Sapajou - 2

Warlords were judged primarily by the degree to which they were regarded as friendly or hostile to foreign (that is, Shanghai) interests. Wu Peifu was the favourite of the British. He was well disposed, had at least some of the attributes of the traditional Chinese gentleman with whom the British felt an instinctive affinity, and brooked no nonsense from Communists or organised labour (Figure 8). Long after he had ceased to be a serious contender for national leadership, he was still respected (not only by the British) for his integrity in refusing to yield to Japanese blandishments to serve as a puppet (Figure 9). No other warlord appears in so consistently positive a light in Sapajou's cartoons, and those such as Feng Yuxiang 冯玉详 who dared to challenge foreign interests were generally negatively portrayed - although where the latter is concerned one cartoon invites the viewer to enjoy a bit of Schadenfreude at the expense of the Soviets, who did not seem to be getting a very good return for their investment in "the Christian Warlord" (Figure 10).

At times warlord conflicts could impinge directly on the security of Shanghai, such as during the Jiangsu-Zhejiang conflict of 1924, and the forces at the disposal of the French and International Settlements had to be mobilised, but generally the fighting was not taken particularly seriously (Figure 11). Occasionally foreign interest could be heightened by the presence of White Russian troops amongst the Chinese forces operating in the vicinity of Shanghai, for example those who arrived at the Shanghai North Station on 28 January 1925, as part of Zhang Zuolin's 张作霖 Fengtian vanguard (Figure 12), or the Russian regiments of the dreadful - but anti-Red - Zhang Zongchang 张宗昌.

The not wholly discreditable preference of many Chinese generals to settle their differences through threatening telegrams and bombastic manifestos rather than through serious fighting was predictably made the object of Sapajou's wit (Figures 13 and 14). Equally apparent, though, is the sheer confusion of this troubled age, at times reflected with exasperation, but at others with "oriental" detachment (Figure 15). Politics apart, Sapajou's many drawings of ordinary Chinese soldiers, taken from life in the course of his frequent visits to the lines, display a very real sympathy for them at the human level, as well as providing us with marvellous vignettes of the military life that was sadly all too much a feature of the China that Sapajou knew so well (Figures 16 and 17).