Lest We Forget: World War StoriesThompson, John G. (John Gilbert)
History
Lest We Forget: World War Stories
Thompson, John G. (John Gilbert)
Readers -- History; Readers -- World War, 1914-1918
Another shows with almost sickening force the heart-breaking suffering
of Belgian mothers, as contrasted with the cruelty and hard-heartedness
of the Huns. A Belgian woman is kneeling beside a pile of dead from her
village, with an expression of almost insane suffering upon her face. A
German officer is passing, with one hand thrust into his coat front and
a cigar in his mouth. He stops to say, "Ah! was your boy among the
twelve this morning? Then you'll find him among this lot."
A third shows a German looting a house and carrying away everything
that he thinks is of value to him. The furniture is smashed and a woman
and child lie dead on the floor. The Hun is saying, "It's all right. If
I had not done it some one else might."
A fourth shows a line of hostages standing in front of a wall to be
shot for an offense that the German officer in command claims some one
in the village committed. Those taken as hostages are innocent of wrong
doing. The cartoon shows the ends of the barrels of the German muskets
pointed at the hearts of the hostages and a German officer with his
sword raised and his lips parted to give the order to fire. It shows
but four of the hostages: an old man, probably the mayor of the town; a
white-haired priest; a well-to-do man, and his son, about fourteen
years of age. The boy is asking, "Father, what have we done?"--the cry
that went up to their Heavenly Father from thousands of martyrs in
Belgium.
It is no wonder that the German rulers fear this Dutch artist more than
they do a division of soldiers. His fighting against the Huns and their
atrocities and against the German nature and teaching that made these
atrocities possible will continue in every nation of the earth, as long
as printing presses furnish pictures and people look at them.
His pen or pencil wrote a language that all could read, and they spoke
the truth so that it turned all who read it against the modern Hun.
When he visited England, one of the leading papers declared that he was
a genius, probably the only genius produced by the war; and that long
after the most exciting and interesting articles in newspapers and
magazines were forgotten, and the great number of books on the war had
been lost or stowed away in dusty garrets, his cartoons would live and
stir the indignation of men yet unborn; and that Louis Raemaekers had
nailed the Kaiser to a cross of immortal infamy.
France has honored him as one of the great heroes of the war, and has
given him the Legion of Honor.
George Creel says, "He is a voice, a sword, a flame. His cartoons are
the tears of women, the battle shout of indomitable defenders, the
indignation of humanity, the sob of civilization. They will go down in
history."
One of the wonderful painters of old Japan put so much of himself, of
his soul and heart, into every stroke of his brush that it was said,
"If a swift and keen sword should cut through his brush at work, it
would bleed."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account