All events · The World Wars

The Internment of Enemy Aliens in the First World War

1914–1920 · Europe & Northern Eurasia

Confinement

Confined

800,000

Matthew Stibbe, writing in 1914-1918-Online, records that between 1914 and 1920 the European belligerents interned more than 400,000 enemy aliens, and that counting enemy aliens together with other suspect groups as many as 800,000 civilians in Europe experienced some form of internment during the war and its aftermath, with a further 50,000-100,000 non-combatants interned in the rest of the world. National figures include over 32,000 civilians interned in Britain in 1914-19, German civilian detainees rising from 48,513 in June 1915 to 111,879 in October 1918, about 6,890 interned in Australia, and about 2,300 held as dangerous enemy aliens in the United States. The figures come from national internment administrations and Red Cross inspection records.

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What happened

The First World War produced the first systematic mass internment of civilians by modern states on grounds of nationality. Britain interned over 32,000 German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman civilians, the largest camp being Knockaloe on the Isle of Man, which held over 20,000 men; Germany's civilian detainee population rose to nearly 112,000 by October 1918, including deported Belgian and French civilians. Canada interned 8,579 people under the War Measures Act, the great majority of them Ukrainians and other subjects of Austria-Hungary, and required a further 80,000 to register and report; internees were set to labour in national parks and on railways. Australia interned about 6,890 and deported up to 6,150 in 1919. Naturalised citizens, women and children were caught up in the systems, and many internees lost businesses and homes, with property confiscated or sold under enemy-property legislation. Camps were generally not lethal, but prolonged confinement produced the condition contemporaries called barbed-wire disease. Canada formally acknowledged the injustice of its internment operations and in 2005 established a recognition fund.

Parties

Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Canada, Australia, the United States and others interned resident civilians of enemy nationality and other groups judged suspect

Disputed

Whether internment was a genuine security measure or a response to press-driven public hostility is debated, and the extent to which internees' confiscated property was ever restored is contested in several countries.

The denominator

No aggregate denominator was ever compiled. Internment figures themselves are reasonably well established — Matthew Stibbe and the Internment research literature put the worldwide total of civilians interned at around 800,000 — but the population at risk was made up of enemy-national residents, naturalised subjects and minorities suspected by association, counted differently or not at all in a dozen states with incompatible nationality laws.

Where the baseline comes from

Internment — Wikipediaopen-edited
Civilian internment in the First World War — Wikipediaopen-edited

On the death toll

There was no large death toll in most Allied and Central Power civilian camps; deaths were from illness, accident at forced labour and, in a small number of cases, shooting by guards. Mortality was far higher in Ottoman and Russian internment and among civilians deported into labour by Germany, which are treated in the entries on those events.

Documented forms of violence

Arbitrary DetentionForced LabourDenationalization

Detention without charge on grounds of nationality, compulsory labour in Canadian camps and the confiscation of enemy property are documented in national internment records and summarised by Stibbe and by the Canadian War Museum.

Formal findings

Government of Canada / Parliament of Canada (2005) — Canada acknowledged the injustice of the First World War internment operations, and the Internment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act of 2005 established a fund to commemorate and educate about the internment of 8,579 people under the War Measures Act. — source

Movements mapped

London and British cities -> Knockaloe camp, Isle of Man23,000
Ukrainian and other Austro-Hungarian subjects in Canada -> internment camps including Castle Mountain and Spirit Lake8,579

Countries touched, on present-day borders

Isle of Man, United Kingdom, Canada

Sources

This entry rests only on reference, press or open-edited sources. Treat its figures as indicative and follow the links before relying on them.