Civilians in the combat zone: Allied and German evacuation policies at the Western Front, 1914–1918

Abstract

In autumn 1914, the Western Front stabilized in the middle of some of France’s most populated and industrialized regions. Large population centres, including Nancy, Reims, Arras and the coal-mining region of the Pas-de-Calais were at the heart of the most destructive war that the world had yet seen. Their civilian inhabitants endured artillery bombardments, military occupations by the British, French and German armies, and levels of material privation greater than other sections of the French population. Many fled during the exodus of 1914 and became refugees in the French interior. But others remained in their homes under fire on both sides of the lines, and thus ensured that the Western Front was both a civilian and a military space. These populations that continued to inhabit the battlefield posed significant problems for civilian and military authorities, German and Allied alike. The question of evacuation inevitably arose. This article explores how authorities on both sides of the lines confronted the prospect of civilian evacuations. On the Allied side, tensions arose between humanitarian necessity, the demands of military effectiveness, and the ‘duty’ of civilians to remain in the homes, resisting the enemy like the soldiers in the trenches. By 1918, a compromise of sorts aimed to evacuate vulnerable members of the community while maintaining an economic core in place. Policies on the German side of the lines were quite different, as the ‘duty’ of civilians to remain under fire was not a factor, while desires to maintain civilians in place to prevent Allied shelling sometimes overrode humanitarianism. In both cases, however, authorities displayed a willingness to allow civilians to remain at the front. Mass evacuation policies were largely improvised and only developed gradually, reaching their full extent from the middle of 1917. This ensured that for much of the war, the Western Front remained a combat zone populated by civilians. In discussing the development of official policies, this article demonstrates how, for the first time, the mass evacuation of civilian populations from combat zones emerged as a feature of modern warfare. In doing so, it considers what these evacuation policies tell us about the changing relationship between civilians and war in the twentieth century.