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Sleepless

Sleepless

Cartoon drawings come to life to haunt the German Emperor in a witty piece of WWI propaganda.

After events such as the bombardment of historic Rheims and its cathedral, the German Emperor was haunted by bad 'dRheims' and insomnia - according to this witty satire by artist and illustrator Lancelot Speed. Speed cunningly supplements his skilled draughtsmanship with stop-motion animation and other camera effects, plus some inventive humour, to draw out the maximum propaganda value.

Lancelot Speed executes a number of sketches which are then animated, depicting a sleepless Kaiser Wilhelm as Attila, an army trumpeter and a red cross nurse with a gun.

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From the collection

The First World War: Drawing the Enemy

Britain's cartoonists take up their brushes to confront the Kaiser and his armies.


As the First World War raged across Europe, Britain's animators dedicated themselves to the propaganda effort. These determined artists, among them Lancelot Speed, Dudley Buxton, GW Studdy and Anson Dyer, unleashed an arsenal of tricks with one objective - making the enemy look ridiculous, and victory seem inevitable. 

In cartoon after cartoon, lightning sketch after lightning sketch, the elaborately-moustached 'Kaiser Bill' was subjected to a catalogue of indignities, whether at the hands of 'Tommy', 'John Bull' and their allies, or just falling victim to his own hubris.

15 videos in this collection

Was the root of Kaiser Wilhelm II's power his 'Imperial Moustache'?
1

His Birthday Present

  • 1915
Skilled artist Lancelot Speed brings his cartoons to life to mock the German navy at the start of WWI.
2

Sea Dreams

  • 1914
3

Sleepless

  • 1914
A star-spangled sock on the nose for Kaiser Wilhelm, as this wordplay propaganda cartoon meets war crimes with pun-ishment
4

Peter's Picture Poems

  • 1917
An animated recreation of the sinking of the Lusitania is the centrepiece of this pioneering mix of comedy, satire and outrage in cartoon propaganda.
5

John Bull's Animated Sketchbook No. 4

  • 1915
This WWI cartoon rouses the British lion, bringing to life the December 1914 German Naval raid on Scarborough with visual flourishes.
6

John Bull's Sketch Book

  • Scarborough
  • 1915
The hand of the artist tweaks the nose of “Kaiser Bill” and friends in this episode from an early animated propaganda series
7

John Bull's Animated Sketch Book

  • 1916
Lightning sketch propaganda stirs outrage about Reims bombing, and features a British bulldog eating the German sausage
8

Bully Boy

  • 1914
Follow the lightning-quick hand of the artist behind a series of comic cartoon sketches poking fun at the enemy during WWI.
9

Anti-German War Cartoons

  • 1915
More chalk-talker than pencil-pusher, this popular artist recreates his cartoons for the screen with flashes of added animation.
10

A Pencil and Alick P.F. Ritchie

  • 1915
A cartoonist sketches out the grim stalemate of WWI through the metaphor of football.
11

First World War Cartoon - Joffre

  • 1915
Animated WWI-era comic highlights from the innovative cartoonist George Studdy, creator of Bonzo the dog.
12

Studdy's War Cartoons Compilation Film

  • 1915
13

Tom Merry, Lightning Cartoonist, Sketching Kaiser Wilhelm II

  • 1895
Anson Dyer imagines the characters behind newspaper adverts and brings them to life in this Kine Komedy Kartoon
14

Agitated Adverts

  • 1917
Mixing lightning sketches with animation, this propaganda cartoon comes to life in defence of the British fighting force of 1914.
15

General French's Contemptible Little Army

  • 1914
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