Services rendered - Waterloo again

Letter sent to the Chancellor of the Military Order of William located in the Hague on the 12th of May 1832. A circular Amsterdam postmark in red has been used to date stamp the piece 

Pandemic or War?

When you're keeping up with the news on TV or read the papers the last couple of weeks I’m often left wondering if we are about to enter a new dawn of humanity or if we will rather see the end of it. The new corona virus COVID-19 has paralyzed the globalized world of which we’ve grown so fond in the last decades. The virus makes us feel vulnerable and small again. At least, that’s what I deduce from all the live coverage of the onslaught and the prospects of a global economic crisis which will dwarf the 1930s Depression. Yet, at the same time this absolute shelling of fearsome facts feels a bit obsolete. Out of all threats, a virus which attacks the homo sapiens is probably our most predictable enemy in our digital age. Although invisible and absolutely terrifying in the weeks after its first appearance, research and plain facts are already perfectly able to model and compute the growth rate, fatality rate, contamination rate etc.  An enemy which behaves itself as your most humble servant. An enemy which nevertheless increases exponentially when we take not enough heed. A difficult situation for sure but one which we could easily overcome by following simple rules and staying focused. If you think this COVID-19 pandemic is awful (fatality rate = < 1%) you should not even contemplate comparing it with the devastation destruction and randomness of war. The letter which I will discuss today reminds us of one. 

Contents of the letter (page I)

Begging letter

I stumbled upon a rather elegantly written letter which dates from 1832. I was intrigued by the almost calligraphic writing a couple of months ago but found it difficult to fold it open because of its unusual folding. Of course, the last thing I wanted was to ruin the paper. A week ago though the letter caught my attention again and this time I just had to open it. Its contents were rather cheerless. 

~

[in zwarte inkt] ? den 13 mei 1832 N28144

[in potlood] aan dit verzoek zal op de voorgestelde wijze niet kunnen worden voldaan

Amsterdam den 6e Mei 1832

Zijn Exellentie !

In afwachting dat UED mijn verzoek niet van de hand zal wijze zoo neeme ik de vrijheid mij langs dezen weg tot UED te begeven om de volgende reden namelijk! Ik ben door een zware ziekte in de behoefte van geld geraakt Alzoo heeft iemand mij zoo gunstig geweest om mij te helpen met ƒ34 waarvoor ik hem dan mij acte van Ridders Pensioen in pand moest geven ervoor [?] 5 centen van de gelden maar toen ik nu met dit laatste kwartaal kwam om te tekenen heeft diezelfde persoon de onheusheid gehad mijne acte aan een ander te verpanden en kan dus geen geld ontvangen dit is dan ook de reden als dat mijn acte de vita niet behoorlijkertijd daar is. In de hoop als dat UED mij na zoo goedgunstig belieft te zijn om mij een klein bewijs over te zenden opdat ik dan zelf persoonlijk zulks aan den weledele Bicker kan vertoonen om mij zelven te betalen dan blijf ik UED ten hoogsten verpligt en zal met die persoon een overeenkomst zien te treffen op een zegeltje om hem dan alle vierendeels jaars een zeker gedeelte van mijn pensioen aftestaan om niet mijn schuld te geraken en dan zoodan mijne acte terug te krijgen. 

In afwachting dat UED mij hierin als het u belieft wel zal te gemackd kom [?]

Zoo blijf ik met alle onderdanigheid

UED DW Dienaar

P. Lasance

~

[in black ink] ? 13 May 1832 N28144

[in pencil] this request cannot be complied with in the proposed manner

His Excellency !

Pending my request which I hope Your Right Honourable won’t deny, I take the opportunity to address Your Right Honourable because of the following matter. Due to a severe illness I’m in the need of money. Somebody was so kind to help me with a sum of ƒ34 for which I had to put my Soldiers Pension as collateral. However, in this last quarter, when I returned to this person to sign, it came to light he unfairly put my pension as collateral for another person which makes it impossible to receive any money. This is the reason why my certificate of life cannot duly arrive on time. Pending my hope that Your Right Honourable will send me some evidence after you have proven to be so auspicious, so that I can personally prove Mr Bicker to pay me, I will remain indebted to Your Right Honourable. I will try to reach an agreement with this person to cede him a certain part of my pension every quarter in order not to be in debt and to return my act. 

