Philatelica 2014/1 Az I. világháború kitörésének 100. évfordulója évében tisztelettel és kegyelettel emlékezünk hőseinkre és az áldozatokra. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ In the year of the outbreak of World War I, the 100th anniversary of respect and reverence to remember the heroes and victims. Tartalom / Content: Nagy Gábor: I.Világháborús hadifogoly levelezés 1914-1922. 1. Correspondence of Military Prisoners in the World War I 1914-1922 Nagy Gábor: Kiegészítés Dr. Palotás Zoltán Tábori postánk megindulása 1914-ben című cikkéhez 25. New Information Complementary to the Article of dr. Zoltán Palotás „Launch of Hungarian Military Mail Serveces in 1914” Frank Semmler − Gerhard Sand : Tulajdonvédelemi jelzések az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchia díjjegyesein 37. Property Protection Signs on the Pre-paid Covers of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy Híreink / News 41. Fordítók / Translators: Marina Shafira, Szücs Károly, nyelvi lektor / language assistant: Rojkó Annamária Szerkesztő / Editor Szücs Károly, Mafitt titkár / secretary of Mafitt Tanácsadók / Consultants Filep László, bélyegszakértő / philatelic expert Dr. Lővei György, a Gervay alapítvány elnöke / president of the Gervay Foundation Mervyn Benford, President of The Hungarian Philatelic Society in Great Britain CORRESPONDENCE OF PRISONERS OF WAR IN THE WORLD WAR I 1914-1922 GÁBOR NAGY, MISKOLC The soldier of the enemy falls under the protection of the interna- Moreover, so far nobody has managed to successfully complete this tional law from the moment he loses the capacity to protect himself, task. Instead, I will only try to find answers to some of the ques- and is in need of being treated in humane way. tions below. The Geneva Convention of 1906 and the Hague Convention of What makes a mail item a piece of the correspondence of the pris- 1907 provides that the warring parties treat the prisoners of war oners of war? Why should we still collect items of the correspon- humanely. It also needs to be ensured that prisoners of war and their dence of the prisoners of war still available? Where do these items families get in touch by mail. stand in the Post Office history? My presentation 1 is meant to trigger discussion in order to have this The issue has been thoroughly investigated in the foreign expert rich and interesting area of collection related to the history of the literature, mainly by German and Austrian authors, whereas there Post Office known to more and more people. has happened nothing or almost nothing in the Hungarian expert literature 2. Just as books have their own history, these documents have lived through their own history too – they were carriers of news, to fi- Because the main enemies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were nally survive two world wars until today. Their future depends on the Serbian, Russian, and Italian forces, obviously it was on these whether there will be understanding audience interested in the heri- fronts that most prisoners of war were captured on both sides. Thus, tage left to us by our grandfathers. it is mainly this correspondence which constitutes the subject of the Though soon their age will surpass 100 years, these pieces are still studies, while the conflicts with other powers are tackled much more superficially. not only visible at auctions but also in their primary sources – they may still come to light owned by families. Collections containing His Majesty thought through and considered everything. Flagged correspondence of prisoners of war still do not only depend on how trains full of soldiers departed with the music playing loudly. Then, much money one has. when postcards sent to field post offices came back with the remark "Missing " on the rear side, the search system involving a whole lot In my presentation, I do not intend to provide rigid definitions for of different forms took off. any categorisation of the correspondence of the prisoners of war. 1 This article is based on the inauguration speech of the author at Mafitt. It was given on 17 October 2013 at an event of the MABÉOSZ Post Office History 2 See the short research by István Gazda on the censorship in the World War I in Department. It is a corrected English version after the 1st publication in 2015. Philatelica 86/1 and in the Monograph, Volume I, Page 196. 