The View from Above

 

It's basic human nature.
When you find yourself
in an unfamiliar locale,
you stop, take a look around,
and consider the scenery.

Sometimes your curiosity is rewarded
when you see something
unexpected or novel.

Often it's just the satisfaction
of gaining a new perspective
on a familiar place.

But generally after one look
most folk just keep moving.
Life's too short to waste time
looking around.
There's too much to do.

Once upon a time
the proverbial birds-eye-view
was something people only observed
from atop a tall tree or a high roof,
or if they were lucky enough
to live in a mountainous region,
from a steep hillside or precipitous cliff.

Then in around 1900
reports began to circulate
of incredible new inventions
called flying machines.

The first ones were strangely lighter than air
and capable of floating amongst the clouds.

Then others came that were
heavy mechanical marvels
that flew on wings like a bird.

These new exciting wonders
quickly captured the imagination
of the public.

And they also caught the eye
of enterprising photographers
who came up with a clever way
for anyone to reach astonishing altitudes

and get a clear view from above the ground.
It was surprisingly easy, cheap,
and without any risk at all. 

So safe even your mother
could take a ride in one. 

My first photo postcard is a picture of a young man with his parents floating in a wicker basket high above Lake Geneva gazing down at the resort town of Montreux, Switzerland. They have a splendid view of the picturesque lake and Switzerland's majestic alps shining in the distance.

The family appear to be quite high, about 2,400 ft according to what I found at the modern viewpoint from Google Earth. Oddly the photographer is either hanging from a rope off the edge of the balloon, which we can't actually see, or they have a camera on a primitive selfie-stick. Junior looks like he is proudly wearing a new suit and bowler hat. He also seems to be in control of their balloon, holding onto the gas release line. Father and mother seem unconcerned and full of  trust that their son knows how to use the sandbags and anchor attached to the balloon's gondola. I hope they brought some snacks to eat. 

The postcard was sent from Montreux on 20 March 1909. The postmarks are a bit unclear, but the writer left a date and year in the upper left corner. It is addressed to someone, Madame Repelaer(?), of La Haye, Holland, i.e. The Hague, Netherlands, which, as far as I know, has no vistas as grand as this.  

* * *

My second photo shows two gentlemen flying a monoplane high above some place on the French coastline. They are maybe a few hundred feet above the shoreline as we can see a person running along the beach towards a small tent. In the mid-distance is a long pier with maybe a large casino or pavilion at the end. There is quite a crowd flying this day as there are three other planes in the sky. 

We know it must be in France because there is a French stamp and postmark. Unfortunately it is smudged but the letters: OUVILLE MER are clear and the only commune in France that matches is Trouville-sur-Mer on the Normandy coast about 8 miles (13 km), as a seagull flies, south from the port of Le Havre on the English Channel.  

These fellows are also piloting a single wing aeroplane supposedly built by the French aviation pioneer, Louis Blériot (1872–1936). His name is on the side of the fuselage, but I have a feeling this aeroplane's rigging and engine would not pass his quality standards. I'm not sure the meaning of the numbers 107 next to his name or the 12 on the tail rudder. Here is what one of his first twin-seat aeroplanes looked like. 

This was a Blériot XI-2 manufactured in 1910 with "côte-à-côte" ~ side-by-side seats. This one had a 50 hp engine and was built for a company in Rotterdam. Louis Blériot was a very talented engineer and is credited with developing the first successful monoplane design, the Blériot VII, which first flew on 16 November 1907 for a distance of 500 m (1,600 ft). Two years later on 25 July 1909 Blériot became the first aviator to fly across the English Channel, winning a prize of £1,000 offered by the Daily Mail newspaper.

 Between 1909 and the start of war in August 1914, Blériot's manufacturing company produced around 900 aircraft. He would go on to contribute many important advances in aviation design during the war and beyond into the post-war years. In 1927 Blériot was among those who welcomed Charles Lindbergh when he landed at Le Bourget field completing his transatlantic flight. 

On the back of this postcard is a short note, presumably from one of the men, that reads: Trouville, Souvenir de Ballade(sic), 14 Juillet.  I believe the writer has misspelled "ballade ~ song" and instead meant "balade ~ ride."

* * *

This poor guy is flying high above a city in an weird aircraft that could have come from one of  Jules Verne's adventure novels. It's sort of a biplane but the design with a chariot fuselage, tiny propellor, and short angled wings does not look very airworthy. At least he has a good view of another mountain. However it's not in the alps but in the Cascade Range of Oregon. He is above Portland, Oregon with Mount Hood, one of North America's major volcanoes looming on the skyline. On the tail is the name "Portland" and a flag next to his steering wheel reads "The Rose City", its nickname. 

Evidently this man thought his picture needed no explanation as he left no message. It was sent from Portland on 20 December 1912 to Mrs. Gorhnak (?) of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I hope she was not too alarmed by his risky stunt. The other postmark advertises the World's Panama-Pacific Exposition to be held in San Francisco in 1915. The photographer was the City Park Gallery on Washington St. in Portland. It offered postcards made in 10 minutes. That's a pretty fast time for both takeoff and landing. 

* * *

My last fellow getting a view from above also sits in a biplane that is flying over a city and a river. However this aircraft looks like it is missing a lot of crucial parts, like an engine, fuel tank, tail rudder, and tires for the wheels. He does have a good grip on the big steering wheel, though what it is controlling is not clear. The aeroplane has a vague resemblance to the Wright brothers' flyer but their design was much more sensible. 

