Description

This scarce separately issued map, executed on an unusual, somewhat trapezoidal projection, illustrates a strategically critical swath of territory running from the Balkans cross to the eastern frontiers of China.  It was drafted by Germany’s pre-eminent cartographer, August Petermann, and published by the famed Justus Perthes cartographic house, in 1877 to illustrate the theatres of the last major events of the ‘The Great Game’, the epic decades long contest between Russia and Britain for domination of the heart of Asia.

The finely engraved map extends from Bosnia, in the northwest, through the Balkans, Anatolia and the Middle East over across Persia and Central Asia to the frontiers of China and India.  The Russian Empire, outlined in green, extends across the top of the entire scene, bordering the lands of the Ottoman Empire (outlined in pink); Persia (blue); Afghanistan (the perennial ‘buffer state’, yellow); while British India is outlined in pink.  Insets in the lower part detail Egypt’s Nile Delta and the strategically vital Suez Canal, and Crete, long a much fought-over island.

For most of the 19^th Century, a political fault line ran horizontally through Asia, from Istanbul, though the Caucuses, the heart of the continent and then into the Himalayas.  These regions were locked in ‘The Great Game’, a three generation-long contest between Russia and Britain for dominance over the heart of Asia.  Called the ‘Tournament of Shadows’ by the Russians, this generally Cold War, which commenced in the wake of Napoleon’s demise, saw the Russians gain ever more territory by conquest in the Caucuses and Central Asia.  Meanwhile, Britain consolidated its hold over the Indian Subcontinent, extending its domains into the Himalayas, ever closer to Russian dominated lands.  This rivalry exacerbated ancient tensions, between the Russians and the Ottomans and the Russians and the Persians, which the British manipulated to its advantage, while the British and Russians fought numerous proxy wars and side campaigns, while mounting daring intelligence operations.  All of the lands along the fault line saw their affairs interlocked, almost in the manner of tectonic plates.

The present map was drafted by Petermann and published by Perthes in 1877, amidst the last major events of the Great Game.  In 1873, Russia made crucial territorial gains in Central Asia, conquering the Khanate of Khiva, placing added pressure on Britain.  During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8 (April 24, 1877 – March 3, 1878), Russia, allied with Slavic entities in the Balkans, moved against the Ottomans, causing the Turkish lines in Europe and the Caucuses to collapse.  The Ottomans lost much of their territories in the Balkans and parts of north-eastern Anatolia, although the Sublime Porte would have collapsed entirely if Britain did not diplomatically intervene to dissuade the Russians from taking Istanbul.

To protect India, Britain invaded and conquered Afghanistan during the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-80), creating a useful buffer state against Russia.  Britain also exploited the weakness of the Ottoman Empire, its nominal ally, by taking as protectorates Cyprus (1878) and Egypt (1882).

The Anglo-Russian rivalry continued to dominate Asian geopolitics until the 1890s, whereupon both London and St. Petersburg came to consider Germany to be a greater mutual threat, leading to a rapprochement between the empires leading up to World War I.

The map was issued in two states.  One, like the present example, was intended for regular subscribers to Perthes’ maps, and features a pastedown title label on the verso, but no commercial add-ons.  The other was a ‘cheap’ commercial state, the same as the former, save that it features publisher’s advertisements and sometimes dealers’ stamps.

August Petermann (1822-78) was one of the leading cartographers in the world during his era. He studied under the great Heinrich Berghaus and from 1845 to 1854 he gained invaluable experience working in London and Edinburgh.  He then returned to Germany, assuming a leading role at the Perthes Geographic Institute in Gotha, which founded in 1772, was the most prestigious commercial cartographic house in Continental Europe.  In 1855, Petermann founded the journal that became Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen, considered by many to be the world’s most advanced academic geographic periodical, responsible for debuting great explorers’ discoveries and publishing ground-breaking maps of all areas of the globe.  Petermann also drafted a vast corpus of separate maps, as well as contributing to innumerable atlases and books.  His legacy long-survived him after his untimely death only a matter of months after he created the present map.

References: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, GE C-10595.