Interrupted Mail: Postal Communications between the Kingdom of Sardinia and Austria during the Second War of Italian Independence

Until the outbreak of the Second War of Italian Independence, correspondence between the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Austrian Empire was governed by precise rules laid down in the Sardinian-Austrian postal convention, which came into force on 1 January 1854.

It was a system designed to bring predictability to something that, in practice, was anything but predictable. The underlying principle, however, remained simple: postage depended mainly on two factors, weight and distance.

To convert that distance into a postal rate, the two territories had been divided into postal sections. The letter A denoted Austria, while S denoted the Kingdom of Sardinia. In Sardinian territory, S1 comprised the localities closest to the Austrian frontier, while S2 comprised those further away; on the Austrian side, similarly, A1 comprised the localities closest to the frontier, A2 those at an intermediate distance and A3 those farthest away. The combination of the two sections determined the applicable rate.

The longer the route, the higher the postage. A letter sent between two localities close to the frontier cost less, for example, than one destined for a locality deep within the other state.

The sender was not required to pay postage in advance. Prepayment was normally optional: a letter could be sent “prepaid“, with the postage paid at origin either in stamps or in cash, or “unpaid“, with the postage left for the addressee to pay. Registered letters were the exception and had to be prepaid at origin.

The convention allowed little room for error. Article 26 stipulated that insufficient franking was deemed void: the letter was charged the full postage due on arrival. This provision remained in force until 1 October 1862.

The applicable postal rates.

The system was further complicated by the fact that rates varied according to where the postage was collected.

Article 11 laid down the postal sections to be taken into account when calculating the postage. Distance, however, was not the only factor: the same letter did not necessarily cost the same amount in both directions, because the Kingdom of Sardinia and Austria used different units of weight and different currencies.

In the Kingdom of Sardinia, the single-letter rate applied up to a weight of 15 grams, whereas in Austrian territory the first weight step covered letters weighing up to one Viennese lot, equal to 17.5 grams. For heavier items, postage increased according to the respective rate scales.

The currencies were different as well. It was only from 1 November 1858, with the introduction of the new kreuzer in the Austrian Empire, that rates expressed in kreuzer corresponded numerically to the rates expressed in soldi in Lombardy-Venetia: 16 kreuzer equalled 16 soldi, 21 kreuzer equalled 21 soldi, and so on.

Article 12 established the following rates:

Front of a letter sent from Turin to Trieste on 2 August 1858, fully prepaid to destination with 5-, 20- and 40-cent stamps from Sardinia’s Fourth Issue, for a total of 65 cents, corresponding to the single-letter rate from the second Sardinian postal section to the third Austrian postal section (Viennafil auction, 31 May 2022)

Letter sent from Milan to Nice on 26 December 1858 and franked with two 3-soldi stamps and one 10-soldi stamp, for a total of 16 soldi, corresponding to the single-letter rate from the first Austrian postal section to the second Sardinian postal section (Il Ponte auction, 16 December 2025)

Until 31 October 1858, for equivalent combinations of postal sections, the rate from Austria to the Kingdom of Sardinia was higher than in the opposite direction. From 1 November 1858, following the introduction of the new kreuzer, the new tariff values became numerically equivalent to those expressed in Italian cents.

The amount collected did not remain entirely with the postal administration that received it. Article 13 provided for the so-called “reciprocal credits”, namely the shares due to each administration according to the letter’s origin or destination.

The convention also regulated other rates, including those for frontier post offices, printed matter and samples of no commercial value. I will not reproduce them here, as they fall outside the scope of this article.

This was the system in force on the eve of the diplomatic and military crisis between the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Austrian Empire that would lead to war.

The war interrupts postal communications.

In the spring of 1859, with the outbreak of the Second War of Italian Independence, normal postal communications between the two states were interrupted. The frontier, until then crossed daily by the mail, became a military line and direct postal links ceased.

From 29 April, alternative routes had to be used to maintain communications. Letters were sent via Switzerland, which remained a practicable route between the two territories.

The postal conventions that the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Austrian Empire had separately concluded with the Swiss Confederation now came into play. When the transit dues owed to Switzerland were settled by the Sardinian postal administration, the Sardinian-Swiss convention of 21 October 1850 applied.

For a letter weighing up to 10 grams, the total postage was fixed at 60 cents, irrespective of the distance from the Sardinian-Swiss frontier.

The amount was apportioned among the three postal administrations involved:

• 20 cents to the Kingdom of Sardinia;
• 15 cents to Switzerland for transit;
• 25 cents to the Austrian Empire.

The situation changed when the transit dues owed to Switzerland were paid by the Austrian postal administration. In that case, the Austro-Swiss convention of 23 April 1852 applied, and the Austrian share varied according to the distance of the post office from the Swiss frontier.

For a letter weighing up to one Viennese lot, equal to 17.5 grams, the Austrian charges were:

• 5 new kreuzer, corresponding to 5 soldi in Lombardy-Venetia, within 10 leagues of the Austro-Swiss frontier;
• 10 new kreuzer, corresponding to 10 soldi in Lombardy-Venetia, between 10 and 20 leagues;
• 15 new kreuzer, corresponding to 15 soldi in Lombardy-Venetia, beyond 20 leagues.

