This film is part of Free

Bully Boy

Lightning sketch propaganda stirs outrage about Reims bombing, and features a British bulldog eating the German sausage

Animation & Artists Moving Image 1914 6 mins Silent

Overview

The bombing of Reims Cathedral in the early months of WWI was perfect propaganda material for the Allied Powers: here, the appropriately named illustrator Lancelot Speed rattles off lightning sketches of Kaiser 'Bully Boy' Wilhelm and the Gothic edifice. The action then picks up as - with the aid of cotton wool and scissors - the building tumbles.

In what was the first of four Bully Boy films by Speed, things then take a little turn for the weird. The Kaiser morphs into a sausage which is cooked under the watchful gaze of Lord Kitchener, before the British bulldog appears to wolf it down. Britons, Lord Kitchener wants you to eat sausages! God save the King.