Re: The Pages of Punch

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.'

Re: The Pages of Punch

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.

Re: The Pages of Punch

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.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1918: No connection with the war whatever

William Tell’s famous skill is at risk because the questions keep arriving without stop.

Re: The Pages of Punch

The funniest one yet!
The little lad blissfully unaware of the danger and with far more important things on his mind!

Re: The Pages of Punch

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.

Re: The Pages of Punch

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.

Re: The Pages of Punch

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.

Re: The Pages of Punch

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.

Re: The Pages of Punch

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.