Gevers Deynootplein 30, 2586 CS, The Hague

The suite of Bertha von Suttner in the Kurhaus remains a source of inspiration for peace activists and committed diplomats, reflecting over a century of hopes, disappointments and new initiatives for peace and international justice.

“Farewell, lovely city of parks and gardens! That this place, where the first international arbitration court originated, may become the pilgrimage place for future generations”
_{– Bertha von Suttner (Nobel Peace Prize 1905)}

Baroness Bertha von Suttner was the driving force behind the international peace movement at the end of the 19th century. Her bestseller “Lay Down Your Arms (Die Waffen nieder)”, first published in 1889, helped to mobilize pacifist public opinion under her slogan “Hail to the future!”

Von Suttner first came to The Hague in 1894, invited by the Dutch government to attend the conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in the Hall of Knights. In Von Suttner’s experience, the real political results were gained during dinners and receptions in her Kurhaus suite. Her informal diplomacy also helped to create international support for the disarmament initiative that Tsar Nicholas II launched in 1898.

“To the place where peace will be born”, Von Suttner wrote about the First Hague Peace Conference in 1899 to Zionist leader Theodor Herzl, editor of the Austrian newspaper Die Welt. Apart from her Kurhaus suite, she held a salon near the parliament buildings in the former Grand Hotel Central (now demolished). Her receptions connected pacifist opinion leaders such as Jan Bloch and William T. Stead with “the circles that happen to have power in their hands.”

But Von Suttner left the conference early, disappointed by the failed disarmament talks: “There is reason to be sad. Cold, cold are all hearts. Cold like the icy sky, that blows in through the clattering windows. I shudder.”

This experience strengthened Von Suttner’s determination to ‘persist, persist and continue to persist’. Her persistence motivated her friend Alfred Nobel, for whom she had worked in Paris, to support the peace movement with a permanent award. In 1905 she was the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize herself. Von Suttner also inspired Andrew Carnegie to finance the Peace Palace. At the centenary celebration in 2013, she was the first woman honoured with a bust in the ‘Temple of Peace’.

As Von Suttner hoped, The Hague has become a ‘pilgrimage place for future generations’. One of her successors is the American peace and human rights campaigner Cora Weiss, former President of the International Peace Bureau (Nobel Peace Prize 1910). At the centenary of the First Hague Peace Conference in 1999, Weiss presided the Hague Appeal for Peace with almost 10.000 participants, and which launched an ongoing global campaign for peace education.

Carnegieplein 4, 2517 KJ, The Hague

The statue group ‘Conversation’ at the entrance of the NIBC Bank expresses the atmosphere of dialogue that is typical for The Hague. The reception room displays pictures and a commemoration book of the bombed Royal Art Gallery Kleykamp.

“No freedom for the States to do good or evil, but their deeds measured according to strict rules of justice and injustice – that is what Grotius believed with all his soul”
_{– Cornelis van Vollenhoven}

The art collectors Pieter and Ermina Kleykamp settled in The Hague in 1909. The Art Gallery, first located in the Oranjestraat became a first rank centre of arts and literature. The exhibitions varied from Vincent van Gogh and the Hague School of painting to a world famous collection of Eastern Asian arts. In 1916 Kleykamp moved to the spacious villa The White House. The top floor housed the new International Intermediary Institute, created in January 1918 by the Leiden jurist Cornelis van Vollenhoven (1874-1933) as a private information service for the Peace Palace Library.

As great admirer of Hugo Grotius, Van Vollenhoven advocated the abolition of wars of aggression, putting forward the idea of an international police against ‘state crime’. In his proper field of study of Eastern law he opposed the ‘short-sighted arrogance of Western law’ in the Dutch-Indian colonies. Instead, the wide variety of Eastern and Islamic customary law (Adat) should be respected and incorporated into the international legal system.

In the end, Art Gallery Kleykamp became itself a victim of the German war of aggression. The villa was confiscated in 1941 by the occupying authorities, who used it as a Central Population Register. The highly effective administration system was instrumental for persecutions of Jews and arrests of resistance fighters with false identity cards. On the advice of Dutch resistance groups, the villa was finally destroyed on 11 April 1944 in a precision bombing by English ‘Mosquito’ airplanes. The high number of 61 casualties, mostly common citizens, has remained a war trauma in the history of The Hague.

Today, Van Vollenhoven’s idea of punishing state crimes like wars of aggression has partly been realised by the creation of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, operational in The Hague since 2002 (Maanweg 174). The court is working with the United Nations and a worldwide coalition of civil society organisations. A nearby example (Laan Copes van Cattenburch 62) is the initiative ‘Walk of Truth’, where artists work for the protection of cultural treasures against crime and war, and the promotion of a transnational culture of peace.

