ALTHOUGH this manifestation of the German spirit is new, and belongs to this war only, yet the spirit itself is as old as Prussian power. That spirit was evident in 1813, in the Napoleonic wars; it was evident in the campaign of Sadowa, and again in the Franco-German war of 1870, when the murder of women and children was proved to be the Prussian form of retaliation for perfectly legitimate acts of war. This cartoon, which first appeared after one of the earlier Zeppelin raids on England, gives another result of the Prussian belief in terrorism as an aid to war; the result is new, but the policy behind it is old.

Because that policy is old, and is a deep-rooted principle of Prussianism, any talk of “peace terms” is futile, and the “honorable peace” of which German deputies talk in their gatherings is an impossibility. There can be no terms for the nation that does these things, no bargaining with it, and the world that has wakened to the real nature of the thing which has attacked civilization will take care that the thing itself has no power to impose “terms” in the day when peace returns.

It is worth noting that Germany alone among the nations has built Zeppelins, and worthy of note, too, that these machines have served no useful military purpose in the decisive actions of the war. Along the battle fronts they do not appear, for they are too fragile to be risked in purely military work. In the great naval battle of Jutland they served no useful purpose, and the war has proved them instruments of murder, safe only in darkness and undefended areas. And in saying that Germany alone has built them in fleets, one says that Germany alone has pinned faith to terrorism and a policy of murder, which is steadily winning its just reward.

E. CHARLES VIVIAN.