During the First World War between 1914 and 1918, approximately one million Belgians fled across the border to the Netherlands. These refugees were both civilians who were afraid of the war and the alleged atrocities of the Germans, and soldiers who either deserted or were cut off from their army unit.
Contents
German advance
Officially Belgium, like the Netherlands, was a neutral country during the war. By 1904 the news had already leaked out that the Germans had a plan to march through Belgium to reach France. Precautionary measures were taken against this, including the introduction of conscription.
On 4 August 1914 Germany invaded Belgium without a formal declaration of war. Immediately after the invasion a stream of refugees began to head for the Netherlands. On the first day alone 52 Belgian soldiers entered the Netherlands. When, on 10 October 1914, the city of Antwerp fell to the advancing German army, an estimated 40,000 soldiers and 1 million private citizens fled to the Netherlands. Another estimate from E.H. Kossmann and H. Pirenne cites a figure of at least half a million refugees who left Antwerp, of whom hundreds of thousands went to the Netherlands. The fleeing military personnel also contained nearly 1,600 British of the First Royal Naval Brigade, part of the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division, who had been cut off after orders to retreat failed to reach them at the end of the Siege of Antwerp.
Military refugees
According to Hague Convention of 1907, as a neutral land in a time of war the Netherlands was obliged to disarm and intern all military personnel fleeing across its borders.
The first soldiers were accommodated in an empty barracks in Alkmaar. Later, barracks in Amersfoort, Harderwijk, Groningen and Oldebroek were used to intern military personnel. The barracks in Oldebroek was given up again on 1 September 1916. In Alkmaar German soldiers were also accommodated, but because this regularly caused conflict between them and the Belgian soldiers they were moved to Kamp Bergen. To avoid being interned some military personnel attempted to flee to the United Kingdom in civilian clothes. British military personnel from the First Royal Naval Brigade were interned in a camp in Groningen which came to be known as "The English Camp" ("Het Engelse Kamp").
Because most barracks were too small to cope with the stream of military refugees, tent camps were swiftly erected nearby. Nearby to Amersfoort, Camp Zeist was constructed from wooden barracks on the orders of minister of war Nicolaas Bosboom. Officially the camp was called Internment Camp Amersfoort - Military Camp at Zeist. In 1916 the interred military personnel began the construction of a monument to show their appreciation of the hospitality received. The camp later went on to be used as the site of the Scottish Court in the Netherlands used to try those suspected of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on 21 December 1988.
From 1917 separate camps were established for deserters. Additionally, separate villages were built for married soldiers nearby the camps so that their families could live in the area. Some examples of these villages were called: Alberts’ Dorp, Elizabeth-Dorp, Nieuwdorp, Leopold’s Dorp, Heidekamp, Boschkant en Moensdorp. The word "dorp" means "village" in Dutch.
Over the course of time a greater and greater number of interned military personnel were put to work in Dutch businesses, where most Dutch males had had to join the army as part of the conscription effort. In total 46.2% of all military personnel were employed in this manner.
On 11 November 1918 the war ended, but only once the Netherlands had signed the truce agreement could interned military personnel be released and allowed to return home.