Postcards of war: history and anecdotes

History of the chauvinistic postcard

They is in 1900 that the illustrated postcards make their appearance, in particular thanks to the World Fair of Paris. Fourteen years later, the First World War is declared and the success of the postcard was not contradicted during the conflicts. Which role this small paperboard rectangular did he play during the war?

The postcard, privileged means of communication

At the beginning of the mobilization for the First World War, the request as regards postcards is immense. The families want news of the soldiers left to the face as well as evidence of life! According to the Centenaire.org site, more than one million charts and letters are conveyed the every day at the end of the year 1914.

How to face the request? Firstly, thanks to the production of the State: following the passion met by this means of correspondence, the postal system had besides to be restructured. And secondly, thanks to the companies and the private production. Certain marks were created after the beginning of the war and chose evocative names: Revenge, Patriotic, etc

The postcard: a support allowing to see the war

Besides the writings of the soldiers and their family, the postcard comprises an illustration. One counts three types of them during the First World War:

•     Sights in black and white: the photographers use cameras with plate as well as cameras of pocket produced by Kodak which allow to take instantaneous pictures. This kind of chart is most widespread.
•     The patriotic charts imaginations: they are productions, photomontages which are carried out in studios. These charts were largely plagiarized.
•     Satirical charts: they are generally presented in the form of drawings.

Art is also with go during the war of position! Certain soldiers embroidered postcards on fabrics of flax, and this thanks to sons recovered on clothing. As many messages of hope sent to the families but which remain very rare.

The postcard of war: a reflection of reality?

The illustrations of the postcards are in shift with the daily press which reports the facts without turning. One notices it in particular thanks to the charts seen: almost none of them comprises photographs of the face because of the censure! The sights then represent soldiers at rest, prisoners, the life in the trenches apart from the moments of engagements, etc Certaines sights were more strange: concert improvised in a trench with an instrument of fortune, rat extermination thanks to the ratters, lunch of the soldiers in the middle of the ruins, apparatuses of shower, etc

And writings? In spite of the censure in the illustrations, the writings of the soldiers make circulate enormously information which serves as small reports. Certain writings are even in total contradiction with the images: the pain of the message is opposed sometimes to patriotism and the war.

Side satire and caricatures, the examples do not miss: child urinating on a German helmet, famished German soldiers claiming bread with the French, French soldier who raises red wine glass to the health of France, etc…