Latvia declares independence

Let us look back, further back than we have before in this blog and return to 1914. It was a great period, one of modern technology, culture and fashion. Truly the height of civilization, so let's have a war.

Everyone knew a big war was coming. France wanted some stuff back that Germany had taken from it. Germany wanted to take more of everyone stuff and they were building the means to do so. Everyone had alliances with everyone else and people were just itching for a war and so it happened. The Great War to end all wars, but of course it wasn’t.

After four long brutal years, the war ends and as victors do, they start dishing out the spoils and in this case, creating new countries. One of the lucky ones was Latvia. In the aftermath of World War I, she declared independence from Russia but did Russia agree? Soviet troops were occupying Latvian territory as fast as German troops were withdrawing from it. This created shortages.

So now Latvia believes that they are an independent country and what is the first thing a new independent country must do? Issue stamps. OK, not the first thing but important enough anyway. Issuing stamps showing your own culture, heritage, customs and identity are a key part of a country's claim of independence; stamps are a symbol. So they placed an order for the printing of three million postage stamps.

"Houston we have a problem", there is a shortage of everything, including paper. How are they going to print millions of stamps?

Well the retreating Germans were not able to take everything with them and one of the things they abandoned were large numbers of unfinished maps which were stored in their Riga headquarters. There were so many that they were even being used in the Riga market to wrap fish. English fish and chips, anyone? OK not the fried kind anyway.

Now these maps were unfinished. The map side of these foldable maps was finished, but their backs, which were to show the region name, scale, etc., were not yet printed. They hadn’t been folded yet, so they were nice and flat and just waiting for someone to decide what to do with them that did not involve fish. The idea was to just turn them over and print the stamps on the other side.

The military maps on the back of these stamps, which are often upside down versus the stamp design, are usually printed in brown and black on dark cream gummed paper. Some were perforated and some imperforate, so you'll find both out there. You can find them with a blank backing, a simple line or an intense display of topography. Finding them on cover is far less common as the stamps were in use for a very short while.

Even though these map stamps have never been rare or expensive, there are forgeries out there, please don't ask me why so I won't have to lie to you.

Unfortunately the Latvians did not get their independence without a fight, and soon after declaring independence the Russians captured Riga, the capital city, and now we have a conflict involving the Soviets, the Latvian army, the Germans, as if World War One was not complicated enough. All's well that ends well as they were granted their independence two years later. The victors of World War One granted her independence.

This lasted until the second war to end all wars.