Carnegieplein 2, 2517 KJ, The Hague

The Peace Palace, opened in 1913, can be considered a world cross-roads of memories of peace and justice. At the brink of the First World War, steel magnate Andrew Carnegie invested in lasting international legal institutions.

“The man who dies rich dies disgraced”
_{– Andrew Carnegie}

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) had grown up in an impoverished weavers’ family. As a Scottish-American immigrant he became a steel industrialist and a multi-millionaire. In his book The Gospel of Wealth (1889) he expounded a new vision of peace philanthropy as an investment in education. Thus he financed almost 3000 libraries, as well as schools, concert halls and other institutions. In 1903 he wrote out a 1,5 million dollar cheque for building this ‘Temple of Peace’ in The Hague.

The Visitors’ Centre at the gate shows the motives and backgrounds of the ‘Gift of Carnegie’, with film images of the opening ceremony on 28 August 1913. The permanent exhibition also depicts the functioning of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the Permanent Court of International Justice (established in 1921, since 1945 part of the United Nations system), and the range of international legal institutions that gave The Hague its reputation as the ‘World Legal Capital’ (former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali).

The Peace Palace library contains the oldest and most important collections for the study of international law and ideals of world peace. Closely connected to the courts, the Hague Academy of International Law serves as a world centre for peace education. Nowadays, yearly 600 students take part in the summer courses. In the spirit of Carnegie, in particular young men and women from developing countries are enabled to take part through private sponsoring. Thus future leaders are familiarised with procedures of peaceful conflict settlement, and gain experience with informal peace diplomacy.

The Peace Palace is nominated for the European Heritage Label of 2014 as a site of particular symbolic and educational value. Commemorations and celebrations continue both within and outside the building. At the Carnegieplein we find the World Flame of Peace and the Bench of Peace (written in all languages of the UN), as well as an inter-religious monument for the victims of the Second World War.

The Peace Pole and the Women’s Peace Watch sign recall the movement for nuclear disarmament in the 1980s. Here, demonstrations and manifestations for causes of peace and justice all over the world are regularly held.

Lange Voorhout 5, 2514 EA, The Hague

During the First Hague Peace Conference, this theatre was packed with an audience attending the lectures of the Polish ‘King of the Railroads’ Jan Bloch, illuminated with facts and figures about the devastating consequences of the next war.

“War therefore has become impossible, except at the price of suicide”
_{– Jan Bloch}

The Polish industrialist Jan Bogumil Bloch was the architect of the Russian railway system and founder of a range of new financial institutions. Born as a Polish Jew and converted to Calvinism, Bloch remained an outsider at the court in St.-Petersburg. But he gained a world reputation by using his large economic expertise as a pioneer of modern peace studies.

After ten years of research, his six-volume study The Future of War In its Technical, Economic and Political Relations (1898) appeared in Russian, Polish, German and French (1899). Based on extensive statistical analysis, Bloch predicted that a next war between industrial powers would result in protracted trench warfare, followed by the breakdown of societies and violent revolutions.

This perspective convinced Tsar Nicholas II to take the initiative for the First Hague Peace Conference, as Bloch recalled: “When the Tsar received me in audience, the maps and tables of the book laid spread out on the desks, and he had me carefully explain all the figures and diagrams. ‘So this is the way the next war will develop?’, he asked.”

During the First Hague Peace Conference in 1899, Bloch hired the Diligentia Theatre for a series of four evening lectures, illuminated with lanterns, and distributed volumes of his study to all delegates. This failed however to convince the big powers, who had decided already to block the Tsar’s disarmament initiative. Instead, under pressure of the pacifist lobby, the topic of the Permanent Court of Arbitration came on top of the agenda. When the German delegation threatened to leave out of protest, Bloch mediated for a compromise solution.

The failed disarmament proposals were, as Bloch concluded, due to the “steadfastness with which the military caste clings to the memory of a state of things which has already died”. In order to educate public opinion, he established the world’s first war and peace museum in the Swiss city of Lucerne in 1902. After the First World War, which followed the pattern that he had predicted, the museum was closed down. Only in 2002, at the initiative of the International Network of Museums for Peace, the building was rehabilitated as a peace monument.

Binnenhof, 2513 AA, The Hague

In and around the parliament buildings, we find milestones of the tradition of The Hague as City of Peace and Justice. These are connected with the work of the 17th century lawyer Hugo Grotius and, not to forget, the action of his wife Maria Reigersberg.

