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Harry Cope Memorial Award for Literature 2003
Published jointly by the ARGE and HBSV in Austria under their "Militär und Philatelie" series. At the AGM Keith very kindly presented a copy for the Library; if you are interested in a copy please contact Keith by mail. The book is A4 size 114 pages and costs £10 (including postage in the UK - surface mail included outside the UK) and is available from the author at 100 Ramsgill Drive, Newbury Park, Ilford, Essex IG7 7DY. Published in Vienna by Militar und Philatelie, A-1100 WIEN, Rotenhofgasse 81/12 at Euros 10 (postage extra) for payment in Euros.Limited edition: 100 copies only. I am delighted to learn that my latest book has been awarded the Harry Cope Memorial Award for Literature by our Society because it is a subject which in the course of 46 years of collecting it I found to be of little interest to the collecting world of postal historians, even in Austria. Several times the collection was put aside for years and nothing was added to it or the research, and I know of only four collections of Przemysl material in the entire world that were significant contributions to the subject. I was stirred into activity on two occasions, the first was my correspondence with a Czech who had sent me photocopies of his father's correspondence from Przemysl to his mother and seeking my advice as a result of an old article I had published. He claimed his family wanted to keep the correspondence but two years later it appeared in a London auction, covers and cards minus the letters and I purchased it against no competition for the asking price. My second awakening also as a result of something I had published was a letter from an Austrian who I later discovered was the son of Graf Czernin, a Minister in the government of Emperor Franz Josef, who made available to me photocopies of various documents regarding such things as the postal service to Przemysl and his contacts with officers who had played a role in Przemysl in the post war years with whom he got in touch. Much of the archive material in Vienna was lost during the Hitler period when the archive was reorganized, particularly that of the air force in Przemysl operating at the time in the area of the Fourth Army. That is now sorted and published in the book that I wrote at the time for WIPA 2000, but also waited for the German translation on a tape to be incorporated after four years which was not done but now appears separately. The research to be completed for the first time was commenced thanks to Graf Czernin who was a regular visitor to Przemysl. I also stayed a week in the town and had the good fortune to meet a local historian Jan Rozanski, a decorated member of the Polish resistance in WW2. The scene at Przemysl railway station arriving from Cracow (or Krakow) was like reliving the Europe of 1945, hundreds of people with baggage or carts sitting on the platform or sleeping in the underpass, they were Gypsies, Rumanians or from the Ukraine here to trade with the Poles. I did not learn much in the way of research but thanks to Rozanski I saw some of the forts, the Austrian HQ and the General Arsenal, the hospital which is still in use and the Russian HQ. The library was a Russian hospital in 1915. Any postal historian worth the name should be delighted to rise to the challenge offered by Przemysl. Consider the following and bear in mind that the two sieges were a deliberate plan. There was an official ban on sending mail to Przemysl when the second siege commenced but the public were not informed and continued to write. Some soldiers received letters, but the majority did not and wondered why. Some civilians correctly assumed that a mail service did not exist and tried ways of communicating. To restore the troops morale in January 1915 (after two months) coloured cards were flown from Przemysl and received publicity in the newspapers. Soldiers thought this was a two-way service and it was not, and some soldiers received letters that added to the frustration of those who did not, who were in the majority. The Army was aware of the accumulation of undelivered mail but at the request of the Garrison HQ in Przemysl had the mail delivered to Cracow in the hope that it may be delivered to Przemysl when the siege ended. They were overcome by the quantity that arrived and so announced in the newspapers that it could be accepted or delivered. Any civilians still believing that their letters were reaching their menfolk now knew the reality of the situation. There were aeroplanes carrying mail from Przemysl before the publicity stunt of January 1915. It was also possible to send money home and dispatches were sent, and there were private flights. Flying was difficult and was done in the first light of dawn to cross the Russians lines, the aeroplane of 1915 could not climb sufficiently in a direct line. The research has proved rewarding and the book has great detail - the one regret is that by the time I discovered the name of the officer who organised private mail carrying he was dead (1971), and one can only dream of the answers to questions one could have asked him. Keith Tranmer |
