Print

Write home, soldier!

By Anne Elmer

World War I (1914-18) ended 80 years ago. Denmark was not among the belligerent nations, but Danish soldiers’ letters and soldiers’ stamps from the war years constitute a speciality to philatelists.


Denmark claimed neutrality during the war. At the outbreak of the war in 1914, in order to manifest ability and will to defend the country the Danish government called up no less than 50,000 soldiers, the defence force. They fortified the defences and monitored the waters. The majority of the force was stationed around Copenhagen.

The defence force was called up during the entire war period. Not until 31st March 1919 were the last soldiers sent home.

For almost five years thousands of Danish soldiers wore the King’s clothes far from home without firing a shot. So they had plenty of time to write home. And many letters and postcards were written – the High Command saw to it that the "home front" was not neglected.

From 5th September 1914 corporals and privates of the defence force received a 10 ore correspondence card and a 5 ore postcard every week. The postage was imprinted on the cards and thereby paid. Ordinary correspondence cards and postcards were used for these soldiers’ letters with the word "SOLDIERS’" imprinted above the words "CORRESPONDENCE CARD" and "POSTCARD". On the postage imprints of the letters the characters "S" and "B" were added for "soldater-brev" [soldiers’ letter]. The arrangement lasted until August 1917 when it was changed so that soldiers’ stamps were handed out instead of the two types of cards. The soldiers’ stamps were current ordinary stamps featuring the portrait of King Christian the 10th with the characters "S" and "F" for "soldaterfrimærke" [soldiers’ stamp] imprinted. The value of the two stamps that were handed out to the soldiers were 5 ore, equal to the local postage rate for letters and the na-tional postage rate for postcards, and 10 ore, equal to the national postage rate for letters, respectively. The arrange-ment with soldiers’ stamps ended when the last part of the defence force was sent home in March 1919.

However, the remaining edition got an afterlife that can easily create confusion: In 1921 when the postal service started to mark surcharges on underpaid letters by special postage-due stamps, they used at first ordinary stamps with the word "Postage" impressed. A small remaining edition of soldiers’ stamps were used in this connection, but the otherwise so meticulous postal staff did not take care to delete the letters "S" and "F". The result was that the imprint on these stamps can be seen as a surcharge for soldiers’ letters which is wrong. The stamps are postage-due stamps for ordinary use by the postal service. They began to be used two years after the disappearance of the soldiers’ stamps.


Print

All rights reserved. No part of this website may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or ortherwise, whitout the prior written permission of the publisher.