The scene of this riverside city might be familiar if you ever been to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I didn't recognize it at first but the photographer left a printed note on the back. Novelty Oiti Studio, 13 Federal St., N. S. Pittsburgh, PA. The postmark date is obscured, maybe December, but the year is clear, 1913. It was sent to Reynolds Borringer of Altoona, Pennsylvania.

I em hier      
and I Didnt
get my  job  
yet              
F. B.

When I was 13 years old my dad arranged for me to join him for a weekend in New York City where he was taking an army training course. For this trip I was given a special treat to fly by myself from Newport News, Virginia to New York while my mom stayed home. The flight went to La Guardia airport, I think, but I don't remember anything about that except that you boarded by walking outdoors onto the tarmac and up movable stairs into the airplane. The airline might have been TWA or Piedmont, both long gone now, with passenger planes powered by prop engines. 

From the outside the plane was not particularly large, about the size of a couple of Greyhound buses, but from the inside it seemed to have a generous amount of room. Prior to this trip my dad had given me a camera for my birthday, a little Minolta 16mm spy camera. As I had a window seat I instantly became glued to the view from takeoff to landing. The clouds above and landscape below were unlike anything I'd ever seen before. It was so amazing that I took at least three spools of film snapping pictures. Unfortunately the tiny color slides didn't really do justice to my first view from above.

It was a feeling of wonder that I have rarely experienced so vividly. But only two years later I felt that awesome feeling again when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Apollo 11 mission took mankind's first steps on the moon. Yet I didn't watch it on TV but instead listened to it happen on a transistor radio while at a campsite on a vacation to Minnesota. 

In the early years of the 20th century no one really knew what to expect from any kind of aircraft. Flying, either in a balloon or in an airplane, had previously been just a silly daydream or an absurd  fictional story. But when the first aviators like Graf Zeppelin, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Louis Blériot, and many others  began to have success with their inventions of airships and aeroplanes, suddenly a new inspiring idea was released to the world. Soon everyone could fly like a bird. Human flight was no longer a fantasy. 

When the people in these novelty postcards posed for the camera they were having a good time, enjoying a new place, and having fun by pretending to fly. They didn't care that they were standing inside a painted contraption on a photographer's studio stage. It all seemed plausible. No one could know of how aviation would progress in the future. All they knew was that they looked like they were flying in an aircraft. How thrilling was that? The power of imagination has no limits. It took us to the moon and back.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where the table is spread

and everyone is ready to dig in.

The Königsbrück POW Camp, Music in Captivity

 

It looks like a military band playing a typical outdoor concert.

The soldiers are all in uniform led by bandleader
wielding a baton as long as a sword.

But it's not really a band
as the only wind instruments
are a clarinet and a flute

and the rest are string instruments.
Their uniforms are an odd mix of regimental dress.

And slippers are rarely included in an army kit.

The men also sit on stout rustic stools
with crude wooden music stands.
Not really military issue.

A closer look shows that the violins
are simple wooden boxes made roughly like folk instruments,
and the drummer has only a tambourine and triangle.
They couldn't make enough noise
for a platoon to march to
much less a regiment.

The group also has a cellist,
rarely seen in a military marching band.
but his instrument is strangely made, too,
with a flat angular shape and a simple headstock for the string pegs
instead of a cello's traditional curves and carved scroll box.
There is also a guitarist which is also an uncommon instrument
to find in any orchestra or concert band.
His instrument is more shapely than the violins or cello
but its wooden top has a very coarse grain.

The men wear French Army uniforms
of the Great War of 1914-18.

But instead of defending their homeland
they are hundreds of miles from the battle lines
playing music in a place they never expected to be.

They were captives,
French soldiers held in a German prisoner of war camp
located in Königsbrück, Saxony, Germany.

It was a quiet place
far removed from the constant terror
that tormented their comrades
on the Western Front.

Here the men were confined but safe

with a lot of time to pursue other avocations 
that most soldiers never dreamed of in this violent age.

In Königsbrück one of these popular recreations for soldiers was music. 

There was a lot of it.

The full postcard photo shows 12 French soldiers with musical instruments seated on a flat dirt plaza in the shade of some trees. It could almost be a park in Paris. But the caption gives a different location: Gefangenen Lager Königsbrück Musik Kapelle ~  Prisoner of War Königsbrück Music Band. The men wear an assortment of different coats and tunics, but they all have the French army field cap. Their collar and cap badges have a mix of different regimental numbers with the addition of a white paper sticker signifying their prison barrack's number. 

The back of the postcard has a lengthy message in German with a handwritten date of 3 October 1915, about 14 months since the beginning of the war in August 1914. On this same date the commander of the French Army, General Joffre, abandoned his attempt at a breakthrough in Champagne, ordering the local commanders to fight a battle of attrition, which was terminated on 6 November. The  offensive had only advanced the French line for about 2.5 mi (4 km) at a cost of ±100,000 French and British casualties. The French attack in Champagne used 35 divisions against 16 German divisions and its artillery fired 2,842,400 field artillery shells and 577,700 heavy shells, which, at that time, exhausted the French stock of ammunition.

The photographer was Carl Schmidt of Königsbrück, and his studio produced thousands of photos of the prison camp. Most were used by the prisoners or their German guards. 

Königsbrück was one of 176 similar camps set up by the Imperial German Army, 96 camps for enlisted and non-commissioned officers and 80 separate camps for officers. The camp at Königsbrück was chosen because, conveniently, there was already an army training base there, just outside the town. The camp received its first prisoners, about 1,000 French soldiers from the Western Front, on 27 August 1914. Soon afterward several thousand Russian soldiers from the Eastern Front arrived. The German military command quickly realized that success in war created a new problem. They would need a much larger prison system, so a new expanded camp for common rank soldiers was hastily constructed in Königsbrück. 

