Postcard from James Arthur Matthews during World War I

IMG_2211.JPG

This image shows the front of the postcard from Matthews. Here the Loire river is prominently displayed, with the Tours Cathedral in the background. 

IMG_2215.JPG

This image shows the back of the postcard written by Matthews. The handwriting is done in pencil, making it difficult to decipher, but it seems the postcard is intended for a person in the military.

The artifact highlighted is a postcard from World War I. The postcard is made of a thick, sturdy, paper-like material. Similar in some ways to cardstock. On the front of the postcard, a black and white picture showing “TOURS (I. Et L.) - La Vue generale - La Loire- Le pont de Pierre-La Catedrale St. Gatien et la Partie Nord-Ouest de la Ville-A.P.”.  On the backside, the space is split in two, with room for writing in the left-hand column and room for an address in the right hand column. The writing is done in pencil and is slightly faded. The writing lends insight into the possible purpose of this particular postcard. The postcard is addressed to Sergt. Pall S. Mier, CO #2, most likely someone else in the army. The written message is difficult to read because it was written in pencil. Many of the words are spelled wrong, indicating that the writer was rushed or perhaps did not have access to a great education before the war due to his social class. Based off of the writing, Matthews wants to let the recipient know that he and the other men arrived safely. But the new location is very different from the old one, as the new location receives a great amount of rain while the old location barely received rain. He goes on to say, “We don’t know any more than we did when we were there about going across. I will write later and give you my address. Good buy from James A Matthews.”

The postcard comes from a collection of postcards sent by Matthews from 1917 to 1918. It was probably sent while Matthews served in France, given the picture of St. Gatien’s Cathedral. That it was sent to another military leader suggests that it might have been used to communicate movements between different parts of the fighting force, perhaps to leaders away from the front lines. He also takes the time to mention the rainy environment, indicating its importance. World War I poems by authors such as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. In her writing, Dorothee Brantz talks about how the rain made the fighting less tolerable for the soldiers because it turned the trenches in to seas of mud, pointing out that the rain was so unpleasant and made conditions so awful that men often wrote about it in their letters and postcards, as does Matthews and the poets (Brantz 78-79). Ultimately, the postcard comes in a time when postcards were beginning to be used as forms of communication, especially between those out serving on the battlefield and those back at home on the homefront. For this post card specifically, it is interesting to see how Matthews uses a postcard to communicate information to his fellow soldiers, showing that while they could be intercepted, postcards, in some situations, would be used to talk about classified information. Generally speaking, through writing postcards, soldiers could inform their families that they were safe and show evidence of their travels, making postcards convenient carriers of information.

- Carolyn Egekeze, LMU '20

For Further Reading:

  • Brantz, Dorothee. "Environments of Death: Trench Warfare on the Western Front, 1914-18." In War and the Environment: Military Destruction in the Modern Age, edited by Charles E. Closmann, 68-91. College Station: Texas A&M University, 2009.

  • Sassoon, Siegfried. "Counter-Attack." Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57220/counter-attack, accessed 30 September 2017.

  • Owen, Wilfred. "Dulce et Decorum Est." Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est, accessed 30 September 2017.

Postcard from James Arthur Matthews during World War I