0:00:08 > 0:00:14The British Library in London is home to a staggering 4.5 million maps.
0:00:16 > 0:00:20Mysterious and beautiful, these rarely seen treasures are much
0:00:20 > 0:00:24more than just two dimensional depictions of a physical world.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31Among its most quixotic, strange and colourful treasures
0:00:31 > 0:00:35are the world's first mass produced satirical maps,
0:00:35 > 0:00:40maps that used country boundaries to reinforce national stereotypes.
0:00:42 > 0:00:45The form of a country, the map of a country,
0:00:45 > 0:00:48can have an enormous emotive force.
0:00:50 > 0:00:53Visually striking, poking fun at the high and mighty,
0:00:53 > 0:00:57at countries and their leaders, these maps came from a time
0:00:57 > 0:01:00when nations were still working out who they were.
0:01:01 > 0:01:06People were asking, what does it mean to be British?
0:01:06 > 0:01:08What does it mean to be French?
0:01:08 > 0:01:11What does it mean to be German or Italian?
0:01:13 > 0:01:17These extraordinary maps did more than just poke fun.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20They made politics visual.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23They helped create national identity.
0:01:23 > 0:01:25And they ushered in a modern world
0:01:25 > 0:01:29where mass media and political spin went hand in hand.
0:01:48 > 0:01:54Europe in the 1870's was a place of political tension.
0:01:54 > 0:01:59Countries vied with one another for territory and influence.
0:01:59 > 0:02:02Nationalism was on the rise.
0:02:03 > 0:02:07Nationalism was a movement which grew out of the Napoleonic wars.
0:02:07 > 0:02:09The countries which had laboured
0:02:09 > 0:02:16under Napoleonic rule emerged from this period
0:02:16 > 0:02:24with a distinct desire to have an identity of their own.
0:02:24 > 0:02:26And to defend that identity.
0:02:30 > 0:02:35For Britain, it was the great era of maps.
0:02:35 > 0:02:40The Ordnance Survey was mapping the nation in almost microscopic detail.
0:02:40 > 0:02:44While the Empire and wars in Europe made maps indispensable
0:02:44 > 0:02:47for understanding Britain and its place in the world.
0:02:47 > 0:02:50By that time the shapes of Europe, in particular,
0:02:50 > 0:02:52were pretty well known.
0:02:52 > 0:02:57The 19th century had seen a huge explosion in map availability.
0:02:57 > 0:03:01Papers were full of maps, books were full of maps,
0:03:01 > 0:03:03atlases were getting published.
0:03:03 > 0:03:06The base of knowledge about the shape of our lands,
0:03:06 > 0:03:09and all the rest of it, was already there.
0:03:11 > 0:03:14One British Map maker, Frederick Rose,
0:03:14 > 0:03:17was determined to give that knowledge a whole new twist.
0:03:19 > 0:03:26In 1877, he made the first of the world's mass-produced satire maps.
0:03:26 > 0:03:31They impart opinion and information all at the same time,
0:03:31 > 0:03:36in a way that is visually very striking and quite beautiful.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38They are very much a product of their age.
0:03:38 > 0:03:42Rose was doing these maps at the zenith of the British Empire.
0:03:42 > 0:03:45And it shored up the Victorian sense
0:03:45 > 0:03:48of who we are and our place in the world.
0:03:50 > 0:03:56Entitled, A Serio-Comic Map Of Europe For The Year 1877,
0:03:56 > 0:04:00Rose's map captures a moment of anxiety for Europe.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03The so-called Eastern question,
0:04:03 > 0:04:08the fear of Russia, pictured as a giant octopus.
0:04:08 > 0:04:14The map was meant to inform, to entertain, and to shock.
0:04:14 > 0:04:15And it still does.
0:04:15 > 0:04:18We know exactly how people responded to it visually
0:04:18 > 0:04:22because people are continuing to respond to it visually.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25There's the case of the Russian academic recently,
0:04:25 > 0:04:30who was incandescent with rage at the fact that it had been reproduced
0:04:30 > 0:04:35because he felt that the use of an octopus to portray his country
0:04:35 > 0:04:39was a monstrous distortion of the true nature of his country.
