http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/elephant_zps9glzlsbk.jpg
1918: The butcher is a hoarder!
Food is never out of people’s minds as the wealth of different cartoons show. The situation in Germany was much more severe. During 1918 many German cities witnessed massive food riots in which people demanded an end to the war without any interest in who had won or lost.
‘Bingoland’ had nothing to do with a trifling kind of gambling. It was an alternative to ‘Bongobongoland.’
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/hundred_zps054zbpbg.jpg
1918: How long?..
Swinging the lead was a quite popular expression during WW1. I meant getting round the rules in one way or another. It often involved avoiding tiresome duties. In this instance the ‘veteran’ gives himself away by claiming to be at least 118 years old.
However mention of the Hundred Years War does seem to imply a suggestion about the duration of the then current war.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/girlmessenger_zpsm04obreh.jpg
1918: Staff Shortages
The pigtailed Miss is leading the various army officers to their correct destinations at the War Office. It looks odd but of course she is replacing a male messenger who has been conscripted.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/WllmTell_zpsjx5r3pt2.jpg
1918: No connection with the war whatever
William Tell’s famous skill is at risk because the questions keep arriving without stop.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/WllmTell_zpsjx5r3pt2.jpg
The funniest one yet!
The little lad blissfully unaware of the danger and with far more important things on his mind!
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Polly_zpsa1gyol61.jpg
1918: What she learned at the government office
The scene is set in a fairly affluent drawing room. The vicar is praising the quality of the cup of tea that he has been offered. The hostess puts it down to Polly working at a government office.
Polly is surely the fair haired girl facing her mother. Polly’s war work seems to consist of being a Clerical Officer in a Government Department. It seems that in spite of her job title she has been set to perform menial tasks. No wonder she is looking pensive.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Rhine_zpsocbq2psh.jpg
1918: Retaliation from the air
The Germans drawn here are not hostile caricatures. Germans really did look and dress like that in the early years of the twentieth century as plenty of photographs and films prove. The artist probably had visited that country before the outbreak of war.
The point of the cartoon is that they all are looking apprehensive about a possible attack from the air. In the early years of the war it was the Germans who were attacking Britain from the air with both Zeppelins and Gotha bombers. These attacks had caused widespread anxiety if not outright fear. By 1918 British Flying Corps bombers were now attacking the German heartland on a growing scale.
I think that the artist is expressing the feeling that it was time to give the enemy ‘a taste of their own medicine.’ Today we widely condemn the deliberate targeting of civilians but the desire for revenge was very strong at the time. In the later stages of World War Two I can remember a similar feeling about carpet bombing of German cities. Few people complained – of that number Bishop Bell of Chichester was the most outspoken critic but he represented a very small minority.
On the First of April 1918 The Royal Air Force came into existence formed from the merging of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/moustache_zpsccclocse.jpg
1918: Outperforming the Sergeant
Then title on this cartoon is ironic. Of course Bateman doesn’t really think that the private should get the VC for growing a better moustache than the sergeant. Even so, he does face a risky outcome. The sergeant can, if he wishes, make life very unpleasant for his competitor in the facial fungus stakes.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/OfficeBoy_zps8z7sphbw.jpg
1918: You just can’t get the staff
I’m assuming that the boy has not yet reached the age when he will be conscripted. This gives him a significant advantage since employers need him more than he needs them. He doesn’t know that his advantage is short-lived. By the end of 1918 the war will be over and his like will become dogsbodies again.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/intellectual_zps78l4zupg.jpg
1918: Another woman trying to take the place of a man in the army.
It seems that that the most frequent job applications come from women whose father is a civil servant. The official is rather bothered by this unusual situation. My theory is that the point of this joke is the use of the term ‘intellectual’. The cartoonist seems to be implying that Miss Smith doesn’t have any such qualifications. The worried looking woman sitting at a nearby table seems to support my opinion. The prospective employer ought to have said ‘educational’.