Two months later at the end of October 1914, the Königsbrück POW camp housed 14,535 enlisted men and noncommissioned officers. All were secured by a guard detail of around 1,800 German soldiers. By 1916 the camp was divided into four sections: a French camp with 4,000 prisoners; a Russian camp with 8,000; a Serb camp with 3,000; and a smaller Italian camp of just a few hundred. The last two nationalities were prisoners taken in action against the forces of Austria-Hungary, Germany's ally. 

Several years ago when I first discovered postcard photos of soldier orchestras from WW1 prisoner of war camps, I was intrigued by how many camps developed music and theater programs for their captive audience of soldiers. My collection now has hundreds of these postcards which depict the ways the men entertained themselves after they had been removed from the battlefield. In 1914 none of the nations at war ever expected it to continue beyond a few months, but after the initial battle lines settled into a stationary conflict, the logistics of maintaining prisoner-of-war camps became a major challenge that had not been included in war planning. By November 1918 when the war ended Germany had around 2.5 million men confined in prison camps. 

With so many captive soldiers, there was only limited work that they could be used for, and then only the enlisted men, not officers. The camps retained internal order using each captive army's military rules and language. But how could a camp prevent boredom, the tedious malaise of every prison? International postal service was disrupted because of closed borders but agreements were soon reached that allowed prisoners' mail to follow a circuitous route through neutral countries like Switzerland. Postcards were already a popular and easy method of  communication so photos like the one of the Königsbrück band were produced for both domestic post and enemy prisoner mail. 

In the first years of the war, the United States was also neutral before it finally joined the allies in April 1917. It also had a very large German-American population. American aid societies like the Red Cross and YMCA worked to provide prison camps on both sides of the war with book libraries and, surprisingly, musical instruments. In this era before radio and recorded music a band or orchestra was considered vital to manage the morale and spirits of imprisoned soldiers. However the handmade instruments suggest that at the beginning of the war the Königsbrück prisoners found a way to make their own musical instruments even before the YMCA provided assistance. 

In this photo an ensemble of 23 soldiers, all string players, pose for Carl Schmidt's camera. Nearly all are holding a mandolin, with just a few violinists and a cellist to add variety. The caption reads: Gefangenen Lager Königsbrück Franzosen Kapelle ~ Königsbrück Prisoner of War Camp French Band. Most of the instruments have the same folk style construction. The cello has the classic body shape but it is flat, not arched, and the peg head is plainly made. It may be the same instrument as in the first photo but the player is a different man

Making a violin, much less a cello, requires a number of sharp tools like saws, planes, chisels, drills, etc. plus some descent timber, too, not to mention gut strings and horsehair for the bow. A mandolin is similar to a violin but has doubled strings. How were these instruments acquired? While it's possible the instruments were donated or purchased from a German woodworker in Königsbrück, I think it is more likely that a fellow soldier with the special skills of a luthier constructed these instruments. The wood probably came from boxes or was salvaged from piles of kindling around camp. The horse hair for the bows was likely easy to find in a rural community like this. But where did the tools come from?

Like the previous postcard, this one was sent by a German soldier, most likely a guard, using free military post on 8 September 1915. On that same evening in September, four German Navy Zeppelins flew across the English Channel on a bombing raid of London. Two of the airships turned back because of engine trouble, while another got lost and instead attacked a petrol plant at Skinningrove, Yorkshire that caused little damage. However the fourth zeppelin reached London, where it released a 300-kg (661-lb) bomb, the largest yet dropped on Britain, which killed 22 people and inflicted the most damage by a single airship or airplane bombing raid throughout all of World War I.

 

Of course music doesn't have to be played in large groups. The men interned in the Königsbrück camp also formed smaller ensembles. This private photo has a quartet of a French sailor and three soldiers seated on a park bench and playing a mandolin, a trumpet, an accordion, and a violin. They look like friends but the photo may have been staged as propaganda to demonstrate the pleasant conditions in the camp. Unlike in the other ensembles the string instruments are properly made. The violinist looks very competent, even professional, in his stance. The trumpet has rotary valves which would not be the favored design in France where piston valves were used on brass instruments.

This postcard was never mailed but has the same printed form on the back used by Carl Schmidt's photography studio for the Königsbrück camp.

This next POW ensemble from Königsbrück is an octet of string players, except for one trumpet player in the back who may be the same man pictured on the park bench. The other instruments are violins, a cello, a double bass, and possibly a viola. The men are seated very close together on a small stage framed by curtains and a painted backdrop. Written in ink is a caption: "Baracken lager – Lauenstein – Orchestre." The name may refer to a nickname for the barrack as Lauenstein, Germany is about 250 miles east of Königsbrück. 

The octet's instruments all look to be of traditional construction. The men appear to be quite serious about their music and except for the uniforms they could easily be professional musicians performing in a theater. I wish I knew how they found instruments during wartime. Did they have help from their German captors? And what about sheet music? Any skilled musician could make arrangements for the camp's eclectic mix of instruments, but they would still need blank music paper, another commodity that would have been in short supply or rationed. 

The postcard was sent to Michael Pineau of Courdemanche, a commune in the Sarthe department of the Pays de la Loire region in north-western France. The sender was Adrien Pineau, a soldier in the 90th Infantry Regiment. The red censor stamp has a date of 28 October 1918, just two weeks before an armistice was declared to end the war. Already the allied forces had prevailed over the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. And by this date the Hapsburg Empire was beginning to break up with the Austrian-Hungarian army retreating in Italy and new democratic governments in Czechoslovakia and Hungary rushing to establish new independent nations. In ten days Kaiser Wilhelm is forced to abdicate the German throne and flees to the Netherlands. 

