INFORMATION SHEET
“Brussels at war, 1914-1918”
The website of the City of Brussels Archives
Date put on line: 27 January, 2014
General presentation of the website
The years 1914-1918 constitute a very important moment in the history of Brussels. Many soldiers
were sent to the front, where they risked their lives and died for their country or were taken
prisoner. For four years the entire civilian population was faced with the crushing reality of
occupation: the drastic curbing of freedom, huge unemployment, the implacable repression of any
form of resistance, dramatic restrictions of all consumer goods, and all manner of German
requisitioning. The people of Brussels were saved from shortage thanks to the exceptional
solidarity of the Committee for Relief Supplies and Food, as well as countless charitable
organisations that procured their resources for the most part from foreign countries, in particular
the United States.
The City of Brussels Archives are home to thousands of testimonies from the First World War.
One of the things that makes the Archives’ collection uniquely distinctive is a remarkable set of a
thousand small objects of a patriotic and/or commemorative nature. Matchbox cases, cigarette
packets or handkerchiefs were used by people to express discreetly, albeit in a spirit of resistance,
their affection for and commitment to Belgian soldiers, the king and queen, the national flag or
their mayor Adolphe Max, who had been imprisoned by the Germans.
The “Brussels at war, 1914-1918” website further enhances the status of a part of this heritage
kept in the City Archives, by progressively making a selection of original written or illustrated
documents available to the general public: archive documents, postcards, photographs,
caricatures and satirical cartoons, leaflets, publications from the era, objects, etc. – in short, a
unique testimony for the history of civilians in wartime.
Visit www.14-18.brussels.be
Headings
The website is divided into several headings and subheadings (chronology, everyday life, horrors
of war, the job of remembering, current affairs).
In each subheading, galleries of documents and texts are presented with a short contextualisation.
These galleries, which currently have around 300 numbers, will have new documents from the
collection of the City of Brussels’ Archives added to them once a week, through to 2018.
To keep abreast of the latest new additions, stay connected on the social networks (Facebook or
Twitter).
Technical aspects
With a view to creating this website, the City of Brussels Archives first created a new inventory (a
process still ongoing) of the archive stock and collections from the First World War (including those
relating to War Orphans, the Brussels Committee for Relief Supplies and Food, the Brussels
police, etc.) in the automated “Pallas” system (see http://www.bruxelles.be/artdet.cfm/5653). This
stock is also being materially reconditioned.
All the documents presented on the website are scanned by the Archives Department of the City
of Brussels. This mainly involves back-up images intended for the perpetuation of the collection.
As regards the technical creation of the website, the Archives are supported by Gial, the City of
Brussels’ IT service provider.
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