Thursday Boer War Cartoon

In March 1900, Sir John Tenniel published this cartoon in Punch. He has a different target in this cartoon.

 

The cartoon has the title “Who said “Dead”?”. The cartoon shows a donkey running away for its life from a roaring lion emerging from a cave. The donkey has ‘Continental Press’ written on its back. By March 1900 the sieges of Kimberley and Ladysmith had been relieved and the British and Empire army under the new commander in chief, Lord Roberts, had begun to win some successes. The message of the cartoon seems pretty much to be that the British and Empire forces have now roused themselves to their warlike best, and proven to the world – well, to Europe at least – that the reports of the death of the Empire have been greatly exaggerated.

Portraying the European media as a donkey shows a certain contempt for them – they are donkeys, or asses, fools in other words. The European reactions to the circumstances of the Boer War were pretty much universally condemning of the British actions in provoking the war, and British Imperialism. There was just a little whiff of hypocrisy about this considering that some of the countries that were the strongest critics had also been willing and enthusiastic participants in the so-called ‘Scramble for Africa’ themselves.

Tuesday Boer War Cartoon

Today’s Tenniel Boer War cartoon I’ve copied was published on 20^th December 1899 and it’s entitled “The Sullied White Flag”.

 

THE SULLIED WHITE FLAG

JOHN BULL “IF YOU ABUSE THAT FLAG, I WON’T ANSWER FOR MY MEN.”

The caption is :-

JOHN BULL “IF YOU ABUSE THAT FLAG, I WON’T ANSWER FOR MY MEN.”

Now, I’ve tried hard to find out exactly which specific incident prompted this cartoon, and all I’ve managed to find out is that there was some incident involving a flag of truce in Mafeking, which was under siege at the time. What happened, I have not to this point been able to find out.

However, I think that the message within the images seems pretty clear. The Boer on the left looks sly and shifty. His eyes particularly are dark and evil looking. If anything his posture suggests that he is cringing away from John Bull. While John Bull himself looks clean, upright, immaculate and his revolver is pointed towards the ground and not at the back of the Boer. The relationship between the two figures suggests that the British have been having the upper hand, while the Boers have to resort to subterfuge. Yet up to this point the Boers had very much the better of the fighting and action. When I look at the caption I am irresistibly reminded of President Donald Trump threatening there would be ‘no more Mr. Nice Guy’ towards Iran a week or two ago, with much the same effect. At best it’s a misrepresentation of the state of the war at this time.

I’ve no doubt that I haven’t seen every cartoon John Tenniel made between October and December of 1899, but I haven’t seen any cartoon he made in this period which even acknowledged any setbacks suffered by the British army. Tenniel could be a trenchant critic of politicians and governments on purely domestic issues, but when it came to foreign relations he was strongly pro-British. After he was knighted in 1893 at the age of 73, it probably shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that he would be a strong supporter of the official line on the war.

Sunday Boer War Cartoon

Today’s John Tenniel Boer War cartoon is another from 1899, published on 1^st November, right at the time when large numbers of soldiers were being sent to South Africa on ships.

 

Jack Tar “GOOD LUCK, MATE! YOU’RE GOIN’ TO DO THE JOB ON LAND.
IF THERE’S ANYTHING WANTED AT SEA – AGAINST OTHER PARTIES – I’M ON!”

The title is “TO THOSE IT MAY CONCERN”. The caption beneath this is –

Jack Tar “GOOD LUCK, MATE! YOU’RE GOIN’ TO DO THE JOB ON LAND. IF THERE’S ANYTHING WANTED AT SEA – AGAINST OTHER PARTIES – I’M ON!”

The message seems pretty straightforward, a message of support for the troops heading off to war and also one of confidence in them. As for what the sailor says, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but perhaps this is meant as a reminder that Britain had the most powerful navy in the world. The mention of other parties suggests an awareness that international opinion was pretty solidly against the British Empire, and this is a recognition of the Royal Navy as a deterrent to other countries becoming involved militarily, which I have no doubt that it was.

Other countries did not intervene officially. However, volunteer units who fought for the Boers were formed from Dutch, German and Irish volunteers, and volunteers came from many other parts of Europe. The influx of volunteers began to arrive immediately with the declaration of war and would continue at the rate of about 600 men a month.

