The Postcard
An Oilette Series postcard that was published by Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd., Publishers to Their Majesties the King and Queen. The artwork was by A. Mascot, and the card was printed in the United Kingdom.
The publishers have printed the following morale-boosting message on the back of the card:
'Fums Up! Such a quaint little figure of a cute baby
Mercury, the emblem of luck on his forehead and a
touch of ancient Rome in the upturned thumb, handed
down from the Gladiator Days (through a United allied
Italy) to the Londoner of today, in the popular phrase -
Thumbs Up!
This lucky Symbol, expressive of the confidence deep
rooted in the hearts of Britain and her Allies that Right
will triumph over Might and that our just cause will
emerge crowned by a glorious Victory leading to a
lasting Peace, is brought home to you by A. Mascot.'
The lasting peace never happened - 20 years, 9 months and 24 days after the Great War Armistice, Prime Minister Chamberlain announced to a shocked British public that Great Britain was once again at war with Germany.
The card was posted in Peterborough using a ½d. stamp on Monday the 13th. September 1915. It was sent to:
Miss A. Hood,
c/o Mrs. Cone,
No. 8, Camden Street,
Lowestoft.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Dear Alice,
Just a PC to let you know
we are all alive and well.
Hope you are the same.
Love to all from Lucy."
'The Regeneration'
So what else happened on the day that Lucy posted the card to Alice?
Well, on the 13th. September 1915, the film The Regeneration was released. Directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Rockliffe Fellowes and Anna Q. Nilsson, it was the first feature-length gangster film based on an actual person.
Screenwriter Carl Harbaugh and Raoul Walsh adapted the story from a memoir 'My Mamie Rose' by Owen Kildare.
The film was considered lost until a copy was discovered in the basement of a building in Montana in 1976, and is now preserved at the Library of Congress.
Most of the extras in the film were real New York locals from the Bowery area, as well as from Hell's Kitchen, and had never appeared before in films.
Most of the gangster characters were actual gangsters in real life.
The 1915 Lahore Conspiracy Trials
The 13th. September 1915 also marked the end of the 1915 Lahore Conspiracy Case trials held in Lahore (then part of the undivided Punjab of British India), and in the United States, in the aftermath of the failed Ghadar conspiracy.
There were nine cases in total, starting on the 26th. April 1915.
Out of a total of 291 convicted conspirators, 42 were executed, 114 were given life sentences, and 93 were given varying terms of imprisonment. 42 defendants were acquitted.
The uncovering of the conspiracy also saw the initiation of the Hindu German Conspiracy trial in the United States.
-- The Ghadar Conspiracy
The Ghadar Conspiracy, also known as the Ghadar Mutiny, was a plan to initiate a widespread mutiny in the British Indian Army in February 1915 in order to end the British Raj in India.
The plot originated at the onset of the Great War, between the Ghadar Party in the United States, the Berlin Committee in Germany, the Indian revolutionary underground in British India and the German Foreign Office through the consulate in San Francisco.
The incident derives its name from the North American Ghadar Party, whose members of the Punjabi community in Canada and the United States were among the most prominent participants in the plan.
It was the most prominent amongst a number of plans of the much larger Hindu–German Mutiny, formulated between 1914 and 1917 to initiate a Pan-Indian rebellion against the British Raj during the Great War.
The mutiny was planned to start in the key state of Punjab, followed by mutinies in Bengal and rest of India. Indian units as far as Singapore were planned to participate in the rebellion.
The plans were however thwarted through a coordinated intelligence and police response. British intelligence infiltrated the Ghadarite movement in Canada and in India, and last-minute intelligence from a spy helped crush the planned uprising in Punjab before it started.
Key figures were arrested, and mutinies in smaller units and garrisons within India were also crushed.
The conspiracy was followed by the First Lahore Conspiracy Trial and Benares Conspiracy Trial which saw death sentences awarded to a number of Indian revolutionaries, and the exile of a number of others.
After the end of the war, fear of a second Ghadarite uprising led to the passage of the Rowlatt Act, followed by the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
-- The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place on the 13th. April 1919. A large, peaceful crowd had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, British India, to protest against the Rowlatt Act and the arrest of pro-independence activists Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr. Satya Pal.
In response to the public gathering, temporary brigadier general R. E. H. Dyer surrounded the people with his Gurkha and Sikh infantry regiments of the British Indian Army.
The Jallianwala Bagh could only be exited on one side, as its other three sides were enclosed by buildings. After blocking the exit with his troops, he ordered them to shoot at the crowd, continuing to fire even as the protestors tried to flee.
The troops kept on firing until their ammunition was exhausted. Estimates of those killed vary from 379 to 1,500 or more people, and over 1,200 other people were injured, many seriously.
Great Britain has never formally apologised for the massacre but expressed "deep regret" in 2019.