The dogs of war

By Max Hastings

In the autumn of 1914, it was still fashionable in Britain to make excruciatingly elaborate jokes about the Great War. Walter Emanuel, a columnist for the magazine Punch, wrote a satirical column about it which initiated the doggy theme exploited in this map. Johnson & Riddle, the lithographic printers behind many of the early London tube maps, created the images in a style familiar to British audiences for half a century, with a range of German dachshunds, French poodles and Turkish curs eager for offal. It was sold as a poster with the accompanying comic commentary supplied by Emanuel.

The doughty British sailor stands offshore, holding the strings of his dreadnoughts, while only the bulldog’s forepaws are planted on the continent. It was a major delusion among British politicians in August 1914 that their country could do most of its fighting at sea. Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, wrote to the wavering chancellor, Lloyd George, arguing: "the naval war will be cheap." The foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, told the House of Commons on August 3rd that, since Britain was a naval power, by entering the war "we shall suffer but little more than we shall suffer even if we stand aside."