Germany’s Dummy
England has without doubt been Germany’s favourite bug-a-boo for the war. Once she threatened to exalt France to pride of place, but her allegiance soon returned to John Bull, and she has left no trick of hate untried to place him in the pillory before her own subjects and neutral nations.
“Let shame,” said Herr Maximilian Harden, who, as a German-Jew, may perhaps view the wider issues with some detachment and plead to his adopted people for philosophy and self-control—“let shame spread a thick veil over self-deification and enemy-bedevilment.” A futile appeal must this be to a nation that knows no shame, from its Emperor to his humblest slave. Self-deification is the marrow in German bones, the oil in German joints; while as to bedevilment of the enemy, in this they naturally excel, since supreme power of detraction is a complement of envy and jealousy: the one involves the others.
Michael’s dummy “John Bull” was, however, very clearly made in Germany, and Holland is not deceived. She adjoins Belgium—a circumstance the man behind the scarecrow perhaps forgot—and they who have been watching Germany at work in their neighbour’s country are not going to be alarmed at this silly German “John Bull.” They know the real John Bull at first hand, and his methods of conducting commerce and practising war. It was not John Bull who torpedoed the Tubantia and committed a thousand other pirate and brigand acts against this neutral power. It was not John Bull who in August of last year wrote to the Burgomaster of little Wavre and demanded £120,000, failing which Wavre would be set on fire and destroyed “without distinction of persons, the innocent to suffer with the guilty.”
Holland is staunch, for she knows that Germany’s care for the weak nations is the good wife’s love for the chickens and the butcher’s for the lamb. Michael would like to thrust his revolver into John’s hand and pretend afterwards that he had pulled the trigger; but the smiling Dutch frontier guard is in no danger of being deceived.
EDEN PHILLPOTTS
Michael: “Boo-hoo!”
The Dutchman: “Come out from behind there, Michael, you can’t frighten me.”
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