Wednesday 27 October 2010

Smite Him Dead! The Day of Justice Will not Ask your Reasons!

Another beautiful representation of a treaty, this time on a bronze medal struck in Germany in 1915 designed by Karl Goetz from the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. It's an allegorical depiction of the Pact of London of 1915, in which Italy left the Triple Alliance (with Germany and Austro-Hungary being the other members) and joined the Triple Entente (France, Russia and Britain.)

It depicts a chimera-like creature, with several heads representing the allies of the Triple Entente: a cockerel and a bear representing France and Russia, two lions representing Britain and Belgium, a dragon representing Japan and the snake for Serbia. Italy is represented by the small boy suckling at its teats below. The legend reads PACT OF MALICE. 

The obverse shows god in judgement, surveying flames on earth below. The inscription is a quotation from the German writer Heinrich von Kleist's Germania an ihre Kinder: "Strike him dead! The Day of Judgement will not ask your reasons!"

See it at the V&A site here. There's a link to a site that catalogues the work of Goetz above, which is really worth a look as this medal is only one of several connected to particular treaties or truces. You can read von Kleist's poem here. Brace yourself, it's hardly a barrel of laughs. As you'd expect, really, from a German writing in 1811 at the height of the Napoleonic Wars who shot himself later that year...

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