Читать книгу The Postage Stamp in War - Frederick John Melville - Страница 4

Table of Contents

The Postage Stamp with the Flag. — British Posts in the Crimea — The Abolition of the Capitulations — The British Fleet in the Baltic — Abyssinian Expedition — The First Army Postal Corps — Egypt — Dongola Expedition — South Africa — The British Army Post in France, 1914 — How to Address Soldier's Letters — The Postmarks from France — The Navy's Postmarks.

The Postage Stamp follows the Flag. The same small talisman which passes our letters across the seven seas to friends the world over maintains the lines of personal communication with our soldiers and sailors in time of war. Wherever the British Tommy goes he must have his letters from home; like the lines of communication, which are the life-line of the army, postal communication is the chief support of the courage and spirit of the individual soldier. His folk at home send him new vigour with every letter that tells of the persons, places and things that are nearest and most cherished in his memory.

In these days letter-sending and letter-getting are so common-place that few give any thought to the great organisation by which thousands of millions of postal packets are posted and delivered in this country every year. And now that most of us have friends at the Front, in France, in Belgium, or on the high seas, we are perhaps inclined to take it all just as a matter of course that letters pass and repass much in the ordinary humdrum way. This is plain to the conductors of our postal services when during war time they get numerous complaints from individuals of delay or even non-delivery, or any one of a number of other minor inconveniences which must often be unavoidable in the stirring times of war.

To-day many thousands of letters and postal packets are being sent to and received from the troops of the British Expeditionary Force in France, yet it is a simple fact that but a small percentage of the civilian population in this country knows anything of the existence, far less of the workings, of the Army Postal Service as an organisation separate and distinct from the postal department of the home Government. The Army Postal Service is administered under a Director of Postal Services, who is responsible to the Commander in Chief of the Army, and whose system is established with the co-operation of the Inspector-General of Communications.

The formation of a British Army Post Office Corps is of comparatively recent date. It was first suggested by Colonel du Plat Taylor in the seventies, as a means of using the services of the Post Office Rifle Volunteers in war time, but it was not until the Egyptian campaign in 1882 that the corps was formed.

Prior to this, however, bodies of servants of the Post Office had done duty with the army in organising and maintaining postal communication with the armies in the field and with the links connecting up with the home service. During the Crimean War extensive arrangements were made by the Post Office to maintain postal communication with the forces in Turkey, the Black Sea, and the Baltic. Prior to the war, the British Government did not maintain any postal packets between Mediterranean ports save some steam vessels for the transport of the Indian mails, and some of these were taken up by the military and naval authorities. Letters for Constantinople and the Levant ordinarily went through the French and Austrian administrations and were chargeable at the then high foreign rates of postage. With the assistance of the French Government, letters were sent viâ Marseilles to Constantinople (or vice-versâ) at first at intervals of three times a month, but afterwards six times a month, and during the latter period of the war, twice a week.

But the French mail packets went no further than Constantinople, so the British Postmaster-General sent out an experienced officer, Mr. E. J. Smith, of the London General Post Office, to Turkey as Postmaster of His Majesty's Forces; and three Assistant Postmasters, together with seven Letter Sorters. As the facilities for land transport accorded the Postmaster proved insufficient he was furnished with eighteen horses and mules for the exclusive use of his office. The Postmaster was supplied with the postage stamps of the home country, then (so far as the penny and twopence denominations were concerned) in the early and beautifully engraved design of William Wyon's "Queen's Head." This was the first use of British postage stamps on foreign territory, or indeed anywhere beyond the limits of the British Isles, and stamp collectors take a considerable interest in the English stamps which survive with the various Crimean postmarks specially supplied to the Postmaster of His Majesty's Forces in the East. Stamps used on letters from the forces may be recognised by either the Crown and Stars or Cypher and Stars or the circular dated postmarks (Figs. 1-4). A range of the early penny red stamps, from the imperforate red-brown stamp of 1841 to the Die II. large Crown perforated 14 stamp may be found, as well as the twopence blues of the same period, and the 4d. rose (1857), 6d. violet (1854), and 1s. green (1847) (see Figs. 5-10). There are possibly others not yet known to collectors.

1 2

3 4 Figs. 1-4. Crimean Postmarks.

