WW1 and the Propaganda War in American Books

In September I was invited by Museum Curator Bram Beelaert to travel to Antwerp and attend the opening of the excellent exhibit of Flemish Americans during WW1 of "Far From the War"  at the Red Star Line Museum. This is an exhibit with fascinating stories of both Flemish Americans in the U.S. as well as of Flemish Americans who fought in Flanders. I strongly recommend a visit.

One of the features that we discussed but never managed to complete was the volume of books in English that made the case for the war to Americans before, during and after the U.S. entry into the war in 1917. These books were by Belgians, Britons, Germans, and (in a few cases) Americans. The below is only a sampling. But because they are all in my possession the messages they share are easily transmitted.

Below I have included the cover scans and a brief description in chronological order.

As one might expect, before the war, knowledge of Belgium, Flanders and the Flemish in America was either limited or focused on scholarly subjects. Esther Singleton's excellent work, The Art of the Belgian Galleries, was first published in 1909 by the L.G. Page & Company of Boston. Yet, because of American fascination with the war, by November, 1914 this book was already on its third printing. And well that it did. Books like this did a great deal to fix in neutral minds the cultural depths of the Flemish.

  
Before the first German marched across the Belgian frontier on August 3, 1914, the English language image of Belgium was positive, if somewhat paternalistic. This 1911 book, Our Little Belgian Cousins,  published by the L.C. Page & Company of Boston begins with an incredibly condescending note:

"Our little Belgian cousins are very human people, and the Flemish and Walloons, and those that speak Dutch, and those that speak French are one and all delightful friends, and little American cousins should take pleasure in knowing intimately these hard-working but pleasure-loving folk."

As you might be able to surmise, the target audience was American children. Still, the image was positive (if limited and somewhat warped) before the First World War began.

Whatever indecision Americans may have had in the first weeks of the war were quickly dispelled by eyewitness accounts of American diplomats and journalists of German barbarities. One journalist (for the New York World newspaper) turned author was E. Alexander Powell. His Fighting in Flanders is real-time and amazingly fresh.

Recording events up to and including German soldiers marching into Antwerp October 9th, it is packed with names, dates, and photographs. Grossett & Dunlap in New York printed this in November, 1914, which suggests that editors and staff cleared other projects off their desks and moved with amazing speed.

It might seem difficult to manufacture a tawdry romance novel out of what is widely referred to as "The Rape of Belgium", in 1914, but one enterprising Dutch woman, Jo Van Ammers Kueller, managed to do so with the deceptive title A Young Lion of Flanders. This same author would go on to pen pro-German novels during and after World War II.

Likely translated (from the Dutch) and published (shockingly) in the U.K. sometime in 1915, the tale centers on a young Flemish woman who marries a German officer and is torn between her love for him and for her brothers - one killed and the other  (the "Young Lion of Flanders") imprisoned for non-violent acts of defiance. It ends with the German officer giving up his wife in Brussels in exchange for duty to his country. Yet it is hard to imagine this book producing anything more than twisted fantasies in lonely housewives or teenage girls.

Less ambiguous in its message but also targeted toward an impressionable audience (boys), Boy Scouts in Belgium: or, Under Fire in Flanders, imagines the adventures of three New York boy scouts supporting rights against might in war-torn Belgium.

Published in 1915 by M.A. Donohue & Company of Chicago, it integrates subtle history lessons and strangely unhistorical explanations for the world:

"Why do they call the country 'Flanders'?" asked Jimmie. 
"'Flanders,'" replied the other, "is a name derived from an old nickname or apellation for the people who inhabited that section [of the country]. For a long time the people who lived there were known as 'Fleed-men,' or men who had escaped from other countries. The name gradually was turned into the present form of 'Flemish,'  and the country [came to be known] as Flanders...Many a battle has been fought at different times on Flemish territory." 

The author periodically inserted some mild rebukes of German behavior - such as this one:

"It seems too bad to have good folks like those [the Flemish] shot up by the Germans."

But in the end, the American author, through the words of young Jimmie, hews to the official U.S. neutralist stance of that time:

"I like 'em all. Both the French and Germans were fine!"

Belgians to the Front is another's boys book with a fantasy experience of boy scouts slipping between the front lines and amidst battles with neither injuries nor unpleasant experiences to report. The author, "Colonel" James Fiske, authored a series of 'juvenile fiction' books from the allied point of view - all with the same cover (see his "Under Fire for Servia").

In this book (also published in Chicago, in 1915), a pair of Brusselaer boy scouts - Paul Latour and Arthur Waller, inspired by their Flemish scout master, Armand Van Verde - in the opening days of the war do what they can to thwart the German invasion. They successfully deliver intelligence that saves a French army from entrapment, relieves Liege, and garners the boys an award from Belgian King Albert himself - in Brussels.

Judging by the tenor and timeline of the story, this tale was almost certainly submitted for publication in the first month of the war. By the time this book was published in 1915, King Albert was in the Westhoek, on the Flemish coast, far from Brussels. Liege had long ago fallen (Liege fell on August 7, 1914 - 3 days after the Germans first marched across the border). But the inspiration of young boys in (boy scout) uniform doing everything short of shooting in defense of their country was nonetheless inspiring.

The United States entered the First World War on the side of the Allies on April 6, 1917. One key factor in uniting Americans of disparate ethnic origins of course was the belief in the righteousness of the underdog - in this case Belgium versus Germany. The same month that the United States declared war on Germany, heiress Charlotte Kellogg's Women of Belgium: Turning Tragedy to Triumph was published in New York by Funk & Wagnalls Company.

As the only woman on Herbert Hoover's "Commission for the Relief of Belgium" - and as someone who had visited Belgium and saw for herself a country where 1.5 million (out of a population of just over 4 million) survived in great part through access to the CRB soup kitchens, Kellogg was a credible voice for the Allied side. Moreover, since she detailed in a dispassionate manner the sufferings - as well as successes brought about by Herbert Hoover's led aid program - her argument for the injustices endured by Belgian civilians at the hands of the Imperial German Army were that much stronger. Writing as she did, before war was actually declared by the U.S., gave her narrative and photos a purity absent from war correspondents and novelists.

