BAEDEKER

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 1, 26 September 1918, Page 5

BAEDEKER

WHAT THE FAMOUS LITTLE GUIDR. j BOOKS MEANT TO GERMANY . 1

MAPPING OUT THE WORLD j I

In tho work of preparation; for the war which won to Germanise £he world there is at least .one German family who can say that'they.'did'.their job so thoroughly ajid efficiently that nobody could find fault. ' That family is the Baedokor family—the authors of the famous guide-books. Whether they wore perfectly well ware they were part and parcel or tl?e great conspiracy, or whether-they were merely-the: innocent tools of their rulers, in a question on which positive evidence i.may bo forthcoming ono day. As they- are a Saxon family, mid are said. toT nave, none of the unpleasant characteristics of tho Prussian, it is but charitable to assume that they had no other intention in the. compiling of their guide-books i than to provide material for the edifi-' cation of the harmless tourist. Nevertheless, they succeeded in collecting between the innocent-looking' covere of their guide-books unrivalled information about every country in the world 'which must have been of priceless value to the German General Staff in their war of conquest and. spoliation. Also; in the process of compiling these works they must, liave' '■ obtained all. manner of other information which it was considered advisable not to print, but which quite innocently, of course, found its way into the secret archives of the' Wilhelmstrasse. It has been said that England is the land of invention, and Germany the land of imitation;. Even in the matter of guide-books Germany cannot claim originality. • It was crafty old Karl Baedeker, who e.ome_ eighty-<four •. years ago spied the English Murray hand-books tor travellers, and considered how he could imitate and improve upon them, and so satisfy the artless cariosity of his fellow-countrymen during their travels abroad. The Baedeker family hag been devoted to books and book-selling ifor nearly three hundred years, but this was bv far their , 'biggeßt undertaking. Old Karl had himself been an energetio traveller through Western Europe, and he had already published and improved Klein's . guide to the Rhine. The next volumes m the series—Belgium and Holland/ I Germany, Austria, and Switzerland— were isßued from Coblenz, and it tfae npt till later that.the firm,removed to their present' enormous headquarters at Leipzig. - OH Karl died in 1869, and he left three sons to carry on the work, and the series of guides had almost crowded out the rest of tlieir pub- , lishing businees by the time the war broke out. ,. The head of the firm was then the youngest of these sons—Frits Baedeker. To-day he.may be in the army, or he may be in that vast army ' of the dead which has been offered up to sacrifice to the German War God. But tho probability is. that his services were too valuable to permit of him being sent to the trenches. Possibly ho is engaged on preparing guidfr-boqln of tho new German territories' .which it is (fondly hoped the German "•■ tourist of the future will be able to gloat over. Maybe he is still waiting for the fa- , mous peace which will enable him to, publish new editions of tlio guidebooks, which are no doubt already prepared, olf Germany's-vast new colonial possessions which at present, together with her old colonies, are in tha safe custody of the Allies. :

Spying Out the Clone. TVhen the war'began, another generation of Baedekers had a-lready been trained with a view to their improving the efficiency of the guide-booke. His sons with, commendable zeal, set themselves to master the European languages and the systems-or-govern-ment, prevailing in the different countries. Young Hans studied archaelogy in Rome and Alpine lore 1 in Switzerland: and young Ernest joined him in . absorbing the details of London, Edinburgh, and other leading, capitals. The Baedekers were aetute enough to get the native authorities in each oountrv to assist them in amassing the , faots they wanted.' 1 : Thus distinguished English scholars edited the English editions, and a famous English' publisher ■ undertook the publishing and the distribution of the English series over every land and continent outside Europe, excepting the United States. In those days of peace the scholars of / every nation were only too glad to help an enterprise built up in a country that so often profeesed to have tho cause of peace so dearly at heart. Altogether there were upwards of seventy ojf these guide-books which covered every part of the globe save the Poles. There waa one o'n Palestine and Syria, including the principal routes through , Mesopotamia and Babylonia and the v island of Cyprus..,-There were.'twentyono maps, fifty-six plans; and a panorama of. Jerusalem—an extremely useful guide to the British forces now in, ■ occupation thero,-j.The book on Belgium and Holland"is;;a wonderful survey of every inch of- these countries, ' The Belgian ooast must have been gone over hundreds of times, and every creek and gully explored. Not a detail , was overlooked that could have been, regarded as of military Importance.' Ono of tho most oxpeneive editions was that of Egypt, which was to have become a German protectorate if enly the programmo of conquest had worked 1 properly. It wns th'o boast of the Baedeker family that each book was thoroughly recast every few (years, and the pages wero kept permanently standing on moveablo typo. A colossal sum must have been, expended in visiting and revisiting the districts, and it is 'doubtful whether •the sales, big as they were, allowed' •sufficient margin to meet all-the vast : expenditure. Possibly like many, other Gorman enterprises promoted to expand tho power of tho Fatherland, it' was heavily .subsidised. Certainly no other publication could compete with, it. The mnps wero marvels of ncciK» rncy and detail. 'Not a railway, howover email, in Europe or Aeia but wero recorded, and any developments were ■ faithfully recorded in the editions that were so'kept up to date, so that by Aiipust, 1914, Baedeker could .be im* plicitly relied upon to show the way to tho invading" German hosts. Bui! tlio crowning achievement of the Baedeker family wns to have been tb<j. guide-books to the new German Empire comprising most of the Old World and the new which would have been brought out by now if only things had gouo as the German General Staff had planned. . •