L'Entente Cordiale (1915)
Giant British spider devours French soldier in WWI German propaganda poster
This is a powerful poster by Eugen von Baumgarten reinforcing the German propaganda message that Great Britain's aggressive imperial ambitions were the principal cause of the war, and that she was dragging her misguided allies into the conflict to fight on her behalf.
The title refers to the Anglo-French alliance originally signed in 1904. It perhaps makes a pun of the French words corde (rope or twine) and cordiale (heartfelt), as the image portrays a giant British spider voraciously consuming a symbolic French soldier and spreading her legs and weaving an all-encircling web across the whole of Western Europe and the Mediterranean. Onlookers, including Uncle Sam, are fully entwined in the spider’s fine threads on the peripheries of the map. The Imperial German Eagle surveys the scene in the foreground, whilst German U-boats cut through the outermost strands of the web, a reference to the increasing impact of German submarine attacks on British shipping in 1915.
Title: L'Entente Cordiale 1915
Collection: Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection: 2097.01
Creator: Eugen von Baumgarten
Date: 1915
This is just a terrific post.