The leader and "hero" of this assault is Prussia, big, brutal, remorseless. The Dutch artist always concentrates the spectator's attention on him. You can almost hear the roar coming out of his mouth: "Gott strafe Serbien." This is the figure, as Raemaekers paints him, that goes straight for his object, regardless of moral considerations. Serbia is in his way, and Serbia must be trampled in the mire. The artist's sympathy is wholly with Serbia, who is pictured as the man fighting against the brute, slight but active and noble in build, facing this burly foe.
And poor old Turkey! Always a figure of comedy, never ready in time, always ineffective, never fully able to use the weapons of so-called "civilization." Let it always be remembered that in the Gallipoli peninsula, when the Turks at first were taking no prisoners, but killing the wounded after their own familiar fashion with mutilation, for the sake of such spoil as could be carried away, Enver Pasha issued an order that thirty piastres should be paid for every prisoner brought in alive, a noble and humane regulation. Let us hope that the reward was always paid, not stolen on the way, as has been so often the case in Turkey.
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When the tiger," says the naturalist, "has killed some large animal, such as a buffalo which he cannot consume at one time, the jackals collect round the carcase at a respectful distance and wait patiently until the tiger moves off. Then they rush from all directions, carousing upon the slaughtered buffalo, each anxious to eat as much as it can contain in the shortest time."
The human jackal is one of the most squalid and sordid creatures and features of war. We saw him in Dublin the other day emerging from his slum den to loot Sackville Street. Every battlefield feeds its carrion beasts and birds.
This picture of Belgium and its jackals is doubtless only too true. Mr. Raemakers and the Dutch have better means of knowing than we. The jackal, says the same naturalist, belongs to the _Canidæ_, the "dog tribe." The scientific name of the true dog is _Canis familiaris,_ "the household dog." The jackal is _Canis aureus_, the "gold dog." The epithet describes no doubt his colour. The human _Canis aureus_ perhaps deserves his title on not less obvious grounds.