Description
EXTRAORDINARY WWI postal link - Austria-Hungary via British Censor to Ottoman Palestine (Central Powers mail facilitated by Britain): 24 Sept 1914 postmarked uprated postal card (stamp missing) bearing message in Hebrew-written Yiddish, sent from BUDAPEST to JERUSALEM & tied by local machine cancel (with offset imprint on reverse); subsequently tied by boxed violet handstamp FORWARED BY BRITISH CENSOR (FB #CIM 21).
The significance of this mail is two-fold - Britain declared war on Austria-Hungary on 12 August 1914 (i.e. 5+ weeks before this postcard was mailed) and she separately declared war on Ottoman Turkey on 5 Nov. (which was reciprocated by Turkey on the 11th); here this mail was dispatched from a nation/empire already at war with Britain, who then enabled its ongoing transit - to another territory at war with Britain. Firebrace records this censor mark existing in black and violet ink - black at IBRAHIMIA as of 8 Oct. 1914 and violet at ALEXANDRIA as of 21 Dec. 1914. Here the cover was likely carried in a closed bag by sea from mainland Europe & processed at Egypt: "closed mail" transit is used when the original postal administration cannot effectively plan transportation all the way to the destination; this is typical of sea transported mail.
The censor mark is rare: this cataloguer has observed 5 pieces of mail in the last 20 years with this marking including this postal card, here being the only one transiting the British censor between two enemy territories - from the Central Powers to another member of the Central Powers. No such example exists in the famous Zvi Alexander collection of Turkish Palestine-Holyland mail (1841-1918); one postcard mailed from a Palestine travelling post office on 21 Sept. 1914 to Prague sold in 2006 for $12,000.