To these were added 10 new kreuzer per lot payable to Switzerland and 10 new kreuzer per 10 grams payable to the Kingdom of Sardinia; in Lombardy-Venetia, each of these amounts corresponded to 10 soldi.

During this period too, prepayment remained optional for ordinary letters. Registered letters, however, had to be prepaid and, in addition to the normal postage, incurred a registration fee.

These rates represented the theoretical framework established by the conventions, but in practice their application was highly irregular. No example is currently known of a letter from the Kingdom of Sardinia to Austria fully prepaid to destination at the 60-cent rate; in the opposite direction, from Austria to the Kingdom of Sardinia, examples correctly franked in accordance with the prescribed rules are also rare.

A particularly interesting case is the letter shown below. It illustrates the involvement of both the Austrian and Sardinian postal administrations and provides a concrete example of how, during the conflict, the theoretical system laid down by the conventions could translate into a far more complex handling of correspondence.

Letter sent from Brody, in Austrian Galicia (now in Ukraine), on 18 August 1859 and addressed to Livorno. Because of the war, it was routed via Switzerland and insufficiently franked with 15 kreuzer, as indicated by the handwritten notation at lower left. The franking covered only the Austrian share; the letter was taxed 5 crazie, equivalent to 35 cents (1 Tuscan lira = 12 crazie = 84 Italian cents, hence 1 crazia = 7 cents), representing the 20 cents due to the Sardinian postal administration, noted on the front as “carico Sardo 20 cmi”, plus the 15 cents due to Switzerland for transit (Il Ponte auction, 19 September 2022)

This is a particular case in which the letter was initially handled under the Austro-Swiss convention, as shown by the 15-kreuzer franking, and subsequently under the Sardinian-Swiss convention for the amounts due to the Kingdom of Sardinia and Switzerland. Its final destination, however, was not the Kingdom of Sardinia but Tuscany.

A telegraphic dispatch dated 26 June 1859, sent from Turin to Florence and addressed to the Superintendency of the Tuscan Posts, stated that “correspondence from Tuscany to the Austrian Empire may be forwarded by the same route [Switzerland, Author’s note], provided that it is franked as far as the Sardinian-Swiss frontier. For these letters, the Sardinian Post Office shall be credited with 20 cents for a single-rate letter (7½ grams). Correspondence from the Austrian Empire to Tuscany shall be handed over to the Tuscan Post Office against reimbursement of 35 cents, namely 15 cents for Swiss transit and 20 cents for Sardinian transit”.

Source: Vittorio Morani (ASPoT), Dal Granducato al Regno d’Italia, Il Postalista, parts II–III. Part II documents the introduction, from 16 June 1859, of the Sardinian rates in postal relations between Tuscany and the Kingdom of Sardinia; Part III reproduces the telegraphic dispatch of 26 June 1859 quoted above.

One clarifications. In both cases, the 20-cent share due to Sardinia remained unchanged; what differed was the weight step to which it applied: 10 grams under the Sardinian-Swiss convention and 7.5 grams in postal relations between Tuscany and the Kingdom of Sardinia.

One particularly interesting aspect, which deserves separate treatment, concerns the progressive liberation of the cities of Lombardy and the consequences this had for postal services. In places that remained under the Austrian Empire, correspondence continued to be franked in soldi with stamps of Lombardy-Venetia; in cities that had come under Sardinian control, stamps of the Kingdom of Sardinia, denominated in cents, were introduced instead.

The change in stamps, however, preceded the change in the rates applied to correspondence sent to Venetia and Austria. For several weeks, the former Austrian rate of 10 soldi to the Swiss frontier, equivalent to 25 cents, continued to be used, while the subsequent transit through Switzerland and the journey through Austrian territory were accounted for separately. Only later, from August 1859 onwards, was the Sardinian rate of 20 cents to the Swiss frontier adopted for these letters as well.

This is only one aspect of a far more complex phase in postal history, shaped by the military advance, changes of administration, and the gradual alteration of rates and routes, which deserves to be examined in a dedicated article.

The resumption of direct postal communications.

On 11 July 1859, the Armistice of Villafranca brought military operations in the Second War of Italian Independence to an end. From a postal perspective, however, the return to normality took longer. The Sardinian-Austrian convention remained suspended for some time longer, and direct postal communications did not resume until 15 September, when they were initially limited to letters.

The sender had to prepay correspondence as far as the new frontier, while the postage for the onward journey from the frontier to destination was payable by the addressee.

Letter from Milan to Mantua dated 27 September 1859, franked with 20 cents for postage to the frontier and taxed 5 soldi on arrival for the Austrian inland leg, payable by the addressee (Vaccari auction, 16 November 2024)

The route through Switzerland nevertheless continued to be used. At the sender’s request, letters could still be forwarded through Swiss territory, either prepaid or unpaid.

The war had changed frontiers, routes and methods of forwarding, but it had not interrupted the need to communicate. The letters of those months still preserve tangible traces of these changes: small documents bearing witness to the political and postal history of that magnificent period of the Risorgimento.

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