Germany. In postal arrangements for armies in the field Germany has shown earlier organised war posts than any of our Allies. As with the regular postal systems on the Continent, their early history is bound up with the records of the princely house of Thurn and Taxis, of which house Count Roger set up in 1460 the first horse post between the Tyrol and Italy. About 1535 Johann Baptista von Taxis created the first field post offices operating with the armies of the Emperor Charles V. against the Turks and in Italy. The hereditary monopoly which the Thurn and Taxis family enjoyed from the fifteenth century continued well into the nineteenth, the last remnant of it being purchased from the family by Prussia in 1867 for three million thalers.
The growth of Prussian dominion and the fusion of the German States into one vast empire is well demonstrated in the stamp album by the joint Austro-Prussian issues for the conquered Danish duchies, by the disappearance of the States from the list of separate stamp issuing countries, replaced at first by stamps of the North German Confederation, and later by stamps of the German Empire.
The stamp collection plainly shows the modern progress of military Prussia to the lead in the Germanic countries. Collectors have many interesting postal relics of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 in the form of Feldpost Brief, and the Franco-Prussian War brought about the first special war stamps issued by Germany for the use of their armies of occupation in Alsace and Lorraine, and in the invaded parts of France ([Fig. 233]). Of this campaign there are also the "Feldpost Brief," and the then novel form of communication by postcard was also adopted for military purposes in the "Feldpost correspondenz karte." From the foundation of the Empire the stamps show little change. Being a collection of sovereign states it has never been regarded as appropriate for the Kaiser's portrait to figure on the stamps as King George's does on most of the stamps of the British Empire. The German stamps to-day bear a female head ([Fig. 234]) drawn by Paul Waldroff after a representation
of "Germania" by an actress Fräulein Anna Führing, which so impressed the Kaiser that he adopted this as the symbol of Germany on its stamps. On modern high value German stamps there are pictures of more war-like interest. The 2 marks stamp shows an allegory of the Union of North and South Germany from a painting by Anton von Werner, with the motto "SEID EINIG, SEID EINIG" (be united, be united!); the 3 marks ([Fig. 235]) shows a group of German princes with the Kaiser on horseback at their head, a scene drawn by W. Pape of the unveiling of the memorial to Kaiser Wilhelm I. The highest German stamp denomination, the 5 marks ([Fig. 236]) shows another group, with the present Kaiser prominent in it. This is also by Pape, and represents one of those spectacular appearances which the Kaiser has revelled in, the delivery of an address on the anniversary of the reconstitution of the German Empire. The motto "EIN REICH, EIN VOLK, EIN GOTT" (one kingdom, one people, one God) is one which, as we now know, may be carried too far!
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