LAND 6? WATER 
November 21, 1918 
German Humour: By Edward Shanks 
Enemy Views on the War 
ON THE WAY TO THE WEST 
Pile ap the war loan i^With the last we cleared up the East lor yoa.] 
I DO not know whether it has ever been observed 
that, while nothing can make tragedy comic, the 
events of a few months can turn humour into the 
most blood-chilling tragedy. It is an obvious remark ; 
but I do not think I realised how profoundly true it 
was until recently I looked through a number of German 
humorous papers published during the last few months. 
Before the war among young men of a certain type 
there was even a cult of Simplicissimus, which is much the 
best of its kind. I remember how at Cambridge there was 
a bitter struggle as to whether the paper should be taken 
by the Union, and how while one party alleged its ugly 
MARCH STORMS IN THE WEST 
Do you think the Americans will come in tliis weather ^ 
brutality and its indecency, the other alleged its wonderfuJ 
drawings and its biting wit. It certainly had three of these 
claims to notice, though its wit was intermittent and various. 
And now in the last year of war it is unchanged, as ugly, as 
brutal, as well illustrated, and, occasionally, as witty as before. 
But what a wonderful commentary these pictures make 
on the events we have just lived through ! They are like 
nothing so much as the ironical beginning of a Greek tragedy. 
A number published two days before the German offensive 
of March 2ist shows on its cover a French woman (France 
is nearly always symbolised as "Marianne") and an English 
soldier in a terrific wind clinging in fantastic attitudes to 
ON THE MARNE 
Sic transit gloria . . 
WAR PROFITEER 
" Why does that gentleman get an iee-pail, and not me ? [Do yon think 
I'm not so important as him 7 " 
" Exense me, you are having Bordeaux, sir.' 
"Tliat's all one to m»— I want an ie«-paU.' 
