Did Everything Really Begin with the First World War?

After an 1830 revolt against the Dutch, with whom they had been bundled into one monarchy after 1815, and particularly after the Conference of London (December 1830), a new state was created in Europe: Belgium. It was a constitutional monarchy. Slowly, political parties set themselves up, and during the nineteenth century the most important division was that between the ‘Catholics’ and ‘Liberals’.Reference Lamberts²

The division focused on the place of religion and the Church in society, and particularly in education. In this period, throughout the country the elites spoke French but the majority of the population spoke dialect: Dutch dialects in the north, Walloon dialects in the south. This meant that the linguistic fracture was, above all, a social one. But the gap between the French language and the Walloon dialects was smaller than that between the Dutch dialects and the French language. The switch to the French language was considered natural by those who spoke Walloon dialects, which was not the case of those who spoke a Dutch dialect.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, a Flemish movement appeared, demanding protection and recognition of the Dutch language and the Flemish culture.Reference Hermans, Vos and Wils³ The aim was to change the legislation and to transform the Flemish provinces into a bilingual area. The movement was not directed against Belgium. It only wanted to change the profile of the country, from a unilingual to a bilingual state. Its view was based on the idea that, in order to be considered a good Belgian citizen, ‘People should know two languages’. The bilingual character of the Belgian State was also seen as a way to protect the young state from French imperialism.

Of course, the increasing importance of the Flemish movement triggered a counter reaction in the form of a Walloon movement. This movement developed first in Flanders and in Brussels. Until the 1870s, there were no barriers for the Francophones to find jobs anywhere in the country. With the introduction of the first linguistic laws, some timid barriers were erected. In order to safeguard the possibilities of the Francophones, the motto of the Walloon movement was ‘one country, one language’.

Thus, at the beginning, both the Flemish and Walloon movements had a clear Belgian character. Their definition of a (national) country was different but it did not imply the creation of their own state. There were no anti-Belgian feelings. Their projects and their visions, however, were logically incompatible, and in order to legitimate themselves they had to banish the other. In other words, their respective projects implied considering their other-language counterpart as being outside of the (national) state.

Slowly, both movements evolved or became more radical but not with the same spirit nor in the same way. Flemish identity gained ever more prominence and the leadership of the Flemish movement focused ever more radically on the Flemish rather than the Belgian point of view. The Flemish provinces were progressively identified as ‘Flanders’. The same (national) symbols were used but not with the same meaning.Reference Tollebeek⁴ A Flemish (Catholic) society emerged more and more clearly. Identification between Flanders and Catholicism and the electoral successes of the Catholic Party brought the Walloon movement to another form of radicalization. The majority of the Belgian population lived in Flanders. That demographical imbalance convinced the Walloon movement – dominated by liberals and socialists – that the only way to escape Catholic domination (the Catholic party had ruled the country with an absolute majority since 1884) was to claim and obtain a kind of administrative separation (form of federalism). On the eve of the First World War, the Belgian state thus faced some strong regional feelings and a form of (partial) radicalization in both movements.

The Rupture of the First World War

The First World War can be considered as a key period in the history of Belgium.Reference De Schaepdrijver⁵ Because of the aggression by the German army, the Belgian State, a neutral state since its creation, was considered as the victim par excellence. It was because of the attack on this neutrality that Great Britain became involved in the war. All over the world, the image of ‘poor little Belgium’ was very successful in terms of mobilization. In Belgium too, the aggression led to a strong national mobilization. The First World War can be considered a foundational myth of the Belgian State and as the triumph of Belgian nationalism. But during the war, certain facts led to the emergence of another nationalism: a Flemish one. Some Flemish activists saw the German occupiers as liberators. The Germans in effect used the Flemish-Walloon antagonism as a strategic tool. At the front, the only official language of the Belgian army was French and this led to frustration and humiliation among the Flemish soldiers who furthermore were more numerous than their Francophone counterparts. At the end of the War, for the first time in its history, the Belgian State was confronted with the competition of a new nationalism: a Belgian one and a Flemish too.

