'Feeding A Pauper Army'. War Refugees and Welfare in Britain, 1939-42

An examination of British response to the prospect of refugeesfrom the Low Countries reveals that there was almost no appreciationof their positive potential contribution, either economically,militarily or in terms of propaganda, to the British war effort.On the contrary, the immediate reaction was that they wouldconstitute an enormous social burden. Above all, there was thefear that the ordinary British public were unlikely to respondvery positively to hordes of foreign paupers arriving on theirdoorsteps. The result was a number of intractable planning dilemmasand uneasy compromises, of which the decision to send a largeproportion of the refugees to London, and thus straight intothe path of the Luftwaffe's ferocious bombing campaign, wasthe most outstanding example. At root was an almost obsessiveconcern to avoid giving the impression that refugees were entitledto ‘special’ treatment beyond that accorded to Britishpeople. It was equally evident in the assistance, billeting,and evacuation policies which were subsequently pursued. Thefact that few Allied refugees, in the event, were able to reachthe UK was more than offset by the cause: the shocking collapseof the Allied armies amid accusations of military ineptitude,cowardice and treachery.