The Piazza Tales

th 50 men sailed on August 8, disembarking at Alexandria on August 21. Their first postal duties were undertaken at Alexandria and

e changing front, between which and the base a daily service was maintained. In September, shortly after the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, the Army and the A

ty N.C.O.'s and men, in Sir Gerald Graham's Suakim expedition of 1885. The corps left England on March 3, and returned on

ecord of the use of English stamps, but Mr. H. H. Harland has shown us an interesting envelope with

gola Expedit

Expeditionary Force in France) and Lieutenant H. M'Clintock, these latter officers belonging to the Secretary's Office of the G.P.O., London. A first portion of the company, with Captain Treble, left England with General Buller and his staff, and the rest followed on October 21, and several further detachments went out with later contingents. In South Africa they had a very wide area to cover. At the outse

The bags containing military mails were handed over to the Army Base Post Office at Cape Town whence they were distributed to the various military post offices established at the centres of the troops, and to field post offices with each Brigade or Division in

ing mail from the Field Forces was 11 bags of letters per week. In a letter dated from Cape Town, February 27, from Lieutenant Preece, who went ou

f to the G.P.O., where I found Price and his 40 men ensconced in one huge wing, overwhelmed with work, and at breaking-down point. The mails every week increase now, and we have 250,000 pieces of mail matter to sort and distribute every week, over a country larger than France, among a shifting population of soldiers, each of whom expects to get his letters as easily as he gets his rations. It is a vast job, and we have done wonderfully so far with a totally i

s le Grand, vo

0, the Army Postal Corps was composed of ten officers and 400 N.C.O.'s and men, exclusive of post office telegraphists, etc., serving with the Royal Engineers. Many interesting statistics of the mai

and 345,000 were sent home. During a similar period of the war in Sou

d Roberts' main army. There were 17 men of the Army Postal Corps, and these, with about 160 men in charge of supplies, etc., had to defend the station. Two of the seventeen were killed, and Lieutenant Preece and the remainder of his gallant little corps were taken prisoners. The 2000 mail bags were used as a barricade. It is recorded that when the gallant little band surrendered, and De Wet, riding an English cavalry horse, came up, the Boer general was most polite and even kind in many ways, and expressed himself as "very so

report (1901) the Pos

kets of printed matter; and it is estimated that during the year ended 31st March, 1901, 11,551,300 letters were sent to the troops and 9,250,000 were received from them. During the same period the parcels sent

Post Office, I cannot do better than quote the following pa

cels for the troops. No little credit is therefore due to the department under Major Treble in the first few months, and for the greater part of the time under Lieut.-Colonel J. Greer, Director of Military Postal Services, for the way in which it has endeavoured to cope with the vast quantity of correspond

e honour of C.M.G. on Messrs. Greer and T

l from England as 184,000 letters and 143,600 packets of printed matter: the total number of letters for the year ended March 31, 1902, was 10,7

announcing its withdrawal, postal communications with the troops still on service in the old colonies and the new ones

work of the British military postal service. Collectors have followed the use of the stamps of the home country into the distant fields of operations by

Stamp, vol. XI

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ase with initials BO (Base Office) and an asterisk (sometimes omitted) in lieu o

this mark. It has been largely supposed, but without much, if any, foundation that these year-less marks originated in Ladysmith during the siege, but

mentary to type 1, found stamped in blue-gre

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Used in Base Off

de rubber-stamp cancellation f

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ost offices attached to the Natal Fie

ut lettered NATAL FIELD FORCE

NFF (Natal Field Force) in white lett

0

m. in diameter, lettered F.P.O. (Field Post O

A. (Post Office, Africa) with the number 43, a bracket

.), struck in black or violet. The travelling post office