It seems the soldiers confined to the Königsbrück camp had no shortage of talent as there was a vibrant theater there. I last wrote about some postcards from these productions in my story, The Königsbrück POW Camp, A Theatre of War, published in December 2023. Most of these shows seemed to include a small orchestra seated in front of the theater's small stage. In this photo an orchestra of ten musicians watch attentively to the action on stage where two French officers appear to question a woman while her maid and houseboy set (or clear) a meal. Music was often used in all kinds of theater works as an interlude between scene changes. Here the caption reads: Gefangenen Lager Königsbrück Teater.

Most of the prisoners in Königsbrück were Russian and that section of the camp had its own theater and orchestra. Here a group of seven musicians watch a play that looks like a romantic comedy involving a happy (or unhappy) couple, a judge or father, and an old crone. The play's title is written in Russian Cyrillic script on a poster in the center. The musicians are seated on the same rustic stools used in my first orchestra photo. We can't see their instruments by I believe they are all string instruments with at least two or more Russian balalaika, a triangular strummed instrument.

The back of this card has a long message in German, again likely sent by a German guard at the Königsbrück camp. I think it is dated 14 March (März) 1915, but German handwriting is quite challenging. ( Zs and umlauts are particularly difficult to spot.) Just four days before this date the Battle of Neuve Chapelle started in the Artois region of France. The British Army and the Indian Corps attacked a point on the German trenches and briefly captured a new position, but were repulsed a day latter and forced to retreat. The British sustained 12,892 casualties, ±7,000 British and ±4,200 Indian, while the Germans lost around 8,500–10,000 men over the full 11-day campaign.  

Several photos in my collection are of variety shows put on in the Königsbrück POW camp. In this photo there are 15 musicians in the orchestra and 24 performers in the cast. The two women on stage, and in the other theater photos too, are not women, of course, but men, a theatrical illusion that goes back to ancient times. To assign any sexuality/gender terms from our 21st century to these entertainers of 1914-18 is grossly incorrect and an injustice, I think, to the history of theatrical artists.

The orchestra is predominantly French but there are some Russian soldiers in it too, marked by their peaked caps. The instruments are mostly traditional made, but the guitar and cello/bass on the right are clearly made in a crude folk style. 

This photo was produced by Carl Schmidt's studio of Königsbrück, but was never posted.

This photo is captioned Gefangenenlager Königsbrück Serben and shows a string band of seven Serbian soldiers standing on the same sandy plaza as my first photo of the French orchestra. Their violins are all traditionally made and there is a double bass, too, played by the shortest musician. 

Though in July 1914 Germany declared war on Serbia in support of its ally Austria-Hungary it did not initially send troops there until October 1915 when a second campaign was launched under German command. At some point after that, thousands of captured Serbian soldiers were sent to the Königsbrück POW camp, a number that eventually reached around 3,000. They were housed in a separate section that probably had more connection to the Russian section, since their language also uses a Cyrillic alphabet. 

This card was sent by a French soldier named Georges Cretté of the 82nd Infantry to Mademoiselle Renee Piette of  Beauvais, a town in the Oise département of northern France, 75 kms (47 miles) north of Paris. 

In this next photo the same seven Serbian musicians are surrounded by their fellow Serbs. The caption reads Königsbrück Serbenlager. 

Serbian music was probably considered pretty exotic for the other French and Russian soldiers, not to mention the German guards at Königsbrück. Serbia like the other Balkan ethnic nations has a  folk music tradition that uses modal scales and asymmetric rhythms that are not part of central European musical culture. 

The card was sent by a German soldier but without a date.

Perhaps the most unexpected musician see in the Königsbrück POW camp was a bagpiper. In this case a Serbian piper accompanied by two  E-flat clarinetists play while a ring of Serb soldiers dance around them. The high treble clarinets are typical piccolo instruments found in many brass bands around the world but they would not have been common in German bands. I think they must have come with the musicians when they were captured. Likewise the bagpipes are very unusual to see. Though it's a simple folk instrument with a single drone and chanter, the Serbian pipes are very different from the Scottish highland pipes, or the German Dudelsack, or the dozens of other European bagpipes. 

In this photo the Serbian piper is playing alone in the midst of other Serbian and Russian soldiers. It has recently rained and the camp street has turned into sandy mud. Carl Schmidt numbered this photo #654. 

This photo was numbered  #653 and shows a different pose of the same piper. This postcard was sent by Alfred Gigout, a Sergeant of the 153rd Infantry Regiment, to his wife Madame Gigout of Manonville, a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in north-eastern France. What did she think when she saw this photo? 

When the captured Serbian soldiers were sent to Königsbrück they arrived with a large number of sick men, mainly suffering typhus, which required them to be quarantined. Contagious disease was the worst calamity that any prison could experience but it was especially onerous for a POW camp which had limited resources. In Königsbrück 176 Serbs died from typhus and were buried in a cemetery there. 

In September 1918 a monument to the fallen Serb soldiers was erected in the cemetery. It was made in stone and carved by sculptor Edmund Delphaut, a French adjutant of the 153rd Infantry Regiment. I wrote about this impressive statue in my August 2021 story Monument to the Fallen, Königsbrück 1918. 

In this clip from a photo of the Serb monument, the artist Delphaut is looking up at his statue. I believe the other man next to him, looking at the camera, is Alfred Gigout. During the four years  he was confined to the prison camp, Alfred regularly sent photos of Königsbrück's camp life to his wife . Many of these postcards are now in my collection and have inspired me to tell the story of this remarkable place.

