Gatrell and Nivet: Refugees and exiles Flashcards
We think of the battle lines in WWI as static. Yet there were refugees. Why?
(1) First, even in the West, the lines were not static at first. So, refugees were fleeing the German invasion of Belgium and Northern France. (2) Second, in the East, there was much movement. Germany occupied Poland and Lithuania, and Russia invaded East Prussia and Turkey. Austria and Bulgaria invaded Serbia. (3) Minorities in multi-ethnic empires might have tried to link up across empires by ethnicity, perhaps undermining mobilization.
What were the three main groups of refugees in the West?
(1) French communities displaced within their own country and in Belgium; (2) Belgians dispersed among France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands; and (3) Italians straddling the Italian/Austro-Hungarian border.
What were some of the reasons French citizens were refugees?
(1) Some were evacuated by French authorities to the interior of France, especially from key defensive points, or in advance of a planned offensive. (2) Others were fleeing the German invasion, and also went to the interior of France. (3) A third category of “refugees” were repatriated from German concentration camps (though probably better to call them internment camps).
Roughly how many French refugees were there?
2 million.
Roughly how many Belgian refugees were there? Was it a long, drawn-out process?
In total, nearly 1.5 million Belgians had left their country in the space of a few weeks, though some returned to avoid a ‘tax on the absent’.
Belgian refugees primarily went to the Netherlands, Great Britain, and France. But where did most go?
France, with 325,000 Belgian refugees at the end of the war.
What were two sources of Italian refugees? Where did they generally end up?
(1) Italian refugees living in Austria-Hungary were evacuated to timber housing in internment camps (2) Some 600,000 Italians from Italy were displaced to other locations in Italy.
Where did most refugees want to settle? Where were many actually settled?
“In general terms, the refugees did not want to go too far from their homes. Staying reasonably near, they hoped to retain a certain margin of freedom to return to their own commune earlier or more easily, definitively or to pick up abandoned possessions, for example during a calm period in military operations. Perhaps they also thought that by remaining close to the front they would have more reliable news about what was happening militarily: going far away from the front was to be deprived of the oral sources of information essential for a rural and still partially illiterate population. The French authorities, however, did not share this wish. They tried to limit demographic pressures in the departments nearest to the front and to send refugees to the interior.” But, if they could not stay close to their homes, they preferred cities over the countryside.
Did the French government subsidize the Belgian refugees the same as the French refugees?
Yes, “As a result, a grant was made available to refugees, with the rate fixed at the same level as that allocated to the wives of mobilised men: 1.25 francs per day for adults, 50 centimes for children. The authorities made no distinction between Belgian and French refugees, and Belgian refugees without resources, like their French equivalents, even benefited from free medical assistance and payment of their pharmaceutical and hospitalisation costs.”
Did the British government provide primary relief to the refugees (mostly from Belgium) there?
No, “in Britain, which had a well-established, dense and active philanthropic network, refugee aid was largely delegated to private initiatives.”
Did the government of the Netherlands provide primary relief to the refugees (mostly from Belgium) there?
Yes, eventually. Early conditions in the first camp were poor (perhaps intentionally so, to avoid attracting too many refugees, whose tales might affect the neutrality of the Netherlands), but conditions improved. “From 1915 to 1918 the state thus assumed the bulk of the financial burden for the care of refugees, to the extent of some 35 million Dutch florins. The sums gathered by private charities remained far less than the investment by public authorities.”
In general, how did the population view the refugees in the West? Why?
At first sympathetically, but later with increasing hostility. (1) “The distribution of grants during the Great War was viewed by some as a novelty open to question, whoever the beneficiaries might be. Already criticised when they were paid to the wives of mobilised men, the grants were viewed even more harshly when they were distributed to refugees,” (2) This is despite the fact that most able-bodied male refugees worked, as well as many women. But then the workers constituted competition in the labor market. (3) Cultural differences. (4) Resentment that the refugees had fled rather than taken up arms in defense.
Were there also German refugees?
Yes, on the Eastern front, when Russia invaded East Prussia in 1914, around 870,000 civilians fled westwards.
Were there also refugees to Austria Hungary?
Yes. 1.5 Million, mostly from Russian-occupied Galicia and Bukovina; but also from Bosnia-Herzegovina, the
Trentino and the South Tyrol. This article also includes not true refugees, but 42,000 Italians, mostly women, children and the elderly, whom the Habsburg authorities sent to internment camps
What about the Serbs?
“Up to half a million civilians … [retreated across mountainous terrain in Kosovo towards the Adriatic coast] to avoid the anticipated consequences of Bulgarian and Habsburg occupation. … This catastrophic displacement of soldiers and civilians directly affected one-third of Serbia’s pre-war population.”
