A Woman's Experiences in the Great WarMack, Louise
History
A Woman's Experiences in the Great War
Mack, Louise
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
The more one studies Hun physiognomy and physique, the more predominant
grow those first impressions of the Cult of the Brute. Brutish is the
clear blue eye, with the burning excited brain revealing itself in
flashes such as one might see in the eye of a rhinoceros on the attack.
Brutish is the head, so round and close cropped, resembling no other
animal save German. Brutish are the ears flapping out so redly. The
thick necks and incredibly thick legs have the tenacious look of
elephants.
And oh, their little ways, their little ways!
In the Salle Du Tribunal de Commerce they put up clothes-lines, and hung
their shirts and handkerchiefs there, while a bucket stood in the middle
of the beautiful tesselated floor. And then, in exquisite taste, to give
the Belgians a treat, this interior has been photographed and forced
into an extraordinary little newspaper published in Brussels, printed in
French but secretly controlled by the Germans, who splatter it with
their photographs in every conceivable (and inconceivable) style.
And so we see them in their kitchen installed at the foot of the
Monument, wearing aprons over their middle-aged tummies, blucher boots,
and round flat caps. A pretty picture that!
They posed themselves for it; alone they did it. And this is how. They
tipped up a big basket, and let it lie in the foreground on its side.
Two Germans seized a table, lifting it off the ground. One man seated
himself on a wooden bench with a tin of kerosene. Half a dozen others
leaned up against the portable stoves, with folded arms, looking as if
they were going to burst into Moody and Sankey hymns. All food, all
bottles, were hidden. The dustbin was brought forward instead. And then
the photographer said "gut!" And there they were! It was the Hunnish
idea of a superb photograph of Army Cooks. Contrast it with Tommy's! How
do you see Tommy when a war photographer gets him? His first thought is
for an effect of "Cheer-oh!" He doesn't hide bottles and glasses. He
brings them out, and lets you look at them. He doesn't, in the act of
being photographed, lift a table. He lifts a tea-pot or a bottle if he
has one handy. Give us Tommy all the time. Yes. All the time!
Another photograph shews the Huns in the Auditoire of the Cour de
Cassation! More funny effects! They've brought forward all their
knap-sacks, and piled them on a desk for decoration. They themselves lie
on the carpeted steps at full length. But they don't lounge. They can't.
No man can lounge who doesn't know what to do with his hands. And
Germans never know what to do with theirs.
When I saw that picture, showing the Hun idea of how a photograph should
be taken, I felt a suffocation in my larynx. Then there was a gem called
Un Coin de la Cour de Cassation. This shewed dried fish and sausages
hanging on an easel! cheeses on the floor; and washing on the
clothes-line.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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