The Great War Through Picture Postcards

Guus de Vries

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781473856691
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War I
• Index: History

During World War I, the picture postcard was the most important means of communication for the soldiers in the field and their loved ones at home, with an estimated 30 billion of them sent between 1914 and 1918. A Postcard from home offered the soldier in the trenches a short escape from their daily hell, while receiving a postcard from the man on the front-line was literally a sign of life. These postcards create a vivid record of life at home and abroad during the Great War, both from the messages they carries and the pictures on the cards themselves. The dipiction of war on the contemporary postcards is extremely diverse: The ways in which the postcards depict the war differs greatly; from simple enthusiasm, patriotism and propaganda to humour, satire and bitter hatred. Other portray the wishes and dreams (nostalgia, homesickness and pin-ups) of the soldiers, the technological developments of the armies, not to mention the daily life and death on the battlefield, including the horrific reality of piles of bodied and mass-graves Altogether, this extraordinarily vivid contemporary record of the Great War offers a unique and details insight on the minds and mentality of the soldiers and their families who lived and died in the war to end all wars.

Chapter 1

War and Picture Postcards

Mail and Morale

During the First World War, the most important people in a soldier’s life were the cook and the postman. The distribution of mail and comforts from home were the emotional highlight of the day, and contacts with the outside world were an important support, helping the soldiers to bear many deprivations. Knowing that there was a ‘normal’ life outside the theatre of war, receiving mail meant a connection to home and was extremely important to the soldiers. It meant that their minds could, temporarily at least, flee the hell they were captured in. On the other hand, receiving military mail from the front was at least a sign of life, and so the daily visit of the postman was eagerly anticipated by those at home.

The military authorities were aware of the massive influence mail had on the morale of the troops. Consequently, sending mail was often very cheap or even free of charge for active soldiers, even though it required extensive and costly organisation. In 1918 for example, the German Army’s field post offices were staffed by about 8,000 mail clerks and 5,000 supporting troops, while in 1917, the British Field Post Office employed about 4,000 personnel. Of course, the number of picture postcards, letters and parcels transported by the various field post services is beyond imagination.

The soldier’s two friends.

‘Whenever he sees them, he gives them a smile, as both provide him with nourishment. One satisfies his hunger, the other his heart, mind and soul.’ A nice example of the broad range of postcards picturing the cook and the postman.

A sorting room of the German field post office. In 1918 around 13,000 civilian and military personnel worked carrying mail, transporting around 16 million shipments daily. The mailbags in the foreground are labelled with their destinations, from left to right the 29th, 25th, 26th and 27th Infantry Divisions. The numbers below the division information are the regimental numbers, in the case of the 26th ID this would be the 119th, 121st, 122nd and 125th Infantry Regiment. This division initially fought in Belgium and northern France, but was later moved to the East.

In Germany alone, about 16.7 million shipments were transported daily between the various fronts and the home country (altogether the volume of mail between August 1914 and November 1918 amounts to 28.7 billion individual shipments); in France it was around 4 million shipments per day (amounting to 10 billion over the course of the war); the British Field Post Office processed 2 million shipments a day (5 billion altogether). The combined volume of mail items for these three countries alone amounts to almost 45 billion. With a cautious estimation of 5 billion each for Austria-Hungary, Russia and the US, and without even allowing for the other nations taking part in the war, the end result is around 60 billion postcards, letters and parcels sent over the four years.

A typical photographic postcard not produced for commercial sale, but ordered by one of the soldiers in the picture or a comrade. It shows French soldiers in a dugout somewhere behind the front line, whose appearance betrays their experiences. This everyday situation also shows the importance of mail: two of the four men are writing and two picture postcards are fixed to the shelf over their heads.

According to estimates, roughly half the shipments were picture postcards, meaning at least 30 billion postcards were sent by or received by a soldier between August 1914 and November 1918.

