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Arnout Hauben travels in the wake of forgotten Belgians who once made a miraculous journey.
Arnout Hauben
Self
Jasper Stoefs
Self
2017
Arnout Hauben and cameraman Jasper start their adventure in Vrasene. There was tension there two centuries ago when the draws were announced for Napoleon's army. Joseph Abbeel's name is also drawn. Because he is very large, he ends up with the carabiniers on horseback. He is there with that elite unit when Napoleon invades Russia. His diary is the sobering account of an exhausting campaign. Because day after day it becomes clearer that the planned triumphal procession turns out completely differently. Arnout and Jasper leave Moscow through the snow. They follow the route of Napoleon's army that retreated defeated. They meet an old colonel with a special story, cross snow-covered battlefields, but warm up again with a warm Cossack welcome.
In the second episode, Arnout jumps into the saddle and travels on horseback through the Mongolian steppe. Along the way he experiences how difficult this journey must have been 750 years ago. This is also evident from the diary of Willem van Rubroek, a monk from French Flanders. At that time, the Mongolian Empire was in full ascendance and also threatened the borders of Europe. The French king orders William to travel to the Mongolian capital Karakorum with a letter for Mangoe Khan, the great leader of the Mongols. Willem was one of the first westerners to travel deep into the Mongolian empire.
In this episode, Arnout and Jasper delve into a forgotten adventure that takes them through the spectacular Rif Mountains in Morocco. With Nicolaes Cleynaerts' diary in hand, they eventually try to reach the city of Fez. Nicolaes was the son of a tanner from Diest who studied at the University of Leuven in the 16th century. He is a real gift for languages. He becomes fascinated by Arabic and absolutely wants to master that language. As a theologian, he believes it will help him bring Christianity and Islam closer together.
In this episode, Arnout and Jasper follow nurse and journalist Alice Bron through the South African countryside. It was there that the Boer War was fought at the end of the nineteenth century. As a young woman in Belgium, Alice Bron often stood up for the working class and fought for the fate of the oppressed. But in 1899 she pushed her boundaries. In Europe there is massive sympathy for the South African Boers in their struggle against the British. A Red Cross relief team is also leaving from Belgium. Alice travels as a nurse and builds a first aid station in a church in Jacobsdal. But the British supremacy is great and the Boer army has to retreat further and further. Risking her own life, Alice accompanies the fleeing Afrikaners to dutifully care for the wounded.
The fifth episode will be a real pain in the ass for Arnout and Jasper. By bike they follow the unlikely journey to Normandy that Etienne Louis describes in his diary. In 1940, three hundred thousand young men fled Belgium after the invasion of the German army. They have all been called up by the government to form a reserve army. Together with his younger brother and three friends, eighteen-year-old Etienne heads to France for military training. From Ghent they cycle hundreds of kilometers and along the way they often come face to face with danger. But Etienne has only one goal in mind: to get his friends and himself safely to Normandy.
Arnout Hauben follows in the footsteps of Pieter-Jan De Smet. This young man from Dendermonde wanted to become a missionary in the young United States in 1821. Arnout and Jasper travel along the 'Oregon trail', an ancient path towards the Rocky Mountains. The young Flemish missionary also walked there almost two hundred years ago on his way to the camp of the Flat-headed Indians. Pieter-Jan bravely braved the adventure, determined to help the Indian tribe out of trouble. Arnout reaches the Plathoofd reserve on foot, by train, but mainly by hitchhiking. Together with the chief, he looks back on a turbulent history and discovers that Pieter-Jan is far from forgotten.
In 1840, Jean-Baptiste used the inheritance of his parents to travel the world. This is how he ends up in Peru, a country full of undiscovered Inca treasures and lush nature. He searches for hundreds of animal and plant species in the rainforest, which he collects and sends to the newly established Natural History Museum in Brussels. The crested wire hummingbird was discovered by Jean-Baptiste and has since been named Discosura Popelarii. Arnout and Jasper use great resources to see the little animal. Jean-Baptiste's diary was lost over time, but fortunately Arnout found notes. In this way he brings a piece of national history back home!
In the last episode, Arnout travels through Ukraine in an old jeep. Where the First World War once raged, he relives the most exciting days in the lives of Oscar and Marcel Thiry. In 1916, the brothers are part of the first armored corps of the Belgian army. King Albert I lends the armored corps to his ally, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. The Belgians fight together with Russian soldiers against the troops of Austria-Hungary and Germany. But the resistance is great and Oscar is wounded and taken to the city of Ternopil. In the tumult of war, both brothers become separated from each other. The clock is ticking for Marcel Thiry: he must find his brother before the advancing Austrian army takes over the entire city.
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