THE suggestion of this caricature is perhaps not so obvious to Englishmen as might be wished, for it represents the Kaiser, and the forces behind him, as more broken down than we have reason to think they were, or at any rate, than they appeared to us at the time this cartoon first appeared. It may be that to the neutrals their cause seemed less hopeful, and more out-at-elbows, as here depicted. The continuous fall of the mark in neutral countries may mean this.
The figure of President Wilson is at any rate exceedingly clever. Detached, professorial, contemplative, slightly academic, not to say donnish, he contemplates “Mr. Turveydrop” and “Bill Sykes,” for such characters they appear to be, with pensive, amused speculation. He certainly cannot expect more than swagger and sham gentility, scarcely disguising brutal ruffianism, from such figures. But is not the reality more serious and murderous?
The Kaiser is doubtless an actor, but not quite such a shabby-genteel third-rater as this, and his bullies are no doubt burglars and ruffians, but not of the old-fashioned, bludgeon type; rather the smart, modern operators, armed with automatic revolvers, oxygen blowpipes, swift motors, and other appliances of up-to-date science. “Super-Hooligans” both doubtless are, but unfortunately not to be despised as enemies. This, however, would be less easy to present in caricature, and perhaps less telling.
The point is the folly of expecting any true “gentleness,” or anything but a veneer of gentility, from Germany.
Before the Fall
WHEN, in August of 1914, the German hosts set out on their way to victory and yet greater victory, they had in their minds a figure which, for them, had been girdled round with dignities almost sacred. Whatever their secret thoughts regarding this figure might have been, it was ostensibly something very nearly sacred; to the rest of the world it was an imperial figure, portrayed in many attitudes, but in practically every attitude there was the suggestion of illimitable pride. The world that is not Germany had laughed at this figure a little: over certain telegrams, over the assumption of genius in certain artistic fields, and over a versatility that was almost Neronic. There was not wanting, among free peoples, a certain amount of contempt for this figure.
Here you have the figure in a new attitude, and though at the time this cartoon was published the triumphs in Rumania were still to come, and the German lines of defense were apparently as strong as ever, yet the cartoon expressed a truth, as do all these cartoons of Raemaekers. As insecurely as is pictured here stood this man who aped Napoleon and Alexander, at whose bidding women and children were fed into the furnace of war, through whose senseless ambition countless homes were made places of mourning for the men who would return no more. More than three years of suffering, and the face of the world changed, the progress of the world arrested—for this!