1940-05-13 — Page 13

Monday,

HONGKONG TELEGRAPH

May 13, 1940.

Ubrary, Sapráme Court

■MAGAZINE PAGE

POSTAGE STAMPS

have Started WARS

I

N the

LICA ARGENTINA South-

ern Atlun. tic, some 300 miles cast of

the Argen-. tine Coast, lie the Falk- land Islands.

A perpetual mist enshrouds them. Rals falls

. on

JBY

250

in the

year, and the

national dress

of the islands is the mackintosh.

were

Some half-a-dozen nutions have bad, at different times, hund in colonising these Islands, which

ceded to

Britain in 1771 and formally became a

British colony in 1933. The Argentine has, however, always made a calm to the Falkland Islands, regarding them as illegally occupied, and a recent issue of Argentine stamp one of which is reproduced-shows the Islands quite plainly as Argen- tine territory.

The British Minister In Buenos Aires drew the attention of the Argentine Government to the fact that "no useful purpose can be ser- ved by such actions as the issue of the stamps In question," .and there thanks to the good sense of both -nations-the matter ended.

Differences aroused by the issue of postage stamps have not always been so simply settled in the past, and stamps can be numbered among the thousand-and-one ridiculous and trifling pretexts upon, which the nations of the world have at various times thought it to go to war.

*

BITTER and bloody warfare

was carried on Bolivia and Paraguay-at tremendous cost to the wealth and youth of both countries--for the pos- session of the Gran Chaco,

before

.peace was finally brought about with the assis- tance of the Langue-of-Na- tions.

The south-western parts of the Gran Chaco are Argentine terri- tory. and the northern districts were divided up, by a treaty of 1805, into nearly equal halves be- tween Bolivia and Paruguay.

The boundary, however, was left vague and had been for some time a matter of dispute when, in 1027, Paraguay issued the lower one of

the two stamps shown above.

In

it the whole of the disputed terri- tory is marked "Chaco Paraguayo."

The stamp caused

dous

resentment at La Paz,

of

Bolivia, and the Government was urged 10 take reprisnis. Issued a stamp of their own

own+above

showing the district as "Chuco Boliviano." This stamp-war bere was all very well, but soon clashes occurred between frontler-guards and once more nations were at war over a quibble.

REPUBLICA

DOMINICAAG

CENT

ABOVE is the stamp Issued by Dominica In 1900, showing Haiti almost crowded out of her own island..

Ardent patriots of Halti gathered in the capital, Port au Prince, ready to lay down their liver agairist this paper invasión."

Luckily the artist who drew the stamp confessed his error, the issue was withdrawn and the troops dis- bunded after a few minor clashes,

IN 1898.the well-known stamp with the camel post. rider was issued in the Anglo- Egyptian Sudan.

use

CORREOSDE BOLIVIA

15

QUINCE CENTAVOS

ADEL PARAGUA

150

150

ut the stamp as an offence against their feelings as good Mos- lems, and crowds rushed to attack Post Offices in Cairo und eise- where.

Finally the Government agreed to withdraw the entire Issue und to produce new stamps having as watermark the Crescent and Star. But police and soldiers had in prevent crowds from breaking into the Post Office.

Trouble in Egypt was only one of many disturbances occurring on account of postage-stamps,, some- times, as in this case, purely-the- result of a misunderstanding and without any deliberate design, on other occasions stamps have been Issued expressly to indame national feeling, to lay claim to territory in dispute, or to glorify one country at the expense of its neighbours.

* *

IN 1881 It was a postage- stamp which decided the fate of the Panama Canal.

It had been decided to con- struct a waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific, but

PARAGUAYAN SOLDIERS FIRING ON BOLIVIANS

For seven years war raged in the swamps and fever-infested jungles of the Gran Chaco claimed by both Bolivia and Paraguay. The issue, of a postage stamp in 1927 claiming the whole of the "Chaco Boreal" was Paraguay's first attempt to annex the disputed territory.

}}UN:CENTANO {

the choice was wavering be- tween the Isthmus of Panama and Nicaragua.

OIL has been the world's biggest trouble-causer for 50 years.

In 1895 business. groups in Venezuela, backed by the U.S., started a movement claiming 60,000 square miles of British territory on the border of British Guiana and Venezuela.

The construction of the canul promised enormous benefits to the country through which It passed, 1MP and there was keen competition. between the two Governments, each stressing the advantages of their own and decrying the other as a site for the canal.

Panama, in particular, alleged that Nicaragua contained active volcanoes which might prove a perli to the work.

Nicaragua denied the charge and the question was almost decided in its favour when the Post Office

issued a stamp-above--showing

active volcanoes in the Nicaraguan countryside. It was agreed at the next session to build the canal through Panama.

RANDA D

The agitation had the support of the U.S. President, Grover Cleve- land.

It was even hinted that in case of trouble military support to Venc- zuela would not be lacking.

Tension reached its climax with the issue of the Blamp above- showing the disputed territory on the river Orinoco as belonging to Venezuela.

Happily, the dispute was submit- ted to arbitration, the stamps with- drawn, and a peaceful settlement renched in Paris in 1897.