5 6 7

8 9 10 Figs. 5-10. British stamps found with Crimean postmarks.

The correspondence dealt with by this small staff was considerable, averaging 45,250 letters despatched to and 43,125 received from the seat of war in each month. In one year 543,000 letters were despatched to and 517,500 received from the forces in the Crimea.

The chief officer in charge at the British post offices in Turkey and the Crimea during the war, Mr. E. J. Smith, is specially mentioned in the Postmaster-General's report for 1857 as having discharged his duties in a very creditable manner. In that year his services were offered to and accepted by the Turkish Government with a view to establishing an improved postal service in the Sultan's dominions. Since this date British post offices have been maintained (in common with post offices of other Powers) in various parts of the Turkish dominions, using British stamps with or without a special overprint. These offices were closed in October, 1914, as a result of Turkey's declaration of the "abolition of the Capitulations," just prior to Turkey's open acts of war against the allied forces of Great Britain, France, and Russia in the present war.

Ordinary British stamps used at the British post-offices in the Ottoman Empire may be distinguished by postmarks (Figs. 11-17).

11 12 13 (Constantinople)

14 15 16 17 (Smyrna) (Beyrout) Postmarks of British Post Offices in Turkish Empire.

The first three are from Constantinople, the fourth and fifth from Smyrna, and the last two Beyrout. There are also "S" Stamboul, "B01" Alexandria, "B02" Suez, as well as ordinary date stamps of all these places.

The following are illustrations of samples of the stamps which were in use at the British post-offices in Turkey at the time of the abolition of the Capitulations. (Figs. 18, 19).

18 19

20

Special arrangements were also made for maintaining postal communications with the British Fleet in the Baltic, the stamps used being distinguishable by postmarks of diamond-shaped internal configuration (Fig. 20). It is possible that date marks of Dantzig may also be found on British stamps of this period; they appear on the covers of letters bearing British stamps with the diamond cancellations. In the early part of the naval campaign letters were transmitted exclusively by war vessels or transports, but in the beginning of May, 1854, when the greater part of the Fleet had reached its destination the Admiral commanding in chief was directed to establish regular weekly communication by steamer between the ships under his command and the port of Dantzig. Mails for the Fleet were despatched from London every Tuesday to Dantzig, under cover of a bag addressed to Her Britannic Majesty's Consul at that port, who handed the bag over to the commander of the steamer which was timed to arrive at Dantzig each Friday. This arrangement, while satisfactory in respect of speed and regularity, involved the charging of the high foreign rates of postage, as the route was through Belgium and Prussia, but, as often as facilities offered, mails were made up for transmission by Government transports passing to and from England and the Baltic, by which soldiers and sailors were able to send and receive letters at their privilege rate of one penny each.

Abyssinian Expedition. The following is the type of date stamp used by the British post-office corps accompanying Sir Robert Napier's successful expedition to Abyssinia in 1867-1868 (Fig. 21).

21

The Indian Government sent an army postal corps to Abyssinia, the mails to and from the United Kingdom connecting up with the vessels carrying the Indian mails off Jubbel Teer in the Red Sea. The late Mr. J. G. Hendy of the G.P.O. Muniment Room records[1] that, in April 1868, a direct weekly mail service was established between Suez and Zoulla. The rates for letters under half an ounce were the same as to India, viz.:

	Viâ Southampton.	Viâ Marseilles.
Officers of Army or Navy,	6d.	10d.
Soldiers and Seamen,	1d.	5d.
For persons serving on board transports or other persons not belonging to the naval or military forces,	9d.	1s. 1d.

He also states that naval and military officers, when serving on colonial or foreign stations, were permitted, under Treasury Warrant of May 16, 1857, to send or receive letters at the reduced British postage of 6d. per ounce, in all cases where the postage of ordinary letters to or from the same place was higher than 6d. The privilege was withdrawn on January 1, 1870, and then letters became liable to the general rates of postage.

[1] "The Postmarks of the British Isles from 1840." By J. G. Hendy. London, 1909; p. 13.

