The refugee crisis unleashed in Europe by the First World War was unprecedented in scale, directly affecting at least fourteen million people. This book represents the first attempt to understand the experiences of these people and to establish the political, social and cultural significance of the crisis and its legacy.

Part of the explanation for the scale and severity of the refugee crisis was that non-combatants caught up in the conflict sought to escape to a place of relative safety. However, mass civilian displacement was also a deliberate outcome of wartime mobilisation. The unexpected presence of millions of refugees posed challenging questions about the forms and extent of assistance. How far did governments assume responsibility for emergency relief? What impact did the presence of large numbers of refugees have on host communities? In what ways did refugees respond to their predicament? As Europe once again struggles to come to terms with its responsibilities towards people displaced by war, these questions remain highly pertinent.
Written in an accessible style by experts in the field, Europe on the move will appeal to anyone interested in the First World War period and the contours of Europe's first major refugee crisis.

Peter Gatrell is Professor of Economic History at the University of Manchester

Liubov Zhvanko is Professor of History and Cultural Studies at the O. M. Beketov National University of Urban Economy, Kharkiv

Introduction - Peter Gatrell
1 Population displacement in East Prussia during the First World War - Ruth Leiserowitz
2 'A mass which you could form into whatever you wanted': refugees and state building in Lithuania and Courland, 1914-21 - Klaus Richter
3 Refugees from Polish territories in Russia during the First World War - Mariusz Korzeniowski
4 'Human waves': refugees in Russia, 1914-18 - Irina Belova
5 Ukrainian assistance to refugees during the First World War - Liubov Zhvanko and Oleksiy Nestulya
6 'Cities of barracks': Refugees in the Austrian part of the Habsburg Empire during the First World War - Martina Hermann
7 Between refugees and the state: Hungarian Jewry and the wartime Jewish refugee crisis in Austria-Hungary - Rebekah Klein-PejSová
8 Beyond the borders: displaced persons in the Italian linguistic space during the First World War - Marco Mondini and Francesco Frizzera
9 Belgian refugees during the First World War (France, Britain, Netherlands) - Michaël Amara
10 Citizenship on the move: refugee communities and the state in France, 1914-18 - Alex Dowdall
11 Golgotha: the retreat of the Serbian army and civilians in 1915-16 - Danilo sarenac
12 The refugee question in Bulgaria before, during and after the First World War - Nikolai Vukov
13 From imperial dreams to the refugee problem: population movements during Greece's 'decade of war', 1912-22 - Emilia Salvanou
14 Becoming and unbecoming refugees: the long ordeal of Balkan Muslims, 1912-34 - Ugur Ümit Üngör
Index