American Refugees

[mstrecker]

Hello All,

I'm beginning work on a new book that is going to focus on Americans trapped in Europe during the Great War. At the war's very beginning thousands of Americans, with the help of Herbert Hoover and other philanthropists, made a mad dash to get home. It's their stories I’m interested in. If anyone knows of any such accounts (the more harrowing the better), I’d love to know about them. Diaries or memoirs are particularly desirable, although I’ve already found one story in newspapers.

I’m not limiting myself to just the war’s beginning. I figure in the two years before the U.S. entered the war and even after that a number of American civilians became unexpectedly trapped in Europe.

Any information on specific sources or where I might find such accounts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark Strecker

markstrecker.com

Author of Smedley D. Butler, USMC (a Marine general who participated in WWI in an important but non-combat role)

[centurion]

Have you read "My Four Years in Germany" published in 1917 by James W Gerard who was the US ambassador to Germany? There is a chapter about the many trains to neutral countries that were organised to evcuate Americans who wanted to leave Germany in 1914. It includes harrowing stories such as the American lady who would only condescend to get on an evacuation ship if she were provided with a state room with en suite facilities - such privations!

[John_Hartley]

In the time between 28 July 1914 and 6 April 1917, would Americans actually be "unexpectedly trapped" in Europe? Presumably they would have had free movement across the continent and, indeed, across the Atlantic (risks from submaries aside). Presumably, after 6 April, they would be "trapped" in the opposing nations.

[mstrecker]

Thanks all for the info. I hadn't heard of "My Four Years in Germany" by James W Gerard, but you can be sure that's on my list of sources to acquire. As for Amercians being "trapped," that is indeed, so far as I can tell, the correct word. After going on a war footing, the banks of many of the belligerents refused to cash checks for Americans, leaving many penniless. Even moving about became problematic: trains and other mass transit were first and foremost for moving troops, leaving civilizations out of luck. In Germany, movement for American men of draft age was particularly difficult; one American said the Germans essentially wanted to conscript him and demanded all sorts of ID before finally letting him go. German authorities claimed to face have a problem of German subjects claiming American citizenship and fleeing the country to avoid conscription.

[Len Trim]

In Max Hastings' Catastrophe he mentions American refugees banding together to buy a steamship to get them home! You might want to check his references for that.

Regards

Len

[Cherchezlafemme]

The New York Times archives are free for browsing (and downloading) up to 1922: http://spiderbites.nytimes.com/

[centurion]

Stephen Leacock a Canadian academic who made the oximoronic combination of being an economist and humourist wrote a piece called "The last man out of Europe", set in his New York club in 1914, In it an American describes his harrowing escape from somewhere in Hungary.

"We went to the bank at Izzl and tried to get them to give us American dollars for Hungarian paper money: We had nothing else"

"And wouldn't they"

"Absolutely refused. They said that they hadn't any"

"By George! I exclaimed, "Isn't war dreadful? What on earth did you do?"

"Took a chance - went across to the railway station to buy our tickets with the Hungarian money"

"Did you get them?"

"Yes they said they'd sell us tickets..."

and the privations

"No sir, I'll never forget that journey to Vienna - nine mortal hours! Nothing to eat, not a bite except in the middle of the day when they managed to hitch on a dining car for a while. And they warned everybody that the dining car was only on for an hour and a half!"

And so on. Published in Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy in 1915

The impression is that a lot of Americans made a lot of fuss over very little. When one considers the plight of French and Belgian refugees shelled out of their homes I suspect that this was the case.

[spof]

My Four Years in Germany is readily availabe at archive.org

[centurion]

My Four Years in Germany is readily availabe at archive.org

And via project Guttenberg