During World War I, the picture postcard was the most important means of
communication for the soldiers in the field and their loved ones at
home, with an estimated 30 billion of them sent between 1914 and 1918. A
postcard from home offered the soldier in the trenches a short escape
from their daily hell, while receiving a postcard from a man on the
frontline was literally a sign of life. These postcards create a vivid
record of life at home and abroad during the Great War, both from the
messages they carried and the pictures on the cards themselves.
The depiction of the war on the contemporary postcards is extremely
diverse:
The ways in which the postcards depict the war differs greatly; from
simple enthusiasm, patriotism and propaganda to humor, satire and bitter
hatred. Others portray the wishes and dreams (nostalgia, homesickness
and pin-ups) of the soldiers, the technological developments of the
armies, not to mention the daily life and death on the battlefield,
including the horrific reality of piles of bodies and mass-graves.
Altogether, this extraordinarily vivid contemporary record of the Great
War offers a unique and detailed insight in the minds and mentality of
the soldiers and their families who lived and died in the war to end all
wars.
