Raemaekers' Cartoons: With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English WritersRaemaekers, Louis
History
Raemaekers' Cartoons: With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers
Raemaekers, Louis
Raemaekers, Louis, 1869-1956; World War, 1914-1918 -- Caricatures and cartoons
As a nation we are always ready to admit and to admire physical courage,
and if Germany had fought a "clean fight," had "played the game,"
starkly and straightly, against our fighting men, we could--and our
fighting men especially could, and I believe would--have helped her to
her feet and shaken hands honestly with her after she was beaten. But
with such a brute beast as the unmasking of the "Yellow Book" has
revealed Germany to be we can never feel friendship, admiration, or
respect.
The German is a "dirty fighter," and to the British soldier that alone
puts him beyond the pale. He has outraged all the rules and the
instincts of chivalry. His bravery in battle is the bravery of a
ravening wolf, of a blood-drunk savage animal. It is only left to the
Allies to treat him as such, to thrash him by brute force, and then to
clip his teeth and talons and by treaty and agreement amongst themselves
to keep him chained and caged beyond the possibility of another
outbreak.
BOYD CABLE.
[Illustration: UNMASKED
The Yellow Book.]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GREAT SURPRISE
In the note to another picture I have remarked on the farcical hypocrisy
of the German Emperor in presenting himself, as he so often does, as the
High Priest of several different religions at the same time. They are
nearly all of them religions with which he would have no sort of
concern, even if his religious pose were as real as it is artificial.
Being in fact the ruler and representative of a country which alone
among European countries builds with complete security upon the
conviction that all Christianity is dead, he can only be, even in
theory, the prince of an extreme Protestant State. Long before the War
it was common for the best caricaturists of Europe, and even of Germany,
to make particular fun of these preposterous temporary Papacies in which
the Kaiser parades himself as if for a fancy-dress ball; and in the
accompanying picture Mr. Raemaekers has returned more or less to this
old pantomimic line of satire.
The cartoon recalls some of those more good-humoured, but perhaps
equally contemptuous, sketches in which the draughtsmen of the French
comic papers used to take a particular delight; which made a whole comic
Bible out of the Kaiser's adventures during his visit to Palestine. Here
he appears as Moses, and the Red Sea has been dried up to permit the
passage of himself and his people.
It would certainly be very satisfactory for German world-politics if the
sea could be dried up everywhere; but it is unlikely that the incident
will occur, especially in that neighbourhood. It will be long before a
German army is as safe in the Suez Canal as a German Navy in the Kiel
Canal; and the higher critics of Germany will have no difficulty in
proving, in the Kiel Canal at all events, that the safety is due to
human and not to divine wisdom.
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.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account