WorldViews. The World in Textbooks

Source

Bibliographic data

Murakawa, Kengo: Shichitei Chuto Seiyoshi. Houbunsha, 15., überarbeitete Aufl. ed., 1924, 259.

European Economy in Tatters

The illustration presented above was published in the 1921 Summer edition of the German magazine Der Wahre Jacob. Titled the Allies, it satirizes the inability to form coherent decisions on the part of the victorious nations in the First World War. The cartoon depicts a French woman willing to take up arms to get reparations from the Germans, while the Americans, British, and Italians try to stop her. The plate below, from the May 1921 edition of the British Star, lampoons such efforts through a depiction of a horse trying to clear an insurmountable number of hurdles, a clear reference to the intractable position of Germany of having to pay out massive sums of money in reparations.

Murakawa, Kengo

The history textbook was designed for the use at upper secondary level in Japan.

Houbunsha

[p. 259]

Legend:

Illustration above: Allied Powers France tried on its own to pressure Germany into paying reparations, and the other allied nations tried to hold France back. (A German comic lambasting the lack of consensus among the Allied nations).

Illustration below: A horserace with obstacles a cartoon published in London’s The Star in May of 1921, when Germany agreed to war reparations. There were widespread doubts from the beginning as to whether Germany, which was working towards industrial recovery, would fulfill its promise or not. As many predicted, Germany demanded a moratorium.

Translation:
Kondo, Takahiro
Terada, Yoshitaka
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