The First World War was a ripe time for caricature. Cartoonists of the warring nations delighted in drawing the enemy as variously ugly, dim, brutal, puny, unchivalrous or conniving. The Germans drew the British as bony and toothless while the British drew the Germans as montrous and barbaric, or else porcine and myopic. But by far the most regularly lampooned individual of the Great War was the Kaiser, a man who, with his waxed moustachioes, arrogant bearing and penchant for flamboyant uniforms, was born to be caricatured.
With Guy Fawke's Night upon us, we thought it would be fun to share some Great War variations on a simple form of caricature associated with this British November tradition. Instead of a stuffed effigy of that wicked traitor, Guido Fawkes, to be burned, ceremoniously, atop a bonfire, the flames of First World War bonfires (metaphorically speaking - the Defence of the Realm Act prevented bonfires during the period) were more likely to consume a likeness of the Kaiser - or Guy-ser - Fawkes.
This fuzzy picture taken at the Front from the Illustrated London News in November 1915, nevertheless is clearly a perfect likeness of the Emperor, while Frank Newbould's cartoon on the front cover of The Bystander, published in November 1918 shows a guy symbolic of Prussian militarism being burned at the stake by combined manpower in the form of an American soldier.
But only yesterday, I made this timely discovery in a previously untrawled volume of The Sketch magazine. These little puppets, known as Guy-sers were made by the toy department of the Women's Emergency Corps and were destined to be sold at a cost of sixpence each at a stall in Selfridge's department store on the 4th and 5th November 1914 by 'a celebrated authoress' (whose name, sadly, was not divulged) as a novel charity fundraising endeavour.
Each toy came with a note pinned to the Guy-ser's front:
A Fitting Memento of the War Year November!
"THE GUYSER!"
We all will remember
This Fifth of November
By Wilhelm's infernal plot
We see no reason
Why Germany's treason
Should ever be forgot!
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Luci Gosling