4 - War, State of Emergency and Early Measures (1914)

Summary

This chapter opens the second part of the book and is the first of six entirely devoted to the First World War. It concentrates on the early months of the war and examines first of all the spread of the state of emergency throughout Europe and the British Empire. It then, while calculating the number of enemy aliens in the belligerent countries, describes the first measures against enemy aliens adopted by Britain, France, the Russian Empire and Japan on the one hand, and those taken by Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire on the other. It also spells out the diplomatic attempts at protecting enemy aliens, the reactions of the victims of the earliest provisions and the attitudes of the nationalistic public opinion, the spy fever, the spread of fake news and the popular responses to them. By the end of December 1914, each of the early participants in the war had set in motion the mechanism for dealing with enemy aliens. By the same date, the war against them had also become global, ranging from Europe to North America, from Oceania to India or Iran.