THERE remain yet a few people who state that, in beginning this world war, Germany did not anticipate such slaughter as she has had to compass; but these are the people who have not studied the apostle of war whom Raemaekers portrays as presenting this bouquet of babies’ heads. This cartoon was first published in August, 1915, and was commemorative of the results of one year of war. It gained in significance during the second year, for to Belgium must be added Serbia, scene of unspeakable crimes against the civilian populace, and Armenia, of which the full horrors will never be told, since none of the victims remain to tell them.

In these later days, when the whole world can see that Germany is fighting a losing fight, one might admire the grim way in which the victors are made to pay for every step of the path they have yet to tread; if their hands were clean one might call magnificent the dogged courage of the fighting men who resist our own. But the list of slaughtered women and children is too long, the violation of the laws of humanity is too complete. This grinning barbarian with his bouquet is the German that the world will remember, not those exceptions to his kind who, by humanity in the presence of wounded enemies, have made themselves noteworthy—merely by their rarity.

In the last phase of the war, that in which approaching defeat is plainly evident, the German fights well—and so does a rat when it is cornered. Raemaekers’ symbol of the bouquet is not less to be kept in mind, nor would there be any hope of justice in the settlement if the victors, in generosity to a beaten foe, should forget it.

E. CHARLES VIVIAN.