The Low Countries

the long version

In this edition we want to deal with some less obvious facets of the Great War. What was the lot of the many hundreds of thousands of refugees who ended up in the Netherlands and Great Britain in the autumn of 1914? What role did the Knight-King Albert I and his wife Queen Elisabeth play in the mythologization of "la Belgique sanglante et martyre" and "Gallant Little Belgium"? How did occupied Belgium fare? We examine lieux de mémoire like the poppy, the Menin Gate in Ypres, war songs and the landscape - the last witness. What was the effect on the Netherlands of not experiencing the First World War? The second was certainly a traumatic experience for them and even today there are still questions about the Shoah that do not go away. As well as the themed pieces this volume offers the usual choice of essays on writers and artists past and present, on history that survives to the present day and society that has evolved from its past.