Today's Boer War Cartoon

 It is with a sense of relief that I finished today’s copy of a Tenniel Boer War cartoon. I made yesterday’s copies before having a second laser operation on my eye, and after a night’s sleep it seems as if everything is as it was and I have been able to make a decent enough fist of a sketch. Here it is.

JOHN BULL (TO BOER) – “AS YOU WILL FIGHT, YOU SHALL HAVE
IT. THIS TIME IT’S A FIGHT TO A FINISH.” October 1899

 

This one appeared in October 1899, the year that the war broke out. The picture shows John Bull squaring up to a Boer farmer ( the word Boer itself means farmer). John Bull was/is an allegorical personification of England. Ironically he was created by a Scottish writer, John Arbuthnot, in 1712, to satirise the English nation, but something about the character appealed to the English nation (or an influential part of it) and its view of itself. John Bull was one of three allegorical personification of Britain, not just England, although one often suspects that for Tenniel, Britain was England. The other two were Britannia, and the British Lion. Britannia he used when trying to show Britain’s compassion and sympathetic aspects – hence his use of the figure in yesterday’s cartoon, Britannia Consolatrix. The British Lion he used to symbolise the might of the British Empire, and he did use it in several of his cartoons regarding the war. John Bull here stands for the solid, dependable qualities of the people of Britain, small c conservative, fair, slow to anger but steadfast in the defence of what he sees to be right.

The title is “Plain English” while beneath this there is the caption :-

“JOHN BULL (TO BOER) – “AS YOU WILL FIGHT, YOU SHALL HAVE IT. THIS TIME IT’S A FIGHT TO A FINISH.”

This needs some explanation. It’s probably best that I start with a slight digression. When I wrote yesterday of the Boer War as an unjust and unnecessary war, this is what I really feel about it. Which does not mean that I’m trying to paint the two Boer Republics as admirable nations. Their attitudes towards black native African nations was awful, for example.

So, as a background to the cartoon, Great Britain annexed the two Boer republics in the 1870s. Despite repeated attempts at negotiating a peaceful solutions, Boer representatives were rebuffed time after time, and this led to rebellion and the first Boer War in December 1880. Superior tactics, and a British army that was poorly led and equipped , along with Prime Minister William Gladstone’s sensible refusal to allow the war to escalate into a more costly and wasteful conflict led to the war concluding in March of 1881 and a treaty which led to the reestablishment and independence of the two Boer Republics. So that’s what Tenniel means when he says ‘THIS time’.

Had gold not been discovered in the Transvaal, then the conditions that led to the Second Boer War may never have arisen. In the 1890s, the Uitlanders – a Boer term for foreigners, that is, prospectors and gold miners lured by the gold rush,- chafed at what they saw as the exorbitant taxes they had to pay, bearing in mind that they were ineligible to vote until they had lived there for 14 years. The Boer governments were willing to enter into negotiation with the British government which took up their cause and proved willing to move on this. However the inflexibility of the British convinced them that war was inevitable, even though Transvaal premier Paul Kruger would say that declaring war on the British Empire was like defending yourself against a lion with a pocket knife. So strictly speaking Tenniel was not incorrect to suggest that the Boer republics started the fight – they declared war – but they really were given no choice, despite knowing that their chances of success were limited.

The overall sense of the cartoon, although very much in line with public opinion in Britain at the time, for Tenniel had an instinctive feel for this, is unfair, presenting Britain as a long-suffering injured party.