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Concentration Camps

or DIS- TRICTS, the terms are in military usage applied to points, contiguous to the scene of intended departure or operations, where troops are appointed to assemble in large force. The object may be an immediate attack on the enemy or CONCEPTION embarkation for the front. During the World War the terms were also applied to the improvised places where war prisoners were confined, and at an earlier date to the camps in which the British collected Boer non-combatants during the war in South Africa (1899- 1902). This is the sense in which the term is popularly used, and it was given a wider application during the rebellion in Cuba against Spanish rule (1896- 1898) when the commanders of the Spanish forces compelled Cuban women and children and other non-combatants to remain within certain fixed boundaries. The idea has been put into practice in most modern campaigns, and concentration camps or districts, where non-combatants were kept out of danger and prevented from interfering with military operations, were established by the American forces in the Philippines during the war with Spain.