The Big Pond

This postcard, printed in Germany, is captioned, in translation, “Friend and Enemy at the Big Pond.” The image shows children representative of the nations soon to be at war at the edge of a pond on which toy boats are being sailed. The card was issued before the war broke out, but the acrimony that was to array the nations on one or the other side of the conflict is very much in evidence.

At the center of the image, a German lad holds his toy boat in his hand. His features are all innocence, yet he appears apprehensive. To the German lad’s left stands an Austrian boy, to whom a Hungarian girl—to his left—fearfully clings. These two are subjects of Austria-Hungary, then a “dual monarchy,” and already bound to Germany in the alliance of Europe’s “Central Powers.”

The apprehensions of the German and Austrian boys, and the Hungarian girl, are explained by the postures and actions of the children beside them on both sides—who plainly do not want the three playing in their pond. Beside the Hungarian girl, a Serbian boy stamps on a toy soldier in the uniform of the Habsburg military. Beside the Serbian, and pushing him toward the confrontation, is a hulking Russian boy. To the right of the German boy (figuratively: to his west), and looking past a Dutch girl seemingly unaware of the passions animating the others, is a French girl, who shakes a fist in the German’s direction. The French girl leans against a British boy for support; and the Briton, too, looks at the German with undisguised hostility.

The groupings of the children reflect political dispositions, ententes, and alliances already formed; and the image reflects a number of themes already resonant.

It was the conviction of Austria-Hungary that Serbia—Slavic Russia’s Slavic ward—was encouraging provocative actions conducted within the Austro-Hungarian Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina by pan-Serb terrorists operating out of Serbia. (It is not specified when within the portentous year of 1914 this postcard appeared, but it is at least possible that the Austrian military figure about to be crushed by the Serbian boy represents Habsburg Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was indeed in military uniform when he was assassinated in June of that year—at the instance of Serbia, Austria-Hungary believed. Out of solidarity with its ally, or for strategic reasons of its own, Germany was supportive of that conclusion—and with Austria-Hungary’s determination to seek reprisals against Belgrade.)

Another theme graphically connoted by this postcard’s image was Germany’s “encirclement” by enemies, which was a notion relentlessly drummed into the consciousness of the German polity by the Reich’s government during the preceding years.

 

Germany Breaking the Bonds of Encirclement by Enemies

Depending on the view of the historian whose thesis is accepted, the “encirclement” message was propagated to condition the German population (especially, Germany’s large cohort of anti-war socialists) to support a war (a) viewed by the German government as inevitable, if regrettable; or (b) being actively orchestrated by that government to further an expansionist agenda.

The Great War would begin before the end of the year in which the postcard at the top of this essay appeared. Although that postcard hints at one or two of the themes offered as explanations for the Central Powers’ feelings of aggrievement, those themes are not meaningfully developed. Ultimately, the postcard’s image contents itself with a very simple explanation for the fact that August 1914 would find Germany and its ally, Austria-Hungary, at war with France, Britain, Russia, and Serbia: as the tableau at The Big Pond illustrates, those countries had been mean to them.

More nuanced considerations of the causes of the war would appear later—and fill books.

 

Copyright 2024 by Stephen Dvorkin