Americans were further inspired as they entered the war by tales of derring-do by Belgian combatants against overwhelming odds. So the 1918 publication of Brave Belgians, an English translation of a 1916 French popular piece by Baron C. Buffin,  fit the bill. Although roughly 360 of the 375 pages dealt with the events in the opening months of the War, between August and October, 1914 (and the remaining pages were given over to the reprinting of a 1915 wartime speech), the details reinforced the image America had joined the war for: tough but decent Belgians fighting against a bully jugernaut characterized by the German pickelgruber (spiked helmet).

The United States' participation in the First World War was brief. Although officially the U.S. joined the Allies in April, 1917, only three US regiments were in the front lines by November, 1917. During the great German offensive of March-April, 1918 only 500 Americans were involved (in a campaign which cost more than 600,000 German and British casualties).

But by the summer of 1918, 10,000 Americans in uniform were arriving in Europe each day, so that by August 6th, 270,000 Americans participated in the Aisne-Marne Offensive. Still, U.S. combat deaths of less than 70,000 (and influenza deaths of another 43,000) meant that the United States emerged from the war relatively unscathed. The U.S. casualty rate in fact was not too dissimilar from Belgium - a country with less than 5% of the U.S. population.

However, for many Americans, there was more than casualty lists that united Belgium and the United States. Like Belgium, the U.S. viewed its entrance as a direct result of Germany violating international law. The above book, America At War: A Handbook of Patriotic Education References, edited by the first professionally-trained (in Freiburg, Germany!) American historian, Albert Bushnell Hart, also a Harvard alumnus, attempted to academically state the case for the U.S.' involvement. Much of that argument as outlined in Hart's bibliographic book) hinged upon Germany's violation of Belgian neutrality and the atrocities perpetrated by Germany in Belgium during the war.

Since the German percent of the U.S. population then (as now) was the largest single ethnic identity, to some extent this pocket-sized booklet was meant (as the Preface exclaimed) to offset the "uncontroverted falsehood[s] put into circulation by... German propaganda" with "the ideas, which make for democracy, humanity, justice and truth." In other words, to parrott official U.S. justification for entering a European war and ignoring George Washington's famous advice of avoiding European entanglements.

Propaganda it may be, but this impressive work includes some wonderful gems (I never knew that there had been a hit 1915 play in the U.S. was called "A Belgian Christmas"). Near the book's end is the full text of the June, 1917 speech by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to the Belgian War Mission. Entitled "A Promise to Belgium" it unequivocably states that the U.S. will seek - despite his own forcefully expounded "Fourteen Points" guaranteeing national self-determination - to restore Belgium to its full, pre-war, unitary status. This declaration of course meant that Wilson decided to ignore calls by some Flemings and Walloons (cf Jules Destree) for dissolution of the Belgian state.

"In its meeting held in Brussels on the 30th October 1918 the Council of Flanders appointed a Flemish Committee for the purpose of centralizing the activist work, keeping up the activist ideal and promoting its realization in the forthcoming peace negotiations. The subjoined correspondence shows what efforts this Flemish Committee has made to acquit itself of the task."

So begins this fascinating, documentary piece, entitled Pro-Flandria Servanda, Flanders' Right & Claim for Autonomy. Published by the solid Hague firm Martinus Nijhoff in 1920, this wonderfully bound book argues systematically for (in effect) a confederal state.

Written in flawless (I am tempted to say, "masterfully elegant") English, it shares, Snowden-like, the correspondence between the Holland-based Committee of three (M'sieurs Alfons Depla, Willem De Vreese, and Leo Meert) and the White House in the months leading up to Versailles. Packed with wonderful facts bolstering their case, it includes an irredentist map that carved out most of the French department Nord. The history of the Flemish people it maps out is targeted to an American reader.

For many Americans, President Woodrow Wilson included, such issues were frivolous. "Belgium" (not Flanders) resonated and was easily linked back to the casus belli of the conflict. For Wilson (and indeed virtually every American) Belgium redeemed fit best with the war promises made. So to "Belgium" - or its image -  Americans returned.

Colin H. Livingstone, President of the Boy Scouts of America and based in Washington, DC. introduced the 1921 Young Heroes of Britain and Belgium  to readers as "true little histories of real little men and women". While author Kathleen Burke may have found inspiration in some 'true little histories', the improbable dialogue, imprecise dates, and absence of supporting details renders the stories as tales, not histories. Whether the characters Piere Van Zeel or Marie Jeanne of Bruges really existed (and I doubt it), each story neatly made a morality play. None of these tales referenced the starvation, carnage, or other unintended consequences of war.

Naturally, these vignettes were intended to be uplifting. Moreover, the target audience was young men and women (although not younger than teens). Still, from the perspective of an image of Belgium (and Flanders), the image thre author presented was unsullied and unitary.

The penultimate product of the First World War for Americans interested in Belgium is Henry G. Bayer's 1924 The Belgians: First Settlers in New York and in the Middle States. Bayer banked on the continued fascination of Americans (and himself) in the connection between Belgium and the United States. Fortunately for all of us, this largely-forgotten work pioneered the study of the contribution of Flemings to the discovery and settlement of America.

Utilizing primary document sources, this former wartime American diplomat extracted from the prevailing narrative of Nieuw Nederland the fact that Flemings (and Walloons) had largely been counted as "Dutch" by historians of colonial America. Bayer, who had spent time in Belgium, credited the Flemish with less than sbsequent scholarship has uncovered, but this may be seen as a legacy of the notorious anti-Fleming (and former U.S. diplomat) William Griffis, who claimed descent from Walloon Huguenots (and carried on the wars of the Reformation with his pen).

