Dating during WW1

THE KOOKABURRA SEEMS TO HAVE BECOME MORE POPULAR IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY. Were there federation kookaburras? Or did their “laugh at anything attitude” fit better with courage in the face of adversity – war? Was it our version of the stuff upper lip?

Others may know the answer to this. But we certainly saw many items in preparation for the kookaburra issue of the Ephemera Journal of Australia, December 2023. If you would like to buy a copy (or an extra copy) use the form at the bottom of this post,

Of course dating an item is a very important step in establishing the history of the price of ephemera. The flags are a significant clue.

This postcard is full of symbols. The flags are of France (joined WW1 2 August 1914), Belgium (2 August 1914), Serbia (28 June 1914), Russia (26 July 1914), UK (4 August 1914), Japan (23 August 1914) and Italy (23 May 1915).

So the card must be from later than late May 1915. 

HATS – another interesting feature of the postcard is the ‘hands across the sea’ symbol. 

This fine painting below shows the flags of the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Belgium, Japan, Italy, Serbia and the United States of America.

USA didn’t enter WW1 until April 1917, and Russia ‘left’ the war the same year. From the BBC:

After taking power, the Bolsheviks promised to deliver ‘Peace, Bread and Land’ to the beleaguered people of Russia. With regard to the first of these, a ‘Decree on Peace’ (26 October 1917) was dashed off by Lenin, calling upon all belligerents to end the slaughter of World War One.

However, the Central Powers responded to the Bolsheviks’ appeal by agreeing to an armistice on the Eastern Front, and Lenin’s lieutenant, Trotsky, found himself in the uncomfortable position, during the winter of 1917-18, of negotiating a separate peace treaty with Imperial Germany and her allies at the Polish town of Brest-Litovsk.

Trotsky tried to delay matters and to inculcate revolution in central Europe by refusing the harsh terms presented to him. When Germany, however, merely resumed its invasion of Russia on the Eastern Front, pushing further east in five days of February 1918 than it had in the previous three years (the German soldiers, to Trotsky’s consternation, continued to obey their officers), the Bolsheviks were forced to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918.

Incidentally this painting from Trevor Flett’s collection is identified as by J.M. Cantle  in The laughing Australian : a celebration of Australia’s best-loved symbol by Toby & Juliana Hooper. By chance a comprehensive work on Cantle was published earlier in 2023. The author was able to advise that this is not by Cantle. Who might the artist be?

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