Pending that your honorable if you please will accommodate in this matter

I remain forever in your service, 

Your Right Honourable devoted servant

P. Lasance

~

Source of philatelic material

I've warned you: the contents picture a rather sobering message. Especially the apparent denial of the request (in pencil) made me feel sorry. Before we return to P. Lasance, I've to speak about prephilately first. How could historical documents end up in private collections? 

The academic approach to philately can only exist by plenty of material available for research. When looking for items which were sent pre-1900, you’ll come to realize that the material often originates from old archives (ranging from personal family documents to big firm archives). Sometimes these archives have been plundered for the sake of the philatelists – with hindsight a rather disgusting ‘side-effect' of the increasing popularity of the hobby –, but in most cases the material was acquired by dealers or auctions houses because the firm filed for bankruptcy or an archive would have to get rid of it anyway. In the latter case the archive deemed certain papers of insufficient interest to preserve for future generations. When interest in philately developed probably 100.000s of folded letters (or address sheets only) were saved and ended up in private hands. 

I think that this particular letter originates from a cleared archive. Somebody went through the files of the Kanselarij der Militaire Willemsorde (Military Order of William) because I could find dozens of other similar items online for sale: all addressed to general Janssens who functioned as chancellor of the order between its establishment in 1815 and his death in 1838. 

Contents of the letter (page II)

The life of P. Las(s)ance 

The poor bloke who wrote this letter had fallen gravely ill and is begging for a document which was denied by the chancellor of this Military Order of William. I took me some moments to realize that the man really hoped, begged almost, that his request which he had so carefully wrote, folded and sealed the letter would be honoured. It might have been his last resort. 

I already imagined how an old man, probably crippled at the time of writing, would spend his last days on this earth hoping for a miracle to happen since some rude person had taken advantage of his soldiers pension. Soldiers pension? Slowly some pieces of the jigsaw came together. P. Lasance was apparently entitled to be paid a soldiers pension and he asked the chancellor of some prestigious Dutch order for a certificate of life. He most certainly must have been a knight then. 

So I started my search. The Military Order of William was established by king Willem I in 1815 after the battles of Quatre-Bras and Waterloo. The sole recipients of the decoration (4 ranks) fought in these battles. When P. Lasance begged for proof of his identity the year was 1832. Until that time the order had only been rewarded to generals, corporals, soldiers and so forth who fought in the Waterloo campaign and in a now almost completely forgotten colonial war on Java (Java war 1825-1830). This letter was therefore likely to have been written by a Waterloo veteran! What a find! 

Register entry of P. Lassance

Next stop was the website of the Dutch Ministry of Defence. I knew that they maintained a databank in which you could browse through all decorated soldiers of the Netherlands. I typed Lasance – no results. I typed La sance – no results. I typed La Saints – no results. You can imagine that I started to panic now – what if this bloke just tried to fool the chancellor? – based on the denied request this possibility looked more likely by the second. 

I tried several more combinations of letters – Lassance did it. What a relief. But what a sobering message – again. 

P. Lassance Military Order of William 4th Class Awarded on the 17th of August 1815 on grounds of services rendered in the Battle of Waterloo the 18th of June 1815 in his function as fusilier of the Infantry Battalion of the 13th line.

Birth: 1797
Death: April 10 1833

Less than a year after P. Lassance had his request denied he died. Even in 1833 it was quite uncommon that men died in their 30s after having survived childhood and in Lassance’s case even a terrible battle. I haven’t found details whether he died of the disease he wrote about in his letter or something else. No single file in the Amsterdam archives seems to refer to this particular P. Lassance (or Lasance), but I would like to be proven wrong someday. 

Back of the cover with an incomplete strike of the  circular 's-Gravenhage arrival mark. 

