La Baïonnette: "Les salauds! Ils tirent dessus..."

This color lithograph from a French satirical magazine depicts two soldiers in a trench during World War I, observing enemy fire with alarm and indignation. The composition—soldiers in profile against a scarred landscape dotted with shell bursts—typifies how wartime periodicals mobilized visual satire to sustain morale and condemn the enemy.

The print descends directly from nineteenth-century caricature traditions established by Daumier and Gillray, adapting their sharp line-work and expressive distortion to contemporary military themes. Rather than the grotesque physiognomy of earlier political satire, this work emphasizes gesture and circumstance: the soldiers' outrage registers through posture and the caption's exclamation. The hand-colored lithographic process allowed rapid, affordable distribution—essential for propaganda during total war.