both in numerals and spelled out in French. The center of the stamps bears the Ottoman coat of arms surrounding the tughra of Abdul Hamid II. Stamps were issued for regular postage and for postage due and were overprinted for use as newspaper stamps and for other purposes. In 1898 the Ottoman Empire issued a series of stamps for its armed forces occupying Thessaly during the Greco-Turkish War. The stamps have an intricate design incorporating the tughra and the bridge at Larissa and are of interest for their unusual octagonal shape and perforations which permit them to be separated into either squares or octagons. They are the first postage stamps ever issued octagonally perforated. Early Twentieth Century From 1901 through 1911, the Ottoman Empire issued a number of stamps with similar designs including the Tughra of the reigning monarch. All early Ottoman stamps were printed in the Ottoman Empire, with the exception of the first two Duloz issues printed in Paris (see above). All these stamps also had a distinct Turkish appearance until 1913, when a series of stamps was issued commemorating the recapture of Adrianople from the Bulgarians. These stamps were designed by Oskan Effendi and were engraved and printed in England by Bradbury, Wilkinson & Co., Ltd., and are in a more international style, with central vignettes surrounded by a frame. An example is illustrated in the lead to this article. In early 1914, a series of finely engraved stamps, some in two colors, was issued depicting scenes of Constantinople and other images. They were designed by Oskan Effendi and printed by Bradbury, Wilkinson & Co. in England, and also have a more international appearance to them. World War I and the End of the Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire signed the secret Ottoman-German Alliance on August 2, 1914, and entered hostilities on the side of the Central Powers in October 1914. The war and its disruptions are reflected in the Ottoman stamps issued during the war, which included stamps depicting soldiers and battle scenes, a number of provisional stamp issues in which available stocks of older issues were overprinted due to paper shortages, and stamps issued to collect a tax for war orphans. Remainders of stamps as old as 1865 were overprinted, some of which already had overprints, and sometimes multiple new overprints were added, resulting in a complex variety of configurations of interest to philatelists. The