Better the lonely gibbet on the heath than the stalled ox of Potsdam; let us walk the plank like the honest murderers we are, and go to the perdition that suits with our knaveries and cruelties and black crimes; but let us from creaking chain and blanched sea-sand enter a protest against having the Berlin brood fathered on us; nay, sirs, must even the good fat swine in his filth be compared with such as these?
It emphatically does _not_ look so in Serbia. No artist dare portray the infamous truth of it. I have found something of that in the report of an inquiry conducted by Dr. Reiss, of the Lausanne University, in such of the devastated districts as were not left in the actual occupation of the enemy. “Belgium was a mothers’ meeting to it,” as some phrase-maker put it. All that was worst in a nation, of whom a tolerant general opinion held that it was unfortunate rather than unkindly, came out in that second version of the “punitive expedition” of which the first ended so ingloriously.
It is an attribute of chivalry to respect courage, and of civilization to hold under control the passions that blaze up in the furnace of war. Austria has eternally forfeited her reputation for chivalry and culture. She has chosen to range herself with her allies: with the Germans of Aerschot, Termonde, Dixmude; with the Turks of the Armenian holocausts; with that glorious squadron of Bulgarian cavalry that charged and sabred a square of defenseless prisoners.
The first Austrian legions, underestimating their enemy, broke ignominiously against the intrepid mountaineers. They came back in overwhelming force and wreaked their vengeance for their former defeat with a more than German frightfulness.
One dare not take the responsibility of referring readers to Dr. Reiss’s book. Its cold precision, its scientific tabulation, its sickening photographs, make up a nightmare horror which should be thrust upon no one who can avoid it.
The peacemaker, Ford, is sailing away in a boat, with the flag of the United States at the stern, leaving behind him the four Germanic Powers. On their alliance is inscribed: “Victory! Victory! Colossal victory!”; but the alliance is only a life-buoy, and the Powers are struggling in the sea of fate, and are in imminent danger of drowning. They strive by loud words to maintain to the world their pretense of victory; but it is all sham, and they know that their lives are at stake. The whole fabric of the German alliance is to this artist a morally gigantic imposture, and rests on an elaborate system for duping the surrounding world. Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey have enough to do to hold on to the life-buoy and save themselves from death. Turkey has a bad grip, and looks as if he could hardly cling on. Bulgaria is, if possible, worse situated; Ferdinand holds with one hand and with his chin. The Emperor of Austria has his shoulder well over the life-saving buoy, but although the hold is good, his physical strength is failing. The Kaiser alone has a firm hold and plenty of strength left, but he has already been under water, for his helmet is dripping; and his cry for help is addressed to the retreating peacemaker. The boasting words inscribed on the alliance are addressed to the surrounding world, but the word that comes from his heart is a cry for peace.