The Postage Stamp in War Part 8

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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 G.o.d 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.

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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 pa.s.sed and are still pa.s.sing, 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).

[Ill.u.s.tration: 280 281]

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.

1 " carmine and black. Martyr's Monument.

1 " grey and red-brown. Bathing Fountains of Salem.

2 piastres, green and black. Cruiser _Hamidieh_.

2 " 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 282 283]

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.

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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 ( " " ).

Russia ( " " ).

Italy ( " " ).

Roumania (discontinued 1896).

Austria (closed October, 1914).

Germany ( " " ).

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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 Const.i.tution 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 quant.i.ties remained in stock at Southern post offices, these issues were demonetized and replaced hurriedly by the now rare _premiere 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 a.s.sociations. 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 s.h.i.+p 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]

[Footnote 7: Melville Stamp Books, No. 19. Stanley Gibbons, Ltd., London, 1913.]

Some bogus stamps purporting to have been used in various temporary services are ill.u.s.trated (_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.

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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 battles.h.i.+p _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.

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The United States stamps offer a very wide field for a.s.sociation with war interest, many of them bear portraits of warrior heroes, and their cancellations in connection with expeditionary forces cover a wide range of territory from the neighbouring and troublesome republic of Mexico (where the United States recently used its own stamps at the post office of Vera Cruz) to China.

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