0:04:39 > 0:04:45This map has been insulting people, and amusing people in equal measure,
0:04:45 > 0:04:47for the last 130 years.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53The tentacles of the Russian octopus stretch out
0:04:53 > 0:04:57over the much of the continent with an alarming and malign reach.
0:05:00 > 0:05:02So all of it links together in some way and, really,
0:05:02 > 0:05:05what you have are a series of interlinked narratives,
0:05:05 > 0:05:08linking up with each other right the way across.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11Moving over the whole is the Russian octopus,
0:05:11 > 0:05:14with tentacles going out in every direction.
0:05:14 > 0:05:18The idea of the octopus does seem to be Rose's own, as far as I know.
0:05:18 > 0:05:21I've seen earlier depictions of Russia as a bear
0:05:21 > 0:05:24or as a ravening wolf in caricature maps like this
0:05:24 > 0:05:26going back to the Crimean War.
0:05:26 > 0:05:32But as soon as you're looking at the detail and Rose's opinion
0:05:32 > 0:05:36of what's going on in various countries in Europe at the time,
0:05:36 > 0:05:37you're sucked right in.
0:05:40 > 0:05:43Rose uses the physical shape of each nation
0:05:43 > 0:05:45to create a cartoon stereotype.
0:05:48 > 0:05:54Here's a grumpy looking Ireland with 'home rule' on her mind.
0:05:54 > 0:05:56Italy is a young woman,
0:05:56 > 0:06:00because the nation had only been in existence for a few years.
0:06:00 > 0:06:04Germany is a fierce looking Prussian, armed to the teeth.
0:06:04 > 0:06:10Spain, indifferent to events in Europe, is asleep.
0:06:11 > 0:06:15But it's that grey menace of the octopus that dominates.
0:06:17 > 0:06:22This image gave, if you like, the opponents of Russia a focus.
0:06:22 > 0:06:24For instance, it's strangling Poland.
0:06:24 > 0:06:26Poland then formed part of Russia.
0:06:26 > 0:06:29It's in the process of strangling Bulgaria.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32And it was, in fact, the Russian invasion of Bulgaria
0:06:32 > 0:06:37that provoked the great crisis which very nearly led to a First World War
0:06:37 > 0:06:41something like 30 years before it actually occurred.
0:06:46 > 0:06:51It is such a convenient thing because people do recognise their own country.
0:06:52 > 0:06:56The form of a country, the map of a country,
0:06:56 > 0:06:59can have an enormous emotive force.
0:07:01 > 0:07:03It resonates.
0:07:05 > 0:07:09It's a time of great political upheaval and uncertainty,
0:07:09 > 0:07:12and I suppose a slight lightness of touch
0:07:12 > 0:07:15is a good way of bringing that home to people.
0:07:19 > 0:07:21It's not only the octopus that's important.
0:07:21 > 0:07:24You've got other little side scenes.
0:07:24 > 0:07:28For instance, one very small touch is that the Turkish Empire
0:07:28 > 0:07:33is shown as a Turk who lies prostrate beneath the octopus,
0:07:33 > 0:07:36and the golden watch of the Turk is Constantinople
0:07:36 > 0:07:42which everybody thought was the main objective of Russia's expansion.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45If you look, even in small detail at Belgium,
0:07:45 > 0:07:48you've got the King of Belgium, Leopold II,
0:07:48 > 0:07:53who was making a fortune out of running the Congo as its private fief.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56And he's there, counting his money.
0:07:56 > 0:07:58So, wherever you look at the map,
0:07:58 > 0:08:00you have references to the current situation.
0:08:00 > 0:08:03Even if, thanks to the mastery of the design,
0:08:03 > 0:08:07the eye is at first drawn to the main conflict, which is Russia.
0:08:09 > 0:08:15It's really clearly seen in the map itself that tension was building up in Europe.
0:08:15 > 0:08:19For example, France is checking its weapons,
0:08:19 > 0:08:21getting ready for something.
