Army and Navy Film (1917)

Propaganda film about the Dutch Military. Willy Mullens made this film in 1917, when other West-European armies had become numbed by three long years in the trenches. The footage depicts a relatively high-spirited mood, considering how the Dutch military had mobilized but not actually participated in the war. Precisely who it was that needed to be convinced of the solid foundation of Dutch neutrality is shown clearly in a folder that accompanied the screening of this film at the Residentie cinema in The Hague: ‘The purpose of the film is to impress upon the Dutch people (…) that our military forces, with the resources at their disposal, can readily be compared to those of the foreign military forces.’ The term ‘impress upon’ can be taken literally: people needed to be put at ease.