A World War I postcard! with a rare illustration and a contemporary plea
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. With apologies I don't know how to put in the diacriticals.
In the far right corner, “Hansi 1918” refers to the artist whose real name was Jean-Jacques Waltz, an Alsatian born in 1873, and who died in 1951. This postcard features the village of Colmar (heart of the Alsatian wine country); it was written to my grandfather in May 1919, six months after the Armistice on November 11, 1918 that ended World War I. My grandfather was still, as the song went, “over there.” Here, the children of the town of Colmar are welcoming a French officer. Note that three children are carrying war-related toys: a cannon, a French officer-doll, and a sword; the girls have the tri-colors in their hair ribbons, the boys are wearing military caps. The dark head-dress of the girl in the center indicates that she is a German-Alsatian.
John D. Robertson, Sr., my grandfather, prior to leaving for France in World War I. Until this photo surfaced, no one on either side of the family could recognize where my second grandson “came from.” Identical twins, here, even to the impish suppressed smile.
Today, I found the postcard. above, and I’m seeing it for the first time, although how could that true?— I’ve plowed through these letters and ephemera dozens of times. Yet, always with new eyes, I pulled this out from under a pile of letters my grandparents wrote to each other during my grandfather’s deployment to France in World War I. (Much to his disconcertment, he was assigned to manage a supply unit several miles from the front lines in the Ardennes, oh, in his letters, how he wished he were in the trenches; and oh, my grandmother’s letters!—she, in Youngstown, Ohio, surrounded by in-laws and mothering two boys, ages 5 and 3—how she wished she was in the trenches, too.)
The card is from Pierre Simonnet, infirmier d’Etat-Major, P.A. D. H. , a Flize (Ardennes). “Infirmier d’Etat-Major,” which translates as a male nurse in the field (military). PAD4 refers to the French Fourth Army, which fought alongside American troops in the Ardennes at the end of the war.
Flize, on the 2nd of May, 1919
Dear Sir,
Perhaps have you not received the letter I wrote to you some weeks ago. I suppose you soon return to the States. All Frenchmen are very thankful for the war-business of the Americans, but they would be more pleased yet if President Wilson was more generous for France and Italy and stronger for Germany (without any imperialism). I remain Yours truly, Pierre Simmonet
A German child (black hat) watches American troops arrive to support the French in the Ardennes in World War I. The child appears to be holding a soldier-doll upside down.
In May 1919, President Wilson was still in France at the Paris Peace Conference, negotiating with the Allies to adopt his “14 Points” Treaty of Versailles (it was adopted in June 28, 1919), the keystone of which was the establishment of the League of Nations, a forerunner to the United Nations, and one that most of Europe adopted and that the United States, in a significant rebuke to Wilson, did not.
Our friend, the medic Pierre Simonnet1, is asking for penalties on Germany “without any imperialism,” which I assume to mean that Germany would remain—as it famously did— an independent country. The Allied Forces, history reminds us, wanted to regain whatever territories they had lost, and they wanted Germany to be punished.
The Allies got their wish. The world got Hitler.
Not the Pierre Simonet who became a hero of the French Resistance in World War II.