Albert Robida's 'La Vie Électrique' — Warfare Through the Ages, c.1890

Startlingly prescient for its era, this Robida illustration layers warfare across centuries in a single chaotic frame — a turbaned musketeer, Renaissance-armored swordsmen, and a medieval knight converge over a fallen soldier labeled 'Courage Militaire,' while an asphyxiating shell ('Obus Asphyxia') stands ominously nearby. Below, a cutaway reveals a mechanized underground artillery installation. Robida's satirical genius transforms military history into a blackly comic parade of violence made ever more efficient.