Here we see a Europe dominated in the East by the overbearing presence of a wild vodka-swilling Russian peasant, in harness to an ever-ferocious Russian Bear, with the symbols of tyranny and political insecurity all around. In Germany, the symbolic figure of the Deutsche Michel has donned his pickelhauber over his traditional tasselled night cap or Michelsmütze. France, ever the soldier defending his Western frontiers, the long-symbolic French cockerel at his side, holds back the German advance from the East. Italy takes shelter in his boot and awaits developments. The wounded Turk, still suffering the effects of the Balkan war, reclines in Asia Minor, ready to light the powder keg of war along Russia’s vulnerable Crimean underbelly. In the British Isles, a tall and seemingly frail John Bull supported by his ever-present bulldog, faces the emergent military and naval might of Germany (represented by an armour-clad fist which strikes at his face from beneath the depths of the North Sea) and is troubled by his Indian and Irish colonies which are trying to break loose from their colonial bonds, as John Bull seeks to safeguard his commercial superiority and long-established imperial wealth (represented by sacks of gold piled around his feet).