Regardless of the few flaws in Bayer's opus maximus, The Belgians formed the bedrock of all subsequent research into the Flemish experience in North America. Just as the First World War was the defining experience that created the Flemish-American community, so did Bayer's work lay the foundations for its historical consciousness as well.


 Copyright 2014 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted in any way, shape or form without my express, written permission. This means you especially Dean Amory!

Remembering Flemish American War Veterans And Their Contribution to Veterans Day

November 11th we celebrate, here in the U.S., as “Veteran's Day”. It is not a holiday for most Americans beyond government employees and some financial sector workers. Rather, the day remains a tribute to the sacrifice of the military men and women in uniform who have suffered and died for the rights that we exercise as Americans. This holiday came about directly in response to the end of the “Great War”. In earlier times this day was more frequently called Armistice Day, to recognize the effective end of the "Great War", (as World War 1 was known until World War 2 began in 1939) on November 11th, 1918 at 11:11 AM.

Within that wider context, I believe it is important to chronicle the contribution of Flemish Americans to this time in history. Building upon work in previous years (2008 and 2009), I would like to offer a slice of the history of Flemish Americans in Chicago in the “Great War”.

To those in uniform today, November 11th, on active duty stationed at the bulwarks of Western Civilization wherever that may be around the world, I salute you. To those who have fallen in these wars and earlier ones, I pay tribute to you. To those of you who have not served but offer support to our men in uniform – Flemish, Flemish Americans and others – I thank you.

World War I and the Flemish Americans
World War 1, while devastating to Belgium (especially the Flemish part where the war waged for more than four years), helped cement a positive image of Flemings in the U.S. and globally. Belgium began the war with one of the world’s top ten economies. During the war perhaps a third of the population was displaced. Forced requisitions by the German army subjected as many as 1 million Belgian civilians to starvation in the first months of the war [1] .

The country literally never recovered its pre-war economic preeminence. But the image of “Little Belgium” as a ‘plucky’ nation of honorable but independent people was permanently fixed in American minds. The men who made that image possible were the front line troops along the Ijzer River in the Westhoek of West Flanders. 80% of these Belgian troops – or more – were Flemings.[2]

While the war started in the Balkans it spiraled out of control in August 1914 when Germany invaded Belgium. Great Britain entered the war to defend Belgian neutrality (violated as millions of German soldiers stormed across the frontier). The domino-effect invoked as commitments to overlapping alliances triggered the first truly global war.

German military excesses – such as the massacres of civilians (including women and children), reprisals against guerrilla fighters in Belgium, and especially the burning of the library and cathedral at the University of Leuven (the oldest university in the Low Countries) – in August and September 1914, aroused sympathy among Americans. The hardiness of the Belgian troops – overwhelmingly from the Dutch-speaking provinces – gave the Belgians the status of ‘underdog’. To the American public this became a compelling reason to aid the Allies against Germany and the Central Powers.

Like other ethnic groups, Flemings in Chicago responded fervently and immediately to the invasion of their homeland. But even before the extent of this was known, concern over the general impact of the war upon Belgian civilians spurred Chicago's Flemish American community into action hosting fundraisers for Belgian Relief [3].

A byline in the Chicago Tribune, dated August 1914 stated that: “A campaign to raise funds for the Red Cross society of Belgium was started on Sunday at Belgium-American [sic] club of Chicago in Schoenhofen Hall, Ashland and Milwaukee avenues. The club appropriated $200 for the society and personal subscriptions were started. A call for a Belgium [sic] massmeeting [sic] on Thursday evening in the Belgian church at Maplewood avenue [sic] and Logan boulevard [sic] to continue the collection of funds was issued.”[4]

More than 1,000 Chicagoans gathered at the “Belgian Church” (St. John Berchman’s) on the night of August 13, 1914, representing all six of the Belgian clubs in the city and formed a new entity called the Belgian-American Relief Society of Chicago.[5]

For many Flemish Americans the start of the war in 1914 was a difficult time. Many dropped everything and heeded the call to service in 1914. Paul Vandervelde, a Flemish American from Dallas, Texas, volunteered for the Belgian Army early in the war and fought for 34 days straight, before returning to the U.S. in September, 1914 [6]. (with apparently no training either). In fact, enough numbers of Flemish Americans nationally enlisted in the Belgian army in the first month of the war that the Belgian government was compelled to offer a stipend for all spouses and their children remaining in the U.S. [7].

Some Flemish Americans in Chicago fought back by refusing to play German and Austrian songs. Johannes Schreuers, the sole Fleming on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, led a revolt against the playing of German composer's tunes within the first weeks of the war. Outnumbered by the Germans and Austrians in the group, however, there was little he could do but glare [8].

Flemings on the front lines in particular felt a positive tie to the United States. In the Belgian Army headquarters at Veurne a New York World cartoon, showing an Uncle Sam standing behind King Albert of Belgium (a youthful leader who literally shared the hardships of the front lines with his troops) with his hand on the young king’s shoulder above a caption which says: “King or no king, you are my kind of a young man.”[9]

Likewise, the determination of the Flemish troops in holding back the Prussian onslaught captured the imagination of Americans. Americans love to champion the causes of an underdog – especially one with pluck and verve. The manifestation of this was expressed in titles centered on the Flemish front lines or on features from a happier time in Belgium. Just a few of the titles in my library [10] are:

“Fighting in Flanders” [1914]
“Belgium in Wartime” [1915]
“The Belgians to the Front” [1915]
“Boy Scouts in Belgium: Under Fire in Flanders” [1915]
“A Young Lion of Flanders” [1915]
“Women of Belgium: Turning Tragedy to Triumph” [1917]
“Brave Belgians” [1918]

