Serbia. Revolutionary disturbances have assisted the changes of the stamps of Serbia. Michael Obrenovich III., who figures on the issue of 1866, was assassinated on June 10th, 1868, by the friends of the abdicated prince, Alexander Karageorgevich. Milan IV., his successor, had a troublous reign; during his period the country was recognised as a kingdom with Milan as king, but he abdicated in 1889 in favour of Alexander, his son. The portraits of Milan and Alexander figure on the stamps of their respective reigns, and in the case of Alexander we get one of those philatelic issues which must imprint on our minds the memory of notable or notorious events. It is within the memory of most of our readers that Alexander and his consort, Queen Draga, were assassinated by a number of military officers in 1903, and the house of Karageorgevich once again ruled in Serbia in King Peter, the present monarch. At the time of the assassination a new series of stamps bearing the portrait of Alexander was in readiness for issue, but before they were sent out under the new regime the effigy of the murdered king was almost completely obliterated by the overprinting of a design of the Serbian Arms (Fig. 222).
The year following the grimmest of all the royal tragedies of Serbia the surviving dynasty commemorated its centenary, and issued perhaps the most sensational stamp series known to collectors. These will go down to posterity as the "Death Mask" stamps, although the curiosity of artistry which led to this designation probably owes more to the excited imagination of the Serbian and foreign public than to any gruesome intent on the part of revolutionary artists.
The Coronation stamps of King Peter, issued September 21, 1904, are of large size, and in two designs, by G. Janovic. M. Mouchon was the engraver, and the stamps were printed at the French Government Stamp Printing Factory in Paris. The names of the designer and engraver appear in microscopic letters below the design of each stamp. The first design (Fig. 223) shows a medal on which the profile of the new King Peter is superimposed upon the profile of the founder of the dynasty "Kara," or Black George. The names inscribed upon the medal are KARA GJORGJE at left, and PETAR I. at right. To the left and right of the medal respectively are the centennial dates 1804-1904, and below are the Serbian Arms, with the motto SPES MIHI PRIMA DEUS. Along the top of the stamp in Sclavonic characters is KRALJEVINA SRBIJA (Kingdom of Servia), the value in PARA is in the lower left corner, and the word POSHTA in the lower right corner. This design was used for all the para values.
For the higher values in dinar (Fig. 224), the same frame design is used, but for the medallion what may have been the reverse of a Coronation medal is shown. This is reputed to be an allegory representing the successes of the guerilla leader Kara-George, founder of the dynasty against the Turks in 1804. There is a minute inscription on the medallion below the picture signifying THE DAWN OF LIBERTY, 1804.
These stamps were at first received by collectors with disdain and some disgust; the memory of the tragedy of June 10th, 1903, was still too fresh to allow the world to join readily in any jubilation over the centenary of a dynasty which had been dragged from obscurity after many years, to occupy a throne lately emptied by the foul hands of assassins. It is even said that the early sales of the stamps were entirely disappointing. But this was all changed from the moment rumours of a cunning intrigue attached themselves to the issue.
It is probably—almost certainly—an accidental effect produced by the drawing or engraving of the two heads, one over the other, that they produce in more ways than one, other composite "faces." By masking the lower part of the profile of Kara George it is possible to distinguish a new face with an ugly gashed brow; but the alleged "Death Mask" of Alexander is seen by turning the stamp upside down, and regarding that portion of the inverted profiles which may be marked off in triangle fashion with the chins as the base of the triangle. There is certainly a curious and hideous effect, but similar, if less ghastly, artistic curiosities occur in numbers of other stamps, and in many other forms of pictorial representation, and in the case of the Serbian Coronation issue it is probably pure accident. Fig. 225 represents the current type of Serbian stamp, with a military portrait of King Peter.
Montenegro. Tsar Nicholas of Montenegro has not given us any special war stamps, but the warrior King's portraits, at various stages in his career appear on the stamps issued in 1910 for his jubilee. The 1 para shows him as he was during his student days in Paris (Fig. 226), the 2 and 20 paras show him with his bride at the date of their marriage, 1860 (Fig. 227). The other values show various portraits of the King, including one of him on a charger leading his troops to battle (Fig. 228).