Again, maybe I’m reading too much into what appears to be a pretty straightforward cartoon, but I do, with the benefit of hindsight, see an overconfidence here. Despite the lessons of the First Boer War, less than a decade earlier, it does seem to be true that at all levels of British society people did seem to genuinely believe that the British Empire army would just quickly steamroller the Boers into submission in a few weeks.

Didn’t happen

Saturday - Boer War Cartoon

The next John Tenniel Boer War cartoon I’ve copied was published just a few days before war was declared. Here it is.

JOHN BULL (to Orange Free State) “STAND ASIDE YOUNG MAN-
I’VE NO QUARREL WITH YOU!”

 

JOHN BULL (to Orange Free State) “STAND ASIDE YOUNG MAN- I’VE NO QUARREL WITH YOU!”

It’s titled A Word to the Un-Wise. Basically this is Britain, in the shape of John Bull, warning Orange Free State not to get involved in the looming conflict with the Republic of Transvaal. The caption – I’ve no quarrel with you! – is disingenuous. It was never a question that Orange Free State would not be involved in the Boer War, but even if it had not been I can’t believe that the British Empire would not have annexed the republic again even without the excuse of the war. As it was, though, the two Boer Republics had concluded a military pact in 1897.

I find it interesting that Tenniel chose to depict John Bull in army uniform. The subtext to me seems to be – look, this war is going to happen, and if you have any sense whatsoever you’ll keep out of our way, or we’ll crush you like we’re going to crush them. – The caption, calling Orange Free State ‘young man’ is very patronising. Also, the Boer from the Transvaal is the only one of the three figures with a visible gun, a way of suggesting without saying so outright that it is Boer aggression that can be blamed for bringing the countries to the brink of war.

Fair? No, I don’t think so. With hindsight, following the Jameson Raid, and with the British Government’s refusal to compromise on terms for addressing the grievances of the Uitlanders, war was pretty much inevitable.

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 that Tenniel regularly used. That's 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. But it is not as if the British were motivated to fight in order to ameliorate conditions for native Africans. No, they were motivated by Imperialistic shortsightedness, and led on by the greed of men like Cecil Rhodes. Just my opinion and as always, feel free to disagree. 

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. 

A pair of Quickies

 It's a big weekend ahead, and today has been the last day with any opportunity at all for sketching. so I made a couple of copies of rather less detailed and complicated illustrations, one from Alice in Wonderland :-

and the other from Looking Glass : -

It's a funny thing, but I have drawn both of these characters before. I drew the Mad Hatter when I copied part of the illustration showing him the March Hare and the Dormouse in the Tea Party, although I didn't actually copy the Alice part of the drawing. I also made a copy of Alice with her back to the viewer looking up at Humpty on the wall as well. 

I wrote earlier in the week about Tenniel possibly drawing on some of his previous cartoons as inspiration for his Alice Illustrations. Well, this one of Humpty Dumpty is thought to draw on Tenniel's 1871 cartoon The Gigantic Gooseberry - and the similarities between the Gooseberry and Humpty in this illustration are marked. Incidentally I've tried to find out exactly what hat cartoon is about, but my efforts have thus far been in vain. 

Cheshire Cat(s)

You can believe this or not – well, obviously – but it wasn’t until I came to post my copy of Up A Tree ( the Tenniel cartoon from Punch that may possibly have inspired one of his illustrations of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland) that I realised that I haven’t up to now copied the illustration in question. So here’s my copy I’ve just done. 

Here's my copy of the Up A Tree Cartoon which Tenniel made in 1862 as well.

The fact is that I have copied Cheshire Cat illustrations before, just not this one. I copied the Tenniel illustration where the cat’s head appears in the sky over the field with the Queen and King of Hearts.

I’ve also copied Mervyn Peake’s rather sinister Cheshire Cat,

and Arthur Rackham’s Cheshire Cat –

and Helen Oxenbury’s Cheshire Cat -

and even Ralph Steadman’s Cheshire Cat –

I may be mistaken but I think that Tenniel’s original of this particular illustration has appeared as part of the Google logo before.