Not much of a joke, I regret to say. Mrs Pankhurst would not have been amused.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/tooting_zpsb3tfjesn.jpg
1918: Rush Hour on the London Underground 99 years ago
Can it really have been as bad as that? His umbrella is broken, his tie is askew, buttons have come loose on his coat and he has lost one of his spats. He couldn’t even get the evening paper on to the carriage.
Is this phenomenon totally unrelated to the War? Possibly there is a relationship. Let us suppose that a lot of tube drivers are now in the army. Many women were indeed filling the places left my men but, even in this emergency, would the powers that be have contemplated women driving the tube trains? I think the answer to that is most probably that they would not. As a result only men well above military age would have been available to drive the trains. Hence Mr Tooting Bec’s difficulty.
Tooting Bec is a station on the Northern Line close to its southern terminus, Morden.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/rugby_zpsur2mmjhv.jpg
1918: Alternative approach to tackling
The novice footballer has not yet realised that the army’s idea of a tackle is totally different to that authorised by the Rugby Football Union.
Why would the Army teach its soldiers unarmed combat? This was to avoid the noise made with the firing of a rifle thus alerting the enemy that a fight was taking place. Unarmed combat was also a useful method of capturing live prisoners in order to interrogate them about enemy plans for a possible major offensive.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/sandy_zpslflix8gq.jpg
1918: A rare glimpse into life at the frontline
By 1918 such illustrations of life in the trenches were quite infrequent. There really was very little to laugh about there. Here is a valiant attempt to show how people coped in between a constant round of shelling and night time raiding skirmishes in No Man’s Land.
Keep "em coming, very interesting.
smile
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/vicar_zps4ihauzhi.jpg
1918: An object of fascination for the ladies
Nowadays there is a wealth of male objects for the ladies to lust after. In Victorian times this was confined to vicars and curates. By 1918 the emerging film industry had not yet reached it later dominance. Rudolf Valentino had not yet emerged as the first global male super star.
Is this cartoon totally unrelated to the war? I think not. So many eligible men were unavailable from the drawing rooms of the comfortable well off.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/major_zpsxl4c05q9.jpg
1918: Gradations of Rank
Second lieutenants are the lowest form of life in the Officers Mess. The major is outranked only by the colonel, the battalion’s commanding officer. The young man will soon learn that he is not the major’s equal in any way at all.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/swinging_zps0fcjpmzj.jpg
1918: Getting the better of the young ‘sir’
This cartoon contains an observation regarding class. The officer is not only young but also effete looking. There is probably a hint of excessive in-breeding here. He walks with an entirely unwarranted swagger and has no idea about anything.
The significantly older working-class aircraft mechanic is avoiding his scheduled work and knows that he can easily bamboozle the young idiot. The toff will not know what ‘swinging the lead’ means so he can safely be told the truth.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/politico_zpslnaugqhb.jpg
1918: Meet you MP and you won’t get a word in sideways
Bateman’s cartoon contains a wealth of detail.
At the top we see a visiting politician showing a polite interest in the ruins behind the front line while a row of Tommies are happily enjoying a welcome break from their duties. Next line down the politician’s interest picks up on seeing the soldiers who are beginning to look warily at him. In the third line we see the visitor beginning his speech and the soldiers grab their respirators. The last line shows the civilian in full flow white his ‘listeners’ are hidden inside their gas masks.
I gather that this of thing could well have happened. The army high command reluctantly agreed to sponsor visits of this kind dependent as they were on the civilian government for their authority. Not all soldiers were so ready to ignore their civic duties but many records of the time reveal how the fighting services felt estranged from the people back on the ‘home front.’
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/meatcard_zpsqmuqb8ql.jpg
1918: What he needs when he runs away from home
Meat Card? During WW2 we had just one ration book which covered everything that was on the ration. This involved less different bits of paper. I think that the lessons from WW1 had been learned and a better system ensued. Again, the importance of food is being emphasised.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/S22904945/Rodha_zpsvhgb36py.jpg
1918: Food rationing as an aid to slimming
The visitor says that she has lost weight because of food rationing. Lord Rondha was the Food Controller whose job it was to balance the nutrition needs of the public with the existing food supplied from imports and home grown resources. This joke is trying to point out an advantage from the meagre rations then available.
