Serio-Comic War Map of 1877 visualises Russian foreign policy as the tentacles of an octopus the creature threatens the enfeebled Ottoman Empire, and throttles Poland and Finland, then parts of the Russian Empire. The map's author Fred Rose, was the first person to conceive the idea of the octopus, though the idea of representing counties as figures or animals has a far older history maps used black humour to visualise European and world political tensions in visual form.