SOME ONE HAD BLUNDERED

 
Sir Redvers devised an impossible plan
Which he trusted to Warren, an obstinate man;
Lord Roberts sent home some dispatches, and there
He freely expressed what he thought of the pair.
The War Office published these documents plain,
To the joy of their foes, and the grief of the sane;
And while they were reading them, all the world wondered,
And promptly concluded that everyone blundered.
 

Humorous relief was provided by the report that Krüger had encouraged his burghers by circulating the news that London had been captured by the Russians, a method foreshadowing the imaginative exploits of the Germans in the late war. It was based, however, on an incontestable fact – our unpopularity in both hemispheres. The Boer delegates had been welcomed in America, though Punch sought to discount the effect of their propaganda by a cartoon in which Columbia reassures John Bull: "Don't mind those noisy boys of mine. You know, my dear, it's Election Time."

The Anglophobe feeling was much more vocal in France, and Punch gives a curious account of the Transvaal section of the Paris Exhibition in October, where signatures were invited and freely appended to addresses to the two Presidents, the bust of Krüger was crowned with palm branches, poetic eulogies were circulated, and the walls covered with "Mort aux Anglais," "Chamberlain est un vache," etc. Meanwhile, Mafeking had been relieved, and Punch had defended the "loud extremes of passionate joy" which added the now well-nigh forgotten verb "to Maffick" to our current vocabulary. Lord Roberts's uninterrupted advance to Pretoria had moved Punch, with many others, to declare very prematurely on June 6th that the war was practically over, though it lasted nearly two years longer, and the slow progress of "rounding up" the Boers actually prompted the suggestion from a leading paper that Lord Kitchener should be recalled and Lord Roberts sent out again. President Krüger's flitting is illustrated in a cartoon in which "Oom Paul" is seen in a small boat, with two millions of treasure, quitting the sinking ship Transvaal; while in a set of verses, written after reading of his triumphal progress through France, Punch prophesies for him a green old age in Grosvenor Square. The C.I.V.'s returned in the autumn and were welcomed by the City of London; and shortly afterwards "a Mr. Williams offered respectful apologies to Satan for mentioning him in the same breath with Lord Kitchener." Punch, even in his most Chauvinistic mood, never indulged in such abuse of the Boer generals, and at the end of 1900 paid a well-deserved compliment to the elusive De Wet in his cartoon of "De Wet o' de Wisp."

China and Australia

Before dealing with the subsequent progress of the "guerrilla war," we may turn aside for a moment to other developments overseas. In an epigram on "The Millennium" in August, 1900, Punch writes: —

 
In some problematic day
Strife and wrath shall fade away,
Crews no longer blessing pouring
On the coxes who have cox'd,
When the Boers shall cease from boring
And the Boxers shall be boxed.
 

The revolt of the Boxers in China and the joint expedition of the European Powers assisted by Japan to relieve the Legations in Peking are treated in two cartoons. In the first, in which the Chinese Dragon is seen in the background, Japan expresses her readiness to help the European Powers. She is glad to join them, "but permit me to remark that if some of you hadn't interfered when I had him down, it would have saved all this trouble" – a legitimate comment on the intervention of Germany and Russia after the Chino-Japanese war. In the second, "The Closed Door," Europa is seen armed with an axe, preparing to break her way in to the relief of the Legations. Apocryphal reports of what was happening in China reached a high-water mark of mendacity this summer, and the English Press did not escape the charge of credulity, to put it mildly. Reports of the death of the Dowager Empress were so common as to inspire Punch with a poetic homage to the "lady of the charmed life," and when she shifted her capital, he showed Krüger looking over a wall at her exodus with the remark: "My idea!"

