RAEMAEKERS'
CARTOON
HISTORY OF THE WAR
Table of Contents
- King Albert's Answer to the Pope
- A Stable Peace
- Thrown to the Swine
- The Martyred Nurse
- The Yellow Book
- U's
- Pallas Athene: "Has it come to this?"
- The Next to be Kicked Out
- September, 1914, and September, 1915
- Idyllic Neutrality
- What Should We Do Without Michael?
- We Don't Understand This Loan Game
- The German Loan
- "Wounded First"
- The Morning Paper:—"Great News"
- Van Tromp and De Reuter
- The Marshes of Pinsk
- "Cheer up, Austria, you have Germans and Bulgarians to help you this time"
- Ferdinand, The Chameleon
- Serbia. Autumn, 1915
- October in Serbia
- The Kaiser Counts The Bag
- "The Entry Into Constantinople"
- Go to Your Hereditary Enemy, Bulgaria
- "They Bowed the Knee Before Him"
- Driven From the Temple of Humanity
- The Old Serb
- New Peace Offers
- Ferdinand S'en Va T'en Guerre Ne Sait S'il Reviendra
RAEMAEKERS'
CARTOON
HISTORY OF THE WAR
compiled by
J. MURRAY ALLISON
Editor of Raemaekers' Cartoons, Kultur in Cartoons, The
Century Edition de Luxe Raemaekers' Cartoons, etc.
VOLUME TWO
THE SECOND TWELVE MONTHS OF WAR
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1919
Copyright, 1919, by
The Century Co.
FOREWORD
The second year of the war opened in the West with the enemy, although superior in man power and munitionment, pinned down to a defensive line from Belfort to the sea. The new armies of the British Empire were still being raised and trained, and neither England nor France had reached their zenith in the production of guns and munitions. The western front was to remain for a time comparatively inactive.
In the East the great Teutonic drive through Poland was still in progress, although the Russian armies had everywhere escaped envelopment, and their retreat was nearly at an end. Warsaw was occupied by the Germans early in August. It was a moment chosen by Germany to make an offer of separate peace to Russia. The enemy sought to gain by bribery what his armies had failed to accomplish in the field. The offer was rejected by Russia.
By October Germany's greatest military effort so far had failed and the Russian armies stood intact from the Bukovina to Riga.
The next great development in the history of the war was the entry of Bulgaria in October on the side of the Central Powers. Whilst great
In the meantime the western allies had taken the offensive in September, the French attacking in Champagne and the British in Flanders. The attack was not driven home and no further offensive upon a large scale was to take place until July in the following year.
January saw Gallipoli evacuated by the Allies, releasing Turkish troops for service in Mesopotamia which was doubtless to have its effect in the fall of Kut and the capture of the garrison later on.
Late in February the great German offensive began at Verdun, an offensive which was to prove the most costly defeat of the German arms during the war. The Battle of Verdun continued for months and may be said to have been definitely lost by the Germans by the 1st of July.
Meanwhile the Russian armies in the Caucasus and Armenia had beaten the Turks in many engagements, taking amongst other towns the fortress of Erzerum with great numbers of prisoners and military stores. The other Russian armies in the north, reorganized and thoroughly equipped with munitionment, began in June their magnificent advance all along their line from Riga to the Carpathians.
The last month of the second year of the war witnessed the beginning of the "big push" in the west, the Russian advance in the east, the retreat of the Austrians in the Trentino, and the beginning of the Italians' successful thrust upon the Isonzo.
It is with these major military operations of the year with which Raemaekers' cartoons on the following pages deal.
He did not neglect to record, however, many of the minor happenings. The various and devious peace moves of the enemy did not escape his comment nor did the cold blooded murders of Nurse Cavell and Captain Fryatt. He has recorded also many examples of German Zeppelin Ruthlessness and German Piracy on the sea. Notable amongst the latter is the Sussex crime and its subsequent diplomatic developments, which were to play such an important part in America's entry into the war.
J. M. A.
VOLUME TWO
THE ANNIVERSARY, AUGUST, 1915
Bernhardi: "Have we not surpassed your most sanguine expectations?"
Total losses amongst all belligerents during first year of war:
Nineteenth Century and After.
KING ALBERT'S ANSWER TO THE POPE
"With him who broke his word, devastated my country, burned my villages, destroyed my towns, desecrated my churches, and murdered my people, I will not make peace before he is expelled from my country and punished for his crimes."
Today, on the sad anniversary of the terrible conflict, our heart gives forth the wish that the war will soon end. We raise again our voice to utter a fatherly cry for peace. May this cry, dominating the frightful noise of arms, reach the warring peoples and their chiefs and induce kindly and more serene intentions.
From the Papal Peace Appeal,
August 1, 1916.
