Pictures of the Netherlands

[The Lawspeaker]

Dutch troops through the centuries:

[The Lawspeaker]

Liberal Netherlands.....

Man at the beach fined for public indecency (not wearing a correct bathing costume). Heemskerk, Netherlands, 1931.



Leidseplein, Amsterdam (1930s):


In front of Utrecht Central Station (Stationsplein), late 1950s- early 1960s:



A Dutch doctor vaccinating his Indonesian patients against yaws (a tropical disease), (1920s/1930s):

[The Lawspeaker]

Dutch mobilised troops during World War 1 and the 1916 flood disaster:

[The Lawspeaker]

British prisoners in the process of being released from the internment camp at De Vlasakkers near Amersfoort. Autumn or winter 1918.


1915: A high-ranking officer serves replenishment to Dutch troops marching through Amsterdam as part of a three-day exercise.


Conscripted telegraph troops (Telegrafisten - today they would be called "Verbindingstroepen") of the "batch" 1917 being called up for military service.



British prisoners in their barracks at Groningen's internment camp


British prisoners during a snow fight in the same camp.






The Wire of Death thoroughly ruined Dutch-German relations (particularly in the eyes of the general public who had been relatively pro-German and anti-British (particularly because of the Boer Wars), anti-French before the war.) In both pictures, Dutch troops can be seen on the right - Germans on the left.

[♥ Lily ♥]

British prisoners in the process of being released from the internment camp at De Vlasakkers near Amersfoort. Autumn or winter 1918.


1915: A high-ranking officer serves replenishment to Dutch troops marching through Amsterdam as part of a three-day exercise.


Conscripted telegraph troops (Telegrafisten - today they would be called "Verbindingstroepen") of the "batch" 1917 being called up for military service.



British prisoners in their barracks at Groningen's internment camp


British prisoners during a snow fight in the same camp.






The Wire of Death thoroughly ruined Dutch-German relations (particularly in the eyes of the general public who had been relatively pro-German and anti-British (particularly because of the Boer Wars), anti-French before the war.) In both pictures, Dutch troops can be seen on the right - Germans on the left.

Out of curiosity, do the Dutch feel an animosity towards the English over the past?

I personally admire and respect Dutch poets, art, architecture, classical composers, the peaceful and serene Dutch countryside and beautiful landscape... along with learning about the various butterflies and birds and flowers there too, and I appreciate learning about other European cultures.

I can't speak Dutch as we English are not as intellectually gifted with languages as the multilingual and highly intelligent Dutch, but I like trying.

Even though we have political differences due to Brexit... and other Europeans are expressing some animosity towards us and our isolated island in Europe, I still think the English can be friends and allies with the Dutch and our European neighbours.

[The Lawspeaker]

Out of curiosity, do the Dutch feel an animosity towards the English over the past?

Not in 2019. But if you're talking about 1914 ? Ooh yes. They would have held the British responsible for genociding the Afrikaner nation and before the war were very pro-German. De Telegraaf (one of the biggest newspapers today that would play a far more nefarious role during WWII -co-opted by the Nazi's and banned for some years after the war) was pro-British and was the first to show the German atrocities in Belgium to a Dutch public that saw 1 million Belgians stream across its border which led to the Dutch being extremely quick to house and protect them. At first, it led to an ice cold endorsement of the official neutrality policy, but with the Wire of Death going up and Dutch ships being deliberately torpedoed by the Germans and with threats of the German government that they would invade us in case of further collaboration with the Allies... well you can say that by 1916, 1917, Dutch sentiments had turned in favour of the Allies and became very anti-German.

[The Lawspeaker]

The first KLM flight (London-Amsterdam Schiphol). The date ? 17 May 1920. The pilot and his plane ? H (Jerry) Shaw flying a rented De Havilland DH.16 G-EALU. The plane carried two journalists as passengers and some (British) newspapers as cargo.

[The Lawspeaker]

[The Lawspeaker]

[The Lawspeaker]

De Crisisjaren (the 1930s - lit. known "the Crisis Years" or " the Years of Crisis"):

Unemployment reached 12% of the entire Dutch workforce by the mid-1930s. Here are the laid-off breadwinners waiting in front of the unemployment board to receive their dole. They had to call in two times a day to receive a stamp and a meager stipend of 6 guilders a week in order to prevent working off the books. This humiliation was known as "stempelen" (to receive a stamp) and the word is still used in Dutch to describe the feeling of being unemployed. Needless to say, fisticuffs were not uncommon.





Owning a bicycle used to be taxed annually and the fact that you had paid was proven by having this stamp on your bike. The unemployment didn't have to pay their bike taxes and their stamps received a hole through the middle. This way everybody could see who was unemployment and this was considered a real humiliation:



Worse still: clothes donated by the municipal unemployment boards were also marked in a similar way...

Desperate times ask for desperate measures: "Who gets me a job ? Don't care what, I am familiar with making pastries and baking bread and I am a trained and civilised salesman !"


The government tried every recipe in the book: from cutbacks to slashing doles (which left families hungry and caused riots up and down the country. Particularly the infamous Jordaan Revolt of 10 July 1934, which left 5 dead and 56 severely injured. During riots in Rotterdam one more person was killed and several more injured.







These riots, stoked up by communists, would force the government to act. First by instituting a policy of compulsory labour for the unemployed (werkverschaffing) - building dikes, laying our forests, overall landscape management, and later by relinquishing the gold standard (26 September 1936). Still: by the beginning of the war, unemployment was still at a record high and by placing a lot of orders with Dutch manufacturers, the German occupation forces solved the problem in under a month.