Egypt. The organisation of an Army Postal Corps was authorised on July 18, 1882, for service in Egypt, and it was promptly completed. Colonel du Plat Taylor was instructed to form the corps of two officers and one hundred men from the Post-Office Volunteers (24th Middlesex) for enrolment in the first-class Army Reserve. The men combined the advantages of experience in postal work, as sorters and postmen, with army training. The officers selected were Major Sturgeon (of the Money Order Office) and Captain Viall (Receiver and Accountant General's Department), the former taking command with the army rank of Captain, and the latter seconding him, with the army rank of Lieutenant. The men received their post-office pay, and, while on active service, in addition to free kit and rations, the privates drew army pay of 1s., corporals 1s. 8d., and sergeants 2s. 4d. per day.

22

The famous blind Postmaster-General, Henry Fawcett, inspected the corps at the General Post Office on July 26, and the officers with 50 men sailed on August 8, disembarking at Alexandria on August 21. Their first postal duties were undertaken at Alexandria and Ramleh, but two days after disembarkation they re-embarked, joining up with Lord Wolseley's main forces at Ismailia on August 26. The base was at Ismailia, whence the post office corps sent out its branches, planting advanced base and field post offices connecting the base with the changing front, between which and the base a daily service was maintained. In September, shortly after the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, the Army and the Army Post Office reached Cairo, and re-embarked for home on October 7. The despatches gave high praise to the efficiency and useful service of the corps.

Three years later, Major Sturgeon (promoted in recognition of his services in Egypt, 1882) again commanded a corps of twenty N.C.O.'s and men, in Sir Gerald Graham's Suakim expedition of 1885. The corps left England on March 3, and returned on July 28, after a more difficult experience with the Suakim garrison than they had met with in the first Egyptian campaign.

Dongola Expedition. Of the Dongola Expeditionary Force under General Kitchener in 1896 we have no record of the use of English stamps, but Mr. H. H. Harland has shown us an interesting envelope with the postmark of Wadi-Halfa camp, the letter not being prepaid as no stamps were available (Fig. 23).

Fig. 23. Dongola Expeditionary Force.

South Africa, 1899-1902. Major Sturgeon was succeeded in the command of the Army Postal Corps by his second in command, Captain Viall. On the death of the latter (1890), Captain G. W. Treble of the London Postal Service took the command, which he held at the outbreak of the South African War in 1899, aided by Captain W. Price (now Colonel W. Price, C.M.G., in command of the Army Post Office with the British Expeditionary Force in France) and Lieutenant H. M'Clintock, these latter officers belonging to the Secretary's Office of the G.P.O., London. A first portion of the company, with Captain Treble, left England with General Buller and his staff, and the rest followed on October 21, and several further detachments went out with later contingents. In South Africa they had a very wide area to cover. At the outset Captain Treble established himself with the headquarters of the Inspector General of Communications in Cape Colony, and moved about keeping close touch with the movements of the forces, an important part of his duties being to forward to the various offices the information necessary to ensure the correct circulation of the mails. Captain Price was at Cape Town, and Lieutenant M'Clintock at Pietermaritzburg.

The British military mails were made up in the London G.P.O. in special bags addressed to the Army Post Office, and sent to the G.P.O. at Cape Town, in which building the detachment of the Army Postal Corps under Captain Price had established its base office. The bags containing military mails were handed over to the Army Base Post Office at Cape Town whence they were distributed to the various military post offices established at the centres of the troops, and to field post offices with each Brigade or Division in the field. In the return direction the soldiers' letters were handed in at field post offices and forwarded through various channels, sometimes ordinary and ofttimes military to the base at Cape Town, whence they were despatched to England in the ordinary way.

Early in 1900 the average weekly mail from London to the Field Forces was 150 bags of letters, postcards, etc., and 60 boxes of parcels; the incoming mail from the Field Forces was 11 bags of letters per week. In a letter dated from Cape Town, February 27, from Lieutenant Preece, who went out with reinforcements for the Army Post Office Corps in February, are some interesting glimpses of the difficulties of the work of this service[2]:

