THOUGHTS AROUND KOEPENICK
A famous and epigrammatic author said that life copied literature; it
seems clear that life really caricatures it. I suggested recently that
the Germans submitted to, and even admired, a solemn and theatrical
assertion of authority. A few hours after I had sent up my "copy," I saw
the first announcement of the affair of the comic Captain at Koepenick.
The most absurd part of this absurd fraud (at least, to English eyes) is
one which, oddly enough, has received comparatively little comment. I
mean the point at which the Mayor asked for a warrant, and the Captain
pointed to the bayonets of his soldiery and said. "These are my
authority." One would have thought any one would have known that no
soldier would talk like that. The dupes were blamed for not knowing that
the man wore the wrong cap or the wrong sash, or had his sword buckled
on the wrong way; but these are technicalities which they might surely
be excused for not knowing. I certainly should not know if a soldier's
sash were on inside out or his cap on behind before. But I should know
uncommonly well that genuine professional soldiers do not talk like
Adelphi villains and utter theatrical epigrams in praise of abstract
violence.
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