Of course, Flemish nationalism was not shared by all the Flemish population but its existence and the weakness of the national Belgian State allowed the emergence of another national narrative. This was only possible because no strong and dominant narrative was in place. The symbols used until then by the Flemish movement in a kind of regional romanticism were progressively used in a national perspective. Old symbols were put to other purposes and new symbols, new heroes, new victims emerged. The most emblematic symbol was the erection of a specific monument, on the front line, the ‘IJzertoren’ (Yser Tower; Ijzer is the name of the river along which ran the frontline) and its motto AVV/VVK (Alles voor Vlaanderen/Vlaanderen voor Kristus; Everything for Flanders/Flanders for Christ). It was dedicated to the Flemish soldiers who died during the war and, more particularly, to the two Van Raemdonck brothers. According to the myth, the bodies of the brothers were found in each other's arms.Reference van Ypersele⁶ In fact, Frans Van Raemdonck was found dead in the arms of Amé Fiévez, a Walloon corporal. Edward Van Raemdonck was found a couple of meters away. But for the Flemish movement, the myth overshadowed reality and so the name of Amé Fiévez went unmentioned for decades. The Yser Tower was built as a monument to peace, with the words, ‘Never again war’ written in four languages (including French) on the tower. A yearly pilgrimage was organised to the tower. The Flemish victims were thus honoured at the Yser Tower while the Belgian victims were commemorated by the flame of the Unknown Soldier in Brussels. Being ‘unknown’, it was impossible to determine if the soldier in question had been Dutch or French speaking. At the same time, the Flemish movement was rejected by the Francophones. Each Flemish demand was immediately associated with the German occupiers. New words were created such as ‘Flamboches’: a contraction of Flamands (Flemish) and Boches (a pejorative to qualify the Germans) and thus considered as highly unpatriotic.Reference Colignon and Kesteloot⁷

It was also during the 1920s that, for the first time, a Flemish Nationalist party was created. Slowly, other references were introduced and, at the end of the 1930s, the first History of Flanders (Geschiedenis van Vlaanderen) was published, while a majority of the French-speaking Belgians continued to recognise themselves in the History of Belgium, written by the famous Belgian French speaking historian, Henri Pirenne.

A Similar Story after the Second World War?

In a way, the Second World War reinforced the division between the two linguistic communities in Belgium, but also the caricatured the perception of each other that they had. The experience of the First World War structured the experience and the memory of the Second. In fact, those elements that suited the traditional representation of the other were the only ones to be taken into account. This meant that Wallonia was equated with ‘resistance’ and Flanders with ‘collaboration’. In fact, this vision is partly true and partly false. Resistance was more developed in the French-speaking part of the country, and even in Flanders the French-speaking minority took an active part in the resistance. But there were also collaboration movements in the French speaking part of the country, and among them were the Walloon Legion (military collaboration) and the Rexist party (political collaboration).Reference Conway⁸ In Flanders, military and political collaboration – or at least certain forms of it – was less contested than it was in Wallonia. The VNV – the Flemish nationalist party (Flemish National League) involved in the collaboration – at its high point during the war period, had almost 100,000 members and about 50% of all Flemish municipalities were ruled by a VNV mayor.Reference De Wever⁹ If we leave aside the Flemish province of Limburg – where some communist groups were very active – we cannot compare the situation between Flanders and Wallonia at the end of the war. In some industrial areas of Wallonia, the collaboration was so hated that we can almost say it was a kind of civil war. Terror and counter-terror culminated in extreme violence, at least for Western Europe. During – but also after – the war, collaborators were hated in Wallonia. After the Liberation there was no political party in Wallonia that would accept reintegration of former collaborators or that would perceive them as victims of the post-war repression.

The use of the word ‘repression’ is significant: it did not refer to the repression policy of the German occupier during the war, but instead referred to the repression by the Belgian State of collaborators at the end of the war. The use of this word in this context is something unique in Europe.

The situation was clearly different in Flanders. The Flemish wing of the ‘Christelijke Vokspartij’ (the Catholic party) took the initiative in an operation (called ‘verruiming’, enlargement) that aimed to reintegrate the less compromised or condemned members of the VNV. This is also clearly unique in Europe.

Collaborators or Victims?

In fact, this context was possible because the former collaborators were not seen as collaborators but as victims of the Belgian judiciary apparatus, perceived as a Francophone tool. At the end of the war, a lot of people were suspected of collaboration with Nazi Germany: more than 50,000 were convicted and disciplinary measures were taken against almost 100,000 people (out of a total of 8.4 million inhabitants at the time). But quickly those people were considered by a part of Flemish opinion as victims and not as perpetrators. In fact, the repression policy of the Belgian State was perceived as a means to discredit the Flemish Movement. This view became dominant and still lingers today even after research done by Flemish researchers that has shown that the repression policy was absolutely not anti-Flemish.Reference Huyse and Dhondt¹⁰ The main differences were between the different judicial districts and not between Flemings and Francophones, as alleged by the Flemish movement. This also explains why, from the mid-1950s onwards, the CVP (Flemish wing of the Catholic Party) members of the Parliament and from the Volksunie (a new Flemish nationalist party created in the 1950s) introduced proposals in favour of amnesty for the people convicted of collaboration after the War. To this day, the demand for amnesty remains one of the most controversial issues in Belgian politics.

