Divine Presence in Spain and Western Europe 1500–1960: Visions, Religious Images and Photographs

Supernaturals and the Absent in World War I postcards [with Images]

162 Supernaturals and the Absent in World War I postcards In France, as the prospect of conflict with Germany increased, starting June 30, 1913, first two girls, then scores of adults, began to have visions in the village of Alzonne, 10 kilometers from Carcassonne. The visions started in poplars on the bank of the River Fresquel, then spread to the sky above the highway that passed through the town and also to the cemetery . In all there were over a hundred seers (some from Carcassonne and Bordeaux), until, in March 1914, the diocese decided the whole thing was diabolical. What people were seeing on the trees and in the sky seems to have been much like the art and photomontage visionary postcards then so popular. (Fig. 107) As later at Ezquioga, different people saw different things, whether Jeanne d’Arc (as a shepherdess at her house in Domrémy, on a white horse with a banner, in shining mail leading King Charles on the way to Reims), St. Michael, the Sacred Heart, the Virgin (a lady in white, with a blue girdle, a lady with a child in her arms, a lady with wings like a guardian angel), St. Catherine, the devil, or a fiery serpent. These were the kinds of images the popular Catholic weekly Le Pèlerin had for decades been providing in dramatic color.18 The active French spiritualist community 163 took note, and through them the Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne went with her daughter and wrote back to William Butler Yeats that the daughter of a miller saw messages in Latin in the sky and that it was good Latin.19 Remembered in retrospect, some of the visions were prophetic—like that of trains carrying African troops hurtling through the night sky, or soldiers wearing gas masks, or a ship with African troops sinking . Senegalese troops did pass on trains through Carcassonne months later. Others, like the cathedral of Reims in flames held by Jeanne d’Arc, foreshadowed allegorical images that appeared on postcards, like Jeanne at the ruined Reims cathedral. 20 Visions or dreams of heavenly armies clashing in the sky, of course, were a staple of seers and prophets in the late Middle Ages and early modern period.21 As World War I began, scenes much like the visions seen at Alzonne appeared in the upper portions of composite images throughout Europe, connecting the loved ones at home to the loved ones at the front, capturing, like the visions, the presence of the war in people’s minds and anxieties (Figs. 108–110). World War I was, among other things, the great postcard war, with billions of postcards crisscrossing between home and front.22 In France and Germany, mail to soldiers was free and sending postcards al- 164 most a patriotic duty. In France, all the supernaturals and allegorical figures in the prewar postcards enthusiastically enlisted (Figs. 111–114). The national woman, France or Marianne called men to battle, was protected by them and protected them (Figs. 115–118). She appeared at times to have a halo, available to Catholics and non-Catholics.23 Important generals, especially Joffre, were like national saints (Figs. 119–120),24 and cards were sold with ersatz Our Fathers dedicated to them.25 Père Noël pitched in bringing war toys (Figs. 121–122), and Joffre as Père Noël brought victory to the sleeping nation.26 The supernaturals led the troops and protected individual soldiers, as in other countries (Fig. 123–126). Soldiers’ battle visions were published in newspapers, and lay persons like Claire Ferchaud of Loublande had visions that linked the saints and the nation.27 Postcards depicted imagined appearances of Thérèse of Lisieux,28 Our Lady of Lourdes and other generic versions of Mary29 (Fig. 127). After the war was over, on the 1870s border in Lorraine, people gathered on late afternoons to see the silhouette of Mary next to a church30 (Fig. 128). Jeanne d’Arc was a ripe symbol for the war, and her canonization in 1920, as seen on the cover of Le Pèlerin, provided a symbolic reconciliation of the allegorical France with the allegorical Church, under 165 the gaze of the crucifix as a reminder of the millions of lives lost (Figs. 129–130). Throughout Europe, composite image postcards helped bridge the gap (visually, and through the mail) between home and soldiers. If...