0:08:21 > 0:08:23Austria-Hungary, the big empire,
0:08:23 > 0:08:25actually you can see that Hungary
0:08:25 > 0:08:29is depicted as a man who is really getting angry,
0:08:29 > 0:08:30he wants to get at Russia.
0:08:30 > 0:08:35Who is held back by a young woman, Austria.
0:08:35 > 0:08:38You can actually see that everybody is getting ready for something
0:08:38 > 0:08:41but they are not quite sure what will come next.
0:08:42 > 0:08:48For Rose's audience, this was map and news bulletin rolled into one.
0:08:48 > 0:08:51And the British viewer could gain comfort
0:08:51 > 0:08:54from the stalwart figure of John Bull.
0:08:54 > 0:08:58Resolute, solid and reliable.
0:08:58 > 0:09:02Often, when all the other characters representing all the other countries
0:09:02 > 0:09:06are scrapping and fighting, or kipping on the job, John Bull,
0:09:06 > 0:09:08up there in the top left corner,
0:09:08 > 0:09:11is always looking remarkable and in full control of everything.
0:09:13 > 0:09:17On all his maps, we're always looking terribly smug and...
0:09:17 > 0:09:21gazing benignly on the rest of the unfortunates
0:09:21 > 0:09:25in the world, who haven't have the good grace to be born British.
0:09:31 > 0:09:34Rose's work was revolutionary.
0:09:34 > 0:09:37He made politics visual through maps.
0:09:37 > 0:09:41He defined national stereotypes.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44And for the first time in Britain's history,
0:09:44 > 0:09:48he brought the world of political satire to a mass audience.
0:09:48 > 0:09:52It was a breakthrough in printing technology
0:09:52 > 0:09:54that made it all possible.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57We could almost call this the first map for the masses,
0:09:57 > 0:09:59because its produced using chroma-lithography
0:09:59 > 0:10:01which had two important features.
0:10:01 > 0:10:06First of all, it was produced en masse, almost infinite copies could be produced.
0:10:06 > 0:10:09Secondly, it could be produced in colour.
0:10:09 > 0:10:11It cost virtually nothing.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14It quite literally spread like wildfire
0:10:14 > 0:10:17and it had an enormous impact.
0:10:22 > 0:10:23In the 1870's,
0:10:23 > 0:10:27there were 250 lithographic printers in London alone.
0:10:27 > 0:10:31Today, this Victorian warehouse in south London
0:10:31 > 0:10:35is home to one of the last remaining traditional printers
0:10:35 > 0:10:37in the whole of Britain.
0:10:37 > 0:10:39Using the same lithography process
0:10:39 > 0:10:42that was used to make the Rose original,
0:10:42 > 0:10:46Megan Fishpool and Colin Gale are printing the octopus map,
0:10:46 > 0:10:49probably the first to be printed in over a century.
0:10:51 > 0:10:55In the years before Rose, each colour element had to be
0:10:55 > 0:11:00laboriously drawn out and printed from cumbersome stone plates.
0:11:00 > 0:11:03But photography had transformed the process.
0:11:03 > 0:11:07Historically, this is right at the cross over point
0:11:07 > 0:11:11where they started moving from stone lithography to plate lithography.
0:11:11 > 0:11:13Plates have got the advantage.
0:11:13 > 0:11:15Obviously, they're cheaper, lighter,
0:11:15 > 0:11:17more portable and faster to print.
0:11:18 > 0:11:24What we've got here, it's the modern day equivalent, it's photo sensitive aluminium.
0:11:24 > 0:11:27The plate's been exposed using ultraviolet light
0:11:27 > 0:11:30to a drawing which is made on clear acetate.
0:11:30 > 0:11:34I'm pouring on liquid developer and literally developing out the image.
0:11:42 > 0:11:45While the plates are being prepared
0:11:45 > 0:11:48to be printed, you mix the colour.
0:11:51 > 0:11:55There are four colours and a black in this particular image.
0:11:55 > 0:12:00And all of the colours are actually made by hand from scratch.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06To our 21st century eyes, the process may look laborious,
0:12:06 > 0:12:12but in 1877 this was right at the cutting edge of new technology.
0:12:14 > 0:12:17Basically, it evolved the concept of quantity.
