Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 152, May 9, 1917

Excerpt

DIPLOMATIC NOTES.

The Latin-American situation remains obscure. According to advices from Archangel, Paraguay intends to act, though curiously enough a strange cloud of silence hangs over recent (and coming) events in Ecuador. Bolivia has decided to construct a fleet, despite the fact that the absence of a seaboard is being made a reason for sinister opposition in pro-German circles. Patagonia has mobilised both her soldiers, but her gun is still under repair.

Panagua has declared war on Germany. It is hard to over-estimate the value of this new adhesion to the Allied cause. The standing army is well over six hundred strong, and there is a small but modern fleet, consisting of two revenue cutters, one super skiff, eight canoes (mounted with two pairs of six-inch oars) and one raft (Benamuckee class). The President, in a moving address to the Panaguan Senate, declared, "The world is watching Panagua; it does not watch in vain." Señora Hysterica, the first woman senator, cast the only vote against war. "I cannot," she sobbed.

Things are moving in Mexico. General CARRANZA has summoned a mass-meeting of ex-Presidents to consider the situation, and a counter-demonstration by the Brigands' Trade Union Congress is feared. Even as far north as Greenland the repercussion may be felt. Here, owing to the new régime of blubber-cards, Eskimo opinion is in a very nervous state. Indeed, according to an inspired semi-official utterance by Prince Bowo, the Siamese Deputy Vice-Consul at Fez, it is not too much to say that almost anything may, or may not, happen in this Arctic quarter.

The outlook in Palestine is dark. Strict-silence is enforced in all public places, and even whispering is forbidden at street corners. More than two-thirds of the population are spies. Relatives are only allowed to speak to each other if granted a special licence or talking-ticket by the Sheikh-ul-Islam, though there is a special dispensation for mothers-in-law. The reported mobilization of eighty goats on Mount Tabor shows pretty clearly which way the wind is blowing; whilst it is persistently rumoured in Joppa that five camels were seen passing through Jerusalem yesterday. Suspicious dredging operations in the Dead Sea are also reported by a Berne correspondent. The future is big with presage.

All eyes are fixed on the two great African Powers which still stand aside from the maelström of war. The position in Ethiopia is, to say the least of it, tendentious, and at any moment the natives may change their skin. The coronation of the new Empress of Abyssinia is being followed as usual by the great Feast of the Blue Umbrella, at which an important pronouncement is, I learn, to be made. I hear, moreover (from a private source in Trondhjem, viâ Mecca and Amsterdam), that Wady-ul-Dzjinn, the new Premier, and a staunch pro-Ally, is expected to speak with no uncertain voice. Unfortunately serious liquorice riots have broken out in the capital, and these are being cunningly used by German agents to turn popular discontent against the Allies....