*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.