Because the Belgian part of the “Great War” (as it was referred to then) was largely fought in Flanders, Flemish Americans had daily reminders of the war. Americans of all ethnicities were reminded of the war and the suffering of the Belgians by the efforts of the Belgian Relief Organization, run by a former engineer and missionary to China (and future U.S. president, from 1929-1933), Herbert Hoover.[11] The Germans lost the propaganda war largely thru unrestricted submarine warfare, epitomized by the sinking of the Lusitania in May, 1915. Included among the civilian dead was a Flemish American woman from Chicago, Ms. Marie De Page, for whom funeral rites were held at the Belgian Church, St. John Berchman’s.[12]

A few Flemish women returned to Chicago in happier circumstances. Father John B. De Ville of St. John Berchman’s Church, convinced the German occupational authorities to permit him to take back to the United States with him fifty young Flemish women. There, in a mass ceremony, they were wed to fifty young Flemish American men from Chicago. Appropriately the ceremony took place at Ellis Island.[13]


When the U.S. finally entered the war in 1917 recruiting posters evoked German atrocities and the plucky courage of Belgians in holding back the Germans. Many Flemish Americans in Chicago enlisted and served with the Doughboys in WW1. For some of these Flemish Americans joining the battle on the Western Front was returning to their birthplace.

One such soldier – who was decorated for heroism in combat – was Florent Verhulst. Florent Verhulst was born in Vrasene, East Flanders on February 19th, 1888. Via the SS Finlandia, Florent had emigrated with his large extended family in 1908 through nearby Antwerp [14]. Like many Flemings, Florent debated joining the Belgian Army in 1914. However, when America declared war on Germany Florent joined up, leaving a wife and child behind. Florent captured the imagination of Americans during the fierce battle of the Argonne Forest in August, 1918.

On August 20, 1918, the Chicago Daily Tribune printed a picture of Florent and his battlefield exploits. While in hand-to-hand combat in the German front lines, he was wounded and lost contact with his unit. With no food and little water he evaded capture behind enemy lines for three days before crawling back to the American front lines. For this Florent earned a Purple Heart. While he served in Europe, Florent’s wife and young son (also named Florent) lived at 1358 W. Thorndale, in Rogers Park, across the street from Senn High School.[15] He died on January 2nd, 1962, in Chicago.

Like many Flemings in Chicago, Florent worked as a janitor. The Census showed Florent's job as "janitor, apartment building". Like millions of other Europeans, he had left the Old World for economic reasons and had been pulled to Chicago because he had a friend working as a janitor there [16].

Florent’s family would eventually spread out across the vastness of America. One brother, Paul, lived in Detroit. Other siblings lived near the Wisconsin border in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. One brother, Albertus, even tried his hand at farming in South Dakota. Incidentally, it was a daughter of Albertus, Lea Verhulst, who eventually married Arnold Van Puymbroeck (leader of the Flemish “Belgian Colony” of Chicago for the last half of the 20th century).[17]

Of the Belgians in Chicago at least 225 Flemish parishioners of St. John Berchman’s had enlisted in the U.S. armed forces by July, 1918. [18] One in particular stands out as an example of the ties to original and adopted homelands. “Valere Meerschaert (born October 11, 1890) had emigrated with his parents from Pittem, Belgium to Chicago in 1906. While visiting relatives back in Belgium, in the summer of 1914, WWI broke out and Valere signed up with the Belgian army, serving throughout the war.

In February of 1918 the Belgian military sent him on a special mission to the USA to entice other Belgian-Americans to follow his example and help in the liberation of the old country. He returned to the front lines later that year, and died in battle in Westrozebeke at age 27, on September 29, 1918, just six weeks before the war ended. Valere Meerschaert’s gravesite in the cemetery of Pittem was recently restored, and a rededication and commemorative ceremony was held on June 30, 2007.” [19]

Post World War I
After WW1 many Flemish Americans returned to the U.S. more completely “American” in self-identity than before. They were veterans now and had fought and bled for their adopted country. Often they served physically in the front lines of Flanders.

The end of the war also unleashed a new round of immigrants to America from Belgium. Some, like Marguerite and Marie Dupon, returned to Chicago, a city they barely knew, even though their Belgian parent immigrants lived out the war years in Chicago and they themselves had been part of the first generation of Flemish Americans born in Chicago.[20] Others, like 14 year old Michael Gilhooley, had nothing remaining for him in Belgium and sought to reach America by any and all means. Young Gilhooley stowed away on ships five times in one year (1919) before being adopted by kindhearted Americans and permitted to stay in the United States. [21]

The 1920 Federal Census recorded this dramatic jump in numbers. 63,236 residents claimed to be Belgian born and a further 59,454 were the American-born offspring in that year. Of those 122,690 individuals, 87,890 claimed Flemish as their ‘mother tongue’[22]. Illinois again topped the states in terms of Belgian-born (nearly all Flemish) population with 11,329 of the 62,686 recorded residing in Illinois[23]. The next closest state was Michigan (10,501) distantly trailed by Wisconsin (3,444)[24]. In those immediate postwar years, Illinois was the center of Flemish America and Chicago was their home.

Once again Flemings – including veterans of the “Great War” flocked to America in increased numbers. One family, from West Flanders, moved to Detroit despite having strong Chicago ties. Later, the patriarch of that family, Cyriel Barbary of Klercken, would gain recognition after passing the century mark. He ultimately was recognized as the last surviving Belgian WW1 Veteran. In fact, he was a U.S. citizen. The last living veteran of the Great War on the Ijzer Front was, appropriately, a Flemish American.[25]

