1914-1918, the Belgian press during the First World War

A new online exhibition from the Mundaneum is hosted by Google Cultural Institute. While Europe commemorates the Great War, the archive center has selected over thirty documents from the International Press Museum to draw a panorama of the national press during these troubled times: 1914-1918, the Belgian press during the First World War.

With this fifth online exhibition, the Mundaneum keeps fulfilling its mission of valorization by making its archives available to the largest audience possible. The documents brought to light today are preserved in the International Press Museum founded in 1907 by the Union de la presse périodique, whose vice-president was Paul Otlet, co-founder of the Mundaneum. Newspapers from just before the war, (un)willing German-friendly press, trench press or clandestine titles such as La Libre Belgique, all tell of the weal and woe of journalism during the First World War.

This new virtual exhibition draws, like a dark parenthesis, the evolution of journalism in Belgium during the conflict. Censorship, birth of the non-professional press, journalists’ independence: 1914-1918, the Belgian press during the First World War asks, however paradoxically, questions that are still highly relevant for the press today …

The exhibition 1914-1918, the Belgian press during the First World War