FLAGS ON MAPS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 98, 9 May 1941, Page 8

FLAGS ON MAPS

(By

K.

S.

NE ‘minor effect of the swinging spotlight of war, focused now on one country, now on another, is the absence "this time" of the game of pinning little flags on maps. I remember how universal it was in the last war, and with what anxious faces we saw the little flags getting nearer and nearer the channel ports during the Great Retreat of March, 1918. When this present war started, the ex-Kaiser was reported to be busy at Doorn with his maps and pins, and all the shops were stocked up in the same old way with maps of the Western Front, and flags of the warring Powers on pins. But, after the long stalemate, the whole game got out of hand when the centre of interest switched rapidly from the Maginot Line to Norway, to Holland, to France. to England, to Libya, to Eritrea, Abyssinia, and Somaliland, to the Balkans, then back to Abyssinia, back to the Balkans, and return to Libya, and so on, Nobody can afford to buy all those large-scale wall maps, especially as most papers publish good enough outline maps as the occasion requires; and anyway, modern war moves so jerkily and unpre- dictably that you would either have to alter the positions twice a day or leave them fixed for weeks.

ANOTHER thing I have rather missed with this war is the wash-drawing perspective map illustrations of the countryside over which the fighting is taking place. They appeared last time, I think, in the big illustrated London papers, and were remarkably fine work. The artist, who must have had a good technical training, imagined himself about 20 miles up in the air "looking toward Arras," or "The Salient,’ or "The Hindenburg Line," with the lie of the hills and so on, clearly shown. Now there used to live in Auckland an amazingly interesting old gentleman, the late Rev. W. G. Monckton, vicar of Takapuna, who was later well-known for his talks from 1YA and for the W.E.A. on international affairs. He was related to the family of the Marquess of Crewe, onetime Ambassador to France, and was also a distant kinsmen of Lord Galway, who unveiled a memorial tablet to him during his term as Governor-General. Well, old Mr. Monckton had a passion for maps. He pasted them into huge books, and had probably the most interesting collection of maps this country has ever seen. He had even got hold of the maps that were drawn up for the abortive Peace Conference at Stockholm in 1917. Of course he had saved up all these wash drawings from the illustrated London papers I have mentioned. When the Allied Armies had to retreat during the great German push of March, 1918, they had to pass over much the same ground as was fought over in the very early days of the war, so Mr. Monckton got out all his little maps of that period, set them up in front of him in his untidy study and

calmly produced an article for an Auckland paper telling all about it. It was a pretty authoritative job, too! In fact, so authoritative that the military authorities came to the conclusion that it could only have been written by an officer on the spot, and as serving officers mustn't write for the Press, they called on the Editor and asked his name. "Willie" Monckton had a hard job laughing it off. HE most curious example I know of the use of flagging a map concerns a girl in Auckland some years ago who was crazy keen to get to England. To raise the cash, she got a job marking exam. papers-matric., I think, at something like 50 guineas for 1500 of them. At any rate, she worked it out that she got 1/414 for every paper she marked; that is, 5/6 for four papers marked, or 11/for eight, and so on. She bought one of those large maps which show New Zealand on one side, the Americas in the middle, and England on the other side. Then she worked out the total passage money for the-voyage across into sections representing 10/-. If I remember rightly, the map showed about 30 inches from New Zealand to England via _ the Panama Canal, and the ship’s fare was abcut £60, so every 10/- earned (i.e, eight papers marked), took her quarter of an inch on the map; £2 earned by ‘marking about 30 papers took her one inch on the map; £30 took her to Panama; and so on. With that up on the wall before her, she started in to mark exam. papers. She even used to mark three or four papers before breakfast, she worked so hard, and before going to bed at night she used to calculate where she was on the road to England, Fame and Fortune. I remember asking her once how she was getting on with that huge pile of exam. papers, and she replied. "Oh! about 120 miles from Suva!"