*The Dogs of War*

A heavy man in fur cap and boots braces himself against a pack of straining terriers, their collars lettered with the names of Balkan provinces, Servia, Bosnia, Herzegovina. Over a fence a helmeted John Bull leans in with a warning, and the caption gives him a flat London voice: take care, my man, it might be awkward if you was to let them loose. Tenniel drew it for Punch in 1876, as Russia eyed the crumbling Ottoman Balkans and Britain fretted about a wider war. His figures are stately, his line clean and monumental, the manner he would soon carry into his illustrations for Alice. Every actor is a labelled national type, the whole tangled Eastern Question boiled down to a man and his dogs, one week's news made memorable in a single frame.