Leren voor het vaderland? De slag bij Waterloo in Nederlandse geschiedenismethoden

In this article we discuss how and why the Battle of Waterloo was represented in Dutch history textbooks for secondary education during the twentieth century. How many pages were devoted to the battle? Who were the protagonists? The research shows that the number of pages devoted to Waterloo decreased, a tendency which was strengthened after World War II. Particularly between 1960 and 1990 schoolbooks dismissed national and military history, including the Battle of Waterloo. Remarkably, we also noticed for the whole period an epic concentration on Napoleon, Blücher en Wellington. The schoolbooks seem to follow British historiography and hardly paid attention to crown prince William of Orange. The probable reasons for this was that the topic was often placed in a chapter about European history. Since 2000, Dutch history textbooks focus more on national history. However, the Battle of Waterloo remains a minor topic. Textbooks also ignore the diversity of the allied forces, including the military contribution of the Dutch prince.