The American Red Cross Ford, used as a transport throughout Serbia and Montenegro. As Osborn and Fox left Serbia, their Ford, adorned with Red Cross and American flags were granted a free pass through war zones. (MSS 97 Item 56, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware. , Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.)
The German Army entered Skoplje on December 5, 1915, and the situation for Serbian civilians and their international care-takers deteriorated rapidly. American Red Cross workers, Stanley Osborn and Charles Fox, applied for and were granted passes to Sophia and from there onto Paris and eventually New York. The United States had not yet entered the war, so as Americans, Osborn and Fox, were seen as non-enemy non-combatants, whereas their British colleagues were viewed still as non-combatants, but also as enemies. Lady Page was right in thinking that their humanitarian work would protect them from abuse as prisoners, but at the time she did not anticipate that the hostility of the German army would be brought to the doors of her hospital. Of her Bulgarian captors she wrote, “Personally I shall always be grateful to the Bulgarians for their kindness to us, and for the wide liberty they gave us to help the Serbians.” Though there remained a natural antipathy toward the Central Powers, Lady Paget applauded her Bulgarian captors as a group that exercised civility in extraordinary circumstances.
The Germans entered Skoplje on December 5, 1915, and with them, brought an end to the autonomy that the Lady Paget Hospital and American Red Cross had, first under Serbian, then under Bulgarian and Austrian control. (MSS 97 Item 56, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware. , Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.)
Though some tension remained, particularly between the British members of the hospital and the Bulgarians, by December they had an unspoken understanding of their relationship. The Bulgarians assisted the hospital in any way they could to ensure the civilians and soldiers were cared for, and Lady Paget provided them with updates on the care of the wounded and the provisions for the civilian population. The situation changed on December 5, when the first German battalions arrived in Skoplje. Within days of their arrival, Lady Paget was visited by a German officer, who informed her that she and her staff would soon be taken to Austria or Germany and interred for the remainder of the war. This position was in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions, however, because the use of the Conventions were new and untested, the Germans and Bulgarians may have been unaware of their responsibility of a captor under the Conventions to release neutral aid workers. Importantly, the Germans were not recipients of aid,unlike the Bulgarians and Austrians, and therefore likely did not have the same kind of “mutual civility” with the Relief Workers that their counterparts did.
The Lady Paget Hospital’s neutrality was questioned by the German Army, beginning in December, 1915. As tensions rose, she appealed to the Bulgarians, on behalf of her staff, to obtain safe passage back to Britain. (MSS 97 Item 56, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware. , Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.)
Lady Paget, however, invoked the sentiment of the Conventions, jumped into action on behalf of her staff, sending for the Bulgarian Commandant, and telling “him that I recognized the right of the Bulgarians to give orders, as we were their prisoners, but that I refused to leave at the order of the Germans. I said it was time the Bulgarians asserted themselves, took full responsibility of their prisoners, and protected us against further molestation by the Germans.” Within days, a special mission from Sofia, Bulgaria arrived to ensure the safety of the Lady Paget Hospital staff, and a Bulgarian had been placed in charge of the hospital to oversee the international workers, and ensure their safety until they could be removed from Skoplje. Lady Paget’s staff left Skoplje on February 17, and in the meantime, their good relations with the Bulgarians continued, “The relations between our staff and the Bulgarian patients in the hospital, officers and men alike, cordial as they were from the start, had become increasingly so as time went on.” When the order came to remove Lady Paget and her staff from Skoplje, they did so on short notice, fearing that the Germans planned to disrupt their voyage. After a long journey over the Serbian and Bulgarian frontier by ambulance, the Staff were treated as guests of the Bulgarian Red Cross and personally seen to by the Queen of Bulgaria.
Displaced Civilians Negotiating Neutrality
Doctors Beyond Borders: Serbian Relief in 1915 
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