[iii] THE BETTER GERMANY
IN WAR TIME

Being some Facts towards Fellowship.

BY

HAROLD PICTON.

THE NATIONAL LABOUR PRESS, LIMITED,
Manchester and London.

[v] TO THE
BRITISH AND THE GERMAN PEOPLES
AND
IN MEMORY OF
MY MOTHER
WHO KNEW AND LOVED
THEM BOTH.

[ix]CONTENTS

[xi]FOREWORD[1]

One kind of German has been too often described, and not infrequently invented. I propose here to describe the other German. At a military hospital a lady visitor said to the wounded soldiers: “We’ve had lots of books and tales of horror; why don’t some of you fellows prepare a book of the good deeds of the enemy?” There was a slight pause. “Ah,” said one of the soldiers, “that would be a golden book.” Very imperfectly, and in spite of all the barriers raised by war passions, I have tried to collect some of the materials already to hand for such a book.

In any quarrel it is difficult to recognise that there is good in one’s opponent. Yet in order that any strife may be wisely settled, this recognition is plainly necessary. Mere enmity, without recognition of good, belongs to primitive barbarism. It was against the foolish unpracticality of this older barbarism (not surely only against its wickedness) that Christ protested in the words, “But I say unto you, love your enemies.” He saw around him the folly and unenlightenment of the perpetual feud. I have collected the testimonies that are in the following pages because such facts seem to me to need [xii]wider recognition, if we are ever to gain an outlook upon a fairer and a truer world.

If my desire for peace has anywhere shown itself unduly, or in a way irritating to others, I ask forgiveness. Whenever peace is made, the world will need a peace built on all the facts of human nature. I have tried to give here some of those which war passions inevitably obscure. That is the whole of my task.

HAROLD PICTON.

September, 1918.

[1]The Better Germany in War Time

I.
MILITARY PRISONERS.

The cases of bad treatment of prisoners in Germany have been made known very widely. No one, I imagine, can wish to defend bad treatment of prisoners anywhere (even of criminal prisoners), and such a horrible state of things as that of Wittenberg during the typhus epidemic is a disgrace to human nature.

But Mr. Lithgow Osborne says: “My whole impression of the camp authorities at Wittenberg was utterly unlike that which I have received in every other camp I have visited in Germany.” (Miscel. 16, 1916, p. 6). I propose to give some account of these other camps. I shall not exclude adverse criticism, but as the public have heard little but such criticism, I do not think it will be unfair to deal in these pages more fully with the favourable reports.

Letters from Officers and Others.

The following letter from a British Officer appeared in the Times of December 30, 1914. It may well serve as an introduction and a caution:

I would especially call the attention of fair-minded men to the last sentences.

Here is a letter written by Second-Lieut. F. Phillips Pearce (aged 18) of the 2nd Essex Regiment, from Crefeld on October 27, and printed in the Times of November 19, 1914:

On November 25 other letters appeared in the Times. One was from a cavalry subaltern in a German fortress:

A Captain writes:

An English lady wrote early in 1915 from Munich:

Here, too, is a letter from Lieut.-Observer J. E. P. Harvey, an officer of the Bedfordshire Yeomanry, and attached to the Royal Flying Corps:

Miss Colenso gives the following account, which appeared in the Daily News of June 28, 1918:

The writer of “Under the Clock” considers that “well-attested” stories of this kind should be given publicity. It is even more necessary to examine the “attestation” of the other kinds of stories, for all the bias is against the enemy, and demand is apt to create supply.

Merseburg, Dœberitz.

I pass on now to a report made by a United States Official. The American Consul writes from Leipzig under date of November 16, 1914: “On Saturday afternoon, the 14th instant, I visited the military concentration camp near Merseburg, where some 10,000 prisoners of war are interned. The object of my visit was to investigate the claim of a French prisoner that he is an American subject. The result of my observations regarding the welfare and humane treatment of the prisoners at large was a surprise to me.... Separated by nationality, these prisoners [5]are housed in wooden buildings, well built, ventilated and heated.... They sleep upon straw mattresses in well-warmed quarters, and, as far as I could judge, are as well or better housed than labourers upon public works in the United States. The prisoners are fed three times a day. Breakfast consists of coffee and bread. Dinner consists of vegetable and meat, soup and bread, and for supper they are given bread and coffee. I was informed that many of the prisoners have some money, and that they are allowed to buy whatever else they may wish to eat. If I may judge from the mounds of empty beer bottles at hand, there is evidence in support of this statement. The prisoners appeared to be in good health and cheerful, many of them engaging in games and other pastimes.”

The diet described must be frightfully monotonous. Feeding has throughout been one of the German difficulties. “Germany claims to hold 433,000 prisoners of war,” wrote an anonymous American journalist (probably in November, 1914); “the housing and feeding of so great a number must be a tremendous strain upon resources drained by the necessities of war.” The numbers must now exceed two million. The Press article referred to [Misc. No. 7 (1915)] is severe on the misery of camp life, and the verminousness of the men (they were of mixed nationality) in the camp at Döberitz which he visited. (See, however, the further official reports quoted below at p. 9). But the writer does not confine his condemnation to one side. “One hears of battles in which no quarter is granted. There are stories of one side or the other refusing an armistice to permit the other to gather its wounded. Each side is desperately determined to win, and neither is counting the cost. So men must rust in prison camps until the struggle is over.” The monotony in this case seems to have been varied by fights between [6]the prisoners of different nationality, each set considering that the others had not done their part in the war. We need not be contemptuous about that. The monotony of the prisoners’ life must tend to produce the maximum degree of mutual friction. There is absolutely no privacy for the prisoner of war. To be forced to remain, day and night, for months and years in idleness, with a crowd of others, not of one’s own choice is, I believe, one of the psychological factors which make internment (especially to many civilians) decidedly worse than imprisonment in a criminal prison.

Correspondence and Packages.

My next document illustrates the fact that each side makes similar complaints about the other. Telegram received by American Embassy, London, December 23, 1914, 22nd from Berlin Embassy:

There is no doubt that many letters and parcels have not reached German prisoners in England. Lord Robert Cecil has fully allowed this. (Times report. March 11, 1915.) In spite of this, I have no doubt that the British authorities have done their best to expedite delivery. I would suggest that this is probably the case on the other side, too. We shall indeed later come upon some definite statements in support of this view. One frequent cause of the non-arrival of parcels in Germany has been convincingly described by Mr. Ian Malcolm, M.P. (Daily Mail, November 8, 1916, and Reprint):

There will unfortunately, too, be those in every land who will take opportunities for mean thefts. We have all had experience of that during this war, and the following cutting from the Daily News of October 5, 1915, may be given in illustration:

If there are, alas, not a few men who will steal from their comrades, there are not likely to be fewer who will steal from their enemies.

Speaking generally, however, the delivery of parcels on both sides soon became commendably regular. The care shown on the German side is warmly praised by Captain Gilbert Nobbs, who remained quite able to appreciate good deeds even after enduring terrible hardships and hearing worse stories from others. The bad deeds of war, soldiers [8]are able to judge better than civilians. In his book “Englishman, Kamerad,” Captain Nobbs writes:

An acquaintance of my own, a lecturer in a technical school, spoke to me to the same effect. He told me, as an illustration, of a parcel sent to him which had become quite shattered in transit (p.p. 7). The Germans transferred the contents to a sack, and, as he said, the temptation to pilfer the sorely-needed foodstuffs must have been great. My informant also spoke of the very thorough inoculation against disease.

Altdamm.

On December 31, 1914, Mr. Damm reported to Mr. Gerard on the Camp at Altdamm near Stettin. The general arrangement, he remarks, is the same as that of the camp at Stargard on which he had reported previously.

“It appears to me that every effort is being made to treat the prisoners of war as humanely as possible in the two camps I visited. Dry and warm shelter is provided, the food is simple and perhaps monotonous, but of good material and well prepared, sanitary arrangements are good, and the health of the men is carefully looked after.”

Rumours v. Inspection.

But the general inspection of all camps had not yet been agreed to by the German Government, and on February 23, 1915, Sir Edward Grey wrote to Mr. [9]Page (the American Ambassador in London) complaining that no definite replies to his questions were forthcoming. “His Majesty’s Government,” he continues, “have only unofficial information and rumours on the subject to guide them, which they trust do not accurately represent the facts.” The “unofficial information and rumours” had, however, attained wide publicity, and obtained still more later.

The German authorities agreed on March 17, 1915, to general inspection of detention camps and consideration of complaints. The reports now to be cited were made after this date. [Misc. 11 (1915)]. I propose to give examples of almost all the earlier reports, for it was in the earlier stages of the war that there was most difficulty everywhere in providing accommodation for prisoners. We ought not to forget that the earliest reports on our own camps which the British Government have published begin with February, 1916.[2]

Dœberitz.

On March 31 Mr. Jackson reported on the camp at Döberitz, a large camp with between three and four thousand British prisoners. “So far as I could ascertain, British soldiers are called upon to do only their share in fatigue work.... So far as I could ascertain, after inquiry of a number of men, nothing was known as to the stopping of either incoming or outgoing correspondence.... The camp at [10]Döberitz is in a healthy location, and the barracks are new and of a permanent character.... They are at least as good as those used by the Germans at present in the same neighbourhood. As was to be expected a number of men had individual grievances, but there were no general complaints, except with regard to the German character of the food—and those were the exact counterparts of complaints made to me by German prisoners in England.” I have italicised the last clause as it will surely, to a fair-minded man, seem a somewhat important one.

Mr. Lithgow Osborne visited the camp at the same time. He says:

Three Poor Camps.

Mr. Jackson’s reports on Burg bei Magdeburg, Magdeburg and Halle a/d Saale are the most unfavourable. They were all small officers’ camps, Burg containing 75, Magdeburg 30, Halle 50 British officers. There were a few orderlies at each camp.

The chief points are inadequate ventilation, inadequate service for officers and, in the first two, [11]the fact that living rooms were used for all purposes, there being no special mess or recreation rooms. There seemed, however, to be no discrimination against the British.

Gœttingen.

Mr. Page himself reports on Göttingen, where there were about 6,000 prisoners. “The Camp Commandant, Colonel Bogen, has done everything possible to make this a model camp, and he has accomplished a great work. The only complaint is as to the food, the quantity of which, of course, is not under the control of the Commandant, as he is limited to an expenditure of only 60 pfennigs (about 7d.) per day per man.

“Everything was in the most beautiful order. There was a very fine steam laundry and drying room, bath rooms, with hot and cold showers, and the closets, etc., are in a very good condition and scientifically built. There is running water and electricity in the camp. A French barrister of Arras, named Léon Paillet, who was working with the French Red Cross and who, for some reason or other, has been made a prisoner, has done marvellous work in organising libraries, etc.

“I am pleased to say that the professors and pastors in Göttingen have, from the first, taken an interest in this camp, and Professor Stange has done much in helping the lot of the prisoners. The Y.M.C.A. building, erected through the efforts of Mr. A. C. Harte, who for a number of years has been working with the Y.M.C.A. in India, will be a great help to the men in the camp.

“At the opening ceremonies there were speeches by Colonel Bogen, Mr. Harte, and Professor Stange, and then each speech was delivered in English and French by prisoners. These were followed by short speeches by French, English, and Belgian prisoners. Then came a concert by the camp orchestra and the camp [12]singing society, followed by songs and recitations by various prisoners.”

Dr. Ohnesorg reported further on April 22. At that time there were 6,577 prisoners, of whom 1,586 were British. He warmly commends the steam laundry, the steam disinfecting plant, and the hospital. “A spirit of contentment pervaded the camp. The British prisoners were well clothed. I tasted the evening meal, consisting of a vegetable soup, which was very palatable and, I should say, nourishing.... The citizens of Göttingen have taken a great interest in the camp, and some of them, notably Professor Stange, of the University, have given a great deal of their time to the welfare of prisoners and the formation of classes for study amongst them.”

German Help for Prisoners.

The interest taken by prominent Germans in the welfare of prisoners of war is little recognised in this country. The Berlin Committee (of which more will be said later) has received considerable support. At the end of June, 1916, a meeting in support of its work was held at the house of Prince Lichnowsky, former Ambassador in London, who returned specially from the front to preside. The Bishop of Winchester, writing in the Times, tells us that many notable men and women were present, and that at the meeting a collection of 8,000 marks (about £400) was made.

Cologne.

Mr. Michelson visited in April, 1915, the three Cologne hospitals in which wounded British prisoners are lying. He reports as follows:

Crefeld.

At Crefeld Mr. Michelson visited the camp for interned officers. Of these interned 137 were British. The general statements of the Commandant “were afterwards independently confirmed by the one interned British medical officer, Captain Benjamin Johnson, who said that as a physician he had no complaints to make or improvements to suggest. He did, however, complain on the score of being held prisoner, but the Commandant and the German medical officer, and I with them, feel that the presence of a British medical officer in the barracks is desirable.

“The bath room which I saw has a floor space of about 1,500 square feet, one-half of which, drained in the centre, lies under some 20 shower nozzles. There are a couple of porcelain tubs in the other half, and in the centre there is a large stove. Hot and cold water is available. The British officers were enthusiastic in their praise of this room.

“As regards the sleeping rooms, wash rooms and [14]latrines, and their equipment, the general German housing regulations are being fully complied with. I visited a great many sleeping rooms, and in none of them did I find overcrowding, uncleanliness, insufficient light, heat, or equipment.

“The orderlies are housed in stalls in one of the stables, and in their regard, too, the general German housing regulations are being fully complied with. Their quarters looked sufficiently comfortable and clean, and two or three of the orderlies with whom I spoke said that they had no complaints to make, and that they were happy to be interned with, and not apart from their officers. I visited the one building fenced off from the others—also a stable—in which German soldiers are quartered, and I found the accommodation and equipment there to be precisely that furnished to the orderlies. The comparison was, however, somewhat in favour of the orderlies, for the orderlies were fewer in number and less crowded than the soldiers. Although exercise is not compulsory, there is ample space in the central rectangle for out-door games of all sorts and for walking. No appropriate form of exercise, recreation, or amusement is denied the interned, and opportunities for distraction within the barracks lie largely in their own hands. Smoking is freely permitted, and English, French and Russian songs are sung without interference. The walls of one French officer’s room were covered with good-natured caricature drawings. When I asked the Commandant if the interned might not be permitted to go out into the country under guard, he replied that the barracks were too near the frontier for that, and he mentioned that one officer had already escaped and succeeded in getting over the border.”

Food is provided to all officers at the rate of two marks daily. This absorbs the whole of a lieutenant’s pay, and the Commandant recognised the difficulty. But “none of the officers want the present arrangement [15]altered if alteration is to involve a decrease in the quality, quantity, or variety of the food furnished. All of them agree that the food is entirely satisfactory, under the circumstances, and that it is fully worth two marks a day.

“The officers told me that letters and packages were delivered to them with commendable rapidity, and that the Commandant was unfailingly obliging when, for important reasons, any officer needed to send off more than two letters a month.”

Gardelegen, Salzwedel.

Dr. Ohnesorg, of the U.S. Navy, inspected Gardelegen and Salzwedel. Owing to typhus, the former was not completely inspected. Two hundred and twenty-eight British soldiers were interned here. Dr. Ohnesorg remarks that the situation is open, with natural drainage. There was a good and unstinted water supply. “I had a long talk alone with Captain Brown. He spoke well of the camp.” “Work was being rushed on” for the complete eradication of the clothing louse which is the carrier of the infection. “It should be mentioned that the Russian prisoners, who are primarily responsible for the introduction of the disease, are quartered alone, ... but all the prisoners associate with one another in the compound.” At Salzwedel, out of a total of 7,900 prisoners, only 49 were British. The supply of water was unstinted. Shower baths and hot water were available. Each man could have a bath every three days, and the baths were being added to. In the hospital “the English doctor informed me that the medicines and treatment accorded to the sick were good.”

“The majority of the English prisoners complained of not getting enough food and the monotony of the diet. The black bread was another point of protest. I myself was given a sample of the mid-day meal as it [16]came from the kettle. It consisted of a thick soup containing potatoes, beans, and small portions of fish. It was palatable, and I should say nourishing. The prisoners do not do heavy work, their work being police duties, etc. I must add that those whom I saw were well nourished, of good colour, and appeared to be in good physical condition. There were only a half-dozen on the sick list, and, with one exception, they were under treatment for wounds.”

Guestrow, Muenster (Lager), Soltau, Scheuen, Schloss Celle.

Mr. Jackson reported on the first four of these. The Güstrow camp (Mecklenburg) contained about 6,000 prisoners, of whom 300 were British. It is situated in the pine woods, and consists of “solid, newly-built wooden barracks, lighted by electricity and heated.” Washing and bathing facilities were good and the postal department well organised. “Clothing is furnished when required, if asked for.”

“There are several workrooms, and most of the men who have trades can find something to do to occupy their time and can earn a little money.

“Most of the British soldiers spoke of harsh treatment immediately following their capture—at the beginning of the war—and while they were being transported to Germany, and several spoke of their having been handled roughly while in the tents. Others said frankly that most of those who had been treated badly since they came to the camp had done something to deserve it. In any event all admitted that their present treatment was good, and that there was now no discrimination against the British. British soldiers had never been called on to do more than their share of the dirty work about the camp. A party of Russians had always had charge of the latrines, voluntarily, in return for some small compensation. [17]The spirits of the British prisoners seemed good.”

The account of Münster is almost precisely similar—“solidly-built barracks,” “good bathing arrangements,” “well-arranged hospital.” Suggestive of the nervous strain of internment is the following: “Here the relations between the British and Belgians seemed cordial, and the former participated in the recent celebration of King Albert’s birthday, which the French declined to do.”

At Soltau there were about 30,000 prisoners, principally Belgian. Four hundred were British. German control was largely eliminated, but the results in this case do not seem to have been satisfactory.

“In this camp there seemed to be fewer German soldiers on duty than is the rule elsewhere, and practically the whole of its administration is in the hands of the Belgians, who have organised many courses of study (under Belgian professors) and who have a Catholic Church, a theatre, an orchestra, and a choir. The British complained that there is discrimination against them here (apparently more by the Belgians than by the Germans), and that they are not permitted to participate in the administration or to be represented in the kitchen or post office. Complaints were made about the food and the delivery of mail and parcels, and it was said that the Belgians objected to have them join in football games, etc. They also said that they were compelled to do much more than their share of fatigue work in connection with the latrines. All these complaints were brought to the attention of the officer in charge, who promised to investigate them, as apparently but little attention had been paid to such matters so long as there had been no trouble in the camp.”

At Scheuen near Celle a similar difficulty existed. There were 118 British out of a total of 9,000 prisoners. [18]“The British non-commissioned officers muster their men and exercise some general control over them, but the French or Belgian non-commissioned officers are in charge of the barracks and designate the men who are to do fatigue duty. In consequence, it is claimed, British soldiers are detailed to such work more frequently than those of other nationalities. On speaking of this to the Commandant, he promised at once to arrange so that a more fair division of work should be made in the future. Otherwise the men made no complaint with regard to any discrimination against them.”

Zueder Zollhaus, Wahn.

The reports issued in Miscellaneous, No. 14 (1915) continue the inspections and reinspections up to the middle of May. As improvements were continuously being made in the camps, it is scarcely necessary to refer in detail to these further reports. There are reports on fifteen camps for military prisoners. Two of these reports (those on the “working camp” at Züder Zollhaus and Wahn) are unfavourable, thirteen are favourable. At Züder Zollhaus were 2,000 prisoners, of whom 479 were British. The camp was for prisoners who were willing to work on the land. “I was given to understand,” writes Dr. Ohnesorg, “that this camp would only be occupied during the summer months.” The inspector finds the hospital accommodation in this case “very crude.” There were about thirty cases of sickness which should certainly have been removed elsewhere. The morning meal seems very small for the morning’s work. It consists of either soup or coffee with 300 grammes (say 10 oz.) of bread. Altogether it is plain that improvements here were urgently needed. Dr. Ohnesorg, however, says: “All of them (the British prisoners) appeared to be in good physical condition.... The work is not hard, and they are permitted [19]to take it leisurely.... They informed me that their treatment was good, they were not overworked, and practically the only complaint they had to make was that a more substantial meal to begin the day on should be given them.” At Wahn the food was complained of, and the most unpleasant feature is that the Commandant did not seem on good terms with the British.

Blankenburg.

As regards the camp for officers at Blankenburg, Mr. Jackson writes:

There were 110 officers, of whom nine were British.

Senne.

At Sennelager Mr. Osborne reports:

The camps at Sennelager are large ones, and include more than two thousand British prisoners. Games, concerts, and theatrical performances help to pass the time. A play given by French prisoners was entitled: Avant et après la guerre.

[20]Mainz.

Of the officers’ camp at Mainz, Dr. Ohnesorg reports that “The quality and quantity of the food was good and varied.... One and all the British officers spoke in the highest terms of their commanding officer, his kindness and courtesy, and said that they received every privilege which could be afforded them, considering their position.” There were about 700 officers, of whom 25 were British. “If anything,” says the American Consul at Wiesbaden in a later report on Mainz, “I should think the British officers would ... receive almost greater courtesy at the hands of their keepers than those of the other nations.”

General Remarks of Dr. Ohnesorg.

Dr. Ohnesorg appends some general remarks on the camps he visited. In the following quotations I have omitted nothing which is in the nature of adverse criticism:

“On the whole the treatment accorded them is good, but frequent protests were made to me concerning the food—not so much because of its quality, as because of the insufficient quantity and the monotony of the diet. The prisoners, however, appeared to be in good physical condition and well nourished. Appended are various weekly dietary slips. I had an opportunity in various camps to sample either the mid-day or the evening meal. I found them palatable and, I should say, nourishing. Considering the fact that the men have practically no hard work to do, it appears to be sufficient in quantity, each man getting a liberal allowance—probably a litre and a half of food per meal.

“The treatment accorded the sick and wounded prisoners is excellent. They are given every advantage of medicines and treatment, and special food when necessary. A dietary slip of the latter [21]is appended. The same routine, the same food, etc., as in use in German military hospitals, apply for these various hospitals in prison camps.

“I found no discrimination made between prisoners of various nationalities. With the exception of Limburg, the British prisoners are housed with the Russians, French and Belgians, and this is the cause oft-times of complaint on the part of the English, especially if they are under the direct supervision of a non-commissioned officer of another nationality. Some of them stated that the work, i.e., the police duties, etc., largely because of this are not equally and justly divided.

“Every precaution is taken by the authorities against the spread of disease in camp. All the prisoners are vaccinated against smallpox, and are immunised against typhoid and cholera. Certain simple rules against the contraction of disease are posted throughout the camps, and the men are impressed with the importance of personal cleanliness. Baths are obligatory, the facilities affording each man a weekly bath under the showers.

“The water supply in the camps is good. In most of them it is connected with the city supply, and when not, Artesian wells have been sunk on the premises and water thus obtained. Taps are placed throughout the company streets, and the use of water is unstinted.

“As a rule, the prisoners were found to be well clothed, although not all in their own uniforms. Some were in French uniforms, and some in a combination of Russian, French, and British.

“In many of these camps, prisoners are loaned out throughout the country to work upon farms, and, in some cases, in various industries. This is entirely voluntary on the part of the prisoner, and this service is mostly accepted by the French. No British volunteer. These men have a guard over them, are [22]housed and fed by their employer and receive five pfennigs a day in pay. It breaks the monotony of prison life, and many more volunteer than are needed for this work.”

New Regulations.

On April 24, 1915, the Prussian Ministry of War issued a new set of regulations respecting the maintenance of prisoners of war. They show great thoroughness and forethought, but I am afraid the average Englishman would be as unready to believe that they showed genuine good intentions, as the average German would be to believe that favourable regulations issued by the English authorities were really bona fide. Yet, as it seems to me of general interest, I will here give the second regulation: “Self-management as regards catering has already been ordered for military and civilian prisoners’ camps, as this system has been proved far preferable to the employment of contractors. Nearly all the complaints about the food come from camps where contractors are employed.”

Erfurt, Ohrdruf.

It is impossible to do more than make very brief citations from the remaining reports. In no case is the report otherwise than favourable, and the food is described as good.

At Erfurt “the kitchens are clean, and the midday soup (which I tasted) was good”. The British soldiers had no complaint against German officers or soldiers, but “they claimed that the French or Belgian non-commissioned officers caused them to be detailed as members of working parties more frequently than their fellow prisoners of other nationalities.” This reminds us that complaints arise in institutions other than those worked by “enemies.”

At Ohrdruf “a number of men who had been treated [23]for their wounds in the lazaret at Weimar spoke in the highest praise of their treatment by German doctors and nurses.... Some of the British thought (as at Erfurt) that they were detailed to working parties (by French non-commissioned officers) more frequently than the others, but otherwise no complaint was made to me of any discrimination against them.” The British did not like the soup, “but almost without exception they seemed in good physical condition and in good spirits.”

Mr. Gerard’s Comments.

“The food question,” writes Mr. Gerard (U.S. Ambassador at Berlin), “is of course a difficult one in a country where the whole population is put upon a bread ration. Most of the rumours current in England are without foundation or very exaggerated.... No British prisoner needs clothes in Germany ... and I have just learned that British prisoners at Zossen, to whom we sent clothes, shoes, etc., have sold these articles to the French prisoners and are asking for a second supply.”

Muenden, Friedberg, Torgau, Merseberg.

Thirteen British prisoners at Hannover-Münden “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 class.” At Torgau “the commandant spoke of the British officers to me in very complimentary terms.” At Merseberg “the [24]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. Ambassador 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 title 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 [25]interned at Torgau. The American Ambassador, 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 Embassy 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 Döberitz 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 Döberitz, 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. Embassy 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 [26]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 Wilson (an able-bodied prisoner) has since been unconditionally released.

[27]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 eintönig,” says Professor Stange quite frankly in his interesting pamphlet on Göttingen camp.) Loss of appetite, 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 [28]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 Münster. He commented on the fact that some men were the recipients of more parcels than they needed, while others got none. The interview continues:

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:

There is no question either that nerve strain and monotony accentuate the critical attitude 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 institutions, schools, colleges, [30]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 3½ lbs. since then. The food is atrocious, and my appetite 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 institutions, 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 Stücklen, 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 Döberitz, 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 [31]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 Göttingen,” 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, hardships, 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 fellowship.” 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.

I have quoted this passage 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 passions 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 passed 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.”

[33]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):

It is worth while to quote from a report made by Dr. Ohnesorg and Mr. Dresel on Wittenberg in March, 1916:

Dr. Austin in “My Experiences as a German Prisoner” writes:

To return to Chaplain O’Rorke’s narrative: “When we first arrived [the barrack warder] had adopted the rôle of gaoler in his demeanour towards us, but after a while he became civil and deferential, and—when his son was captured in the war—actually sympathetic.” (p. 45.) At Torgau “the meals, though far from sumptuous and not always palatable, were sufficient for our needs.” (p. 43.)

[34]Burg.

At Burg, at the canteen, “we used to treat one another to a whole roll or a cake and a cup of excellent coffee; and, until they were put on the verboten list, to a chop or steak. The serving was done under the direction of a kind, motherly Frau at the one canteen, and by a polite German boy-waiter at the other.... The regular meals seemed to be provided by the proprietor of the larger canteen under contract with the German Government. They were served at 8 a.m., 12 noon and 6-30 p.m. In quality they were superior to the Torgau fare, but in quantity scarcely sufficient in the depth of winter for hungry young men. Still it must be remembered that they cost only 1s. 6d. a day” [out of the daily pay allowed]. Weekly baths were the regulation, but “it was often possible for pushing natures to get an extra bath on other days,” by a method which works all the world over. At Burg “the new Commandant was a tall, well-made, soldierly figure. He had a strong face, curiously resembling an owl.” An amusing little story follows as to the preciseness of the Commandant and Mr. O’Rorke continues: “It is pleasant to add that this new Commandant was in one respect just the man that was needed. From the first day he began to make the place hum, the foul clean, and in time rendered it habitable. Had there been any, he would have made the dust fly, but there was not. Indeed the court was at first almost a bog through which we threaded our way inch deep in mud, and hopped over the pools. All this disappeared in a few weeks under the Commandant’s direction; the swamp was drained and the path widened.” British officials, too, know that the problem of mud in a confined space trodden by thousands of feet is one needing energy for its solution.

The Commandant seems to have had a quality more valuable even than energy—a capacity for learning [35]from those under him. He was a judge by profession, and was at first stern and terrible, as well as thorough. To him the prisoners were as ordinary prisoners, “but in time he learnt to place us in a different category. As for myself, eventually he granted me facilities for carrying on my work outside the Lager, which he might easily have refused, and when, five months later, we parted, it was with a certain measure of mutual cordiality” (p. 74). The Adjutant also learned more cordiality, and adjutants are sometimes prouder of making others feel their authority than commandants are.

Censor Fined by Prisoner.

The Chaplain instituted a system of fines for “unparliamentary expressions.” “Once I had to fine the German censor. He was engaged on a hot day in examining a very large number of packages before distributing them to their owners. He let fall in an unguarded moment the remark that it was a nuisance to have to open so many parcels—specifying the particular kind of nuisance he felt it to be ... but unfortunately I overheard it and he had to pay the penalty. He did so with a good grace.” A touch like this seems to me, personally, to tell more eloquently than many orations how absurd it is to be regarding one another as all monsters who ought to be put out of the world.

Visits Outside Camp.

The hospital accommodation at the camp was very poor, and a lieutenant was sent out to a hospital in the town to have his little finger amputated. Mr. O’Rorke asked for permission to visit him. The Adjutant at once agreed. “It was not long before I presented myself at the office for my escort. I expected a couple of armed soldiers at the least, remembering our reception at the hands of the populace. Instead, my escort consisted of Herr Kost—the [36]friendly censor and interpreter—and a soldier. ‘Are you going to run away?’ asked Herr Kost. I smiled at the futility of such an idea. ‘Then we won’t take a soldier.’ My journey of half an hour to the hospital, my reception there, and my return to the prison were unmarred by any unpleasant incident whatever. The hospital was of the latest and best. Lieut. George had nothing but words of gratitude about the doctors and nurses.”

The Chaplain was allowed to visit the “reprisal prisoners,” those put in solitary confinement owing to the infliction of this penalty on the officers and men of two German submarines. He found them well treated. “The privacy of this little room,” said the Hon. Ivan Hay “is preferable to the liberty and Babel of the Burg dormitories.” The prisoners were specially selected from families of distinction.

Prisoners and Populace.

The other Burg prisoners were afterwards removed to Mainz. “The German Commandant took pity on my loneliness and offered me the privilege of going into the town where and when I liked if I would give my word of honour that I would make no attempt to escape. I agreed to the proposal. We shook hands over it, put it down in writing, and he presented me with a passport for the period of a week.” Mr. O’Rorke, dressed in khaki, was soon the centre of a crowd of about twenty-five boys and girls. But, and this is really worth our noting, “they behaved extraordinarily well, and made no offensive remark.” His followers increased, and he made things worse by giving them sweets! He called upon the German Pastor in order to get rid of them, but even this failed. A long stop at a café did not tire the vigilance of his escort. When he again came out, there they were. “We exchanged smiles and off we started.” A bookseller, whose shop Mr. [37]O’Rorke visited, came to his rescue and dispersed most of the little crowd, but another one gathered later, though again it showed no impoliteness or unfriendliness.

MS. Returned.

It remains to be said that Mr. O’Rorke’s diary was confiscated on his release, but was restored to him by post a few weeks later, marked as having passed the German Censor!

Another Prisoner’s Report.

Another useful little book of reminiscences is that of Mr. L. J. Austin, F.R.C.S., of the British Red Cross, “My Experiences as Prisoner in Germany.” “About ten miles from Namur we suddenly ran into the outposts of the German Army, consisting of a picket of about twenty Uhlans, who examined our papers, obligingly removed the tree from across the road, and allowed us to proceed. Shortly afterwards we were again held up, this time by an officer, who re-examined us all, and again we were allowed to proceed.... Near midday we came to a small village called Maffe, and here we had the misfortune to run straight into the head of the main German Army marching upon Namur.” Detention was, under the circumstances, practically inevitable. The party could scarcely be allowed to motor off with valuable information as to the position of the German Army in their possession. They were indeed suspected of being spies. Said an interpreter: “You know you’ve been incredibly foolish to come anywhere near our forces; you will not be able to return after seeing our Army, but will have to be sent back into Germany. I do not know what will become of you, but you will be treated as gentlemen.” “During the afternoon of the first day an officer of the Motor Cycle Corps who spoke excellent English came in and had a friendly [38]talk with us, and seemed to be inclined to laugh at the position he found us in. We were struck by the familiarity between the privates and some of the officers. For instance, in this particular case, some of the soldiers had practice rides on their officers’ motor-bicycles.” There followed a long interview with Prince Heinrich, the 33rd of Reuss. He was very suspicious, but polite. “Finally His Royal Highness shook hands with us and said: ‘I do not know what will become of you gentlemen, but probably you’ll be sent back to Germany to assist in looking after wounded soldiers of France and Belgium, and possibly English if they are foolish enough to cross the Channel.’” The prolonged detention of Mr. Austin is inexcusable, but there seem to be somewhat inexplicable detentions on both sides. A document handed to the prisoners on their release was to this effect: “The German Government advises the English Government that unless all Red Cross units at present in England are immediately returned, no further exchange of British medical officers can be contemplated.” [Cf. too Miscel. 30 (1916) pp. 2, 36; also International Red Cross Reports, First Series, pp. 18, 19.]

Credulity Once More.

The general experiences of Mr. Austin are very similar to those of Mr. O’Rorke. At Bouvigny “a somewhat offensive non-commissioned officer ... removed all knives that we had and was greatly excited at the presence of the large jack-knife which had been issued to us before we left. These knives carried a long spike, for punching leather and opening tins, and the story has been circulated in Germany that these knives were issued to the troops for the express purpose of gouging out the eyes of the German wounded.” There is something pathetically hopeless about these aspects of human credulity in war-time. When we see the extraordinary nonsense that each [39]side readily believes of the other, we must accept it as something to the credit of human nature that any reasonable treatment of prisoners occurs at all.

Ordinary Humanity.

“Our other personal effects,” the narrative goes on, “including our money, were returned to us.” The doctor’s papers had not been returned by the German officers who originally examined him, and this fact caused many delays and annoyances, but one does not read of any actual ill-treatment. The use of dogs is referred to (see p. 33). The last incident on German territory is thus recorded: “When the Holland train drew in the officer had not returned, but one of our party who spoke German well informed the sergeant that the officers had told us we were to go by this train, and he very obligingly placed us in it after we had taken tickets to the nearest Dutch station, Ozendaal.”

Reports of the International Red Cross.

To me it seems that the Swiss have made some of the finest efforts of the spirit during this war. It is no mean achievement. Some are bound by many ties of friendship to the German people, some to the French. There has, of course, been occasional failure and sheer partisanship, but an utterance such as that of Carl Spitteler is marvellous in its determination to do justice, and in its reverence for the suffering of all the nations. The International Committee of the Red Cross at Geneva has been a centre of kindliness in the midst of carnage. In France and in Germany a committee was, by mutual agreement, established consisting of representatives of the national Red Cross, of the American and Spanish Embassies, and one delegate of the International Committee. These committees arranged that delegates of the International Committee should visit prisoners’ camps in [40]both countries. No such committee existed in Great Britain, but with the consent of the British authorities some camps in this country were visited in January, 1915. (See footnote, page 9.)

German Camps: Food.

In January, 1915, National Councillor A. Eugster was deputed to visit French prisoners in Germany. In general, the Swiss reports[4] give an almost exactly similar impression to those made by the United States. As regards the food, M. Eugster remarks that the sum of 60 pf. (just over 7d.) is allowed daily for the German private, and exactly the same sum for the prisoners. In his second report, made in March, he points out that the food question has become more serious and (as far as his experience goes) complaints are more numerous. He summarises very reasonably the difficulties of the case, especially as regards the bread problem. Prisoners were originally allowed 500 grammes daily, but when the bread rations of the German civilians were reduced from 250 to 200 grammes, some reduction in the prisoners’ allowance was only to be expected, and their ration was fixed at 300 grammes. They would otherwise have been allowed two and a half times as much as the Germans themselves. Potato meal was allowed to make up the quantity, but the result was not good. Writing in March, M. Eugster says: “There are to-day from 750 to 800,000 prisoners in Germany. Allowing 300 grammes per man, this makes a daily consumption of 240,000 kilos. of bread (about 235 tons). This is not a bagatelle at a moment when the importation of cereals is impossible.”[5] By Art. 7 of the Hague rules an arrangement between belligerents as to prisoners should be possible, and Eugster suggests that meal [41]might be sent under neutral care to the camps, and bread baked there under neutral surveillance.

General Result.

M. Eugster’s reports on the individual camps convey almost exactly the same impression as the American reports. At Sennelager the English doctor spoke highly of the treatment of the wounded, and the French doctors readily acknowledges that German wounded and French wounded were treated alike. At Zossen a sculptor was at work in his studio, a painter painted landscapes, a gardener ornamented the grounds, and a musician had his compositions rendered by a choir of 150 to 200 practised singers. It is the best educated prisoners, remarks the deputy, who are the most content. Summarising the impressions of his first tour, Herr Eugster says: “I am glad ... to be able to assert that the French prisoners are humanely treated. In such distracted times errors and mistakes can easily occur, but on the whole one can say that Germany does her duty by her French prisoners.”

It is not surprising to learn that M. Eugster received anonymous letters reviling him for not producing evidence to support the prejudices of the writers. Some readers of this account may indeed be made suspicious by his German name. M. Eugster was fully alive to these suspicions, and he suggested that a German and French Swiss might with advantage visit camps jointly. The suggestion was carried out, and in the third series of visits Dr. de Marval accompanied him. The general evidence is as before.

Vermin.

The Swiss reports are in some respects more outspoken than the American ones. The heading “vermin” occurs in almost all. It requires a special [42]campaign to deal with the lice, but the campaign seems to be carried on with vigour.

Tact.

There is another point. “We must not forget,” writes Eugster, “that to be a prisoner is in itself a very trying fate.” It needs a little contact with prisoners to realise how hard their fate is, and how easily the wrong way with them may produce soured and embittered men. Writing of Halle in May, Eugster and de Marval remark: “The relationship between the Commandant and the prisoners is correct, but without cordiality; the subordinates were often wanting in tact.” I confess it is simple words like these that depress me more than rumours of starvation or bad housing. Anyone knows that authority does not readily become the friend of the fallen. The military manner, even when acquired by Englishmen, is not always pleasant, and the sergeant who bullies his own men is not likely to be more considerate to prisoners. Let us face plain facts in these matters, and remember that all imprisonment is rather terrible, and that all absolute authority (especially among underlings) is apt to become tyrannous. In the prison camps of every nation it is examples of a foolish military officialdom that make for embitterment and degradation; and in these camps, too, it is the tact which comes of true insight, that is doing much for that brotherhood of hearts which is the only way to peace. “These people,” says Eugster in another place, “ought to be treated with tact. They should not be treated as enemy prisoners, but as men and chivalrous adversaries. A little consideration, not costing much, will make a good impression. A friendly word, as from man to man, breaks the ice of discontent, and the chivalrous spirit of the superior is recognised with gratitude.”

To reach this standard we must try to think the best [43]of our adversaries. Charity is something less meagre than justice, and it holds the future of the world in its grasp. In the past we denounced French, Russians, Irish and Boers in turn. It was not denunciation that did much for the future, but the larger-hearted charity which took its place.

Prisoners in France.

M. de Marval reports well of the feeding of prisoners in France. There is the usual difficulty about vermin. The officer prisoners seem, in many ways, to have the worst time. “Their lodging is in general too crowded, badly ventilated, and badly lighted ... and lacking in elementary comforts. They can ... buy ... chairs, tables, blankets, etc.”[6] There was in France, as elsewhere, considerable complaint in the earlier days as to the delivery of parcels. The parcels arrived broken and partly or wholly emptied of their contents. So it was, we may remember, with parcels intended for English prisoners in Germany. The probability is that in both cases imperfect packing was responsible for the damage. (Cf. pp. 6, 8.) In the report just cited, De Marval states that, in general, there has been great improvement in the lodging of the prisoners, and that some bad camps (Vitré, Lorient, Belle-Ile) have been broken up (January, 1915). Here again the reports coincide with those made upon German camps. In all countries the prisoners of war presented at first a problem not readily solved, and great hardships resulted. “Some of the hospitals,” writes M. de Marval, “lack comforts, are not sufficiently roomy, or do not possess the necessary medicaments.” He goes on: “I shall not delay over the retrospective complaints often formulated by prisoners.... Officers who had been injured by the populace or bound during transport and soldiers who had told me of bad treatment were alike [44]pleased to declare that all such things were past.” Here again the report is exactly paralleled by the American report on the German Camps. (Cf. p. 16). “Religious services are in general arranged for the Catholics; it is very difficult to secure ministrations for the Protestants.” “If the officers are often meanly lodged, the same is true of the soldiers. The bedding sometimes leaves much to be desired, the straw in many of the camps is scanty, damp, and pretty often full of lice. The litter is actually being replaced everywhere by straw palliasses. As a support for these an open wooden framework is placed on the beaten ground which is often wet. Those who sleep under tents are subject to bronchitis and rheumatism, those who are in forts or old convents sometimes lack the proper allowance of air.... Though the quality of the water leaves something to be desired, it is supplied filtered and boiled, and in amount generally sufficient.... In some camps there is not enough water for washing either the person or clothing.... In general each man has a blanket, but it is very small and often much worn; some are still needed in some of the camps.... If I have not referred to certain regrettable incidents of which I have been told, it is because they appear isolated, and one must guard against generalising from them. Besides, these incidents are bygones and few in number.” At Fougères (Brittany) “the beds are touching each other.” Cassabianda was a bad camp. So much has been made of earlier defects in German camps that it is well to remember (as indeed the above report shows) that defects may easily occur in other countries besides Germany. Of Cassabianda (February 12)[7] we read: “Huts extremely dilapidated. Sanitary accommodation worse than scanty. (Les W.—C. sont plus que sommaires). Nourishment scarcely sufficient for those who are working.... The cooking arrangements are worse than scanty.... [45]Sleeping accommodation extraordinary: beds made from boughs by prisoners and superposed in two or three tiers. The ceilings and windows are falling in ruins.... Wishes of the prisoners—to have more to eat.... A very poor camp (dépôt très médiocre), but well governed by a good and conscientious commandant who is badly seconded by his officers. It is a difficult task to render habitable premises that are falling into ruins.” I am quite sure that none of us would impute ill intent to the French authorities. We should say simply that the prisoner problem was at first beyond their power, that in exceptional cases there were bad officers and in others lack of organisation. If we are capable of fair play, we shall, in many cases, say exactly the same thing about the German authorities. In Germany the one outstanding question is food, otherwise, as M.M. de Marval and Eugster state in a joint report issued in May: “We fully recognise the excellent arrangement and perfect organisation, thought out to the smallest detail, and the admirable administration of the Camps.”

Later U.S. Reports.

It is allowed by all investigators that camps almost everywhere have been improved as the war went on. Mr. Gerard himself writes, under date June 10, 1915: “It is generally admitted that conditions in the camps are constantly improving, and no good can be attained by the investigations of complaints based upon reports of conditions as they are supposed to have been several months ago.” In citing the earlier U.S. and Swiss reports I have therefore by no means exaggerated the facts favourable to German treatment. There have been many later reports, but it will be impossible and unnecessary to give more than a few references:

The reports in Miscel. No. 15 (1915) give a quite favourable account of the German efforts on behalf of the prisoners. Canadian officers at Bischofswerda, [46]however, complained of their treatment on the way from the front. They said that “they were at first compelled to share their compartments with French Algerian (black) soldiers, but that other arrangements were made by a German officer in the course of their journey.” Some may consider this an interesting comment on the employment of Algerian and other native troops.

Hunger During Transport.

The Canadian officers also said “that while on the road they had received but little food, their treatment not differing, however, from that of other prisoners.” On reading this I could not help recalling a Daily News interview headed “The Blue Ladies: Good work at the Free Buffet at Euston.” (June 24, 1916.) “We have just had the escort of some German prisoners in,” said one of the ladies. “We do not give anything to the prisoners. We have enough to do to look after our own men.” I recalled, too, the British nurse who said in my presence, with a snap of her fingers, “We have not that much sympathy with the German wounded.” I want to believe that in the great majority of cases the attitude on both sides is very different; but what a sundering influence war-like patriotism is! We must surely reach brotherhood by some other way.

Friedrichsfeld.

Mr. Michelson reports highly of the camp at Friedrichsfeld. All kinds of work was going on. “No German foreman were to be seen, and only on looking for them did I notice that there were, here and there, guards watching the prisoners. In two instances I saw unguarded prisoners at work.” Some wounded at Magdeburg “all, without exception, said [47]they had been treated with great consideration while being transported from the front.” (June 3, 1915). The hospital treatment is spoken well of both here and at the base hospital at Isighem, W. Flanders, visited by Dr. Ohnesorg.

Organisation and Reciprocity.

I pass on to Miscel. No. 19 (1915). Writing in June, Mr. Gerard gives an interesting account of the courses of instruction and lectures arranged for German N.C.O.’s and men in order to increase their efficiency in managing the camp kitchens. There is a characteristic touch of German thoroughness in the scheme. Mr. Gerard concludes: “I should be glad to have you bring the foregoing to the attention of the British Government. The German military authorities have now satisfied themselves that German prisoners in England are being treated as well as the conditions admit (except with regard to the confinement on board ships, which is still a sore point), and they are showing every disposition to treat British prisoners (both officers and men) in the most favourable manner possible, and to pay attention to their wishes in so far as can be done consistently with the principle that all the prisoners (of whom there are considerably more than one million) must be treated in practically the same manner.”

Lazarets.

Writing from Hamburg, the American Consul-General, Mr. Morgan, says: “It is not necessary for me to enter into the details of the different lazarets which I visited, beyond stating that they are all in the most up-to-date condition, and everything is being done for the wounded that could be done anywhere.” At the Paderborn lazarets, “Some of the men said to me that it would be necessary to drive them away (that they would make no attempt to escape) because they were so well cared for and so comfortable.” [48](p. 40, l.c.) At the Wesel lazarets, “Many of (the British) were very uncomfortable from their wounds, but all replied that their present treatment, as well as that which they had received at the front, and on the way from the front, was, and had been, entirely satisfactory.... All those consulted in regard to the matter said that they had come from the front in a German lazaret train, together with German wounded, and that, as nearly as they could tell, they had received exactly similar treatment and care as accorded to the German wounded. Their only request was for books and tobacco.” (October 26, 1915.)

A Difficulty.

At Neubrandenburg, “until a few days ago the officers were permitted to use a tennis court outside the enclosure, to swim in the lake, and to walk in the neighbouring woods. As four officers (one Englishman) made an attempt to escape (from the bath house) these privileges were temporarily suspended, but I was told by the Commandant, whose relations with the prisoners are of the best, that they would be restored at an early date.”

The excellence of the bathing facilities at the officers’ camp, Friedberg, is commented on, as it frequently is in other cases. At Giessen, Dr. Ohnesorg spoke with many prisoners who had had experience of working camps. “They said (the work) was not hard, and before being allotted to these various working camps, they underwent a thorough medical examination, and those who were found in an unfit physical condition were not detailed for this work. They are fed and housed by their employer, and in one instance I met a complaint of insufficient food.”

Some Officer Camps.

At Bad Blenhorst a number of prisoner officers are taking the “cure” under a German military surgeon. [49]At Clausthal “the situation of the camp is ideal, being placed in the midst of the Hartz mountains, with a wide expanse of view, and my visit gave me a very favourable impression in general.” At Cüstrin “The German officers treat the prisoners like unfortunate comrades.” At Bischofswerda the complaints were that “shorts” were forbidden for football, and that baths were not allowed more than once daily. The Commandant promised to remedy both grievances. The report on Halle is unfavourable. There was overcrowding, and “the enclosure for exercise leaves much to be desired.” The food was not complained of, except as regards monotony.[8]

Kœnigsbrueck, Zwickau, Görlitz.

Königsbrück, a camp for 15,000 prisoners (but with only three British), “is complete in all respects, and adheres to a high standard in regard to the kitchens, theatre, washing-places, canteens, supply-room for clothing, etc.” Zwickau (with two British) “is excellent ... outside each barrack is a specially built stand where the mattresses are aired every day ... and within the confines of the camp are several acres of vegetable gardens ... in which the French take particular interest.” The arrangements at Görlitz (with thirteen British) “in all details struck me as being exceedingly good.” In general hospital treatment at the camps is entirely satisfactory.

Schloss Celle, Wittenberg, Stendal, Food.

In Miscel. No. 16 (1916) we may note the following: At the officers’ camp, Schloss Celle, “the Commandant in civil life is a judge, and seemed on excellent terms with the prisoners.” Mr. Gerard [50]reports on a visit of his own to Wittenberg on November 8, 1915. The soup for the mid-day meal appeared to him “to be very good,” and the testimony of the men was to the effect “that the food had improved considerably during the last two months.” About 300 out of the 4,000 prisoners in this camp were British.[9] At Stendal Mr. Osborne found the thick soup “exceedingly palatable, though thoroughly un-English.” The British prisoners “admitted that they could live on the camp rations, if necessary, and still retain good health, as is the case with the Russians, and that their objection to the food was on account of its sameness, and because it was not cooked in an English way.” In March, 1916, Mr. Osborne reports that a large swimming pool is in process of completion at one end of the camp.

Reports and Information.

At Fort Friedrichshafen, Ingolstadt, “those who had no overcoats said that they could get them from the German authorities if necessary, but that they preferred to wait for the present to see if they could not be sent from home. All would like new boots, as they are not pleased with the wooden-soled boots provided locally.” Sir Edward Grey, writing just before the receipt of this report, referred to information “that the few British prisoners of war at this camp are very badly fed, and that parcels arrive with great irregularity, their contents being frequently abstracted.” In a reply dated a week later, Mr. Gerard (U.S. Ambassador at Berlin) writes that “in reply to a direct inquiry, which was made out of the hearing of any German officer or man,” the British prisoners at Ingolstadt “stated that there was [51]nothing to which they would care to have special attention paid. The men were in good spirits, and there was no evidence to show that any of them were badly fed. All were in touch with their friends at home, and no complaint was made with regard to irregularity in the receipt of parcels.”

Favourable and Humorous.

Of the officers’ camp at Blankenberg i/Mark, Messrs. Jackson and Russell report, “The atmosphere of the camp is excellent.” There is a touch of humour in the report on Merseburg (l.c. p. 29). “One man complained to me that he had been punished for ‘having a hole in his trousers’ (as he said), but on investigation I found that he had cut a new pair of trousers, which had been given him by the German authorities, in order to make a pair of boxing shorts. One man had a black eye, another a sprained thumb, and a third a broken nose, as the result of boxing matches.”[10] The four English prisoners at Königsmoor said “that there was no discrimination against them of any kind, and their relations with the German guard were evidently pleasant. They all said that they had plenty of warm clothing, including overcoats, and one even had an overcoat which had been given him by the German authorities in addition to one which he had received from home. They said the food was ‘not bad’ ...” At the working camp at Hakenmoor, “the midday ‘soup’ was excellent.... All looked in good health and seemed to be contented, and their relations with the German guards appeared to be friendly.... Several complained that the clothing furnished soon became too tight for comfort, and nearly every man in the camp had put on from ten to thirty (even more) pounds of [52]flesh. None spoke of any bad treatment ... although one Englishman said that there were occasional differences with the (Belgian) barrack captains. The Commandant is interested in his work; he knows most of the men by name, and seems to try to do all in his power to add to their comfort.”

Food.

In these reports the food is almost invariably referred to as good, and to save further quotations we may cite the evidence at Güstrow i/Mecklenburg as giving a fair general view of the case (January, 1916): “The men told me that while they depend on their home parcels for variety, a man who received nothing (as is the case with the Russian prisoners) could live on the food supplied, although in that case he would always be glad when meal time came.”

“Atmosphere.”

At Dyrötz, “the general atmosphere of the camp certainly seemed excellent, both on the part of the men and on the part of the authorities.” (January, 1916.) At Blankenburg “the Commandant has now adopted the practice of taking different officer prisoners of war with him for occasional walks in the neighbouring country.” “In a lazaret at Spandau,” writes Mr. Jackson, “I sat alone with Captain Coulston in the good-sized, comfortably furnished room which he occupies by himself.... Recently he had had a conversation with Her Royal Highness the Princess Friedrich Leopold of Prussia, who visited the lazaret, but ordinarily he had little opportunity to talk, as he speaks only a few words of German, French, or Russian. On my speaking of this, I was told that an effort would be made to have English-speaking German officers call on him from time to time.”

[53]German Professors.

Attention is again drawn to the excellent work of Prof. Stange at Göttingen. “He has an office in the camp at which he is present for two hours every day, during which time he can be consulted by any prisoner, and has formed classes of study, which are well attended.” At Giessen, too, “Prof. Gmelin of the local university has taken a great interest in the prisoners and visits them regularly with a view to providing for their instruction.”

A Contradiction.

The following is important and I quote it in full. Mr. Osborne to Mr. Gerard. (February 23, 1916) (l.c. p. 62.):

The discrepancy between the last sentence in Mr. Osborne’s report and the Times article is a striking one. It should give one pause in placing too much reliance upon untested accusations, or upon newspaper articles based upon them. We forget sometimes that all the bias is against an enemy, and the only stories likely to be free from exaggeration are those told in his favour.

A Military Prison.

In the military prison at Cologne (Miscel. 16 [1916] p. 67), “the prisoners receive the same food and the same general treatment as the German military prisoners, with whom they are permitted to talk.... The prisoners are not permitted to receive food from outside sources.... Generally speaking the conditions do not differ materially from those in an ordinary working camp.... Corporal B. was found guilty of lack of respect to his British superior, Corporal J. was punished for striking the French non-commissioned officer in charge of his barrack, and Corporals O. and S. had trouble with the German Landsturmmann in charge of a cooking party....” Most of the sentences were for striking work at various work centres, the men sentenced stating that the conditions were bad. There was a special complaint against the railway work at Langen-Halbach b/Haiger, but not all the British joined in the strike. “I saw the men’s midday meal, consisting of a thick porridge which appeared to be nutritious. One man claimed that it was thicker to-day than usual, but several of his comrades contradicted this flatly. No complaints were made to me of any rough treatment in the Gefängnis [prison].”

[55]Bavarian Courtesy.

The Venerable Archdeacon Wm. E. Nies, who had been given permission to visit British prisoners of war in Bavaria, writes: “I think it is only fair to comment favourably upon the friendly way in which my mission to the men is received and furthered by the commanders without exception thus far.”

Hospital Treatment.

Of Germersheim hospitals we read: “The food served in these hospitals is exceptionally satisfactory. Dr. Algeron, the chief surgeon in charge, a broad-minded man and indefatigable worker, attends personally to the catering.... Under this regime there have been some noteworthy increases in weight....”

At Bayreuth a private of the Black Watch had been “removed—for the purpose of electrical treatment of his arm by which it is hoped to avoid an operation—to the military lazaret in the city, which is an admirably equipped modern hospital.”

Wuensdorf, Crefeld.

We pass now to reports in Miscel. No. 26 (1916). Indian prisoners of war at Wünsdorf (Zossen) find their treatment “very good.” At Crefeld officers’ camp, “the walks on parole ... have been entirely successful.... The only complaint as to these was that the German accompanying the party was a non-commissioned instead of a regular officer. This will, however, be rectified at once.... There is no trouble of any kind with the inhabitants on these.... The relations with the camp authorities are excellent.” As regards the behaviour of the inhabitants, I would refer also to Chaplain O’Rorke’s statement (see p. 36), though, as one would expect, the inhabitants have in some other cases behaved badly (e.g., p. 32).

[56]Muenster II., Muenster III.

At Münster II, “The Commandment, General von Ey-Steinecke, as well as the other officers, and the general treatment, are well spoken of by the men.” Some improvements suggested on March 16 were already started on the 18th. At Münster III. the benches in the English Chapel “were provided at the expense of the camp, although the British prisoners offered to pay for them.... The camp authorities have endeavoured to arrange courses of instruction with some success, and several British are taking lessons in French.... Sergeant Middleditch, the ranking non-commissioned officer, who has taken an active part in the work of improvement, stated that the relations with the camp authorities were excellent, and that the officers showed much consideration in acceding to reasonable requests. The commandant, General Raitz von Frentz, is well spoken of by all, and shows a liberal and progressive spirit in dealing with such difficulties as arise.”

Parchim, Brandenburg.

From Miscel. No. 7 (1917) a few extracts may be made. Of Parchim Dr. A. E. Taylor and Mr. J. P. Webster write: “We believe that special commendation should be given to the Commandant, Oberst Kothe, for the spirit in which he governs the camp, and for the way in which he does everything in his power for the welfare of the prisoners, and for the promotion of a cordial relationship between the men and those in charge.” Of Brandenburg, Mr. Jackson writes candidly: “The part of the building occupied by the British prisoners was not so clean as the remainder, but for this the men themselves are responsible.” It is obvious that the spirit as to this and other matters will vary in every country among different sets of men (c.f., e.g., below the very different Güstrow report).

[57]Cottbus.

Men in hospital at Cottbus “said that the food was good and their treatment excellent.” Men in the main camp complained that bread sent to them from Switzerland and England arrived in a mouldy condition, but “as the mouldiness seemed to start in the middle of the loaf, they thought this was due to the quality of the bread itself or the manner in which it was packed.”

Absence on Leave.

At Celle, where “inactive officers” and some others are detained, Mr. Jackson found one British subject absent on leave, while “several others have been permitted to make visits to their families in Germany. A request from another, who had obtained no benefit from his stay at Bad Blenhorst, for permission to go somewhere for a ‘cure’ is under consideration.”

Limbau, Guestrow.

At the working camp at Limbau (occupied Russian territory) “the men described the commandant as a ‘gentleman,’ and said they had no difficulty in communicating with him in regard to their wishes. None had any complaint to make of their treatment, and only a very few spoke of the work as hard.” The camp contained 500 British prisoners.

At Güstrow, “the treatment of the men and the conditions found in their camp appeared to be very favourable. The commandant stated that the British were the most satisfactory prisoners under his care....” Two million, five hundred thousand letters passed through the camp post office in the previous year, and about sixty thousand packages were distributed.

Hospital Treatment.

Hospital treatment is again and again described [58]favourably in the individual reports (e.g., pp. 4, 6, 14, 22, 50, 57), but the opinion may here be cited of a Swiss doctor who has been occupied in German hospitals during most of the war:

The Repatriations.

There are bad stories of men arriving half-starving at the British and French lines at the time of the general repatriations. It would require care and impartiality to sift these. The more experience one gains, the less one trusts the average newspaper report in war-time. It seems very probable that, as Erzberger contended, many prisoners made off of their own accord after the German Revolution, and the straits to which these men were reduced could scarcely be ascribed to the German authorities. That there were brutal cases of men being driven away is also quite probable. As regards the general question of prisoners, Erzberger said: “If England can now actually prove that English prisoners of war have been illegally treated, I give my word no guilty person shall go unpunished. But allow me the counter question, Is it known in enemy countries how German prisoners of war were frequently treated? I do not believe that is sufficiently well known. Only listen to our soldiers who come from France....” (Berlin, Nov., 24, 1918, Wolff.) It should be obvious that both sides must be heard [59]before justice can decide, but the obvious is the unrecognised in war time. And probably even by the best and most impartial judgment only very rough generalisations can be arrived at. One need seems to me paramount, that each side shall become once more aware of the good in the other. Here, then, are one or two favourable facts from repatriated men: “We understand that the Germans could not let us march to the frontier, as we were prepared to do, lest we should start to plunder the inhabitants. For the same reason we were accompanied on the train by a German N.C.O. with a rifle. At night we slept in school buildings at Zevenaar (?) where we were given food and coal, and were well treated. We gave some of our food there to Sisters for the poor.... We had not to pay any fare at Wesel. The Germans on the train wished to be very friendly. We understand that the German authorities helped to make the arrangements about our taking the train at Wesel. No special compartments were put on for us. We travelled with the ordinary passengers.” (Daily News, November 25, 1918.)

Again:

The Daily News has honourably distinguished itself by publishing favourable articles by repatriated prisoners. An officer writes:

Men behind the lines had suffered far more, this officer considered. This is somewhat at variance with the extract last cited. The writer continues:

[61]Delay in repatriation occurred owing to disorganisation.

Mr. G. G. Desmond volunteered at the age of 46. He was taken prisoner and gave (Daily News, Dec. 10, 1918) some account of his general outlook after his imprisonment. Unlike some of the stay-at-homes he can still believe in the German people, as the following concluding paragraphs of his article show:

Conclusion.

Our survey of the reliable evidence at present available seems to me to prove that there has usually been a serious effort in Germany to treat military prisoners well. This does not imply that their lot is otherwise than hard, and the prolongation of the imprisonment adds terribly to the hardship. It is impossible to banish from one’s mind such horrors as those of Wittenberg, but it is quite plain that these were very far from typical. When militarism goes wrong, it goes very wrong. If we consider the special German difficulties with regard to prisoners, and the special dangers of the militarist state, we may, I think, conclude a very fair standard of humanity amongst the German people from the fact that in so large a proportion of cases treatment has been reasonable and in many even excellent.

I have no wish to arouse any resentment, and in case this conclusion should do so, I quote here a further neutral opinion, that of a well-known Norwegian, M. T. E. Steen, who had been allowed to visit prisoners’ camps in Britain, France, and Germany. M. Steen gave a lecture at the Queen’s (Small) Hall on July 15, 1915, under the auspices of the British Red Cross Society. Sir Louis Mallet presided. According to the Daily Telegraph report, “M. [63]Steen spoke favourably to the conditions prevailing at the various internment camps he visited in Germany, and expressed the hope that his remarks would remove misgivings and allay anxiety. The general impression which the camps made on him, he said, was ‘very satisfactory.’”

We must remember, too, that in Germany also all kinds of rumours and statements have circulated with regard to the treatment of prisoners and wounded by us and our Allies (cf. pp. 2, 32, 38, and 80). Such rumours and exaggerations are apparently a part of war. On the other side they have not made for a benevolent attitude, and the really large amount of interest openly shown in prisoners of war by such men as Prince Lichnowsky, Prof. Stange, Prof. Gmelin, the Göttingen Pastors, and others, is a remarkable fact. We realise this the more, when we consider that it is not easy on this side for men in prominent positions openly to show interest in German prisoners of war.

Camps in U.K.

It would be interesting to compare the U.S. reports on British camps with their reports on German ones. Unfortunately any useful comparison is impossible. A collection of reports on “various internment camps in the United Kingdom” is published in White Paper No. 30 (1916), but the earliest inspection here recorded took place on February 21, 1916. As the chief difficulties everywhere occurred earlier, the earlier reports are plainly necessary for a fair comparison. “Are we as compassionate to our prisoners as our ancestors were to theirs?” wrote the Daily Chronicle on October 29, 1914, and added “From accounts that have reached us of the conditions that prevail at some of our concentration camps, we fear not.” Moreover, in these later reports it is difficult to know the exact meaning of such remarks as the [64]following, unless we have the earlier reports: “They seemed much happier and more contented than at the time of my former visit....” (Officers’ Camp, Holyport). “There has been no change in the sleeping accommodations since the last report, but as the number of the prisoners is much less than it was at that time, there is much more room....” (Dorchester.)

“The general tone of the hospital seemed to be much happier than at the time of my last visit.” (Dartford, Lower Southern Hospital for wounded prisoners of war.)

“There has been no change in the sleeping accommodation since the last visit, except that, owing to the smaller number of men, there is now more room than before.... The men seemed much happier and more contented than at the time of our last visit.” (Officers’ camp, Donington Hall.)

The last quotation recalls the once famous charges as to the excessive luxury of Donington Hall. In every country the same kind of protest arises as to the luxurious treatment of prisoners, and this is declared a scandal in view of the inhuman policy of the enemy. In every country is to be found the type of patriot who feels that all is lost if it can be proved that he has treated an enemy too well. The hubbub about Donington Hall led to the appointment of a Commons delegation to visit various camps, and to a report in the Times (April 26, 1915). In this report the Hall is described as “a large, bare house situated in a hollow.... The style of furnishing was that of a sergeant’s mess.” There was one piano, provided at the prisoners’ expense. The billiard tables and other accessories imagined by perfervid patriots vanish into thin air.

Dyffryn Aled Officers’ camp in North Wales is described in the same account as “an inaccessible, gloomy, mildewed-looking house, with all the windows [65]on the front side covered with iron bars. It was previously used as a private lunatic asylum. The kitchen seemed about the best room in the house.... There are no fixed baths, but the officers’ valets carry hot water from the kitchen for hip baths.” As regards the site of Dyffryn Aled it is only fair to quote the U.S. report: “The situation of the house, in a romantic valley among the Welsh mountains, is fine and healthy.” But even in April, 1916, the bathing arrangements remained primitive: “Each officer has his tin tub.” One would certainly not wish to make any hardship of this, yet it is perhaps as well to recall the U.S. reports on Friedberg and Crefeld in May and April, 1915, respectively. “The room containing the shower-nozzles would ... do credit to a club or hotel of the first class.” (See p. 23.) At Crefeld: “The bathroom which I saw has a floor space of about 1,500 square feet, one-half of which, drained in the centre, lies under some 20 shower nozzles. There are a couple of porcelain tubs in the other half, and in the centre there is a large stove. Hot and cold water is available. The British officers were enthusiastic in their praise of this room.” (P. 13.)

A Friendly Thought.

The “Stobsiad,” the magazine of the prisoners’ camp at Stobs, Scotland, contains in its seventeenth number (Jan., 1918) a friendly thought for the interned “enemy” in Germany. The Y.M.C.A. and the Friends tell them of the ever-increasing need of the interned Englishmen for English books. “Would it not be possible,” the paragraph proceeds, “for our German readers to place English books that they could part with at the disposal of the English prisoners of war, just as here German books have been placed at our disposal. Dr. Elisabeth Rotten’s Committee (Berlin, No. 24, Monbijou-Platz 3) will gladly give further information. It would give us pleasure if many of our readers would fulfil this wish.”

[66]Unreliable Complaints.

“There has been some trouble with correspondence,” we read (Times, l.c.). The Commandant of one camp, while censoring a prisoner’s correspondence, came across a statement that “he slept on a plank bed with a verminous mattress ... the prisoner admitted that he had written a false statement in order to induce his friends to send him more luxuries.” I am reminded of a report from Zossen mentioned by the Swiss Red Cross delegate. I quote from the abstract in the Basler Nachrichten: “It appears that there is much correspondence with sympathetic ink at Zossen. A great deal of iodine, starch and condensed milk are sent to the prisoners by their friends. These materials serve for the preparation of such inks.” We have heard of the use of sympathetic ink in this country. Experience suggests that complaints made by these methods are not to be relied on. The man who likes to tell a tall story is not very infrequent, either amongst civilians or soldiers, and if he can gain notoriety or advantage thereby, the temptation is considerable. Let these be obtained at the expense of the enemy, and the temptation is greater still. Some German girls were being taken back to Germany. An officer asked a girl what kind of a time she had in England. “Oh, dreadful,” she replied at first. It was the way to gain kudos. But generosity came to her rescue, she repented and corrected herself: “No, perfectly lovely,” she said, “everyone was good to us.”[12] There are many on both sides who would not repent, but would make capital out of their interlocutor’s ignorance.

Rumours.

Rumours, of course, still continue. They will continue as long as passions run high. There was a rumour of smallpox at Ruhleben. The English Captain [67]of the Camp wrote to say: “There have been no cases of smallpox since the camp was started here.” There were repeated rumours that parcels were not delivered. An appeal was made to the Director of the Press Bureau by C.Q.M.S. J. R. Wheeler of the 2nd Wilts. Regt., prisoner at Göttingen. He pointed out that these rumours (apparently confirmed by postal officials) were totally unfounded. “Parcels arrive safely, and are issued to men often within a couple of hours of being received from the Post Office.” The same matter is dealt with by U.S. representatives, but, as the Swiss delegate, Arthur Eugster, remarks, even neutral reports are in these days distrusted. In fact, often it is only what seems to confirm the worst suspicions that is believed. Mr. Wheeler points out that “the packing of parcels leaves much to be desired; in many cases a cake is put in a cardboard box and lightly wrapped up in brown paper,” a statement that is important in view of the common opinion that British parcels were specially maltreated. The idea of differential treatment had indeed become an obsession. An example of the extraordinary nonsense that is believed is the story that “on the hospital ship, Oxfordshire, on March 19, sixty wounded British soldiers, the majority of them from the Black Watch and 6th Gordon regiments, were taken out of their cots to make room for sixty Germans ... and that, in addition, the Germans were supplied with fresh eggs and bread, while the British wounded soldiers had only biscuits.” All this was the subject of a grave question in Parliament. The story was, of course, without foundation, but, according to Mr. Tennant himself, “it had obtained widespread credence.” Marvellous indeed is the credulity of war-time.

Prisoner Workers.

How far hatred is due to want of knowledge the record of prisoner farm workers on this side proves:

Most of us have heard favourable comments from farmers and others as to the work of their German helpers. “I think they’ve done jolly well, and they deserve some encouragement,” said one man to me. The idea that all Germans are “Huns” vanishes on personal acquaintance. On the other side prejudices similarly vanish, and I remember seeing an account of how a German farmer took his prisoner helpers for a picnic. Evidently he was allowed considerable freedom with them. There were German Press protests against the picnic.

From the Daily News of September 28, 1918, I take the following:

I have often thought that a widespread distribution of prisoner workers throughout each belligerent country might do more than anything else to allay mutual misunderstanding. In all wars the tendency is to regard the enemies as terrible beings, scarcely even of human shape. To a considerable extent this is due to the fact that all the horror of war is attributed by civilians to the enemy. The soldiers of course know better. But when the civilian finds enemy prisoners good fellows to work with, he cannot often resist the proof of our common humanity. A village girl was telling me lately how the feelings of many had altered since German prisoners had been in the neighbourhood, and especially marked had been the effect upon those who had actually worked with them. “So you’ve changed your mind about them,” she said to a friend who worked with prisoners, and the friend had the courage to answer quite simply: “Yes, I have.” If we all have the courage to change our minds, the peace that comes will be real.

Some Other Prisoners.

There is often so much similarity in the complaints made on both sides that the sufferings would seem to be very similar. I happened once, in a private hotel, to get into conversation with some German women who had been taken prisoner in East Africa. They were scarcely “military prisoners,” but they were taken prisoner in the ordinary operations of war. With the women were three children. A young baby was wizened and pitiable, a little boy of between three and four had evidently had his whole body covered with boils or abscesses, a little girl of perhaps five would have been a charming little creature, but for a large abscess on her forehead and big swellings under the eyes. I asked how it was the children were in this [70]condition. The Belgians, by whom these women were originally taken prisoner, would not, I was told, supply any milk for the children. It may be said that the Belgian officials should be consulted on this point, and I am well aware that prisoners’ statements need corroboration. Do we, however, apply this rule in other cases? Are we careful to investigate newspaper reports of the statements of prisoners who have been in German hands, and should we suggest that the evidence of German officials should also be taken? The women struck me as singularly quiet, and unhysterical, and I must add, fair-minded. There were officials at times, they said, who were more humane, and provided milk on the quiet. Did they make any protests, I asked. “At first we did,” they answered, “but we were always told ‘You are prisoners, and have nothing to say.’” The condition of the children certainly suggested that they had suffered severely from malnutrition. This may indeed have been unavoidable, and not the fault of any one. I had a little further chat with one of the group, a very quiet woman, whose rather drawn, set face showed that she had passed through hard times. It was a little pathetic to me to note how sincerely she was convinced of the superior virtues of her side. “In the earlier days of the war when we had English prisoners,” she said, “they were always well fed, even though we went short. Our Commandant always made a point of seeing that they were well provided for.” There was in the quiet, rather weary voice just a gentle shade of reproach, and that was all. I have not the slightest doubt that the woman was perfectly sincere. I made only the very obvious remark that it seemed to me there were good and bad on both sides, and that some officials behaved well, and some not well. It was a mistake to generalise and think all was ill on the other side and all was well on one’s own. She saw fairness in this view, I think. There was a mutual approach, and a growing kindliness. I felt [71]then, and feel more strongly now, that kindness cannot grow out of merely aggressive patriotism.

Turkey.

It seems plain that in France, Germany and Great Britain there has been an honest, if not always a very sympathetic attempt to treat prisoners decently. But we hear little about the condition of prisoners elsewhere. It is curious to note how, in spite of all the horror perpetrated repeatedly by Turkish authorities in times, not of war, but of peace, British feeling is never very indignant against the Turk; and how prisoners of war are faring in Turkey we scarcely know. Not till July, 1917, does there seem to have been any definite application for the inspection of Turkish internment camps. On July 18, 1917, an announcement appeared in the Press to the effect that, in response to a request from the British Government, the International Committee of the Red Cross at Geneva had applied to the Turkish Government for the necessary permission.

Yet here, as in all war matters, we come upon “reprisals.” The following is a cutting from the Daily News of July 20, 1917:

Statements about enemy reprisals are usually less frank than this. The neutral observer has usually to watch each side describing its most drastic actions as reprisals upon the other for similar deeds.

[72]Serbia.

The condition of Austrian and German prisoners in Serbia has been touched upon by Dr. F. M. Dickinson Berry, Physician to the Anglo-Serbian Hospital Unit. I give the following quotations from an article by Dr. Berry in the Nation of August 21, 1915.

“There is no doubt that the prisoners suffered badly during the winter.... Typhus decimated them earlier and more universally, probably owing to the way in which they were crowded together. Outside the town our prisoner pointed out a cottage adjacent to a brick-kiln, where he, with 250 men, had stayed some months without beds, blankets, or even straw to sleep on, and with the scantiest of food.” But the villagers showed kindness, said the prisoner, and bestowed on them the food placed by Serbian custom on the graves of the dead. “Many of the prisoners fell sick and were taken off to the hospital. Here, too, they lay on the floor with nothing to cover them but a great-coat, if the fortunate possessors of such. Few who entered the hospital ever came back; if not ill with typhus when they came in, they were pretty safe to get it there, and they passed on to the cemetery beyond the town, where, as in so many Serbian cemeteries, however remotely situated, there is a portion covered thickly with plain wooden crosses, marking the graves of Austrian prisoners. Our informant told us that of those with him 50 per cent. had died; of eleven Italians whom he had under his charge one only survived. Asked whether they had any guards, he said no; each sergeant (he himself was one) was put in charge of fifty men, and was answerable with his life in case any should escape.” There were, however, some compensations for the primitive barbarity of these arrangements. The Serbian people did not attack their prisoners, they fed them. They might have learned a less human attitude under more civilised conditions. “As we motored through the [73]town we were amused at the number of greetings our prisoner received; he was evidently a well known and popular person. As we passed he pointed out the houses of acquaintances and other objects of interest. On one side lived a municipal official, who, finding that he held the same sort of post in Bohemia, greeted him as a colleague and used to ask him to his house. Further on was the fountain where he had come to wash his clothes in the bitter winter weather, and close by the house of the kind but match-making old lady who washed his clothes for him, and having a daughter’s hand to dispose of, wished to keep him as a son-in-law.”

Russia.

Of what happened in Russian prison camps we have only rumours, and the usual individual statements. The old Russian régime was scarcely likely to be very efficient or very humane in its treatment of prisoners, but any one who has examined war stories will be very cautious of believing all that is told. What the “unofficial information and rumours” were may be sufficiently gathered by referring to the Cambridge Magazine of August 26, 1916, Supplement “Prisoners.” It may be well to add this: in November, 1918, Erzberger, interviewed by Dr. Stollberg, of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, asserted that out of 250 thousand prisoners in Russia only 100 thousand remained alive.

An Important Comparison.

It will help to clarify our ideas of charges of ill-treatment to remind ourselves of the following. A British officer, Lieut. Gilliland, was put in charge of the British prisoners of war captured by the Bulgarians. Mr. MacVeagh brought forward in the House of Commons various charges made against this officer by repatriated prisoners. It was said that he distributed unfairly food and clothing consigned to [74]Irish prisoners, and that he ordered the flogging of British prisoners by their Bulgarian captors for the most trivial breaches of discipline. Mr. Macpherson, for the War Office, said prisoners repatriated from Bulgaria had made allegations against Lieut. Gilliland which were entirely opposed to information received from independent sources, especially from the U.S. Legation in Sofia, who stated that the officer had done everything possible for our men. Further inquiry was promised (Manchester Guardian, November 8, 1917). The charges of the prisoners are in this case not considered as necessarily true or unbiased. Ought not similar caution to be observed against whomsoever the charges may be made?

[75]II.
CIVILIAN PRISONERS.

Resident Enemy Nationals.

A few extracts from Dr. J. M. Spaight’s important work, “War Rights on Land,” will be useful as an introduction to this section. “Resident enemy nationals,” runs Dr. Spaight’s marginal summary, “are not interfered with” (l.c., p. 28). The text proceeds: “The treatment of resident enemy nationals has undergone a great change for the better in modern times. Ancient theory and practice regarded them as enemies, individually, and admitted the right to arrest and imprison them. The last instance of this rigorous rule being put in force is Napoleon’s detention of British subjects who happened to be in France when war broke out in 1803. Present usage allows enemy nationals to depart freely, even when they belong to the armed forces of the other belligerent.” The State has the right to detain such subjects, but usage is against it. Again, “‘Present usage,’ says Professor LeFur, ‘does not admit of the expulsion en masse of enemy subjects resident in a belligerent’s territory, save when the needs of defence demand such expulsion....’ The bad precedent set by the Confederate Government in 1861, when it ordered the banishment of all alien enemies, has not been followed in subsequent wars. France and Germany allowed enemy subjects to continue to reside in their respective territories during the war of 1870-1, but the former country was led by military exigencies to rescind the general privilege so far as Paris and the Department of the Seine were concerned, at the end [76]of August, 1870. A Proclamation was then issued by General Trochu which enjoined ‘every person not a naturalised Frenchman and belonging to one of the countries at war with France’ to depart within three days, under penalty of arrest and trial in the event of disobedience. The incident is instructive as showing usage [viz., non-interference with resident enemy nationals] in the making; for though there were 35,000 in Paris alone, and their expulsion was clearly justifiable as a measure of defence, the general opinion in Europe was that they were harshly treated, and a sum of 100 million francs was claimed, as part of the war indemnity, in respect of the losses they sustained in being driven out. It shows, as Hall observed, that public opinion ‘was already ripe for the establishment of a distinct rule allowing such persons to remain during good behaviour’ (Hall, International Law, p. 392). The usage has been strengthened by the precedents set in the Russo-Turkish War in 1877-8, the Chino-Japanese War of 1894, and the Russo-Japanese War, in all of which enemy residents were suffered to remain.”

Origin of General Internment.

How did it come about that this more humane usage was in the present war departed from? The average Englishman, I fear, assumes that all the blame is in this case due to the enemy. The following correspondence should make the matter clearer. [See Miscel. Nos. 7, 8 (1915).]

Into the case for and against general internment I do not propose to enter; it has nothing to do with the main purpose of this book. It does, however, concern that purpose to point out first that the general internment of resident enemy nationals (whatever its justification in any particular case) is contrary to modern usage, and second that the order for general internment was given first not in Germany, but in Britain. The popular view on this subject is erroneous. The German order was issued as a “reprisal,”[15] but, once issued, it was carried out with dispatch, a dispatch which was, of course, easier because of the comparatively small number of British subjects in Germany.

It will, I think, be useful to quote some further letters. The first document is an extract from a telegram received, via Copenhagen, by the U.S. Embassy in London on November 7, 1914. The telegram is from the Ambassador (Mr. Gerard) at Berlin, and conveys the representations of Mr. Chandler Anderson, of the American Embassy in [80]London, who was at the moment in Berlin. Anderson says:

The following documents deserve careful consideration:

[83]The “entire freedom” allowed to English in Frankfort until the reprisal order was made out is a fact that should be emphasised. It bears out the idea that it was British action which brought about the general internment order in Germany. Moreover, the reports as to ill-treatment and deaths produced the same kind of effect on the other side as they did on this. Of course, there were grave hardships on both sides, and, indeed, Sir Edward Grey allowed (vide p. 79) that “the régime ... through its hurried organisation, could not fail to contain a certain number of defects at the outset.”

The régime, like some other steps taken in this war, was too hurriedly arranged in response to newspaper agitation. The Cologne Gazette, complaining that Germans are treated like pariahs in England, asks if Englishmen in Germany are “to enjoy for ever a life of gods unmolested.” (Daily Chronicle, October 29, 1914.) The old demand for “reprisals,” leading to counter-reprisals and a crescendo of cruelty.

In Austria no general internment order was made. The Daily Chronicle correspondent, writing in January, 1915, from Vienna, spoke of the freedom of all foreigners there, even when the subjects of enemy Governments. All such subjects, his host reminded him, “enjoy full, or nearly full liberty, whereas in Great Britain and France Austro-German subjects have either been clapped into prison, or at any rate confined in a camp or barracks.”

Civilian and Military Prisoners Compared.

“Confinement in a camp or barracks” sounds a small thing. It is really, wherever it occurs, a rather terrible thing. The universal experience is that civilians suffer under this restraint more than soldiers, and consequently are more “difficult” to deal with.[17] [84]There are, I think, various fairly obvious reasons for this difference. To the soldier the prison camp is an escape from worse horrors, the soldier is inured to a large measure of monotony, he is also inured to military control and certain peculiarities of the military manner. To the civilian the prison camp is a change from freedom to confinement, from comfort to hardship, often from prosperity to ruin. The civilian’s life has been one of varied activities, and becomes one of almost unrelieved monotony. He is in most cases quite unused to military control, and feels himself degraded to a kind of servitude. Used to a separate and individual life, he is forced into contact, day and night, with others not of his own choice, and often antipathetic to him. He finds himself deprived of every vestige of privacy, and his thoughts revolve often round chances gone, work lost, hopes vanished, a wife living in penury, and a future altogether dark. If anyone will try to picture such a life continued not for weeks or months only, but for years, he will, I think, feel that hysteria, loss of mental balance and actual insanity are consequences that are only too likely to follow.

Civilian control for civilian prisoners seems in general to be desirable. Military control was practically withdrawn from Ruhleben in the autumn of 1915. At a few camps here, such as the one at Cornwallis Road, it is practically absent, and I feel this is one reason why, writing in March, 1916, the U.S. Attaché was able to report that there had at this camp been no attempts at escape.

There was much that was harsh and bad in the earlier days of internment in Germany, but the official U.S. reports certainly make us aware of cordial German co-operation in improving matters. The unofficial account, moreover, of Dr. Cimino (“Behind the Prison Bars in Germany”) astonishes me chiefly [85]by the amount of politeness which it reveals in the German official.

There will always be stupid officials, and complete military authority is a very dangerous thing. This obvious conclusion should be recognised as applying (to some extent at least) to both sides. It is a rather dreadful thing to be under more or less hostile restraint, whether one be German or British. “Even if ideal conditions prevailed, one could not remove the unavoidable feeling of restraint and the sorrow of separation of men from their wives and families. There is in all the camps a feeling of gloom which one visitor said ‘haunted him for days.’ It is scarcely surprising that feelings of resentment should arise. Many of the men have lived in this country for twenty or thirty years; some have come over here as young children, some are even unable to speak German; very many have married British wives and have come to regard themselves as citizens of this country. The visit of someone who is not in authority over them, but who will listen to their troubles and give them a kind word of encouragement, has done very much to lighten the bitterness of confinement.” So write the Emergency Committee in their second report on their work for the assistance of Germans, Austrians and Hungarians in distress. Dr. Siegmund Schulze, who has worked for a similar organisation in Berlin, writes: “It appears that those who have recently expressed their opinion in the British Parliament have taken the complaints of a few dissatisfied prisoners as a basis for their general opinion. We can quite understand these complaints, because we notice among all prisoners that the longer the imprisonment lasts, the greater is the feeling of dissatisfaction.... It is noteworthy that in the English utterance even the trustworthiness of neutral reports is doubted; for example, the statements of the American Ambassador are regarded as pro-German, therefore distorted. Frl. Dr. Rotten and I have heard [86]a great number of neutral opinions on the prisoners camps; I have myself discussed the conditions of the detention camp with neutrals who have visited them, and ascertained the truth as to their reports. Our verdict can only be that there is absolutely no question of any conditions which would constitute an infringement of international law, or which could imperil the health of the soldiers.... Moreover, I have in Ruhleben formed my own opinion as to the condition of the prisoners. I acknowledge that the depressed state of mind in which the prisoners must naturally be after more than six months’ imprisonment has an effect upon their reports, and that many prisoners are in a state of suppressed rage. On the other hand I cannot but say that after the removal of certain insanitary conditions there have been absolutely no substantial complaints made by the prisoners. Much as I regret the position of the prisoners, among whom I have many personal acquaintances, I must, on the other hand, say that the accommodation and also the behaviour of the officers is, on the whole, as humane as possible under the difficult conditions. The American Attaché, Mr. Jackson, who formerly visited the detention camps in England, and has now again visited the German detention camps, has confirmed to me the assertion which he made to the Commandant of the Ruhleben Camp, viz., that if he were obliged to choose where, among the countries now at war, he would be interned, he would certainly choose Ruhleben.... Without doubt, as is now apparent everywhere, an imprisonment extending over a long period, say, for instance, a year, means far more for men of the present generation than one could have thought. I consider it possible that many prisoners who are detained for such a long time will return to their homes with an essential deterioration of their mental condition.” These last are very grave, and indeed terrible words, words that I fear only too [87]accurately represent the facts, but yet, as Dr. Schulze continues, “We ought not to conclude from this that we are justified in making reproaches against the other country in respect of the treatment of prisoners, but rather conclude that we should work energetically towards the termination of the war.”

The mental suffering (stagnant suffering) caused to civilian prisoners (in Britain, as elsewhere) is, I fear, very far from being understood. The following few sentences may give some glimpses—I was going to say “enlightening glimpses,” but, alas, they are only glimpses into the darkness: “Our visitors in talking to the men in the camps receive from them many kinds of requests; of these by far the most frequent and urgent is that their wives and families may be visited. For one reason or another, letters from home very frequently do not reach the prisoners, and often for weeks or months together they receive no word of their families.” The report goes on: “One man’s wife was at the point of death when he left her and her young children; another’s wife with several children was addicted to drink, and was only kept from it by her husband’s influence; in other cases children were left behind with no mother to care for them.” (The quotations are from the second report of the Friends’ Emergency Committee, January, 1915.) To imagine the anguish of these cases, whether in Germany or in Britain, is to shrink as from a blow. Many will feel that the policy of general internment was unavoidable. But we may surely show generous sympathy where an unavoidable policy has brought great misery upon thousands who were innocent. Such sympathy, as we shall see later, always assists reciprocal sympathy on the other side.

Some Reports on Ruhleben.

I will now turn to the consideration of reports on individual camps for civilians. The most important [88]German civilian camp, of course, for us, is that of Ruhleben. If I cite a Report on the Meeting of the Camp Committee held there on February 4, 1915, a good deal as to the general management of the camp will become plain. [Miscel. No. 7 (1915) p. 67.]

We may next cite an unofficial statement:

We now come to the official U.S. report of June 8, 1915, with accompanying letters. [Miscel. No. 13 (1915)]

The need for publication was obvious in view of the character of the rumours circulated in this country, but, unfortunately, when published as a Government White Paper, such a report falls into but few hands, while newspaper extracts from the White Papers can, in general, scarcely be described as selected without bias.

The last sentence is noteworthy. Commendation of the Camp Commanders could not be more emphatic.

A favourable account of Dr. Weiler’s sanatorium follows. About this sanatorium individual expressions of opinion have varied.

Mr. Minot’s report next gives a list of improvements effected at Ruhleben, under such headings as Laundry, Whitewashing, Beds, Dentist, Business Post, etc. The report then proceeds:

[96]The following two extracts are also of some significance. The first is from the Times, the second is from the Daily Telegraph of June 18, 1915. The suspension of correspondence was due to some demonstration on the part of the prisoners.

In the early autumn of 1915 civilian self-government was fully established at Ruhleben. Writing on October 16, Mr. Page remarks: “The administration of the camp to-day is entirely in the hands of the prisoners themselves. There are no guards in the barracks, and all internal arrangements, including discipline, are in the hands of the camp and barrack captains.” [Miscel. No. 3 (1916), p. 4.]

A Controversy.

White Paper Miscel. No. 3 (1916) is in many ways rather important to the student of internment. It affords some evidence of the kind of mental friction [97]developing in all internment camps, and it makes clear that prisoners’ statements often need to be subjected to impartial outside investigation. There is not space, however, to enter fully into details here. The paper opens with a report on Ruhleben camp “compiled by a British subject recently released,” and forwarded by Sir Edward Grey to Mr. Gerard through Mr. Page. It is complained that the distance from the new barracks to the wash-houses is “in some cases over 200 yards.” Mr. Page points out by reference to a scale map that “in every case the wash-houses are nearer than 60 yards from the barracks, and not at a distance of 200 yards, as stated. The barracks which are not diagrammed on this map have their own washing appliances.” Mr. Page writes further: “The open space beneath the central tribune has not been, as stated in the report transmitted by the British Foreign Office, used for every conceivable purpose, but has been enclosed entirely for recreation purposes, religious services, lectures, debates, etc.... I cannot see how the introduction of [the] cinema show has in the least affected the comfort of the hall.” “With regard to whitewashing, this was done in all of the barracks at the expense of the camp fund, and not, as stated, at the cost of those interned at the barracks. Extra whitewashing, borders, etc., were naturally paid for at the private expense. No measures were taken for exterminating mosquitoes for the reason that it has been found impossible to procure petroleum in Germany for the purpose.” Three internees who tried to escape were in consequence imprisoned, and are stated in the report transmitted by the British Foreign Office to be starving. Mr. Gerard writes: “I visited Messrs. Ettlinger, Ellison and Kirkpatrick at the Stadtvogtei-Gefängnis about three weeks ago, and heard from them that they had no complaint to make about the food. They are now allowed to receive parcels and money from the outside, and are no longer in [98]solitary confinement. The limitation of exercise to half an hour seems regrettable, but owing to their attempt to escape, I fear that it will be impossible to obtain a change until their sentence expires.”

The report forwarded to Mr. Gerard says:

Mr. Gerard replies:

“I wish again to reiterate,” says Mr. Page, “that Count Schwerin, Baron Taube and the other officers in charge of the camp, are all kindly and considerate gentlemen, who do everything within their power to help the prisoners.”

But the real quarrel was not with Count Schwerin or Baron Taube (of whom all seem to speak well), but with the English captains and their management. The financial statements and the distributions effected by the captains are adversely criticised by the released British subject. He adds, somewhat acidly:

[99]Here we get to the root of the matter. The original “Camp Committee” was (to quote Mr. Gerard’s words) “disbanded by the order of the military authorities in February last (1915), because of its refusal to co-operate with the captains and its insistence upon publishing notices and minutes of its meetings after it had been forbidden to do so.”[23] This “Camp Committee” continued to object to the financial arrangement and the general administration of Mr. Powell and the other captains, and pressed their objections upon the Ambassador on August 23, 1915. “I thereupon suggested that perhaps the best way would be to refer the matter to a general election. To this the ‘Camp Committee’ demurred, and upon my asking what suggestion they had to proffer appeared to consider that they, a self-constituted body, should be given charge of the camp by me. This proposition I naturally rejected, especially as the members of this self-appointed committee were, although very estimable gentlemen, personæ non gratæ both to the majority of the prisoners and to the military authorities.... A final decision of the question as to whether the present government of Ruhleben is representative or not is to be found in the election of September 15, 1915, when every one of the captains at that time in authority was re-elected. The occasion was caused by the decision of the military authorities to withdraw the soldiers from the camp, and the captains therefore considered it desirable that they should appeal to the camp for decision as to whether it was wished that they should continue the government or not. I cannot see that any further proof is required as to whether the captains represent the feelings of the majority of the camp.”

[100]One cannot help asking oneself, was the critic a member of the disbanded “Camp Committee”? The United States Ambassador on more than one occasion proved himself capable of speaking very decidedly to the German authorities of things he disapproved of. In this case, too, he speaks (though not to the German authorities) with some decision:

These rather strong words of Mr. Gerard’s display a not unnatural irritation against a critic whose facts prove unreliable and whose mental attitude suggests a somewhat querulous bias, but it is only fair to remind [101]ourselves that after long internment all suffer from nerve strain and many suffer very severely. Under these circumstances complete reasonableness is probably more than any of us would be capable of.

Short Rations.

At Ruhleben there are (with the exception of some negroes) English only. The English receive many packages. The German authorities have been tempted to rely on those packages increasingly. That is the state of things revealed in Dr. A. E. Taylor’s report of June 14, 1916. [Miscel. No. 21 (1916).]

It is not surprising that “the interned men are deeply dissatisfied with the present state of affairs.” The German authorities, finding that at least half the total number of the interned at Ruhleben subsist largely upon private packages, have made a “sharp [102]reduction in the amount of foodstuff allotted to the camp.” I have no wish to defend this proceeding, but it must be allowed that to the Government of a blockaded country there is a great temptation to cut down supplies when this will not be a danger to the prisoners themselves.

Both reports of Dr. Taylor [Miscel. No. 18 (1916) and Miscel. No. 21 (1916)] are important studies of the question of nutrition, and his short discussion (No. 18, p. 4) of the psychological aspects of monotonous diet and the nutritional effects of internment is worth careful attention. “A diet that would be tolerated if the subject were at liberty may become intolerable under conditions of imprisonment. There is a large personal equation operative in this direction. The soldier imbued with a high sense of his value to his country and of the justice of his cause will endure a monotonous diet that would not be endurable in the prisoner overwhelmed with disappointment and crushed with sorrow.” These considerations are obviously of general application.

Some Comparisons.

Mr. Gerard, in a note of June 28, 1916 [Miscel. No. 25 (1916)], animadverts strongly on the bad accommodation still provided at Ruhleben. The letter is rather strikingly different in tone from his other reports on Ruhleben.

