Refugees of World War I

Belgian refugees in Roosendaal and Bergen op Zoom, bioscoopjournaal August 1914

The First World War generated population displacements of an unprecedented scale, of more than 12,000,000 civilians, (later exceeded by those of the Second World War which reached 60,000,000).[1] The director of the civil affairs office of the Red Cross wrote at the end of the war that: “There were refugees everywhere. As if the whole world had to move or was waiting to do so”.[2] Refugees were generated throughout all the territories affected the war, from Belgium and France to Italy, Austro-Hungary, Russia and Serbia.[3] Numerous refugees also appeared as a consequence of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire during that period.[4]

  1. ^ Cochet, François; Porte, Rémy (2008). Dictionnaire de la Grande guerre 1914-1918 (in French). Paris: R. Laffont. p. 385. ISBN 978-2-221-10722-5. OCLC 470986430.
  2. ^ La Première Guerre mondiale. Volume III, Sociétés (in French). Jay Murray Winter, Annette Becker, Historial de la Grande guerre. Centre de recherche. Paris: Fayard. 2014. p. 237. ISBN 978-2-213-67895-5. OCLC 895185666.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  3. ^ "Refugees | International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1)". encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net. Retrieved 2022-03-30.
  4. ^ Gatrell, Peter (2008-03-01). "Refugees and Forced Migrants during the First World War". Immigrants & Minorities. 26 (1–2): 82–110. doi:10.1080/02619280802442613. ISSN 0261-9288. S2CID 143755412.