WHEN, in August of 1914, the German hosts set out on their way to victory and yet greater victory, they had in their minds a figure which, for them, had been girdled round with dignities almost sacred. Whatever their secret thoughts regarding this figure might have been, it was ostensibly something very nearly sacred; to the rest of the world it was an imperial figure, portrayed in many attitudes, but in practically every attitude there was the suggestion of illimitable pride. The world that is not Germany had laughed at this figure a little: over certain telegrams, over the assumption of genius in certain artistic fields, and over a versatility that was almost Neronic. There was not wanting, among free peoples, a certain amount of contempt for this figure.

Here you have the figure in a new attitude, and though at the time this cartoon was published the triumphs in Rumania were still to come, and the German lines of defense were apparently as strong as ever, yet the cartoon expressed a truth, as do all these cartoons of Raemaekers. As insecurely as is pictured here stood this man who aped Napoleon and Alexander, at whose bidding women and children were fed into the furnace of war, through whose senseless ambition countless homes were made places of mourning for the men who would return no more. More than three years of suffering, and the face of the world changed, the progress of the world arrested—for this!

Beneath him is the gulf; he has hurled millions into it, and here postures no more as second only to omnipotence, but waits the inevitable fall. Thank God that it is inevitable.

E. CHARLES VIVIAN.