The U.S.A. was assiduously wooed by each side. Much publicity was given by the Central Powers to the U Boat Deutschland (the largest in the world) when she arrived in the U.S.A. Her Commander, Captain Koenig, ran the gauntlet of the British blockade to bring a cargo full of freight to Baltimore to preserve the trading links between Germany and the U.S.A. despite determined efforts by the British Fleet to find and sink her.

The sinking of the Lusitania vied with the execution of Edith Cavell as a tool for enflaming Allied and neutral (specifically U.S.A.) feelings against Germany. The bare facts of the story are that the 32,000 ton passenger liner, commanded by Captain Turner, returning to Liverpool from New York, was sunk off the Old Head at Kinsale, at 2.28pm on 7 May 1915 in thick fog. She was torpedoed by the German U Boat 20 commanded by Captain Schweiger and took only 18 minutes to sink completely, with the loss of over 1200 men, women and children. More than 1 in 10 were U.S. citizens. It was publicised by the Allies as an inhuman German atrocity on an unarmed passenger liner, carrying innocent, neutral civilians. It is very probable, however, that the Lusitania was heavily armed. She was also carrying a cargo over which great pains had been taken to conceal the exact nature. From the way two massive explosions occurred in different parts of the vessel, the cargo seems to have been of a highly explosive character. Her safety was jeopardised by the alteration in balance caused by her heavy cargo – which she was not built to carry – and by the inefficiency of her life boat launching system. The Lusitania sailed on her final voyage despite repeated and public warnings by anxious German businessmen in the New York Press of the danger civilians would run in sailing on her. The Admiralty were only too aware, from the sinking of the Centurion and the Candidate on the previous day off the Irish coast, of U Boat activity on the direct path of the Lusitania. Could the sinking have been averted? Was the Admiralty even indirectly responsible? Did Britain (and her First Lord of the Admiralty in particular) welcome the traumatic experience which would bring the horrors of war directly to America’s door in the hopes of engineering her entry into the War?

Whatever the truth, the Allies certainly derived far more benefit than the Central Powers from the tragedy. Encouraged by fierce propaganda, the civilised world was outraged, and the official verdict was ‘wilful and wholesale murder’.

Germany’s counter to the successful atrocity campaign was a flood of cartoons in a very basic strain of ponderous comic jibes. As the War began, feelings were mutually wary, but respectful. The German attitude soon changed to a scathing view of the national characteristics of the Allies, who were seen as predominantly cowardly. Natural bodily functions were gleefully depicted, as were puns on the laus (louse) part of Nicolaus of Russia’s name and the de-lousing process was soon applied to the whole idea of despatching the Central Powers’ enemies.

The mixed nationalities and colours of Britain’s fighting force and her Allies also came in for ridicule. The French were quite capable of replying in kind to counter the basic German insult and satirical cards of this nature certainly provided light relief to the soldiers fighting, on both sides, in what were probably the grimmest conditions man has ever endured.

More than any of the wartime postcards, those with a propaganda message seem to capture the mood and style of a bygone age, whose spirit could never be regained. Would the hearty British songs, the sentimental French photographs or the German lavatory jokes jolly us into engaging in war now? Only the stark reality of Raemakers’ literally shocking drawings seem relevant and, sadly, even topical in many parts of the world today. For he has crystallised the terrible truth of man’s perennial inhumanity to man.