Angry Staff Officer is an officer in the Army National Guard and a member of theMilitary Writers Guild. He commissioned as an engineer officer after spending time as an enlisted infantryman. He has done one tour in Afghanistan as part of U.S. and Coalition retrograde operations. With a BA and an MA in history, he currently serves as a full-time Army Historian. The opinions expressed are his alone, and do not reflect those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Turn on any television, radio, or open any internet news site, and you’re bound to see something about Europe’s migrant problem. The problem with Europe’s migrant problem is that they don’t have migrants: they have refugees. For hundreds of years, those fleeing the violence and persecution of war have been referred to as refugees, i.e., seeing a place of refuge from conflict. Those seeking desperately to make new lives outside the horrors and atrocities of Iraq, Syria, and Libya are exactly that. Displaced by war, mourning the loss of family and friends, they join the ranks of millions of people across the world and throughout history who had fled from conflict.

The problem with Europe’s migrant problem is that they don’t have migrants: they have refugees.

That the West persists in calling these refugees “migrants,” does two things. One, it makes it a matter of politics, race, and ethnicity rather than one of humanity. The term makes them seem needy and entitled rather than in need of aid. Two, it refuses to view the conflicts in the Middle East as a global crisis affecting millions of people. With one word, Westerners are erasing any guilt they may have concerning refugees from a humanitarian crisis that the world is largely ignoring.

Belgian refugees prepare to leave Ostend in a trawler on 16 October 1914.

Unknown photographer, 16 October 1914, Oostende, West Flanders, Belgium.

IWM (Q 53340), http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205025691.

Europe is understandably concerned about the flood of refugees, but it is nothing new in their history. A hundred years ago, hundreds of thousands of Belgians left their country as the Germans invaded. Nearly 400,000 ended up in Holland and 200,000 in France. 160,000 Belgians sought refuge in Britain. At first the British welcomed them with open arms, but as the war dragged on, they were more and more viewed with distrust and distaste. When the war ended in 1918, the majority of the Belgians were expelled from Britain.

Half a million Serbs fleeing the armies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire ended up scattered across Corsica, France, Tunisia, and Albania, with perhaps as many as 200,000 dying en route. Nearly 6 million Russians became refugees within their own nation, constantly being shunted from town to town. At the height of the German offensive in France in 1918, 1.8 million French were classified as refugees, overwhelming the interior of France. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were also displaced, and faced a burgeoning anti-antisemitism in Europe. Refugee camps filled with Europeans were a common site in war-torn Europe. Just as common were fears of the displaced persons and what they would do to their host countries.

A group of elderly French refugees are trudging along the road from Merville, following a priest with a bicycle.

Consolé, Armando (Second Lieutenant), 1918–04–12, Merville, Nord, France.

IWM (Q 358), http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205194717.

In perhaps the closest analogy to the refugees seeking safety from Daesh right now, millions of Armenians fled the depredations of Turkish soldiers. The worldwide diaspora is still a heated topic that the Turks do not want to address, a century later. The Armenian plight was helped by countless Western societies because they were viewed as innocent Christians. Today’s refugees have to struggle not only with the trials of being displaced, but also anti-Islamic sentiments throughout Europe.

Armenian children in Baku, 1918 (Image Public Domain)

There are plenty of lessons to be learned from the history of refugees during World War I, some good, some bad. At the bottom of it all lies the basic fact that refugees are human beings in need of assistance. Where it lies within our power to help, we must.