Cultural Exchange in a Time of Global Conflict

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Efforts for the liberation of Algeria and Tunisia: A convention in Berlin, convoked by Sheikh Salih al-Sharif

The photograph shows a group of men and one woman standing on a stairway in front of a facade. In the background, chandeliers are visible. Sheikh Salih al-Sharif is standing in the first row, second…

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Themes: Religion; Propaganda; Photograph; Newspapers & Magazines; Mobility; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy
Tags: Algeria, anti-colonialism, anti-French, colonial intellectual, Colonialism, German Revolutionary Program, newspapers, Non-Combatant, pan-Islamism, Propaganda, Refugees

In the Light of the Flame of War

Cover and extracts from In the Light of the Flame of War, an essay on the meaning of the war by the Dutch writer Frederik van Eeden, based on his lectures given in late 1914 and 1915 and published in…

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Themes: Religion; Race; Neutrality; Language; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy
Tags: essay, internationalism, Neutrality, Pacifism, public intellectual, The Netherlands, Van Eeden

British soldiers' newspaper from German East Africa

This is the last issue of the soldier newspaper published by and for the members of the 'Motor Transport Depot' in Dar es Salaam in December 1918.

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Themes: Race; Newspapers & Magazines

French prisoners of war

This photograph captures a rare encounter between colonial prisoners of war and the German public. A group of prisoners of war are escorted by German soldiers through the streets of Zossen-Wünsdorf,…

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Postcard; Photograph; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: Colonial soldiers, Colonial Troops, German Revolutionary Program, Halfmoon Camp, India, Mobility, Photograph, postcard, POW, The Other, western front

Map of the World in Arabic, Chinese, and Malay

This map of the world was produced in 1916 by Wellington House, the official British War Propaganda Bureau in London. The map aimed to demonstrate the ‘world dominance’ of the Allies, as it…

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Language; Imperial Strategy
Tags: Arabic, Belgium, Chinese, English, France, Great-Britain, imperial strategy, Language, Malay, Muslims, Propaganda, Race, Wellington House

The Execution of Josef Fourie

In this poem, the Dutch poet Albert Verwey criticises the execution of Boer rebel Josef Fourie by the pro-British government of South Africa. Verwey defends the rights of the Dutch-speaking Afrikaners…

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Themes: Race; Poem; Neutrality; Imperial Strategy
Tags: anti-British, Boer war, Dutch, Great Netherlands, Poem, poet, Race, South Africa, The Netherlands

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'Who still talks about decadent France?'
Cartoon 'The Battle of Verdun'

Cartoon on the Battle of Verdun by Johan Braakensiek, published in the Dutch weekly De Amsterdammer, 5 March 1916. The cartoon shows France imagined as a powerful 'antique' woman, who stops an…

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Themes: Religion; Race; Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Neutrality; Intellectual Exchange; Gender
Tags: anti-German, cartoon, France, Gender, nationalism, Neutrality, pro-French, Propaganda, Race, The Netherlands

Letter by an Arab American Soldier writing home from the Front

Writing from his deployment with the United States 101st Engineer Corps in Northern France, George Abraham Matook asks the Syrian American Club of Boston to send letters to the Arab American troops in…

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Theme: Letter

Neutral Holland. The Army and Navy film

Dutch official propaganda film, showing the readiness of the Dutch army and navy to defend their country's neutrality.https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/collection/film-history/film/leger-en-vlootfilm

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Themes: Propaganda; Neutrality; Film
Tags: film propaganda, Netherlands, Neutrality

Photograph of an Arab American Military Intelligence Officer

This 1919 photo of Gabriel Ilyas Ward accompanied a press release announcing his new memoir, The Syrian Soldier in Three Wars (Kitab al-Jundi al-Suri fi-Thalath Hurub in Arabic). Ward’s memoir…

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Themes: Photograph; Mobility

Sketches and proposals on film propaganda written as a result of a journey to Holland

Official report written by Dr Hans Cürlis after his journey to the Netherlands.

