Shall we climb the hill?

The favorites of those who collect field post cards are hand-drawn, decorated specimens. Sometimes soldiers decorated the postcards written for their loved ones with a simpler pattern, flowers and calligraphic signatures. The more skilled, on the other hand, also made humorous drawings and caricatures if they had the time. Like the propaganda of the age, these were either drawings that magnified the capabilities of their own forces, or works that downplayed and offended the enemy.

This card is from the collection of my friend Gábor Csiszér. On it, two old-fashioned Romanian peasants converse in the foothills of the Carpathians. They want to go up, but they are afraid of the consequences, of the defending Hungarians, who will fall on them like the sun. The propaganda badge, entitled “Against Romania”, fits the drawing. The symbolism of this is different, more common. Here the enemy takes the form of a snake and the defenders are lions. The message, of course, is the same, the badge depicts the superiority of the defending heroes. It is also an ARKANZAS product, like many other propaganda badges.