The Cheshire Cat has been something of a gift to political cartoonists over the years. The idea of rapidly disappearing until only the smile is left is a highly useful metaphor for a whole multitude of issues and policies. The grin itself is a godsend. Just researching yesterday I found depictions of Prime Ministers Edward Heath and Tony Blair as the Cheshire Cat, and I wasn’t even trying. There’s been many depictions of Donald Trump as the Cheshire cat as well. Interestingly the idea of a Cheshire cat wasn’t even invented by Lewis Carroll. Carroll was born in Cheshire, which may have attractd him to the phrase ‘Grinning like a Cheshire cat’ which was in usage long before he wrote the book. One theory is that it got it’s name from assign painter in Cheshire who was known for painting grinning lions, for reasons best known to himself.

Parody and Antecedent

Following swiftly on from yesterday’s post I did some research and found another Tenniel cartoon parodying his own work. Yesterday I posted my copy of Alice in Blunderland from 1880. This is ‘Alice in Bumbleland” from Punch in 1899. Here Tenniel is satirising Arthur Balfour, a future Prime Minister, who takes the place of Alice, burbling and bumbling his way through the London Government Bill, which would create the London County Council.

It’s interesting that he chose to use the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon again. Unlike “Alice in Blunderland” this cartoon is very clearly based on the illustration of Alice and the Gryphon listening to the Mock Turtle in Chapter 9. The biggest change is that instead it is the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle listening to a standing Alice. Here’s my copy of the original illustration from Alice.

I’d love to know exactly why Tenniel decided to return to Alice for this particular subject. Like Alice in Blunderland it does relate specifically to London – Tenniel himself was a born Londoner. Was he having a sly dig at Balfour’s so-called effeminacy by portraying him as Alice? Possibly, although it’s difficult to say.

While we’re on the subject of Tenniel, during my research yesterday I found this rather interesting antecedent of the illustration of Alice looking up at the Cheshire cat in the tree. It’s called Up A Tree. 

The subject is the Mason and Slidell case. Mason and Slidell were two emissaries sent from the Confederates at the start of the American Civil War to the United Kingdom. The British ship on which they were travelling was seized by Union forces, and the two men taken and imprisoned. This led to a serious diplomatic dispute between the UK and the Union, and had the original British response not been ameliorated by Prince Albert’s intervention, then the warlike nature may well have led to war between the UK and the Union. Lincoln issued an apology and returned the two prisoners. In the cartoon Lincoln is a raccoon who is in the sights of John Bull, the traditional allegorical representation of England. In the text Lincoln’s raccoon asks if John Bull is in earnest, and when he hears that he is, then he pledges to come down.

There are differences. For one thing the trunk of the tree is on the left f the picture in the Alice illustration, not the right. Having said that the cat and the raccoon occupy pretty much the same space and position in both pictures. The arch of the cat’s back though is very reminiscent of the Lincoln Raccoon. Also, the views vantage point is different. In the Alice illustration we are behind Alice, while in the cartoon we are to an extent looking down on the front of John Bull. There’s a forest of trees in the cartoon, while the space below the branch in the illustration is clear because it is occupied by text in the book.

Nonetheless, the similarity is quite clear. Tenniel had an incredible visual memory and didn’t need models to work from, so in all likelihood he drew on his memory of his own cartoon from just a few years earlier.

All of which reminds me that I haven’t yet made a copy of Tenniel’s Cheshire Cat with Alice sketch. Hmm. Watch this space.

Once more with Feeling -

 

Sir John Tenniel - Self portrait

I've copied a depiction of Sir John following his being knighted by Queen Victoria in 1893. It's entitled "The Black and White Knight" and isn't actually sketched by Sir John himself, but by Edward Linley Sambourne. Sambourne had worked for Punch since the 1860s, and took over as chief cartoonist for the magazine following Sir John's retirement in 1901.

I like the irony about the fact that the night depicted here isn't that far removed from Tenniel's own white knight from "Alice Through the Looking Glass", which Tenniel allegedly based upon himself (even though this was a good two decades before his own knighthood). 

Maybe it's just me as well, but I can't help whether Linley Sambourne was deliberately hinting at Don Quixote here as well, with Sir John just about to start charging at windmills.