A STABLE PEACE
The Kaiser: "And remember, if they do not accept it, I deny it altogether"
That the Dardanelles and Galicia had been offered by Berlin to Petrograd; that Egypt was asked for Turkey, and that the mediation of the Pope was desired on the basis of the restitution of Belgium, were some of the reports which gained currency between Aug. 5, the date of the fall of Warsaw, and Aug. 12, when the Novoe Vremya of Petrograd confirmed the rumors of German overtures for a separate peace with Russia.
Almost simultaneously from Petrograd and from Milan announcements that, after the capture of Warsaw, Germany was seriously engaged in preliminary negotiations for the establishment of a peace were published.
Besides Galicia and the Dardanelles, the Novoe Vremya said, Germany would guarantee the integrity of the Russian frontiers, at the same time stipulating for Egypt on the pretext of ceding that country to Turkey, and for a free hand to deal with Russia's allies. The report declared that these offers were rejected by the Czar's Government.
"Current History",
New York.
THROWN TO THE SWINE
On August 5, 1915, Miss Cavell, an English woman, directress of a large nursing home at Brussels, was quietly arrested by the German authorities and confined in the prison of St. Gilles on the charge that she had aided stragglers from the Allied Armies to escape across the frontier from Belgium to Holland, furnishing them with money, clothing and information concerning the route to be followed.
We reminded him (Baron Von der Lancken) of the burning of Louvain and the sinking of the Lusitania, and told him that this murder would stir all civilized countries with horror and disgust. Count Harrach broke in at this with the rather irrelevant remark that he would rather see Miss Cavell shot than have harm come to one of the humblest German soldiers, and his only regret was that they had not "three or four English old women to shoot."
The day brought forth another loathsome fact in connection with the case. It seems the sentence of Miss Cavell was not pronounced in open court. Her executioners, apparently in hope of concealing their intentions from us, went into her cell and there behind locked doors pronounced sentence upon her. It is all a piece with the other things they have done.
Hugh Gibson,
First Secretary of the American
Legation at Brussels.
THE MARTYRED NURSE
William: "Now you can bring me the American protest"
Even when I was ready to abandon all hope, Leval was unable to believe that the German authorities would persist in their decision, and appealed most touchingly and feelingly to the sense of pity for which we looked in vain.
Hugh Gibson,
First Secretary American
Legation at Brussels.
To condemn any human being, even if he were the vilest criminal, at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and execute him at 2 A. M. was an act of barbarism for which no possible condemnation is adequate.
Under these circumstances, it would be incredible, if the facts were not beyond dispute, that the request of the United States for a little delay was not only brutally refused, but that our Legation was deliberately misled and deceived until the death sentence had been inflicted.
James M. Beck
In "New York Times".
THE YELLOW BOOK
"Unmasked"
The publication of the French Government Yellow Book in August dealing with the diplomatic events which led up to the war proved that whilst Germany was assuring the nations of her peaceful intentions she was secretly preparing for war.
U'S
His Majesty: "Well, Tirpitz, you've sunk a great many?"
Tirpitz: "Yes, sire, here is another U coming down."
On August 26, 1915, Squadron-Commander A. W. Bigsworth destroyed single-handed, a German submarine by bombs from his aeroplane off Ostend on the coast of Belgium.
The British Admiralty said in reference to this episode:
"It is not the practice of the Admiralty to publish statements regarding the losses of German submarines, important though they have been, in cases where the enemy have no other sources of information as to the time and place at which these losses have occurred. In the case referred to above, however, the brilliant feat of Squadron-Commander Bigsworth was performed in the immediate neighbourhood of the coast in occupation of the enemy, and the position of the sunken submarine has been located by a German destroyer."
Pallas Athene: "Has it come to this?"
When, on Sept. 21, after the Bulgarian mobilization had begun, M. Venizelos, who was then Prime Minister of Greece, asked France and ourselves for 150,000 men, it was on the express understanding that Greece would mobilize also. Greece did, in fact, mobilize under his direction on Sept. 24, but it was not until Oct. 2 that M. Venizelos found himself able to agree to the landing of British and French troops under the formal protest, a merely formal protest, which he had already made to the French Government. On Oct. 4—I wish these dates to be borne in mind—M. Venizelos announced what had happened to the Greek Chamber, and at the same time declared that Greece must abide by her treaty with Serbia. The next day the King repudiated the declaration and then M. Venizelos resigned. The new Government which succeeded declined to recognize that a casus foederis had arisen between Greece and Serbia, in spite of our constant insistence that Greece should make common cause with Serbia, and the new Greek Government, while declaring their desire to remain on friendly terms with the Allies, declined to depart from their attitude of neutrality.
H. H. Asquith, House of Commons,
November 2, 1915.