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‘A Wave on to Our Shores’: The Exile and Resettlement of Refugees from the Western Front, 1914–1918

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2007

PIERRE PURSEIGLE
PIERRE PURSEIGLE*
Affiliation:
Department of French Studies, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT; [email protected].
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Abstract

In the wake of the German invasion of Belgium and France in August 1914, four million persons went into exile. While such a displacement of population testified to a dramatic change in the character of war in western Europe, historiography and collective memory alike have so far concurred in marginalising the experience of refugees during the First World War. This article examines their unprecedented encounter with host communities in France and Great Britain. It demonstrates that the refugees' plight reveals the strengths as well as the tensions inherent in the process of social mobilisation that was inseparable from the First World War.

‘une vague sur nos rivages’: l'exil et l'implantation des réfugiés du front occidental, 1914–1918

L'invasion de la France et de la Belgique par les troupes allemandes en août 1914 jeta près de quatre millions de personnes sur les routes de l'exil. Bien que ce déplacement de population trahisse une transformation du phénomène guerrier, l'historiographie comme la mémoire collective ont jusqu'ici marginalisé l'expérience des réfugiés de la Première Guerre mondiale. Cet article analyse leur rencontre inédite avec les communautés d'accueil en France et en Grande-Bretagne. Il montre comment le sort des réfugiés révèle les forces et les tensions inhérentes au processus de mobilisation sociale entre 1914 et 1918.

‘eine welle an unseren küsten’: exil und wiederansiedlung von flüchtlingen der westfront, 1914–1918

Durch die Invasion deutscher Truppen in Belgien und Frankreichs im August 1914 wurden etwa vier Millionen Menschen entwurzelt. Obwohl diese Vorgänge auf den dramatischen Wandel des Charakters von Kriegen im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert verweisen, haben Erfahrungen von Flüchtlingen des Ersten Weltkriegs in Geschichtswissenschaft und kollektiver Erinnerung bisher nur marginale Bedeutung. Dieser Artikel untersucht die Begegnungen von Flüchtlingen mit ihren französischen und britischen Gastgemeinschaften. Er zeigt auf, wie die Probleme der Flüchtlinge sowohl auf die Stärken als auch auch die Spannungen der gesellschaftlichen Mobilisierung des Ersten Weltkriegs verweist.

Type
Research Article
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 16 , Issue 4: World Wars and Population Displacement in the Twentieth Century , November 2007 , pp. 427 - 444
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1 John, Horne, ed., State, Society, and Mobilisation in Europe during the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 3Google Scholar.

2 John, Horne and Alan, Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

3 In accordance with the most recent discussions of the concept, ‘total war’ is here understood as an ‘ideal type’ à la Weber, insofar as it emphasises specific dimensions of warfare while making possible diachronic and comparative analysis. Stig Förster and Jörg, Nagler, eds., On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification, 1861–1871 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Boemeke, Manfred F., Roger, Chickering and Stig, Förster, eds., Anticipating Total War: The German and American Experiences, 1871–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roger, Chickering and Stig, Förster, eds., Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilisation on the Western Front, 1914–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Roger, Chickering, ed., The Shadows of Total War: Europe, East Asia, and the United States, 1919–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

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5 Recent studies of British public opinion at the outbreak of the war by Adrian Gregory (Pembroke College, Oxford) and Catriona Pennell (Trinity College, Dublin) appear to challenge conventional notions of ‘war enthusiasm’. Echoing the conclusions of historians of France and Germany, their forthcoming studies persuasively argue that boisterous manifestations of patriotism belied the grim resignation and determination that dominated among the British population in August 1914.

6 Peter Cahalan, Belgian Refugee Relief in England during the Great War (New York: Garland, 1982); Peter Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia during World War I (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999); Michael R. Marrus, The Unwanted: European Refugees from the First World War through the Cold War (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002). Recent works by Philippe Nivet in France and Mickaël Amara in Belgium nonetheless testify to a renewal of interest in First World War refugees. See Philippe Nivet, Les réfugiés français de la Grande Guerre, 1914–1920: les ‘Boches du Nord’ (Paris: Economica, 2004).

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11 This figure included those who had fled the provinces and Paris during the German offensive in the spring of 1918 as well as those who had been repatriated through Switzerland.

12 Huber, La population de la France pendant la guerre, 175.

13 Ibid., 172. According to Annette Becker, between 100,000 and 200,000 people had fled Paris before the 1918 Good Friday bombardment. Annette Becker, ‘“La Grosse Bertha” frappe Saint-Gervais’, in La Très Grande Guerre (Paris : Le Monde Éditions,1994), 32. Philippe Nivet suggests that up to 700,000 Parisians left the city in the last year of the war. Nivet, Les réfugiés français de la Grande Guerre, 75.