0:12:17 > 0:12:23And so, a couple of printers working together could print
0:12:23 > 0:12:29a phenomenal amount of imagery in very short period of time.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36This is the plate for the main body of the octopus.
0:12:36 > 0:12:39Which is going to be printed in a transparent grey.
0:12:39 > 0:12:44We need a separate plate for each image, and each colour is printed separately.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47All the pinks are printed and all the yellows are printed,
0:12:47 > 0:12:48all the blues are printed,
0:12:48 > 0:12:50and that's the way the image is built up.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53Five plates in total for this particular picture.
0:12:56 > 0:13:00The new process took advantage of two burgeoning technologies.
0:13:00 > 0:13:04One was photography, allowing plates to be made without drawing.
0:13:04 > 0:13:06The other was chemistry.
0:13:08 > 0:13:10Lithography is very simple chemistry.
0:13:10 > 0:13:12It's the fact that oil and water don't mix.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15The image is greasy and attracts ink.
0:13:15 > 0:13:20And the non-image area is kept damp and repels the greasy ink.
0:13:24 > 0:13:29Colour printing would've been very, very expensive,
0:13:29 > 0:13:31only open to rich people.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35This is a way of reaching the mass market very, very cheaply, very, very quickly.
0:13:56 > 0:14:02High volume and low cost brought maps like Rose's to a new audience.
0:14:02 > 0:14:04It also revolutionised the map business.
0:14:04 > 0:14:08Previously, mapmakers took huge financial risks
0:14:08 > 0:14:12producing their costly product, and often went bust.
0:14:12 > 0:14:20Rose's maps proved hugely popular, and highly profitable for his publisher G. W. Bacon.
0:14:21 > 0:14:23George W. Bacon was actually known
0:14:23 > 0:14:28for making maps of London and the surroundings,
0:14:28 > 0:14:31for example, for biking trips.
0:14:31 > 0:14:36But then, on the side, he decides to start publishing these cartoon maps.
0:14:36 > 0:14:38I think he was a rather wily businessman
0:14:38 > 0:14:44because after the first map of Frederick Rose in 1877 was published,
0:14:44 > 0:14:50fairly quickly after that there was a second edition of the map already in the same year.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54It sort of gives us a clue that there was business in these kinds of maps.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00I can imagine Bacon taking the most immense pleasure
0:15:00 > 0:15:03in putting these cartoon maps in the window of his shop
0:15:03 > 0:15:08because he liked eye-catching, and those certainly are.
0:15:08 > 0:15:11And I think that is what Bacon is about.
0:15:11 > 0:15:13It is about mass appeal,
0:15:13 > 0:15:17selling maps to people who didn't even know they wanted maps.
0:15:19 > 0:15:22Satire maps were sold on street corners,
0:15:22 > 0:15:25they appeared in newspapers, in schools, in offices,
0:15:25 > 0:15:27in ordinary homes.
0:15:27 > 0:15:34What had once been costly, luxury items were now throwaway objects in a mass market.
0:15:34 > 0:15:36The modern world of map publishing had begun.
0:15:38 > 0:15:40It's always quite exciting as a printmaker.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43We've got all the colour layers down now
0:15:43 > 0:15:47and until you put the final black layer on, you don't know what it's going to look like.
0:15:47 > 0:15:53It's always kind of a magic moment, just peeling it off and seeing the final result for the first time.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05There you go. Beautiful. Spot-on register.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08Perfect.
0:16:15 > 0:16:17In the spring of 1880,
0:16:17 > 0:16:23Rose turned his sharp-edged, satirical lens on British politics.
0:16:23 > 0:16:27It was general election time, with the Liberals
0:16:27 > 0:16:31seeking to topple a Tory government that many saw as corrupt,
0:16:31 > 0:16:33warmongering and dishonest.
0:16:37 > 0:16:42Uniquely, Rose produced two satire maps, one for each party.
0:16:42 > 0:16:48The maps have lain in the British Library's basement for well over a century
0:16:48 > 0:16:52and were only recently rediscovered by Peter Barber.