“We were laying a foundation, though for what we didn’t yet know”
_{– Leymah Gbowee (Nobel Peace Prize 2011)}

The old name ‘s Gravenhage (Counts’ Woodlands) refers to the 13th century summer castle of the Counts of Holland. In the late 16th Century, the Inner Court (Binnenhof) became the seat of the Parliament of the Republic of the United Netherlands. The Hall of Knights (Ridderzaal), built in 1640, has remained the symbol of Dutch democracy until now.

The Prison Gate at the Outer Court (Buitenhof) is the former prison of the Court of Holland, now part of the Hague Historical Museum. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) started his legal career as a 16 year old lawyer in The Hague, since 1607 as an attorney at the court. In these years he wrote his treatise Mare Liberum (Freedom of the Sea, 1609) against the crime of piracy. In 1618 Grotius was locked in the Prison Gate himself as a peace dissident and transferred to the heavily guarded Loevestein castle. His wife Maria Reigersberg managed to let him escape in a book trunk, as immortalized by the 17th century poet Joost van den Vondel:

“One woman is too strong for one thousand men!
O eternal honour of Reigersberg!!”

Grotius’ main work De Jure Belli ac Pacis (On the law of war and peace, 1625), written in exile in Paris, became a guideline for the 19th century pacifist movement. In his spirit, Tobias Asser opened in 1893 the first Hague Conference on Private International Law in the Hall of Truce (Trêveszaal). The work on peace issues started in 1894 at the conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in the Hall of Knights, where the Austrian peace activist Bertha von Suttner was the first woman to enter this male political stronghold. She was also a driving force behind the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 in Palace ‘House in the Woods’ (Huis ten Bosch) and of 1907 in the Hall of Knights.

The main result, the creation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, is still remembered as a ‘Grotian moment’. Thus, on 4 July 1899, the US delegation led a pilgrimage to Grotius’ tomb in the city of Delft. The Peace Palace was opened on 28 August 1913, the day of his death in 1645. At the centenary celebration of 28 August 2013 the Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee (Nobel Peace Prize 2011) spoke in The Hague and Delft in the spirit of Reigersberg and Von Suttner: “It is time for reflection, how do we go back a hundred years, rethink how peace is done.”

Buitenhof 20, 2513 AG, The Hague

In the prestigious Lloyd’s Hall, shipping company Norddeutsche Lloyd sponsored a press centre during the Hague Peace Conference of 1907. Also shipping magnate Albert Ballin actively mediated to avert the disasters of modern naval warfare.

“Can the vast, the boundless sea be the appendage of one kingdom alone?”
_{– Hugo Grotius}

A name shield on the façade of cinema Pathé still refers to the prestigious hotel Des Deux-Villes. The restaurant wing was built in 1904 for hosting the festive diners of the Second Hague Peace Conference in 1907 and the expected future conferences. In the central Art Nouveau hall, the Bremen-based shipping company Norddeutsche Lloyd sponsored a fully equipped press centre, with post office and telegraph connections to Reuters /Associated Press.

A Dutch journalist reported that “a beautifully elaborated miniature of a Lloyd’s ship dominates the room, maps and lists with information about the voyages offered by this company can be found everywhere”. Trained as a lawyer, the German shipping magnate Heinrich Wiegand was not only interested in advertising. The big steamboat lines saw vital interests in strengthening international law, both in the sphere of maritime law, and in restraining modern naval warfare. The maps and shipping lists in Lloyd’s Hall illustrated Hugo Grotius’ principle of Mare Liberum (Freedom of the Sea, 1609): “Can any nation have the right to prevent other nations to communicate with each other?”

Lloyd’s Hall became the sinew centre of the Peace Conference, enabling direct talks between diplomats, journalists and pacifist opinion leaders. The undisputed press campaign leader was William T. Stead, the pioneer of modern investigative journalism and tabloid mass media. Stead’s daily Courrier de la Conférence de la Paix instantly reported the negotiations and side events of the conference. The main result, the consolidation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, was largely due to the pressure of public opinion.

When the conference failed to produce any result in slowing down the naval arms race, Lloyd’s competitor Albert Ballin of the Hamburg-America Line Company (Hapag), actively engaged in mediation. Making use of his exceptional business skills and his close access to German Emperor William II, Ballin tried to prevent the war by bilateral British-German talks. Shortly before his death in 1918, Ballin was still urging the Kaiser to accept US President Wilson’s terms of peace. Hapag-Lloyd (the merger of both companies) still highlights Ballin’s peace diplomacy as part of its company history.

