This card was selected simply because it was a celebration, and there is a soldier, right in the middle.
It is an interesting issue, and became more, the more I delved. There is also a link to the Second World War which I did not realise when I got the card.
For a start we have the artist`s name on one of the cards, and that is quoted as "Bernard Aldebert", but his full name was Jean Bernard-Aldebert, and he was a very prolific cartoonist, satirist, and illustrator, whose works are very collectable today. I wonder if those collectors know he drew these cards, too? However in his lifetime his cartoons attracted notoriety too, and during the Second World War one of them caused him to be arrested and sent to a concentration camp, which, somehow, he survived. Not only that, but he wrote an illustrated book about his experiences.
After the camp was liberated, he returned to France, and stayed away from the more satirical works, though he did still work as an illustrator. In fact he was also one of the many illustrators who drew for the Tintin books, it being far too much work for Herge to do alone.
I am not sure when he did these cards, I have seen them offered for sale with several dates between 1925 and 1938. The 1925, I think, is too early; he only started to make a name for himself in 1928, when he was signed up by the popular magazine Le Pele Mele. You could say that he did these first, but his name is on them, and this generally only happens after you are famous. The people drawn are quite rounded, which suggests the 1930s, in the 1920s they would have been drawn slimmer, fashions change in all things.
The grey uniform of the soldier is also not much help, if he is French then that puts the cards as being between 1903 and 1914, which is when a succession of new colour schemes were trialled, but this is too early for our man, he was only born in 1909. As for the Germans, they first tried a grey uniform in 1910 (which may have been the reason the French abandoned theirs) - but they kept it, right until the end of the Second World War. As far as East Germany, they retained their grey uniforms right until the 3rd of October 1990, when they joined West Germany, to become one country, the Federal Republic of Germany.
Now the idea behind the issue is that this card is put next to the others and it makes a large sectional picture. There are other series of these cards, that also follow the same pattern, for on the back of ours it lists three, and that presumably makes ours series four. Their names are :
- 14 Juilliet au Village (14th of July in the Village - Bastille Day)
- A La Caserne (At the Barracks)
- Le Chemin de Fer (The Railway)
- Fete Foraine (Travelling Fair)
Our man definitely did the artwork for series 2, 3, and 4, but I have not found series one yet. And only one card in each series has his signature.