Belgian refugees


Following the creation of Belgium as a nation state, Belgian people have sought refuge abroad on several occasions. From the early days of independence and the threat of The Netherlands or France, to two World Wars and the Independence of Congo, Belgians have been on the run themselves, for various reasons, as refugees.

Before 1914

Little England beyond Wales (12th c.)

Part of south Pembrokeshire is sometimes referred to still as 'Little England beyond Wales'. Although Saxons were among the first foreign settlers there, steering the language, quite a few Flemish arrived too. They came after the Norman Conquest. William of Normandy had been married to Mathilda, princess of Flanders and quite a number of Flemish nobles and soldiers had joined William in 1066. Henry I allowed a large number of Flemings to settle across England and Wales, including south Pembrokeshire. This systematic planting of Flemish settlers by Henry I had significant consequences for the people of south Pembrokeshire. Henry II equally sent Flemish people, mainly soldiers and mercenaries, to Pembrokeshire, but to a large extent this operation was driven by the desire to have the warmongering Flemish out of his way. As an increasing number of 'foreigners' settled, the original inhabitants were driven away. It has been called a "process of ethnical cleansing". The Flemish showed a real zest for settling elsewhere, discarding the social fabric that was in place: they were "a brave and robust people, but very hostile to the Welsh and in a perpetual state of conflict with them". The Normans and the Flemish built a line of over 50 castles - most of them earthworks - to protect south Pembrokeshire. This line of castles is known as the Landsker and stretched from Newgale on the west coast to Amroth on the south east coast. In Tenby, a castle and a church was erected for the Flemish colonists. The Flemish were experts in the woollen trade, and this flourished in the area.  Although the initial planting of Flemish was a move by Norman rulers, the influx of Flemings into south Pembrokeshire appeared to be so significant that the Welsh language there was heavily affected and that Flemish allowed for English to become the dominant language in the region. The Landsker line represented a divide in language and custom in Pembrokeshire that remains tangible until today. Until recently, intermarriage between the cultures north or south of the divide had been discouraged: those from the north were Non-conformist, and those from the south were mainly Catholic and Anglican.

Lace-making in Germany (16th c.)

Annaberg-Buchholz is a town in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, in the Ore Mountains, and is the capital of the district of Erzgebirgskreis. Annaberg, together with the neighbouring suburb, Buchholz, is the chief seat of the braid- and lace-making industry in Germany, introduced here by Barbara Uthmann in 1561, and further developed by Belgian refugees, who, driven from their country by the Duke of Alva, settled here in 1590.

First World War

When Germany invaded Belgium on 4 August 1914, after the Belgian authorities had denied German forces free passage through Belgium on their way to Paris, Britain declared war on Germany. This was a direct result of the London Treaty of 1830.

Britain

Because archive material of the hundreds of local Belgian refugee committees is scant and incomplete and because systems of registration were not watertight, it is very difficult to estimate the number of Belgians that sought refuge in Britain during World War I. Estimates vary between 225,000 and 265,000. The estimation does not include the roughly 150,000 Belgian soldiers that took leave in Britain at some point during the war, and an additional 25,000 wounded Belgian soldiers convalescing in Britain. The fullest account is given in Belgian Refugee Relief in England during the Great War by Peter Calahan.

Locations

Because of the tension present already before the First World War and reaching a turning point with the Easter Rising, it is difficult to have Ireland listed here as part of Britain, or not. Given the fact that the story of Belgians in Ireland during the war was a rather different one to those in Britain, not least because the major difference in numbers, Ireland is retained as a separate entity here.
Edith Wharton was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930. Wharton combined her insider's view of America's privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit to write humorous, incisive novels and short stories of social and psychological insight. She was well acquainted with many of her era's other literary and public figures, including Theodore Roosevelt. Helped by her influential connections to the French government, primarily through Walter Berry, she was one of the few foreigners in France allowed to travel to the front lines during the First World War. Wharton described those trips in the series of articles . Throughout the war she worked tirelessly in charitable efforts for refugees and, in 1916 was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in recognition of her commitment to the displaced. The scope of her relief work included setting up workrooms for unemployed Frenchwomen, organizing concerts to provide work for musicians, opening tuberculosis hospitals and founding the American Hostels for Belgian refugees. In 1916 Wharton edited The Book of the Homeless, composed of writings, art, erotica and musical scores by almost every major contemporary European artist. When World War I ended in 1918 she abandoned her fashionable urban address for the delights of the country at the Pavillon Colombe in nearby Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt.

