1918 Royal Engineers Map of Damascus, Syria, World War I, 'Captured Enemy Map' For Sale

51 x 74 cm (20 x 29.1 in.)
Damascus.This British military plan of Damascus is a rare and highly detailed piece of First World War cartography, compiled at the close of the Palestine and Syria campaign. Printed by the Field Survey Company, Royal Engineers, Egyptian Expeditionary Force, the map is explicitly derived "from a captured enemy map (dated June 1918)," supplemented with additional detail of Kadem Station from Royal Air Force aerial photographs and further place names drawn from the "Handbook on Northern Palestine and Southern Syria." It is a striking example of how intelligence gathered from an adversary's own surveys, aerial reconnaissance, and published gazetteers could be fused into a single working document for occupying forces on the ground.The Map in Detail
At a scale of 1:10,000, with both yards and meters given, the sheet renders Damascus and its immediate hinterland in fine grain. The old walled city and its dense quarters, including the Muhammedan (Muslim) Quarter, the Christian Quarter, and the Jewish Quarter, are shaded in a warm terracotta tone that sets the built-up areas apart from the surrounding cultivated and open ground, which is stippled with tree and orchard symbols and scattered farm buildings. The Citadel is outlined in bold black at the heart of the old city, and the map carefully distinguishes mosques, churches of various denominations (Maronite, Armenian, Greek, Latin, Jesuit), consulates (French, Russian, Italian, German), hospitals, barracks, cemeteries, and named city gates such as Bab el Berid, Bab el Jabiya, and Bab es Salihiya. The rivers and irrigation channels that made Damascus an oasis city are traced in detail, including the Barada (Abana) and its distributaries the Nahr Tora, Nahr Yezid, Nahr Banias, and Nahr Kanawat, alongside the railway lines and stations at Kadem and Meidan and the slopes of Jebel Kasiun rising over the Salahiya quarter to the northwest. A legend explains the symbols for cemeteries, tombs, and tramways, and an inset note clarifies that the map's upper left corner is a continuation from the adjoining South Sheet.Historical Context
The map dates from the final months of the Sinai and Palestine campaign, when Damascus fell to British and Arab forces under Allenby and Faisal at the start of October 1918, effectively ending Ottoman rule in Syria. Accurate large-scale city plans were essential for the logistics of occupation, administration, and further advance, and the Royal Engineers' Field Survey Companies were tasked with rapidly producing usable maps from whatever sources came to hand, including captured Ottoman and German material, since the Central Powers' own surveys of the region were often more current and detailed than existing British holdings. The explicit crediting of a "captured enemy map" as the primary source is a candid acknowledgment of this practice, and the supplementary use of RAF aerial photography reflects the growing role of air reconnaissance in First World War military cartography. The map therefore stands as both a practical operational document and a record of the intelligence methods used in the campaign's closing phase.Publication History and Census
Printed by the Field Survey Company, Royal Engineers, of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, this Damascus sheet was, as mentioned, based on an enemy map (i.e., Ottoman map, verylikely with heavy German influence), supplemented with additional detail of Kadem Station from Royal Air Force aerial photographs and further place names drawn from the "Handbook on Northern Palestine and Southern Syria." It belongs to a series of city and regional plans produced for military use in Palestine and Syria during 1917 and 1918. Such maps were issued in limited numbers for staff and field use rather than public distribution, and their survival rate is consequently low. We are only aware of institutional examples, at the British Library and Stanford University / the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection.