The Better Germany in War Time Part 3

MUENDEN, FRIEDBERG, TORGAU, MERSEBERG.

Thirteen British prisoners at Hannover-Munden "said that they were not discriminated against in any way.... All seemed in good spirits." At Friedberg were 13 British officers. "The commandant drew my particular attention to the row of little gardens cared for by the interned, and is much pleased with this feature of the place. He also told me he would like to allow officers to have dogs, but he fears this cannot be done.... The officers' rooms amply exceed all requirements as to housing and equipment.... The dining-rooms are two ... and either room would do credit to a club or hotel of the first cla.s.s." At Torgau "the commandant spoke of the British officers to me in very complimentary terms." At Merseberg "the new food regulations are in force.... No complaints were made to me about the food, and the men appeared to be in good health."

A PENNY BLUE BOOK.

On May 14, 1915, Viscount (then Sir Edward) Grey, writing to Mr. Page (U.S. Amba.s.sador in London), mentioned that His Majesty's Government "have heard with pleasure that there is a distinct disposition on the part of the German authorities to accept suggestions made for the welfare of the prisoners of war." These words gave hope of the development of better feeling and of those "reprisals of good" which many believe to be more constructive than reprisals of frightfulness.

The Penny Blue Book on the treatment of prisoners of war, issued not long after this, was not helpful to these hopes. As regards Germany, this publication consists almost exclusively of the "unofficial information and rumours" which, as Sir Edward Grey stated in February, 1915, His Majesty's Government "trusted did not accurately represent the facts." The result is unfortunate. The Blue Book is limited by its t.i.tle to "the first eight months of the war," and deals almost exclusively with charges brought before the close of 1914, when, as is well known, there was confusion everywhere. The method of arranging the evidence is too much that of an advocate aiming at producing the maximum effect. For example, we read (page 6): "The United States Consul-General at Berlin heard on October 16 that information regarding the treatment of non-commissioned officers and men of the British Army who are prisoners of war in other camps is anxiously awaited at Torgau. 'Rumours of their exposure to the elements, their starvation and their treatment, are rampant all along the line.'" On turning to Misc. 7 (1915) we find that _these last words were not those of the American Consul-General_, but those of an officer interned at Torgau. The American Amba.s.sador, Mr.

Gerard, writes: "It should also be added that, although the British officers at Torgau state that they have heard reports of starvation and ill-treatment of British soldiers in other prisoners' camps, the Emba.s.sy have no reason for believing that this is the case." _This statement is omitted in the Penny Blue Book._

To give the public an idea of the camp at Doberitz quotations are made (page 33) from an article by an anonymous American journalist. An early official report is cited which gives a very different impression, but as it is quoted in quite a different part (page 18) of the Blue Book, the contradiction is only seen on careful examination. On the covers of the two copies of the Blue Book which I have are lists of Foreign Office publications. Amongst these (see pages 9, 10) is Miscel. No. 11 (1915) (price 3d.), which contains two official U.S. reports on Doberitz, one by Mr. Jackson, the other by Mr. Lithgow Osborne, both of them entirely favourable. No hint of the existence of these reports (received on April 10 and April 24 respectively) is given in the body of the Penny Blue Book. As regards British camps, the only evidence cited is the report made by Mr. Chandler Hale of the U.S. Emba.s.sy after the riot at Douglas in November, 1914.

I am fully aware that the sufferings of prisoners of war, as of soldiers in the field, cannot be adequately presented in official reports, but the sifting of more human and biased evidence is an extremely difficult task, and it is sufficiently plain that we should not rely on official evidence to exculpate ourselves, while using rumours and unofficial information to condemn the enemy.

There are very many prison camps in Germany, and their individual tone must depend enormously upon the aims and efforts of the commandant in charge. A mistake of appointment, almost a slip of the pen, and a man may be in charge who will make life unendurable as only unlimited authority can.

The words used by Lord Newton in the House of Lords on July 31, 1917, are noteworthy in this connection. One impression he derived from his intercourse with the German delegates at the Hague was that "in spite of the German power of centralisation, Berlin headquarters did not know a great deal of what was going on. As the Germans had thirty times as many prisoners as we had, it would be surprising if they did know what went on." (_Daily News_, August 1, 1917.)

A PRISONER IN AUSTRIA.

Here is an account of a British member of Parliament, a prisoner in Austria:

Captain A. Stanley Wilson, M.P., who is a prisoner of war in Austria, has written the following letter to Colonel Duncombe, chairman of the Holderness Conservative a.s.sociation, here:

"I am a prisoner of war, and with only one hope-that the war will be over soon. I was taken off a Greek steamer by a submarine on December 6. After two nights and a day on board I was brought here. I must not give any details. Colonel Napier was also taken prisoner, and we are together.

Fortunately I have in him a capital companion who can speak German very well.

I am afraid it will be a very long time before I see my const.i.tuents. I wish them all a happy new year and hope that during next year I may meet them again. The outlook for me is not very bright, but I intend to do my best to be cheerful. Up to the present we have been very well treated.

We had some most exciting experiences in the submarine. The officers on board treated us as though we were their guests and not their prisoners. We have as companions two French officers who were made prisoners the day before us, their submarine having run ash.o.r.e."-_Manchester Guardian_,

January 10, 1916.

Captain Wilson (an able-bodied prisoner) has since been unconditionally released.

THE FOOD QUESTION.

The report already given makes it clear that very similar complaints, or (as Mr. Jackson puts it [page 16]) complaints that were "exact counterparts" as to food, have often been made on both sides. It is also plain that complaints on this score in German camps have been by no means universal. I do not in the least suppose that the food in general would be satisfying or other than dreadfully monotonous. ("Oft recht eintonig," says Professor Stange quite frankly in his interesting pamphlet on Gottingen camp.) Loss of appet.i.te, depression, indigestion will then in many cases produce grave physical trouble. All this may occur and does occur, without anything like a deliberate attempt at starvation. British born wives of interned Germans would sometimes, even before the reduction of rations, speak bitterly of their husbands'

needs. An anti-English journalist might have used such complaints to charge us with starvation. But even perfectly _bona fide_ complaints need indicate only monotony, loss of robustness, and consequent physical (and mental) ills-and indeed the tragedy of these things may become terribly dark. It is, however, something very different from deliberate starvation.

In any comparison between the two sides it is only fair to take into account the special difficulties of the German case. The number of prisoners in Germany by August, 1915, was probably over one million.

This is an enormous figure. While Great Britain and her Allies have tried to prevent food from reaching Germany, the drain upon the German food stock has continually grown as the number of prisoners has increased. By the end of 1917 this famished country had to support probably more than two million extra persons. The French Press long ago frankly regarded this as one of the means of helping towards the starving out of Germany, while in an American cartoon the Russian prisoners were figured as an enormous beast with its head in a cupboard labelled "Germany's Food Supply." These are considerations for the fair-minded, and it is for them to recall that as soon as there was in our own case a menace of food shortage, there was also what might in official language be described as a complete revision of the prisoners'

rations. The prisoners' own language would very likely describe it differently. We can scarcely be surprised at sad and even very bitter words at times from prisoners' wives.

That prisoners themselves are, however, sometimes able to envisage the difficulties is indicated by the following extract from a _Daily News_ interview with a corporal repatriated from Munster. He commented on the fact that some men were the recipients of more parcels than they needed, while others got none. The interview continues:

You see, without regular parcels from home a man simply starves at a camp like Munster. If the Germans had the food I believe they would give it, but they haven't: they are starving themselves.[3] All they allowed us was bread and water and thin soup. The consequence is that the men who get no parcels have to go round begging from the other chaps just to keep body and soul together.

From what I saw of it, getting so much while others get nothing isn't good for a man either. Some fellows-the stingy sort-will save up their parcels against a rainy day. Make a regular little store they will. Others-the lively sort-sell what they have over to the unlucky ones, and spend their time gambling with the few marks they make. Poor devils! You can't blame them!

The word "starvation" has been, and is here, too freely, if very naturally, used. The remarks of Lord Newton, speaking in the House of Lords on May 31, 1916, are important in this connection:

If Lord Beresford was accurate in his a.s.sumption that prisoners of war would literally starve to death if parcels did not arrive, hundreds of thousands of prisoners would be dead already. Russian prisoners, of whom there were over a million in Germany, received no parcels at all, and if it was impossible to exist upon the food supplied by the Germans, these men would literally have died like flies.... Lord Beresford and other n.o.ble lords had been rather p.r.o.ne to ignore the fact that Germany was a blockaded country. It was common knowledge that there was a general scarcity of food throughout Germany, and, if the prisoners did not get as much as they ought to have, in all probability the vast majority of the German population was in a state of comparative hunger.... He could not see what advantage there was in making out that the case of our prisoners was worse than it really was, and it seemed to him little short of an act of cruelty to the relations of these unfortunate men to lead them to suppose that our men were not only in a state of misery, but in a state of starvation.-(_Morning Post_, June 1, 1916).

There is no question either that nerve strain and monotony accentuate the critical att.i.tude towards food. Here is an extract from Mr.

Jackson's report on Senne (September 11, 1915): "There were some complaints, as usual, in regard to the food. I had arrived in the camp just after the midday meal was served, and while some of the men said that the meat had been bad, and they wished that I had an opportunity to taste it, others said that the meat had been particularly good, because the officers had heard that I was coming. None of them knew that I had actually eaten a plate of their soup and had found it excellent, both palatable and nutritious, and that my visit to this particular camp had not been announced in advance. The menu for the day had been made out at the beginning of the week, and could not have been changed after my presence in the camp was known, and I had a bowl of the soup which was left over after the prisoners had been served." (Miscel. 19 [1915], page 41.)

It is sometimes forgotten that complaints as to food are frequent in all inst.i.tutions, schools, colleges, workhouses, hospitals, etc. I have before me a recent letter from an Englishman in a consumptive sanatorium in his own country: "I exist as best I can, and the less said about it the better. I am no better, and only glad that I am not worse. I at least don't feel so ill as I did a week ago, although I have lost 3 lbs. since then. The food is atrocious, and my appet.i.te small. The fellows here buy quite two-thirds of what they eat, otherwise they too would lose in weight. No good comes of making complaints ... nothing is ever done." Things _may_ be so, I am not a great believer in inst.i.tutions, but certainly independent investigation is needed to warrant any conclusion. The same I feel to be the case as to complaints of feeding, whether in British or German camps.

Each side, too, is also unreasonably certain of its own justice and of the injustice of the others. Thus the Social Democrat, Herr Stucklen, speaking in the Reichstag debate of June 6, 1916, said: "I have received a letter about the treatment of our prisoners in France which says, 'If pigs were so fed by us they would go on hunger strike.' But I do not wish our Government to exercise reprisals, which, after all, could only hit the innocent." [_Cambridge Magazine_, August 26, 1916, Supplement "Prisoners." An important supplement for those who wish to get a glimpse (it is no more than a glimpse) of recriminations made by others as to treatment of prisoners.] It is odd how exactly the same phrases occur on both sides. Thus a private at Doberitz, according to the unknown American journalist referred to on pages 5 and 25, relieved his feelings as to the German food with the words: "I 'ad a sow. And even she wouldn't eat skilly."

To suit the tastes of all the different nationalities would at any time be difficult; under war conditions it is impossible. Professor Stange relates how the hostess of some Russian working prisoners thought to give them a specially good meal of meat. The result, however, was less bulky than a soup, and the Russian comment on this occasion was, "Mother good, eating not good." ("Das Gefangenen-Lager in Gottingen," page 9.)

