Kultur in Cartoons: With accompanying notes by well-known English writersRaemaekers, Louis
History
Kultur in Cartoons: With accompanying notes by well-known English writers
Raemaekers, Louis
World War, 1914-1918 -- Caricatures and cartoons
But the picture may be read in a different sense. After all, whose is
the success here? If there were one Australian and two girls, now, that
would be something like success. Too much success, indeed! He might say:
“How happy could I be with either!” The girl does not say that; no girl
ever does. She wants them both and apparently she has got them. The
success is hers, and other girls will certainly grudge it to her,
particularly, one fancies, those in Australia, who may have their own
reasons for a qualified approval of conquests in Trafalgar Square. So
Britannia’s sons may be cut out, but Britannia’s daughter carries off
the honors and redresses the balance.
This snapshot, by the way, was evidently taken before London was laid in
ruins by Zeppelins (see the Wolff Bureau and German papers _passim_).
A. SHADWELL.
[Illustration]
_The Sea the Path of Victory_
The Kaiser and the Prussian people doubtless encourage themselves by
remembering the tremendous struggle which Frederick, so-called the
Great, waged against an almost overwhelming coalition of the neighboring
peoples, but they carefully and intentionally forget that Prussia had as
its ally throughout that desperate struggle of the Seven Years’ War the
power of England, which it hates. It deliberately forgets that the sea
was always open then, that its friends could come and go, and that
supplies of every kind could be brought in over a friendly “German
Ocean.” It has often been said that the Kaiser, when he fixed the date
for the beginning of the war, had forgotten to take counsel with the
naval command, but there seems no reason to doubt that at least he took
counsel with Tirpitz, the responsible head of the navy.
Tirpitz was not a man to be ignored, but neither was he a man whose
opinion about naval strategy was to be trusted. He has shown himself a
typical German organizer, marvellously excellent in the building of a
fleet of ships, but his ignorance of the real principles of naval
warfare and of naval power has proved itself to be colossal and truly
Germanic. It would surprise no one if history should hereafter disclose
that Tirpitz, through some quaint perversion of reasoning power, had
come to the conclusion that the time for the war had arrived at the end
of July, 1914. The true principle of naval power manifests itself
steadily in the course of history, and the artist in this cartoon
expresses it through the figure of the hydraulic press, under which the
Kaiser is being slowly crushed. Beneath the irresistible weight of its
descent his sword is bending and useless; it will soon break. The figure
of the hydraulic press is more apt than the phrase which was applied to
the Russian armies at the beginning of the war by the English press. The
“steam-roller” has proved itself a singularly unsuitable figure to
express the strength of the Russian armies, for it is totally unlike the
lightning strategy of Brussilof or the enduring blows of the Grand Duke.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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