This interesting cartoon pretains to the first world war. The main visual elements are the different military commanders representing their country. Each one of them, except for the lady on the left, are interconnected via rolled up parchments. I think that the parchments represent treaties or deals made between the millitary commaders of WW1. Therefore, this cartoon is about the numerous treaties, ceasefires, trade deals, and other "receipts" for behind the back deals that all the countries in WWI enacted. The main divide down the middle, where Germany and Austo-Hungary meet, forms the two "alliances" from WW1. However, if you examine the picture closely, you can see that all the countries, Turkey, Russia, Italy, America, and Brittan, are actually connected. This means there was no war , because in the end, the enimies are signing deals with the allies. Thats what I think the Author's oppinion on this issue is that there was no WWI. The one other piece of evidence that supports this is how the Swiss representative has been cut out off the treaties. The reason behind this is that Switzerland maintained neutrality throughout the war, refusing to join either of the "alliances."
I think that if the cartoonist wanted have a bigger impact, he should of done two things. First was he should have added a caption, and second, make it a little clearer which countries were which.
This cartoon relates to the great powers game in many ways. The first and most prominent is that we all represented great powers like Russia or Germany. Also, just like the cartoon, in our attempts to gain power, we ended up being allies with every single person in the game. The example of our trade deals and war plans were two alliances, the "axis," and the "allies." *cough*
However, if you traced some of the deals and treaties, it turned out there was no "axis and Allies," it was just one massive grouping of people tied together. We had all inadvertedly ended up supporting the opposing side. This tangle of failed treaties eventually led to the collapse into chaos and war. So really, this cartoon represents more then our game or ww1. It represents basic human nature to secure power, and fail miserably doing so.
This cartoon relates to the great powers game in many ways. The first and most prominent is that we all represented great powers like Russia or Germany. Also, just like the cartoon, in our attempts to gain power, we ended up being allies with every single person in the game. The example of our trade deals and war plans were two alliances, the "axis," and the "allies." *cough*
However, if you traced some of the deals and treaties, it turned out there was no "axis and Allies," it was just one massive grouping of people tied together. We had all inadvertedly ended up supporting the opposing side. This tangle of failed treaties eventually led to the collapse into chaos and war. So really, this cartoon represents more then our game or ww1. It represents basic human nature to secure power, and fail miserably doing so.
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