WWI / Serbia year 1916 stamps – Corfu issue 5c “Postes Serbes”

WWI / Serbia 1916 – Corfu issue 5c ☀ “Postes Serbes” Overprinted French stamps

Historical event during World War I involving Serbian refugees in Corfu, Greece who were using French stamps overprinted by Serbian post offices to frank their correspondence.

In January 1916, Serbian government and army officials took refuge in Corfu, Greece, due to pressure from Bulgarian and Austrian forces during World War I. The French expeditionary force provided protection to the Serbian exiles.The Austrian occupiers opposed communication between the exiles in Corfu and their relatives in Serbia. Until the summer of 1916, the postal service was disrupted, and letters had to pass through a neutral country before reaching Austria-Hungary, the agency responsible for their distribution. The Consul General of Serbia in Belgrade, Ch. Vögeli served as a mailbox for exiles without correspondents in Switzerland, accumulating hundreds of empty envelopes.

From October 1916 to October 1918, the French military post office provided stamps for the postage of letters from Corfu. These stamps included various French designs overprinted by Serbian post offices, such as the Semeuse cameo (5c, 10c, 25c, 35c), Semeuse ligne (15c), and Merson (40c, 50c).The Merson stamps were canceled with a Serbian stamp without indicating the place, and an additional “POSTES SERBES” mark was affixed after postage to identify them as originating from the Serbian refugees in Corfu.In August 1918, a philatelist read about this practice in the newspaper Excelsior and sent entire plates of French stamps to Corfu. The postmen in Corfu accepted the stamps and affixed the”POSTES SERBES”    overprint, resulting in a profusion of stamps with this overprint and gum with a diagonal “POSTES SERBES”  inscription on the stamp or in pairs for certain types of stamps like the White and Sower designs.