FEPA News

FEPA NEWS 45 75 The World of Research Later, the Lisbon Academic Battalion was to incorporate students from the Coimbra Academy, forming the Republican Academic Battalion. It comprised 90 combatants under the command of officers who were likewise students. The republican students were armed by the 35th Coimbra Infantry Regiment and they set out for the North on February 1st 1919, after receiving military instruction, especially training in small arms. This body of republican students was to take part in many operations between Aveiro and Porto. They were among the first group of troops to enter the city of Porto, putting an end to the monarchist coup and imposing the continuation of the republican regime. Letters sent by the republican troops during the campaign against the monarchists did not have to pay postage, and neither did the mail sent by the Academic Battalions, basically comprising students, as shown by the postcard presented in this article. This picture postcard was sent on February 13th 1919, the very day on which the Monarchy of the North was defeated. This very interesting postcard was written by Jorge Marçal, then aged 20, who was a student of medicine at the University of Coimbra, one of the Academic Battalion that had been transformed in this city. The postcard does not show where it was sent from, though the picture is of a town called Oliveira de Azeméis, and I am therefore led to the conclusion that the Battalion could have been garrisoned there or passed through. It was sent from Porto, for the Academic Battalion was one of the first to enter the city on February 13th, the day on which the monarchists were defeated. It was written in a spirit of victory of the republican forces and tells of the current situation, saying: “Here we are, now with little hope of catching the monarchists who seem not to want any encounter with us. I’m not sending a cable because the trauliteiros (local supporters of the monarchy) took the telegraph apparatus with them”. The body of the postcard also bears the words Batalhão Académico and the initials S.M., meaning military service, and a stamp stating: Detachment Nº 1 Campaign Service * Postal Service * Postage Free Lisbon and Coimbra Academic Battalion, Republican Academic Battalion or Academic Battalion of the North were some of the names by which the Academic Battalion that took part in the military manoeuvres came to be known, manoeuvres that were mainly undertaken in the north of the country and led to the defeat of the monarchist forces.