Two Modern Hamlets
Formerly I imagined that throughout Germany, and from time to time in Russia, Austria, or in Italy, an imperial but soaringly human boy was lifting his glass and crying, "Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!" amid the clatter of swords and the admiring shouts of a profusely-decorated soldiery. Now I know that a stout gentleman is doing these things, and reducing his hearers to an abyss of melancholy at his dismal failure in dignity. A boy who played fantastic tricks with the telegraph-wires incurred but a mild censure. What shall be said of a middle-aged and pompous party whose pleasure it is to play practical jokes that set two nations by the ears?The "Raid" and its Aftermath
Yours is a great inheritance, greatly won by heroic deeds. Your people are by nature the mildest and most loyal, and by tradition and education the most thoughtful, in Europe. But mild and loyal as they are their minds must rise in revolt against a sovereign who reproduces in the crudest form the stale theories of divine right and arbitrary government, whose one notion of administration is to increase his stupendous military forces by taxation while diminishing the number of his reasonable critics by imprisonment. You have travelled, cocked hat in hand, to capital after capital, you have dismissed Bismarck, you have made yourself into the tin god of a great monarchy, you have shouted, reviewed, toasted, speechified, you have donned a thousand different uniforms, you have dabbled in the drama, you have been assisted in the design of allegorical cartoons, you have composed hymns to Ægir, and Heaven knows how many others and to-day the result of all your restless and misdirected energies is that you have added not only to your army but also to the foreign ill-wishers of your country and to her internal distractions. And at this moment, in spite of the millions of men and money that go to form her army, Germany is weaker than she has been at any moment since the Empire was proclaimed at Versailles. This feat, Sir, you have accomplished, and such credit as attaches to it is yours alone. Where and how do you propose to end?
lighter vein but with equal disrespect Punch satirizes the instructions to Prince Henry on starting with the naval expedition to Kiao-Chow. In particular Punch dwells, not unfairly, on the Kaiser's insistence on the sanctity of his mission. It was to be a Holy war:
Of the second or Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, the last great State pageant of her reign, one may say that it was more than a great act of veneration and loyalty; it was a celebration of Imperial expansion and solidarity which formed a reassuring interlude on the eve of events that were destined to test that solidarity to the utmost. For 1898 was the year of Fashoda, of the conflict over the "open door" in China, and of the Spanish-American war. I put Fashoda first, because the incident came perilously near embroiling us in war with France. It was not an isolated expression of French resentment, since the general attitude of British public opinion over the Dreyfus affair had greatly inflamed Anglophobia in France. Punch , like the majority of Englishmen, was strongly Dreyfusard. Early in the year he published his cartoon, based on Holman Hunt's picture, in which Zola figures as the "Dreyfus Scapegoat" a reference to the famous "J'accuse" article and a similar spirit is shown in the "Dreyfus Dictionary," in which strong hostility is shown to all the leading actors on the anti-Dreyfus side. On a large and sincerely patriotic section of the French public, exasperated by what they considered to be a gratuitous interference in a domestic affair, Punch's comments on the occupation of Fashoda in the Sudan by Colonel Marchand operated like vitriol on a raw wound. They certainly were not flattering to one, who if not a very discreet was a very gallant soldier. Beginning with a farcical burlesque of the stealthy invasion of the French, they go on from ridicule to contempt. "Marchez, Marchand," says John Bull to the Colonel, ironically congratulating him on having had a "nice little scientific trip." The last straw was the cartoon in which John Bull says: "Go away, go away," to a French organ-grinder with a little monkey in uniform perched on his instrument, which is labelled Fashoda. The organ-grinder says, "Eh? What you give me if I go?" and John Bull retorts: "I'll give you something if you don't ." A "furious Gaul" broke Mr. Punch's windows, and now we can understand and forgive the retaliation. It may have been an added sting to say, as Punch did on the best authority, that Colonel Marchand had been really saved from the Dervishes by Kitchener's success at Omdurman. Anyhow, it was fortunate that Lord Kitchener, who had served with the French in 1870 in Chanzy's army, was in charge of the negotiations with Colonel Marchand on the spot. The French Government did not give way until six weeks had passed, during which Irish members had avowed their sympathy with France, and Punch addressed her with serious warnings and even bellicose threats. For the peaceful adjustment of what looked like a casus belli , we certainly owe more to Lord Kitchener than to Punch . The battle of Omdurman, fought on September 2, 1898, was the culminating point of a carefully planned campaign which had lasted more than two years, and was duly celebrated in Punch's cartoon of the re-occupation of Khartum, with the statue of Gordon,