Abstract
When considering how the British viewed and depicted Germany in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it seems appropriate to begin with an examination of their image of the land itself: the shape of its coast-line, extent of its borders, the position of its cities and rivers. Cartography allowed the Britons of the period to gain an immediate picture of the essential physical nature of any state — not merely Germany — by imagining its appearance on the page. And just as other visual sources can further inform the historian as to the prevailing attitudes of Britons towards Germany and the Germans, it is possible also to read maps in this way. Keith Robbins among others has acknowledged that ‘every map has a message, implicit or explicit’, and that as in the writing of a history or novel, in the science of cartography there is just as much ‘need to tell a story’2 The quotation at the head of this section exemplifies well the starting-point from which many Britons approached an understanding of their German cousins; although as we shall see, it presents a somewhat simplistic interpretation of the available cartographic evidence for dramatic, literary effect.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Note
E. Childers, The Riddle of the Sands, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1999, p. 80.
J. Black, Visions of the World – A History of Maps, London: Mitchell Beazley, 2003, p. 120.
K. Robbins, Nineteenth Century Britain, Oxford: Clarendon, 1988, pp. 12–14.
Key examples of the literature include J. F. Ade Ajayai and M. Crowder (eds), An Historical Atlas of Africa, Harlow: Longman, 1985;
D. Atkinson, ‘Geopolitics, cartography and geographical knowledge: envisioning Africa from Fascist Italy’, in M. Bell, R. Butlin and M. Heffernan (eds), Geography and Imperialism, 1820–1940, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995, pp. 265–97;
J. Black, Maps and Politics, London; Reaktion, 1997;
J. Brotton, Trading Territories: Mapping in the Early-Modern World, London: Reaktion, 1997;
D. Buisseret (ed.), Monarchs, Ministers and Maps: the Emergence of Cartography as a tool of Government in Early Modern Europe, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992;
M. H. Edney, Mapping an Empire: the geographical construction of British India, 1765–1843, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997;
J. B. Harley, The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography, P. Laxton (ed.), Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001;
L. Jardine, Worldly Goods: a New History of the Renaissance, London: Macmillan, 1996;
R. J. P. Kain and E. Baigent, The Cadastral Map in the Service of the State: A History of Property Mapping, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992;
J. W. Konvitz, Cartography in France, 1660–1848: Science, Engineering and Statecraft, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987;
R. S. Pekham, ‘Map mania: nationalism and the politics of place in Greece, 1870–1922’, Political Geography, Volume 19, Number 1, January 2000, pp. 77–95;
K. Piper, Cartographic Fictions: Maps, Race and Identity, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002.
R. J. Scully, ‘“North Sea or German Ocean”? The Anglo-German Cartographic Freemasonry, 1842–1914’, Imago Mundi, Volume 62, Part 1, 2010, pp. 46–62; M. Heffernan, ‘The Politics of the Map in the Early Twentieth Century’, Cartography and Geographic Information Science, Volume 29, Number 3, July 2002, pp. 207–26. L. Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.
Black, Maps and Politics, p. 12 and following; D. Turnbull, Maps are Territories: Science is an Atlas, Geelong: Deakin University Press, 1989, p. 7; J. Noble Wilford, The Mapmakers, London: Pimlico, 2002, p. 93.
Black, Maps and Politics, p. 18; D. Wood, The Power of Maps, New York: Guildford Press, 1992, pp. 95 and following.
Turnbull, Maps are Territories, p. 7; Black, Maps and Politics, pp. 32–6; M. Monmonier, How to Lie with Maps, 2nd edn, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996, pp. 96–7; Noble Wilford, The Mapmakers, pp. 101–2; M. Monmonier, Rhumb Lines and Map Wars: A Social History of the Mercator Projection, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
A. Butler Greenfield, A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage and the Quest for the Colour of Desire, London: Black Swan, 2006, pp. 11–15; Monmonier, How to Lie with Maps, p. 170; ‘Europe from Moscow’, Time Magazine, 10 March, 1952, p. 18.
R. I. Moore (ed.), Philips’ Atlas of World History, London: Philips’, 1981, pp. 152–3, 156–7.
Black, Maps and History, p. 52. Also J. M. Mackenzie (ed.), The Victorian Vision: Inventing New Britain, London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2001, pp. 241–2; The Times Atlas, London: The Times, 1895, Maps 7–8 (Figure 1.0); ‘Imperial Federation Map of the World’, foldout supplement to The Graphic, 24 July 1886 (Fig. 1.1).
J. Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2002, p. 25; G. A. Smith, Letter to J.G. Bartholomew, 17 April 1912, NLS Acc. 10222, No.102; also J. G. Bartholomew, handwritten notes in journal of voyage to Australia, 1882, NLS Acc. 10222, No. 120.
E. M. Forster, Howards End, London: Penguin, 2000, p. 196. That red is no longer so obviously a British imperial colour is evident from Robert Hampson’s need for an explanatory note in the Penguin edition of Heart of Darkness (p. 131).
C. Grant Robertson and J. G. Bartholomew, Historical and Modern Atlas of the British Empire, London: Bartholomew and Sons, 1905, Preface. Also see J. Black, ‘Mapping the Past’, in ORBIS (electronic copy), Spring 2003 at http://www.fpri.org/orbis/4702/black.mappingpast.html, accessed 7 October, 2004. Also Monmonier, How to Lie with Maps, p. 96.
On ‘exclusion from Germany’, see H. Holborn, A History of Modern Germany, 1840–1845, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982, pp. 180, 188; Kitchen, A History of Modern Germany, p. 111; E. Feuchtwanger, Imperial Germany, 1850–1918, London: Routledge, 2001, p. 42.
K. von Metternich, Letter to Count Prokesch Osten, 11 November, 1849; A. K. Johnston, Royal Atlas of Modern Geography, with a Special Index to Each Map, A. K. Johnston and Co.: London, 1861, Map 1 and 2; A. and C. Black, Black’s General Atlas of the World, Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1862, p. 12 and Map 8.
Hand-coloured map of Europe by Princess Victoria, c.1830, in S. Schama, A History of Britain Vol.III – The Fate of Empire, 1776–2000, London: BBC Worldwide, 2002, p. 154.
Black, Visions of the World, p. 122; Emannuel, Comte de las Cases [alias A. Le Sage], Atlas Historique, Généalogique, Chronologique et Géographique, Paris: [n.p.], 1802, p. 21 (subsequent editions showed Napoleon’s campaigns in addition to those of Wallenstein and Adolphus); K. Spruner, Historisch-geographischer handat-las, 3 Volumes, Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1837–1846; J. Thomson, New Classical and Historical Atlas, Edinburgh: John Thomson, 1829. Also W. Goffart, Historical Atlases: the First Three Hundred Years; 1570–1870, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003, especially pp. 310–449; J. Black, Maps and History, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997, especially pp. 44–63.
A. K. Johnston, Royal Atlas of Modern Geography, London: W. and A. K. Johnston and Co., 1861, Map 3.
A. K. Johnston, Royal Atlas of Modern Geography, London: W. and A. K. Johnston and Co., 1864, Map 3.
Johnston, Royal Atlas, 1864, Map 3.
T. Cussans, Philip Parker, Barry Winkelman, Cicely Oliver & Jane Cheverton (eds), The Times Atlas of European History, 2nd edn, London: Times Books, 1998, pp. 156–63.
A. K. Johnston, Royal Atlas of Modern geography, London: W. and A. K. Johnston and Co., 1871, Map 17.
Johnston, Royal Atlas, 1871, Map 17; Johnston, Royal Atlas, 1864, Map 17.
K. A. P. Sandiford, Great Britain and the Schleswig-Holstein Question, 1848–64, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975, pp. 56–83; Johnston, Royal Atlas, 1864, Map 17.
Johnston, Royal Atlas, 1864, Map 18.
Johnston, Royal Atlas, 1864, Map 19.
A. and C. Black, Black’s General Atlas of the World, Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1873, p. 15.
B. Holden Reid, The Civil War and the Wars of the 19th Century, London: Cassell, 2002, pp. 195–6.
Johnston, Royal Atlas, 1871, Map 17; Also: J. Blackie, Comprehensive Atlas and Geography of the World, London: Blackie and Sons, 1883, Maps 16–17.
A. K. Johnston, Royal Atlas of Modern Geography, London: W. and A. K. Johnston and Co., 1903, Map 17.
G. Philip, Readers’ Reference Atlas of the World, London: George Philip and Son, 1911, Plate 16.
J. G. Bartholomew (ed.), Handy Reference Atlas of the World, Edinburgh: Bartholomew and Sons, 1912, Plates 22, 22b.
A. K. Johnston, Victoria Regina Atlas, London: Johnston and Co., 1902, Maps 68–69.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2012 Richard Scully
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Scully, R. (2012). From Geographical Expression to German Empire. In: British Images of Germany. Britain and the World. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137283467_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137283467_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-33715-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-28346-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)