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Exile Stamps
Exile stamps have been issued by governments temporarily forced to flee their own country due to invasion by enemy powers. In August, 1914, Belgium was invaded and rapidly occupied by German forces east of Ypres and the river Yser, and the Belgian government was forced to evacuate Brussels, and make its headquarters at Le Havre, France, on the 13th October, 1914, where it remained until late 1918. Belgian stamps portraying King Albert were printed by Waterlow and Sons in England and used by the government-in-exile at Le Havre. In 1916, the Serbian government and armed forces, having retreated through Albania, took up their abode on the Greek island of Corfu and used French stamps overprinted POSTES SERBIA. Similarly, French stamps were overprinted for the use of the Montenegrin government-in-exile at Bordeaux in 1916. Czech and Slovak soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian armies surrendered to the Russians and more than 70 000 of them were formed into the Czechoslovak legions which fought the Bolsheviks in Siberia in 1919 – 1920. They issued stamps for their own postal service, based on Irkutsk, and also sold them to civilians for use along the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway which they controlled.
During the Second World War, stamps were issued on behalf of the government-in-exile in several countries. Stamps inscribed for use in Czechoslovakia, Netherlands, Norway and Yugoslavia were printed in England and used by military units, embassies and ships at sea.
The most diverse of these exile posts were operated by the Poles who used military franchise stamps of France (1939 – 1940), special stamps printed by Bradbury Wilkinson or De La Rue for use on Polish ships and at certain military camps in Britain (1941 – 1945), a fifty kopek stamps at Jangi-Jai near Tashkent, USSR (1942) and a series in Italian currency for use at Bari (1944).
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