Cachet ID

I wonder if anyone can held with the ID of this cachet please?
I guess G.V.C. dy Rhône is a military designation given the date stamp of 2 January 1918 but the date stamp would seem to be a civil one rather than a military one.
I should be grateful for any help.

I keep looking for its to raise in this forum to try and generate a greater interraction between users. I know it is a fairly new feature for F&C but a similar forum on the Forces Postal History Society seems to be rather more active. I hope more members will contribute to ours to make it a really useful facility - which it deserves to be - at least in my opinion!

Best wishes,

Howard

Sorry, a typo - I meant to say 'keep looking for items'.

Howard

GVC stands for Gardes (des) Voies de Communications. I believe they may have been the equivalent of an early form of Dad's Army.

Mick

That is very interesting Mick, thank you.

The early form of the UK Home Guard was the LDV or Local Defence Volunteers (unkindly also known as the Look, Duck and Vanish). It was a WW2 organisation and there was no WW1 equivalent.

This cover is date stamped for 1918 so it would seem that the French had a type of Home Guard/LDV in WW1.

I guess it was not considered for the UK because there was no threat of an invasion of the UK during WW1.

Howard

I have just found some images on-line so of poor quality but am amused to see that they are pouring wine in both of them!

Howard

An excellent article has just appeared on the subject in Les Feuilles Marcophiles 354 September 2013 pages 24 to 28