This propaganda map was published in Japan after the First World War to commemorate Japan's military successes in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) and the First World War (1914–1918).
The end of the First World War marks an important point in Japanese history. The industrialisation and modernisation of the country, begun by Emperor Meiji in 1868 and continued by Emperor Taishō from 1912 onwards, had achieved its objectives. Japan had gone from being an isolated agricultural nation to a major military power.
This map is divided into two main parts. The upper part shows several photographs of the main Japanese army officers at the end of the First World War, as well as images of several of the leaders who gathered in Versailles to sign the 1919 treaty. To give the map greater nationalist weight, the upper left-hand corner shows an image of the legendary Emperor Jinmu, founder of Japan according to tradition.
The lower part of the map shows a political map of the world at that time, where the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire are already divided, as well as the reappearance of Poland as an independent state. The focus, in any case, is on Japan and the regions it had already colonised in 1919, such as the Korean peninsula and Taiwan. The various detailed maps intermingle events from the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War, suggesting that for Japan, all this was nothing more than a continuous process of establishing itself as a global military power.
Given its format, measuring over a metre and a half in height, it was probably designed for educational purposes, either in schools or in the military.
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