Re: The Pages of Punch

1919: Semi Official

It’s not a very convincing argument.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1919: Treating a metaphor literally

The General is using a commonly used expression for people who pontificate about military matters from the comfort of their armchairs. His niece is thinking about pillow fights in the dormitory of her Girls Boarding School. She imagines the old duffers standing on their chairs and biffing each other.

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.

Re: The Pages of Punch

Perhaps she thought her husband was due for promotion, but was killed in the war.

Not a humorous story line, though, I suppose.

Re: The Pages of Punch

Hello JBR

Thank you for your suggestion. It would be logical but, as you say, it doesn’t fit into our assumptions concerning a joke. Perhaps the cartoonist just doesn’t care.

I have another thought. To be in the running to be any sort of a general (including brigadier) you have to be a full colonel. Not just a lieutenant colonel. At that exalted rank you didn’t stand much chance of being killed in action. Possible from long distant shelling or a bomb dropped by a comrade of the red baron.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1919: Consequences of the peace

The colonel’s dilemma is a common one. They can’t all be demobbed at the same time. The unfortunate adjutant is in no way able to advise the boss.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1921: Polite – but not polite enough

This little boy is trying to be polite but hasn’t yet got the hang of it. Much better to say that you have enjoyed it. Then there’s no need to try and limit the damage. No doubt he will learn to be more diplomatic.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1919: Too much washing!

I wonder if this was a sentiment once common. I could believe that. The soldier’s tunic on the kitchen chair shows that he is a sergeant. Perhaps he will also shine in his civilian life.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1919: Army of Occupation

Under the provisions of the 1918 Armistice British (and French) troops occupied a slice of Western Germany pending the actual peace treaty. The British formation was called the British Army of Occupation on the Rhine or BAOR for short. This occupation ended in 1929. In 1945 the same name was reused for all the Army units stationed in then then British Zone of post war Germany.

The cartoon points indirectly to a shameful aspect of the way that the defeated Germans were treated after the Armistice. Food had become scarce in Britain and Germany well before the end of the war – much more so in Germany. With end of hostilities imports of food in Britain soon returned to pre-war quantities. This was not the case in Germany. Technically the Armistice merely meant a temporary cessation of hostilities. This gave rise to the theory that Germany might refuse to sign the peace treaty being put together in the Paris Peace Conference. In reality Germany could do no such thing. The major part of its army had been disbanded and war production was now not possible. However that theoretical possibility was used to prevent the import of food. There was much deprivation which was particularly painful for growing children. The Save the Children charity was established to create a civilian programme of food for children.

The Jock in this cartoon shows no such compassion.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1919: Swearing like … a naval officer

Instead of asterisks or suchlike the cartoonist merely shows a dash to represent some colourful profanity in the naval officer’s reply.