Op het einde van de negentiende eeuw werden overal in Europa processen van democratisering, nationalisering en militarisering ingezet die tot doel hadden om van de mannelijke bevolking burger-soldaten te maken, klaar om te strijden voor het vaderland. De kazerne werd, samen met de school en het stemhokje, een machinekamer van het nieuwe burgerschap in de Europese natiestaten. Het Belgische leger stond op het einde van de negentiende eeuw nog aan de zijlijn bij die grote omwenteling.
This article investigates the attitude of Belgian diplomats in the debate about the creation of a stronger army in the decades before the First World War. Closely reading the writings of three members of the diplomatic corps and comparing their discourse with the words of their colleagues, it argues that the current historiographical narrative on the diplomats’ stance towards militarization is in need of revision.
In the 1830s and 1840s, a particular disease named ‘military ophthalmia’, a contagious inflammation of the eyes that reigned most forcefully among soldiers, turned into an epidemic in Belgium, spreading between the army and the general population. This article scrutinizes the efforts of the Belgian military health service to contain the epidemic. It places the actions of the Belgian army doctors within a broader development : the emergence of ophthalmology as a specialized medical subfield, in which also ‘civil’ physicians participated.
Studies of soldiers’ lives and military culture in peacetime have hitherto mainly focused on life in the barracks. The role of maneuvers, exercises for all ranks and all arms aimed to train military men’s movements for specific strategies, have garnered far less attention. In this article, we examine the practice of maneuvering by the Belgian army from Independence (1830) until the Great War.