44 
LAND & WATER 
December 7, 191G 
The Mark of the Beast 
The Leading Article of the " New York Tribune," November 15th, 1916. 
This outspoken article which was printed in the " New York Tribune " of the i^lh ultimo, under this heading 
was accompanied by a cartoon of Raemaekers, showing the brutal deportation of Belgian workmen to Germany. 
The " Tribune," one of the most powerful organs in America, explains in the plainest terms what the war is 
for. " There can be no peace until this German spirit sinks of its own weight. . . . There cannot be 
peace beMeen Germanv and civilization " while things are as they are. It is a point of view which was needed 
to be put before America, for peace is not possible on any other terms. Neutrals in Europe ttnderstand it, 
and our New York contemporary renders a great service in making it equally clear across the Atlantic 
T 
(HERE is something almost pathetic about the 
vain Teachings of the Germans for neutral 
s\-mpathy. They murder neutrals, they sink 
neutral ships and they Niolate neutral rights^ 
and then, in their desire for neutral approval, they buj' 
newspapers in neutral capitals and eagerly reprint the 
comments appearing in the purchased columns. Thus 
it is that for the latest Belgian outrage Bcrhn finds 
warrant in the comment of Copenhagen and Stockholm 
newspapers. 
" And yet the most astonishing thing about the w-hole 
war is the complete inability of the German to understand 
the rest of the world. He sent his troops into Belgium ; 
he permitted, he commanded them to murder, burn, 
rape ; under his orders children were slain and women 
violated, cities were destroyed and homes ruined, and 
then the German produced a hocus-pocus of documents 
discovered in Brussels to defend his course, to justify 
nt)t merely his offences against Belgian neutrality 
but his offences in Belgium against all humanity. 
" And from the outset of the war the Belgian episode 
has endured as a final damnation of Modern Germany. 
It is one thing about which there is no argument in 
America. It is one phase of the war which is settled, 
not for the duration of the war but for a lifetime of men 
and women now alive. We are numb wuth the horror 
of this war, we are deadened with the charges and counter- 
charges, but in the matter of Belgium our minds remain 
clear and fixed. 
' "It is not surprising that the nation which murdered 
Belgian women and children is now enslaving Belgian 
men. It is not surprising that the nation which is re- 
i ^onsible for what was done, not merely in Louvain 
byt in all the villages from the frontier to Dinant through 
Msiiich the troops passed, should now be invoking the 
methods of African slave traders in the conquered 
regions. 
'■' The true meaning of this Belgian episode is that there 
can be no peace while the spirit which is responsible 
ior it dominates Germany. Europe cannot make peace 
with such statesmanship of murder as rules in BerUn. 
To do this would be to recognise the spirit itself. A 
native village might" as well make terms with a man- 
■eating tiger which by night preyed upon its children 
as could France, for example, make peace with a neigh- 
bouring Germany in its present mood. 
" Belgium is the sign manual of Germanv. Whenever c 
the world needs a fresh illustration of what the German 
Kultur and German spirit means it is supplied in Belgium 
and furnished by the agents of the Kaiser. The whole 
world is weary of this war, but whenever there seems a 
chance that the weariness may lead to peace Germans 
do something in Belgium which produces an instant 
revulsion of feeling and a willingness to see the war go 
on until such brutishness as Germans manifest is finally 
crushed. 
" There can be no peace, there can be nothing lu the 
Systematic slaughter of Germans alor,g all the fronts until 
this German spirit sinks of its own weight. Every time 
Germany does something in Belgium, does a Belgian 
thing elsewhere, she pays for it in casualty lists. More 
than half as many Germans have been killed, wounded 
and captured since this war began as there were Belgians 
in Europe when Von Emmich crossed the frontier. 
Perhaps we shall sec the population and the casualty 
figures stand equal before the end of the struggle. 
" The one thing that is certain is that there cannot be 
peace between Germany and civilization while Germany 
remains the exponent of all the things that mean the 
destruction of civilization and the denial of common 
humanity. No one can want peace enough to surrender 
Belgium for all time to the beasts who now occupy it 
or to the beastliness w-hich Germany practices there and 
elsewhere whenever if pleases a German purpose. 
" If this were only a war .between nations there would 
be no real obstacle to settling it. If it were just a quarrel 
about territories, it has reached a point where all the 
contestants recognise .that no territory is worth the cost 
of a month more of struggle, granted that each is ready 
to recognise the integrity of the other. If this were hke 
any war that we know of, in recent centuries, mankind 
would revolt against its folly and madness. 
" But who shall mairitain that a war against a nation 
doing the things that Germany has done and continues 
to do in Belgium is like to any modern war ? The French 
who have so far borne the burden of the war in the West, arc 
resolute against peace now, because they know that peace 
now would leave their children exposed to the same peril 
that they are facing in the trenches. 
" Here we are in the third year of this struggle and the 
Germans are still creating an obstacle to all settlement 
by their brutality, their brutality in Belgium. All over 
Germany there are signs of a desire for peace, and the 
German government is by its course making the desired 
]>eace impossible. The real reason that the war goes on, 
that it is now the draw the (ierraans insist it is, Ues in the 
fact that the nations that are fighting Germany do 
not think primarily of Germany as a nation, but they 
think of Germans as a tribe which practices the abomina- 
tions which have made the fate of Belgium a world wide 
tragedy. 
," Early in the war the Germans sent an aeroplane into 
Lodz in Poland to drop leaflets proclaiming (ierman ad- 
miration for the Poles and the German purpose to liberate 
them. The next day at the same hour the same aeroplane 
returned and dropped bombs in the same place, killing 
and wounding women and children. This is an ad- 
mirable illustration of the (ierman method. In Louvain, 
which is a Flemish town, the Germans first committed 
their abominable crimes and then undertook to establish 
a Flemish uni\-ersity which should revive the separatist 
spirit of the Flemings, under German inspiration. 
" We arc not at the end of this struggle against German- 
ism of the sort that now prevails in the German empire. 
We are not appreciably nearer to peace, despite all 
the oceans of blood that have been shed and the milHons 
that have suffered, because no peace with this thing is 
conceivable ; it must perish or civilization must perish. 
Belgium is the sea-sand in which, ever and again, the 
world sees the hoof-mark of the (ierman brute. It is 
the (ierman who sends the peacemakers back to their 
trenches to kill more (iermans, because even for them 
there seems no other way to win peace."" 
