This cartoon depicts a meeting between Turkey, Bulgaria, Austria, Russia, and Germany. Germany stands at the head of the table. All the countries present are part of the Central Powers with the exception of Russia. The Central Powers are countries that fought against the Allied Powers or supportive of the Allied Powers (England, France, Italy, the United States, etc.) in World War I. World War I began July 28, 1914, a few months before this cartoon was drawn.
These countries are having a meeting about declaring an armistice to end fighting in WWI. The Central Powers wanted the terms of the armistice to be the countries of Europe would return to their original states before the war began. This was seen as unacceptable to the Allied Powers, due to the immense loss of life and unacceptable behavior of the Central Powers in starting WWI. All the empty seats of the Allied Powers demonstrate their complete lack of willingness to negotiate the end of the war with the Central Powers on their terms. The Allies would eventually win World War I in 1918 and place harsh war reparations on the Central Powers, particularly Germany. (Summary created by Mary Delano, MU History Intern, Spring 2018)
Published in the Chicago Tribune on November 26, 1914.
"156" -- Handwritten on verso.
"Mr. Owen 342 Tribune Building" -- Handwritten on verso.
"November 26, 1914"--Handwritten on verso.
Pencil and ink on board.
Original in University of Missouri Special Collections, John Tinney McCutcheon Collection.
Digitized on September 2017. Equipment: Indus Color Book Scanner. Scanning software: bcs-2 version 3.4.9. Image specifications: 400 dpi, color. Access copies: tiffs with LZW compression, rotated and cropped.
Title from caption.
