JF Ptak Science Books Post 2734
I have posted numerous times on German propaganda pamphlets illustrated with maps showing Germany besieged (1925-1935): hordes of planes, hundreds of thousands of troops, legions of tanks, mountains of artillery pieces, and so on, all graphically displayed quite well enough to strike some fear into the heart of a reader even with just a casual glance seeing their red-hot rolling menace to the Fatherland. (To see some of those posts, just search "German propaganda" in the google box at right.)
It seems to me that I have seen dozens of such illustrations of maps showing Germany surrounded, graphs of military capacity, data visualizations of naval strength, men under arms, and so forth, showing the imminent demise of the spent, Versailled, and used-up but potentially recovering Germany.
During that time I'm hard pressed to recall one example of these displays for Great Britain, though I think there was a map in the mid-1930's in the Illustrated London News that showed the history and possible future invasion routes the island. Perhaps I've just missed these displays, as I don't actually pursue this as an interest though because of my work I have a lot of exposure to such stuff and am well situated to take advantage of a chance find--and this is what happened today, with the following map happily appeared in my hands as if by magic:
The map appears in the May 1929 issue of Popular Mechanics, tailing out an article on the possibilities and the complaints of constructing a channel tunnel. For some reason this bird's-eye view is included with the article though appears to be utterly unrelated except that it does involve the English Channel. (The article points out another sort of invasion, the tunnel having the potential to admit any number of "more or less undesirable people, who would introduce foreign customs,. deface the countryside and otherwise corrupt English habits of living".)
And so, behold! The potential enemies of Great Britain, 1929. It might be conceivable that it is France and France alone setting up those "long-range guns", what with the long history between the two countries and all, though it seems as recent allies this would not be the case. The enemy could be the feared invasion of visitors from the Continent coming through a tunnel that was far from being an actual project. Or it could he someone else advancing through France to the coast to threaten the Brits, Calais being the closest point bewtween he two countries across the channel, and the spot where much of the German high command (excluding Rommel) thought that the D-Day invasion would come, even after the invasion had begun. Unfortunately we don't know what the purpose of this drawing was...except that it would come close to being true in another 11 years.
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