Abstract
This caricature by Cham appeared in the French journal
Le Charivari in September 1866. Like
Daumier’s cartoon “The New Gulliver,” it expresses both French opinion
and anti-Prussian sentiment in southern Germany. A soldier wearing the
universal symbol of Prussian militarism, the spiked helmet
[Pickelhaube], tries to stitch
together the defeated German states of 1866 (Saxony, Hanover, Nassau,
and the Free City of Frankfurt am Main) into a new nation dominated by
Prussia. The caption reads: “It is one thing to know how to use a
needle.... But it’s a skill that should not be abused” [“Ce que c’est
pourtant que de savoir se servir d’une aiguille.... mais, c’est un
talent d’ont il ne faudrait pas abuser.”] Here, the cartoonist also
makes an oblique reference to the Prussian “needle gun,” the
breech-loading rifle that gave Prussian infantrymen greater firepower
than their Austrian opponents at the Battle of Königgrätz on July 3,
1866.