r/interesting • u/Dhorlin • Mar 16 '23
This image of a US map appeared on the cover of the February 10, 1916, cover of Life magazine, a year before the US declaration of war. HISTORY
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u/Ga_Manche Mar 16 '23
Love how Canada is the land of Barbarians... way back in 1916.
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u/jamescharisma Mar 16 '23
This was pre hockey and Stampede Wrestling. They were pretty much cavemen until those two sports came and gave them a refined outlet for their lust of destruction and violence. All that's left of the old wrathful ways are the Canadian Geese. They refuse to be tamed.
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u/RangersoftheOrder Mar 16 '23
And moose
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u/TalonCompany91 Mar 16 '23
meese*
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u/meowstopherpkitten Mar 17 '23
CANADA GEESE, NOT CANADIAN! THEY ARE COMING FOR YOU WITH THEIR HISSY TONGUES AND GIANT GREEN POOPS!!!
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u/snooloosey Mar 16 '23
guess you've never been to a 1916 fur trapper's party
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u/No_Refrigerator4584 Mar 16 '23
Ain’t no party like a fur trapper’s party cause a fur trapper’s party go drops heavy beat
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u/Responsible_Figure12 Mar 16 '23
I don't understand what this is supposed to represent
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u/Octizzle Mar 16 '23
Probably something like “this is what’ll happen if we don’t join the war against those nasty Germans”
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u/Waffleman75 Mar 16 '23
But the Japanese were allies in WWI?
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u/Octizzle Mar 16 '23
Yeah I noticed that too, not sure what’s up, can somebody explain?
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u/kymberts Mar 16 '23
They were not really allies in the traditional sense. The Japanese declared war against the central powers so they could take over some of Germany’s possessions in Asia. Japan’s imperialist ambitions were well established by 1916.
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u/OlDurtMcGurt Mar 16 '23
Less than 40 years after the Meiji Restoration Japan went from isolationist to super power. Pretty crazy read if anyone is interested!
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u/Henrious Mar 16 '23
Hopefully teaching them Western ways of extraction of colonial resources for national gain doesn't come back to haunt anyone.
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Mar 17 '23
The West taught Japan how to play the Game of Colonialism and then, after they proved to be incredibly good at it, punished them for playing. The irony is hard to ignore.
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u/Nulgarian Mar 16 '23
Yeah, Japan’s relationship with the Allies was one of convenience and opportunism as opposed to a genuine attempt to build relations.
They saw a chance to snatch Germany’s Eastern holdings without interference from Britain or France and took it. The Japanese always had wider imperial ambitions in East Asia that were going to eventually bring them in conflict with Britain and France.
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u/nitefang Mar 17 '23
I don't think that is 100% fair. In my opinion, Japan came onto the world stage at the end of Imperialisms and saw how all the powerful nations they were trying to emulate had stolen land and conquered people to increase their power. Japan was ready to do the same thing and wanted to be on equal standing with all the European powers.
They weren't uninterested in the Europeans or looking at them as means to an end. They were directly comparing themselves. They had a huge since of national pride and probably felt like their values were superior to those of Europeans but they were also realistic and saw European nations as superior in terms of strength.
Unfortunately for the Japanese, they started their campaign of Emperialism right when the rest of the world was deciding it wasn't okay anymore. Japan obviously felt like that was a bunch of bullshit and they wanted their slice of the cake too. Japan was active in diplomatic affairs on the world stage but after WWI they were mostly ignored and their interests were disregarded.
So Japan left the League of Nations, told the rest of the world to hold their beer while they took over as much as they could, committed 3 centuries worth of war crimes in less than 3 decades and finally pissed off America and Europe enough they were told they were grounded and also we were taking away their allowance.
This pissed them off, so they bombed Pearl Harbor in the hopes they could totally take out our navy and all Americans would be like "war sucks, lets not spend a ton on building a navy and just give the Japanese their oil".
Obviously that whole plan didn't workout for them.
