Britain
Bruce Bairnsfather
1887–1959 Cartoonist of 'Old Bill'
Bruce Bairnsfather was a British officer who served at Ypres and Ploegsteert, was wounded, and sketched the life of the trenches on dugout walls. His cartoons of 'Old Bill', a walrus-mustached, long-suffering veteran, appeared in The Bystander from 1915 and were collected in the Fragments from France volumes, which sold in the hundreds of thousands. The caption 'Well, if you knows of a better 'ole, go to it' became a national catchphrase and the title of a hit play. Soldiers loved him because he showed the war as they knew it, with its mud, tedium and absurdity, and managed to be funny without being unpatriotic.