If you Google "Königsbrück Germany" the first image that pops up is of this same monument to the fallen Serb soldier of World War One. It is all that remains of the German prisoner of war camp of 1914–18. After the war most of the remains of soldiers buried there were disinterred and taken back to their native lands. The barracks and grounds of the Königsbrück prison camp were taken over for other military use.  Eventually after the Second World War and then the division of Germany in the Cold War the land reverted to a forest and it is now preserved as a park watched over by a brave Serbian soldier. 

That monument bears witness to a terrible time of war. Yet it is also an example of a uniquely peaceful endeavor made by soldiers who put their skills and talents toward producing art, music and theater. So far I have far more questions than answers but the photo collection I have acquired of the Königsbrück POW camp shows that it was a place where culture thrived and was shared across multiple foreign languages and traditions. How that happened and why was it recorded by Carl Schmidt's camera is still a mystery but I think it is a story worth telling.  

The chapter to this series will be about the art work produced by the soldiers in the Königsbrück prisoner of war camp. Stay tuned, as the Serbian bagpiper will return. 

Here are links to my other stories on this POW camp.
The Königsbrück POW Camp, A Theatre of War,
The Königsbrück POW Camp, Soldiers at Ease
Monument to the Fallen, Königsbrück 1918
Art in a Time of War
The Prisoners of Königsbrück

I can't resist including a video
about Serbian bagpipes.
Here is a short one from
the YouTube channel of Vladan Radisavljevic 
who has compiled a large collection of vintage photos
of Serbian, and maybe Croatian, bagpipers to the sound of the bagpipes.
My impression is that there are two types of Serbian bagpipes.
One has a short chanter with a high pitch sound,
and the other is longer with a lower pitch
and an upturned bell like the one played by the Serbian soldier.

Even for a bagpipe, the Serbian pipes make a very jarring noise
that is possibly one of the most teeth-grinding sounds you will ever hear.
Its constant drone and dissonant noodling reeds

are so annoying that it could start another war
if you had to listen to it every day.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where making a piece of cake

and a case for Peace
require two different recipes.

When Things Go Wrong

 

From time to time
everyone suffers an accident.
It's bad luck. It's fate.
It's life.

And after every accident
we are forced to puzzle over
how it happened.
Did something break?
Was some idiot not looking? 
Could it be my fault? 

Nahhh!
Sometimes it's just

Panne désespérée
~ 
Desperate failure

In this colorful picture an automobile appears to have struck something that has left its front wheels askew. The driver and two male companions mull over the cause while in the back seat a female passenger nonchalantly checks her hair and hat.  

The artist is Fritz Schönpflug (1873–1951), an Austrian postcard illustrator whose keen eye painted hundreds of clever caricatures of the people living in his native city of Wien (Vienna) during the last years of the Hapsburg Empire. Check this Schönpflug link for more of my stories on his postcards.

His playful cartoon was poking fun at a relatively new recreation in Wien at the time, riding around town in a motorcar. In the 1900s the automobile was a luxury vehicle designed to compete with horse-drawn carriages that for centuries had conveyed wealthy people around city streets. But, like any novel invention, as soon as people adopt a new thing, they figure out ways to get into trouble. The breakdown or crash of an automobile was not unlike similar accidents with horses and wagons. But for Schönpflug the fun was watching people try to figure out what went wrong.

This postcard was sent on 3 July 1913 from Glons, a village of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

* * *

Sometimes a mishap
thankfully involves
no one else but ourselves.
The accident then produces
a moment of quiet reflection
as we contemplate our brush with destiny. 
What is our purpose in life?
Or,

Kdybych jen věděl, co ten uzel má znamenat! 

~
If only I knew what that knot was supposed to mean!

A poor fellow is hung up in a tree branch after crashing his car into it. Since he is speaking Czech there may something lost in the translation of the punchline, but I think it refers to the way some people used to tie a knot in a handkerchief to remind them of some task or appointment.  

The artist of this postcard is Carl Robert Arthur Thiele (1860 – 1936), also known as Arthur Thiele. He was a contemporary of Fritz Schönpflug but came from Leipzig, Germany. I've featured a lot of his humorous postcards on this blog. Check out more under the Thiele label. Thiele (pronounced "Tee-la") was very prolific and produced thousands of different scenes in series with different themes. This card is part of a set made in the late 1920s or early 30s. This particular card has a typewritten address and handwritten message in Czech but no postmark. However the writer did include date numbers 1/10-30 for 1 October 1930. 

* * *

Typically it's the bumps in the road
that trip us up most often.
In those instances
it's always best to keep
a firm hold on the situation. 

One reason I love Fritz Schönpflug's illustrations is that his pictures beautifully capture motion which photographs at the time were unable to do. In this postcard an open-top motorcar has just hit a stone road marker tossing the driver and his passengers into the air. Like the previous cartoon, Schönpflug and Thiele do not portray car accidents as horrific as they became in our modern era. Of course the speed and weight of vehicles was then much lower than it is today resulting in more injuries than deaths.

This card was never posted but Schönpflug's signature has 904 after it which stands for 1904. 

* * *

It's a universal truth
that the best lessons in life 

come when we have a narrow escape
from a terrible accident.
This is especially true
when a close friend is involved.

Quel bonheur!  Tu as échappé au massacre! 

~

What a joy! You escaped the massacre!

This illustration shows a pretty young lady on the roadway after her automobile has slammed into a utility pole. As she struggles to get up, she sees that her teddy bear is dazed but unharmed. The person who sent the card added a little stick figure and caption to the picture but I couldn't translate the word. 

