Oscar Straus, the well-known Austrian composer, has been commissioned by the Kaiser to write a new imperial march inspired by the war. It is to begin with a funeral note, and to end with one of triumph. Straus has been promised the Order of the Red Eagle on completion of the work. - Cable.
Ow! Wow! Wow!
(Funeral note sustained by flutes, suggesting a long-bodied, short-legged, large-headed dog in anguish.)
Ow! Wow!
We are the people who make the row;
We are the nation that skites and brags;
Marching the goose-step; waving the flags.
Hoch!
We talk too much, and we lose our block,
We scheme and spy; we plot, we lie
To blow the whole world into the sky.
The Kaiser spouts, and the Junkers rave.
Hoch! for the Superman, strong and brave!
But what is the use of a Superman,
With "frightfulness" for his darling plan,
If he has no cities to burn and loot,
No women to ravish, no babies to shoot?
Shall treaties bind us against our wish?
Rip! Swish!
(Violins: Tearing noise as of scraps of paper being destroyed.)
Now at last shall the whole world learn
Of the cult of the Teuton, strong and stern!
Ho! for the Superman running amok!
Hoch!
Um - ta, um - ta, tiddeley - um - tum!
(Uncertain note, as of a German band that has been told to move on.)
Pompety - pom pom - tiddeley - um - tum!
Way for the "blond beasts!" Here they come!
While big guns thunder the nations' doom.
Boom!
Room! Room!
Room for the German! A place in the sun!
He'll play the Devil now he's begun!
Ker-r-r-rump!....Bump!...
(Drums: Noise of an exploding cathedral.)
Ho, the gaping wound and the bleeding stump!
Watch the little ones how they jump!
While we shoot and stab, and plunder and grab,
Spurred by a Kaiser's arrogant gab;
While the Glorious Junker
Grows drunker,
And drunker, on blood.
Blood! Blood!
Sword or cannon or fire or flood,
Never shall stay our conquering feet -
On through city and village street -
Feet that savagely, madly tread,
Over the living; over the dead.
Shoot! Shoot!
Burn and pillage and slay and loot!
To the sound of our guns shall the whole world rock!
Hoch!
Shrieks!
(Flutes, piccolos and trombones render, respectively, the cries of children, shrieks of women and groans of tortured non-combatants. Violins wail mournfully.)
Shrieks! Shrieks!
Hoch der Kaiser! The whole land reeks
With tales of torture and savage rape,
Of fiends and satyrs in human shape;
Fat hands grabbing where white flesh shrinks;
And murdered age to the red earth sinks.
Kill! Kill!
Now at length shall we gorge our fill,
And all shall bow to the German will!
By the maids we ravish our lust to slake,
By the smoking ruin that mark our wake,
By the blood we spill,and the hearths we blast....
This is The Day! The Day at last!....
Praise to God! On our bended knees,
We render thanks for boons like these.
For God and the Kaiser our cohorts flock!
Hoch!
(Scrap of German hymn-tune interpolated here.)
Ach! Donnerwelter! Himmel! Ach!
(Medley of indescribable noises rendered by full orchestra, symbolic, partly of a German band that is being severely kicked by an irate householder, and partly innumerable blutwursts suddenly arrested in mid-career.)
Ach! Ach!
"Dot vos not fair to shoot in der back!"
Who is this that as dared to face
Our hosts unconquered, and, pace by pace,
Presses us backward, and ever back.
Over the blasted, desolate rack?
What of the plans we planned so well?
We looked for victory - this is Hell!
Hold! Hold!
Mark the heaps of our comrades bold;
Look on the corpses of Culture's sons -
Martyrs slain by a savage's guns.
Respite now, in this feast of death!
Time! An Armistice! Give us breath!
Nay? Then we cry to the whole wide world,
Shame on our foe for a plea denied!
Savages! Brutes! Barbarians all!
Here shall we fight with our backs to the wall!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
(Ten more thousands gone to their doom.)
Boom!
(Bass drums only, for 679,358 bars, symbolising a prolonged artillery war. Into this there breaks suddenly the frenzied howl of the long-bodied, short-legged, large-headed dog already mentioned.)
Hate! Hate! Hate! Hate!
We spit on the British here at our gate!
Foe of humanity! Curst of the world!
On him alone let our hate be hurled!
For his smiling sneers at the Junkers' creed,
For his cold rebuke to a Kaiser's greed;
For his calm disdain of our noble race,
We fling our spite in his scornful face.
Under the sea and high in the air,
Death shall seek for him everywhere;
The lurking death in the submarine,
The swooping death in the air machine,
Alone of them all he had sealed our fate!
Hate! Hate! HATE!
(Prolonged discord, followed by deep, mysterious silence - imposed by censor - for 793 bars.)
Bang!
(Deep staccato note as of a bursting blutwurst.)
Ow! Wow! Wow!
(Dying howl of a stricken hound. Silence again for an indefinite number of bars. Then, in countless bars, saloons, tea-shops, coffee-houses, cafes and restaurants throughout the British Empire and most of Europe, a sudden, loud, triumphant chorus, toned by a note of relief, and dominated by "The Marseillaise" and "Tipperary." A somewhat uncertain but distinctly nasal cheer is heard from the direction of New York.)
Peace! Peace!
At last the sounds of the big guns cease;
At last the beast is chased to his lair,
And we breathe again of the good, clean air.
The gates have fallen! The Allies win!
And the boys are marching about Berlin!
The Kaiser's down; and the story goes
A British Tommy has pulled his nose.
The German eagle has got the pip:
Vive les Allies!...Hooroo!...Hip! Hip!...
[Note to the Kaiser: As the author has a prejudice against Red Eagles, a plain,
brown Kookaburra would be more acceptable - Den.]
First published in The Bulletin, 25 March 1915
Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