A PRISONER'S REPORT.

A serious and responsible statement of experiences has been made by Chaplain Benjamin O'Rorke, M.A., in his little book, "In the Hands of the Enemy." I commend the book to the notice of those who wish for a fair statement by a patriot who has actual experience of a good many German camps in the early days of the war. As he was taken prisoner in August, 1914, his experiences belong to the time before the improvements introduced in all countries had been begun. There are callous episodes, for instance, one of revolting caddishness of an orderly standing by without offering help when an invalid officer is struggling to tie up his bootlace. Military bounce, popular vulgarity, hards.h.i.+ps, homesickness, courage-all these things one may read of, but the incidents which some journalists revel in are to seek. It was a neutral journalist, we should remember, who sent to a German paper a wonderful account of the panic fears and regulations of London under the Zeppelin menace.

Chaplain O'Rorke's reminiscences give us a good many "facts towards fellows.h.i.+p." Let us select a few. Even the unpleasant ones may help us, where they show that the failings of the others are the same as our own.

The prisoners were taken to Germany from Landrecies.

THE CREDULITY OF HATE.

At Aachen a hostile demonstration took place at our expense.

There happened to be a German troop train in the station at the time. A soldier of our escort displayed a specimen of the British soldier's knife, holding it up with the marline-spike open, and declared that this was the deadly instrument which British medical officers had been using to gouge out the eyes of the wounded Germans who had fallen into their vindictive hands!

From the knife he pointed to the medical officers sitting placidly in the train, as much as to say. "And these are some of the culprits." [It is not surprising that thus monstrously misinformed, and ready to believe all evil against the hated English, the soldiers] strained like bloodhounds on the leash.

"Out with them!" said their irate colonel, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder to the carriages in which these blood-thirsty British officers sat. The colonel, however, did not wait to see his behest carried out, and a very gentlemanly German subaltern quietly urged his men to get back to their train and leave us alone. The only daggers that pierced us were the eyes of a couple of priests, a few women and boys, who appeared to be shocked beyond words that even a clergyman was amongst such wicked men.

I have quoted this pa.s.sage as I have not the least wish to give a merely _couleur de rose_ picture of the situation. Human nature is, I fear, everywhere very much the same, and, once its pa.s.sions are aroused, extremely credulous of evil against its opponents. Only one thing in the account a little surprises me, and that is the colonel's order. If the officer was a colonel, would a subaltern be able quietly to countermand his orders? Is there not some mistake of rank here, or perhaps a misunderstanding of an angry exclamation?

TORGAU.

The populace at Torgau called them swine with variations-all of which, alas, is exactly what has been done, in some cases, by the populace on our side too. At Torgau "the Commandant was a Prussian reservist officer with a long heavy moustache. We were told [by the other prisoners] that he was courteous and considerate in every respect, and that, provided we took care, to salute him whenever we pa.s.sed him, we should find him everything we could reasonably wish." And later, "It was a subject of universal regret when the first Commandant resigned his position."

DOGS.

A great deal has been made of the use of dogs in some prison camps. The following is the account given in Mr. O'Rorke's book (page 41):

As time went on our numbers increased to about 230 British officers, and 800 French officers joined us from Maubeuge, including four generals. One of the latter had been interned in Torgau before, in the 1870 war, and had made good his escape.

The authorities guarded against the recurrence of such an eventuality on the present occasion, their most elaborate precaution being the enlistment of dogs to reinforce their sentries. Their barkings could be heard occasionally by night, but their presence disturbed neither our repose nor our equanimity.

It is worth while to quote from a report made by Dr. Ohnesorg and Mr.

Dresel on Wittenberg in March, 1916:

The police dogs are not now a cause of complaint on the part of the prisoners.-(_Miscel_. 16 [1916] p. 85).