The Forges of War Destroyed: Allied European Rulers, 1706

This Dutch broadside, printed during the War of Spanish Succession, combines allegorical verse with satirical narrative to mock France's military ambitions. The text describes allied European monarchs smashing the "Forges of War"—a metaphor for French power—reducing the nation's capacity to wage conflict. Characteristic of early 18th-century political broadsheets, the work uses anthropomorphized nations and martial symbolism to mock an enemy state. Such prints circulated widely among literate audiences, blending poetry, commentary, and visual mockery to influence public opinion. This tradition of topical satire through printed text and image established conventions later refined by Gillray and Rowlandson, ultimately feeding into the sequential narrative and caricature vocabulary of modern comic art.