Life — January 17, 1918 — page 9: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

‘LIFE™ The Kaiser and the Almighty T Kaiser's profuse Christmas compliments to his soldiers of the western front at least suggest that he has begun to suspect that he is up against something. He told his troops that the “most gigantic feat ever ac- complished by an army and one with- out parallel in history” had been ac- complished by the German army. What was it? By his account it was that the Ger- mans had managed to keep the British from getting to Brussels. That shows appreciation of British energy and military power. Germans nowadays have come a long way from their 1914 opinion that the ench and British were degenerate. For years before the war their rulers and teachers had assured them that the French were a pretense that would crumble at their touch, and the British a sham that only needed showing up. So they went to the war with garlands and smiles, like girls to a party. They went strong and fast; mensely strong, but the degenerate French, with help from Belgium, Russia and England, stood them off a year and a half, giving time to the degenerate British gradually to get together this army which, after full experience of its power, the Kaiser as only kept out of Brussels hy “the most gigantic feat ever ac- complished by an army and one without parallel in history.” Probably the Kaiser would admit that there was a defect in the idea, so popular in Germany before the war, that the French were all in and the British played out. But now he says that last year’s battles proved “the German people has in the Lord of Creation above an unconditional and avowed Ally on whom it can absolutely rely.” Without Him, he admits, all would have been in vain. Verily, this is a cry from the last ditch, The Germans said, The French are degenerate! Did they find them so? They said, The British are degen- erate! Did they find them so? Now their leading exhorter suggests to them that the Almighty is degen- im- erate. He is our kind, the Kaiser says. We have got Him where we need Him. He will back us up in anything we do, and never blush! Will they find it so? Will they be- lieve their chief priest and head ex- horter when he tells them so? Of course, nobody can tell what Ger- mans will believe, but it would seem a they would remember that their oracles went wrong about the French, and again about the British, and again about the Americans not fighting, and have made, first or last, so many and so very expensive mistakes that the chances were that they were wrong now and again supposing that the Almighty was of a German disposition, delighting in blood, lust, robbery, lies, spies and ruin, and was firmly deter- mined to put it over for the Germans, no matter what. All their past suc- cess, all their future hopes, rest on the “THESE BAY'NETS AIN'T HARDLY LON! ENOUGH, ED, THEY WOULDN'T Go THROUGH MORE THAN ONE BOCHE AT A TIME—NOT COMFORTABLY.” validity of that opinion. The Kaiser admits it. Be advised, Germans! Do not bet your last coin, your last life, on the Kaiser's opinion. Remember that, in spite of the gigantic intelligence of Germans, they do not -excel in under- standing other people. They seem to think of all people as though they were Germans, and to expect them to be affected by considerations that would affect Germans, scared by bugaboos that scare Germans, won by entice- ments that would win them. They have tried to buy or bribe everybody and to scare everybody, and have had only partial and insufficient success. Nation after nation they have escorted up into a high place, invited them to look around, said to them, “All this I will give you,” and been rudely told to go to hell. The Germans may understand scalawag Turks, scalawag Russians and scalawags generally, but surely they must realize that they do not under- stand the general run of other peo- ple. That is doubtless why Houston Chamberlain thought it so neces- sary to prove that Christ and every- one else who had ever lived who was worth understanding was a German. And of course that is why the Kaiser finds it so necessary now to naturalize the Almighty, and make of Him a German citizen (or sub- ject) with purely German ideals, standards and aspirations. The Kaiser feels that unless the Al- mighty is a German and devoted unreservedly to the idea of Deutsch- land iiber alles, the jig is about up. Yes, Kaiser, as to the jig; but as to the Almighty, no. Modern Ger- many no more understands Him than it understood Sir Edward Grey, or France, or Mr. Wilson. The Almighty is an old hand. He does not derive from Germany, and there is much, very much, of Ger- many that does not derive from Him. Be doubtful, Germans, that the Kaiser understands Him, but be sure He un- derstands the Kaiser. And He is not degenerate, and He is not a German. E.S.M. comicbooks.com