1 According to the postcard, the search has been unsuccessful so far: Figure 3 Rear side of the postcard above with the “result” of the search;( Infor- Figure 1 Field postcard mailed at Post Office BUDAPEST 72 mation not arrived so far. Keeping in evidence Information office) this wording 915. MÁJ. 22, sent back with indication “missing” from Field Post Office 84 appears in many versions on different notifications. The card files were included into the search system, and if there was any valuable information, the families were notified. Figure 2 Very early notification sent from the Hungarian Red Cross Correspondent Office 914. SEP. 8 BUDAPEST 4, Postmark upon arrival: Miskolc 914. SEP 11. Figure 4 Search card used in Vienna in the newly established Gemeinsamen Zen- tralnachweisbureau, which was subordinate to the Austrian Red Cross 2 A similar form was also used by the Hungarian Red Cross. tions, as well as the mail sent between POW camps and across neu- tral countries. It should be noted that the mail of the staff of POW camps, though sent from the prisoner-of-war camps, certainly can- not be considered prisoner-of-war correspondence. By default, pris- oner-of-war correspondence may be classified in four categories. INCOMING MAIL 1 Mail items from Hungarian soldiers in captivity Figure 5 After some time official notifications on where the searched person can be found appeared. Prisoners of war also tried to send life signs via private correspon- dence. Figure 7 Russian bilingual (Russian-French) postcard for prisoners of war. Mailed at the town of Skobelev. Mail postmark: Tashkent 8.6.17 and a censorship postmark of GZNB of Vienna Due to the poor Russian postal organization, at the beginning of the war (until April 1915), mail was written on anything that was at hand: public and privately published cards or paper torn out from magazines or books and put in envelopes, etc. On 2 January 1915, Russian post office and telegraph authorities instructed the Petro- grad chief post office to produce 1,000,000 postcards for the pris- Figure 6 Field postcard sent from an Italian prisoner-of-war camp. Mailed on 22/7/1915. Wording: I am in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp; we are treated very oners of war, which were then sold at the price of ½ kopek a piece. well… By the end of December, the figure grew to 5,247,000. In order to Mail items of prisoners of war are those which were sent by or to make the censors’ job easier, it was provided that messages shall be prisoners of war, including military authorities and service loca- written only in the Russian, French, or German languages. 3 2 Mail sent to POWs in Hungary 4 Mail sent by POWs in Hungary Figure 8 Postcard for an Italian prisoner of war to Austria, mailed PONTE in Figure 10 Hungarian Red Cross postcard sent from the POW camp NEZSIDER FOGLIA 3. 9. 1918. Italian Red Cross and GZNB of Vienna censorship on 1 January 1917. Postmark of GZNB Vienna censorship. OUTGOING MAIL This postcard was sent to Serbia, which was occupied by the Monarchy. 3 Mail sent to Hungarian POWs POW correspondence between POW camps or mail sent fur- ther in the course of address investigation Figure 9 Hungarian Red Cross postcard sent from Budapest on 16 August 1916 Transit postmark: TASKENT 14. 11. 16. Postmark upon arrival: KOL- Figure 11 Japanese postcard sent as prisoner-of-war card with Merry Christmas TUBANKA 29. 11. 16. Censorship: BUDAPEST and TASKENT. The postcard and happy New Year greetings was on the way for three months. Japanese postmark: Kurume 7.12.21. 4 Ship SMS Kaiserin Elisabeth , which was based in the Far East and and Russia was carried out through the still neutral Romania and on which 434 persons served, sunk herself after the Japanese decla- Italy, while later Denmark and Sweden joined in. Still later, Swit- ration of war took place on 3 November 1914. The crew of the ship zerland joined in to handle the postal traffic with Serbia and then was taken to various Japanese POW camps. Italy, after the latter got involved in the war. The postcard below was sent from one camp to another. The Japa- nese postmark means that the mail item was dated in the year fol- lowing Tenno (Emperor) stepping to the throne, in the 7 th year of Taisho era, on 12.21, which is December 21. The postcard was dated in Kurume on December 18, 1918. Figure 13 POW postcard addressed to Danish Red Cross PRISONER-OF-WAR CORRESPONDENCE or what makes a mail item a prisoner-of-war correspondence document? The kind, content, and format of the consignments intended for prisoners of war were determined by the effective postal regula- Figure 12 Hungarian Red Cross card sent in BUDAPEST 916. NOV. 13. Ad- tions. In Hungary, they were published in the Royal Hungarian dress: KOLTUBANKA. Censorship: BUDAPEST HADIFOGOLY Minister of Trade Affairs' Post and Telegraph Regulations (herein- LEVÉLCENZÚRA (Budapest prisoner-of-war letter censorship); Russian cen- after referred to as" PTRT "). sorship PETROGRÁD. This postcard was re-directed from TOCKOJE prisoner- of-war camp to KOLTUBANKA one, where it arrived on 18/12/1916, within a All in all, the hallmarks of POW pieces of correspondence, namely surprisingly short period of three weeks. those features which, if all of them present, usually determine if a mail item is a prisoner-of-war mail item, are the following (partially POW mail sent via neutral countries on the basis of what was mentioned above and partially on the basis Postal traffic usually terminated between any given countries from of the censorship provisions of the respective “other side): the moment of war declaration.