Projecting a Nation in Ruins. Lantern Lectures and the Spectacle of War-struck Belgium in the neutral Netherlands (1914-1918)

According to Dutch war correspondent Lambertus Mokveld
(1890-1968), who arrived several weeks after the first German
troops had invaded Belgium, war-struck Leuven was a devastating
sight. During the initial months of the First World War the Dutch
press published many similar eyewitness reports of the ongoing
ruination of Belgian cities. Photographic accounts of these testi-
monies - often representing shattered cultural and religious herit-
age - gradually entered the Dutch media landscape as well, cater-
ing to a desire to witness the range of destruction with one’s own
eyes. Belgian intellectuals who had fled their homecountry were
well aware of the propagandistic potential of these photographs.
Embedding their evidence value and emotional appeal in a didac-
tic discourse, some of them strategically appropriated these images
within the context of public lectures on Belgian architectural his-
tory. Making clever use of the attraction of the optical lantern, still
images of monuments and ruins were used to incite moral outrage
and strengthen patriotism among different audience groups in an
alleged neutral country.