Metz balloon mail

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The philatelist understands Metz balloon mail to be the postal connection through balloons , the Papillon de Metz , from Metz and the unoccupied France during its siege in the course of the Franco-Prussian War . This took place between September 6, 1870 and September 14, 1870 . Although it took place in front of the Paris balloon post , it is nowhere near its fame.

During the siege of the fortress of Metz , those trapped tried desperately to deliver news to the allies. The medical officer Dr. Papillion wanted to try this using small paper balloons. He finally presented several of these balloons together with the pharmacist Dr. Jeanel here. The paper balloons were prepared with castor oil and collodion . They each had a load capacity of 40 g for 5 hours. The first balloons were released on September 6, 1870. More followed by September 14th. The information in the literature varies from 14 to 44 pieces. Of the released balloons, at least seven reached their destination.

In addition to these balloons, there were also attempts by the Genie Corps to deliver messages using somewhat larger paper balloons. However, all of these failed. The transmission of messages from the Papillon de Metz was also no longer resumed after September 14th.

There are two different theories about the origin of the name of Papillon de Metz. Since the name of its inventor Dr. Papillion is often questioned, some philatelists and historians assume that the name is due to the light weight and appearance (Papillon = butterfly).