Management of the foreign prisoners of war in the Far East of Russia during the First World War

Abstract

During the First World War, the Russian Far East became a place of forced exile of thousands of prisoners of the war from Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. These extremely massive migration flows, on the one hand, significantly developed the economic life of the Far East region, on the other - to promote the involvement of the eastern edge of Russia in the political life of the country, dramatically revolutionized contingent of the prisoners of war, riveted to the Far East close attention of the foreign powers. Thus, the management of prisoners consisted in cutting off their troops from the general population of the Far East of Russia and sent to the knowingly uninhabitable conditions. By the order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia on August 12, 1914 all the Austrian and German male subjects aged 18 to 45 years old, residing in the territory of the Russian state, capable of bearing arms were considered prisoners of war and the subject to immediate arrest and expulsion from the European part of Russia as the persons inclined to espionage and treason.