Abstract
The defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War led to the province of Alsace and the northern part of Lorraine being incorporated into the German Empire in 1871. The newly drawn international boundary divided families and communities and challenged long-established spatial loyalties and senses of belonging. It rendered what had simply been ‘north-eastern France’ into ‘enemy territory’ until the end of World War I. During this half century, surveyors and map-makers working for either the French or the German government produced stylistically similar maps of this disputed region, which the French continued to include in their diagrammatic national ‘Hexagon’, and Germany strove to demonstrate was part of their cultural realm. Less formal maps were also drawn, and it is with these unconventional representations that historian Catherine Tatiana Dunlop is particularly concerned. Savants undertook ingenious enquiries into language use and dialects and mapped their results to justify or to challenge the precise line of the new international boundary. Village communities published detailed plans of settlements and their surrounding farmlands to reinforce notions of Heimat and la petite patrie. Only modified place names and subtly revised cartouches reveal whether such maps came from French or from German presses. Priests and schoolteachers devised other kinds of special map, sometimes accompanied by drawings of local costumes, to emphasise national belonging. They also wrote stories for various age groups in order to instil issues of ‘correct’ identity among pupils and parishioners. The Vosges mountains, largely in German hands between 1871 and the end of World War I, were depicted in innovative ways on German-language maps to assist hikers and naturalists in their exploration of this upland environment at weekends and during holidays. A case study of how ‘Strassburg’ was represented and partially rebuilt during the half century of German rule concludes the book.
Cartophilia is a thoroughly researched, elegantly written and beautifully illustrated investigation of the cartographic depiction of this contested part of Europe. Its emphasis on ‘popular’ or unofficial map-makers is especially new. The book is both a work of history and geography, with history being given precedence. The Tableau de la géographie de France (1903) by Paul Vidal de la Blache is cited, but no mention is made of his La France de l’Est: Lorraine-Alsace (1917), his articles on population change after 1871 across this problematic territory or of relevant essays by other geographers in early issues of the Annales de Géographie. At times, the author focuses almost exclusively on Alsace, with northern Lorraine being given short shrift. Thus, the city of Metz, partially rebuilt by the Germans, receives scarcely a mention in contrast with the attention lavished on ‘Strassburg’. These imbalances are compensated by the sheer volume of remarkable scholarship that has gone into the making of Cartophilia and by the scrupulous use of visual and written sources lodged not only in the rich archives and libraries of Strasbourg but also in other cities of France and Germany. Author and publisher alike are to be congratulated for the appearance of this handsome, challenging and path-breaking book that is adorned with 16 colour plates and 70 halftones.