It was in 1900 also that the Australian Commonwealth Bill was introduced by Mr. Chamberlain. Punch in his first reference to the measure, animated by a recognition of Australia's loyalty in the Boer war, assumed that Clause 74, abolishing the appeal to the Privy Council, would be passed. Australia is seen showing the new latchkey she has had made, as she wanted a little more freedom, and Britannia declares her readiness to trust her. This proved premature, and a little later on Punch, in a letter to the Australian delegates, waxes sarcastic over the "niggling, pedantic and pettifogging inquisition which it was proposed to institute into the demand for Federation" —à propos of the Privy Council Appeals. As a matter of fact, the clause was amended, because the States were not at one on the point, and all seven Chief Justices favoured the maintenance of the right of Appeal.

Lord Roberts returned to England at the close of the year, and Punch saluted his arrival in "The Home-coming of the Chief." His great services are acknowledged, not least his self-sacrifice in the hour of bitter personal loss: —

 
Ah! but while a nation's cries
Storm against our sullen skies
'Midst the madness and the mirth
Flung about your victor's way,
If behind the brave array
All the hidden heart were known,
Save for love of England's name
Gladly would you yield the prize,
Glory, triumph, wealth and fame,
Could you win one grace alone,
Could you have your boy again
Home from where he takes his rest
Lying under alien earth
By Colenso's dreadful plain,
With the Cross above his breast.
 

That is truly and finely said, and yet how strangely the epithet "dreadful" sounds to those who have found all the vocabulary of horror beggared by the experiences of the Great War! The opening of the New Year was clouded by the passing of Queen Victoria. In all the sixty years of Punch's existence, even in the moods when his comments on Court and Crown had been frank to the verge of audacity, loyalty to the person of the Sovereign had never failed. His adverse criticism was seldom malicious, and was almost always animated by a desire that the Sovereign should never fall below the standard of noblesse oblige. The days of resentment against the Queen's prolonged seclusion had long passed. She had ceased to be "the Royal Recluse," and was unsparing of herself in the discharge of her duties up to within a few weeks of her death. When she spoke in one of her messages of "her beloved people," there could be no question of her sincerity, or of the devotion with which her love was returned.

As Mr. Balfour said significantly of her: "Even those who loved not England loved her," and in later years those who came to scoff at her memory remained to praise: —

THE QUEEN

Born May 24, 1819. Died January 22, 1901

 
The tears we disallow to lesser ill
Here is no shame for English eyes to shed,
Because the noblest heart of all is still —
Because the Queen lies dead.
 
 
Grief asks for words, yet silent grief were well;
Vain is desire, as passionate prayer was vain;
Not all our love can bring, by any spell,
Breath to those lips again.
 
 
Ah! had but Death forgone his royal claim,
Demanding ransom, life for life the price,
How loyalty had leaped to kiss the flame
Of such a sacrifice!
 
 
God knows, in many a need this thing has been —
Light hearts for her have dared the desolate grave;
From other hurt their blood has saved the Queen,
From Death it could not save.
 
 
And of the dregs to drink from sorrow's cup
This is most bitter, that with life's release
She might not leave her children folded up
Between the wings of Peace.
 
 
Yet, for a solace in that darkest hour,
When even Kings have found themselves alone,
Over a people's love she kept her power
Firm as her fathers' throne.
 

Candid Friends and Hostile Critics

The "Khaki" election of the previous autumn, at which the Government had appealed to the country to decide the issue of fighting the war to a finish, had resulted in the return of the Unionists by a majority of 134, but did not abate the activities of the "Stop the War" party. They were stimulated to further and more vehement protests by the policy of the Concentration Camps, and the loss of life through epidemics caused by the compulsory herding together of those who were interned. Between the denunciations of British "brutalities" by the German Press and the talk of "hecatombs of slaughtered babes" by British Liberals – between "candid friends" and hostile critics – there was not much to choose. Punch invoked the shade of Bismarck to rebuke the excesses of the German journalists; he ridiculed Miss Emily Hobhouse's descriptions of Concentration Camp horrors by giving a list of the luxuries which were not provided there – hairpins, curling-tongs, etc. – and in a cartoon at the close of the year represented the "Stop the War" group as making such a noise that Peace's voice could not be heard. Cleavage was shown in the ranks of the Opposition, and Punch did not fail to emphasize the divergences between Mr. Asquith and the Imperialist Liberals on the one side, and "C. – B." and Sir William Harcourt on the other. General Baden-Powell arrived in England in July, and Punch's greeting aptly describes his mood and that of the man in the street: —

 
Time has flown; but not forgotten is the tale of Mafeking!
Who that lived that Day in London could forget its echoing ring?
 
