Dropping the Pilot

A political cartoon by the British illustrator John Tenniel, published in the magazine Punch on 29 March 1890. It shows the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, drawn as a ship's pilot, climbing down a rope ladder from a ship while the young Kaiser Wilhelm II watches indifferently from the deck above, ten days after Bismarck's resignation amid disputes with the Kaiser. The cartoon became especially well known in Germany under the title Der Lotse geht von Bord and was later reprinted for Bismarck himself at the request of the Earl of Rosebery; its central image has since been reused repeatedly by other cartoonists to depict the fall of powerful leaders. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/