Chapter VI.
Germany. In postal arrangements for armies in the field Germany has shown earlier organised war posts than any of our Allies. As with the regular postal systems on the Continent, their early history is bound up with the records of the princely house of Thurn and Taxis, of which house Count Roger set up in 1460 the first horse post between the Tyrol and Italy. About 1535 Johann Baptista von Taxis created the first field post offices operating with the armies of the Emperor Charles V. against the Turks and in Italy. The hereditary monopoly which the Thurn and Taxis family enjoyed from the fifteenth century continued well into the nineteenth, the last remnant of it being purchased from the family by Prussia in 1867 for three million thalers.
The growth of Prussian dominion and the fusion of the German States into one vast empire is well demonstrated in the stamp album by the joint Austro-Prussian issues for the conquered Danish duchies, by the disappearance of the States from the list of separate stamp issuing countries, replaced at first by stamps of the North German Confederation, and later by stamps of the German Empire.
The stamp collection plainly shows the modern progress of military Prussia to the lead in the Germanic countries. Collectors have many interesting postal relics of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 in the form of Feldpost Brief, and the Franco-Prussian War brought about the first special war stamps issued by Germany for the use of their armies of occupation in Alsace and Lorraine, and in the invaded parts of France (Fig. 233). Of this campaign there are also the "Feldpost Brief," and the then novel form of communication by postcard was also adopted for military purposes in the "Feldpost correspondenz karte." From the foundation of the Empire the stamps show little change. Being a collection of sovereign states it has never been regarded as appropriate for the Kaiser's portrait to figure on the stamps as King George's does on most of the stamps of the British Empire. The German stamps to-day bear a female head (Fig. 234) drawn by Paul Waldroff after a representation of "Germania" by an actress Fräulein Anna Führing, which so impressed the Kaiser that he adopted this as the symbol of Germany on its stamps. On modern high value German stamps there are pictures of more war-like interest. The 2 marks stamp shows an allegory of the Union of North and South Germany from a painting by Anton von Werner, with the motto "SEID EINIG, SEID EINIG" (be united, be united!); the 3 marks (Fig. 235) shows a group of German princes with the Kaiser on horseback at their head, a scene drawn by W. Pape of the unveiling of the memorial to Kaiser Wilhelm I. The highest German stamp denomination, the 5 marks (Fig. 236) shows another group, with the present Kaiser prominent in it. This is also by Pape, and represents one of those spectacular appearances which the Kaiser has revelled in, the delivery of an address on the anniversary of the reconstitution of the German Empire. The motto "EIN REICH, EIN VOLK, EIN GOTT" (one kingdom, one people, one God) is one which, as we now know, may be carried too far!
Since the outbreak of the present war the German armies have no doubt provided a great deal of new material for philatelic study, and a recent number of a stamp journal published in the Fatherland tells us that collectors there are zealously following the development of the German Field Post Offices, adding the following information:
There is a lot of interesting material already, not only with regard to the printed forms used in the Field Mail Service, but also with regard to the Field Post cancellations, Troop Letter cancellations, and Censor postmarks. The correspondence coming from the garrisons very rarely bear a Field Post cancellation, and it is generally cancelled with ordinary town postmarks like the mails of troops still at home. Besides this, there is, occasionally, a censor Troop cancellation; to the latter also belong the Lazarett cancellation (hospital service), of which we have seen several that were interesting. Lately, a large number of pieces of mail have been coming from troops in the enemies' country, without postal cancellations—owing to strategic reasons—which is much to be regretted from the view-point of the collector. In the near future, the working out of German Field Post cancellations of the war of 1914 will be an exceptionally thankful philatelic report. We will only mention the news that France had issued several occupation stamps which were said to have been used during the occupation of Muelhausen. A collector in Muelhausen wrote to us about this mythological issue of stamps, that the French, during both occupations, have neither used their own stamps, nor have they organised any kind of postal service.[6]
Belgium, as already noted in Chapter V., has been provided with stamps of the Germania type overprinted "Belgien" and the value in centimes (Fig. 209). These have, no doubt, been issued in enormous quantities with the hope of raking in shekels not only from the Belgians and from German stamp collectors, but also from collectors and curiosity hunters in neutral countries. Although there are plenty to be had in Switzerland, Holland, and other neutral countries at about sixpence the set of four, it is extraordinary to relate that in one or two isolated cases British dealers have obtained and sold supplies at very fancy prices. As in the case of the similar issue so called "Alsace and Lorraine" of 1870-1871, there will be plenty to go round, and it will be time enough when the Huns have ceased from troubling us to gather these relics into our albums as memorials of Germany's trail through the beautiful towns of Belgium. In any case it is inadvisable to buy any unused stamps originating in an enemy country since the outbreak of the war, as they represent a clear contribution to the enemy's Treasury.
