r/PropagandaPosters

The girls' bandaged arms allude to the accusation (to my understanding, unproven) that German soldiers cut off children's hands. The text implies that they did it on the orders of an officer. (And honestly, until I realized that's what was being referenced here, my thoughts were initially much darker!)

The Germans absolutely committed war crimes during the "Rape of Belgium," but historians seem to agree that there was no systematic cutting off of hands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aEg8ku7ZP0

Right to left, the text reads: curing epidemics, providing Zen Buddhism, rescuing from poverty, halting thieves, identifying dissidents

This cartoon was published in the American magazine Judge on June 11, 1898, by the artist Victor Gillam; it depicts the alliance and geopolitical rapprochement (the "Great Rapprochement") between the United States and the British Empire.

Historical and Artistic Significance
The Great Rapprochement describes a fundamental shift in the relationship between Great Britain and the United States in the late Nineteenth Century. In general, the social and political objectives of the two nations converged, while both recognized their shared history and democratic institutions. Significant changes in the both countries made the Great Rapprochement mutually beneficial as well. Great Britain came to value the United States as a democratic ally at a time when the balance of power in Europe was impacted by the rise of autocracies in Russia and Germany. The relationship would become even more important as the Boar Wars revealed the overextension of British power, and the Boxer Rebellion in China threatened to further complicate the balance of power in Europe. Changes in the United States also made the new relationship possible. The United States emerged from the Civil War as an industrial nation. As a result of the Spanish-American War, the nation became an imperial power, with new possessions in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and centuries of Anglophobia declined. As the United States began to experience difficulties governing her new "possessions," American cartoonists made the connection between Uncle Sam's problems and John Bull's problems in South Africa. Essentially, in a complex world of rising and declining powers, the two nations put aside their trouble history and instead came to appreciate their common goals and interests. Both nations had both male and female caricatures. Great Britain has John Bull and Brittania, while the United States was represented by Uncle Sam and Columbia. Images of rapprochement often used these caricatures.