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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2015
This article examines the public and private responses to the accidental deaths of King Albert I and Queen Astrid of Belgium in 1934 and 1935. The public and private mourning for Albert and Astrid and the impact of their deaths and funerals can only be understood when we analyse these events against the background of structural transformations in national identity, international and national politics and media culture in interwar Europe. The analysis of the responses to these events thus offers unique insights into the relationship between the Belgian monarchy, politics and modern mass media in the 1930s. The memory of the war experience permeated both funerals through the massive presence of war veterans. Condolence letters to the royal court show how Astrid's popularity made the Belgian monarchy more human and approachable than it had ever been, while their sudden deaths simultaneously stimulated the mystification of both royal figures. Albert's funeral even constituted an event of symbolic significance in the interstate relations of Belgium with France. The meaning of both these high-profile deaths was negotiated within the mass media.
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11 Schwarzenbach, Königliche Träume, 96.
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14 I refer to the untimely passing of the first Belgian Queen Louise-Marie in 1850, and the deaths of three young heirs to the throne in 1834, 1869 and 1891.
15 ‘La Belgique a fait à son roi des funérailles grandioses’, La Dernière Heure (LDH), 23 Feb. 1934; ‘La capitale envahie’, LDH, 23 Feb. 1934; ‘La leçon du malheur’, Le Vingtième Siècle (LVS), 20 Feb. 1934; ‘La Belgique survit’, LVS, 26 Feb. 1934; ‘Méditation sur une tombe’, LDH, 7 Sept. 1935. For example, recent academic literature has challenged the monolithic nature of British national grief as reported by the media after the death of Princess Diana. See Merrin, William, ‘Crash, Bang, Wallop! What a picture! The death of Diana and the media’, Mortality, 4, 1 (1999), 41–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thomas, James, ‘From people power to mass hysteria. Media and popular reactions to the death of Princess Diana’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 11, 3 (2008), 362–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 Alexis Schwarzenbach, ‘Rêves royaux’, 26; Van Ypersele, Le roi Albert, 14.
17 Van Ypersele, Le roi Albert, 324.
18 See boxes of condolence letters sent to Elisabeth after Albert's death, 3013/1–8, Privésecretariaat Koning Albert en Koningin Elisabeth (AE), Royal Archives, Brussels (RA).
19 ‘Het overbrengen van het stoffelijk overschot’, De Standaard (DS), 20 Feb. 1934; ‘La translation’, LDH, 20 Feb. 1934; ‘Le conseil du cabinet’, LDH, 19 Feb. 1934.
20 ‘Le Défilé des combattants’, LDH, 23 Feb. 1934; ‘Het begin van de lijkplechtigheden’, DS, 23 Feb. 1934. For the ‘divided family’ of war veterans in interwar Belgium, see Colignon, Alain, Les anciens combattants en Belgique francophone, 1918–1940 (Liège: Grommen, 1984)Google Scholar.
21 Le Soir, 29 Jun. 1936.
22 ‘M. Bovesse devant le micro’, LVS, 3 Sept. 1935.
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24 Secretary prime minister to du Bus de Warnaffe, 30 Aug. 1935, 23, map ‘Placement’, Departement Protocol (neerlegging 1993) (DP), Ministerie Binnenlandse Zaken (MBZ), The National Archives, Brussels (NA); ‘Roerende hulde van het volk aan de Koningin’, Het Laatste Nieuws (HLN), 1 Sept. 1935.
25 ‘Le défilé des anciens combattants’, Le Soir, 23 Feb. 1934; Max to Central Police Division, 24 Feb. 1934, map ‘funérailles de SM le roi Albert’, D7/138, Police Archives (20th century) (PA), City Archives, Brussels (CA).
26 Ben-Amos, Avner, ‘Les Funérailles du Maréchal Foch. Le retour de la Grande Guerre’, in Julliard, Jacques, ed., La Mort du Roi. Autour du François Mittérand. Essai d’ethnographie politique comparée (Paris: Gallimard, 1999), 235–50Google Scholar.
