The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-07-01
GERMAN FIELD-POSTS.
Management Of the Mails During
the Franco Prussian War.
Hard Work Of the Officers Who Had the
Mails in cksrge-some OF the Queer
Things That Were Sent to the
Soldiers on the field.

! Soldiers on the field.
! One of the most useful and we'll
managed institutions of the Prussians
| during the war with France was the
| feld-post, by means of which the sol
! diers of the German army were able TO
1 keep up constant communication with
/ their friends at home, receiving and
/ dispatching letters as regularly and
/ easily as they could in times OF peace.
/ The feld-post. according to an article
I in Youths Companion, was travelling
! post office, or postal carriage. There
were post Office clerks and soldiers
/ whose duty was to attend TO and de-
! fend it from the attacks Of the enemy.
! Wherever the army marched. the field
1 post followed it. Never during the
| whole campaign was there any inter
ruption in the course of the post; even
Oh the days of the greatest battles the
/ posts started at the usual fixed hours
from the temporary post Office, which
consisted of simple bivouac on the
/ battlefelGs.
Early in the morning the letters
which had arrived during the night
were sorted and delivered to the diff
/ ferent divisions OF the troops who sent
for them, or were dispatched to them
by special express.
At dawn of day after the battle Of
st. Privat the post began its work, in
! the midst Of dead and wounded; i'm
mediately hundreds of soldiers hast
ened up to dispatch letters and post
cards; that afternoon eight large sacks
full of letters were sent off to Ger
many.
Again, after the battle of Nionvilie
the post officials were in full activity.
| Around them lay dead soldiers and
horses. Postmen, porters and postil-
ions formed a group around the hastily
extemporized table. The clerks, sit
ting on the ground. sorted the letters
which poured in in constant stream.
The wind was high. and many post
cards were blown away and had to be
chased and brought back. The field
post gave a glimpse OF busy, peaceful
work amid all the horrors of war.
The field post had very little rest;
whenever the signal to march sounded
it had to go to new work. 1t was al
ways the first TO arrive and the last to
depart; frequently it did not leave an
enemy's town till ali the other troops
had gone. and had to protect itself from
an attack.
It was hard and rough work for the
field post officials when rain poured
down, and the carriages were up to the
axles in mud, and 10 shelter could be
found, and attacks from francs tireurs
threatened from the forests. They had
to make marches from seven in the
morning till midnight, under torrents
of rain, among the forests OF the Ar
dennes, when the carriages had to be
drawn by six horses. Among the
passes of the Nosges the field post car
riages had to be dragged through deep
snow and over slippery ice, where there
was constant danger of rolling over
precipices. And when at last they
reached the end of their march in the
middle of the night, clerks, letter car
riers and positions had often TO pass
the night on their letter bags in mis-
cradle cellars, packed together as in
slave ship, unless, as was frequently
the case, they had to bivouac out in
the rain.
The field posts were often attacked
by the enemy, the letter bags robbed,
and the brave soldiers and positions
who defended them left dead Oh the
field
The number of letters sent to the
army from home far exceeded those
dispatched by the soldiers. From Bcr-
lin alone three hundred thousand let
tiers and parcels were daily sent off by
the field post. The good people often
wrapped their parcels IN thin paper
or tied them with weak string, SO that
when many of these packets arrived
at Berlin-such little distance on
their way-the covers We're torn and
the contents visible.
In one would be chocolate; in an
other bread and butter, and In another
a pair Of stockings in which the good
wishes OF the mother or the betrothed
were interviewer. All this the good
natured post brought into order as
well as il could.
The letters and packets of the army
of the Moselle alone used daily to fill
seven large wagons. During the siege
of Paris the largest field post depot
was at Lagny, which distributed mil
lion packets TO the troops On the eve
OF Christmas, 1870, nearly every Ger
man soldier in France received some
parcel or letter from his home.
From July 1G, 1870. 70 March 81, 1871,
there were dispatched to and from the
German army over eighty-six million
letters and post cards, two million
packets. and two and half million
money orders, and more than two mil
lion newspapers -e4.----
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