XXXIII.
Major Corbett Smith continues: “But nothing I can write will make people at home understand what this war really is. Nothing short of actual experience can do that. Stay, perhaps there is one thing; the genius of Louis Raemaekers. He, at least, by his cartoons, is bringing home to millions the hideous meaning of this war. And not only of this war, but of all modern war. I would have a volume of his cartoons distributed gratis by the Government to every household in the kingdom. I would have half a dozen of the cartoons thrown upon the screen in every cinema-house at every entertainment. The people would shudder with horror, but they would see them and learn what Germany is and what war means. Apart from this, I hold it to be the sacred duty of every man and woman who can use a pen to advantage, or who can command the attention of an audience, to make known this meaning. To cry from the housetops what is this foul thing which Germany has thrust upon the world, and to show the people why and how Civilization must crush it out for ever. There is no greater honor to-day that a man may wear—alas, there are but few left to wear it!—than the honor of having served his King and Country in France throughout August and September, 1914. Just that. He needs no decoration, no ‘mention.’ He served through the ‘Retreat from Mons.’ In days to come our children, our children’s children, will point with pride to that one little word on the regimental color, ‘Mons.’ For in that single word will be summed up the liberation of the world. It was the victory of the Marne which won for Civilization that freedom, but it was, under God’s hand, the British Navy, the stand of Belgium, and the ‘Retreat from Mons’ which made that victory possible.”