Content note: Allegorical colour cartoon with skeletons, a bloodied corpse and a hanged figure, depicting French and British colonial violence. This object is shown as it was published. Why
The Modern Civilization of Europe: France in Morocco & England in Egypt (Cairo Punch supplement)
A special colour supplement to the Cairo Punch shows a French and a British soldier clinking champagne glasses across a field of skulls, with burning Casa Blanca on one side and the Denshway gallows on the other. Two selected episodes, Casablanca 1907 and Denshawai 1906, stand for the whole of 'modern civilization', and the toast is the tell.
- Date
- 1908
- Period
- Pre-1914
- Made by
- The Cairo Punch (al-Siyasa al-Musawwara), Cairo; artist and editor A. H. Zaki
- Region
- Middle East and North Africa
- Country
- Egypt
- Medium
- Issuer type
- Media
- Regime
- Khedivate of Egypt
- Leader
- Abbas II
- Audience
- Mixed
- Purpose
- Demonize
- Themes
- Empire and colonialism, War and the military
- Techniques
- Card stacking
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Library of Congress, retrieved September 29, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (published in Egypt 1908-1914, before 1931)
A. H. Zaki, special supplement to The Cairo Punch, Cairo, c. 1908-1914; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC2-1379
Text on the object
THE MODERN CIVILIZATION OF EUROPE FRANCE IN MOROCCO & ENGLANIN IN EGYPT CASA BLANCA الدار البيضاء فظاعة . ظلم . استبداد . MOROCCO مراكش DENSHWAY بلدة دنشواي EGYPT مصر [on the British soldier's helmet band:] JOHN BULL [small, partly legible] [small Arabic words on each soldier's tunic, illegible] SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT TO THE CAIRO PUNCH [Arabic line beside it: illegible] ذكرى دنشواي او مدنية اوربا الحديثة انجلترا في مصر وفرنسا في مراكش
THE MODERN CIVILIZATION OF EUROPE FRANCE IN MOROCCO & ENGLANIN [sic] IN EGYPT CASA BLANCA The White House (Arabic name of Casablanca) Atrocity. Injustice. Tyranny. MOROCCO Morocco DENSHWAY Town of Denshawai EGYPT Egypt [on the helmet band:] JOHN BULL SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT TO THE CAIRO PUNCH Memory of Denshawai, or the modern civilisation of Europe: England in Egypt and France in Morocco
Read from an enlarged 640 px image. The Arabic supplement line beside the English imprint and the tiny words on the tunics and helmet band are too small to read with confidence.