0:16:53 > 0:17:00Part of the fun of being a curator is that you do have almost unrestricted access to your collections.
0:17:00 > 0:17:04I mean, there is nothing more exciting than going through a file of maps
0:17:04 > 0:17:09and seeing something you've never seen before and you're pretty sure that nobody else has seen before.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15It really is great to find something that is really new,
0:17:15 > 0:17:20and to look at the expressions of surprise on faces of people who equally have never seen them.
0:17:20 > 0:17:25And, sometimes, the things can be really, really important because they can change perceptions.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29They can provide evidence which previously had been lacking.
0:17:34 > 0:17:37Rose's octopus maps are very familiar and, as you can see,
0:17:37 > 0:17:39he's signed his name down here,
0:17:39 > 0:17:41well, under his signature, Fred W. Rose,
0:17:41 > 0:17:44we've got the "Author of the Octopus Map of Europe".
0:17:44 > 0:17:49It's absolutely lovely to see something completely fresh and completely new.
0:17:49 > 0:17:52And I know it's been lying in the vaults of the British Library
0:17:52 > 0:17:55for the last 130 years or so, but I'd never seen them before.
0:17:55 > 0:17:58I had never even seen these reproduced
0:17:58 > 0:18:00in any publications.
0:18:03 > 0:18:07In the pro-Conservative image, Disraeli, the Prime Minister,
0:18:07 > 0:18:08is a heroic figure,
0:18:08 > 0:18:12stabbing his enemies with the sword of patriotism.
0:18:14 > 0:18:18In the pro-Liberal map, Rose turns it all around.
0:18:18 > 0:18:20This time, Gladstone is the hero,
0:18:20 > 0:18:24while Disraeli is depicted as a corrupt despot,
0:18:24 > 0:18:28his subservient cabinet kneeling at his feet.
0:18:28 > 0:18:30Here you've got King Jingo,
0:18:30 > 0:18:35Benjamin Disraeli, being unseated, but it's interesting to see what he's being unseated by.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38And it's something which echoes right the way down to the present time.
0:18:38 > 0:18:40You've got here "broken promises".
0:18:40 > 0:18:43You've got there "harassed interests",
0:18:43 > 0:18:45and finally, and most important,
0:18:45 > 0:18:48"public opinion", which is unseating him.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51If you notice carefully, he's sitting on top of the ballot box.
0:18:51 > 0:18:55It's a marvellous allegory of the electoral process,
0:18:55 > 0:18:57very, very well portrayed.
0:18:58 > 0:19:03The burning issues of the election have an eerily contemporary ring to them.
0:19:03 > 0:19:07Britain was fighting a prolonged war in Afghanistan.
0:19:07 > 0:19:12And the national debt was at its highest in living memory.
0:19:12 > 0:19:16You have the comment that Gladstone, who's depicted as a Highlander,
0:19:16 > 0:19:18has taken on some clothes and some arms,
0:19:18 > 0:19:21which he has taken from the stiffening corpses
0:19:21 > 0:19:23of English soldiers in Afghanistan.
0:19:23 > 0:19:27We have the references to public expenditure.
0:19:27 > 0:19:31And also to the general economic state of the country
0:19:31 > 0:19:35because you do get this mention of public debt de profundis.
0:19:35 > 0:19:38And at the moment, if that isn't a key question, nothing is.
0:19:40 > 0:19:43It's a marvellous way of dramatising issues
0:19:43 > 0:19:46which are matters of debate, and dramatising them in a way,
0:19:46 > 0:19:51with a clarity which a verbal debate or a written debate
0:19:51 > 0:19:53can't really bring to the fore.
0:20:00 > 0:20:03Rose's legacy lives on today,
0:20:03 > 0:20:07in the work of graphic artists like Peter Brookes,
0:20:07 > 0:20:10political cartoonist at The Times.
0:20:10 > 0:20:15Political cartoons are odd things anyway, to be honest.
0:20:15 > 0:20:16A political cartoon to me,
0:20:16 > 0:20:18a definition of it,
0:20:18 > 0:20:22is kneeing somebody in the groin with a smile, if you like.