This postcard was also painted by Arthur Thiele and is possibly a companion to the previous one in the same series. The card was sent from Brussel~Bruxelles, Belgium on 29 June 1934. 

To demonstrate how civil authorities in other parts of the world
responded to the increasing problems of automobile accidents
here is a British Pathé road safety film entitled
The Other Man Reel 2 (1950-1959).

It begins with a rather officious British constable and halfway through
changes to children in toy cars and an example of a careless driver.

For more entertainment value, again courtesy of British Pathé,

here is an American 1949 public service short
filmed in Los Angeles, California.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where something old is always something new.

A Circus in Cuba

 

Waiting for a train
is an activity everyone should appreciate.
Maybe not children, but at least most adults
know that it's a test of patience and often stoicism.
You can never trust a railway clock or timetable.
A train will leave only when it wants to. 
It pays no attention to a passenger's watch or schedule.

This group of people appear to have given up on their train
as they are not even on the platform anymore
but literally sitting/standing on the tracks.
They don't look like a random throng
but seem more organized and orderly
as they've brought along a brass band for entertainment.

Perhaps their composure is because
they all operate on the most reliable of all timetables.
For when that band plays they know for sure—

It's Showtime at the Circus! 

The full photo postcard has a handwritten caption.

Circo Canaries - Season 1922-23
CUBA

This odd mix of people are members of a traveling circus in Cuba. On the railway carriage behind them are stenciled letters "Ferrocarril de C" which is Spanish for "Railway of Cuba". And below the carriage windows, partly blocked by the people, is a poster that spells "Circo Canaries". This postcard was mailed from Habana–Havana, Cuba on 3 May 1925 to Maude Bernard of Limestone, Florida. 

Havana  May 1st
Dear Maude
We are off to
States  Sunday
Tatsie (?)

{The kindly old fellow pictured on the red stamp is Máximo Gómez (1836–1905), who, according to his Wikipedia entry, was "a Cuban-Dominican Generalissimo in Cuba's War of Independence (1895–1898). He was known for his controversial scorched-earth policy, which entailed dynamiting passenger trains and torching the Spanish loyalists' property and sugar plantations—including many owned by Americans."}

I was attracted to the picture for several reasons, obviously for the brass band on the left, and also the writer's endorsement that this was a circus troupe. But it's also from Cuba and I rarely come across musician/entertainer photos from that part of the world. Since Cuba in our time remains behind a political wall, I did not expect to find any Cuban online libraries or digital archives, but with internet research I've learned you'll never find anything unless you go looking for it. Amazingly I easily found not only a perfect reference to this circus, but a photograph that was in an American periodical, too. 

Circus Report
25 February 1974

Fifty-one years after these people had their picture taken waiting for the train, Circus Report, "America's Favorite Circus Weekly", ran a picture supplement in the 25 February 1974 issue of its newsletter. It included a grainy photo of the "Gran Circo Canaires, a Cuban show, was snapped season of 1923-'24.  Among acts appearing above are the Arley Duo, Original Three Bernards, Great Frederic and Company, Koch Tam Kia Trroupe; May and Cherry, bar act, and a Mr. Gordon, who presented a boxing kangaroo."

It's interesting that this photo is not identical to my postcard but still shows the same people rearranged in front of the passenger carriage. The camera has not moved but the women in white previously seated are now standing. Even the parasol is in the same position. What more could I find about the Circo Canaries? Well, for one thing, it could also be spelled Circo Canarias.  

Gran Circo Canarias herald circa 1910-1929
Source: Milner Library Digital Collections,
Illinois State University, 

One of the useful archives for circus related ephemera is the Milner Library of Illinois State University. They have a huge collection of circus route books, photos, ephemera and handbills. And as luck would have it, they have a handbill of the Gran Circo Canarias that fits with the performers in my postcard and named in the Circus Report. It's a single double-sided page (which I've combined here in one image) that has no date. The Milner Library archivists have given it a date range from 1910 to 1929, but looking closely at the faces, I think it dates from around 1923-24. Pictured on the front is a trio of Chinese acrobats, two men and a woman, from Hong Kong who were given top billing. In the center of the postcard's photo are three Chinese faces and the woman seated left is a very good match for the woman on the playbill. 

However the real star is unfortunately not in my photo. He's probably relaxing inside a crate in the baggage carriage.

A boxing kangaroo or Kanguro Boxeador must have been a primo act for the Circo Canarias since in Cuba boxing has always been a popular sport. I wonder if the kangaroo ever lost a bout. With only a couple dozen performers the Circo Canairas was a small outfit, essentially a one-ring circus. It probably managed to tour the island using just a few rail cars. A troupe like this would have got to know each other better than in the gigantic American circuses which traveled on long special trains with several hundred workers and performers.

For any circus, large or small, a band was the most important component to the show. It announced the beginning and end of the performances, provided appropriate music and sound effects to accompany each act, and in general set a festive tone for the spectacle that is a circus. 

Technically the band of the Circo Canaries was a bit of a hybrid ensemble with a clarinet and a violin. But there was one unusual instrument that caught my attention when I first saw the postcard listing on eBay. It's called an ophicleide. And in this context it's like seeing a kangaroo in a brass band.

The ophicleide is an odd brass instrument that I have featured several times on my blog. Check out:  The Cadet Band of Augusta, Maine;  The Happy Couple; or  Monsieur le Curé and his Ophicleide. It is basically a long conical brass tube with a mouthpiece at one end for the player to buzz into and a large flared bell at the other for the sound to come out. But instead of using valves and extra bits of plumbing to lengthen the instrument like on a tuba or horn, the ophicleide has instead several large holes along its twisted-up length that are covered by keyed pads similar to those on a saxophone. Except that on a saxophone pressing a key closes the hole but on an ophicleide it opens them. 

