The Daily Postcard No. 23

Today we have an English card followed by three French ones.  Many regrettable acts took place during the Great European War of 1914; we’ve already seen what happened to Rheims, and the deliberate sacking of the Belgian town of Louvain by the Germans probably ranks even higher on the list. 

You probably know what happened over a few days in late August 1914, and it really wasn’t very nice; the destruction Louvain’s University library (above), with all its historic contents, was a huge own-goal on the part of the Germans, condemnation of their actions coming from all corners of the earth, including the United States.

And you might not think it a suitable subject for a series of postcards, either.  But as we saw in those Rheims postcards ten days ago, and as you can see here, you’d be wrong.  Numerous images of destruction were turned into postcards in France during the Great War, and examples such as these are still easy to pick up, cheap as chips, to this day.

As a postscript, Louvain University library was rebuilt after the war, and had acquired some 900,000 volumes to replace those lost forever when the Germans turned up in May 1940 and decided it was best practice to burn it down for a second time.  Although they maintained that Allied bombing was the cause on this occasion……

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2 Responses to The Daily Postcard No. 23

  1. Sid from Down Under says:

    While I love these postcards, for this one I am at a loss of words for direct postcard comment and look forward to other Reader’s observations.

    Now for some words not at a loss – Obviously the postcards record shocking destruction but in the positive, example how buildings and libraries can be rebuilt which in the year of 2020 examples how we can all together around our world overcome CORVID-19 and come out the other side, as demonstrated before, better off. How’s that for “Sage words of wisdom” ??

    • Magicfingers says:

      Sage indeed. Depending on how long we do this, there will be plenty more destruction postcards, so plenty of time to consider in advance destruction-postcard-responses! Ha!

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