0:20:24 > 0:20:29There are so many instances of things that other people have done
0:20:29 > 0:20:33that lodge in your subconscious. You're aware of them.
0:20:33 > 0:20:40You like them. You like what Rose does because it's within your professional territory, so to speak.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43It's the same sort of thing as you do.
0:20:50 > 0:20:57You have to be able to recognise symbols,
0:20:57 > 0:21:00which your general reader can be familiar with.
0:21:00 > 0:21:05And maps, if anything, are symbols.
0:21:05 > 0:21:09Before Rose, there were people producing maps,
0:21:09 > 0:21:13political commentary through maps, like Gillray.
0:21:13 > 0:21:19And a particular one I love which is George III and the Bum-Boats,
0:21:19 > 0:21:23where George III is defecating the fleet against the French.
0:21:23 > 0:21:29A wonderful image. So wonderfully scatological, so vulgar,
0:21:29 > 0:21:32it makes you laugh just because it is, you know!
0:21:32 > 0:21:37It appeals to my ribald sense of humour, if you like.
0:21:37 > 0:21:43And you laugh, but the point behind it, when you're fighting France,
0:21:43 > 0:21:45is obviously serious as well.
0:21:47 > 0:21:51Peter Brookes' own work owes much to Gillray and Rose,
0:21:51 > 0:21:55a mark of the abiding political power of the satire map.
0:21:57 > 0:22:03This Spectator cover, again uses that familiar shape of Britain.
0:22:03 > 0:22:08And the article was about, as you can read there,
0:22:08 > 0:22:10"Yobland, Our Yobland."
0:22:10 > 0:22:13The idea of Wales being the 2 hands,
0:22:13 > 0:22:17Norfolk's his bum, obviously, and his trainers,
0:22:17 > 0:22:21you can manage to make the outline of the West Country.
0:22:21 > 0:22:26The only thing I think is wrong about it
0:22:26 > 0:22:30is that Ireland really doesn't have a great deal to do with that.
0:22:30 > 0:22:34But to make it work, as a yob kicking an old lady,
0:22:34 > 0:22:41I'm afraid Ireland was used for that purpose.
0:22:42 > 0:22:46Well, I drew this for The Times immediately after
0:22:46 > 0:22:49the Continuity IRA murdered a policeman,
0:22:49 > 0:22:53having previously murdered two British soldiers
0:22:53 > 0:22:56a short while before that.
0:22:56 > 0:23:01And the idea was to show the Good Friday Agreement
0:23:01 > 0:23:04being shot to ribbons, basically.
0:23:04 > 0:23:09The outline of Ireland, it's a familiar image to people, you hope.
0:23:09 > 0:23:12And the shape is what does it.
0:23:12 > 0:23:15And then putting bullet-holes in with it as well,
0:23:15 > 0:23:18and the burn marks round it.
0:23:18 > 0:23:20To make up the idea.
0:23:23 > 0:23:28You may think, "Well, because they've been around for a long time,
0:23:28 > 0:23:31"what possible sort of...
0:23:31 > 0:23:35"enjoyment can come out of trotting out the same old stuff?"
0:23:35 > 0:23:37But it's not the same old stuff.
0:23:37 > 0:23:41First of all, the political situation is always different, by definition.
0:23:41 > 0:23:44And you're using the constant shape of something
0:23:44 > 0:23:46which people are familiar with.
0:23:46 > 0:23:49That makes it a different challenge, I think.
0:23:53 > 0:23:57Political crisis is also the subject of Rose's last satire map.
0:23:57 > 0:23:59Made in 1899,
0:23:59 > 0:24:05Angling In Troubled Waters depicts growing tensions in Europe.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08In 1914, those tensions erupted
0:24:08 > 0:24:11into the bloodiest conflict the world had ever seen.
0:24:13 > 0:24:18With war, satire maps took on a more savage tone than Rose had ever used.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21But his legacy shines through.
0:24:21 > 0:24:25Here's the octopus, his great creation,
0:24:25 > 0:24:29at the heart of a brooding anti-German French map of 1917.