Endnotes

[1]The Chicago Daily Tribune, October 22, 1914, p.2. Herbert Hoover asserted that there were 1,000,000 civilians starving of which more than 700,000 were Belgians. The overwhelming majority of the Belgians were in what is now called Flanders and therefore were Flemings.
[2] There is, of course, a great deal of debate as to actual numbers of Flemings in the Belgian Army during World War One. At the high end are some immediate postwar documents that suggest that the Flemings constituted upwards of 90% of all enlisted men. According to these sources even nominal Wallon regiments received reinforcements that mainly if not wholly included Flemings. The Flemish units were of course 100% Flemish. The only exception to this rule was the officer corps, which were overwhelmingly Francophone. See Daniel Vanacker, De Frontbeweging: De Vlaamse strijd aan de Ijzer, (Kortrijk: De Kaproos, 2000), p.15 for the discussion of numbers as low as 60%. See Luc Schepens, 14/18: Een Oorlog in Vlaanderen, (Tielt: Lannoo, 1984), p.162, for the belief that the true percentages were “65 to 70% (and not 80 to 90% as widely believed)”.
[3] The relief was intended for all soldiers in the Belgian area regardless of nationality. The organization was called the Belgian American Association of Chicago. The President of the Association was the Belgian Consul of Chicago, Dr. Cyrielle Vermeren. The Treasurer was Spanish-American War veteran and President of the Belgian American Club of Chicago, Major Felix J. Streyckmans. See "All Nations Help Belgian Benefit", The Chicago Daily Tribune, August 27, 1914, p.11. Streyckmans had organized a club meeting of the BACC as early as August 10th and appropriated $200 (equal to 100 days wages of a skilled laborer). See "Belgians Aid Red Cross", The Chicago Daily Tribune, August 11, 1914, p.7. These meetings were supplemented by others at St. John Berchman's church, the locus for the Flemish diaspora in Chicago. Later, all seven of the Belgian clubs in Chicago jointly sponsored fund-raising activities for Belgian relief. See "Round About Clubs and Societes", in The Chicago Daily Tribune, October 16, 1914, p.11.
[4] “Belgians Aid Red Cross”, The Chicago Daily Tribune, August 11, 1914, p.7.
[5] The Chicago Daily Tribune, August 14, 1914, p.5. The $844 raised in one night (about the annual salary of a working man) was sent to Queen Elisabeth of Belgium.
[6] See "Yankee, Former Belgian, Served 34 Days in War", The Chicago Daily Tribune, September 19, 1914, p.3.
[7] The stipend was 15 cents per day plus 5 cents a day for each child. In the event of her husband death while in service, the children's daily allowance would be doubled, to ten cents per day per child. See The Chicago Daily Tribune, September 10, 1914, p.8.
[8] "Martial Tunes Cause Near War", The Chicago Daily Tribune, August 17, 1914, p.11. The August 3, 1914 edition of The Chicago Daily Tribune (p.7) estimated that 50,000 to 75,000 of the Chicago's immigrants were heading back to their respective countries to enlist in the war.
[9] Henry N. Hall, “Pen Picture of King Albert of Belgium Fighting in the Trenches,” The Chicago Daily Tribune, May 22, 1915, p. 5.
[10] The postwar interest also remained strong with a flurry of titles about Belgium, the war, King Albert and Queen Elisabeth. The war also produced a plethora of propaganda books produced by both the Allies and Central Powers dealing with Belgium specifically. For example, in my library I have “The Last Phase of Belgium” [1916], “The Belgian Deportations” [1916], “The Condition of the Belgian Workmen Now refugees in England” [1917], “Memorandum of the Belgian Government on the Deportation and Forced Labour of the Belgian Civil Population Ordered by the German Government” [1917], “Belgium and Greece” [1917], “The Belgian Front and its Notable Features” [1918]. Nearly all of the preceeding titles were printed in England. The Germans, however, were not silent. Their own excellent English language press churned out (again, from my library): “The Belgian People’s War: A Violation of International Law” [1915]. After the war, those in Belgium felt a sufficient need to produce detailed rebuttals in English to the claim that they violated international law by waging a guerilla war, to publish “The Legend of the ‘Francs-Tireurs’ of Dinant” [1929].
[11] “American London Committee to Carry Food to 1,000,000 Starving Belgians”, in The Chicago Daily Tribune, October 22, 1914, p.2.
[12] The Chicago Daily Tribune, May 29, 1915, p3.
[13] “50 Belgian Brides on Way to United States to Wed,” The Chicago Daily Tribune, May 6, 1916, p.4
[14] Florent boarded the SS Finland May 23rd, 1908 at Antwerp and disembarked June 2nd, 1908 at New York. His Ellis Island manifest can be found here: http://www.ellisisland.org/EIFile/popup_weif_5a.asp?src=%2Fcgi%2Dbin%2Ftif2gif%2Eexe%3FT%3D%5C%5C%5C%5C192%2E168%2E100%2E11%5C%5Cimages%5C%5CT715%2D1109%5C%5CT715%2D11091093%2ETIF%26S%3D%2E5&pID=101790030038&name=Florent%26nbsp%3BVerhulst&doa=Jun+02%2C+1908&port=Antwerp&line=0011 Florent Verhulst married Elisabeth Eeckelaert in the U.S. (date unknown) but likely at the "Belgian Church", St. John Berchman's in Chicago.He also had a son named Florent and a brother named Augustus. Florent Sr. was the son of Joseph Verhulst and Victoria Coeckelbergh - who also ultimately emigrated to the U.S. Florent Sr. was the paternal uncle of Lea Van Puymbroeck, who in turn was the wife of Arnold Van Puymbroeck, leader of "de Belgische Colonie" in Chicago for the last half of the 20th century. He apparently was close enough to his niece to offer her and her husband Arnold Van Puymbroeck a place to stay for several weeks when they arrived (with her parents) on July 4 1952. Part of this information is courtesy of an e-mail from Mr. Curt Hartwig (dated April 8th, 2010). Florent Verhulst was born in Vrasene, Belgium 19 Feb 1888 and on 2 Jan 1962 he died in Chicago.
[15] The Chicago Daily Tribune, August 20, 1918, p.5. Curiously, this author grew up in the building next door, 1356 W. Thorndale, Chicago, without being aware of his close proximity to Mr. Verhulst.
[16] Florent's friend's name was Courland Van Der Leyden according to the Ellis Island records. His Ellis Island manifest can be found here: http://www.ellisisland.org/EIFile/popup_weif_5a.asp?src=%2Fcgi%2Dbin%2Ftif2gif%2Eexe%3FT%3D%5C%5C%5C%5C192%2E168%2E100%2E11%5C%5Cimages%5C%5CT715%2D1109%5C%5CT715%2D11091093%2ETIF%26S%3D%2E5&pID=101790030038&name=Florent%26nbsp%3BVerhulst&doa=Jun+02%2C+1908&port=Antwerp&line=0011
[17] For the story of the Belgian Colony and the individuals who made up this vibrant community on the near-North side of Chicago for 100 years, please see: David Baeckelandt, Arnold Van Puymbroeck: The First Eighty Years, 1952-2002, (Glenview, Illinois: Blurb, 2010).

