A SIMILAR COMMUNICATION FROM "SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE".
The stock of stamps taken to Egypt consisted of the current 1d. lilac and 2-1/2d. blue of England, but those used during the expedition were obliterated by a hand stamp bearing either a number of dots shaped to form a small lozenge, or a circle containing the inscription "British Army Post Office, Egypt," and the date. Obliterations bearing dates in 1885 belong to the Suakim expedition.
When Kitchener went to the Sudan in 1897, the Egyptian Government set up a postal department at Wadi Haifa Camp for the special use of the British and Egyptian forces. The stamps sold on this occasion were the current Egyptian labels, but they were overprinted with the word "Soudan" in both French and Arabic. Unfortunately, many forged overprints have been added to genuine Egyptian stamps of the higher values, so that collectors must be cautious when purchasing specimens.
Of the work of the Army Post Office Corps in South Africa during the last Boer War much interesting matter could be written. Mr. F. J. Melville gives the following description in his capital book "The Postage Stamp in War" (price one shilling).
"Major Sturgeon was succeeded in the command of the Army Postal Corps by his second in command, Captain Viall. On the death of the latter in 1890, Captain G. W. Treble of the London Postal Service took the command, which he held at the outbreak of the South African War in 1899, aided by Captain W. Price (now Colonel W. Price, C.M.G., in command of the Army Post Office with the British 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 21st, and several further detachments went out with later contingents. In South Africa they had a very wide area to cover. At the outset Captain Treble established himself with the headquarters of the Inspector-General of Communications in Cape Colony, and moved about keeping in close touch with the movements of the forces, an important part of his duties being to forward to the various offices the information necessary to ensure the correct circulation of the mails. Captain Price was at Cape Town, and Lieutenant M'Clintock at Pietermaritzburg.
"The British military mails were made up in the London G.P.O. in special bags addressed to the Army Post Office, and sent to the G.P.O. at Cape Town, in which building the detachment of the Army Postal Corps under Captain Price had established its base office. 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 the field. In the return direction the soldiers' letters were handed in at field post offices and forwarded through various channels, sometimes ordinary and ofttimes military, to the base at Cape Town, whence they were dispatched to England in the ordinary way."
Early in 1900, the average weekly mail from London to the Field Forces was 150 bags of letters, post-cards, etc., and 60 boxes of parcels; the incoming mail from the Field Forces was 11 bags of letters per week. In a letter dated from Cape Town, February 27th, from Lieutenant Preece, who went out with reinforcements for the Army Post Office Corps in February, are some interesting glimpses of the difficulties of the work of this service:—
"Price, of the Post Office Corps, met us and told us (Captain) Palmer was to leave at once for Kimberley with 17 men, (Captain) Labouchere and (Lieutenant) Curtis to proceed on to Natal with 50 men, and I was to take the remainder ashore here (Cape Town) and stop to help at the base. At 9.30 on Monday morning I marched off with my 57 men to the main barracks, and bade good-bye to the good ship Canada and her merry cargo. After lodging the men in barracks I went off 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 inadequate staff."