The Sorting Office

War Illustrated, 19th December 1914

The caption reads  "The Postal Section is a thoroughly organised department of the British Field Force, and works with remarkable smoothness and promptness, so that the men in the fighting-line have little to complain about in the delivery of the letters sent to them by their friends or delay in their letters home".

There was no indication of what part of the western front this was but by coincidence I found the self same photograph on the British Postal Museum blog as one of their collection of lantern slide described thus  "A field post office established at the side of a road in France is typical of the makeshift facilities employed to run the service"  It looks as damp on the colourised version as it does in this black and white picture from the War Illustrated.  The colourised lantern slide is at -  'Mail to troops fighting the First World War'

See my post from 2010 for a little bit more about the postal services in World War One here