Out of Focus
Status
Temporary
Category
In storage
Explanation
Scheveningen's boulevard is currently undergoing a makeover. Spanish architect Manuel De Sola - Morales has created a design in which the different flows of traffic are separated each on their own level. When work began in 2018 on the two-kilometer-long boulevard, the Monument Army and Fleet that stood on the steps in front of the Kurhaus was dismantled as a precaution and moved to the contractor's storage. In the new design, the monument will eventually regain a prominent place on the stairs in front of the Kurhaus. The work is expected to be completed in 2025 and the monument will return completely in the new design of the boulevard. Again in front of the old, luxury spa hotel.
Image
Artwork Data
Title
Monument leger en vloot
Artist
Year
1921
Material
steenachtig / brons
Dimensions
1300 cm
Artwork Location
Address
Strandweg, Den Haag
City district
Scheveningen
GPS data
52.1129659390481, 4.28017175156682 View on map
Artwork Description
Text
Homage to the mobilised army and navy Aug. 1914 - Nov. 1918 Faithful to the Fatherland'. Although most war memorials commemorate the victims of the Second World War, our country - despite our neutrality - also has a few monuments that recall the First World War. One such monument is located at the foot of the Kurhaus. This memorial remembers the soldiers and marines who gave their lives for the fatherland in that war.
Three years after the First World War, the Nederlandsche Vereeniging 'Ons Leger' and the Koninklijke Nederlandsche Vereeniging 'Onze Vloot' took the initiative for a memorial. The municipality of The Hague granted permission for such a monument on the boulevard of Scheveningen and the Dutch people gave generously. Architect Dirk Roosenburg and sculptor Toon Dupuis were approached to realise the monument. Queen Wilhelmina personally unveiled it on 20 September 1921. It has become an architectural monument with a lot of text on both the front and the back. To the left and right of the text, Dupuis placed two characteristic statues. On the landside, a soldier looking at the land and on the sea side a marine peering over the sea. Both sculptures show the solid realism that is characteristic of this originally Flemish sculptor.
It is remarkable that this monument also honours Commander-in-Chief Cornelis Jacobus Snijders. Dupuis placed a portrait relief of him at the bottom of the boulevard. Apparently, the initiators had no problem with the fact that this general had been relieved of his position by the cabinet in 1918. Snijders had questioned the government's neutrality throughout the First World War. In contrast to the Cabinet, he thought that the Netherlands should join Germany. For the Cabinet, this opinion was reason to resign.