If people suspected and condemned as collaborators succeeded in having an impact on Catholic public opinion in Flanders, this was absolutely not the case with those that had played an active role in the resistance.Reference Aerts and De Wever¹¹ The latter hardly features within public memory in Flanders. While many former collaborators have shared their experiences, and especially what they have experienced at the end of the war (during the so called ‘repression’), very few Flemish members of the resistance have put their experiences to paper.

In Wallonia, on the contrary, many resistance fighters have published their memoirs while former collaborators have hidden and disappeared from the public space. In Wallonia, the resisters have been the ‘memory makers’, while in Flanders it was mainly former collaborators who played this part. The latter can be considered a success story because they succeeded in integrating their war and post-war experience into the Flemish struggle for emancipation. It became part of the Flemish (Catholic) identity of Flanders. In this identity there was no place for other narratives and certainly not for those connected with Belgian patriotism.Reference Benvindo and Peeters¹² In this context, collaboration was seen as an element of the Flemish claim for emancipation and not as a form of collaboration with a Nazi regime. This view held a dominant position and with the political struggle of Flanders claimed high visibility. In fact, during the 1980s, this view begun to be challenged, first in the media and then among historians. Earlier, the first Encyclopedia of the Flemish Movement (Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging) was deeply influenced by the view just mentioned, and particularly that concerning the experience of war and the post-war repression.¹³

Why did the situation and the reading of the past change? Until the 1970s, no academic history of the Second World War in Belgium was available. At variance with France or the Netherlands, in Belgium there was no specific institution devoted to the study of the Second World War until 1969. In France, the ‘Institut d'Histoire du Temps Présent’ is heir to the Committee for the History of the Second World War (CHDGM, Comité d'histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale), created in 1951, and for which the provisional Government of General of Gaulle had already laid out the path in 1944, gathering documents on the Occupation and Liberation of France. In the Netherlands, during the occupation, a number of authoritative members of society discussed the creation of a post-war centre for war documentation to house and undertake the collection and classification of materials about the Netherlands under German occupation. In London, the Dutch government-in-exile was thinking along the same lines. Three days after liberation the Staatscourant (the Dutch official Gazette) reported the establishment of the National Office for War Documentation.

In Belgium, the immediate post-war period was deeply influenced by the debates regarding the attitude of the king (the so-called ‘Royal Question’). In this context, the creation of a research centre devoted to the Second World War did not appear politically opportune. It was only in the late 1960s that such an institution was finally created. This creation is also related to the aftermath of the war. In 1965 the Belgian State lost the trial against Robert Verbelen, a war criminal who had fled to Austria after the war, because the incriminatory evidence presented was not considered serious enough by the Austrian judicial institutions. After that, war veteran associations put pressure on the Belgian Government to create a documentation centre dedicated to the history of the Second World War. However, its mission was not to write the history of Belgium during the Second World War (as was the case in the Netherlands) but to collect documents and to set up a historical library. This attitude of the Belgian state clearly reflects a refusal to impose a definite historical vision: there is to be no strong Belgian narrative about the history of the Second World War in Belgium.

The delay in the creation of a specific institution also explains the delay of historiography. It is only in the 1980s that the history of the Second World War became the subject of scientific research in Belgian academia. Along with the Flemish television documentary series ‘The New Order’ by journalist Maurice De Wilde, historians shed new light on Flemish nationalism. In his 1994 PhD, Bruno De Wever analysed the VNV and he demonstrated how it was really a fascist party from its creation in 1933. In other words, it was not only a Flemish party but also an extreme right-wing party, a view that is significantly different from that defended by the Flemish movement after the Second World War. More global researches were undertaken and, in 1998, a new Encyclopaedia of the Flemish Movement was published.¹⁴ New historical views were integrated but the question remains: how did this impact public opinion?