[18] The Chicago Daily Tribune, July 18, 1918, p7. St. John Berchman Church flew a Belgian flag as well as an American on to which 225 stars were sewn to commemorate the contribution of this one parish.
[19] Ronald V. Mershart, “WWI: Belgian-American from Chicago dies in West Rozebeke,
Belgium, 1918”, BAHSC Newsletter 2007 6 v3 n1 p.5
[20] The girls had been brought ‘back’ to Belgium to give them a ‘proper’ education by their parents in 1913 when the girls were 7 and 4. Events moved too quickly for their parents to intervene and they were stranded in Roselaere, West Flanders with three other young girls of Flemish emigrants. Their wartime experiences would provide an excellent material for a dramatic novel.
[21] Gilhooley was adopted “first by singing star Elsie Janis, ‘the Sweetheart of the American Expeditionary Forces,’ and later by a wealthy Cleveland family.” David M. Borwnstone, Irene M. Franck, Doyglass Brownstone, Island of Hope, Island of Tears, (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2000), pp. 138-139.
[22] The Chicago Daily News and Almanac and Year Book 1931 (Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1930) pp.425-6
[23] The Chicago Daily News and Almanac and Year Book 1931 (Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1930) pp.427-8. I am not sure where the 1,500 count discrepancy in the 1920 census numbers is from. The Almanac does not explain it. That said, the aforementioned Carl Darling Buck noted the frequent discrepancy between school census numbers and official census claims. Mr. Buck suspected that official data were understated and that school census data were a more reliable indicator of ethnicity.
[24] The Chicago Daily News and Almanac and Year Book 1931 (Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1930) pp.427-8. Curiously, the 1930 Federal Census numbers lost many of these finer gradations and began, for example, to record the immigration of Dutch-speaking Belgians under the heading “Dutch and Flemish”. In large part I suspect that this is due to the (historical) relative status between French speakers and Dutch speakers in Belgium. The Dutch-speakers were looked down upon by the French speakers; the Walloons’ disdain for the Flemish a reflection of the French disdain for all things ‘Belgian’. Note that the Belgian-American Club of Chicago is almost 100% Flemish. When the club built their ‘Belgian Hall’ in 1921 on West Fullerton Street in Chicago, the cornerstone was engraved with the declaration “All Belgians Are Equal”. See http://factfinder.census.gov/ for the most recent U.S. government census data by ethnicity and state.

[25] A Wikipedia reference to him as Cyrillus-Camillus Barbary can be found here in English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillus-Camillus_Barbary His death (September 16, 2004 at the age of 105) is noted here http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/BELGIUM-ROOTS/2004-10/1099169061 . The source here in Dutch: http://www.wo1.be/ned/geschiedenis/gastbijdragen/barbary.htm As an aside, Klerken, where Mr. Barbary was born, was just inside the German side of the front lines. Young Barbary then may have had to cross into neutral Holland (as many young men did) to reach, in a laborious way, the Allied lines and enlist. Such was the dedication of Flemish youth then!

Copyright 2010 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without my express, written permission.

Wapenstilstandsdag/Veterans Day - In Flanders Fields

Flanders' Fields....of Mud: Passchendaele 1917

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae December 8, 1915. McCrae died January 18, 1918 - and is - buried in Flanders

Armistice Day

Today, November 11, 2008, is Armistice Day. Although commonly referred to as Veteran's Day here in the U.S., it is of course meant to mark the date ninety years ago when the guns fell silent on the Western Front in World War 1. In Dutch, this day is called Wapenstilstandsdag and just as here in the U.S., in Belgium it is a national holiday. In both countries we are meant to remember the fallen dead and the futility of war. We are also called to reflect upon the purpose of their sacrifice and ensure that such sacrifices were not in vain.

Flemish Americans as well as Flemings would do well to re-examine our own special tie with this date. It is from the crucible of this war that not only new waves of Flemish immigrants left a wrecked and lunar landscape and came to America. But, equally important for our history, is that the sacrifices on the fields of battle birthed a stronger self-consciousness of and for the Flemings.

The military artist Joe English (1892-1918), born in Brugge of an Irish father and Flemish mother, served on the Ypres front and his artwork not only captured the Flemish-Catholic consciousness of his fellow front-liners but also served as the inspiration of later generations of Flemings.



Invasion and Occupation

Many commentators forget that for the Western Front, the First World War began with an invasion of neutral Belgium. And it was Germany's violation of Belgium's neutrality that brought Great Britain into the war. The German plan - called the Schiefflen Plan, after its author - was to slip behind the French frontier fortifications facing Germany via relatively defenseless Belgium. The German High Command's belief was that by doing so they could knock France out of the war early - and before either the British could field a meaningful expeditionary force to support France or, more ominously for them since Berlin sat only 100 miles from the Russian frontier - Russia could mobilize and bring to bear their overwhelming numbers on the Eastern Front.


Within the first 3 months of the war - August through October, 1914 - Germany had occupied more than 75% of Belgium. Immediately, coldly-efficient German authority was imposed on the local, Flemish-majority populace. But the harshest repression was inflicted on that part of Belgium closest to the front: West Flanders.


