Return to the Sketchbook challenge

Yeah, I know. It has actually been several weeks since I last did any drawings at all. Why? Well, if a personal challenge is becoming a chore sometimes you’re just as well giving yourself a little break from it, rather than risk giving it up entirely. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. Still, yesterday I did pick up my pens and my sketchbook. So what have I been doing.

Well, to start with I made 2 sketches of London featuring buses and trams of years gone by. To be honest with you I wasn’t that impressed with the first that I made. The second was better, but took ages. So I decided to fall back on an old favourite and made a copy of a John Tenniel cartoon from Punch. This one depicts Old Father Thames, although I do believe that it is from some time after the Great Stink, bearing in mind that looks like the Embankment.

This morning I thought, I wonder what Tenniel made of the (2^nd) Boer War? Bearing in mind that while I love his skill and artistry, politically I am poles apart from Tenniel, I wasn’t expecting to like what I found that much. So far I have copied two of his cartoons made in 1899 at the outset of the Boer War. The first is called Kruger’s Vision.

Paul Kruger was President of the Transvaal, one of the two Boer Republics. The caption is “What, will the ‘thin red’ line stretch unto the crack of doom?”. This is an adaptation of a quote from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. In the play, on his second visit to the witches, he insists that they show him whether Banquo’s descendants will ever rule. At first they refuse, but he insists and they show him a line of kings descended from Banquo, and he asks the question.

In Tenniel’s cartoon, Kruger is not seeing kings, but columns of British and Empire troops, showing him the irresistible might of the forces ranged against him, and also subtly suggesting that Kruger and the Boers are just as doomed as Macbeth, considering the overwhelming weight of numbers able to be brought against them.

What the cartoon and Tenniel ignored was that in 1881, a few years earlier, the same British and Empire army were defeated by the same Boer Republics in the first Boer War, where superior tactics and marksmanship had prevailed, the same superior tactics and marksmanship that would cause huge setbacks to the British and Empire army in the early stages of this second Boer War.

This second cartoon depicts a scene where a troopship in the distance is setting sail for South Africa, and Britannia is consoling a wife and children, whose husband, presumably, is on board the ship. The title is “Britannia Consolatrix” and the caption beneath reads:- ‘I will take care of you! Your man has gone to do his duty – and I will do mine!’ There’s a lot I don’t like about this. Firstly, the idea that it was anyone’s duty to go and fight in South Africa. Even judging by 19^th century standards this was an unjust and unnecessary war.

Then there’s the idea that Britain, represented by the allegorical figure Britannia, would do its duty, and take care of the casualties of war and their families. Now, I will admit that it was in 1901 that pensions were paid to war widows of NCOs and other ranks. But this had not been on the table in 1899 when the cartoon was made. Nor was it very generous when it was made, and it was subject to strict conditions regarding conduct and being of good character. Should a war widow remarry, she would receive a very small sum and the pension would cease.

Even in the 21^st century we see British army veterans having to accept help from charities because of the injuries, mental and physical, that they received in the name of our country which are not catered for by the Ministry of Defence. So you can imagine just how little real help was available to veterans of the Boer War on their return to Britain.