Kettingstraat 16, 2511 AN, The Hague

Apart from the building, no trace is left of the former Oranje-Nassau Hypotheekbank; also the life of its managing director Johan Gerard Daniel Wateler (1857-1927) remains a mystery, except for the fact that he founded the second oldest continuous peace prize after Alfred Nobel.

“The world is over-armed and peace is underfunded”
_{– UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon}

At the height of the First World War, when the award of the Nobel Peace Prize was largely suspended, the Dutch banker Johan Wateler followed the example of the Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel. In 1916 he stipulated in his will that his fortune had to be used as an annual award, sponsoring “private persons or institutions who have notably furthered the cause of peace by word or deed.”

We know hardly anything about Wateler’s life, his career and ideals. The scarce evidence suggests that he was a self-made businessman and a financial wizard. Born in 1857 in a working class district in Amsterdam, Wateler suddenly appeared as managing director of new financial institutions in The Hague: the Zuid-Hollandsche Landbouwcrediet (farm credits) in the 1890’s and the Oranje Nassau Hypotheekbank (mortgage bank) ca. 1900, together with board members from Dutch aristocratic families.

He was a man of many talents, who as a playwright translated romantic poets like Alfred Musset for theatre performances of the Toynbee Society in The Hague (1895). The educational ideals of the Toynbee movement that aimed at social peace between workers and employers, may offer a clue to Wateler’s motives to finance a new peace award.

Wateler had devised a public peace prize to be administered by the Dutch State. However, after his death in 1927, the Dutch government refused to accept this legacy, referring to its official policy of strict neutrality. As a second option, Wateler had indicated that the prize should be entrusted to the Carnegie Foundation, as the owner and manager of the Peace Palace, where the award ceremony has always taken place. The Wateler Peace Prize was first awarded in 1931 to Sir Eric Drummond, Secretary-General of the League of Nations, precursor of the United Nations. From 2004 it was renamed Carnegie-Wateler Peace Prize and given every second year. In 2012 the prize went to War Child, an organization supporting children and young people affected by war.

Contrary to Andrew Carnegie and Alfred Nobel, Johan Wateler has been almost forgotten. Since the centenary celebration of the Peace Palace in 2013, a travelling exhibition of the International Network of Museums for Peace is reviving his memory as the Dutch pioneer of peace philanthropy.

Mandelaplein, 2572 HT, The Hague

In this multicultural neighbourhood, street names still refer to the Dutch and South-African past of ‘Apartheid’. On the Mandela Square, the Islamic primary school Yunus Emre gives an example of peace education against new ethnic segregation lines.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
_{– Nelson Mandela (Nobel Peace Prize 1993)}

The name of Transvaal derives from the independent Dutch-African ‘Boer Republic’ in South-Africa in the 19th century. Immediately after the First Hague Peace Conference, public opinion was shocked by the outbreak of the second ‘Boer War’ (1899-1902) and the introduction of concentration camps by the British (with separate ‘White’ and ‘Black’ camps). Street names honoured leaders like Paul Kruger (1825-1902), the president of Transvaal Republic.

After the Second World War, Kruger was perceived as founder of the racist ‘Apartheid’ system in South Africa. In the 1990s the City Council changed the name of the ‘Boer Square’ (Boerenplein) into Nelson Mandela Square, celebrating the peaceful abolition of Apartheid in South Africa. Mandela, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize of 1993 with Frederik de Klerk, was honoured in 2012 with a statue in the international zone (President Kennedylaan) as the first President of a democratic South Africa.

Today, Transvaal is a multicultural neighbourhood with 90% of migrants of more than a hundred national origins. Like in other big cities, informal social and ethnic-religious separation continues, especially in the field of education. In this particular respect, the Islamic primary school Yunus Emre at the Mandela Square offers an example of nonviolent change. The name of the school refers to the 13th century philosopher and poet Yunus Emre, who is celebrated in many Muslim communities for his legacy of tolerance and compassion:

“Let me receive what I need
The best possible thing
Is to find perfect peace.”

Proceeding from the basic value of Islamic moderation, it aims to be a peaceful school for the children of all ethnic and cultural groups. In practice, priority is given to meet high educational standards, especially in Dutch language, for offering the children a better future.

Peace education is part and parcel of the curriculum, training pupils as mediators for solving disputes in and outside the classroom. The school works together with the Christian and public primary schools in the municipal pilot programme to establish a broad educational zone in the neighbourhood.