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
And yet there are those abroad in the land who can talk and write of
“saving Germany from too much humiliation.” Too much humiliation! For
one, I say that if Germany can be dragged in the dust; if her rulers can
be made to eat the bread of humiliation; if her bestial-minded military
officials, who have deported women and girls from Belgium and France to
God only knows where and to what end, can be brought to adequate
punishment, then there is still some justice left in this warring world
and some hope for poor, struggling, vexed, and fearful humanity. Unless
Germany is conquered and humiliated, unless the wrongs of Belgium and
the other devastated territories are avenged, we and the millions of our
Allies will have suffered, fought, and died for the greatest cause the
world has ever known--and in vain.
From the welter of battle, after the shouts of the fighting men have
died away, must emerge a new basis of society and a set of new ideals in
international conduct. And it is up to all of us to see to it that this
comes about.
CLIVE HOLLAND.
[Illustration]
_The Giant’s Task_
“I see you can hold them up, but----”
The whole world sees that Germany can hold them up. Strength is
concentrated first on one side, and then on the other, and at the time
this cartoon was first published the little figure sitting up on the
Western side watched, unmoved alike by German promises and German
threats. It watched while the days of the Marne went by and proved that
German efforts in the West would be confined to “holding up”--that the
capture of Paris and of Calais were mere dreams that must pass
unfulfilled. It watched the steady thrusting back of Russia, the
apparent success in building an Eastern defense that could be held up
indefinitely. Then it added its weight to the Western boulder, and the
holding up process went on.
Neither boulder has yet fallen; the strong man is not yet exhausted, but
the whole world knows what the end must be. Germany could not afford a
mere defensive war--from the outset she knew that decision must be won
in the first months, and that the alternative to this was defeat. This
grim figure, bent on “holding up” the two main fronts, is typical of
Germany to-day, a raging barbarian, wearying under the impossible task.
For such a task there was needed not only physical strength, but
spiritual strength, ideals as well as machinery, and soul as well as
brain. By his methods of war this soulless barbarian has added to the
weights that he must hold up; he has misinterpreted the meaning of
civilization, misunderstood the aims common to humanity outside Germany.
The weight that he must hold up and away is not merely that of Britain,
Russia, France, and the rest of the Allies; it is the weight of all men
who understand freedom rightly, steadily crushing freedom’s antithesis.
E. CHARLES VIVIAN.
[Illustration]
“_I Must Have Something for My Trouble_”
You shall, Germany, you shall!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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