1809, Napoleonic Army in Austria, folded letter with red NO. 1
ARM.D ALLEMAGNE military postmark, sent from St. Pölten in 1809,
addressed
1809, Napoleonic Army in Austria, folded letter with red NO. 1
ARM.D ALLEMAGNE military postmark, sent from St. Pölten in 1809,
addressed to the Mayor of Carignano, written by Col. Rissou, 111th
Regiment, 3rd Corps, 2nd Division, Army of Germany, requesting aid
in locating Fusilier Bauduc, a conscript from Carignano who was
wounded at the Battle of Wagram and had a limb amputated, mentions
an imperial pension granted by the Emperor, postage to be collected
on delivery, red cachet is rare as it is normally found in black,
ex Tranmer, of significant postal-historical interest due to its
origin during the War of the Fifth Coalition, a decisive campaign
in which the French Grande Armée under Emperor Napoleon I engaged
the Austrian forces of Archduke Charles, particularly in the Danube
valley theatre, with the Battle of Wagram (5–6 July 1809) marking
one of Napoleon’s bloodiest victories and leading to the Treaty of
Schönbrunn, the sender, Col. Rissou, likely acting as adjutant or
commanding officer within Davout’s III Corps, highlights the
bureaucratic and humanitarian efforts amid military operations,
reflecting both the administrative depth of Napoleonic military
logistics and the formal mechanisms for veteran welfare—here
referencing a wounded fusilier from Piedmont, a region annexed to
the French Empire in 1802 and heavily recruited from during the
Napoleonic campaigns, Carignano, located near Turin, was
historically tied to the House of Savoy, and its inclusion here
underlines the transnational nature of French conscription across
occupied and annexed territories, lending strong geostrategic
relevance to the letter, which crosses military and civil
jurisdictions during active wartime conditions, the red NO. 1 ARM.D
ALLEMAGNE strike, rare in this colouration, provides an early
example of military postal standardisation by the Grande Armée,
usually rendered in black, making this red impression a
particularly desirable anomaly for thematic collections focusing on
military postal history, Franco-Austrian campaigns, or
Napoleonic-era epistolary artefacts, XF! Estimate 1.000€.