1939 WWII BEF France Christmas Card
Signed / Autographed by General Raoul-Amédée Voruz
A scarce and highly evocative 1939 British Expeditionary Force Christmas / New Year card from France, hand signed by Major General Viruz, dated Noël 1939 / Nouvel An 1940. Produced during the tense early months of the Second World War, before the German offensive in the West and the evacuation from Dunkirk, this is exactly the kind of compact, displayable wartime survivor that appeals across several collector markets: WWII militaria, BEF France 1939–40, military autographs, Christmas cards, French wartime ephemera and cabinet-of-curiosities collecting.
A guaranteed original pre-Dunkirk BEF item,
with known private-collection provenance (see below)
A very appealing original wartime Christmas and New Year card from the opening months of the Second World War. The card features the striking BEF printed military emblem to the front, with crossed British and French flags, a gold sword / spear motif and wreath design — a powerful visual symbol of the Anglo-French alliance in 1939.
Inside, the card is inscribed:
“Meilleurs Vœux
Noël 1939
Nouvel An 1940”
and hand signed by General R. A. Viruz
Printed text below reads:
“Somewhere in France”
A superb piece of early-war ephemera from the period of the British Expeditionary Force in France, before the dramatic events of 1940.
This is not only a Christmas card, but also a small but highly atmospheric survivor from the Phoney War period, when British and French forces were positioned in France and the full force of the German attack in the West had not yet come.
Early-war BEF Christmas cards are far less commonly encountered than later mass-produced wartime greeting cards, and signed examples with staff / senior officer association are particularly rare.
Key Features
Condition
Original vintage condition as shown. 14 x 10 cm.
There is light age toning and a little handling wear and some spotting to the cover consistent with age and wartime paper ephemera. The printed emblem remains attractive and the internal inscription and signature display well.
Please study the photographs carefully, as they form an important part of the description.
Provenance
The card is part of an historical family-retained archive with strong military associations, linking several notable British Army families of the late nineteenth and early-mid twentieth centuries.
The archive was discovered by the vendor, preserved among a collection of papers found in a Second World War officer’s footlocker associated with Lieutenant-General Sir (Frank) Noel Mason-MacFarlane (1889–1953). The papers appear to have descended through the Mason-MacFarlane family to Noel’s son Ian Will Mason-MacFarlane and Ian’s wife Muriel Paterson Hall, known as Mona, who was born in Galashiels, Scotland, in 1923 and died in 2016.
The collection includes a handwritten note dated 14 July 1969, written by Mona Hall on headed paper from The Hawthorns, Galashiels, Selkirkshire. In it, she thanks the Director General of the Imperial War Museum for acknowledging receipt of the private papers, photographic material, and film records of the late Lieutenant-General Sir Frank Noel Mason-MacFarlane.
The surviving papers indicate that Mona Hall retained a number of personal and family documents relating to her husband Ian’s distinguished military family and relatives by marriage. These include his grandfather Colonel David James Mason-MacFarlane (1862–1930), uncle Captain David (Carlyon) Will Mason-MacFarlane (1891–1916) of the 7th Queen’s Own Hussars, who was killed in action in Egypt, and his father Lieutenant-General Sir Noel Mason-MacFarlane.
Also found within the footlocker were several other original BEF Christmas cards, and various warrants and awards to General Sir Ronald Forbes Adam, who was linked to the Mason-MacFarlane family through his marriage in 1915 to Anna Dorothy Pitman, sister of Islay Pitman, the wife of Lieutenant-General Sir Noel Mason-MacFarlane.
Whilst the archive is documented by family descent to Mona Hall, who died in 2016, the subsequent chain of custody is not known, but the footlocker and contents was later discovered during a house clearance, together with other related family and military papers from the same archive group. This should therefore be regarded as a document with established family provenance to 2016, later rediscovered as part of a house-clearance.