Abstract
On the eve of World War II there were some 15,200,000 Dutch- speaking people in the world. Of these 9,000,000 were Nether- landers, 4,500,000 were Flemish, 1,200,000 were Afrikaners and 500,000 were Netherlanders, Eurasians and Indonesians living in the Netherlands Indies.1 Spoken Flemish deviates somewhat from Dutch but the written language is practically identical, but both written and spoken Afrikaans differ considerably from Dutch. Dutch was and still is the only official language of the Netherlands and of Surinam and the Dutch West Indies. In the former Netherlands Indies members of representative bodies were free to use Malay as well as Dutch, but official documents were published only in Dutch. While Dutch is the official language of Surinam and Curacao, it is spoken by few outside of official circles. Flemish and French are the two official languages of Belgium, all government publications being printed in these two languages. Dutch was one of the three official languages of the Union of South Africa, though it was not on a basis of full equality with Afrikaans and English. It could be used in representative bodies, in petitions and in all official examinations.
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There are also about 200,000 Flemish-speaking people in the northern corner of France in the territory around Dunkirke and Hazebrouck. In 1958 the total number of Dutch speaking people had increased to about 18,000,000 distributed as follows: Netherlanders, 11,000,000; Flemish, 5,000,000; Afrikaners, 1,700,000. Many Netherlanders left Indonesia after the transfer of sovereignty at the end of 1949, and thousands departed in 1957 and 1958 after Indonesia instituted the anti-Dutch action in t he campaign to compel the Netherlands to surrender West New Guinea.
For a rather full treatment of the early years of the Flemish and Great Netherlands Movement, see Geschiedenis van de Vlaamsche en Groot-Nederlandsche beweging by Leo Picard. The first volume takes the movement up to 1870; a second volume was planned to bring it up to date. Also see articles on “Dietsch” and “Dietsch-Beweging” in Winkler Prins Algemene Encyclopaedie
See “Groot-Nederlandsch Geschiedschrijving,” Katholieke Encyclopaedie, 1935.
Especially in his Nederlandsche gedachten
In his great work, Histoire de Belgique
Three volumes.
See De Telegraaf (Amsterdam), August 24, 1937.
Before the Netherlands Journalism Association, July 19, 1936.
See Chapter on “Dutch Belgian Relations.”
Van Vessem was founder and editor-in-chief of the Great Netherlands periodicals “Dietsche Stemmen” and “De Toorts” (1915-1921), founder of the Dietsch Bond (1917) and co-founder of the National Committee of Action against the Treaty with Belgium (1925). A tragic case was that of the Fleming Van Genechten, who came to the Netherlands as a refugee in World War I, remained in Holland and became a Dutch national. He became a leader in the National Socialist movement and a leading German collaborator.
As for example in 1937 when Flemish members of parliament queried Spaak on why a Fleming had not been appointed as minister to The Hague, Spaak answered that there were no Flemish professional diplomats who could be considered for the post. He admitted that the stituation in the Belgian diplomatic corps with respect to the knowledge of Flemish was unsatisfactory and should be improved.
De Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant, October 14, 1937.
See “Memorandum No. 6 on Axis Controlled Europe.” March 15, 1943. Also Foreign Research and Press Service, Royal Institute of International Affairs, Balliol College, Oxford.
See article “Dinaso” in Katholieke Encyclopaedie See also Vijf nota’s van M assert aan Hitler over de samenwerking van Duitsland en Nederland in een Bond van Germaanse Volkeren 1940-1944.
In the opinion of the writer the Flemish movement was in large part a socioeconomic movement. Walloons and French-speaking Flemings had dominated the economic, cultural and political life of the country, and the Flemings naturally turned to linguistic equality as a means both of bolstering their ego and of facilitating their advancement.
The repercussions of the Boer War on the Dutch people and the policy of the Netherlands Government in that war are discussed fully in Chapter VI.
In 1940 the Union exchanged diplomatic representation with the Netherlands and Belgium (one person serving both posts), the United States, France, Sweden and Portugal. The diplomatic representation at Lisbon is explained by the fact that two large Portuguese dependencies border Union territory. Yearbook of South Africa, 1940.
It is estimated that only about half of the colonists in 1707 were Dutch. A number of Huguenot and a few German families joined the original group in the early years. The Huguenots were systematically dispersed among the Dutch and became completely absorbed.
The treks undoubtedly have had a profound influence on the Afrikaans mentality and national character. The Boer has always trekked away from something. For over a century he has had two arch enemies: the British and the natives. One writer characterizes his whole history as “a perpetual edging away from organized government into trouble with the natives.” Leonard Barnes, Caliban in Africa
Field Marshall Smuts in a conversation with the writer described Afrikaans as Dutch with the grammar dropped out.
“By calling themselves Afrikaners they emphasize that South Africa is their homeland, that they have no longer any ties with a particular country in Europe. They are the youngest nation in the world and their language is the youngest branch of the European family of languages.” State of the Union: Economic, financial and statistical yearbook for the Union of South Africa, 1957, p. 41.
State of the Union, 1957, op. cit, pp. 37-38.
See Jan Christiaan Smuts by his son, J. C. Smuts, for a picture of th is period.
The number of immigrants in 1956 was 16,416 of which the largest group (4,629) came from the United Kingdom and the second largest from the Netherlands (3,295). State of the Union, 1957, op. cit., loc. cit
See article in The New York Times, December 27, 1953.
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© 1959 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Vandenbosch, A. (1959). Great Netherlands Idea. In: Dutch Foreign Policy Since 1815. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-6809-0_11
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