 
How the Town broke into bunting, Piccadilly to Mile End!
How each man for joy saluted every other man as friend!
 
 
How we crowded to the city in an orgy of delight,
Tumbled out of bed for gladness, waving Union Jacks all night!
 
 
Even if we overdid it after deadening suspense,
Better this than anti-British Queen's Hall windbags' insolence!
 
 
Though we later coined a playful word, our soberer sense to show,
I would rather "maffick" daily than abet a treacherous foe!
 

In the controversies that arose over the treatment of various British generals, I may note that Punch supported the motion for an inquiry into the circumstances under which General Colvile was deprived of his command, which was negatived in the House by 262 votes to 248. Over the still more thorny question of General Buller's conduct of the Natal campaign he preserved an impartial attitude, while implying that the general would not exploit his grievance for political purposes. Early in the war Punch paid a rather left-handed compliment to the war correspondents; they are represented as welcoming war because it brought them remunerative employment. In the autumn of 1901 we find him pressing their claims for war medals, and observing that the Press had been shut out but not shut up.

The war, he also notes on the authority of a daily paper, had produced more poets than any similar crisis in English history. A more striking parallel with recent war-products is to be found in Punch's review of the depression, discontent and decline of trade which it had begun to cause before hostilities ceased. This is clearly shown in July, 1901, in the Preface to Vol. cxxi, where Punch rebukes John Bull, no longer in his Mark Tapley vein, for listening to pessimists, and encouraging a seditious and pernicious Press. In the opening stages of the war Punch had been none too friendly to Lord Methuen, but he was righteously indignant at the "Ghoul-like ecstasy" of the Irish Members who cheered the news of the defeat and capture of that gallant soldier in the spring of 1902. The end of the war came in June, and is chronicled in Punch's "Cease Fire" cartoon. The happiest incident of the surrender was the speech made by Lord Kitchener to the Boer delegates at Vereeniging when he said that "if he had been one of them, he would have been proud to have done so well in the field as they had done." Punch did well to record it, for it reflected the national respect felt for a stubborn foe. For confirmation we need only turn to the laconic entry in the National Register for August 16, 1902: "The Boer generals, Botha, De Wet and Delarey … proceeded to London, and had an enthusiastic popular reception." Subsequent events have justified the somewhat complacent remark attributed to John Bull in the cartoon two months later, à propos of the grant of £3,000,000 to the Transvaal, and the Boers' "Appeal to the Civilized World": "Look here, my friend, stick that up, if you like; but I think you'll find that I talk less than the others and give more."

Lord Kitchener's Return

Lord Kitchener had returned in July, and Punch's welcome ends on a prophetic note: —

 
You're a worker from of old,
K. of K.
Pomps and pæans leave you cold,
K. of K.
You would like to land in mufti,
You would hurry down the dock
Not in trappings, plumed and tufty,
But in checks and billycock!
And you haven't, now It's over,
Come to stay;
Nor to lie at length in clover,
But to change your train for Dover,
K. of K.
For, although the work's appalling
Which should have you here at hand,
Yet you've heard the East a-calling
Out of India's coral strand;
And, as soon as time and place
Let our feelings find release,
And we've called you, to your face,
First in War and first in Peace; —
Thither where the Empire needs you,
K. of K.,
And your own "Ubique" leads you,
Lies your way!
 

Mr. Roosevelt had succeeded to the Presidency of the United States on the assassination of Mr. McKinley, and Punch, after condoling with Columbia, saluted the "Rough-Rider."

