Punch has come out brilliantly in this particular. Allowed by tradition to have two heroic cartoons a week, the rest of his pages are dedicated to the god of laughter. Germany reads Punch with stupefaction. What, we not only laugh at the Germans, we laugh more at the English! Extraordinary, sinister, effete, degenerate race! It is true, we laugh at ourselves far more than at anybody else—and very often it is for that painful but cogent reason, that we may not weep. Perhaps at the front they laugh wholeheartedly at Punch; at home it is a different laugh that greets Tommy in his imperturbable good-humour. In the midst of a hell of fire, Tommy says that what with the beastly Belgian tobacco and the blooming French matches, this'll be the death of him. Sitting on the edge of a trench which consists of nothing but mud and water, in a fearful downpour, he remarks that he pities the poor fellows at home—the London streets must be something awful! And on a dozen other occasions he has expressed that cheery soul of his, in a way as charming as it is moving.
As for the Germans, perhaps Mr. Punch reached his happiest moment when he gave us the German family "enjoying its morning hate." A French paper copied that with enjoyment tinged with bewilderment, since the idiomatic "morning hate" was beyond the French editor, who published it merely as "a study of a German family at breakfast time". The Germans have not published it at all.
Nothing more light-hearted and good-humoured than Mr. Heath Robinson's fantastic inventions (such as the Tatcho bomb) could be found—unless perhaps, in the inimitable "Big and Little Willie" of Mr. Haselden, which have given pleasure to countless people, at the front and at home, and have caused howls of Majestätsbeleidigungisch laughter in German trenches, when Tommy has been so kind as to throw a copy over.
England has never taken cartoons so seriously as has France, nor has she a public for separate topical prints; but she has done as much as she can, for her war cartoons accurately express her mind, and that is their real function and constitutes their real value.
Neutral countries have had to be careful in some ways; it is difficult to find any interesting war-prints or postcards on sale there. What there are are rather insipid, at any rate to the Allied mind. But in individual newspapers and periodicals the struggle has raged fiercely by pen and pencil, pro-Ally or pro-German. Mr. Robert Carter, for instance, in his drawings in the New York Evening Sun, has spoken with no uncertain voice, as one of his cartoons in this book will witness. Spain has had more pro-Ally cartoons than one might have expected, Scandinavia has been very discreet—Italy never was, even before she came in.
Holland remains, and well has she shown that she still possesses that spirit of resistance to the oppressor which dictated the pages of her superb history. Small in size, in a geographical position of great danger, her economic interests very largely identified with the welfare of Germany, Holland might have been excused for holding her peace. Everyone knew that German influence was, and is, very important in Holland; that the Netherlands reek with German espionage, and that method of commercial penetration which is one of Prussia's most valued weapons. Yet none of these things sufficed to silence the Dutch love of liberty and hatred of oppression. A band of Dutch cartoonists, hot with indignation, took the bit between their teeth, and ran away with their pencils, their papers, their public, and, if their startled Government is right, very nearly with Dutch neutrality. Anyone who has watched Dutch drawings must have been impressed by the fire of the pro-Ally artists, Braakensiek, Albert Hahn, Peter van den Hem, and Lazrom. Neutrality is too pale for them.
And, of course, there is Louis Raemaekers. Only a neutral could have done what he has done; but it might not have been done at all had not Raemaekers arisen with his accusing pencil. In his work the war takes on its right colour, as something far above international hatreds or the struggle of policies, far above even a battle for the welfare of peoples whose interests are opposed. It appears in its right aspect, as a spiritual conflict, more deadly, more earnest, more vital, than any revolution or reformation or war since that struggle in which proud Lucifer fell. This is every man's war, the world's war, the war of God and devil. And, taking this heroic view of it, Raemaekers has stepped into the rôle of Tragedy, which is "to arouse pity and terror, and the noble movements of the soul." His "Prisoners" and "Barbed Wire" (Plates XXII. and XXIII.) show well his detached, tragic quality. There are many of his drawings which are too dreadful to be contemplated for long—"Slow Gas Poisoning," the German thief trampling in blood that drops from his heavy sack, the professor and the devil leering delightedly into each other's eyes. But after such horrors one comes always back to the exquisite tenderness which is the real distinguishing characteristic of Raemaekers. The young German soldier who writes home that "our cemeteries now stretch nearly to the sea" is as tenderly drawn as are the widows of Belgium. The tenderness of strength is the heart of the tragic spirit, the heart that bleeds for suffering and weakness, the heart that grows hot for injustice and wrong. It is this spirit, with its heart of tenderness, that has made the fame of Raemaekers. It is not comfortable nor pleasant to be roused to the tragic sentiments, but it is right that we should; and had the Allies needed any reassurance as to the nature of the reason for which they fight, Raemaekers' work would have supplied it. The good cause has found its good artist, and he is all the stronger because he is a neutral. Like Truth in the cartoon with which this book closes, he has held up the mirror to the Prussian, and we can see, Germany can see, the whole world can see, what kind of soul is reflected therein.
ENGLISH CARTOONS
I.