"Price, of the Post Office Corps, met us and told us (Captain) Palmer was to leave at once for Kimberley with 17 men (Captain) Labouchere and (Lieut.) Curtis to proceed on to Natal with 50 men, and I was to take the remainder ashore here (Cape Town) and stop to help at the base. At 9.30 on Monday morning I marched off with my 57 men to the main barracks and bid good-bye to the good ship 'Canada' and her merry cargo. After lodging the men in barracks I went off to the G.P.O., where I found Price and his 40 men ensconced in one huge wing, overwhelmed with work, and at breaking-down point. The mails every week increase now, and we have 250,000 pieces of mail matter to sort and distribute every week, over a country larger than France, among a shifting population of soldiers, each of whom expects to get his letters as easily as he gets his rations. It is a vast job, and we have done wonderfully so far with a totally inadequate staff. We have come in the nick of time. The recent movements (the advance of Lord Roberts from Modder River, relief of Ladysmith, etc.) have caused chaos among our mails. We receive and send telegrams every hour either to a field post office or to headquarter staffs. The latter order immediate reinforcement at Modder River, and Price has decided to send me up with more men to proceed to Paardeberg, or wherever the troops are, to get things straight."

[2] St. Martins le Grand, vol. x., page 201.

The preliminary arrangements necessitated by the vast area of the operations provided for two base offices, the one in Cape Colony and the other in Natal, and 43 field post offices, and by June, 1900, the Army Postal Corps was composed of ten officers and 400 N.C.O.'s and men, exclusive of post office telegraphists, etc., serving with the Royal Engineers. Many interesting statistics of the mails at different periods of the war have been given in various records, but it will suffice to quote some general ones on the authority of the Postmaster-General. His forty-sixth report, 1900, states:

During eight months of the Crimean War, 362,000 letters were sent out, and 345,000 were sent home. During a similar period of the war in South Africa 5,629,938 letters were sent out, and 2,731,559 were sent home.

The work of the corps was not undisturbed by the depredations of the enemy, and not infrequently the members of the corps had to defend the mails in their charge along with the guards provided by the military. On June 7, 1900, General De Wet, who has lately extinguished the admiration in which Britons held him for his brilliant and elusive tactics, by his treachery in the present war, swooped down with 1200 men and 5 guns on Roodewal Station where Lieutenant Preece had 2000 bags, a several weeks' accumulation of mails for Lord Roberts' main army. There were 17 men of the Army Postal Corps, and these, with about 160 men in charge of supplies, etc., had to defend the station. Two of the seventeen were killed, and Lieutenant Preece and the remainder of his gallant little corps were taken prisoners. The 2000 mail bags were used as a barricade. It is recorded that when the gallant little band surrendered, and De Wet, riding an English cavalry horse, came up, the Boer general was most polite and even kind in many ways, and expressed himself as "very sorry to do it," when asked not to destroy the letters and registered parcels. He said if he did not do so, his young Boers would open and read them and turn the letters of the soldiers into ridicule. The bags were opened, the contents strewed about, and the Boers possessed themselves of the valuables, while tobacco, cigarettes, cakes, chocolates were so plentifully strewed about that the young Boers even invited their prisoners to help themselves, as the General was going to burn everything. And he did burn the entire station.

In his forty-seventh report (1901) the Postmaster-General states:

The Army Post Office is still in operation in South Africa. The staff now consists of 7 officers and about 540 men. The weekly mail for the Army Post Office contains on an average 204,000 letters and 115,300 packets of printed matter; and it is estimated that during the year ended 31st March, 1901, 11,551,300 letters were sent to the troops and 9,250,000 were received from them. During the same period the parcels sent out to the forces in South Africa by post amounted to 534,245, the largest number despatched on any one occasion, namely, on the 1st of December, 1900, being 19,672. About 8745 such parcels are now sent each week.

As to the magnitude and difficulties of the work of the Army Post Office, I cannot do better than quote the following paragraph from Earl Roberts' despatch of the 16th August last:—

"The magnitude of the task set the Military Postal Service may be appreciated when it is realised that the Army Mails from England have exceeded in bulk the whole of the mails arriving for the inhabitants of Cape Colony and Natal, and contained each week little short of 750,000 letters, newspapers, and parcels for the troops. No little credit is therefore due to the department under Major Treble in the first few months, and for the greater part of the time under Lieut.-Colonel J. Greer, Director of Military Postal Services, for the way in which it has endeavoured to cope with the vast quantity of correspondence, bearing in mind the incessant manner in which the troops have been moved about the country, the transport difficulties which had to be encountered, the want of postal experience in the bulk of the personnel of the corps, and the inadequacy of the establishments laid down for the several organisations."

