Review of the Imperial War Museum’s latest Churchill exhibition
The Imperial War Museum have put together a small, yet rather enjoyable exhibition of satirical cartoons that depict how Winston Churchill was perceived during times of war and conflict. The great man appeared in thousands of cartoons during his lifetime and beyond, which undoubtedly made the selection process a challenge. However, the curators should be congratulated for producing an entertaining mix of images that show how he was viewed, both at home and abroad. The cartoons range from 1909 to 2003, however, I want to focus on some of the most interesting images that relate to the Second World War.
It is well known that during this period Churchill was portrayed in Britain as a national symbol of defiance, and the exhibition showcases two good examples of this. The first is a drawing by the Welsh illustrator, Leslie Illingworth, which was published in the Daily Mail on October 4, 1940. Churchill had just reshuffled his war cabinet and the cartoon imagines the new team assembled as an RAF bomber crew. Familiar faces, including Clement Atlee, Ernest Bevin, and a humorously pint-sized Lord Beaverbrook line up for inspection beside a Lancaster bomber, as a smiling Churchill looks on approvingly.
The second was drawn by E.H. Sheppard, the Winnie the Pooh illustrator, and featured in Punch magazine on January 1, 1941. At this juncture of the war, the blitz period that would kill around 43,000 civilians was at its halfway point. Sheppard presents Churchill as a triumphant St George, standing over a slain dragon with a scorched urban landscape in the background. Now, to a contemporary audience this may seem somewhat jingoistic, as it is the sort of crass iconography one can imagine being deployed by far-right nationalists today. Nonetheless, to interpret the cartoon in such a way would be a gross injustice to both Sheppard and the role Churchill played in maintaining popular morale in 1940. The message is clear, here is the patron saviour who has come to Britain’s rescue, and he will defeat the fire breathing fascists.
In stark contrast to this heroic image, the exhibition shows how wartime cartoonists in Germany, Italy and Japan all portrayed the British Prime Minister as a warmongering villain. For example, in the aftermath of the first bombing raids on German cities in 1940, the Nazi cartoonist Hanns Erich Köhler drew Churchill as a naked, overweight figure, who appears to be flying over Germany on an RAF labelled broomstick. Identifiable by his trademark cigar, Churchill callously smirks as he drops bombs on a church and Red Cross buildings below, implying that he took pleasure in killing innocent civilians.
In Italy, the illustrator Gino Boccasile, who was a member of the short-lived Italian SS division, rather ironically drew both Churchill and Roosevelt as gun wielding mobsters. The pair appear in front of a jolly roger flag, grinning over a scene of destroyed buildings and dead children. This drawing was most likely a response to the unintentional bombing of Milan’s residential districts that occurred on 20 October 1944. This act of human error tragically claimed the lives of 614 people, including 184 children who were sheltering at the Francesco Crispi school in Gorla. The caption at the foot of the cartoon reads ‘Su loco ricade la colpa’ (on them rests the blame).
In Japan, a propaganda leaflet that was dropped on Indian troops in 1944 shows a menacing Churchill chopping off the fingers of an Indian cotton mill worker. In an attempt to persuade Indian soldiers to fight for the Axis powers, the unknown cartoonist highlighted how the British ruthlessly destroyed India’s prosperous cotton industry. Churchill, renowned for his firm opposition to Indian independence, is used to symbolise the most brutal aspects of British imperialism. Although there are several examples of British cruelty in India, most famously the Amritsar massacre of 1919, the rank hypocrisy here must be called out. Imperial Japan’s treatment of POW’s and civilians that fell under their control in the Pacific theatre was notoriously inhumane. Some of the horrors included systematic rape, mass murder, starvation, state sponsored medical experiments and even cannibalism.
On a much happier note, perhaps my favourite image in this collection is a work of British propaganda that was drawn by the British-Egyptian cartoonist, Kimon Evan Marengo. When war broke out in 1939, Marengo was an undergraduate at Exeter College, Oxford, and he was called on by the Foreign Office to help generate cartoons, postcards, and other propaganda suitable for a Middle Eastern audience. The cartoon has been drawn in the style of a classic Persian miniature painting and the scene is inspired by Ferdowsi’s ancient epic poem, the Shahnameh. Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt appear as hero warriors on horseback and all three are amusingly dressed in kaftans and dervish hats. In the foreground, Hitler has been drawn as the Persian mythical tyrant Zahhāk, identifiable by the two snakes growing from his shoulders. The Nazi leader is chained and bound over a horse that is being led away by the Persian folk hero, Kaveh the Blacksmith. The two serpents seem to resemble Mussolini and Tojo, whilst Goebbels also features as a devil who is being unceremoniously dragged behind the horse. By utilising this folk legend, the cartoon sought to win over public opinion in Iran following the Anglo-Russian occupation of swathes of the country. This was done in 1941 in order to create a safe supply route to the Soviet Union.
I was a little bit surprised the exhibition only had one cartoon by David Low, who was arguably the most well-known cartoonist in Britain during the Second World War. Nonetheless, a quote by Low does appear on the wall, which reads: ‘Churchill is the most striking and drawable personality in British public life.’ With his trademark cigar, bowtie, V-sign and bulldog-like expression, Churchill certainly gave artists a lot to play with and must have been a pleasure to draw. This fascinating exhibition runs until 22 Feb 2025 and is well worth a visit.
Further Reading:
Jonathan Black (2017) Winston Churchill in British Art, 1900 to the Present Day: The Titan of Many Faces
Melvyn Bragg (2012) Shahnameh of Ferdowsi: In Our Time, BBC Radio 4 programme
Hamid Dabashi (2019) The Shahnameh: The Persian Epic as World Literature
Joseph Darracott (1989) A Cartoon War: World War Two in Cartoons
Rupert Furneaux (1963) Massacre at Amritsar
Mohammad Gholi Majid (2012) August 1941: The Anglo-Russian occupation of Iran
Richard Overy (2013) The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945
Yuki Tanaka (1996) Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II
British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent (Online): https://www.kent.ac.uk/library-it/special-collections/british-cartoon-archive