There are two things going on in this cartoon. The first is that it correctly depicts the devastation caused by the fighting and the bedraggled state of the two Tommies, although the absence of trenches or barbed wire does rather reduce its authenticity.
On the other hand what the Scot is setting out to do is ridiculous and totally unbelievable. He would know that it is suicidal to walk across No Man’s Land in broad daylight. Furthermore Jock would not possibly be concerned with the leisure activities of his prisoners.
My theory is that the cartoonist knows all this perfectly well and that he is deliberately satirising the gung-ho stuff being churned out by the popular press. Those readers of Punch who didn’t get the joke might just believe that this sort of thing really happens.
Food rationing was a constant theme by this stage of the war. It can be no coincidence that over and over again this subject comes up in cartoons in Punch. Fido’s own rations look more than adequate.
Cubism was then all the rage amongst the avant garde. This was considerably earlier than people now suppose. Indeed 1910 - 1913 had seen a great upsurge of Modernism in music as well as art.
In this amusing sketch the artist is speculating that the easy comradeship of the war will continue after ‘the boys come home.’ Ignoring other pedestrians the smartly-dressed young men about town chat about issues of the day with their sticks and gloves stacked up like rifles just behind the lines. I feel pretty sure that the cartoonist knew full well that there was fat chance of this ever happening.
1917: An Equally Incorrect Forecast for the Civilians
As with yesterday’s forecast we see in two tongue-in-cheek cartoons the speculation about aristocratic ladies continuing on from their ‘war work.’ It is quite true that they threw open their stately homes to become hospitals (as in the first example) and staffed their own canteens for the soldiers (as in the second).
The artist could see that there would be problems if this ever happened. The look on the faces of the liveried servants in the second drawing tells us that they didn’t want their work taken away from them. They needn’t have worried – there was a rapid rush to return to the status quo. Downton Abbey got this aspect absolutely right.
I have now concluded my cartoons for 1917 and I am moving forward by 21 years to 1938. By that time the worst effects of the Great Depression had lessened although there was still a great deal of misery left. The majority of Punch cartoons at this time concentrated on the interests of the comfortably off since they would be able to buy the magazine.
We all know that World War Two was just around the corner but at the time most people tried to believe that it could be avoided.
1938: ‘The Idle Rich’
This is a slightly cynical debunking of alpine sports in favour of idleness in the sunshine. The cost does not seem to be important.
With the benefit of hind sight we can see that the cartoonist accurately displayed Chamberlain’s dilemma at the time. If there really was going to be a war then security must come first. If in fact there was not going to be a war then it would be far better to go for prosperity. Matching just the German overt rearmament programme would be hugely expensive and inevitably lead to massive Government borrowing. We can sense that Chamberlain wanted to avoid a war not only because of the remembered horrors of 1914-1918 but also of its impact on the nation’s finances.
In the event there was a war and also a return to full employment and because of it the cost was still being repaid into the 1960s.
No verbal punch-line is required since the pictures tell the story. Getting to broadcast on the BBC was a really big deal in 1938. It looks as though our unfortunate flautist was ‘ahead of his time’.
I well remember during the late 1950s visiting Gamages at Christmas time at lunch time. Little boys of all ages would congregate in the toy department watching numerous miniature electric trains whizzing around. I am thinking that it is that atmosphere that the cartoonist is capturing.
The young would-be customer has identified an item that is difficult to reach and the shopkeeper is reluctant to disturb the jumble in her window. I have a vague memory that such profusion was once common but I haven’t seen anything like that for a long time.
By the standards of 1938 this engine is absolutely state of the art. Nothing exists that is faster or more streamlined. By contrast the driver speaks as though Albert is going to make the sitting-room a bit warmer.
In 1962 I was working in the computer division of a leading electrical components company. There was a senior man who had started the division a long time previously. He was basically a theory chap, not a practical man. He no longer held any executive function and was often sent as the representative of the company at conferences and things. One day he had arrived in Edinburgh by train and had no idea why he was there. He had to contact his office to find out.
By co-incidence his son is Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the Internet.
