Description
Colour print (Good, some light toning, wear along original folds, 9.5 cm repaired tear with old tape stain from verso extending into upper part, tape from verso since replaced with acid-free paper patch repair), 60 x 43 cm (23.5 x 17 inches).
This rare, classified map depicts the bulk of what was the British mandate of Palestine, as well as adjacent parts of Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon and Syria. It was made in February 1945, late in World War II by the Survey of Palestine in Jerusalem for the use of the British Army to delineate their regular convoy routes.
While Palestine was not a major combat zone during World War II, the situation there was tense. The country’s Jewish and Arab communities were very much (an often violently) at odd, while both sides resented the continued British quasi-colonial presence. To make matters even more interesting, the region was full of German spies and agents provocateurs.
However, the main threat to British security in Palestine was the Irgun, a Jewish paramilitary group that violently opposed both the Arab and the British presence in the country, with the objective of creating a Jewish homeland over all of Palestine, a goal to be achieved by any means necessary.
The Irgun, formed in 1931, staged numerous attacks against the British military, police and civil authorities during the 1930s, but for most of World War II agreed on a truce, as the British were fighting the Nazis (and so presumably helping the end the Holocaust). However, in September 1944, the Irgun, once again, turned against the British, as, first, the war was coming to an end; and second, the Irgun resented the fact that Britain was restricting the emigration of European Jews to Palestine. From that point onwards, until the British left Palestine in 1948, the Irgun launched increasingly frequent and deadly attacks against the British, including upon their army convoys. This British soldiers traversing Palestine did so only with great care and risk. They would certainly have preferred that the Irgun not get their hands upon an example of this map!
The map is printed on a monochrome template first developed by the Survey in 1924, and updated to 1944, but is here overprinted in four colours for its specific purpose, to depict the four main colour-coded systems of army convoys. The ‘Reference’, upper left, notes the signs for 1st Class roads; 2nd Class roads; principal seasonal roads; wadis; and railways; while heights are given in metres. The Green convoy routes run from Aqaba (the head of the Red Sea, located off the map) up through Beersheba an then in two branches north, either through Jerusalem, or near to the coast through Lydda, before continuing towards Syria. The Red route runs from Haifa to Baghdad, principally to protect the ultra-valuable Iraq Petroleum Company pipeline. The Yellow route runs from central Palestine, through Jerusalem and then over to Amman, Transjordan.
A note on the map, explaining how to follow the routes on the ground, reads: ‘Convoy routes are indicated on the road by coloured signposts as important or difficult turnings and crossroads by periodic colouring of milestones etc. where necessary’.
The present map is rare; we can locate 4 institutional examples, at the British Library; Oxford University; National Library of Scotland and University of Kansas.
References: British Library: Cartographic Items Maps MOD PDR Misc 1785; OCLC: 808802981; 497654286; 751539861.
