Greetings card, Christmas, letterpress and colour offset, illustrated by Walter E. Spradbery, published by Royal Army Medical Corps, Britain, World War I, 1918.

Khaki-grey folder card in portrait format. On the front: Christmas greeting and insignia of the Royal Army Medical Corps printed in brown. Inside: tipped-on colour image printed on white paper depicting four RAMC personnel carrying a stretcher laden with Christmas fare and on which a fifth soldier sits raising a glass, behind him a flag with a red cross on a white ground inscribed "Bonne Santé" and intertwined with a laurel wreath, in the background visible beneath the stretcher a nocturnal scene of a battlefield with a ruined building (a church?), forms resembling crosses (bombed-out trees?), and an ambulance.

During the First World War a ban on Christmas cards was mooted to save paper but the idea was rejected in the interests of maintaining morale. By the early 20th century postcards had become more popular than folder cards like this one as they were cheaper to post and most WWI Christmas cards were single sheets in postcard or visiting card format. This card issued at the end of the war by the Royal Army Medical Corps moves beyond the usual cheaply-produced propaganda or grim trenches humour and anticipates the era of peace and plenty expected in the wake of victory.

E.397-2008