Romantic Kitsch
from Magnus Hirschfeld's 'Sexual History of the World War' : a collage of Entente romantic postcards
The postcard industry flourished during war-time as never before. Not only were patriotic battle scenes in wide demand, soldier's thoughts often turned to loved ones at home, wives or sweathearts (in thought if not in fact). France, being after all capital of the naughty French postcard, turned out hundreds of more or less risqué postcards with romantic themes. To our modern eye, they appear quite tame if not downright silly, but at the time they were apparently good for a joke and were perhaps intended as a sly hint at what a soldier really expected when he returned home on leave.
Here is a small collection of such postcards.