THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC 

 WAR-ZONE MAP 



THE MAP of the western theater 

 of war appearing in this issue of 

 the National Geographic Maga- 

 zine fills a long-felt need. Existing 

 maps available to the casual student of 

 the war's progress have scales and letter- 

 ings which preclude the use of more than 

 half of the place names in the war zone. 

 But it often happens that a little village 

 of a score of houses, which has never 

 attained to the dignity of mention on the 

 maps of general circulation, figures more 

 prominently in the news from the front 

 than a place of several thousand popula- 

 tion. 



Therefore the National Geographic So- 

 ciety decided to bring out a map in which 

 practically every name in the battle area, 

 however unimportant, might have its 

 place. The only maps extant answering 

 to this demand are the big official maps 

 of the French and Belgian Departments 

 of War, made in sections and projected 

 on a scale of approximately three miles 

 to the inch. Of course, to reproduce 

 them on that scale would make a map 

 altogether beyond the compass of con- 

 venience. It would cover 3,960 square 

 inches and would be too large even for 

 a wall map, as one studying it would 

 either have to get down on his knees or 

 up on a stool to read it from top to 

 bottom. 



How to condense the information of 

 more than 27 square feet of map into 

 a little more than five square feet without 

 destroying its legibility was the problem 

 confronting those in charge of the under- 

 taking. As the battle area is only about 

 a hundred miles wide at the widest, while 

 the battle line is "some four hundred miles 

 long, another problem was so to divide 

 the line into two sections and so to ar- 

 range these sections that 400 miles of 

 battle line could be put into a map on a 

 scale of approximately seven miles to the 

 inch and of convenient size. 



Battle lines as of specific dates have 

 been omitted because the line is always 

 changing; the map showing it is out of 

 date in a few weeks. But by reference 



to the inset map the lines in the fall of 

 1914 and the spring of 1918 can be fixed. 

 By starting in at Dunkirk and under- 

 scoring each principal city along the 

 battle line in red — taking Ypres, Arras, 

 Bethune, Amiens, Montdidier, Noyon, 

 Laon, Rheims, Soissons, Verdun, Lune- 

 ville, Nancy, Toul, etc. — the general trend 

 of the line may be followed. If the reader 

 will remember that the news speaks of 

 this sector and that, corresponding usu- 

 ally to these principal names, little trouble 

 will be experienced in locating places. 

 For those who want to study the map 

 in detail, however, an index has been pre- 

 pared. 



As the squares into which the map is 

 laid off are ten miles each way, and 

 therefore contain one hundred square 

 miles of territory, the reader can easily 

 estimate the terrain lost or won in any 

 given drive. 



In this map the aim has been to com- 

 bine legibility with completeness, and ex- 

 cept in one or two sections, where names 

 were so thick that even with the small 

 lettering used they could not all be put 

 in, the reader will always find the place 

 he is looking for. Fully 95 per cent of 

 the names mentioned in the daily news 

 appear on this map. 



The excellence of the map is due to the 

 patient perseverance of the Society's chief 

 cartographer, Mr. Albert H. Bumstead, 

 who met and overcame many unusual 

 obstacles in the production of a readable 

 map containing a maximum of informa- 

 tion in a minimum of space, and to the 

 unusual photographic work of Mr. 

 Charles Martin, chief of the Society's 

 photographic laboratory. 



Those desiring the index can obtain it 

 by remitting 25 cents to the National 

 Geographic Society, 16th and M Streets. 

 Washington, D. C. 



Additional copies of the map can be 

 obtained at 75 cents each (including in- 

 dex) and of a special edition, printed on 

 linen-back map paper, at $1.50 each (in- 

 cluding index) . Foreign postage, 50 cents. 



Additional copies of this May issue, postpaid, 

 75 cents each in the United States. 



494 



