Austro-Hungarian refugees

Austro-Hungarian refugees

Since the spring of 1915, the Austro-Hungarian Empire found itself struggling on three different fronts: Russia, Serbia and Italy. So most of the border regions were absorbed by the so called "war zone". In addition, between 1914 and 1915, large portions of the Habsburg territory were invaded.

This provoked the escape of 360,000 Jews from the eastern regions (1914, 1915 and 1916), followed by the evacuation of 130,000 Poles from Galicia (1914-1915), 300,000 Ruthenians from Galicia and Bucovina (1914 and 1916), 145,000 Italians from the Litoral and South Tyrol (1915), at least 70 000 Slovenians and 7 000 Croats from the Coast (1915) and 90 000 Bosnians (1914). It is estimated that by mid-1915, 1.1 million people had sought refuge in the central regions of the Empire.

 The vast majority of the evacuees had concentrated in the five central regions of the Austrian half of the Empire (Upper Austria, Lower Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Styria). In some cases, accommodated refugees decided to stay in the "war zone", living without state subsidies. Only a small portion of refugees found refuge in Hungary: about 30,000 Italian-speaking refugees who had been evacuated from the Coast were assigned to Hungary during the summer of 1915 to avoid overpopulation in Austria, and at least 30,000 Jewish refugees from Bucovina and Galicia. fled to Hungary through the Carpathians.

The reasons for the displacement coincided only in some cases with an imminent military danger or humanitarian reasons, and rather reflect the military's fear of the loyalty of the populations living in the border areas. The dominant Ruthenian and Italian classes were, for example, interned in Styria and Upper Austria as political suspects; At the same time, the evacuation of Ukrainian-speaking refugees was accompanied by thousands of summary executions and violence perpetrated by the Austrian army, which feared espionage. In short, the internment measures affected about 6,500 Ruthenians, 700 Poles (both concentrated in the Thalerhof internment camp, Styria), 4,500 Italians (concentrated in the internment camp of Katzenau, Upper Austria and Wagna, Styria) and some Slovenians, Croats and Romanians, scattered in numerous "Internierungsstationen" built in Lower Austria. Serbian political suspects from Bosnia were sent to the Arad, Neszider and Gyöngyös camps in Hungary.

Political suspects were treated as enemy foreigners and separated from refugees in camps or settlement areas. However, military’s fears about the loyalty of peoples living in border regions led to mass evacuations of civilians and worsened the quality of assistance.