Raemaekers' Cartoon History of the War Volume II Part 9

_THE ETERNAL BARRAGE_

The British Official Press Bureau reports the German casualties during February, 1916, at 35,198, of whom 10,211 were killed or died either of wounds or sickness; 2,017 missing, 5,217 severely wounded, 1,340 prisoners, 11,865 slightly wounded. The German casualties during March, including the slaughter at Verdun and the sanguinary struggles in the eastern theatre, are estimated at 175,000. This estimate, added to the previous reports, swell the German losses since the beginning of the war--including all German nationalities: Prussians, Bavarians, Saxons, and Wurttembergers, but excluding naval and colonial casualties--to the grand total of 2,842,372, of which number about 660,000 were killed and died of wounds, 40,000 died of sickness, 120,000 are prisoners, 220,000 are missing, 365,000 are severely wounded, 265,000 wounded, about 1,050,000 slightly wounded, 140,000 wounded remaining with units. The number killed in action, estimating one-half the missing as killed, is over 25 per cent. of the total.

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_VON BETHMANN-HOLLWEG'S PEACE SONG_

This new Europe in many respects cannot resemble the past. The blood which has been shed will never be repaid, and the wealth which has been destroyed can only slowly be replaced. But, whatever else this Europe may be, it must be for the nations that inhabit it a land of peaceful labor. The peace which shall end this war shall be a lasting peace. It must not bear the germ of new wars, but must provide for a peaceful arrangement of European questions.

VON BETHMANN-HOLLWEG.

_Reichstag, April 5, 1916._

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"_WHY, I HAVE KILLED YOU TWICE AND YOU DARE TO COME BACK AGAIN!_"

The capture of Trebizond, the most important Turkish city on the Black Sea, marks another important step in Russia's historic campaign in Asia Minor. After a sanguinary battle at Kara Dera on April 14 the Grand Duke's troops broke through the fierce resistance of the Turks and, with the cooperation of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, fought their way three days later into the fortified city of Trebizond. With this strongest point on the Anatolian coast in Russian hands, the menace to the back door of Constantinople becomes imminent.

_Current History, New York._

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"_Mais quand la voix de Dieu l'appela il se voyait seul sur la terre au milieu de fantomes tristes et sans nombre._"

The latest estimate of German losses at Verdun is 200,000! Does the Kaiser, at safe distance, still "look on"? What blessing has this monarch of a great and productive realm brought upon his people?

Mourning, desolation, and irremediable misery! No triumph, no victory can atone for such a deluge of blood and tears! That capricious Personage "somewhere in Heaven," whom Wilhelm calls "Unser Gott," may possibly resent the deliberate casting away of golden opportunities on the part of his crowned earthly "familiar," to whom a peaceful world was offered, only to be kicked aside for a battered helmet and broken sword!

"Thrust in thy sickle and reap!" O Emperor of a brief and bitter day!

The harvest of death, not life!--the harvest of curses, not blessings!

The thousands of dead men--dead in the very strength of manhood--sacrificed in a holocaust on the flaming altar of the wickedest war the world has ever seen, may have their own story to tell to "Unser Gott"; so may the bereaved and wretched women whose husbands and sons have been torn from their arms forever.

MARIE CORELLI _in The Sunday Times, London, April, 1916._

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_THE DEPORTATIONS FROM LILLE_

The att.i.tude of England renders it increasingly difficult to feed the population.

To lessen misery, the German authority has recently asked volunteers to work in the country. This offer has not had the success which was expected. Consequently the inhabitants will be removed by compulsion and transported to the country. Those removed will be sent in the interior of French occupied territory far behind the front, where they will be employed in agriculture and in no way in military work.

_German Proclamation.

Lille, April, 1916._

Upon the order of General von Graevenitz and with the a.s.sistance of Infantry Regiment 64, sent by the German General Headquarters, about 25,000 French, young girls from 16 to 20 years old, young women and men up to the age of 55 years, without distinction of social condition, were torn from their homes at Roubaix, Tourcoing, and Lille, pitilessly separated from their families, and forced to do agricultural work in the Departments of the Aisne and Ardennes.

_French Official Report._

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_THE LAST THROW_

These are not, as our enemies are pretending to believe, the last exertions of an exhausted nation, but the hammer blows of a strong, invincible people which commands sufficient reserves in men and all other means for the continuation of the hammer blows.

_The Prussian War Minister_, GENERAL WILD VON HOHENBORN, _the Reichstag, April 11, 1916._

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_RUSSIA TO FRANCE_