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Neutrality; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy; Film
Tags: nationalism, Pan-Germanism, Propaganda

Second plan of work for Bangkok by Ernest Douwes Dekker

In this report addressed to the German Foreign Office, the anti-colonial Indonesian writer and politician Ernest Douwes Dekker (image 1) describes his secret mission to travel from Rotterdam to…

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Neutrality; Mobility; Language; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: anti-British, anti-colonialism, Berlin Indian Independence Committee, colonial intellectual, Dutch East Indies, Ernest Douwes Dekker, German Revolutionary Program, Germany, Imperial identity, imperial strategy, India, Java, nationalism, Neutrality, The Netherlands

Interviews with inhabitants of the former front zone in Flanders

From 1977 to 1978, a group of young people in Flanders interviewed local villagers about their experiences of living through the First World War. The Elfnovembergroep published the results in 1978,…

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Themes: Recording; Memoirs; Language

Memoir by British Officer Serving in East Africa

War memoir by British medical officer. This book became a bestseller and went through several editions, shaping impressions of the war in East Africa in the minds of the British public.

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Themes: Race; Mobility; Memoirs
Tags: Africa, Colonial soldiers, Empire, Indian Army, Memoir

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The Bayram Feast at the Muslim Internment Camps in Wünsdorf (1916)

Short German documentary showing religious celebrations at the end of Ramadan in the internment camps in Wünsdorf near Zossen. https://www.filmothek.bundesarchiv.de/video/2535

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Themes: Religion; Race; Propaganda; Neutrality; Imperial Strategy; Film; Captivity
Tags: Camp, film propaganda, Germany, Muslims, The Netherlands

Guidebooks for New Zealand Soldiers in London

Guidebook given to New Zealand troops before leave in London.

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Themes: Propaganda; Mobility
Tags: Colonial Troops, Guidebook, London, New Zealand, Personal Encounters, Tourism

Duitsche Lusitania en Tubantia-Penningen

Press excerpt, official letter, and newspaper clipping commenting on the issuance of two German medals commemorating the sinking of Lusitania and Tubantia.

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Themes: Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Neutrality
Tags: Germany, Netherlands, Neutrality, Propaganda

Al-Haqīqah: British Propaganda Newspaper for the Muslim World

At the outbreak of war, the British government established an organisation to produce propaganda. Initially known as Wellington House, it later became the Department of Information, and ended the war…

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Themes: Religion; Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Imperial Strategy
Tags: British India, Empire, imperial strategy, Magazine, Photograph, Propaganda

To the American People

Dutch manifesto of the Holland section of the League of Neutral States directed at American citizens in December 1916.

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Neutrality; Imperial Strategy
Tags: anti-German, Neutrality, Pacifism, Propaganda, South Africa, The Netherlands, United States

Collection of Poems: Message from the East

Payam-i-Mashriq [Message from the East] is a collection of poems in Persian and Urdu by the twentieth-century Muslim poet and intellectual Mohammed Iqbal. Published in 1921, the collection was…

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Themes: Poem; Intellectual Exchange
Tags: British India, Moslem world, Poem

Shipment from England for prisoners of war

Parcel label for a delivery of bread, addressed to Indian prisoners of war at Halbmondlager, Zossen.

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Themes: Neutrality; Captivity
Tags: Colonial soldiers, Colonial Troops, Halfmoon Camp, imperial strategy, India, POW, pow-camp

The Heroic Women

A series of postcards signed by Em. Dupuis (probably the French illustrator Emile Dupuis) portraying women from different Allied regions.

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Themes: Postcard; Gender
Tags: Allies, France, Gender, postcard, Propaganda, Race

Chinese trench art

'Trench art', a generic term used to describe folk art created in the context of war, has only very recently drawn the attention of academic scholars. These objects can take any form but most common…

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Theme: Language

Headstones on Military Cemeteries

There are thousands of military cemeteries: on battlefields all over the world; and near the sites of field hospitals, prisoner-of-war camps, or barracks on the homefront. The ultimate proof of…

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India under British Rule

This poem was written by the Irish poet Denis Florence MacCarthy (1817–1882). It was published in the first issue of a journal which had been published in Urdu under the title (achwat/achuwwat)…

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Themes: Poem; Newspapers & Magazines; Language; Imperial Strategy
Tags: anti-British, anti-colonialism, colonial intellectual, Colonialism, colonies, imperial strategy, India, Ireland, Language, Ottoman Empire, Poem, revolution, Urdu

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