[6] Incidentally the German journal, Berliner Briefmarken-Zeitung, in a very moderate article on the war's effect on the stamp trade, states that German collectors are buying up Belgian, Serbian, and Montenegrin stamps, evidently in the "opinion that these countries will become non-existent."
Very few postmarks of the present war have so far reached us from Germany, but Fig. 237 is a type of the Field Post Office date mark. Figs. 238, 239 are Censor marks, and the next (Fig. 240) is the cover of a letter from a prisoner of war interned at Kissingen.
Austria. The stamps of Francis Joseph the Unlucky, who has been on the throne of Austria since the first Austrian issue appeared in 1850, do not call for more than pictorial representation here. The general postage stamps current in Austria were originally issued as a special series to mark the sixtieth year of the Emperor's reign (1908). Slightly modified, they were re-issued for the celebration of his eightieth birthday (1910). The illustrations (Figs. 241-257) show the original issue of 1908 as still current. The portraits are copied from paintings in the Royal palaces, and the subjects are: 1 heller (Charles VI.), 2 heller (Maria Theresa), 3 heller (Joseph II.), 6 heller (Leopold II.), 12 heller (Francis I.), 20 heller (Ferdinand).
Of the present Sovereign, unluckier than ever in the present war, the series comprises several good portraits. The 30 heller shows him at the time of his accession in 1848, the 35 heller a portrait painted thirty years later, 1878; the 50 heller shows him in the uniform of a Field Marshal, and on the 1 krone he figures with the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Contemporary portraits appear on the 5, 10, and 25 heller (Figs. 244, 246, 249), and a particularly fine portrait stamp of large size is the 10 kronen (Fig. 257) printed in deep brown, blue and ochre.
The 2 and 5 kronen stamps (Figs. 255, 256) respectively present views of the Imperial palaces Schönbrunn and Hofburg.
On October 4, 1914, two stamps were issued in Austria of a war charity postal character, selling for 2 heller more than the face value, the extra 2 heller going to the fund for the widows and orphans of Austrian soldiers killed in the war. The designs are adapted from the ordinary 5 and 10 heller stamps (Figs. 244, 246) by a lengthening of the stamps for the addition of the date 1914 (Fig. 258). These although paying postage to the value of 5 and 10 heller, sell at 7 and 12 heller respectively.
Bosnia-Herzegovina. The military occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria under the treaty of Berlin, 1878, was followed thirty years later by the coup of October 5, 1908, by which the Emperor-King proclaimed his sovereignty over the two provinces. His portrait first appeared on a Bosnian stamp of the pictorial series of 1906-7 in which, incidentally, there are included views of Sarajevo where occurred the murder of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, a tragedy which provided a pretext for hastening the German plans for a world war. In 1912 the Emperor-King's portrait re-appeared on the stamps of the military postal administration of these provinces (Fig. 259).