Waterloo

Apart from his last troublesome months and his year of birth we know nothing about P. Lassance other than his apparently remarkable services in the Battle of Waterloo. 30.000 Dutchmen fought there but only 1004 knighthoods were awarded. Alas the register doesn’t mention which remarkable feat led him to be decorated. His fought as a foot soldier in the 13th line (637 men) of the 2nd Brigade of the Netherlands 3rd division under command of general baron Chassé. His interventions at Waterloo came at a pivotal moment when Napoleon sent his imperial guard to attack British troops stationed in front of Chassé. Because Chassé acted quickly with a strong counterattack in response (1st brigade under command of colonel Detmers) Napoleons actions were rendered futile at this particular point in the battle. The coalition held their line. Unfortunately I haven’t found any details on the activities of the 2nd Brigade in which Lassance fought. The 13th line most likely supported the 1st Brigade which stood in the line of fire.

General D.H. Chassé portrayed by Jan Willem Pieneman in
1832 wearing his decorations of the Military Order of William

Click here to read more about the Battle of Waterloo.   

Heldring in Venedig

PH-AKR 'Rietvink'. This DC-2 aircraft carried the letter from Bandoeng to Amsterdam Schiphol

In the 1930s the world became increasingly smaller by the introduction of regular flights between every possible destination. The aircraft industry could barely keep pace with the ever demanding airlines, which asked for safe, less noisy, air-pressured cabins and larger aircraft. Comfort and luxury were key words for 1930s passenger airlines. But aircraft were of more use than only transporting passengers: they became a very important means of transporting freight and mail. Especially the last category could be transported in large quantities. For the first time in history Dutch inhabitants of the Indies (West and East) could communicate with their relatives in the Netherlands without having to wait six or more weeks for an answer. In addition to this the leading Dutch airline (KLM) improved her service every year. In the early 1930s it took more than ten days for a KLM aircraft to fly from Bandoeng to Amsterdam. In the late 1930s new modern (American) DC-3 aircraft could make the journey in a time span of only two days! That's what you call progress!

Letter departed Bandoeng on the 2nd of August 1935 and was probably forwarded from Amsterdam to Venice on the 20th of August. Attractive stamping of the square 12 1/2c Queen Wilhelmina 'Kreisler' and the 30c Seegers' lonely ship stamp.

This letter departed Paroengkoeda (now Parungkuda) on the 2nd of August 1936. First you might think that it arrived in Amsterdam on the 20th of the same month. A longer than usual travel time, isn't that a bit odd? With the introduction of the modern DC-2 flying machines a journey from the Indies to the Netherlands took only 5 days in the summer of 1935...so first thing what came to my mind was an engine failure. They often occurred in these days.

After a while though I wasn't so sure anymore: I looked the flight up in TSchroots' great airmail encyclopedia and read that the DC-2 'Rietvink' departed Bandoeng on the 3rd of August and arrived accordingly to its flight schedule in Amsterdam on the 8th. No engine failure whatsoever, just a lazy philatelist which jumped to conclusions too quickly.       

It think we might have been tricked by the Amsterdam postmark. This 'pseudo-arrival' postmark is probably only an indication of the time and day on which the letter was forwarded to Venice (and since you're probably more shrewd as I am, you might have guessed that already).

'Forwarding postmark' Amsterdam Central Station?

The sender of the letter was not aware of Mr Heldring's departure to Italy - obviously - so Mr Biesenbach's of Paroengkoeda letter was at the mercy of the postal services now. In these days you could still rely on such an forwarding immaculate service. The European postal agencies quickly forwarded his letter to Venice. It arrived there only two days later on the 22nd of August.

Close-up of the two stamps and postmarks

Now two questions come to mind:

• What is the reason of the 18-day gap between the send date and forwarding date?  Did it took Heldring's family so long to forward the letter to him from their home address in Amsterdam? Or did Mr Biesenbach's letter linger in the Javanese forests for some time before reaching Bandoeng? Or...? 
• What were Mr Heldring businesses in Kaprun and Venice? His wife (or assistant) first wrote down the wrong address (Hotel Kesselfall, Kaprun) before correcting it into the more famous Grünewald Hotel in Venice. I think the 'corrector' was perfectly aware of Mr Heldring's travel schedule. He appears to me as an important man. Moreover, his name rung a bell when my eyes met this cover. In fact, in the end I bought the cover because of this name and not because of it's attractive stamping and neat postmarks.

