Bezoek H.M. de Koningin aan Maastricht op 1 maart 1919

Summary

Reportage about the visit of Queen Wilhelmina to Maastricht.

A crowd has gathered at the Vrijthof in Maastricht to watch the arrival of the Queen. Dignitaries and men with banners are ready to welcome her. After the Queen arrives, she holds a speech in the town hall (there is no film footage of this, only a still photograph). After the speech, the Queen goes back to the Vrijthof, where she is welcomed by children holding red, white, and blue flags. In the middle of the crowd, we can see the picture of Maastricht’s ‘city maiden’. The children sing to the Queen, and she is offered flowers.

The Queen’s visit to Limburg – and later in the month to Zeelandic Flanders – was part of a campaign meant to show the Queen’s solidarity with her people. This was in response to Belgium’s claims on Limburg and Zeelandic Flanders, as compensation for the damage they suffered in the war. In the Netherlands, this Belgian claim led to much resistance, and complicated the relationship between the two countries for some time.

In the magazine ‘De Filmwereld’, Felix Hagemann wrote of this film: ‘It is rare, at least in our country, to see so openly the propagandistic power of the so-called documentary film, as witnessed in and via the screening of what was probably the radiant tour of our Queen through South Limburg and Zeelandic Flanders. [...] The film in question is a people’s referendum, nothing more and nothing less. It shows, as completely as possible, to anyone who is clear and unbiased, and even to those who have a perspective on this matter – unless his denial goes so far as the Brussels journalist, Pierre Bernard, who in his annexionist-minded magazine briefly declared that the entire public show of support in our South ... was staged behind out backs – I repeat, it indisputably shows the true mood of Limburg and Zeeland.’