The 5 and 10 heller stamps of 1906 giving views of the Pass of Narenta with a view of the river Prenj, and the valley of Vrba, are reported to have been overprinted "1914" and surcharged 7 and 12 hellers for use in collecting 2 heller contributions to the Austrian war fund.
Hungary. The stamps of Hungary, in the lower values (Fig. 260) depict the Turul, the mythical bird of the Magyars, which was said to have been the messenger between them and Heaven, and their guide along the road that took them into Hungary. When the Magyars proclaimed Arpad their first King, the Turul perched upon his forehead. Two of these low value stamps have been, with modifications and overprint, adapted for selling as war charity postage stamps (Fig. 261) at 5 + 2 filler, and 10 + 2 filler. The war inscriptions read "HADI SEGELY" (War Relief) and on label at the foot, obliterating the original inscription, "OZVEGYEKNEK ES ARVAKNAK KET (2) FILLER" (for the widows and orphans two filler). The next illustration (Fig. 262) is a charity postcard from Hungary bearing one of the war relief stamps.
Turkey. The coming of the Young Turk has completely changed the aspect of Turkish stamps. They have robbed the collector of a rare illusion, and we owe them a grudge for it. The picturesque fancies which we treasure in our memories as the children store up the fables of the nursery, are dear to us children of a larger growth. But our love of fantastic lore suffers many a shock. Ever since the first stamps of the Sublime Empire appeared in the reign of Abdul Aziz, on whom be Peace, we collectors of stamps (on whom there can be no Peace, for in stamps there is constancy but in change) have nourished a fond fancy that pictures and portraits are forbidden to the Muslim, and that Allah, who is great, and his prophet, Muhammed, have set the Curse upon such works of Satan.
Much has been written by philatelists, as well as by Muhammedan scholars, upon the subject, and the continued philatelic fidelity to the Thoughra (the Sultan's sign manual) on the Turkish stamps has ingrained into collectors the belief that the Turks would never depart from their reading of the law as set forth by Muhammed in this particular. The verse which, in the Koran, sets forth the alleged prohibition is transcribed:—
O believers! surely wine and games of chance, and statues, and the divining arrows are an abomination of Satan's work! Avoid them that ye may prosper.
The wise men of the East, who have drunk deep of the streams of wisdom that flow from the Book of Warnings, have read many different meanings into the verse, and in Turkey it has been taken to imply the forbidding of all figures, and even the ruminative game of chess is barred by the strict Muslim. We, of Christian faith, would appear to have a more emphatic prohibition of the making of pictures in the translation of the Mosaic law:—
And God spake all these words, saying, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Our theologians have not regarded the second Commandment as a condemnation of the making of pictures, though many an earnest believer, during the phases of pictorial frenzy through which we have passed and are still passing, may have regarded the picture paper and the picture palace as abominations of Satan's work.
The new pictorial stamps of Turkey have dispelled one of the mellow myths of our cult, a myth which, perhaps, was simply an exaggeration of a prohibition which is more in common with Western ideas than with Western practices. For instance, there have been recorded seizures of pictorial postcards in Turkey, attributed to the Muhammedan law; but these probably concerned cards which gave offence to Muslim susceptibilities by their blatant portrayal of the unveiled faces (inter alia) of women. If the prohibition of pictures in the past has been no myth, and the late departure from precedent is the result of the advent of the New Turk, then, indeed, the New Turk hath courage, for each true believer of the Prophet must needs regard every new-born child, whether a creature of the flesh or of the mind, as a thing that is touched by Satan.
Yet one other illusion concerning Turkish stamps has been shattered of recent years. We are told now that the Crescent, so long an emblem of the Sublime Empire, owes nothing to the moon. The barking of dogs on the appearance of the moon at the siege of Byzantium may have saved the city, and the partial eclipse of the orb of night may have aided the Turks at the capture of Constantinople, but the Turkish Crescent is no memorial thereof, merely a horse-shoe or an amulet. Professor Ridgeway says it is the result of the base-to-base conjunction of two claw or tusk amulets. Says another writer, "There is no historical evidence that the Turks thought at all of the moon when they adopted a crescent as their national symbol."