Song Under The Earth

From I. E. A. HEALY. "Daily Mirror" Correspondent

with the French Army THE Maginot guns were roar- ing, and the ground shuddering with the blast when I left the sunshine and entered the fort- ress to descend into the earch. There I heard noise of a different character,

It was the sound of applause from off-duty troops who were listening to their Ars! Maginot 'Line concert given by one of the touring Army theatres Instituted by the

French.

The hall was one of the hundreds- Fof-yards-lang galleries of the fortress, along which run normally the elec- tric train services.

"The Hum Flit" ·

The troops enjoyed a flattering song by a French comic about Britain's Home Fleet. His humour was better than his English, because the nearest he could get in pronun- elation was "The Ham Filt."

I was interested to observe that the songs which gained the greatest tributes of silence and opplause In turn from these fortress troops were not the naughty songs of Paris, They were "A Little Love, a Little Kiss," and "Little Man You've Had a Busy Day."

What an Artillery Bombardment is Like

Nobody objected to the stamp, but it was printed on paper having as watermark the cross-shaped lotus flower.

Many of the natives regarded the "*"

A

There have been many artillery bombardments on the Western Front.

HEAVY artillery bombard- -and ment, especially by night, la Bound. Impressive and awe-inspiring, and

a feeling of intense Invigoration is manifest In the observer who hap- pens to be in a position half-way between the guns and the bursting projectiles!

First of all we hear the ear-

spitting crack of the 18-pounders; then the nerve-racking crash of the 60-pounders, accompanied by

the swish of the shells in their

Journey through the night als Then we detect the dull boom of the heavy howitzers from farther back, and the peculiar swish-with- woshwish wosh wiss swoth of their projectiles in flight. Green and Red Rockets

enn

continuous rumbling 19 Jaconle Ds

Above all this welter, prodding the sky, shoot up the enemy "SOS" signals calling for help from his batteries. Up and up go the rockets-green and red star light clusters. Hither and thither float his parachute orange-coloured flares; doubtless he suspects gas because of the change of wind, He sends up vivid white flores to en- able him to see what our own in- fantry are up to.

How Orders Coma

A DEEP red and orange glare is observed, which betokens that one of the enemy ammunition dumps has been hit. Enemy planes are bombs on our Infantry anti- centration points; our aircraft batteries ("archles") have spotted them and are sending up tracer bullets to guldo

Junious ginnors,

our

T

זוג

STILL farther back, we pick out the sharp explosion of the larger guns-probably 6-inch or 9.2-speeding their shells with a curiously metallic rush through the

combined atmosphere. The. din forms D mighty crescendo, are like summer The host lightning

Standing Immediately behind it, when it is fred, the effect created by a

a gun, as distinct from a howltzer, is comparable with the noise, made by the rushing of an oxpress goods. train through a tunnel. The shells are seen ex- ploding in, over, above, and far behind the enemy's trenches. The Brigade Headquarters giving a onètay front line is an inferno; target. flame and smoke; glare and blaze

Here is a vivid description of them.

the following: "Harassing fire on tracks and roads. Map reference. P34 D.4.2." To the layman this message may be unintelligible. but to the Bat- tery Commander and his staff it conveys a lot,

lot. His orders to the battery are of necessity technical: "Right section one degree. Afteen miaules more right elevation twenty-one degrees five minutes- correction 146." The officer at the guns repeats all this..

gun.” A slight pause, then: "No. 1 gun has been hit, sir." "Hullo, hullo, what's that?" "Mr. Jones has been liit, slr." The other guns continue firing, Some of the men having been badly hit, the stret- cher bearers bring the wounded in to the first-ald dugout which is neur at hand.

A short pause, then, the method of loading is Iven-so-many rounds: ot lyddite and shrapnel, lyddlie to force the enemy from his dugouts into the open and shrapnel to finish him off when he gets there. The order to fire is then given. Hardly have ten rounds: been fired when "SOS" rockets ascend from our own. trenches--clusters of green stars. ".. "Hit, Sir!"

we now turn to what is going on in

one of our own battery. positions we shall find that: die Battery Commander of the 60- pounders is in his Command Post dugout some one hundred yards, behind his guns. He is at the his map, moment poring over marked with arck of fire and gun ranges. The officer on duly, and behind him, A telephonists, are

has message

Just come from

The order from Brigade may be.

THE right section of die battery censes fire and all sections of the battery immediately switch over to the pre-arranged target which happens to be an enemy gun mak❤ ing things uncomfortable for our own front line. The preliminaries are hurried through and our guns are firing as fast as the guncrows can load and train them; Shells. start coming into our own battery. position. 24,

"to telephonist Presently--B.C. to

what has happened to No. 1

"Sec

Jones the subaltern has been peppered in the stomach and is in nbad way. He Is delirious and raving for water, "but it must not be given to him. There have been three deaths already. The, Com- mand Post has been hit, and the Battery. Commander and personnel, have been knocked, out.

Salient Straightened ::

THE Senior Subaltern takes command pending, the arrival of, the Captain from the waggon lines miles to the rear. The centre section of the battery has 'beert. knocked out action: Two guns out of a battery of six are all that remalu, and one of them is manned by four subaltem officers, The firing at last dies down and the

atod. wounded are being slowly evacu

Our infantry have succeeded in their objective and Have withstood the enemy's immediate counter- attack, but he is likely to attack again at dawn. The salient In our line has been straightened. "

By CAPT. G. M. NELSON,

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