The Order of Orange-Nassau of the Kingdom of the Netherlands

In my last blog post I wrote about the history and current state of the Netherlands King's Day and you may recall that it is used by the monarch to honour their peoples with the Order of Orange-Nassau. I therefore thought it made perfect sense to discuss the Order in more detail.

The Order was founded in the last decade of the 1800's by the then Queen Regent in the name of her daughter Queen Wilhelmina whom had not yet reached adulthood. Over the decades this award has been given to Dutch people who has had a positive effect on this country or community not unlike the way the British Order of the British Empire does.

During the Second World War the Order was given to both military and civilians alike of foreign countries who played an active role in the liberation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from Nazi occupation.

The Order is divided into two types - military and civilian from formation. However the classes of membership has changed in recent years. Originally the higher classes of the Order, there were five, was reserved for members of the Dutch and foreign nobility and had a second type of award which was referred to as bronze, silver and gold.

After the Order went through a long period of discussion internally during the latter part of the 1900's it was decided that the Order needed to be seen as more democratic and remove the limitation to award of higher grades of the Order. This change made it possible for any person to achieve the highest but one grade which is limited to the monach.

Normally 4,500 new awards are issued each year while 3,000 previous recepients pass away. Therefore the Order only grows in number slowly.

For people interested in orders of knighthood of other countries a wealth of information can be found online.

King's Day 2014

Before anyone reminds me I am fully aware that King's Day was a couple days ago though I have been highly involved in charity activities. I was lucky enough to attend Cardiff University with a girl who's family hails from the Kingdom of the Netherlands so I had ample time and wish to understand some of their amazing culture.

King's Day did not start out that way because in the mid 1800's the King of the Netherlands was a rather unpopular monarch so there was little interest of commencing a national holiday in his name. This can't be said about his daughter, the Princess of Orange, who was very popular with all her peoples there the King announced Princess's Day to be first market on her fifth birthday. When she was crowned Queen of the Netherlands on the passing of her father the national holiday was renamed Queen's Day.

Unlike many national holidays the date Queen's Day was marked was dependent on the birthday of the monarch until 1980 when Queen Beatrix became Queen and she decided to honour her mother and keep Queen's Day as her birthday.

The monarch of the Netherlands in recent years has used the national holiday to visit one or more towns and / or cities in their Kingdom. Queen Beatrix used the day to honour her people in a similar was as the British monarch does via her Birthday Honours List.

2014 was the first time that the national holiday was referred to as King's Day as it was the first year since it's conception that the Kingdom of the Netherlands had a King instead of a Queen.

I believe that the United Kingdom should join Canada, who already has a national holiday for the Queens birthday - Victoria Day, and have Trooping the Colour as a national holiday for British people to mark our Queen's birthday. Perhaps this can be combined with the push to make St. George's Day a national holiday.

ANZAC Day 2014 - Lest We Forget

ANZAC Day, April 23rd 2014, is a national day of remembrance in the Commonwealth realms of New Zealand and the Commonwealth of Australia  that broadly commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders "who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations" and "the contribution and suffering of all those who have served." My friends, knowing of my lifelong interest in history and my families connections to both New Zealand and the Commonwealth of Australia asked me to explain what ANZAC Day was all about as they had not come across it before. 

Originally 25 April every year was to honour the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps(ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire during World War 1. Anzac Day is also observed in the Cook Islands, Niue, Pitcairn, Pitcairn Islands and Tonga.

In Australia and New Zealand, Anzac Day commemoration features solemn "Dawn Services" or "Dawn Marches", a tradition started in Albany, Western Australia on 25 April 1923 and now held at war memorials around both countries, accompanied by thoughts of those lost at war to the ceremonial sounds of the Last Post on the bugle. You will notice that this is rather similar to the events carried out within the Commonwealth countries on the 11th November, Remembrance Day, as well as in the United States of America for their Memorial Day. 

I was asked what it was that happened which caused ANZAC Day to be remembered. The answer to this does not lay in New Zealand or Australia but many thousands of miles away in a place in the Ottoman Empire during World War 1 during a battle referred to as the Gallipoli Campaign.  

In 1915, Australian and New Zealand soldiers formed part of an Allied expedition that set out to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula to open the way to the Black Sea for the Allied navies. The objective was to capture Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, which was an ally of Germany during the war. The ANZAC force landed at Gallipoli on 25 April, meeting fierce resistance from the Ottoman Army commanded by Mustafa Kemal. What had been planned as a bold strike to knock the Ottomans out of the war quickly became a stalemate, and the campaign dragged on for eight months. At the end of 1915, the Allied forces were evacuated after both sides had suffered heavy casualties and endured great hardships. The Allied casualties included 21,255 from the United Kingdom, an estimated 10,000 dead soldiers from France, 8,709 from Australia, 2,721 from New Zealand, and 1,358 from British India. News of the landing at Gallipoli made a profound impact on Australians and New Zealanders at home and 25 April quickly became the day on which they remembered the sacrifice of those who had died in the war.

This is why April 23rd is remembered and long may it remain so. 

Today Their Royal Highnesses the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge attended the ANZAC Day Dawn Service in the Capital of Australia, Canberra as a surprise. 

Source: BBC News Website

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anzac_Day

A forgotten effect of the Great War

Every history buff and school child alike have studied the Great War, the war that was supposed to end all wars which sadly became a jumping off point into the second world war only a few decades later. On the outbreak of war in 1914 hundreds of thousands of young men from all over the United Kingdom and her empire answered the call of duty and joined our armed forces to defend their countries, peoples and families.

The war took a huge toll on the male population of the allied countries between 1914-1918 with the total reported dead, injured or missing in action standing at nearly 23 million.

When the war was ended the population of young men in the United Kingdom was far reduced which in effect caused unmarried woman to need to marry rather younger or rather older than themselves. Such was the situation in my own family.

My great grandmother (Catherine) being about 25 at the time the war ended fell in love with the man that was to become my great grandfather (Lancelot) when he was just 15. The love between them was to produce my grandfather Edwin. My great grandparents later married and were to be together for the rest of their lives.

Our story now jumps forward in time to 1939 and the outbreak of the Second World War. My grandfather, like many young men of his generation, answered the call of duty and proceeded to join the armed forces - the Royal Air Force and later was attached to the British 8th Army in Africa. However there stood one big obstacle to his service, the fact that at the time of his birth he was illegitimate.

This was a problem faced by many young men who wished to service and was a direct result of the huge number of casualities inflicted on the United Kingdom during the Great War. To solve this issue the government of the day legitimized the birth of a significant number of men. Therefore allowing them to fight for their King and Country.

This was the reason why my grandfather has two birth certificates. I wander how many other families have the same situation?    

A welcome to blogging

I have often considered keeping a blog as many a person have informed me that my work, interests and family history make interesting reading so I have therefore decided to start.

While I intend on writing an entry each day I am sure that in reality it will be written less frequently.

I hope the posts are of interest to my friends and family.