Turkey's first departure from the Thoughra device for its stamps was in 1913, when a set of crude picture stamps displayed an alleged view of the new General Post Office at Constantinople (Fig. 280). Later in the same year a finely-engraved set of three denominations, 10, 20, and 40 paras, was issued to commemorate the recapture on July 22, 1913, of the fortress of Adrianople after the Balkan War. The design, which was engraved in London, shows a view of the Mosque of Selim (Fig. 281).
On January 15, 1914, a fine new set of London-printed stamps was issued depicting a number of scenes in the Turkish Empire and a portrait of H.M. Sultan Muhammed V. Incidentally some of the designs are of warlike interest, notably the cruiser Hamidieh on the 2 piastres (Fig. 272), Turkish War Office on the 5 piastres (Fig. 274), and the forts of the Bosphorus on the 50 piastres (Fig. 277).
The vignettes of the full set of the 1914 issue are:
| 2 | paras, | mauve. | Hippodrome Obelisk. |
| 4 | " | sepia. | Column of Constantine. |
| 5 | " | purple-brown. | The Seven Towers. |
| 6 | " | deep blue. | Leander's Tower. |
| 10 | " | green. | Fanaraki. |
| 20 | " | scarlet. | Castle of Europe. |
| 1 | piastre, | bright blue. | Sultan Ahmed Mosque. |
| 1½ | " | carmine and black. | Martyr's Monument. |
| 1¾ | " | grey and red-brown. | Bathing Fountains of Salem. |
| 2 | piastres, | green and black. | Cruiser Hamidieh. |
| 2½ | " | orange and green. | Candilli. |
| 5 | " | deep lilac. | Ministry of War. |
| 10 | " | red-brown. | Sweet Waters of Europe. |
| 25 | " | dull yellow-green. | Suleimanieh Mosque. |
| 50 | " | rose. | The Bosphorus. |
| 100 | " | indigo. | Sultan Ahmed's Fountain. |
| 200 | " | green and black. | Sultan Muhammed V. |
In addition there were issued four postage due stamps, one bearing the warlike "Arms" of Turkey, and the other the Thoughra, or sign-manual, of Sultan Muhammed V. (Figs. 282, 283).
Already the present war, even before Turkey had on its part opened hostilities, has produced an important effect upon the postal arrangements of Turkey by the "abolition of the Capitulations" which took effect on October 1, 1914. The various Powers interested in Turkey have for many years maintained agencies of their own postal administrations in Constantinople and other parts of the Turkish Empire, and these, owing to the untrustworthiness of the Turkish service, secured the bulk of the foreign correspondence both of Europeans and Turks. Latterly, Turkey has been endeavouring to compete more keenly with these rival post offices within its own dominions, and they have sold specially earmarked stamps to business firms for use on foreign correspondence at a substantial discount off face value.
The star overprinted in blue or red (Figs. 284, 285) on the current stamps indicates those sold in this way.
Each of the foreign post offices in Turkey, including our own British post office, used special stamps. Years ago, when the British office was first set up, ordinary English stamps were sold, but there were abuses of the currency values so that it was found desirable to overprint our English stamps for use in Turkey with either the value in Turkish currency, or with the word LEVANT, which effectually prevented any large purchases in Turkish money being exchanged at the English face value. The Turkish Government has long been trying to get these foreign post offices closed, but without success until the outbreak of the present war; they are all now closed, and their stamps consequently obsolete. The nations having had special stamps for their post offices in Turkey are:—
- Great Britain (closed October, 1914).
- France (closed October, 1914).
- Russia (closed October, 1914).
- Italy (closed October, 1914).
- Roumania (discontinued 1896).
- Austria (closed October, 1914).
- Germany (closed October, 1914).
A curious set of stamps, never really required for postal duty, was issued by the Turks during the Graeco-Turkish War of 1898, under the pretext of being required for the use of the Turkish Army of Occupation. The Turkish inscription on these odd-shaped stamps (Fig. 286) reads "Special for Thessaly, that part of the country conquered." Even at the time these stamps first saw the light in Thessaly, the Turks were boarding their transports to evacuate the country. Large remainder stocks have been sold since the evacuation, and extensive forging of these stamps has been detected.
