23-06-2017, 09:44 AM
1103
Re: The Pages of Punch
1919: Are they boasting?
I have a problem with this cartoon.
I feel that I understand what the standing lady means. She is pleased that her husband had managed to get his colonelcy just before the Armistice. Subsequently promotions would arise much more slowly than during the war.
But what of the seated lady? How could the war have possibly prevented her husband from becoming a general? Did she mean that he would have got the promotion if it had been based simply on length of service whereas the war had meant that you got promoted on merit alone? That is hardly a boast. That would mean that she is saying that he is mediocre in doing his job. The body language of the two women gives no indication that this was so.
The trouble is I can’t think of any other explanation.
I suspect that this scenario was set in Paris during the Peace Conference.