Description

1914 (Dec 23) Coloured picture post card entitled “Bone – Porte des Karesas”endorsed Via Brindisi & bearing on picture side Italy 5c tied Cagliari-Stazione (28 Dec) cds with a further strike on message side & with red circular Passed Censor /A applied Egypt + violet unframed “Communications Suspendues /Retour A L’Origine” hand stamps & with bi-lingual Beyrouth (11 Feb 1915) cds with on picture side black vernacular Arabic hand stamp ………………………………………..
This card left Sardinia on 28 December arriving Beyrouth 11 Feb 15 while Britain had declared on war on Turkey on 5 Nov 14 but Italy was still neutral until 21 Aug 15…..A bit of a puzzle was the Communications Suspendues applied in Egypt on the outward journey, returning the card to Italy for transmission by a different route or was it mistaken it for British mail due to the Egyptian mark & applied on arrival at Beyrout with a failure to delete it once the true origin was noticed ??? Interesting