14 Archives Générales du Royaume de Belgique, Brussels (hereafter AGR), Archives de la guerre, 80/33 Office National Belge du Travail en France/50 Département de la Seine.

15 Ministry of Health, Report on the Work Undertaken by the British Government in the Reception and Care of the Belgian Refugees (London: HM Stationery Office, 1920), 60. The report specifies that those who, along with Belgian nationals, thus formed a ‘truly cosmopolitan congregation’ fell into three subcategories: ‘(1) those driven from their country in a state of complete or partial destitution; (2) those with means who preferred to come to this country rather than endure the German occupation; and (3) those who, too well or, more accurately speaking, too unfavourably known in their own country found it desirable to be known as victims of the war’.

16 Ibid. See especially Appendix 5, 58 ff.

17 According to the Central Register, the urban element was also over-represented, and two towns – Antwerp and Ostend, with less than one-sixteenth of the total population of Belgium – accounted for the origin of one third of the refugees. Ostend, Malines, Termonde, Herstal, Willebroeck, Antwerp and Louvain had the greatest proportion of refugees in respect of their population. See ibid.

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21 Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker, 14–18: Retrouver la guerre (Paris: Gallimard, 2000), 131.

22 Pierre Purseigle, ‘Beyond and Below the Nations. Towards a Comparative History of Local Communities at War’, in Jenny Macleod and Pierre Purseigle, eds., Uncovered Fields. Perspectives in First World War Studies (Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2004), 95–123.

23 Archives Départementales de l'Hérault (hereafter ADH), 2 R 729, Appel du Ministre de l'Intérieur aux maires de France, 1 Dec. 1914.

24 Le Petit Parisien, 17 Aug. 1914; Le Petit Méridional, 2 Sept. 1914; Northampton Independent, 17 Oct. 1914; Bulletin mensuel de l'association amicale des instituteurs et institutrices de l'Hérault, February 1915.

25 Archives de la Préfecture de Police de Paris (hereafter PP), DB 323, ‘Les héros de Dixmude’.

26 PP, DB 323, ‘Vengeons notre beau pays’. All translations of quotations from untranslated sources are by the author.

27 Bulletin mensuel de l'association amicale des instituteurs et institutrices de l'Hérault, February 1915. Indeed, as far away as New Zealand an ally could pronounce, ‘But for these fellows we should already be eating sauerkraut and drinking lager’, AGR, T.533, 9–16.

28 The Times, 10 Sept. 1914; Imperial War Museum, London (hereafter IWM), Essington-Nelson Miss A. 86/48/1.

29 Le Petit Parisien, 31 Aug. 1914.

30 Jay, M. Winter, ‘Propaganda and the Mobilisation of Consent’, in Hew, Strachan, ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 218Google Scholar; Horne and Kramer, German Atrocities, 291–325. Elaborated in and across Allied nations, the rhetoric of the ‘martyr towns’ gave rise, in France in particular, to a small industry of dedicated propaganda. See Albert, Robida, Les villes martyres, Arras (Paris: E. Baudelot, 1914)Google Scholar; Marius, Vachon, Les villes martyres de France et de Belgique (Paris: Payot, 1915)Google Scholar; Gabriel, Hanotaux, Les villes martyres (Paris: Plon – Revue Hebdomadaire, 1915)Google Scholar; and Marcel Augis's postcards of Arras, Ypres, Reims, Albert, Ramscappelle, Meaux.

31 The Times, 14 Sept. 1914.

32 ADH, 3 R 30, Télégramme du Ministre de l'Intérieur aux préfets, 2 Dec. 1914. See also telegram, 3 Nov. 1914; ADH 2 R 729, Appel du Ministre de l'Intérieur aux maires de France, 1 Dec. 1914.

33 ADH, 3 R 31.

34 Journal Officiel de la République Française, ‘Instructions portant fixation du régime des réfugiés’, 17 Feb. 1918.

35 Bulletin des réfugiés du département du Nord, 24 Nov. 1915.

36 Ibid.

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39 Horne and Kramer, German Atrocities, 175.

40 Le Petit Parisien, 27 Aug. 1914.

41 The Times, 2 Sept. 1914.

42 Le Petit Parisien, 27 Aug. 1914.

43 ‘Poilus’, literally ‘the hairy ones’, was a popular form of endearment referring to the French combatants of the First World War. Ernest Gaubert, ‘Scènes et types de réfugiés (notes d'un sous-préfet)’, in La Revue de Paris, 10, 15 May 1915; Wallon, Une cité belge sur la Tamise; Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale, Nanterre, O 8947 Reports of the Newport (Mon.) Belgian refugees committee, and forty other Belgian refugees committees in Monmouthshire and neighbourhood, 1916; Holloway, William H., Northamptonshire and the Great War (Northampton: Northampton Independent, c. 1920)Google Scholar.

