One hundred years ago this week and with us at war with Germany Sydney's Globe was worrying that an excess of patriotism might see us being awful to the decent Germans (rather stereotypically drawn by the Globe) living among us.
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"Must we hammer all these truths [the inevitability of Allied victory] into the Teutons in our midst? We can't expect them to swear off their sauerkraut and bologna sausage and lager just to please us. Can we?
"Let us whoop loud and often for Old England and her king and flag. Let us lift up our voices in Rule Britannia. Let us do all this until we haven't got a whoop left in us. But for goodness' sake do let us be considerate; and spare the feelings of our German friends.
"For right deep down in their miserable souls already is an inconsolable grief that language can't express. The slaughter of battle has, alas, deprived many of them of those that were near and dear to them. Daily their poor souls are wrung with anguish over the widespread misery that is wrought in the Fatherland they love.
"And if Britain comes out top dog in this awful fratricidal business the German people may yet live to bless the day that Old England dragged them from beneath the heel of the military tyrant. Then the two great old nations, the arbiters of civilisation, will shake hands and forget the cruel past. Once more they will resume their great and beneficent work, the betterment of the human race."