In his 'Great Britain’s Great War', Jeremy
Paxman - the man of peace - discussed “the state of the embattled nation, its press, its political,
industrial and social life, its assumptions and priorities" (TheSpectator, 2 November 2013). Paxman also devoted quite some attention to
Belgian refugees.
Although most of the various pages related to atrocity
stories, how they contributed to the war effort to lure the United States into
the conflict (Remember Belgium posters) and to how the Bryce report was
produced, the following section clearly was meant to cover the entire history
of the Belgians in Britain.
"An estimated million Belgians had
fled their country after the German invasion at the beginning of August 1914,
about 100,000 of them to Britain. This was such an influx that at one point the
Home Secretary thought he would have to build great camps to accommodate them,
probably in the south of Ireland. In the short term, public buildings like
Earls Court, Alexandra Palace and the Aldwych skating rink in London were
turned into temporary refuges. Later, there was even an entire Belgian town for
refugee munitions workers near Gateshead, named after the Queen of the Belgians
- 'Elisabethville' - and patrolled by Belgian police. But most of the Belgian
refugees were billeted in British towns and villages, where they were not
necessarily very popular.”
However, more than a million of Belgians
fled to The Netherlands alone. In total more than 1.5 million Belgians sought
refuge in The Netherlands, France and Britain altogether. Admittedly many of
that one million in The Netherlands soon returned or went on to stay in Britain
or France. At the end of July 1917 a census was held among the Belgians in
Britain and 172,298 were counted.
Due to various reasons, trying to specify the
overall number of Belgians that had been in Britain is mere guess work and estimations
differ from 210,000 to 265,000. How long did one have to in Britain to be
considered a Belgian refugee? Was a Belgian soldier convalescing in Britain for
a longer period and employed in the meantime a Belgian in Britain too? And let’s
not go into the difficulty of Belgian surnames, especially when they had been
noted down by several people in a few years only.
Anyway, not only is Paxman’s
figure of 100,000 inaccurate, it is not even a close estimate, in the major
difference between his figure and the effective number lies parts of the
history of the Belgians in Britain.
Listing Earls Court and Alexandra Palace in
parallel does not do credit to what was the real situation either. Many more temporary refuges
had been established and Ally Pally soon became a camp for German POW’s. Earls
Court had its own Belgian police force as well. As Paxman refers to Ice Rinks
and Belgian villages as well, it might very well have included the site of the
Pelabon factory, a Belgian munition factory in Richmond. The main factory hall
later on became the Richmond Ice Rink.
A final note concerns the perception of
reception. Although the relations between host society and guests of the nation
varied widely, a more frequently used phrase to refer to Belgians in Britain
during the First World War is that of ‘spoiled
pets’, which most certainly also includes the initial wave of empathy that
welcomed thousands of Belgians. Everyone wanted one in the house. And no one
thought the conflict would last so long.
Paxman’s inclusion of an insular quote
about these ‘Bloody Belgians’ is funny as well as not entirely accurate.
“Most people agree they are fat, lazy,
greedy, amiable and inclined to take all the benefits heaped on them as a
matter of course,' commented a vicar's daughter near Stroud, in
Gloucestershire. But the fleeing Belgians had brought with them all manner of
horror stories which bolstered Britain's moral cause to such an extent that
some society ladies seem to have decided that a small collection of Belgian
refugees was a positive adornment. 'How are your Belgian atrocities?' they
asked one another.”
For a more intricate analysis of how the British
host society welcomed and accommodated the Belgians during the Great War,
as written by a British author, please see inter alia
Katherine Storr's marvellous "Excluded fromthe Record: Women, Refugees, and Relief, 1914-1929" (Peter Lang, 2009). It has
close to 100 references to Belgian refugees.
Catriona Pennell's "A Kingdom United:Popular Responses to the Outbreak of the First World War in Britain andIreland" (OUP, 2012). It has over 30 references.
