The "Peace Dove" of the Entente (January 1917)

On January 22, 1917, American president Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) gave a speech before the Senate in which he proposed a “peace without victory” under American auspices. According to the proposal, all belligerent states would have to abandon annexationist ambitions. In his January 29 response, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg expressed a general willingness to take up negotiations, but, under pressure from the Supreme Army Command, he nonetheless continued to make territorial demands.

This caricature was originally published in the January 1917 issue of the satirical journal Kladderadatsch. The “peace dove” of the Entente is portrayed as a vulture carrying a map of Europe showing the areas to be "severed from the German Reich."

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Source: Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Kladderadatsch (1848-1944) - digital. No. 4, January 28, 1917.