New-York tribune., 1918-05-09
The Last MIRAGE
By Captain Lord Dunsany

The desolation that the German offensive
has added to the achievements OF the
Kaiser cannot easily be imagined by any
who has never desert
Look at it the map, and it is full
of the names of towns and villages; it is
in Europe, where there are no deserts; it
is in fertile province among places of
famous names. Surely it is proud addi-
ton to an ambitious monarch's acquisi-
tons; surely there is something there that
it is worth while to have acquired at the
cost of army corps.
No, nothing.
They are mirage towns The farms grow
Dead Sea fruit. France recedes before the
imperial clutch France sSill smiles. but
not for him. His now towns seem to be
his because their names have not yet been
removed from any map, but they crumble
at his approach because France is not for
him. His deadly ambition makes a waste
before it as it goes clutching for cities.
1t comes to them and the cities are not
there.
l have seen mirages and have heard
others told of, but the best mirages Of
all never hear described: the mirage
that waterless travellers see at the last.
Those fountains rising out Of onyx basins,
blue and straight into incredible heights,
falling and flooding COOL white marble;
the haze of spray above their feathery
heads, through which the pale green domes
of weathered copper simmer and shake a
little; mysterious temples, the tordbs OF
unknown kings; the cataracts coming down
from rose quartz cliffs, far off but seen
quite clearly, growing to rivers bearing
curious barges to the golden courts of
Sahara
These things never see; they
seen at the last by men who die of thirst.
Even so has the Kaiser looked at the smil-
ing plains of France. Even so has he looked
on her famous ancient cities and the farms
and the fertile fields and the woods and or
chards of Picardy With vast effort and
cruel sacrifice he has moved toward them.
AS he comes to them the cities crum>
Bile, the woods shrivel and fall, the farms
fade out Of Picardy, even the hedgerows
go; it is bare, bare desert.
He had been sure Of Paris, ne had
dreamed Of Versailles and some monstrous
coronation, he had thought his Unsuitable
avarice would be sated. For ne had plot
ted for conquest of the world, that bound
less greed of his goading him on, as a
d
He sees victory near him now. That
also will fade in the desert of old barbed
wire and weeds. When will he see that
doom is over all his ambitions? For his
dreams of victory are like those last
dreams that come in deceptive deserts to
dying men. There is nothing good for him
in the desert of The Somme Bapaume is
not really there, though it be marked on
his maps; it is only wilderness of states
and brick. Peroane looks like city
long way off. but When you come near it
is only the shells of houses Pozieres, Le
Sars, Saplgny are gone altogether
And all is Dead Sea fruit in a visible
desert. The reports of German victories
are mirage, like all the rest; they, too,
will fade into weeds and old barbed wire
And the advances that look like victories,
and the ruins that look like cities. and
the shell-beaten, broken fields that look like
{ farms, they and the dreams of conquest
and all the plots and ambitions, they are
all the mirage Of a dying dynasty in a
desert it made for its burying place
Bones lead up to the desert; bones are
scattered about it; it is the most menacing
and calamitous waste of all the deadly
! places that have been inclement to man.
1t fatters the Hohenzollerns with visions
of victory now, because they are doomed
by it and about to die When their
race has died, the earth small smile again,
for their deadly mirage shall oppress US no
more. The cities shall rise again and the
farms come back; hedgerows and orchards
shall be seen again; the woods shall slowly
lift their heads from the dust; and gar
dens shall come again where the desert
was, to bloom in happier ages that forget
| the HohenZollerns