The initial impact of German occupation was harsh. As one German officer in November, 1914 recalled (according to Larry Zuckerman in "The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War 1" (NY: NY University Press, 2004 p.94):

“’Only a month ago, this country might have been called rich; there were cattle and pigs in plenty.’
Now, requisitions had emptied the place.

‘We have taken every horse, every car; all the petrol, all the railway-trucks, all the houses, coal, paraffin, and electricity, have been devoted to our exclusive use.’ “

German occupation troops requisitioning supplies in the West Flemish town of Koekelare.

It may be hard to believe now, but on the eve of World War One, in 1913, Belgium produced 4.4% of the world’s commerce (Zuckerman, op.cit., pp. 44-45, 50).

“[Belgium’s] population, in short, on the 31st of December, 1913, numbered 7,685,000 souls. … This means an average of 676 inhabitants to the square mile. …. “Finally, we shall find that the national trade of Belgium - that is, the sum of her imports and exports (through freights being deducted) – amounted in 1913 to L350,000,000, or L46 5s. 7d. per inhabitant, which was – proportionately – three times the trade of France or of Germany: an enormous figure, which gives Belgium the fifth place in the statistical table of the world’s commerce.”

The above quotes are from "Belgium in Wartime" by Commandant De Gerlache De Gomery (New York: Doubleday, 1915). Certainly not the most objective of sources. Yet it captures the impact of Germany's barbaric, systematic, despoiling of occupied territory. Zuckerman - and others - in fact claims that the lessons learned by the Kaiser's military administrators in Flanders in 1914-1918 were copied and refined by Nazi Germany and applied to Europe in 1940-1945.

The Westhoek corner of West Flanders where the bulk of the fighting in Flanders took place from 1914-1918. It is also the home of dozens of military cemetaries holding the war dead on both sides as well as the world's largest peace memorial to the First World War, the Ijzertoren.


What makes this more shocking perhaps was that this did not occur in some lawless land on the fringes of Western civilization but smack dab in the heart of Europe. In 1913 Belgium was not only the world’s most densely-populated country but it ranked sixth among all countries in terms of GDP (contradicting the good Baron above). Antwerp was the world’s second busiest port (after New York) – busier than London, Rotterdam or Hamburg. Belgium was also the most densely populated country in the world with an average of 250 inhabitants per square mile. And since the bulk of the population of 7 million (nearly 70%) were Flemish and Flanders comprised less than half of the total Belgian land area, the densities in the area most wracked by warfare – West Flanders – meant that the impact of the war was devastating and concentrated on an area where the human impact was extreme.
The fighting on the Yser Front, the tiny corner of southwestern West Flanders that the Belgian Army held behind the Yser River from 1914-1918, was characterized by vicious actions like the one depicted here.


In other words, Belgium in 1913 was one of the 10 largest industrial powers. By 1919, the first full year of peace after the war had ended, Belgian production was up to 64% of its 1913 levels, according to a New York Times article. Not only had her fields and farms been destroyed by the battles raging across them and her towns - especially the Flemish towns - but the Germans had imposed wholesale deportations of working age males to German factories. German soldiers also inflicted atrocities on the civilian population - in part perhaps due to the savagery of war but these atrocities became not only widely known but helped tilt public opinion in the U.S. against Germany and the Central Powers (as Germany and its allies were collectively known as).


Even in 1918, four years after the war began, the American public's desire to wage war in Europe for the Allies was easily stoked by references to brutal German atrocities against Belgian civilians, as depicted in this suggestive Ellsworth Young poster.



The Cost of War

When, on November 11, 1918 at 11 AM the guns fell silent on the Western Front in World War One - or as it was known for more than twenty years in nearly every language, the Great War, the full scale of human losses could only be guessed at. It was a 'Great War' in large part because of the horrendous loss of life. Superficially, the United States and Belgium saw relatively low military casualties. In the case of the United States, this was due to our late official (April 6, 1917) and effective (Summer, 1918) entry into the more than four-year war. For Belgium, the numbers do not tell the full story. Although 270,000 men were mobilized for war only 100,000 men remained under arms in Belgium at the end of the war (see table below). tens of thousands were interred by neutral Holland - and not released until more than four years after the war's end. Tens of thousands more were MIA. An innocuous designation for those dead not recovered. Thus the true toll is far, far greater than simple tables below suggest.

Numbered tables also hide the human element. The human element for the Belgian army was overwhelmingly - some documents claim 85% - the Flemish element. And, as in many wars, some families bore this sacrifice in greater numbers than others.

In his book "The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War One" (p.83) Larry Zuckerman gave horrific descriptions of the plight of the refugees.

‘The forty-mile road to Ghent [from Antwerp] “was a solid mass of refugees,” as was “every road, every lane, every footpath leading in a westerly or northerly direction.” And when the army retreated, the soldiers slogged the same routes. “White-haired men and women” clung to harnesses of horses hauling guns, and “springless farm wagons literally heaped with wounded soldiers with piteous white faces” leaked bloody trails. The din was dreadful. Wheels rattled, drivers cursed, the wounded groaned, women and children cried, and one heard “always the monotonous shuffle, shuffle, shuffle of countless weary feet.”

Flemish refugees fleeing the German attack on Antwerp, October, 1914

“The [Belgian Government] cabinet left Belgium for the French port of LeHavre, whereas 1.4 million or perhaps even 2 million less distinguished Belgians, almost 27 percent of the prewar population, had also fled. More than a million civilians went to Holland, and so did thirty thousand soldiers, whom the Dutch interned, as the Fifth Convention required.”
(Zuckerman, op.cit., p.85)

Take also the story of the last surviving WW1 Belgian veteran, Cyriel Barbary (1899-2004). Barbary volunteered, fought in the Belgian Army on the front line at the Yser Front while his refugee family eked out a living near the Belgian front lines taking in wash and doing odd jobs. After the war ended, the family returned to their farm in Klerken, West Flanders to find it literally obliterated. All they found of a thriving farm and home were posts marking their property boundaries. At that point, as his great-granddaughter later recalled in an award-winning essay, the family gave up on Belgium to emigrate to the promise of America. Thus, the last surving veteran of World War One's Belgian Army was not only Flemish but died a Flemish-American in Michigan.