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29 Letter by Secretary of the Confédération Nationale des Anciens Combattants, not dated, NA, MBZ, DP, 23, map ‘officieux’.
30 Report for the mayor with press article, Le Soir, 5 Sept. 1935, CA, PA, D7/142, map ‘rapports’.
31 Note Adolphe Max, 6 Sept. 1935, CA, PA, D7/142, map ‘Instructions et notes de M. le bourgmestre’.
32 See Colley, Linda, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992)Google Scholar.
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34 ‘L’hommage emu du peuple belge’, LDH, 3 Sept. 1935.
35 ‘Een indrukwekkende lijkstoet’, HLN, 4 Sept. 1935.
36 See Pascal Dayez-Burgeon, La reine Astrid; ‘In dagen van droefheid en algemene rouw’, HLN, 31 Aug. 1935; ‘Un malheur effroyable’, LDH, 30 Aug. 1935.
37 See letters, 65/1, Kabinet Leopold III (KLIII), RA.
38 For example a letter written by two Polish children to the little princes and princess of Belgium, 3 Sept. 1935, 63, Grootmaarschalk Leopold III (GLIII), RA and a letter of a Swiss eight-year old to Princess Charlotte, 28 Nov. 1935, RA, GLIII, 64.
39 Schwarzenbach, Königliche Träume, 49.
40 For example Steverlynck to Leopold III, 6 Sept. 1935, RA, GLIII, 56; Joris to Leopold III, 30 Aug. 1935, RA, KLIII, 65/1.
41 LDH, 4 Sept. 1935; Le Peuple (LP), 4 Sept. 1935.
42 Alexis Schwarzenbach, ‘Rêves royaux’, 28, 40; William Merrin, ‘Crash, Bang, Wallop!’, 43. See letters from French citizens to Leopold, RA, KLIII, 65/2.
43 ‘Heiligverklaring Boudewijn niet voor morgen’, HLN, 28 Jul. 2008; William Merrin, ‘Crash, Bang, Wallop!’, 45–6.
44 Reynebeau, Marc, ‘Mensen zonder eigenschappen’, in Gobyn, Ronny and Spriet, Winston, eds., De massa in verleiding. De jaren ’30 in België (Bussels: ASLK, 1994), 28Google Scholar.
45 L’Invalide Belge, 5 July 1936; Schwarzenbach, ‘Rêves royaux’, 37.
46 For example, Marne to Archbishop Van Roey, 17 March 1936, III, 19, Archives Van Roey (AVR), Archives Archdiocese, Mechelen (AA); Mulder to Leopold III, 6 July 1937, RA, GLIII, 69.
47 For letters with this protecting saint-rhetoric, sent to Leopold, see RA, GLIII, 167 and 168.
48 See letters from monasteries to Elisabeth, RA, AE, 3013, boxes 6–7; Royal Chaplain to van der Cruysse, 31 May 1934, VII/16, Secretariaat Leopold III (SLIII), RA; Woyave to Van Roey, not dated, AA, AVR, III, 32.
49 Paulmann, Pomp, 398.
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51 ‘Drie Fransche ministers zijn het lijk van koning Albert komen groeten’, DS, 20 Feb. 1934.
52 ‘Le président de la republique’, LDH, 23 Feb. 1934.
53 Leopold III to Lebrun, 28 Feb. 1934; Leopold III to Pétain, 28 Feb. 1934, RA, SLIII, IIcbis.
54 ‘Het Fransche leger zal vertegenwoordigd zijn’, DS, 21 Feb. 1934.
55 See for example L’invalide Liégois, 1 March 1934.
56 ‘Tandis que Belges et Français fraternisaient silencieusement au passage du long crotège’, Paris-Soir (Édition spéciale), 23 Feb. 1934; ‘L’acceuil de Bruxelles aux troupes Françaises’, Le Journal, 22 Feb. 1934.