It was invented in the early 19th century as a louder brass instrument family designed to come in several sizes from soprano to contrabass like the saxophone. It's name means "serpent with keys" The one used in the Circo Canarias band looks like the more common bass ophicleide. It became obsolete when the tuba was invented and by the 1870s was rarely found in European or North American bands or orchestras. But in South America, especially in Brazilian choro bands, the ophicleide found enough enthusiasts to keep it an accepted part of their musical ensembles.  

The handbill for the Circo Canarias had short descriptions for the different acts. Two paragraphs were devoted to the lead clown, Robertini and the Gran Orquesta or grand orchestra.

Robertini 

Clown Excéntrico Musical; el idolo de los Niños; Robertini Cómico; con sus chistes mantendra en constante hilaridad al público; Robertini Excéntrico Musical: deleitara la concurrencia con l'rozos de Opera. Operetas y asuntos cubanos, para lo cual presentará una completa colección de instrumentos raros.

Gran Orquesta Villarena, compuesta de once Profesores, con un extenso repertorio, todo moderno, desde el danzón Cubiche hasta el Fox-Trot Americano, y los aplaudidos Potpourrits, que tanto dicen del sentir cubano.

>>>>>>>>>

Robertini 

Musical Eccentric Clown; the idol of the Children; Robertini Comic; with his jokes he will keep the public in constant hilarity; Robertini Musical Eccentric: he will delight the audience with touches of Opera, Operettas and Cuban affairs, for which he will present a complete collection of rare instruments.

Great Villarena Orchestra, composed of eleven Professors, with an extensive repertoire, all modern, from the Cubiche danzón to the American Fox-Trot, and the applauded Potpourrits, which say so much about the Cuban feeling.

Robertini's clowning specialty sounds like he played multiple musical instruments in a humous way. I think he might be the man seated on the rail next to the tuba. If he used novelty instruments that might explain the presence of the ophicleide in the Villarena Orchestra. Certainly in the ophicleide photos and images that I've collected, the ophicleide was thought to be pretty funny. But that may be due to clumsy unmusical players. When it is played well, the ophicleide actually deserves full credit as a solo instrument every bit as capable and agile as a euphonium.

Here is a terrific group from Brazil
which features Everson Moraes on Ophicleide,

Thiago Osório - Bombardino

Paula Borghi - Violão

Lucas Oliveira - Cavaquinho

Gabriel Leite - Pandeiro

performing a tune entitled

Ophicleide e Bombardino - Boêmia Terra

Looking at the people gathered on the train tracks in my postcard, you would not immediately think they were circus performers since they are not in costume. Without their uniforms of sequins, spangles, and bright colors they look, well, just like normal folk. I don't think this was a photo intended to be sold as a souvenir of the Circo Canarias. It looks like a private photo one would share with a friend. The message on the card is also too simple to be from an American tourist. "We are off to States Sunday." Who would send that to an auntie, a neighbor, or a sweetheart? This was a brief note to a friend. Someone who would understand the group and location. Probably a  member of the Canarias troupe who was finishing out its winter season. But who exactly was Maude Bernard of Limestone, Florida? Was she a member of the "Original Three Bernards" who, according to the 1974 report in Circus Report, played with the Circo Canairas in 1923-24?

The answer is yes, she was.

The Billboard
1 December 1923

The Original Bernards left today for Tampa, Fla., from where they sail December 8 for Cuba, opening their second season there with the Circo Canarias.  The Bernards have only the highest praise for the Cuban circus and look forward to another pleasant season.

In the 1920 census for Limestone, Florida, a tiny rural community about 50 miles east of Sarasota, I found Maude Bernard, age 30, living with her husband Floyd Bernard, 35, a Merchint (sic), Drugstore Retail, with their son, Howard, age 12. That didn't seem like a place that a circus performer would live. However it was odd was that their respective birth places, Floyd - Iowa; Maude - Indiana; and Howard - Illinoise (sic)  made them the only Yankee family from Northern states that their neighbors in this very Southern state would know.

But with a little more research on the "Original Bernards" I discovered that this act was a pair of Equilibrists who had a great talent for balancing on thin wires and doing thrilling stunts. The act had started around 1906 and played fairs, parks, carnivals, and circuses. At one point they tured with the Great Ringling Bros. Circus before it merged with Barnum and Bailey. Their early notices described them as "America's Peerless Equilibrists. Magnificent wardrobe and elaborate paraphernalia, combined with youth, personality and ability." From other brief reports, it seemed they lived near St. Louis but had a farm in Florida, where they rested in the winter.

Then in 1912 the "Original Bernards" took out a large advert in The Billboard, the trade newspaper  for entertainers, and it included both addresses in St. Louis, Missouri and Limestone, Desoto County, Florida.

The Billboard
14 December 1912

The pictures showed that these equilibrists balanced on each other as well as on wires and ropes. The advert stated, "This act is strictly arranged for out-door amusement and Strictly Independent. No agent is authorized to book this act. We will not contract through an agency." The warnings and use of "Original" suggest that the Bernards had competitors that either mis-booked them or used their name in some shady show business fraud.