0:24:32 > 0:24:37This vicious Russian satire map used the "hunger spider"
0:24:37 > 0:24:40to show the invidious influence of Russia's churches
0:24:40 > 0:24:41on the flagging revolution.
0:24:44 > 0:24:48And this map brings the story full circle.
0:24:48 > 0:24:49Made in 1941,
0:24:49 > 0:24:54the fascists of Vichy France savagely turned Rose's octopus idea
0:24:54 > 0:24:56against Britain itself.
0:25:02 > 0:25:06Well, this is an Axis cartoon
0:25:06 > 0:25:09attacking British policy throughout the world
0:25:09 > 0:25:11during the Second World War.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14And it does so by resurrecting the octopus
0:25:14 > 0:25:18that had been first seen nearly 70 years earlier.
0:25:18 > 0:25:20And in this particular case,
0:25:20 > 0:25:23the octopus has been turned into Winston Churchill.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29The tentacles of the British octopus
0:25:29 > 0:25:35are shown being cut in places which have had resonances for the French.
0:25:35 > 0:25:38There was an allied attempt to seize Dakar in west Africa,
0:25:38 > 0:25:39it didn't succeed.
0:25:39 > 0:25:42There's a cut tentacle.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45There's an attempt by the British to seize a French fleet
0:25:45 > 0:25:46at Mers El-Kebir.
0:25:46 > 0:25:49There's another tentacle that's cut.
0:25:49 > 0:25:50The French caption reads,
0:25:50 > 0:25:55"Confiance ses amputations se poursuivent methodiquement,"
0:25:55 > 0:25:57which means,
0:25:57 > 0:26:02"Have confidence, the amputations of its tentacles
0:26:02 > 0:26:05"are being pursued in a methodical manner."
0:26:05 > 0:26:07In other words, "You don't need to worry,
0:26:07 > 0:26:09"soon there'll be no tentacles left
0:26:09 > 0:26:12"and the octopus will be reduced
0:26:12 > 0:26:16"to a dying mass of fish in Great Britain."
0:26:17 > 0:26:21The image is crude and vicious.
0:26:21 > 0:26:24All the subtlety and humour of Rose is gone.
0:26:24 > 0:26:27This is the ultimate satire map,
0:26:27 > 0:26:32from a time when politics had become a matter of life and death.
0:26:32 > 0:26:37We're used to regarding Churchill
0:26:37 > 0:26:39as a positively good thing
0:26:39 > 0:26:41and I think it'll come as a shock to many people
0:26:41 > 0:26:43to be reminded of the time when,
0:26:43 > 0:26:47in many parts of the world, Churchill was regarded
0:26:47 > 0:26:50as the embodiment of everything that was evil.
0:26:57 > 0:27:01Because the incidental detail has been omitted,
0:27:01 > 0:27:04you also omit a lot of the humour.
0:27:04 > 0:27:07This is a very, very stark, unwitty,
0:27:07 > 0:27:10attack on Winston Churchill
0:27:10 > 0:27:15which is not intended to provoke any happy chuckles.
0:27:16 > 0:27:21It does show just how powerful a map image can be.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24And in a way which, I think, nowadays, people will understand
0:27:24 > 0:27:27because the rendering of the map is modern,
0:27:27 > 0:27:32it represents the Rose idea
0:27:32 > 0:27:37reduced to its most negative essence.
0:27:42 > 0:27:45The satire map has made an extraordinary journey
0:27:45 > 0:27:47over a tumultuous century-and-a-half.
0:27:49 > 0:27:52Rose's world of Victorian technology,
0:27:52 > 0:27:56of John Bull and Empire, may seem far-distant.
0:27:56 > 0:27:58But by combining maps,
0:27:58 > 0:28:03mass media and political spin for the first time,
0:28:03 > 0:28:05he left an enduring legacy.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09One that testifies both to his own genius,
0:28:09 > 0:28:14and to the extraordinary power, depth and beauty of maps themselves.
0:28:20 > 0:28:23To explore the new world of digital mapping
0:28:23 > 0:28:27and to find out more about the British Library Map Exhibition,
0:28:27 > 0:28:28go to..
0:28:42 > 0:28:45Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:28:45 > 0:28:48E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk