LITMIR.BIZ

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defiance marked the opening stages of the new conflict – typified in the Montenegrin bantam blocking the road for the great Powers, but getting out of the way at the last moment. Skutari was occupied by troops of the Powers on May 14, and on May 30 the Treaty of Peace between the Allies and the Porte was signed at St. James's Palace. But Punch, in his cartoon of "Peace comes to Town," was not unfair in making Sir Edward Grey adjure the fair damsel riding behind him to sit close and not slip off as on the last occasion they fared that way together. So many outstanding questions remained unsettled that a pacific solution was impossible; the Balkan war was resumed on June 30. Bulgaria put up a great fight against the Serbians and Greeks, but the advance of the fresh Roumanian army into her territory rendered her position desperate. Punch had already shown Turkey offering its services as benevolent mediator to the Balkan "allies." Before the end of the month the Turks had re-entered the field and re-occupied Adrianople only three months after they had been driven out. "Quite like old times, being back here," the Turk says to Dame Europa in Punch's cartoon, and when Europa replies, "Ah! but you'll be kicked out, you know," he retorts calmly, "Well, that'll be like old times too." An armistice was signed on July 31, and the second Treaty of Peace was signed by Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia on August 10. Bulgaria, whose losses in the two wars had been very heavy, was seriously penalized by the new adjustment of boundaries and the consequent loss of territory. Roumania was cordially congratulated by the Kaiser for her "wise and statesmanlike policy," and Greece, who gained a vast acquisition of territory around Salonika, expressed through the mouth of King Constantine – King George had been assassinated at Salonika in March – her indebtedness to Germany for the war training of her officers. Punch's comment was sardonic. In "Deutschland über Alles" the King of the Hellenes observes to the Kaiser, "Our success, as you know, was entirely due to you," and the Kaiser replies: "Thanks, thanks," adding, aside, "I suppose he can't be referring to our organization of the Turkish army."

      The Balkan Cockpit

      The attitude of the Concert of Powers over the question of Adrianople is indicated in the cartoon in which Sir Edward Grey tells the Turk, the man in possession, that he will have to go, but that the Powers haven't decided who was to turn him out. European intervention proving hopeless, the matter was left for direct negotiations between Bulgaria and Turkey, with the result that the new frontier gave Turkey about one hundred square miles more territory together with Adrianople. Punch, on the eve of the signature of the treaty, anticipated the triumph of Turkey, who is seen pasting up, on the door of the Hotel Adrianople, a notice, "Under the same old management," over a previous notice, "Under entirely new management," and expressing regret at being unable to oblige Europa by retiring. Europa, with the Treaty of London in her hand, saves her face by replying with dignity: "Not at all. You may remember that at the very start I strongly insisted on the status quo." The Powers had decided at the close of 1912 that Albania was to receive autonomy, but the International Commission of Control was unable to check guerrilla fighting between Serbians and Albanians. Europa found it, in Punch's phrase, a very difficult task to hush the infant Albania; and Prince William of Wied, chosen by the Powers as sovereign, or "Mpret" of Albania in November, 1913, excited more ridicule than sympathy during his brief and troubled tenure of office.

      The Balkan wars, which began in an organized attempt to liberate Christians from the Turkish yoke, developed into an internecine struggle for aggrandisement amongst the members of the League. The Balkan Peninsula unhappily justified its description as "the cockpit of Europe," or, to quote the words of a traveller who visited it between the first and second wars: "one vast madhouse, where sanity seems ridiculous and folly wisdom." The Treaty of Bukharest, so far from allaying discord, only fomented the ambitions which precipitated the world conflict.

      Ulster Bars the Way

      France's reversion to three years' service – applauded by Punch in his cartoon "Pour la Patrie" – had been countered by the German Army Bill introduced by the new German Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, in a somewhat ominous speech in April. Punch had already symbolized the acceleration of the armament race in his picture of Hans and Jacques, each bowed down under a tremendous burden of warlike equipment, exclaiming in rueful unison: "And I hear there's more to come."

      Mr. Churchill's scheme of a naval holiday inspired hopes which were partially shared by Punch, but damped by the German Chancellor's speech on the ground that the idea had not been taken up as practical in England either by Parliament or public opinion. The renewal of Mr. Churchill's suggestion later in the year met with an even more unfavourable reception. Admiral Tirpitz makes his début in Punch as an apostle of German naval expansion; General Bernhardi had followed up his notorious book on Germany and the Next War with articles pointing to Ireland as an ally of Germany in the enemy's camp; and the outrages on Alsatian civilians by German officers at Zabern and Metz emphasized the danger of militarism at home as well as abroad. The incident was historic because it was the first notable example of the cleavage between the army and the people in Germany, the Radicals and Socialists having carried a vote of censure in the Reichstag against the Imperial Chancellor. The war closed all ranks for a time; but Zabern was a straw which showed how the wind was beginning to blow – the wind which became a tempest in the autumn of 1918.

      If Great Britain in 1913 was not exactly a cockpit or a madhouse, she was not without her domestic troubles. One of the earliest cartoons of the year exhibits the Home Rule Bill advancing under the shield of the Parliament Act. The advance was barred by Ulster, for this was the year of the formation of the Provisional Government, the enrolment of the Ulster volunteers, proclamations against the importation of arms, the emergence of "King Carson," and a general recrudescence of party acrimony. Punch, in a laudable desire to see ourselves as others see us, depicted in "A Nation of Fire-Eaters" a peaceful Teuton horrified by a placard enumerating all the "armies" in Great Britain – the Ulster Volunteer army, Miss Sylvia Pankhurst's army, Mr. Devlin's army, etc. The spirit of the picture is ironical, but it throws a light on Bernhardi's reading of the signs of the times in Ireland. In July Mr. Asquith is seen endeavouring to cajole the Orange Girl, who looks at him sullenly; and another picture in the same number shows Sir Edward Carson arming "Loyal Ulster." In October the possibility of a settlement on the basis of the exclusion of North-East Ulster is indicated in "Second Thoughts"; Mr. John Redmond is shown driving four pigs – Connaught, Munster, Leinster and S.W. Ulster – through the gate of Home Rule. N.E. Ulster is heading in a contrary direction, and Mr. Redmond wonders whether he should "lave this contrairy little divil loose the way he'd come back by himself aftherwards." A month or so later Mr. Birrell warns Carson not to tempt him or "on my honour and conscience I shall have to put you through this." This being the "ever open door" of a prison with the inscription "All fear abandon ye who enter here" – a reference to the speedy release of Mr. Jim Larkin, the turbulent leader of the Dublin strike. Here the satire is aimed at the futile leniency of the Chief Secretary to all disturbers of the peace. Three weeks later, alluding to the prohibited importation of arms into Ireland, Punch ridicules the inconsistency of Sir Edward Carson, who, armed himself to the teeth, is warning Customs Officer Birrell to search Mr. Redmond, a harmless-looking passenger, carrying a small dispatch-case: "That's just the sort of bag he'd have a couple of howitzers concealed in." Mr. Bonar Law's support of Sir Edward Carson's campaign is ingeniously shown in "The New Brunswicker" – after Millais' well-known picture – deserting the Tariff Reform lady, "but only for a time," in order to go to the Ulster Wars.

      John Bull (fed up): "Please, sir, need I have quite so many good things?"

      Mr. Lloyd George: "Yes, you must; and there's more to come."

      The last cartoon of the year, "The Third Stage," exhibits the main legislative preoccupations of the year in the form of a coach with the three Bills – Home Rule, Welsh Disestablishment and Plural Voting – seated abreast under the hood of the Parliament Act with 1914 as postilion. Punch's view was that the electorate as a whole were somewhat weary of the legislative activities of the Government. In 1912 he had represented John Bull as Oliver asking not for more but less; in the summer of 1913 he showed John Bull disappointed with Mr. Lloyd George's "rare and refreshing fruit" on the ground that it contained "too many pips," à propos of Mr. Asquith's promise to amend the Insurance Act. The conscientious M.P., in the cartoon of a few weeks later, who presents himself at the Pay Office expressing

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