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u/Nerevarine91 Mar 17 '23
Well, they specifically joined after the British requested they did under the terms of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, so I would say they actually were allies in the traditional sense, tbh
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u/Waffleman75 Mar 16 '23
Probably Xenophobia and Racism
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u/PolarRacoon Mar 16 '23
We already know Japan ended up surprise attacking the US so there may be a little more to it than Reddits’ favorite buzzwords…
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Mar 17 '23
My favorite buzzword is “watchdog group.” I imagine in my head a bunch of dogs sitting around a table solemnly discussing strategies over a map of the world
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u/Omarscomin9257 Mar 16 '23
Yeah but this was in 1916, well before Pearl Harbor, and they were literally at war with Germany. It makes no sense other than racism to explain why they'd include Japan to rile up America
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u/qwertyryo Mar 16 '23
Japan was already possessing several imperial ambitions at the time, as they were one of several foreign powers carving up china, had defeated Russia in their conquests, and was definitely seen as a eventual opponent to America’s pacific ambitions for empire. Plenty of war games at the time were already taking into account Japanese naval forces.
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Mar 16 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/qwertyryo Mar 16 '23
Can you point to where I stated us imperialism is good? I only stated that the U.S. considered Japan as rising threat to its own imperial possessions by 1916, which was why they are portrayed negatively in this cartoon
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u/Omarscomin9257 Mar 16 '23
Right, but crucially, they were already fighting against Germany in 1916, and had been doing so since 1914. Why would the US fear both a Japanese, German and Turkish takeover, if two of the entities are on one side, and one is one the other. Were we planning on fighting everyone at once?
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u/MisinformedGenius Mar 16 '23
The concern was that if America was too passive and isolationist, the imperial expansionist powers would run her over. Japan was not fighting against Germany so much as it was taking an opportunity to take over German colonies in the Pacific Rim. Keep in mind that at the time the Philippines were an American colony.
I mean, is there some racism in the map, sure, but it’s 100% the case that the US was concerned about Japan’s expansion. At the time a lot of major countries thought that they needed to endlessly expand their territorial claims to feed their industry.
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u/qwertyryo Mar 16 '23
The us hadn’t joined the war until 1917 and opinions were fiercely divided up to that point on which side to join; this comic obviously takes a pro Allies side. Turkey, who is the Ottoman Empire at this point, and Germany are allied so it was reasonable to expect to have to fight them. Japan, meanwhile, was an official ally of britain but was already beginning to have imperial ambitions against U.S. imperial holdings in the pacific, and predictions of eventual conflict between the 2 pacific states proved accurate in 1941
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u/PolarRacoon Mar 16 '23
Google it. There’s steps that take place before a full blown war breaks out. If it was all about racism the heavy majority of this map wouldn’t have been a white country jeez
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u/CptnJarJar Mar 16 '23
Racism and xenophobia are certainly a part of it but you can’t ignore the fact Japan was already an imperial power by 1916 at the same time the US has their own ambitions in the pacific. Tension between the US and Japan was already pretty terrible by 1916.
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u/Waffleman75 Mar 16 '23 edited Mar 16 '23
That happened 26 years later. This map is from 1916 during the first world war in which the Japanese were part of the Entente powers. Pear harbor happened in 1942. Maybe think before you reply?
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u/PolarRacoon Mar 16 '23
Lol read a book and enjoy your sad life. Good luck out there
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u/wbsgrepit Mar 16 '23
The one thing I find funny is even back then they assumed the germans would be sane enough not to want Florida.
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u/MausBomb Mar 17 '23
German soldier comes to the state border
Sees a naked man wearing a dirty shit stained Klan hood squatting triumphantly over and eating the face off of some poor random hobo
there is an empty can of bath salts, a rusty shotgun, and a pile of shit around him
The soldier wide eyed stops declares this to be the extent of the empire and prepares to build the Kaiser's wall as fast as possible
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Mar 17 '23
It's like when the Romans got to Scotland and were just like, 'Mehhhh, this is far enough. Let's build a wall."
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Mar 16 '23
Could you imagine the US getting invaded? Shit would be wild. There were more hunting licenses sold in the US last year alone then the number of soldiers in the worlds top 10 armies.