Ernst Heldring - Dutch entrepreneur

Much Dutchmen probably don't remember his name, and if they do they remember his name because of his son. The addressee - Ernst Heldring - nevertheless was a famous and very influential individual during the first half of the last century. Born in 1871, he was educated at the Public School of Trade in Amsterdam during the 1880s. Within 10 years he had established good contacts with the Dutch Indies where he was responsible for numerous (industrial) initiatives, such as the the construction of a harbour in Sabang and a new ship route which connected Java to Japan. He started this last venture in 1902 after having becoming president of the prestigious Royal Dutch Steamboat Company (KNSM) in 1899. Perhaps more important for philatelists is his function as president of the Royal Dutch West India Mail (KWIM) between 1912 and 1928. By that time people called him a proper shipowner ('reder' in Dutch) and in the Netherlands with its long history of trade and ships such a function meant (and still means) influence and prestige. Soon he became known as the Viceroy of Amsterdam. He made it into the upper class of Dutch society. 

Ernst Heldring on the roof of his house (De Lairessestraat 96). Viceroy of Amsterdam.

In the 1930s Heldring occupied numerous functions, most of them commissionerships, at the Dutch National Bank, the Hoogovens and the Dutch Trade Company. Most notably for our letter tracing process could have been the position he held at the Holland Bank for the Mediterranean in the mid thirties. Which sort of other business could possible distract you from simmering Italian summers.... 

For the sake of all of us, he had the extraordinary gift to keep his diary up to date. So here are some notes of his own hand, written in September 1935 which will tell you his real activities in the summer of 1935.

~

Gisteravond thuisgekomen van 4 weken vacantie in Beieren, Oostenrijk en Italië met Jet als reisgezelle. We hadden prachtig weer, behalve in de bergen, waar we ons voornemen tochten te maken moesten opgeven, toen we voldoende getraind waren. De laatste 8 à 9 dagen brachten we te Venetië, Padua en Verona, Brescia, Bergamo en Milaan door. Venetië is een oude bekende, die ik gaarne terugzie. Ditmaal was er in het Palazzo Pisaro een prachtige tentoonstelling van werken van Titiaan, waar zijn meesterschap in portretkunst, het coloriet en de compositie, doch ook zijn tekortschieten in geestelijke diepte - geheel overeenkomstig zijn tijd en omgeving - gedemonstreerd werden. Ditmaal bezocht ik ook het oud-Romaansche, half-Byzantijnsche kerkje te Torcello op een afgelegen lagune-eiland. Heel mooi. De Giotto's en Mantegna's te Padua waren een verrukking bij het weerzien na 30 jaren, zoo ook Verona. De musea in beide steden, vooral dat te Padua, vond ik uitmuntend gereorganiseerd. Te Brescia waren we slechts een paar uur tusschen 2 treinen, wegens slagregen grootendeels in een café. Het oude Bergamo op den berg gelegen met zijn door kerken en loggia's omgeven piazza is een juweel.

~

Translation:

Yesterday I returned after having spend 4 weeks of holidays in Bavaria, Austria and Italy with Jet as my travel companion. The weather was great, except in the mountains, where we had to give up our intention of making walks after sufficient training. The last 8/9 days we stayed in Venice, Padua, Verona, Brescia, Bergama and Milan. Venice is like an old acquaintance, whom I very much like to visit again. This time there was a beautiful exposition of pieces of Titian, where his mastery in portrait art, of colorite and composition, but also his under performance in philosophy- which perfectly corresponds to his age and surroundings - was demonstrated. I visited the old and small Romanic, half Byzantine church of Torcello as well this time, which stands on a remote island in the lagoon. Very pretty. To see  the paintings of Giotto and Mantegna again in Padua was a sheer delight after 30 years. The same applies to Verona. I found that the museums in both cities were very well organized, especially in Padua. Since we had to switch trains in Brescia, we had only a couple of hours to visit this city. (Unfortunately) We had to take shelter in a cafe because of a downpour. The ancient city of Bergamo situated on its mountain and its piazza surrounded by churches and loggia's is a gem.

So Mr Heldring was not for business in Italy and Austria: he enjoyed a lengthy holiday there! One mystery solved.