1941 Ogawa Pictorial Historical World Map, British Empire as an Octopus

This is Ogawa Masahiro's 1941 historical pictorial map of the world, depicting the British Empire as a grasping octopus, drawn for the publication The Advance in Nippon. Produced just months before Japan would invade British colonies in Southeast Asia, the map subtly lays the groundwork for portraying such moves as a justified response against British world domination.

A Closer Look

The map presents the world on a Mercator Projection with Britain at the center, a Union Jack forming the main part of the octopus' body, with red tentacles spreading out to the four corners of the world. Throughout, past and present colonies of Great Britain (or England beforehand) are color shaded according to the date (century) of their acquisition, which is also recorded next to the name of each colony. This colonial catalog continues into the 20th century, noting the Boer Republics, the South Shetland Islands (administered as part of the Falkland Islands since 1908), part of Antarctica (the British Antarctic Territory), and recent mandates and protectorates in the Middle East.

Perhaps due to space limitations, the tone is subdued by the standards of The Advance in Nippon, a bombastic nationalist publication that at this time mostly celebrated the exploits of Japanese soldiers in China, but the subtext is clearly that Britain was in no position to be lecturing Japan about acquiring colonies or territory. The map fits into a long line of Japanese zoomorphic serio-comic propaganda maps, such as Ohara Kisaburo's 1904 map of the Russian Empire as an octopus, previously sold by us (HumorousDiplomaticAtlas-ohara-1904-3).

The verso is a depiction of the Battle of Britain, with the text 'The fierce battle in the sky above England' at bottom, fitting with the publication's focus on military affairs and less overtly anti-British than would be the case in several months' time.

Historical Context

This map was produced just months before the start of the Pacific War in December 1941, when Japanese forces swept through Southeast Asia in a lightning assault, capturing the British territories of Hong Kong, Malaya, the Straits Settlements, Singapore (the 'Gibraltar of the East'), and Burma, in the process threatening India, occupying foreign concessions in China (where the British and Japanese were the two largest contingents), and crippling the Royal Navy's Eastern Fleet.

This was a radical departure from where the relationship between the two countries had been just a couple decades earlier. Britain and Japan were close in the Meiji era (1868 - 1912), with Britain serving as one of the key models for Japan's modernization and industrialization. The two countries shared an antipathy towards Tsarist Russia, leading to a formal alliance in 1902 that lasted 20 years. Both countries were also unashamed about their monarchy and empire, though Britain's monarchs were considerably less powerful in policymaking and their empire considerably larger than Japan's.

But the relationship between the two countries had frayed in the Interwar Period. Japan was irritated at what it considered hypocritical and unfair British (and American, and French) attempts to limit its capabilities, mostly clearly codified in the Four-Power Treaty negotiated at the Washington Naval Conference of 1922, which ended the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and capped Japanese ship tonnage at a 3:5 ratio against that of both Britian and the United States. As Japan grew more powerful in East Asia and more militaristic at home, especially after the 1931 invasion of Manchuria and a resulting mini-war in Shanghai, Britain began to fear for its considerable commercial interests in China and its nearby colonies. After Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China in 1937, and in particular as it moved to occupy French Indochina after the Fall of France in 1940, Britain (mostly preoccupied with its own defense) and the United States sent increasingly stern warnings to Japan, resulting ultimately in an oil embargo in the summer of 1941 that effectively starved Japan of oil.

Publication History and Census

This map was drawn by Ogawa Masahiro (小川政博) and was edited by the Oriental Cultural Association (東洋文化協會) for the publication The Advance in Nippon (画報躍進之日本) on May 1, 1941 (Showa 16). It is only independently cataloged at the State Library of New South Wales, while the entire publication is cataloged at a handful of institutions in Japan and abroad.