ABSTRACT
The Serbian refugees in France during World War One have not been the subject of historical research except in the context of the education of children and students in French schools and universities. The French political, diplomatic or intellectual elite and public opinion referred to the Serbs who had found themselves in France during the war as refugees or, rarely, exiles, often without distinction. The Serbian maritime transport was organised in a rush to save military troops, and the French diplomats in the Balkans didn't have any general instructions concerning Serbian civilians. Among Serbian civilian refugees, more than 3000 were of primary and secondary school age or university age. Some children and students were financed and accompanied by their parents, usually members of the public administration or officers’ families. Serbian bourgeois families and officers’ wives were self-funded refugees who went to Paris or Switzerland to wait for the war to end.