The Netherlands

On 12 October 1920, a memorial was unveiled at Victoria Embankment Gardens. A statue by the Belgian sculptor Victor Rousseau was given to the British nation. Belgium was represented by Princess Clementine of Belgium, several members of the Royal Family and the Belgian Prime Minister Delacroix. The memorial is proof of Belgian gratitude to the people of Britain who had accommodated the Belgians so well during WW1. Representing the British nation was Lord Curzon, the then Foreign Secretary and friend of the Belgian King Albert.
Otto and Ernst Schiff, who had been instrumental in accommodating the Belgian refugees of Jewish origin, became crucial in the reception and accommodation of German exiles in Britain during the latter half of the 1930s.

Second World War

The invasion of Belgium by Nazi Germany started on 10 May 1940 under the codename Fall Gelb as part of the wider invasion of France, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The German invasion triggered a panic amongst Belgian civilians in the path of the advancing German army. By 11 May, the roads leading westwards, away from the fighting, were blocked by refugees, hampering the eastward advance of French and British forces. It is estimated that around two million civilians fled their homes during the campaign. Eventually, the Belgian military held out against German forces for 18 days, against overwhelming odds. On 28 May, forced into a small pocket along the Leie river and after failed attempts to broker a ceasefire on the 27th, the Belgian king and military surrendered unconditionally.
Belgian casualties during the campaign numbered some 6,000 killed and 15,850 wounded. Some 112,500 French and Belgian troops escaped to England via Dunkirk but the majority of the Belgian survivors were made prisoners of war and many were not released until the end of the war. Belgian soldiers served in the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, serving in Belgian-only units as well as in majority-British units. Soldiers from the Belgian Congo fought on the Allied side against the Italians in East Africa.
With the surrender of the Belgian army, the government, led by Hubert Pierlot, fled first to Paris and formed a government in exile in Bordeaux. With the Fall of France, the government transferred to Eaton Square, London.
Unlike in the First World War, when most members of government fled to Le Havre, France, the King stayed in unoccupied Belgium and some other politicians stayed in Britain or the Netherlands, most political leaders sought refuge in London in May 1940. In fact, the Belgian government continued in exile.
In 1940 one of the most pressing concerns facing the Belgian government in exile in London was the situation of Belgian refugees in the United Kingdom. By 1940, at least 15,000 Belgian civilians had arrived in the United Kingdom. Most of them hardly had the chance to take any of their possessions with them. The refugees had originally been dealt with by the British government and in September 1940, pretty much like in December 1914, a Central Service of Refugees was established to provide them with material assistance and to organise employment for Belgians in Britain.
More than a century earlier the Battle of Waterloo had originated a cliché among the British that 'the Belgians ran away at Waterloo'. In the First World War mixed feelings had grown in Britain concerning the Belgian refugee men in Britain that did not join the Belgian army. In 1940 the British public in 1940 was even more sceptical, if not outright hostile to Belgian refugees. The common perception was that Belgium had betrayed the Allies in 1940. A British Mass Observation report noted a "growing feeling against Belgian refugees" in the United Kingdom, closely linked to Leopold III's decision to surrender.
The Belgian government in exile was also thoroughly involved in the provision of social, educational and cultural institutions to Belgian refugees. In 1942, the Belgian authorities in London sponsored the creation of the Belgian Institute in London to entertain the Belgian refugee community in London. By 1943, there were also four Belgian schools in Britain with 330 pupils between them, in Penrith, Braemar, Kingston and Buxton.
The former St Margaret of Antioch's Church building is situated on Cardigan Road, Headingley, West Yorkshire, England, near Burley Park railway station. It is an example of Late Gothic Revival church architecture, and it was built in the first few years of the twentieth century, being consecrated in 1909. It was built in the Parish of Burley to serve the population of the newly built red-brick terrace houses in the area, part of the late Victorian expansion of Leeds. During the 1940s to the 1960s, the church played host to the Orthodox Liturgy and Communion in Slovak, the Polish Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile, as well renting a local house for Belgian refugees during the First World War.
Years after retirement and at the age of 73, Sir William Haldane Porter, a British civil servant who was responsible for the creation of the Aliens Branch of the Home Office, was called back to service to supervise the reception of French and Belgian refugees fleeing in 1940 into British channel ports from their occupied countries. For his services Porter was made an officer of the Order of Leopold of Belgium.
After Leopold's surrender, the British press denounced him as "Traitor King" and "King Rat"; the Daily Mirror published a picture of Leopold with the headline "The Face That Every Woman Now Despises'". A group of Belgian refugees in Paris placed a message at King Albert's statue denouncing his son as "your unworthy successor".

Post-WW2

Cultural resonance of Belgian refugees