A New Interest in the Past in a Federal Belgium

What is interesting is that ‘things are slowly changing’. Belgium is becoming a federal State and for the new entities (communities and regions) it is important to legitimate their existence. The past, and especially the two world wars, are essential elements in this. But the fact that autonomy is now a reality also changes the perception of the past. Today, Flanders can afford to have a more critical eye vis-à-vis its past. It is also the Flemish authorities who funded the research for the new Encyclopaedia. It is also likely that the rise of the extreme right in the 1990s has affected the critical reading of earlier periods. Yet, and largely for the same reasons, more nuanced and critical readings of the Flemish past find little echo in the Francophone world. One could even say that they cannot find an echo. In fact, to build a self-image rooted in a democratic and antifascist base, it is important to discredit the ‘Other’. This explains why every reference to a demand for amnesty or any other Flemish request causes an immediate outcry on the Francophone side. The other must be demonized. The past is used to build a positive image of one's self (Walloons and French-speakers in general have committed themselves heavily to the resistance) and a negative image of the other (the Flemish chose collaboration). On the Flemish side, this vision implies a certain form of demonization of the resistance. Resistance is seen as a violent form of behaviour, inefficient, and dangerous to the lives of others, even criminal. What is particularly highlighted is the role of the resistance during the first days of the liberation of the country (the words ‘September resistants’ are used to denounce the fact that some joined the resistance very late), when resistants attacked former collaborators or people suspected of having been active in the collaboration.Reference De Wever¹⁵ This critique of the resistance is also part of a more global perspective coloured by the ‘Royal Question’. Despite a majority vote (in Flanders) in favour of the restoration to the throne of King Leopold III, the King abdicated due to pressure from the street (in Wallonia). The issue of the ‘Royal Question’ was perceived as highly undemocratic by the Flemish: a majority of the population was submitted to a minority. To some extent, this was seen as a metaphor for Belgium: a minority of Francophones has imposed its view on a majority of Flemings.

All those elements are still present, but gradually other issues related to the legacy of the Second World War have become more important.

Most international issues are the subject of renewed interest. As everywhere, the persecution of the Jews now occupies a central place in the historiography and public debates on the Second World War.Reference Debruyne, Seberechts, Van Doorslaer and Wouters¹⁶ But even those issues are affected by the Belgo-Belgian debate. Part of the discussion focuses on the differences of behaviour between Brussels and Antwerp. In Antwerp, the local authorities agreed to distribute the yellow star and the police took part in the round-ups of Jews in the summer of 1942. In Brussels, the authorities refused to distribute the star and the police did not take part in round-ups. Again, are these differences linked to a commitment to democracy, to the weight of Belgian patriotism, to pro-German feelings? All these issues remain highly controversial.

In these debates, historians are present but find it hard to influence public opinion. Views and representations remain frozen and often are grist to the mill of politicians who may want to let things stay as they are. Today, there are new generations who are speaking about a past they have not known. Through these new generations, family memories are revealed. However, as soon as a person is considered a victim it seems that his past experiences are those of a hero, and our societies are manifestly more sensitive to victims, whatever they are.

A New Challenge: the Commemorations of the First World War

Today, it is the commemoration of the First World War that engages the minds in Belgium. This will be the first time that a commemoration on this scale, so huge, will take place in the context of the Belgian federal State.Reference De Schaepdrijver, van Ypersele and Wouters¹⁷ Which specific view will be put forward? Again, fractures separate Flemings and Francophones. Other elements, other issues, are pushed by the respective sides. The political challenge is omnipresent and it is also a national one. The new entities – the Flemish and French communities – are clearly investing in the First World War even though, in 1914 it was Belgium as a nation that was attacked! It is clearly too early now to assess these future commemorations. They will form a laboratory on many levels. In a State that has deeply changed over the last few decades, the past has become the object of an unprecedented investment from all levels of government. The unitary Belgian State often remained conspicuously absent in the ‘politics of memory’. In the changed circumstances, some questions arise. Will these commemorations add something to our knowledge, or bring a richness of understanding of our past? Will this contribute to a more adult vision, including of the Second World War? Are we condemned to live in a society where the evocation of the past must necessarily be so controversial and less academic? In other words, a past that is never past.

A Divided War Memory

Today it is clear that wars remain controversial issues in Belgium. The memory of these wars is not a shared one. It is a factor of division and that phenomenon is rooted in events before the wars. Already during the nineteenth century, different visions of the past were cultivated. There was no strong Belgian narrative. The weakness of the central – and now federal – State impacted on the vision of the entire period. Contrary to the other European States, no ‘top-down’ policy was either established or hoped for in the Belgian case. But the Belgian situation is not unique. If we compare Belgium to France or to the Netherlands, we find there are also different and even antagonist visions of the past, and particularly about the Second World War. But Belgium appears to be probably the most extreme example of a split and divided memory.