Judge, 1918-05-04 · page 15 of 38
Judge — May 4, 1918 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two separate satirical pieces targeting Kaiser Wilhelm II and Germany during World War I. **The Cartoon ("Reprisals"):** Shows a grandmother instructing her grandson Fred (a pilot) to drop a package over Berlin during bombing runs. The joke relies on wartime aerial bombardment—a then-novel form of warfare—and suggests civilians weaponizing ordinary objects as retaliation. **"Gas and Shrapnel" Essay:** A caustic collection of aphorisms mocking the Kaiser's intellect, morality, and military prospects. References include: - The *Reims Cathedral* destruction (actual German war crime) - The failed promise of conquering Paris ("frogs-legs") - Germany's failed invasion/occupation (Liège to Cambrai) - Implied Russian defeat or surrender - General contempt for Prussian character The piece uses extended metaphors (the Kaiser "skating on thin ice") and classical allusions to belittle German leadership while celebrating Allied resilience, particularly France's "heart of flame in a breast of bronze." This is propagandistic wartime satire from *Judge* magazine, designed to boost American morale by ridiculing the enemy.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
REpRIsALS Granny—I want you to take this with you, Fred; and the first time you fly over Berlin I want you to drop it—Hard! GAS AND SHRAPNEL By Benjamin De CasseRes will be forced ‘‘to do his bit” in Hades; he will be compelled to balance the Towers of the Cathedral of Rheims on a scrap of paper. France: a heart of flame in a breast of bronze. Even Jim the Penman wouldn’t counterfeit the Kaiser’s name on a scrap of paper. The Prussian heart is like a hand born with a thick, coarse glove over it—it fumbles and upsets, but it can- not feel. Scratch almost any human being and you will find a beast, but with the Prussian you can waive the scratching. The Kaiser is skating on such thin ice that if he is not careful he will have more water on the brain than usual, The cagle on the helmet of the Kaiser, who was promised frogs-legs in Paris some time ago, is now quite willing to compromise on sauerkraut and beer. ie the manner of Tantalus and Sisyphus, the Kaiser The road from Litge to Cambrai is the German Rue de la Pay. German scholarship is so profound that no one has ever reached the bottom of it. Peace deferred maketh the Kaiser sick. A Bocheviki-Bolsheviki peace!—tell it to Kaiser!—Munchausen’s dead! Satan: the first Fuel Administrator. The Kaiser is the hero of a thousand medals. Let not the Kaiser count his Russia before she’s hatched. Pleasure is a race-horse; pain is a tortoise. Civilization has weighed the Kaiser in the scales and he has been found vaunting. Empires and peoples go down to death and millions die in whirlpools of flame, but children still chase moonbeams and the smiles of beautiful Woman still enchants the heart. the