Once more the rulers of Germany have failed to read the soul of another nation. They thought there was no limit to America's forbearance, and they thought wrong. America is now "all in" on the side of the Allies. The Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack are flying side by side over the Houses of Parliament. On the motion introduced in both Houses to welcome our new Ally, Mr. Bonar Law, paraphrasing Canning, declared that the New World had stepped in to redress the balance of the old; Mr. Asquith, with a fellow-feeling, no doubt, lauded the patience which had enabled President Wilson to carry with him a united nation; and Lord Curzon quoted Bret Harte. The memory of some unfortunate phrases is obliterated by the President's historic message to Congress, and his stirring appeal to his countrymen to throw their entire weight into the Allied scale. The War, physically as well as morally, is now Germania contra Mundum. Yet, while we hail the advent of a powerful and determined Ally, there is no disposition to throw up our hats. The raw material of manpower in America is magnificent in numbers and quality, but it has to be equipped and trained and brought across the Atlantic. Many months, perhaps a whole year, must elapse before its weight can be felt on the battle front. The transport of a million men over submarine-infested seas is no easy task. But while we must wait for the coming of the Americans on land, their help in patrolling the seas may be counted on speedily.
The British have entered PÉronne; the Canadians have captured Vimy Ridge. But the full extent of German frightfulness has never been so clearly displayed as in their retreat. Here, for once, the German account of their own doings is true. "In the course of these last months great stretches of French territory have been turned by us into a dead country. It varies in width from 10 to 12 or 13 kilometres, and extends along the whole of our new positions. No village or farm was left standing, no road was left passable, no railway track or embankment was left in being. Where once were woods, there are gaunt rows of stumps; the wells have been blown up.... In front of our new positions runs, like a gigantic ribbon, our Empire of Death" (Lokal Anzeiger, March 18, 1917). The general opinion of the Boche among the British troops is that he is only good at one thing, and that is destroying other people's property. One of Mr. Punch's correspondents writes to say that while the flattened villages and severed fruit trees are a gruesome spectacle, for him "all else was forgotten in speechless admiration of the French people.
THE NEW-COMER: "My village, I think?"
THE NEW-COMER: "My village, I think?"
THE ONE IN POSSESSION: "Sorry, old thing; I took it half-an-hour ago."
"Their self-restraint and adaptability are beyond words. These hundreds of honest people, just relieved from the domineering of the Master Swine, and restored to their own good France again, were neither hysterical nor exhausted." The names of the new German lines--Wotan and Siegfried and Hunding--are not without significance. We accept the omen: it will not be long before we hear of fresh German activities in the GÖtterdÄmmerung line. Count Reventlow has informed the Kaiser that without victory a continuation of the Monarchy is improbable. The "repercussion" of Revolution is making itself felt. Even the Crown Prince is reported to have felt misgivings as to the infection of anti-monarchial ideas, and Mr. Punch is moved to forecast possibilities of upheaval:
Not that the Teuton's stolid wits
Are built to plan so rude a plot;
Somehow I cannot picture Fritz
Careering as a sans-culotte;
Schooled to obedience, hand and heart,
I can imagine nothing odder
Than such behaviour on the part
Of inoffensive cannon-fodder.
And yet one never really knows.
You cannot feed his massive trunk
On fairy tales of beaten foes,
Or Hindenburg's "victorious" bunk;
And if his rations run too short
Through this accursed British blockade,
Even the worm may turn and sport
A revolutionary cockade.
On the German Roll of Dishonour this month appears the name of one who has been grande et conspicuum nostro quoque tempore monstrum. Baron Moritz Ferdinand von Bissing, the German Military Governor-General of Belgium, who was largely responsible for the murder of Nurse Cavell and the chief instigator of the infamous Belgian deportations, after being granted a rest from his labours, is reported to have died "of overwork." Here for once we find ourselves in perfect agreement with the official German view. In a recent character sketch of the deceased Baron, the Cologne Gazette observed, "He is a fine musician, and his execution was good." It would have been.
The proceedings in Parliament do not call for extended comment. Mr. Asquith has handsomely recanted his hostility to women's suffrage, admitting that by their splendid services in the war women have worked out their own electoral salvation. An old spelling-book used to tell us that "it is agreeable to watch the unparalleled embarrassment of a harassed pedlar when gauging the symmetry of a peeled pear." Lord Devonport, occupied in deciding on the exact architecture and decoration of the Bath bun (official sealed pattern), would make a companion picture. For the rest the House has been occupied with the mysteries of combing and re-combing. The best War saying of the month was that of Mr. Swift MacNeill, in reference to proposed peace overtures, that it would be time enough to talk about peace when the Germans ceased to blow up hospital ships.
DYNASTIC AMENITIES
DYNASTIC AMENITIES
LITTLE WILLIE (of Prussia): "As one Crown Prince to another, isn't your Hindenburg line getting a bit shaky?"
RUPPRECHT (of Bavaria): "Well, as one Crown Prince to another, what about your Hohenzollern line?"
Although the streets may have been sweetened by the absence of posters, days will come, it must be remembered, when we shall badly miss them. It goes painfully to one's heart to think that the embargo, if it is ever lifted, will not be lifted in time for most of the events which we all most desire -events that clamour to be recorded in the largest black type, such as "Strasbourg French Again," "Flight of the Crown Prince," "Revolution in Germany," "The Kaiser a Captive," and last and best of all, "Peace." But Mr. Punch, with many others, has no sympathy to spare for the sorrows of the headline artist deprived for the time being of his chief opportunity of scaremongering.
In the competition of heroism and self-sacrifice the prize must fall to the young--to the Tommy and the Second Lieutenant before all. Yet a very good mark is due to the retired Admirals who have accepted commissions in the R.N.R., and are mine-sweeping or submarine-hunting in command of trawlers. Yes, "Captain Dug-out, R.N.R.," is a fine disproof of si vieillesse pouvait.
TORPEDOED MINE-SWEEPER (to his pal)
TORPEDOED MINE-SWEEPER (to his pal): " As I was a-saying, Bob, when we was interrupted, it's my belief as 'ow the submarine blokes ain't on 'arf as risky a job as the boys in the airy-o-planes."
According to the Pall Mall Gazette, Mr. Lloyd George's double was seen at Cardiff the other day. The suggestion that there are two Lloyd Georges has caused consternation among the German Headquarters Staff. But we are not exempt from troubles and anxieties in England. The bones of a woolly rhinoceros have been dug up twenty-three feet below the surface at High Wycombe, and very strong language has been used in the locality concerning this gross example of food-hoarding. The weather, too, has been behaving oddly. On one day of Eastertide there was an inch of snow in Liverpool, followed by hailstones, lightning, thunder, and a gale of wind. Summer has certainly arrived very early. But at least we are to be spared a General Election this year--for fear that it might clash with the other War.
