A little bit of dark humour from the Great War ………

Now the practice of propaganda and the dark arts of misrepresentation have moved on a bit in a hundred years, but essentially they are the same.

Revoking all wills made heretofore, circa 1918

And pretty much consist of distorting the facts, suggesting an alternative narrative, and delivering it all with a serious tone suggestive of genuine reportage or with a degree of flippancy which makes you smile and still does the job.

The Kaiser's Despair

All of which brings me to the “The Kaiser’s Despair”, being the purported “last will and testament of me Wilhelm, the super-swanker of the sausage eaters”.

I do confess that with a German grandmother I am uneasy with the reference to  “sausage eaters”, but then I guess equally silly and disrespectful things were said in the German press about the allies during the Great War, added to which  the conflict had been a hard one.

I suspect this “will” dates from the closing year of the war and quite possibly after the failed German offensive and the allied counter offensive, which would see my uncles and great uncles moving toward the Rhine as the war of movement was restored after the stagnation of the trenches.

Bits of the spoof piece are amusing, but others like the reference to the Suffragettes suggest the political outlook of the author was less than progressive.

I would like to know more about the “The Kaiser’s Despair", but so far have only turned up a reference to  it from a South African book dealer who offers the date of circa 1918, and comments, “This is a comic imitation of the will of the Kaiser, with Baron von Sauerkraut and Graf von Munichlagerbier as witnesses. 

There are 9 clauses in the will and the last one reads : To Sir Edward Shackleton I leave the Pole, I've been up it so long that I regard it as my own property”.*

It was acquired by my old friend David Harrop, which he tells me came in a “bundle of WW1 ephemera from an online auction”.

I suspect it will join his collection of memorabilia from the Great War in his permanent exhibition in the Remembrance Lodge at Southern Cemetery.

Inside the Remembrance Lodge

And with lock down on its way back into the shadows, David is preparing to reopen the exhibition.

In preparation for the event he has some new display cabinets and heaps of ideas of what to show.

And that for now is it.

Location; Remembrance Lodge at Southern Cemetery

Pictures; “The Kaiser’s Despair”, circa 1918, and the  interior of the Remembrance Lodge, 2021, courtesy of David Harrop.

*Clarke's African & Rare Books, https://clarkes.co.za/books/last-will-and-testament-of-the-kaiser