The Piazza Tales

in the Baltic - Abyssinian Expedition - The First Army Postal Corps - Egypt - Dongola Expedition - South Africa - The

ailors in time of war. Wherever the British Tommy goes he must have his letters from home; like the lines of communication, which are the life-line of the army, postal communication is the chief support

st of us have friends at the Front, in France, in Belgium, or on the high seas, we are perhaps inclined to take it all just as a matter of course that letters pass and repass much in the ordinary humdrum way. This is plain to the conduct

ulation in this country knows anything of the existence, far less of the workings, of the Army Postal Service as an organisation separate and distinct from the postal department of the home Government. The Army Posta

ed by Colonel du Plat Taylor in the seventies, as a means of using the services of the Post Office Rifl

in Turkey, the Black Sea, and the Baltic. Prior to the war, the British Government did not maintain any postal packets between Mediterranean ports save some steam vessels for the transport of the Indian mails, and some of these were taken up by the military and naval authorities. Letters for Constantinople and the Levant ordinarily went through t

h the postage stamps of the home country, then (so far as the penny and twopence denominations were concerned) in the early and beautifully engraved design of William Wyon's "Queen's Head." This was the first use of British postage stamps on foreign territory, or indeed anywhere beyond the limits of the British Isles, and stamp collectors take a considerable interest in the English stamps which survive with the various Crimean postmarks specially supplied to the Postmaster of His Majesty's Forc

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. Crimean

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h stamps found wit

tters despatched to and 43,125 received from the seat of war in each month. In one year

and accepted by the Turkish Government with a view to establishing an improved postal service in the Sultan's dominions. Since this date British post offices have been maintained (in common with post offices of other Powers) in various parts of the Turkish dominions, using British st

h post-offices in the Ottoman Empire may b

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tanti

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ish Post Offices

rna, and the last two Beyrout. There are also "S" Stamboul, "B01" Alex

ich were in use at the British post-offices in Turkey at th

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