Globe-Trotters

On the 31 March 1901 the Bulgarian journalist Pierre Bonnef set out with his wife, Georgiza, to walk around the world. The idea of the walk was to meet the people from the countries they passed through. They were armed with papers from the Bulgarian Ministry and the consulates of Great Britain, France and Austria amongst others. They funded their voyage by selling postcards like this one on the way.

 They passed through Bayonne in the South of France on the 14th May 1904. They intended their travels to last for around 15 years. I hope that they arrived home safely before the outbreak of the First World War.

We couldn’t find anything about their journey on the internet so I thought that I would create this little space in their memory. If you have any more information on them, please leave a comment.

November 11th

This blog especially lends itself to a special post of remembrance. Over the last few years I’ve read a lot of postcards written at the front. Boys writing home – some of them could barely write. Men writing to their wives and children. Some in a hurry some with time on their hands….

Some postcards of World War One

British soldiers resting

Les Chausseurs Alpins, French soldiers with special knowledge of the Alps. Thousands were killed in avalanches as well as battle.

Wounded English soldiers

Masses were held at the front too

And to finish; a few lines from Wilfred Owen. Killed a few days before the Armistice, he was 25 years old. A verse from ‘The dread of falling into nought’

My power of life, though youthful, also sinks;
Before my time I bear a hoary head;
And chill airs strike my brow, that blow, methinks,
Straight from the icy cavern of the dead.
Night darkens round; my day shall know no afternoon.

Other posts on World War One.

Abbé Miroy

This postcard made me feel overwhelmingly sad. Click on the image to get a better view of the bronze statue of the Abbé Charles-Eugène Miroy (sorry, it is in French but you can see a picture of him), who was shot by the Prussian army after the armistice had been signed, when he was 42 years old,. The sculptor was Charles René de Paul de Saint-Marceaux and this was one of his earlier works.

Abbé Miroy’s tomb is still regarded as a symbol of resistance and flowers are regularly laid there today.

I can't resist a hero

This brave young man, Robert Martinet* was to later lose his life as a pilot in the first world war. Thanks to men like him we fly from destination to destination in relative comfort and safety. He and his friends climbed into fragile planes never really knowing if they would land safely at the end of their flights.

*A Martinet is a bird, a swift in English. He had the right name