It was an attempt to group people based om ethnic and/or linguistic criteria.
Map description:
A map created by the author to represent what he felt the layout of Europe should be in 1916 after WWI.
“The chapter, entitled “Europe as it Should Be,” with its accompanying map, shows the boundaries of the various nations as they would look if the bulk of the people of each nationality were included in a single political division.
In many places, it is, of course, impossible to draw sharp lines. Greek shades off into Bulgar on one side and into Skipetar and Serb on the other.
Prague, the capital of the Czechs, is one–third German in its population.
There are large islands of Germans and Magyars in midst of the Roumanians in Transylvania. These are a few examples out of many which could be cited.
However, the general aim of the chapter has been to divide the continent into nations, in each of which the leading race would predominate in population.” — Benezet
His plan would have created the following 32 countries:
- Slovenes
- Romansh
- Germans
- Walloons
- Flemish
- Dutch
- Danes
- Gaels
- English
- Irish
- Welsh
- French
- Basque
- Portuguese
- Spanish
- Italians
- Albanians
- Greeks
- Turks
- Bulgarians
- Roumanians
- Serbs and Croats
- Magyars (Hungarians)
- Czechs (Bohemians)
- Slovaks
- Poles
- Letts and Lithuanians
- Russians
- Finns and Esthonians
- Lapps
- Swedes
- Norwegians
The plan is obviously completely bonkers. Just a few examples:
- Wales getting Cornwall
- North Ireland being grouped with the English
- Switzerland would cease to be state with each linguistic community joining the larger neighbouring state with the exception of a tiny Romansh state.
- On the other hand, Belgium would be divided into two rather than the Flemish joining the Netherlands and the Walloons joining France.
- Greece would get a bunch of the Turkish coastline
- Serbs and Croats in one state, what could go wrong?
And although its fun looking back on this map with more than 100 years of hindsight, it does also highlight how difficult the job of rebuilding Europe was after the Great War.
See:
- World War 1 Casualties As A Percentage of Pre-War Population
- Watch World War I In 60 Seconds
- Watch World War I Every Day On The Western Front [Video]
What’s your favourite part of the map?
Øyvind Heitmann says
I liked the idea of a Sami state, it is probably the first time I have seen it suggested by anyone outside the most extreme separatists.
I would also mention that it seems the author has divided Sardinia by giving the Western part to Spain ? There is a small Catalan minority in a village in the Northwest, maybe that is the reason if it is intended.