Cooksville IL Enterprise
12 September 1913

The next year another notice in a smalltown Illinois newspaper printed a full portrait of the "Original Bernards" and gave their forenames, Floyd and Maude. Looking at the Circo Canarias handbill's list of artists, the top act is Floy Bernald (a.k.a. Floyd Bernard) Trio. 1 senorita v 2 caballeros.  Acrobatas de Salon, ccontorsionistas y Alambristas. On the flip side is an illustration of the Bernards' act with little vignettes of Floyd and Maude Bernard in the lower corners.

That settled it. Ten years after their picture appeared in an Illinois newspaper, in the winter of 1922-23 Maude and Floyd were booked for a tour of Cuba with the Circo Canaries. They were just one of a surprising  number of acrobatic/balancing acts on that tour, too. A year later, one of their friends, Tatsie, sent a picture of the troupe along with a note about the end of that circus's season.  I think Maude Bernard is the woman seated right in that photo by the train and Floyd Bernard is behind her right shoulder wearing the straw boater hat. 

The Original Berards' act involved balancing on high tension wire ropes and walking along slack or "swinging" lines. They jumped or tumbled off barrels and each other. Their risky and daring stunts gave audiences a thrill in an age before television and film would make such feats commonplace. 

Darlington WS Democrat
15 August 1915

In this 1915 notice for the Big White Fair in Darlington, Wisconsin, Floyd and Maude are pictured in two of their stunts. Floyd on the left is balanced on a wooden barrel and on the right Maude is stepping along a tight rope. Both are holding a large parasol umbrella for balance. A parasol very like the one in front of Maude in the photo.

Herman MO Advertiser-Courier
26 July 1916

Some of their notices included more illustrations of their act. In this one from a carnival in Herman, Missouri, Floyd and Maude are positioned standing on each other up in a way one might if you didn't have a ladder to reach a ceiling light fixture. There is also a detailed sketch of figures tumbling off barrels that weirdly resembles an early computer arcade game.

Desoto County News
21 June 1923

In the summer of 1923 the Original Bernards were now the Three Original Bernards, I think because their son Howard, now age 15, had become a regular member of the act. In a carnival notice published in their Florida county newsweekly, various figures are doing handstands and splits on slack wire, balancing on a pole, or climbing stairs on their hands. In the center is a vignette photo of the Bernard trio. It's an unsophisticated illustration that has the look of a child's drawing. Perhaps Howard was the artist.

The last newspaper reference that I found for the Original Bernards was in the summer of 1931. They seemed to have played fairs, carnivals, and circuses all over the United States and evidently Cuba and maybe other places south of the border in the wintertime when American circuses retired to rest and restore.

On 14 July 1956, Floyd and Maude Bernard celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. The Tampa Tribune ran a nice report for the occasion. 

Tampa FL Tribune
15 July 1956

Floyd and Maude originally planned their wedding for July 13, but in 1906 the 13th was on a Friday, and besides they were then on tour with the Ringling Circus and on Friday there was a show to do. So they waited a day and good fortune blessed them. Their son Howard had continued as a circus artist and like his parents had married a circus performer, too. Now his two daughters were part of the show as well. The were called the "Bernadinos.

"Mrs. Bernard admits jokingly that she has made her husband 'walk a tight rope' for a half-century, but both say they never have lost the sense of balance that has kept the act together."

The report included two closeup portraits which are what I've used to compare to the 1923 postcard photo. Maude's thin face and gentle smile seems a very close match to me, but I could be completely wrong. Though the men on the far right in the photo have similar square jaw and eyes as Floyd in 1956 does, I think he would likely stand near his partner and wife. The only question remaining is who is the third Bernard? Is it the young man in dark coat and white hat standing just behind  Maude? Maybe. But I think I will leave this mystery a question for Bernard descendants to answer. 

In May 1966 the Tampa Tribune ran another story on the Bernards. Floyd had just been inducted a few weeks before into the Circus Hall of Fame to honor his contribution to the art of equilibrists and recognizing his long circus career since first walking a tight wire at age 14. The reporter asked Floyd, "Will the circus survive and come back?"

"Yes," thinks the old circus veteran. "But never in its big gaudy three-ring version.  There will always be small tent shows, one ring shows like 70 years ago.  One act at a time and with real clown acts."  In spite of TV, the circus won't die, Bernard said, as he rubbed that aching knee.

The Original Bernards led a full life that surely had more thrills and spills than ten married couples could ever count.  Floyd Merril Bernard died in December 1976 at the age of 91. Maude Quayle Bernard passed away in March 1989 at the age of 100. 

It's rare to find so many newspaper references from so few details on a postcard. What startles me is that this postcard must have come from the estate of Maude Bernard. It was a small memento from a friend of a shared adventure in beautiful Cuba. The bonds of friendship in the circus world must have been close. Who wouldn't want to listen to the stories of the Circo Canarias they could tell? The the tears, the mishaps, the laughs, the frustration waiting for a train. We can only imagine. Time machines don't pick up that kind of detail. 

The Original Bernards and their fellow circus performers of the Circo Canarias were some of the hardest working people in show business. They developed special talents and skills that were strange and wonderous at the same time. But unlike other ordinary jobs, an acrobat or equilibrist must maintain supreme concentration to be successful in their field. You got to keep your balance on the tight rope of life. Otherwise it's one step too far and that's the end of the show. Permanently.   

And for an extra bonus,
I can't resist including another video
of the same ophicleide soloist, Everson Neves de Moraes,
performing a catchy tune called Polca Coisa 
in his own brass quintet where he plays all the parts himself!
It has all the best qualities of circus music
that I'm sure the musicians of the Gran Circo Canarias
would have been eager to add it to their repertoire
just for the Original Bernards's act.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where climbing a mountain

can be as easy as taking a train.