57 The Journal of the 5th Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, 6, 5 (1935), 98–100.
58 Telegrams between the minister of foreign affairs, the Belgian ambassador in Paris, the prime minister and the royal marshal, 9–10 May 1932, 44, Grootmaarschalk Albert I, RA; Medard to Queen Elisabeth, 19 Feb. 1934, 3013/6, AE, RA; ‘Bruxelles a fait à M. Le président Doumergue une réception enthousiaste’, LVS, 11 Oct. 1929; ‘La visite de M. Doumergue’, La Libre Belgique (LLB), 12 Oct. 1929; Van Ypersele, Le roi Albert, 82–3.
59 ‘L’exposition du souvenir de la Reine Astrid à Paris’, L’Indépendance Belge, 23 May 1936.
60 LLB, 16 Jun. 1936. For the use of art in symbolic diplomacy, see De Potter, Céline, ‘Du temps où les artistes étaient nos “meilleurs” ambassadeurs: art et politique étrangère dans les relations Belgique-France de 1919 à 1939’, Pyramides, 15 (2008), 203–26Google Scholar.
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64 As a matter of fact, Albert did not consider the French and British allies as much as ‘garants’. Only on the eve of the final offensive did Albert agree to put his men under allied command.
65 Testimony Georges Lebecq, Mar. 1935, in Bulletin Spécial de l’Association des Anciens Combattants de 1914–1918: les Poilus de France de Bruxelles, RA, GLIII, 784; ‘L’inauguration du monument élevé à la gloire d’Albert I’, Le Figaro, 13 Oct. 1938.
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67 The Flemish nationalist VNV won 13.3 per cent of the popular vote in Flanders, the Communist Party won 6.25 per cent of the vote and the fascist Rex won 11.49 per cent of the vote in the whole country. The communists could claim nine seats, the Rex-movement twenty-one and the Flemish-nationalists sixteen. The Catholic Party lost its dominant position and the Socialist Party became the most important party in Parliament. See Stengers, Jean, ‘La droite en Belgique avant 1940’, Courrier Hebdomadaire CRISP, 468–9 (1970), 2–35Google Scholar; Conway, Martin, ‘The Extreme Right in Inter-War Francophone Belgium: Explanations of a Failure’, European History Quarterly, 26 (1996), 267–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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69 ‘Un vif incident à la Chambre’, LP, 23 Feb. 1934.
70 Gerard, Emmanuel, ‘Omstreden Democratie’ in Gobyn, Ronny & Spriet, Winston, eds., De massa in verleiding. De jaren ’30 in België (Brussels: ASLK, 1994), 83Google Scholar; ‘Een historisch moment’, Ons Vaderland, 24 Feb. 1934; ‘Aan het Vlaamsche volk’, De Schelde, 23 Feb. 1934; ‘Een nieuwe golf van chauvinistische en monarchistische furie’, De Roode Vaan, 31 Aug. 1935; ‘Rond den dood van Koningin Astrid’, De Roode Vaan, 7 Sept. 1935; ‘Nog rond den dood van Koningin Astrid’, De Roode Vaan, 21 Sept. 1935.
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72 ‘Nationale grootheid en Vlaamsche trouw aan Koning en Troon’, DS, 24 Feb. 1934.
73 ‘Wat de jeugd uit Koning Albert's leven heeft te leren’, DS, 21 Feb. 1934.
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77 ‘Les groupes socialistes de la Chambre et du Senat decidèrent de participer à la rédaction de l’adresse au nouveau roi’, LP, 19 Feb. 1934; Haegendoren, Mieke Van, Van werken krijg je vuile handen. Geschiedenis van de Belgische Werkliedenpartij, 1914–1940 (Gent: Acco, 1989), 150Google Scholar.
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101 Katz and Dayan, Media events, 10.
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107 See Deneckere, Gita, ‘Oudstrijders op de vuist in Brussel. Het amnestieconflict tijdens het interbellum’, Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwse Geschiedenis, 25, 3–4 (1994–1995), 273–327Google Scholar.
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