Chapter VII.
American Wars — United States — Civil War — Confederate Stamps — Hispano-American War — Vera Cruz — Canada — Mexican Revolution — South and Central America.
United States. In December, 1860, South Carolina in convention repealed the act adopting the Constitution of the United States, a move which was promptly followed by other Southern States, and led to the American Civil War. On February 18, 1861, a provisional Confederate Government under Jefferson Davis was set up at Montgomery, Alabama, with all the appendages of military and civil administration, including a post office department. The Confederate Government later moved to Richmond, Virginia, and throughout the long and bloody war from 1861-1865 the Confederate States maintained a separate postal service, with separate postage stamps. Judge John H. Reagan was Postmaster-General.
The United States postage stamps current at the beginning of the war were the beautiful series of 1851-60, and as large quantities remained in stock at Southern post offices, these issues were demonetized and replaced hurriedly by the now rare première gravures of August, 1861, which were promptly superseded by the more finished designs of September, 1861.
The Confederate States stamps lack the excellence of engraving and printing of the United States stamps, a deficiency due to the difficult conditions under which they were produced in the country or imported from England. But what they lack in this respect is more than amply compensated by their historic significance and associations. The home produced stamps were prepared under the stress of invasion; the foreign manufactured ones and much of the material for the local productions had to be brought through the blockade. In the annals of philately there are no more exciting records than those which tell of the capture of a ship bearing three De La Rue plates and 400,000 dollars worth of Confederate States stamps, which the agent of Davis's Government managed to throw overboard, or of the despatch (preparatory to the evacuation of Richmond) of printing press, dies, plates, and stamps to Columbia, in South Carolina, where they arrived only to be destroyed in the holocaust following upon General Sherman's capture of the city. The different designs of the successive issues of Confederate stamps are shewn in Figs. 287-295; their history we have dealt with at length in "Confederate States of America: Government Postage Stamps."[7]
[7] Melville Stamp Books, No. 19. Stanley Gibbons, Ltd., London, 1913.
Some bogus stamps purporting to have been used in various temporary services are illustrated (Figs. 296-299), including one showing a fort at Charlestown, and another which purports to prepay "blockade postage" to Europe.
The postmasters of a number of towns in the Confederate States found it desirable pending the receipt of stamps from the Confederate Government to prepare and issue provisional stamps of their own to denote prepayment of postage. Among these are some of the rarest postage stamps known to collectors; the best authenticated issues emanated from:—
Athens and Macon in Georgia; Baton Rouge and New Orleans, in Louisiana; Beaumont, Goliad, Gonzales, Helena, Independence, and Victoria in Texas; Bridgeville, Greenville, Grove Hill, Livingston, Mobile and Uniontown in Alabama; Charleston and Spartanburg in South Carolina; Lenoir in North Carolina; Danville, Emory, Fredericksburg, Greenwood, Jetersville, Lynchburg, Marion, Petersburg, Pittsylvania, Pleasant Shade and Salem in Virginia; Kingston, Knoxville, Memphis, Nashville, Rheatown, and Tellico Plains in Tennessee; and New Smyrna in Florida.
The war with Spain produced a considerable effect upon stamp issues; but the war tax stamps which were very popular with young collectors by reason of their bearing a picture of the battleship Maine (Figs. 300, 301) were in no sense postage stamps, though often affixed to letters as small contributions to the war funds. Throughout the campaign there were many United States military postal cancellations used in Cuba (Fig. 302), Porto Rico (Fig. 303), and the Philippines (Fig. 304), and United States postage stamps were later overprinted for these and other former Spanish colonies, e.g., Cuba, Guam, Philippine Islands and Porto Rico (Figs. 305-307). These have since been replaced by definite issues for the Republic of Cuba, and for the Philippines.