Arthur Pollen 84 MATER DOLOROSA Eden Phillpotts 86 "GOTT STRAFE ITALIEN!" Ralph D. Blumenfeld 88 SERBIA Sir Sidney Lee 90 "JUST A MOMENT--I'M COMING" Boyd Cable 92 THE HOLY WAR Boyd Cable 94 "GOTT MIT UNS" Eden Phillpotts 96 THE WIDOWS OF BELGIUM The Dean of St. Paul's 98 THE HARVEST IS RIPE William Mitchell Ramsay 100 "UNMASKED" Boyd Cable 102 THE GREAT SURPRISE G. K. Chesterton 104 THOU ART THE MAN! John Oxenham 106 SYMPATHY Ralph D. Blumenfeld 108 THE REFUGEES Joseph Thorp 110 "THE JUNKER" Clive Holland 112 "AU MILIEU DE FANTOMES TRISTES ET SANS NOMBRE" Alice Meynell 114 BLUEBEARD'S CHAMBER William Mitchell Ramsay 116 THE RAID Arthur Pollen 118 BETTER A LIVING DOG THAN A DEAD LION Arthur Shadwell 120 "THE BURDEN OF THE INTOLERABLE DAY" William Mitchell Ramsay 122 EAGLE IN HEN-RUN Boyd Cable 124 THE FUTURE Sidney Lee 126 CHRIST OR ODIN? Bernard Vaughan 128 FERDINAND Edmund Gosse 130 JUGGERNAUT John Oxenham 132 MICHAEL AND THE MARKS W. M. J. Williams 134 THEIR BERESINA John Oxenham 136 NEW PEACE OFFERS W. L. Courtney 138 THE SHIELDS OF ROSSELAERE William Mitchell Ramsay 140 THE OBSTINACY OF NICHOLAS Joseph Thorp 142 THE ORDER OF MERIT Ralph D. Blumenfeld 144 THE MARSHES OF PINSK Alice Meynell 146 GOD WITH US John Buchan 148 FERDINAND THE CHAMELEON G. K. Chesterton 150 THE LATIN SISTERS Horace Annesley Vachell 152 MISUNDERSTOOD Joseph Thorp 154 PROSPERITY REIGNS IN FLANDERS Cecil Chesterton 156 THE LAST HOHENZOLLERN E. Charles Vivian 158 PIRACY Arthur Pollen 160 "WEEPING, SHE HATH WEPT" Father Bernard Vaughan 162 MILITARY NECESSITY Eden Phillpotts 164 LIBERTE! LIBERTE, CHERIE! John Oxenham 166 I--"A KNAVISH PIECE OF WORK" George Birdwood 168 II--"SISYPHUS,--HIS STONE" George Birdwood 170 CONCRETE FOUNDATIONS A. Shadwell 172 PALLAS ATHENE Herbert Warner 174 THE WONDERS OF CULTURE Clive Holland 176 FOLK WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND THEM Bernard Vaughan 178 ON THE WAY TO CALAIS Eden Phillpotts 180 VON BETHMANN-HOLLWEG AND TRUTH Herbert Warren 182 VAN TROMP AND DE RUYTER Arthur Pollen 184 WAR AND CHRIST Cecil Chesterton 186 BARBED WIRE E. Charles Vivian 188 THE HIGHER POLITICS Boyd Cable 190 THE LOAN GAME W. M. J. Williams 192 A WAR OF RAPINE E. Charles Vivian 194 THE DUTCH JUNKERS A. Shadwell 196 THE WAR MAKERS John Oxenham 198 THE CHRISTMAS OF KULTUR A. Shadwell 200 SERBIA Horace Annesley Vachell 202 THE LAST OF THE RACE Arthur Pollen 204 THE CURRICULUM W. M. J. Williams 206 THE DUTCH JOURNALIST TO HIS BELGIAN CONFRERE G. K. Chesterton 208 A BORED CRITIC Eden Phillpotts 210 "THE PEACE WOMAN" Clive Holland 212 THE SELF-SATISFIED BURGHER W. L. Courtney 214 THE DECADENT John Oxenham 216 LIQUID FIRE Clive Holland 218 NISH AND PARIS Sidney Lee 220 GOTT STRAFE ENGLAND! Cecil Chesterton 222 THE PACIFICIST KAISER Sidney Lee 224 DINANT W. R. Inge 226 "HESPERIA" (WOUNDED FIRST) H. DeVere Stacpoole 228 GALLIPOLI G. K. Chesterton 230 THE BEGINNING OF THE EXPIATION G. K. Chesterton 232 THE SHIRKERS Sidney Lee 234 ONE OF THE KAISER'S MANY MISTAKES John Oxenham 236 BELGIUM IN HOLLAND Edmund Gosse 238 SERBIA William Mitchell Ramsay 240 JACKALS IN THE POLITICAL FIELD Herbert Warren 242 A LETTER FROM THE GERMAN TRENCHES Cecil Chesterton 244 HIS MASTER'S VOICE A. Shadwell 246 HUN GENEROSITY Horace Annesley Vachell 248 EASTER, 1915 G. K. Chesterton 250 PAN GERMANICUS AS PEACE MAKER Alfred Stead 252 GOTT MIT UNS Cecil Chesterton 254 OUR LADY OF ANTWERP W. L. Courtney 256 DEPORTATION Cecil Chesterton 258 THE GERMAN BAND John Oxenham 260 ARCADES AMBO Horace Annesley Vachell 262 "IS IT YOU, MOTHER?" Sidney Lee 264 THE FATE OF FLEMISH ART AT THE HANDS OF KULTUR Arthur Morrison 266 THE GRAVES OF ALL HIS HOPES H. DeVere Stacpoole 268 "MY SIXTH SON IS NOW LYING HERE--WHERE ARE YOURS?" H. DeVere Stacpoole 270 BUNKERED W. R. Inge 272 GOTT STRAFE VERDUN W. R. Inge 274 THE LAST THROW E. Charles Vivian 276 THE ZEPPELIN BAG Clive Holland 278 "COME IN, MICHAEL, I HAVE HAD A LONG SLEEP" Horace Annesley Vachell 280 FIVE ON A BENCH G. K. Chesterton 282 WHAT ABOUT PEACE, LADS? W. R. Inge 284 THE LIBERATORS Joseph Thorp 286 TOM THUMB AND THE GIANT E. Charles Vivian 288 "WE HAVE FINISHED OFF THE RUSSIANS" E. Charles Vivian 290 MUDDLE THROUGH Clive Holland 292 MY ENEMY IS MY BEST FRIEND William Mitchell Ramsay 294 HOW I DEAL WITH THE SMALL FRY Clive Holland 296 THE TWO EAGLES A. Shadwell 298 LONDON INSIDE THE SAVOY E. Charles Vivian 300 LONDON OUTSIDE THE SAVOY E. Charles Vivian 302 THE INVOCATION A. Shadwell 304

