Mapping, Battlefield Guidebooks, and Remembering the Great War

Abstract

Though battlefield tourism dates at least to the Battle of Waterloo, the few years after the First World War brought tourists and pilgrims to battlefield sites and cemeteries in unprecedented numbers. Guidebooks to the Western Front appeared in similarly unprecedented numbers, chiefly for British Commonwealth, American, and French readers. Foremost among them were those published by Michelin, which were distinctive from their competitors in their commitment to the private automobile as a means for touring the front. Michelin battlefields guidebooks combined historical narratives of campaigns; dramatic photographs of towns and landscapes during and after the war; and narrative battlefield tours, panoramas, and maps. The itineraries demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of the advantages automobility afforded tourists in the comprehension of battlefield topography, tactics, and chronology. Characterizing battlefield tourism as a form of pilgrimage, they were minimally commercial in approach but patriotic in tone. As such, they were suitable counterparts to the battlefield monuments and cemeteries memorializing the conflict, then under construction. At the same time, the guides and their maps illustrated the ironic ease with which the motor tourists who used these guidebooks could traverse territory so recently mired in bitter conflict notorious for its immobility cannot be overlooked. Michelin’s battlefield guides marked the emergence of an automobile tourism and mapping that emphasized both free-ranging exploration of the countryside and national patriotic education.