The internment of civilian ‘enemy aliens’ in the British Empire

Investigating civilian internment in the British Empire feeds into a number of new perspectives in First World War studies. The overarching connector of these new perspectives is a recalibration away from the traditional focus on Western battle fronts and military combatants. In November 1918, 91,428 military prisoners of war and 24,522 civilian 'enemy aliens' of German, Austro-Hungarian and Turkish nationality were held in numerous camps on the British Isles. The global perspective has shown that it proves difficult to generalise the experience of internment in the Empire. At the same time, however, this wide perspective allows for a number of observations which cannot necessarily be drawn from approaches which only focus on one camp or overseas territory. Prison camp communities emerged in a variety of ways, especially the celebration of major festival days in the German calendar, including those of a religious nature.