INTRODUCTION

Louis Raemaekers will stand out for all time as one of the supreme figures which the Great War has called into being. His genius has been enlisted in the service of mankind, and his work, being entirely sincere and untouched by racial or national prejudice, will endure; indeed, it promises to gain strength as the years advance. When the intense passions, which have been awakened by this world struggle, have faded away, civilization will regard the war largely through these wonderful drawings.

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Before the war had been in progress many weeks the cartoons in the Amsterdam _Telegraaf_ attracted attention in the capitals of Europe, many leading newspapers reproducing them. The German authorities, quick to realize their full significance, did all in their power to suppress them. Through German intrigue Raemaekers has been charged in the Dutch Courts with endangering the neutrality of Holland--and acquitted. A price 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 that country that "after the War Germany will settle accounts with Holland, and for each calumny, for each cartoon of Raemaekers, she will demand payment with the interest that is due to her." Not since Saul and the men of Israel were in the valley of Elah fighting with the Philistines has so unexpected a champion arisen. With brush and pencil this Dutch painter will do even as David did with the smooth stone out of the brook: he will destroy the braggart Goliath, who, strong in his own might, defies the forces of the living God.

When Mr. Raemaekers came to London in December, he was received by the Prime Minister, and was entertained at a complimentary luncheon by the Journalists of the British capital. Similar honour was conferred on him on his second visit. He was the guest of honour at the Savage Club; the Royal Society of Miniature Painters elected him an Honorary Member. But it has been left to France to pay the most fitting recognition to his genius and to his services in the cause of freedom and truth. The Cross of the Legion of Honour has been presented to him, and on his visit to Paris this month a special reception is to be held in his honour at La Sorbonne, which is the highest purely intellectual reward Europe can confer on any man.

* * * * *

The great Dutch cartoonist is now in his forty-seventh year. He was born in Holland, his father, who is dead, having been the editor of a provincial newspaper. His mother, who is still alive and exceedingly proud of her son's fame, is a German by birth, but rejoices that she married a Dutchman. Mr. Raemaekers, who is short, fair, and of a ruddy countenance, looks at least ten years younger than his age. He took up painting and drawing when quite young and learnt his art in Holland and in Brussels. All his life he has lived in his own country, but with frequent visits to Belgium and Germany, where, through his mother, he has many relations. Thus he knows by experience the nature of the peoples whom he depicts.

