1940.08.15 “Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!”
by Keith Temple (1899 -1980)
11.5 x 15.5 in., crayon and ink on board
Coppola Collection
Keith Temple (1899-1980). An Australian, Temple volunteered at age 17 to serve with the Australian Imperial Forces during World War I. Temple’s brother was killed in the war and Temple himself was wounded. After his discharge, Temple decided to travel around the world. While visiting the United States in 1919, Temple ended up in a New Orleans hospital due to complications from his World War I wound. After his release from this costly hospital stay, Temple had to seek work. He spent 47 years working as a lawyer in New Orleans, including the 40 years he was the editorial cartoonist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
A fifth column is a group of people who undermine a larger group or nation from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or another nation. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces gathered in secret can mobilize openly to assist an external attack. The term is also applied to organized actions by military personnel. Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of sabotage, disinformation, espionage or terrorism executed within defense lines by secret sympathizers with an external force.
The exact origins of the term are not clear. Its first known appearance is in a secret telegram dated 30 September 1936, that was sent to Berlin by the German charge d'affaires in Alicante, Hans Hermann Volckers. In the telegram, he referred to an unidentified "supposed statement by Franco" that "is being circulated" that Franco had claimed that there were four Nationalist columns approaching Madrid, and a fifth column waiting to attack from the inside.
The notion of a fifth column caught the popular imagination of the public across Europe at the start of the WW2, especially when people were faced with the rapid occupation of Norway and Denmark by the Nazis, and then the collapse of Belgium, France and the Netherlands. The fear of betrayal was heightened by the rapid fall of France in 1940, which some blamed on internal weakness and a pro-German fifth column. In August 1940, The New York Times mentioned "the first spasm of fear engendered by the success of fifth columns in less fortunate countries".
The criticism of America as a bunch of fifth column, isolationist dopes, ignoring the war as Hitler consumed Europe, is an even more direct and graphic commentary than you usually see. I liked this cartoon quite a bit.
