He is about 22 years old in 1812, the young Albert Veld. Drawn to fight in Napoleon’s army, together with about four hundred other boys from Drenthe.
Throughout the Netherlands, some 15,000 to 20,000 (young) men are called up for the campaign to Russia in 1812. The Netherlands has been part of the French Empire for several years. Napoleon’s younger brother – Lodewijk – was proclaimed King of the Kingdom of Holland in 1806. The Netherlands is a vassal state of the French Empire.
Fate decided whether you had to come along. “You have to imagine that those people got together in a local inn,” says Zielstra. A lottery followed and the ‘chosen ones’ had to go along. Albert is one of the unlucky ones. “He then went with a number of his companions on a cart to a military depot in Groningen, where they received a uniform. And then the march to Russia begins.”
Wealthy people can buy off their spot. “For many Drenthians that was just not feasible,” says Zielstra. And therefore also not for Albert, who comes from a family of peat cutters and painters. Zielstra’s documentary is based, among other things, on the book Albert – a draft from Drenthe to Moscow by Will Vening. “But that book is a bit romanticized,” he says. “Yet it is based on real stories, because Albert Veld did exist.” There is a dispute about who he exactly was. One says that he came from the hamlet of Krakeel, the other thinks that he came from near Pesse.
According to Zielstra, that detail does not matter much for the documentary. “The book very vividly describes a number of situations he found himself in. And the fact that the book is romanticized makes it very suitable to provide the historical documentary with a number of dramatized scenes.”
(Watch a teaser for the upcoming movie below. Text continues after the video.)