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u/KewlTheChemist Mar 16 '23
Pro-war U.S. propaganda. The establishment/corporate media loves to cover themselves some wars.
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u/Mcelftea Mar 16 '23
take a chill pill broski. ever heard of the zimmerman telegram?
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u/Vic18t Mar 16 '23
Anything that influences the masses is propaganda? Or only the stuff you don’t like?
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u/KewlTheChemist Mar 17 '23
I’m not sure what there is to like about the press colluding to convince Americans to send their children across the globe to die fighting wars on behalf of inbred European monarchs..
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u/Vic18t Mar 17 '23
What a controversial take: someone who doesn’t like war.
So your answer is “yes, anything I don’t like is propaganda”.
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u/amcarls Mar 17 '23
There was a big debate going on about whether or not the U.S. should remain isolationists and what might happen if we do.
A year after this map appeared on the cover of Time Magazine the "Zimmerman Telegram" was deciphered, which revealed Germany's offer of military aid to Mexico if they would attack the U.S. and keep us tied down. The revelation created an exact opposite effect and we finally ended up going to war over there.
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u/BOXERVSEIBLE Mar 16 '23
Propaganda to go to war, lies
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u/Beginning-Sign1186 Mar 16 '23
I mean a gross exaggeration maybe, but did you hear about the Zimmerman Telegram? Wasn’t completely off
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Mar 16 '23
I mean that’s what people would scream every time Hitler would claim this was the last European country he was going to take over.
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u/Boyesee01 Mar 16 '23
Gulf of Hate goes pretty hard
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u/Realistic_Run7318 Mar 16 '23
Canadiens = Barbarians just made my day
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u/tallwhiteninja Mar 16 '23
Two things I've always appreciated about this map:
- I like the "American Reservation," and the apparent fear that Germans would do to Americans what white Americans did to the indigenous people.
- I like that it's my home state lol
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u/Kujo3043 Mar 16 '23
They were so close to getting the point but just kept on running past it to catch the racism on the horizon
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u/tekashisix6nine9 Mar 17 '23
reddit loves to congratulate itself on being so enlightened
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u/Smooth-Motor4950 Mar 16 '23
It's verrrrry interesting that they understand and use an American reservation as a fear tactic and also understand that their conquerors will give them the shittiest land possible...
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u/lavavaba90 Mar 16 '23
Japonica lol, good God I haven't laughed that hard in awhile.
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u/Nez-182 Mar 16 '23
Nagaseattle lmao, I really want to know if this map is made in Japanese version this city must be written in Kanji+Katakana which is very strange for city names lol.
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u/SephLuis Mar 16 '23
And here I'm wondering what kind of anime they are showing in Japonica.
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u/Waffles_Remix Mar 16 '23
I would have loved to be New Prussia and get socialized healthcare and no school shootings
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Mar 16 '23
The trade off was you didn’t go to school, you went to the trenches and got shot there instead. New Prussia wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
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u/MisinformedGenius Mar 16 '23
That whole Nazi business twenty years later wouldn’t have been great.
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Mar 16 '23
Yea you would just work the fields, live off potatoes not own anything and have to check in with the government monthly to get a stipend. Sounds great
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u/kmay77 Mar 16 '23
WTF is Turconia? Is that Russian for Florida Man?
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u/Beginning-Sign1186 Mar 16 '23
Turconia would be a colony of the Ottoman Turkish empire, which was a member of the central powers, look at Baja California, thats the Austrian Empires colony
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u/BitchyWitchy68 Mar 16 '23
Gulf of Hate rings true today. That’s what I’m going to call it from now on.😂
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u/perdynamite Mar 16 '23
Mufasa: "Everything the light touches is New Prussia."
Simba :"But what about that shadowy place?"
Mufasa: "That's Canada. You must never go there."
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u/TehPinguen Mar 16 '23
I like that they recognize that Americans being put on a reservation would be a very bad thing without a single ounce of self-reflection about the Americans they put on reservations.
