Sources

Report of Richard von Kühlmann, German envoy in the Netherlands, to the German chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg, 5 October 1915

In this October 1915 report, the German envoy in the Netherlands, Richard von Kühlmann, discussed German ambitions in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Flanders. To read the original report, please click…

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Neutrality; Language; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy
Tags: Belgium, cultural propaganda, Flamenpolitik, Flemish, Flemish activism, German Revolutionary Program, Germany, imperial strategy, Language, Neutrality, official documents, Race, The Netherlands

Bei uns in Deutschland

Cover and extracts from Bei uns in Deutschland (Brussels, 1919), First World War memoirs of the Flemish author Ernest Claes, based on his time in a German POW camp in Erfurt.

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Mobility; Memoirs; Language; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy; Diary; Captivity
Tags: Belgium, Camp, Flamenpolitik, Flemish, France, Germany, Memoir, Muslims, Personal Encounters, Soldiers, writer

British propaganda in Allied and neutral countries. Note by Lord Cecil from the Foreign Office, 29 December 1916

Dated 29 December 1916, this report by Lord Cecil from the British Foreign Office comprises evaluations of British propaganda conducted in both Allied and neutral countries and among Muslim…

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Themes: Religion; Race; Propaganda; Postcard; Poem; Photograph; Newspapers & Magazines; Neutrality; Language; Imperial Strategy
Tags: cartoon, Dutch East Indies, Great-Britain, imperial strategy, India, Java, Jihad, Muslims, Neutrality, newspapers, Photograph, Propaganda, Race, The Netherlands

Exploitation of Films in Holland and Dutch Colonies

Front page of consular correspondence on the distribution of British film propaganda in the Netherlands and its colonies.

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Themes: Religion; Race; Propaganda; Neutrality; Imperial Strategy; Film
Tags: colonies, film propaganda, Netherlands, pro-British

’Culture brothers’ in the prison camp

The postcard is suggestive of the wide range of people fighting for the Allied armies. The mix of people - their uniforms, their skin tone, their facial expressions, and their postures - in front of a…

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Themes: Race; Postcard; Mobility; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: imperial strategy, orientalism, painting, postcard, POW, pow-camp, Propaganda, Racism, The Other

Photograph of Indian Army Contingent in London passing along the Mall

A Victory Parade was held in London on 19 July 1919 and soldiers were brought from India to participate in the parade in a show of imperial strength and unity. In the first image, Gurkhas from the…

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Themes: Race; Photograph; Mobility

A Maori lumber worker talking to a Frenchwoman. Forest de Nieppe, March 1917

An official photograph of a Maori forester interacting with a local French woman in March 1917.

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Photograph; Gender
Tags: Gender, Language, Race

Image of Black-American dockers in Saint-Nazaire (France) engraved by Jean-Émile Laboureur

This engraving is from a set of works made by the French artist Jean-Émile Laboureur in the harbour of Saint-Nazaire, France where he was assigned as an interpreter to the American Army in 1917. The…

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Theme: Race
Tags: Drawing, Exchange, Interpreter, Labour, United States

Of a Lost Summer by Cyriel Buysse

Of a Lost Summer is a travelogue by the Flemish writer Cyriel Buysse that documents the Western Front in France and Belgium, where he also visited the destructed towns in West Flanders where he was…

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Themes: Religion; Race; Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Neutrality; Mobility; Language; Intellectual Exchange; Captivity
Tags: Flemish, Race, Senegalese, Soldiers, trenches, war novel

War news in the wilderness

Cartoon by Dutch artist Albert Hahn, in which two 'uncivilized' black men read about the German atrocities in their newspaper The Jungle. The text reads: 'Are these Europeans not the people who send…

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Neutrality; Imperial Strategy
Tags: cartoon, Civilization, imperial strategy, Race

Memoir by French colonial veteran

A translation of the seminal First World War memoir written by Bakary Diallo, a Pullo soldier from Senegal who fought for France in the war. Diallo shares his life story, including his childhood in…

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Themes: Race; Mobility; Memoirs
Tags: Africa, colonial intellectual, Colonial Troops, France, Memoir, Memory

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

Photographs of the Coloured Soldiers and Sailors Club, London

Five photographs taken by the Alfieri Picture Service showing African, African American, and West Indian servicemen at the Coloured Soldiers and Sailors Club, London 1919. The images show that black…

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Themes: Race; Photograph

German propaganda in Islamic countries, March 1917

In this report of 18 March 1917, the French envoy Henri Allizé to The Hague listed all pan-Islamic propaganda printed by German officials in the Netherlands and circulated to the British and French…

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Themes: Religion; Race; Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Neutrality; Language; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy
Tags: anti-colonialism, Dutch, Dutch East Indies, France, German Revolutionary Program, Malay, Muslims, official documents, pamphlet, pan-Islamism, Propaganda, revolution, The Netherlands

Frenchmen, Belgians, Senegalese Tirailleurs, Zouaves, and Turkos captured near to Ypres

The picture displays a group of prisoners of war (possibly recently captured) close to Ypres, one of the most embattled cities on the Western Front. The soldiers seem to belong to different branches…

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Postcard; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: anti-French, Colonial soldiers, Colonial Troops, imperial strategy, Photograph, postcard, POW, Propaganda

Württemberg war exhibition. Stuttgart – May to September: France’s coloured auxiliary peoples

The picture shows a wooden shelter surrounded by various men of colour, who wear different types of uniforms. Two of the men hold rifles, while others are sitting around a wooden object. The whole…

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Postcard; Imperial Strategy
Tags: Colonialism, cultural propaganda, imperial strategy, Mobility, Photograph, postcard, The Other

The Diary of Alison Mullineaux

Extract and photograph from the diary of Alison Mullineaux, a Canadian woman who travelled to Europe and served as a nurse's aid in the French Service de Santé. Both the diary extract and the…

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Themes: Race; Photograph; Gender; Diary

Cool heads!

Newspaper article by the Indonesian journalist Ratu Langie in the weekly 'De Indiër. Weekblad gewijd aan het geestelijk en maatschappelijk leven van Indië en Oost-Azië' ['The Indonesian. Weekly…

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Themes: Religion; Race; Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Neutrality; Imperial Strategy
Tags: anti-colonialism, Dutch, Dutch East Indies, loyalty, nationalism, Neutrality, The Netherlands

British West Indies Regiment Diary

Published account of the arrival of the second contingent of the British West Indies Regiment. Published by The Daily Gleaner, a Jamaican newspaper.

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Themes: Race; Newspapers & Magazines; Gender; Diary
Tags: West Indies

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

Interned British Indian soldiers peeling potatoes in Townley Hall, The Hague

A drawing of interned British Indian soldiers with turbans and beards peeling potatoes in Townley Hall, The Hague.

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Themes: Race; Neutrality; Mobility; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: Camp, Great-Britain, India, Neutrality, POWs, Soldiers, The Netherlands

Indian War Journal

In 1914, a war journal titled Indian Ink: Splashes from Various Pens was launched in India, edited by Everard Digby and published and printed by Messrs Thacker, Spink and Co. in Calcutta. Published…

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Themes: Race; Newspapers & Magazines

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

Advocatus diaboli

Anti-British pamphlet, reprinted in the Dutch East Indies by German propagandists.

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Themes: Religion; Race; Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Neutrality; Language; Imperial Strategy
Tags: anti-British, anti-colonialism, colonies, German propaganda

Coaling by James McBey

A watercolour painting by James McBey, a British war artist, as commissioned by Wellington House. The image was later transferred to the Department and Ministry of Information and then to the Imperial…

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Mobility