Marble and bronze will record it, and imperishable verse—of that we may be sure; for the nation that has defended Verdun against the might of Germany holds the seeds of magistral art. Art must spring quickened, enlarged, and ennobled from these furnace fires; and it will happen, as of old, that a people great enough to do great deeds lack not for children of genius to record their immortality in achievements themselves immortal.
That follows in fullness of time; for at this moment, while cannon thunder and men die happy, with the light of coming victory for a crown, we may well think of such men alone and pay our homage to the heroes who have saved Verdun at the cost of their lives.
But what of Germany’s sons? What of the thousands who have fallen in fruitless attempts to take the hill of Dead Men?
It may be ere long that these armies, driven by whip and revolver from behind, will wake to the futility of their continued destruction and begin to measure the worth of the royal command still hurling them to death, that its own wounded vanity and strategical and political incompetence shall find a salve in their sacrifice.
Raemaekers imagines nothing here, for his picture is a transcript of familiar truth. Death welcomes to its bony bosom the pride of a kingdom, while the rulers of that kingdom flog their subjects on to the annihilation that awaits them. Such forlorn tactics are all that remain to the beggared tyrant and his son. But men are not as corn or the beasts of the field: this harvest cannot be renewed by the passage of a year; and when Death has fed full, he must wait for another such meal until the boyhood of Germany has come to man’s estate. May the youthful Teutons with their manhood win sanity also, and escape forever the slavery that has driven more than half a million of their fathers to fruitless destruction before Verdun.
“My master asks you to look after these peace doves”
RAEMAEKERS in this excellent cartoon is not less direct, although he is at the same time more subtle, than in some others. Holland, typified by the seated figure, has an expression of amazement and suspicion, if not actual fear, upon her face. The Boche is not content with merely offering the basket of spurious doves, but has thrust it upon Holland’s lap. The bearer who, in the name of his master, asks the latter to look after the “doves” is obviously trying to look agreeable as well as innocent, but the battered helmet and the leer upon his face serve to betray him.