Title:  Mr. Punch’s History of the Great War

Author:  Punch

Release Date:  March 14, 2004 [EBook #11571]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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Mr. PUNCH’S

HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR

1919

First Impression July 1919
Second " July 1919
Third " August 1919
Fourth " August 1919
Fifth " September 1919
Sixth " October 1919
Seventh " October 1919

[Illustration:  Peace—­the Sower]

TO THE READER

For whatsoever worth or wit appears In this mixed record of five hectic years, This tale of heroes, heroines—­and others—­ Thank first “O.  S.” and then his band of brothers Who took their cue, with pencil and with pen, From the gay courage of our fighting men.  Theirs be the praise, not his, who here supplies Merely the editorial hooks and eyes And, rich by proxy, prodigally spends The largess of his colleagues and his friends.

C.  L. G.

PROLOGUE

Though a lover of peace, Mr. Punch from his earliest days has not been unfamiliar with war.  He was born during the Afghan campaign; in his youth England fought side by side with the French in the Crimea; he saw the old Queen bestow the first Victoria Crosses in 1857; he was moved and stirred by the horrors and heroisms of the Indian Mutiny.  A little later on, when our relations with France were strained by the Imperialism of Louis Napoleon, he had witnessed the rise of the volunteer movement and made merry with the activities of the citizen soldier of Brook Green.  Later on again he had watched, not without grave misgiving, the growth of the great Prussian war machine which crushed Denmark, overthrew Austria, and having isolated France, overwhelmed her heroic resistance by superior numbers and science, and stripped her of Alsace-Lorraine.

In May, 1864, Mr. Punch presented the King of Prussia with the “Order of St. Gibbet” for his treatment of Denmark.

In August of the same year he portrayed the brigands dividing the spoil and Prussia grabbing the lion’s share, thus foreshadowing the inevitable conflict with Austria.

In the war of 1870-1 he showed France on her knees but defying the new Caesar, and arraigned Bismarck before the altar of Justice for demanding exorbitant securities.

And in 1873, when the German occupation was ended by the payment of the indemnity, in a flash of prophetic vision Mr. Punch pictured France, vanquished but unsubdued, bidding her conqueror “Au revoir.”