For many years he was a landscape painter and a portrait painter, and made money and local reputation. Six or seven years ago he turned his attention to political work, and became a cartoonist and caricaturist on the staff of the Amsterdam _Telegraaf_, thus opening the way to a fame which is not only world-wide but which will endure as long as the memory of the Great War lasts. His ideas come to him naturally and without effort. Suggestions do not assist him; they hinder him when he endeavours to act on them. He is an artist to his finger-tips and throws the whole force of his being into his work. Some years ago he married a Dutch lady, who is devoted to music, and they have three children, two girls and a boy (the youngest); the eldest is now twelve. Very happy in his home, Mr. Raemaekers has no ambitions outside it, except to go on with his work. A Teuton paper has declared that Raemaekers' cartoons are worth at least two Army Corps to the Allies.

The strong religious tendency which so often distinguishes his work makes one instinctively ask to what Church does the artist belong. He replies that he belongs to none, but was brought up a Catholic, and his wife a Protestant, and the differences which in later life severed each from their early teaching caused them to meet on common ground. But the intense Christian feeling of these drawings is beyond cavil or dispute: they again and again bring home to the heart the vital truths of the Faith with irresistible force, and the artist ever expresses the Christianity, not perhaps of the theologian, but of the honest and kindly man of the world.

Praise has been bestowed upon his work by several German papers--qualified praise. The _Leipziger Volkszeitung_ has declared that Raemaekers' cartoons show unimpeachable art and great power of execution, but that they all lack one thing. They have no wit, no spirit. Which is true--in a sense. They do lack wit--German wit; they do lack spirit--German spirit. And what German wit and German spirit may be one can comprehend by a study of Raemaekers' cartoons.

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It has been well said that no man living amidst these surging seas of blood and tears has come nearer to the role of Peacemaker than Raemaekers. The Peace which he works for is not a matter of arrangement between diplomatists and politicians: it is the peace which the intelligence and the soul of the Western world shall insist on in the years to be. God grant it be not long delayed, but it can only come when the enemy is entirely overthrown and the victory is overwhelming and complete.

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 which the Allies are averting from the liberty, the civilization, and the humanity of the future. He shows us our enemies as they appear to the unbiassed eyes of a neutral, and wherever his pictures are seen determination will be strengthened to tolerate no end of the war save the 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 biting satire, might almost have been drawn by the finger of the Accusing Angel. As the spectator gazes on them the full weight of the horrible cruelty and senseless futility of war overwhelms the soul, and, sinking helplessly beneath it, he feels inclined to assume the same attitude of despair as is shown in "Christendom After Twenty Centuries."

"War is war," the Germans preached and practised, and no matter how clement and correct may be the humanity of the Allies, we realize through these pictures what the human race has to face and endure once peace be broken. Is "Christendom After Twenty Centuries" to be even as Christianity was in the first century--an excuse for the perpetration of mad cruelties by degenerate Caesars or Kaisers (spell it as you will) at their games? Cannot the higher and finer attributes of mankind be developed and strengthened without this apparently needless waste of agony 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 on Raemaekers' cartoons.

FRANCIS STOPFORD.

A STABLE PEACE

Were I privileged to have a hand at the Peace Conference, my cooperation would take the part of deeds and I should only ask to hang the walls of the council chamber with life-size reproductions of Raemaekers in blood-red frames. For human memory is weak, and as mind of man cannot grasp the meaning of a million, so may it well fail to keep steadily before itself the measure of Belgium--the rape and murder, the pillage and plunder, the pretences under which perished women and priests and children, the brutal tyranny--the left hand that beckoned in friendly fashion, the right hand, hidden with the steel.

We can very safely leave France to remember Northern France and Russia not to forget Poland; but let Belgium and Serbia be at the front of the British mind and conscience; let her lift her eyes to these scorching pictures when Germany fights with all her cunning for a peace that shall leave Prussia scotched, not killed.

Already one reads despondent articles, that the English tradition, to forgive and forget, is going to wreck the peace; and students of psychology fear that within us lie ineradicable qualities that will save the situation for Germany at the end.

To suspect such a national weakness is surely to arm against it and see that our contribution to the Peace Conference shall not stultify our contribution to the War.

The Germans have been kite-flying for six months, to see which way the wind blows; and when the steady hurricane broke the strings and flung the kites headlong to earth, those who sent them up were sufficiently proclaimed 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 own sight worthless, let it be worthless in our sight also, and let the terms of peace preclude her power to perjure herself again. Make her honest by depriving her of the strength to be dishonest. There is only one thing on earth the German will ever respect, and that is superior force. May Berlin, therefore, see an army of occupation; and may "peace" be a word banished from every Allied tongue until that preliminary condition of peace is accomplished, and Germany sees other armies than her own.

Reason has been denied speech in this war; but if she is similarly banished from the company of the peace-makers, then woe betide the constitution of the thing they will create, for a "stable peace" must be the very last desire of those now doomed to defeat.

EDEN PHILLPOTTS.

THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS