Friday Boer War Cartoon

Today’s cartoon appeared in a French magazine during the early months of the war, drawn by Jead’Aurian.

It shows Transvaal president Paul Kruger, with a sickle in his right hand and his left arm around a young lady, who has an armful of flowers. Slightly behind and to the left is Queen Victoria, with a wounded left arm and a worried expression on her face. The young lady has Republique d’Orange written on the hem of her dress. The sling around Victoria’s left arm has the word Ladysmith upon it, and the bandage on her head has the word Glencoe. The inscription below is:-

“Nous n’irons pas aux Boers, les lauriers sont coupés, la belle que voila vient de les ramasser!” – which is a pun on the first line from an old traditional French rhyme. If you substitute bois for Boers you get, - we will not go to the woods, because the laurel trees have been cut down and the beautiful girl has come to gather them up - . Which pretty much seems to have the meaning that the best peas have gone to farrow. The meaning when applied to the images are basically that the Transvaal has embraced the Orange Free state, and together the two Boer republics have wounded Britain with the siege of Ladysmith and the heavy casualties inflicted upon the British forces at the Battle of Glencoe, also called the Battle of Talana Hill, the first major engagement of the war.

What strikes me about this cartoon is how modern it looks stylistically. In terms of the modelling of the main figures it might easily have been made in the 1960s or after. If anything, this is a pointer towards the future. In Britain, though, the more realistic tradition of Tenniel would continue to be dominant for some time yet.