{"id":1346,"date":"2026-11-03T17:44:36","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T17:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/militaryphs.org\/blog\/?p=1346"},"modified":"2026-11-03T17:44:36","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T17:44:36","slug":"vitakri-field-force-in-afghanistan-1879","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/militaryphs.org\/blog\/2026\/11\/03\/vitakri-field-force-in-afghanistan-1879\/","title":{"rendered":"Vitakri Field Force in Afghanistan, 1879"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A new postal history item discovered<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">by <a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@thephilatelist\">ABHISHEK BHUWALKA<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you are interested in the postal history of the Afghan Wars, do visit &#8220;The Philatelist&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The link below is to Substack, and access should be free. You do not need to register to view this interesting article. (You may see a popup about joining, but it has an X in the corner, and can be dismissed.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">See:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thephilatelist.substack.com\/p\/vitakri-field-force-in-afghanistan?publication_id=559029&amp;post_id=221737885\">https:\/\/thephilatelist.substack.com\/p\/vitakri-field-force-in-afghanistan?publication_id=559029&amp;post_id=221737885<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Regarding the postal history of this military event, he notes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Postal History: The Story So Far<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Until now, the \u2018Pope Correspondence\u2019 of five covers were thought to be the only ones to survive from the Vitakri Field Force. They were all sent by Surgeon Thomas Henry Pope (1853\u20131920) doing duty with the 21st Madras Native Infantry to Miss Agnes Ann Crichton (1958\u20131923), his fianc\u00e9e and later his wife, in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Horst Dietrich Grand Prix collection of Afghanistan \u2013 one of the greatest ever assembled \u2013 was sold by David Feldman of Geneva on 19 November 2003. Lot 10078 (Figure 4) contained all five covers&#8230; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This article introduces a newly discovered cover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new postal history item discovered by ABHISHEK BHUWALKA If you are interested in the postal history of the Afghan Wars, do visit &#8220;The Philatelist&#8221;. The link below is to Substack, and access should be free. You do not need to register to view this interesting article. (You may see a popup about joining, but &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/militaryphs.org\/blog\/2026\/11\/03\/vitakri-field-force-in-afghanistan-1879\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read the full post &rarr;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;Vitakri Field Force in Afghanistan, 1879&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[178,177,59],"class_list":["post-1346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-afghan-wars","tag-article","tag-postal-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/militaryphs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/militaryphs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/militaryphs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/militaryphs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/militaryphs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/militaryphs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1347,"href":"https:\/\/militaryphs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346\/revisions\/1347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/militaryphs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/militaryphs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/militaryphs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}