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48 ADH, 2 R 729, Appel du Ministre de l'Intérieur aux maires de France, 1 Dec. 1914.

49 ADH, 10 R 43.

50 Le Petit Méridional, 8 Sept. 1914.

51 Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker, ‘Violence et consentement: la “culture de guerre” du premier conflit mondial’, in Rioux and Sirinelli, Pour une histoire culturelle, 259.

52 Gaubert, ‘Scènes et types de réfugiés’.

53 Cahalan, Belgian refugee relief, 170–1.

54 Reports of the Newport (Mon.) Belgian refugees committee.

55 Le Petit Parisien, 30 Aug. 1914.

56 Varlez, Les Belges en exil, 40; Holloway, Northamptonshire and the Great War, 220.

57 IWM, Essington-Nelson Miss A 86/48/1. Miss Essington-Nelson recorded in a diary her experiences as a CWL volunteer meeting trains at Victoria and Charing Cross stations.

58 The institutional history of the Jewish War Refugees Committees and its relations with the national and governmental agencies is dealt with in Cahalan, Belgian Refugee Relief, 142–9.

59 The Times, 24 March 1919.

60 Report on the Work Undertaken by the British Government, 53.

61 Ibid., 26.

62 Adrian Gregory, Emmanuelle Cronier, Jeffrey Verhey and Pierre Purseigle, ‘Railway Stations: Gateways and Termini for the Metropolitan Experience of War’, in Jay Winter and Jean-Louis Robert, eds., Capital Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin, 1914–1919, Volume 2, A Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007 forthcoming).

63 Le Petit Parisien, 29 Aug. 1914.

64 Ibid.

65 ADH, Par 2267, Bulletin mensuel de l'association amicale des instituteurs et institutrices de l'Hérault, Février 1915.

66 ‘Memorandum (no. 2) for the use of Local Committees for the Care of Belgian Refugees’, in Report on the Work Undertaken by the British Government, 94.

67 In the British case, ministers were happy to leave philanthropy to bear the burden of the support needed by the refugees. See the debate held in the House of Commons on 31 Aug. 1914 and the prime minister's response: ‘We all have the greatest sympathy with these destitute refugees from a country for which we feel so much as we do at this moment, but there is a certain number of funds which are being raised by private action for the purpose, and I would rather wait and see how that works out before answering the Noble Lord's question.’; see also Herbert Samuel's remarks on 9 Sept. Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 9th volume of session 1914, 66, House of Commons Debates, 18 Sept. 1914. For a broader perspective, see Pierre Purseigle, ‘1914–1918: Les combats de l'arrière. Etude comparée des mobilisations sociales en France et en Grande-Bretagne’, in Anne Duménil, Nicolas Beaupré and Christian Ingrao, eds., Experiences de guerre. 1914–1945 (Paris: A. Viénot, 2004).

68 Report on the Work Undertaken by the British Government, 15.

69 National Archives, London MH 8/7; and Cahalan, Belgian refugee relief in England, 86 ff.

70 Report on the Work Undertaken by the British Government, 99.

71 Bulletin des Réfugiés du Nord, 20 Nov. 1915; ADH, 3R33.

72 Bulletin des Réfugiés du Nord, 11 Sept. 1915.

73 Ibid., 5 Feb. and 10 Nov. 1915. For the situation on the metropolitan housing market, see Susanna Magri, ‘Housing’, in Jay Winter and Jean-Louis Robert, eds., Capital Cities at War. London, Paris, Berlin, 1914–1919 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 374–417.

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81 Varlez, Les Belges en exil, 10

82 Gaubert, ‘Scènes et types de réfugiés’, 377.

83 AGR, T 476, Comité officiel belge pour l'Angleterre.

84 Glasgow Herald, 7 Nov. 1917.

85 ‘This invasion has turned London into a city where Allied tongues may be heard everywhere. In omnibuses and trains, in the shops and theatres one sees foreigners and one listens to foreign speech.’ The Times, 10 Sept. 1914.

86 Tony Kushner and Katharine Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide. Global, National and Local Perspectives during the Twentieth Century (London: Cass, 1999), 61.

87 Service Historique de l'Armée de Terre, Vincennes, 16 N 1536 and 7 N 868.

88 See Cardiff Refugee Committee in Report on the Work Undertaken by the British Government in the Reception and Care of the Belgian Refugees.

89 IWM, Essington-Nelson Miss A 86/48/1, unidentified press cutting, probably February 1919.

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91 Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking, 2.

92 Stéphanie Claisse, La mémoire de la guerre 1914–1918 à travers les monuments aux morts des communes d'Etalle, Habay, Léglise et Tintigny (Brussels: AGR, 2002).