This inconceivable number was the result of a desire for communication between the millions of soldiers, who were often away from home for years, and their families at home. Picture postcards were the best means for this; they were readily available and cheap. Active soldiers could often mail them free of charge and they were prettier to look at than letters and could be written faster, as they needed less text. By choosing the image, the sender could perhaps convey his feelings or sentiments more easily than by putting them into words. Moreover, in the years leading up to the war, a time without telephones and radio broadcasts, the picture postcard was the most important means of communication.

The war letter.

An overjoyed young German woman reads a letter from her husband or fiancé serving in the army.

The old man in the background smiling contently is most likely the father of the far-away soldier. At the very least, receiving a postcard or a letter meant that the sender was alive recently, even though it usually took a couple of days for military mail to arrive.

A happy hour. Mail from home is distributed to Austro-Hungarian troops.

This card is a retouched and coloured photograph by the K.U.K Kriegspressequartier, the Austro-Hungarian press information office, established at the beginning of the war. The joy of the soldiers in the picture is therefore not artificial.

Searching for a pen pal.

‘Young soldier with a free heart, searches for a friendly and loving pen pal.’ The typically French phenomenon of the ‘Marraine de Guerre’, which appeared in Spring 1915 and can loosely be translated as ‘wartime godmother’ or ‘wartime foster mother’, shows one important influence of mail on morale. The idea behind it was to establish contact for the duration of the war between soldiers without family, or whose family lived in the occupied and therefore unreachable parts of France, and a female pen pal.

Correspondence Cards, Picture Postcards and Military Postcards

The first ever postcard, at that time called a correspondence card, was mailed in Austria in 1869 and reached unforeseen popularity almost immediately. Soon images were added to the postcards and the picture postcard was born. At the turn of the century the picture postcard was not only an important means of communication but also an art form and a phenomenon. Furthered by technical progress in the field of printing, producing and publishing postcards had become an important branch of the economy.

Collecting picture postcards was a popular pastime at the beginning of the twentieth century and was a singular and inexhaustible source of information, as every corner of the earth and almost every human activity could be pictured. The picture postcard had an important influence on the development of our visual culture and the communication of art and beauty, especially as from the late nineteenth century, an increasing number of well-known artists were tasked with creating ‘artist postcards’, which introduced the stylistic language of the Art Nouveau to a wider audience.

A group of exhausted German soldiers pose for the camera. The picture was most likely taken in echelon quarters a couple of miles behind the front line, to which the troops were moved for rest and recreation after spending time in the forward positions and where they could also resupply and receive replacements. The ledge is decorated with a great number of postcards, the majority of them showing women.

A letter home.

Often sketches, drawings or watercolours made by soldiers were used as motifs for postcards. Style and artistic quality ranged from simple to high-end. This card, with the writing on the front side and dated 9 April 1917, was actually printed.

Current events also formed motifs; train accidents and natural disasters were favourite topics and publishers reacted quickly to such events. The onset of the war allowed them to prove their efficiency, as the first cards remembering the ‘1914 campaign’ were up for sale only a couple of days after the first shots were fired.

The demand for information about the war was enormous, not least or perhaps exactly because millions of young man were mobilised and deployed to the field. No publisher considering himself a serious businessman could ignore this development, so in no time at all, numerous series of picture postcards showing military images were published.

The compliments card to the home country.

The ‘greetings from the field’ range of postcards consisted of several cards depicting the soldiers’ everyday life. The soldiers are inside and in front of their dugout, which reaches far into t...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter I: War and Picture Postcards
• Chapter II: Themes: From Hatred to Love
• Chapter III: The First World War
• Chapter IV: Countries and Armies
• Chapter V: The Western Front
• Chapter VI: The Other Theatres of War
• Chapter VII: Old and New Weapons
• Chapter VIII: The War in the Air
• Chapter IX: Transport and Communication
• Chapter X: In the Trenches and Behind the Lines
• Chapter XI: Dead, Wounded, Taken Prisoner or Missing
• Chapter XII: The Home Front and the Neutral States
• Further Reading