The Van Raemdonck brothers, Edward and Frans, as sketched by Joe English in 1917.

Other Flemish families gave even more. The story of the Van Raemdonck brothers, Edward (22) and Frans (20) captures the sacrifice of Flemings. The two brothers, who had volunteered as teenagers in 1914, died on a patrol to try and rescue a Walloon soldier lost behind German lines in March, 1917. More than two weeks later their bodies were found in the pose sketched above by Flemish frontline artist Joe English. Although hastily buried due to wartime exigencies, the Flemish frontline troops wished to arrange a brief truce to retrieve the bodies. Senior Belgian Army generals rejected the idea - reportedly in part because the brothers had been outspoken in defense of Flemish rights - such as receiving orders in the language they understood, Flemish, instead of a foreign tongue such as French. Not only do the brothers' deaths underscore the commitment to the ideal of sibling devotion but the reality that although Flemings had spilled their blood in disproportion to Belgian demographics, they remained second class citizens in a country where they numerically were the majority.

On the front lines, this translated into tragic events. Walloon officers shouting commands in French to Flemish farmboys whose French was imperfect while the din and confusion of battle, which made even regular discussion impossible, resulted in what in effect was tragedy but by Walloons was perceived as insubordination or treachery. Flemish soldiers - and even in so-called Walloon regiments, the majority of serving soldiers were, in fact Flemings - felt that they were oppressed by a country where true universal suffrage did not yet exist and where the majority not only were politically disenfrachised but forced to abandon studies in their mother tongue for a foreign language (French) and culture. Thus, more than 100 years after the American and French revolutions, in one of the most industrialized countries in the heart of Western civilization, the Flemings whose own history in fact inspired the ideas of universal suffrage, were prevented from exercising not only universal suffrage but also more basic rights such as secondary education in their native Dutch. Flemish soldiers began to ask: "Hier ons bloed, wanneer ons recht?" ("Here is our blood; where are our rights?"). This consciousness sparked the Frontbeweging or 'Front Movement' for Flemish rights. Later this would become known as the Flemish Movement.

The AVV-VVK - "Alles Voor Vlaanderen - Vlaanderen Voor Kristus" superimposed upon a celtic cross gravestone was designed by Joe English and became a symbol of the futility of the Great War.

Cyriel Barbary in other words fought a futile war. Not just because of his personal sacrifices or the mindless waste of young lives. But because the sacrifices he made were for a country whose birth was by deception (see Paul Belien's superb "A Throne in Brussels: The Belgianization of Europe"). A country, Belgium, where demographically the Flemish majority were a disenfranchised and subjected minority in their own land.

The image that many Flemings had of their work toward building an equitable, new world was captured in this Joe English pen-and-ink sketch of a Flemish soldier building upon the foundations of the Battle of the Golden Spurs (Guldensporenslag) in 1302 through the battles of WW1.


Although now the stuff of legend, these stories of sacrifice deserve retelling here. In part because they are formative for me and other Flemish Americans. They form the bedrock of familial remembrance of things that were unnecessary and needless. The insensitivities of one community upon another. They tie very directly into the Flemish community here in Chicago. Less than three years after the war's end, in 1921, the Flemish colony in Chicago laid the cornerstone of the Belgian-American Club of Chicago. The legend was an aspiration still not realized today: "All Belgians Are Equal."

If we then wish to commemorate those who have served, sacrificed, and died on Flander's Fields ninety years ago today, what better way than to commemorate the peace they strove for and the rights they died for: the rights of Flemings and Flemish Americans. Perhaps Flemings are best served by remembering that the monument to Flander's contribution to "the war to end all wars" is the largest peace monument in Belgium, the Ijzertoren. And the annual August pilgrimmage to commemorate this peace, the Ijzerbedevaart, is the remembrance of this urge for world peace.

For Flemish Americans, it is important that we not only recall what our forefathers fought for at the Yzer, but also what they dreamed of: equal rights for Flemings in their own country. For those rights to happen - and for our 'cousins' in Flanders - the best service we can render is to remember that we are not 'Belgian-Americans'. As Jules Destree, the prominent Walloon politician, stated in his Lettre au Roi sur la separation de la Wallonie et de la Flandre ("Letter to the King concerning the separation of Wallonia and Flanders") to King Albert in May, 1912, as war clouds loomed over Europe: "Sire, il n'y a pas de Belges, il n’y a que des wallons et des flamands" ("Sire, there is no such thing as a Belgian; there are only Walloons and Flemings"). And, if there is no such thing as a 'Belgian', as this prominent Walloon parliamentarian pointed out, and we are indeed either Walloons or Flemings, then it is hardly likely that there is anything such as a 'Belgian-American'.

Jules Destree's detailed and rational letter ended with a plea. "A dishonest unity, imposed...that exists in official proclamations but not in the hearts of citizens, will never be worth a union freely agreed to" (quoted from "The Flemish Movement: A Documentary History, 1780-1990" edited by Theo Hermans, et.al. London: Athlone Press, 1992; Document 31, pp 206-217). I for one, could not agree more.

As Flemish-Americans, it is time all those of us with Flemish ethnicity recognize and catelogue our unique cultural roots. To our cousins in Flanders, we Flemish Americans here ask that you recognize that the literally millions of Americans with Flemish roots will only begin to connect with their cultural and ethnic origins when the haze of ambiguity over the status of Flanders is cleared up. Only then will the suffering, death and destruction inflicted on Flanders' Fields 1914-1918 be atoned for. Only then will the "wapen" truly 'stand' 'still'.

© 2008 by David Baeckelandt - All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without my express, written, consent.