His Majesty has been pleased to confer the honour of C.M.G. on Messrs. Greer and Treble in acknowledgment of their services.

The forty-eighth report (1902) mentions no change of any importance in the Army Postal Service in South Africa, and gives the weekly average mail from England as 184,000 letters and 143,600 packets of printed matter: the total number of letters for the year ended March 31, 1902, was 10,774,000 outward, and 8,372,000 homeward, showing a decrease compared with previous returns. During the same period 528,000 parcels were sent out.

The last official reference to the Army Postal Service in South Africa is contained in the forty-ninth (1903) report, announcing its withdrawal, postal communications with the troops still on service in the old colonies and the new ones being carried on through the Colonial Post Offices under the ordinary regulations. The Peace was declared May 31, 1902.

The war in South Africa left its impress on many pages of the stamp collector's album, but at this juncture we are chiefly concerned with the immediate work of the British military postal service. Collectors have followed the use of the stamps of the home country into the distant fields of operations by means of the various postmarks which are summarised as follows from the collection of Captain Guy R. Crouch, of the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry[3]:

[3] The Postage Stamp, vol. XIV., pp. 234-237.

24 25

26 27

Type 1 (Fig. 24). Office Numbers from 1 to 56, and 100. Used also at Cape Town base with initials BO (Base Office) and an asterisk (sometimes omitted) in lieu of the office number. Also at sub-base offices with larger office numerals 1 to 9.

Type 2 (Figs. 25, 26). Commonly without the year being noted, as in the first illustration but also found with the year as in the second illustration of this mark. It has been largely supposed, but without much, if any, foundation that these year-less marks originated in Ladysmith during the siege, but little correspondence can have been passed out of the town during that period, and the origin of many of these marks is known not to have been Ladysmith.

Type 3 (Fig. 27). Used in sub-offices supplementary to type 1, found stamped in blue-green as well as in black. Office numbers 41-60.

28 29

Type 4 (Fig. 28). Used in Base Office at Cape Town.

Type 5 (Fig. 29). A locally made rubber-stamp cancellation found in several sub-varieties.

30 31

Type 6 (Fig. 30). Used in the field post offices attached to the Natal Field Force with name of place or number.

Type 7 is similar to type 2 but lettered NATAL FIELD FORCE, found in black and in violet.

Type 8, a newspaper cancellation, with NFF (Natal Field Force) in white letters on a black ground, circular shape.

30A

Type 9 (Fig. 30A). A thick lined circle, 20 mm. in diameter, lettered F.P.O. (Field Post Office) and a number, also used for newspapers.

Type 10. An almost circular obliteration lettered P.O.A. (Post Office, Africa) with the number 43, a bracket at each side and two thick bars at top and at bottom.

Type 11 (Fig. 31). Used in travelling post offices (T.P.O.), struck in black or violet. The travelling post offices are "EAST NO. 1," "MIDLAND," "WESTERN," and "NORTHERN."

32

Type 12 (Fig. 32). For fixed army post offices in Orange River Colony and Transvaal, used from about the end of 1901 and for a short time after the declaration of peace.

32A.

A fancy type of town postmark is shown in Fig. 32A.

Another interesting postmark relic of the war in South Africa is one struck in red "RECOVERED FROM WRECK OF MEXICAN" a ship which was returning from South Africa with mails from the troops, and which foundered after collision with the ss. Winkfield. The bulk of the mail was recovered.

The Great War, 1914. The Army Postal Service with the British Expeditionary Force on the Continent in the present war is under the command of Colonel W. Price, C.M.G., who as Captain Price had the long experience of service with the Army Post Office in South Africa. It is scarcely necessary to say that the volume of correspondence now being dealt with by the service is unprecedented in the history of the British Army. In the early months of the war the outgoing mail to the Army Base Post Office in France averaged 12,000 parcels and 250,000 to 300,000 letters a day. It is impossible to give statistics of the number of branch offices of all grades established, but already there are many interesting postmarks originating with the British Army in France.

The various types of marks so far recorded are:—

Army Base Post Office (Fig. 33).

Advance Base Post Office (Fig. 34).

33 34

Army Post Offices with the Troops (Figs. 35-37).

35 36 37

There are also a number of types of Censor marks, not all necessarily military, and printed labels used in re-sealing opened letters (Figs. 38-40):