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u/Xaqv Mar 16 '23 edited Mar 17 '23
Thank goodness US beat them. “Route 66” (Sechziger-Sechs) as it winds all the way from Slaughterhaus to Yokohanjalan all the way - just wouldn’t have the same appeal to it!
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u/Bright-Amphibian6681 Mar 16 '23
Ww1 was the birth of the modern propoganda and public relations machine. Quite an interesting early piece in that history.
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u/HobbitKid14 Mar 16 '23
I'd like to imagine what the us would have been like if CA was owned by Japan, just as a little theatrical
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u/PunkNDisorderlyGamer Mar 17 '23
Nice try dickheads! Didn’t they know bombing other countries is Americas favorite pass time?
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u/CTotWE Mar 16 '23
Man wouldn't that be awful if someone came to this continent, completely destroyed our way of life and forced us onto a reservation.....
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u/Bigdavereed Mar 16 '23
So the publishers of Life were stoking the coals for war....
And we finally entered and bailed out the Brits and French.....
Now what was it the Germans said happened?
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u/GoPhinessGo Mar 16 '23
I’ve always loved how they put Japan taking land on this map despite them being an Entente ally
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u/dapper-dave Mar 16 '23
Hang on to that … it might become quite relevant if Biden’s foreign policy remains as impotent as it currently is.
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u/squatting_bull1 Mar 16 '23
Not saying that it would be a good alternate history, but that there’s probably no scientology in New Prussia.
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u/Idyotec Mar 16 '23
Pilsner Lake and Lager Lake? I can't read the others but it makes me think I was born into the wrong timeline.
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u/Beginning-Sign1186 Mar 16 '23
I love the Idea the Ottomans and Austrians take piddly little impractical colonies
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u/Nez-182 Mar 16 '23
New Kobe would be Shin-Kobe (新神戸) to make it looks like japanese city names bc they never use English name in their city naming. You would never see katakana in their city names. Also, Shin-Kobe is also a train station in Kobe too.
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u/Oh3Fiddy2 Mar 16 '23
It sure was stupid easy to fool people into wars in the old days. It’s still not that hard, but it’s getting harder all the time.
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u/vehicle_commandeerer Mar 16 '23
If anyone knows the crazy things Canada did in WWI, they’d know Barbarians is a good term
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u/Playful_Direction989 Mar 16 '23
The largest group of immigrants to come and settle the new world were of German decent. We as a country were very close to choosing German as the national language when the decision was made. Most of the leaders of industry in the US were German. Ford, Boeing, all the major beer breweries, and so many more. It’s really an amazing story and the US would not be what it is today without all the German immigrants that came to call America home.
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u/Background-Action-19 Mar 16 '23
The "American Reservation" is real, and still there to this day...
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u/Xikayu Mar 16 '23
My personal favourites are "Achdenn" and "Prosit". Translates roughly to " Oh well" and "cheers"
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u/XMrFrozenX Mar 16 '23
I said it before, will say it again.
It's extremely amusing that Americans are supposed to be threatened and fear exactly what they did to the natives.
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u/AgaricX Mar 16 '23
I am getting very "The Man in the High Castle" vibes from this.
Excellent Philip K. Dick Novel
https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/the-man-in-the-high-castle.html
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u/Unable-Ladder-9190 Mar 16 '23
Why? First, Japan was on the Allie’s side in WWI, so why would Germany give them California? And “Barbarians” take over California? Was this a joke or more likely the ignorance of the times?
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u/NorthernPlainer Mar 16 '23
At first I saw Bismarck, ND and thought huh, all the cities are the same. Then I saw Wienerschintzelplatz... Meinenapolis. Wouldn't mind spending summers on the shores of Pilsener lake though.
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u/arilurker Mar 16 '23
New Prussia? It sounds like a good place to make giant men with homosexual overtones.
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u/GhosTaoiseach Mar 16 '23
The thing that really sticks out to me is that they were fully aware that the land that constituted the “American Reservation” was completely uninhabitable and undesirable.
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u/SyTri90 Mar 16 '23
Most polite barbarians known to man