The Kaiser as a Diplomatist
TO many people, and especially to all Germans, the attitude of the South African Boers in the Great War has been one of its most surprising features. It was not a surprise to Raemaekers, and here, in this cartoon, he states his reason, as the plain homely figure of the old President Kruger expresses it to General Christian de Wet, who took the wrong side. Kruger does not forget how the Kaiser led him on by telegrams and secret messages of sympathy, and after all, when the war broke out in South Africa, this same Kaiser made no attempt to implement his promises. Some time later all the world learned the facts from the Kaiser’s own lips, when he boasted of having been the friend of the British and of having helped them during the South African War, by communicating to General Roberts a strategic plan for crushing the Dutch. There is certainly no reason to suppose that Roberts or Kitchener made any use of the Kaiser’s plan, because they won the victory. If they had used the plan, the result would have been different.
In this cartoon the Kaiser is the ingenious diplomatist once more. Though he deceived the Dutch formerly, he is now trying to induce them to join him against Britain; and he did succeed in perverting the judgment of de Wet. But the solid, homely sense of the Dutch came to the right conclusion. The man who has once deliberately deceived a people is not likely to succeed in deceiving them a second time.
Hun Hypocrisy
WHEN the history of this war is written with a sense of detachment which only time can give—written, moreover, by an impartial neutral, with the insight and intelligence of a Motley or a Hume—it will be interesting and instructive to read the chapters which deal with the conviction obsessing an entire nation that England for some mysterious purposes of her own brought about hostilities, and that Germany, very reluctantly, was forced to draw the sword in defense of the fatherland. No reasonable man can doubt that this conviction is sincere upon the part of a large majority of our enemies. From first-hand evidence it is equally indisputable that the few, the Court Party, for example, and certain writers, have frankly admitted the Teuton aims and ambitions, crystallized into the famous phrase—“Weltmacht oder Niedergang.” The amazing thing—perhaps the most amazing fact of the war—is the moral Atlantic which heaves between the few who know and the many who do not. And the bridging of this illimitable ocean, the future enlightenment of at least sixty million persons, must be, for the moment, the problem which is perplexing and tormenting the minds of the Great General Staff.
Sooner or later—sooner, possibly, than we think—the truth must out. What will happen then? Conjecture is simply paralyzed at the issues involved. Briefly, it comes to this: these sixty millions have been humbugged to an extent unparalleled in history. During three years they have been gorged with lies, swallowed always with avidity and with increasing appetite. The credulity of the ignorant may be taken for granted; in this case it is the credulity of the wise, the so-called intellectuals of Germany, which clamors to Heaven for explanation. Are these schoolmasters, publicists, theologians, and scientists hypocrites? That is the question which our cartoonist puts to us here. That is the question which the impartial historian will be called upon to answer.
Englishmen, with the rarest exceptions, have answered that question already. We believe firmly that the informed Huns deliberately befooled their uninformed fellow-countrymen. The few were honest and sincere in the Jesuitical faith that the end, world dominion, justified the means. They scrapped ruthlessly all principles which stood between themselves and an insensate ambition. Had they won through to Paris and London, a nation drunk with victory would have acclaimed their policy. But they have not won through, and the reckoning has to be met.