“Babes on bayonets.”

In 1914, during World War I, the German army passed through neutral Belgium to attack France. Afterward, many U.S. newspapers and magazines featured pro-war cartoons depicting alleged German atrocities in Belgium, particularly the killing of innocent women and children. This cartoon appeared in a 1915 edition of the weekly humor magazine Life. The slaughter in Belgium did not actually occur; but by 1915 tens of thousands of Africans had died in the Belgian Congo, victims of Belgium’s ruthless exploitation of its colony’s resources.

Source: A. B. Walker, Life, 1915—American Social History Project.

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