[Added May 20, 2020. I just noticed that the question was about a real word situation about a century ago. People do know more about the geography of the real world than they know about the geography of totally fictional imaginary places. However, I for one know a lot more about geography than most people do, and I know enough to know that I am quite ignorant of many details of the geography of many places. There are many places in the world where I would have no idea which was the logical direction for characters to travel in a specific situation. I could certainly use a good map to help me understand course of events in many historical situations.

You may have heard of the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25-26, 1876, for example. One of the reasons for the defeat of the Seventh Cavalry was that most of the fighting was not in the flat lands southwest of the Little Bighorn but in the hills northeast of the Little Bighorn in terrain that was not so suited for cavalry. It also happened that Custer was unable to reach a ford to cross the Little Bighorn to assist Reno before Reno retreated.

About three years later, the Battle of Isandhlwana on January 22, 1879 during the Anglo-Zulu is often compared to the Little Bighorn. The first British victory in the war was on 29 March 1879 when the main Zulu force attacked the heavily entrenched camp of Colonel Wood's column at Kambula and were repulsed with heavy casualties, greatly depressing their morale.

About a day's ride from Kambula was a Zulu stronghold at Hlolbane. While expecting the Zulu army to attack Kambula, Colonel Wood decided to send a force to attack Hlobane on March 28.

If I was writing a fictional story about this, I would have mounted volunteers discussing when they would be ordered to attack Hlobane. And I would have the youngest officer in Weatherley's Horse, Sublieutenant Rupert Weatherley, aged 14, express the opinion that Wood would not be stupid enough to send them to raid Hlobane until after the main Zulu army attacked Kambula and was defeated.

When asked why, Rupert would say that the terrain at the Little Bighorn was unsuitable for cavalry operations, and is considered was a major factor in the defeat of the 7th cavalry. And a cavalry attack of Hlobane would face worse odds since there were thousand of warriors in that area, outnumbering the mounted force as badly as the 7th Cavalry was outnumbered by Sioux, and the terrain at Hlobane would be much worse, and more favorable to the Zulu infantry, than the terrain at the Little Big Horn. Rupert might draw a diagram in the dirt to illustrate his point.

Hlobane was about twice as large as the battle area at the Little Bighorn, consisting of two plateaus surrounded by steep slopes which it would be hard to get horses up or down, and separated by another steep slope difficult for horses, and with much rugged terrain favorable for infantry at the top. Thus it would be even harder for cavalry detachments to support each than it was for Custer and Reno to do so at the Little Bighorn.

So Rupert claims that a significant force of infantry would be needed to support the cavalry in any attack on Hlobane. But if an infantry force was marching to or from Holbane and was caught in the open by the main Zulu force, they would be slaughtered as at Isandhlwana, though the cavalry would be able to retreat to the fortified position at Kambula. So Wood would not dare to send infantry to Hlobane until the main Zulu army attacked Kambula and was defeated, and would not send the cavalry to attack Hlobane without infantry because that would be too similar to the situation at the Little Bighorn and be risking a similar defeat.

And if I was writing the story, Rupert would say that on March 26, right before orders are announced for the cavalry to ride toward Hlobane on March 27, and attack it from two directions on March 28. And Rupert would apologize for his opinion, since obviously Wood knew a lot more than Rupert and Wood obviously didn't consider the risk of repeating the Little Bighorn to be very large.

And in real history Wood did attack at Hlobane on March 28 in terrain that was much worse than at the Little Bighorn, with a divided force as at the Little Bighorn, and with the numbers about the same as at the Little Bighorn, and an additional factor which didn't happen at the Little bighorn, the main Zulu army was seen approaching, something Wood must have known could have happened, and the local Zulus were greatly encouraged by that, and the results were rather similar to the Little Bighorn.

Anyway, local geography matters a lot in war, travel, trade, natural disasters, and other events which can be interesting subjects for historical novels. If thinks maps can help explain why the geography dictates the course of events, you should use maps.]

While reading the question I had the idea that perhaps a novel could show a series of maps showing the characters's growing knowledge of the world. At the beginning they might have good knowledge of everyplace within a couple of days walk, within 20 or 30 miles.

And they might imagine that every other place in the would is within about another 20 or 30 miles from their home. So they might have heard that the evil realm of Darklordia is to the north and so picture it as being between 20 and 30 miles thick and beginning just 20 or 30 miles north of their home village. if they heard that the Empire of Goodlandia is to the south they might picture it as being and beginning about 20 or 30 miles south of home. And they might imagine the whole world is a disc about 40 to 60 miles in radius centered on their home.

And as they travel for days and days and days without reaching places which they thought were just beyond the limits of their knowledge, they ideas about how large the world is will get bigger and bigger. So every now and then you might include a map showing how far they are traveled and thus how might larger their mental map of the world has become.

{Added 05-20-2020. And if the story is set in a giant archipelago of islands like Indonesia or Ursula K. Le Guins's Earthsea instead of on a continent, the characters can have boats but never have traveled farther than the next island in any direction. So the maps could show the new islands they learn about as they travel farther and farther from home.

J.R.R. Tolkien made a map of the northwestern corner of Middle-earth while writing The Lord of the Rings. So the travels the characters take make a lot of sense with times, distances, and directions adding up very well. Except that it has been pointed that there is an inconsistency between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings about the terrain around where the trolls are encountered on the way to Rivendell. I have suggested that an earthquake changed the course of a river and a road was rerouted to follow the new course of the river between the two stories.

I have also noted that description in the story of the travels between Moria and Lorien to the banks of the river Anduin does not agree with the map as well as it usually does, so I am not sure whether to think that the map is a little inaccurate compared to the map, or the story is a little inaccurate compared to the map.

Tolkien was also very careful with time. For example, he used an almanac of the phases of the Moon in the year 1941 to model the phases of the moon in the fictional years 3018 and 3019 of the Third Age. And so the number of days in the story between when the Moon is described with the same phase, such as full, adds up to the proper number of days, except that there are one or two descriptions of the lunar phases which are not at the proper dates.

One of the appendixes to The Return of the King, The Tale of the Years, gives specific dates for everything that happens in The Lord of the Rings during Third Age 3018 and 3019. And I happened to notice there is a chronological difference between the story and the Tale of the Years at one point, when the Tale of the Years spreads out some events over at least one or two more days than the account in the story itself suggests. And if someone had pointed that out to Tolkien he would have wanted to rewrite the story and/or The Tale of the Years to make them agree with each other better.

So in my opinion, writers of fantasy should create maps of their imaginary settings while writing their stories and should compare the maps and the stories frequently and adjust one or the other whenever they find a discrepancy.]

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