Our closer relations with Japan and their effect on Russia are symbolized in the cartoon in which she remarks as a tertia anything but gaudens: "H'm – I don't like these confidences." In Europe the subject that provoked Punch's closest attention was the treatment of the Poles by Germany. There is an amusing story in "Charivaria," probably apocryphal, but not beyond the possibilities of Prussian pedantry: —

Fifty Prussian schoolgirls have been arrested at Gnesen on a charge of high treason, and the police are said to have their eyes on several Kindergartens, where it is reported that the children have been playing "I'm the king of the Castle" and other games suggestive of Majestätsbeleidigung.

But the whole essence of "Prussification" is summed up in the last quatrain of a brilliant adaptation of the "Pied Piper of Hamelin" to the situation in Posen: —

 
You can take a Pole, as I understand,
And play on his nerves with a German Band;
But you can't convert his natural temper, or
Get him to jig for a German Emperor.
 

Lord Salisbury had resigned in the summer of 1902, and Mr. Balfour had succeeded to the Premiership. It was not exactly a case of "Amurath to Amurath," but with nephew succeeding to uncle, and the presence of another nephew and a son-in-law in the Cabinet, there was some ground for the once familiar gibes against the "Hotel Cecil." Punch was not unfriendly to the new Premier, and applauded his handling of the negotiations initiated by Germany to secure a British subsidy to the German-controlled Baghdad railway. In "The Trap that Failed," the British Lion "doesn't like the look of it and resolves to go round the other way"; and the verses (after Omar Khayyám) indicate the surprise of "the Potter of Potsdam" at the unexpected firmness of Mr. Balfour. The gradual improvement of our relations with other foreign Powers is symbolized in "The Chain of Friendship," showing King Edward joining in a dance with France, Italy and Portugal; while the strengthening of the Anglo-French Entente is illustrated in the cartoon in which King Edward, presenting the British Lion, says to the French President: "See, M. Loubet, he offers you his paw." An element of reserve, however, is shown in a dialogue in French, mildly satirizing the new Anglomania; and in the burlesque sketch foreshadowing the ludicrous and disastrous influence on both countries of the Entente– e.g. the re-introduction of the duel on the initiative of the Daily Mail; the presentation of Waterloo Station to the French and, as a set-off, the presentation of the Keys of Calais to the Lord Mayor of London by the Paris Municipal Council. To turn from gay to grave, this was the year of the assassination of the King and Queen of Serbia, recorded in the cartoon of "Murder as the King Maker."

Ireland, Army Reform, and India

Home politics fill a larger space in 1903 in Punch's pages than for some years previously. Remedial legislation in Ireland inspires the cartoon of Mr. Balfour as St. Patrick – a saint invaluable to the harassed cartoonist – driving out the snakes of sedition. The basis of Mr. Wyndham's Land Purchase Act is well shown in the cartoon illustrating the financial relations of the two countries. Tenant and landlord both present money-boxes labelled "Land Purchase" to John Bull, asking him to "put a thrifle in them"; John Bull scratches his head, but he pays all the same. The difficulties of Mr. Brodrick in securing national support for Army Reform are set forth in the verses on "The Unhappy Warrior" (after Wordsworth), and the cartoon "Ready, aye unready," with John Bull asleep on sentry duty —à propos of the Report of the Royal Commission on the South African war. A little later, John Bull's short memory is satirized in his protest against the size of his new watch-dog. Forgetting that he had clamoured for increase, he now declares that he cannot afford him.

At the opening of the year Punch had lavishly chronicled the glories of the Delhi Durbar. "The Pilgrims to the East" included three members of his staff, who did justice to the occasion both with pen and pencil, and Sambourne's fine cartoon, "Vivat Imperator," forms an instructive pendant and palinode to Punch's anti-imperialist misgivings of 1876, when he regarded the assumption of the new title as a piece of shoddy Disraelian Orientalism.