Bishop Bury’s account (“My Visit to Ruhleben,” p. 30) reads:

Bishop Bury has seen something on both sides, and his impressions are for that reason all the more important. We must not forget, too, that he lived a week with the prisoners at Ruhleben. It is also only fair to remember that no one has been invited to spend a week in any camp on this side. Bishop Bury also tells us “that when, a little time ago, the authorities proposed to relieve the overcrowding and construct another camp at Havilburg which could accommodate 600 men, the men at once petitioned that this idea might not be carried out, as they preferred, after this length of time to stay where they are.” (l.c., p. 40.)

One caution must, however, be given to the readers of Bishop Bury’s book. The conditions of the camp during the excitement and interest of his visit could not be the normal conditions. The frightful monotony of the long confinement does not obtrude itself in his book. Yet there is no doubt, I fear, that internment everywhere (at Ruhleben, as elsewhere) is becoming “intolerable.” To live, as at Alexandra Palace, day and night, for years in a great hall with more than a thousand others must become almost destructive to any sensitive nature. But (to quote Dr. Siegmund Schulze once more) “We ought not to conclude from this that we are justified in making reproaches.... [104]in respect of the treatment of prisoners, but rather conclude that we should work energetically towards the termination of the war.”

Dr. Cimino, very, and very naturally, anti-German as he is, writes:

As to the food question, we must not forget that the blockade against Germany and the pressure upon neutrals have been continually increased in stringency. Up to October, 1915, Mr. Gerard could write as follows of Ruhleben:

The low price at the canteen, was, however, I take it, owing to the existence of the camp fund contributed to by the British Government.

[105]Lord Newton spoke in the House of Lords on February 22, 1917, on the question of prisoners of war. The following extract is from the Daily Telegraph report:

Absence on Leave.

The following private testimony is also of interest: “A nephew of mine who is interned at Ruhleben has been let out for a fortnight’s visit to some people whose son is interned in England, and who has been befriended here. My nephew met with the most overwhelming kindness, and his letters are most interesting and touching.” The “reprisals of good,” which we shall consider more fully presently, are, after all, the most practical measures in the world. There have [106]been several other absences on leave, and a good many men have been released permanently. Moreover, at Christmas, 1916, most of the British officials in the camp were given three days leave in Berlin.

Prisoners’ Activity.

We may well be proud of the organising capacity of the British prisoners at Ruhleben and of the resolute determination of so many to make the very most of every slender opportunity, and to turn difficulties into a stimulus for ingenuity. The following is from the Manchester Guardian, February 23, 1916:

Six students at Ruhleben passed the London University Matriculation examination in December, 1916. One of them took the Edinburgh papers as well later on. (Observer, August 26, 1917.) These are remarkable cases, for the strain of prolonged internment seems most of all to affect the power of concentrated attention.

The case of another successful student is recorded in the Daily News of June 2, 1918:

That such things are possible at Ruhleben is a great tribute to English spirit and endurance. We must also not forget that they would clearly be wholly impossible if the Germans were actually barbarians.

A Friendly Enemy.

When Bishop Bury during his visit in November, 1915, asked what he might be allowed to say at Ruhleben, General Friedrich replied: “Please do all you can to hearten and cheer up your fellow countrymen. Appeal to their patriotism, speak to their manhood. You and they will have no one between you. There will be no official of the camp; no one to listen to you, no one to come between yourself and them. We trust you entirely with them, and you will understand, I am sure, that we do not wish to diminish anyone’s sense of nationality who is [108]imprisoned or interned in Germany.” (“My Visit to Ruhleben,” p. 21.) The words, says Bishop Bury, “seemed to come straight from the heart of the speaker.” Some readers will be sceptical; but at least the words were acted on. The Bishop spoke about the armies and the war to the men, and told them of his own experiences in the war area, “just as I should have told them to my own countrymen in this country.” At his last address the British flag was run in on a cord and “God Save the King” was sung. The Bishop had no time to propose the omission of the second verse, but one is proud to know that those Englishmen, even amidst their excitement, spontaneously omitted it. The whole scene revealed what was finest on both sides. Bishop Bury told the German Staff that at the meeting “we all sang ‘Send him victorious.’ They smiled indulgently.”

War Terrorism.

A good many more things of a favourable character could be said. Unfortunately men who speak well of their German captors are accused of pro-Germanism, and they dare not speak. This is a rather terrible fact, but it is a fact. As one man said to me: “I have my living to get, and if my identity could be traced through any account I gave I should be ruined. My work has already been very materially affected, but in private conversation I shall continue to speak the truth, come what may.” War prejudice indeed desires one kind of story only, and victimises those who give it what it does not want. And so all along the line suppression begets suppression of the truths most needed to heal our ills. A woman teacher writes to me: “I think I have a fairly open mind myself to recognise good deeds of the enemy; but to tell such to my pupils is another matter, and I fear would be very impolitic seeing that I depend on my school for my daily bread.” And again the Editor of a provincial [109]paper writes: “... but when one has to rely on the public for one’s living one has to think twice before expressing one’s views.”

Last Days at Ruhleben.

Mr. Desmond wrote of the coming of the Revolution at Dülmen (vide p. 61), Mr. Sylvester Leon has told us something of the last days at Ruhleben (Herald, January 4, 1919). “The soldiers are with you,” said Mr. Powell to the interned men. “For with the triumph of the Revolution, that friendliness which had existed in the days of the old régime between the interned and many an individual German soldier now became general among the military of Ruhleben; the officers had flitted, or had capitulated to the new order of things with more or less grace; Councils of soldiers and workmen ruled in the towns of the Fatherland; the era of Social Democracy was dawning upon Central Europe.... It is but fair to admit that the Ruhleben Guard acted very loyally in the performance of their duty. For when they were given the option of returning to their homes they did not avail themselves of that opportunity, but volunteered to remain at their posts until the disbandment of the camp. It is of historic interest to note that the red flag—the symbol of the triumph of the Revolution—which flew from the flag-pole in the camp, had formerly done service in the cubicle of one of the interned. It was dyed red by another of the interned, a doctor of science and a member of our little camp school, and then given to the soldiers.... The first impression gained on a visit outside the camp was the terrible seriousness of the food question. No one who has once seen can ever forget the sight of the crowds of hungry women and school children standing outside the gates of Ruhleben, literally besieging the interned as they passed out.” For it was only the interned who had food to spare. The Ruhlebenites gave, they had the facts before them. [110]And “the people of Spandau turned out in force to wish us ‘Godspeed’ on our departure for home; and the send-off they gave us was astonishing in its enthusiasm, arresting in its spontaneity, and touching in its obvious sincerity.”

Havelberg.

At Havelberg the camp for civilians had a population of 4,500. Of these only 372 were British subjects, being men from British India. Mr. Dresel writes on September 17, 1916: “This camp produces an excellent impression, the arrangements being unusually hygienic and modern.” [Miscel. No. 7 (1917), p. 6.]

On Behalf of the Civilians.

Yet, however excellent the impression may be, an internment camp is a miserable place.[27] It is, of course, especially miserable for those whose nature is at all sensitive, and it is surely such men whom we shall need everywhere if we are to make a less brutal world. Man after man has gone into internment seeking to employ himself and to make the best of it. For months, for a year, less often for nearly two years he has succeeded. But slowly success has dwindled and turned into failure. The monotony, the sense of oppression, the physical and mental discomfort, the deadly uselessness of the life—even where to these things is not added concern for those outside—have made him incapable of fixed attention, incapable of effort, incapable of rest, alternately nervous and torpid, fearful, despairing. The “barbed wire disease” has him in its grip at last. “Another winter interned here,” wrote such a one, “and I shall need a padded cell.” He had a fine nature and had struggled hard. But “the people outside do not understand.” Certainly, [111]there are those who can hold out to the end. I admire and envy them. I do not think any of us could predict with certainty that we should not give way.

There is only one remedy short of stopping the war, and that is the release of all civilians. Those who wish to remain, either in Germany or here, should certainly be allowed to do so, and if the police have no case against them, and if they can support themselves, they should be set free. Others should be repatriated or sent to neutral countries. The imprisonment of civilians is against the usage of war, and it is this fact which gave force to the claim of the German Government that there should be complete release on both sides.

I append extracts from a Swiss appeal to the belligerents on behalf of the civilian prisoners. It was issued in August, 1917, and has already appeared in Common Sense.

The signatories to this appeal are G. Wagnière (Editor of the Journal de Genève), Dr. A. Forel (Professor at Zurich University), Ed. Secrétan (National Councillor), Benjamin Vallotton, Charles Baudouin (Professor at the Institut J. J. Rousseau), Ch. Bernard, P. Seidel (Professor at the Cantonal Technical College, Zürich), A. de Morsier, Ph. Dunant (Lawyer of Geneva), Paul Moriand (Professor of Medicine at Geneva), and MM. Blonde and Arcos.

The Swiss Red Cross has also appealed for the release of all interned civilians.

From this side the following private appeal on behalf of all prisoners has been addressed to the Red Cross at Cologne:

The sufferings of this war are indeed vast beyond all comprehension. Is not there danger that this very fact may lead us to add to that suffering without need?

“Rotting Away.”

In a pathetic appeal to be given work the men at one internment camp here said, “We are simply rotting away.” And others say, “The people outside do not understand.” Loss, heartache, privation, stagnation, friction, stupid and malicious gossip, mental and moral deterioration—“rotting away.” This disintegration of personality, the gradual rotting of the man’s selfhood, is perhaps, clearly envisaged, as great a horror as war can bring. It is not the result of deliberate cruelty, but simply of conditions most of which are inevitable if there is to be internment at all.

A Report on Knockaloe.

The reports available on our own internment camps do not go back beyond March, 1916.[29] It is perhaps well to remind ourselves that even by May, 1916, there were still defects. Thus in the American Report of May 18, 1916, on Knockaloe, we read: “The huts are being put in good weather-proof condition, and are being protected against the wind and rain by felt and tarred paper.”[30] As to sanitation, “There have been improvements in the sanitary arrangements since our last visit.” “In the hospital in Camp IV. there is now being built a recreation room, where convalescents may sit, which will give more room for the patients; also a special sink has been provided for washing the hospital utensils, and new latrines have been installed. [115]They seem to be at work at this hospital to improve its condition. As Camp IV. has the largest number of older men interned, this hospital has more patients than others, and seemed rather crowded at the time of our visit.” “In the isolation hospital we found only one bath and one tap for all the patients who are suffering from various sorts of contagious diseases. We took this matter up with the proper authorities, who assured us that it should have their attention. The sanitary arrangements in all the hospitals might be improved, except possibly in Camp I.” “There were complaints about the hospital treatment, particularly of the care of the eyes, ears and teeth, for which the interned men claimed that there was not sufficient opportunity for special treatment.”

These last complaints are curiously parallel to some made at Ruhleben. [See Miscel. No. 3 (1916) pp. 3, 15, 16.]

“There was complaint that there were no shelters for the men while waiting to receive parcels, nor for outside patients visiting the doctor. This matter was taken up.”

“In Camp III. a complaint was made about the difficulty of personal intercourse between the representatives of the camp and the Commandant. This had caused dissatisfaction. The men seemed to have confidence in the new Commandant, but they told us that they had difficulty in approaching him. We took this matter up with the proper authorities, and were informed that they would in future have more opportunity for personal intercourse.”

The huts for sleeping accommodation “are sectional, being of the regular War Office pattern, 30 feet by 15 feet, each section holding thirty men.” This gives us a floor space of 450 square feet for each thirty men. In that portion of the Ruhleben loft most adversely criticised by Mr. Gerard the roof slopes from 10 feet at the ridge to a height of 4½ feet only at the sides. The floor space allowed, however, is 10.2 metres by [116]12.8 metres, giving us about 1,390 square feet for 64 men, or 651 square feet for thirty men. When all allowance is made for the lowness of the sides in the rather wide loft (it seems to be more than 30 feet wide), this worst accommodation at Ruhleben seems, as regards space available, not inferior to that at Knockaloe. Further details would be needed for a complete comparison.

The report on Knockaloe is not enthusiastic, but evidently there had been many improvements, and still more was hoped for from the new Commandant. “The new Commandant, who has only been there some ten weeks, seems to have gained the confidence and respect of the interned men. He seems to be doing all in his power to better the conditions of the camp. He finds difficulty in getting material, such as tarred paper or felt, etc., for use on the huts. He told us that he had the matter in hand, and was giving betterment of the conditions at the camp every attention.... The whole tone of the camp is much better than it was at the time of the last visit. (See report of January 8, 1916.) There were fewer complaints, and the prisoners seemed much more contented.”

A British Commandant.

It is unfortunate that we cannot “see” the earlier report to which we are directed. But it is good to know that the new Commandant, Col. F. N. Panzera, proved to be a Christian gentleman with real sympathy for the unfortunate men under his charge. Like many other commandants, both here and in Germany, he did, amidst the various difficulties, what he could. As he is, alas, now dead, we may perhaps quote the words he addressed to the men in his care at the Christmas of 1916. It is a strange reflection that it might have injured his position to quote this fine and simple message during his life-time. Colonel Panzera wrote:

Food Difficulties.

The food question also becomes increasingly serious in the camps, as it does in prisons. I confess I feel we ought to ration ourselves very strictly before we cut down the supplies of our prisoners, criminal or otherwise. “The reduced diet,” wrote Fenner Brockway of his prison experiences, “is one of semi-starvation, and every prisoner is becoming thin and physically weak.” (Labour Leader, September 6. 1917.) Those who care to inquire of the wives of interned men will learn their side of the case as regards the effect of changed conditions in the camps. The sad feature is that the increasing rigour comes upon men already weakened, both physically and mentally, by long confinement. The original published statement of Sir Edward (now Viscount) Grey [Misc. 7 (1915), p. 23] no longer obtains. The food is, of course, very different, and may not be supplemented.

Two Kinds of Rumour and Some Reality.

I have not cared to quote adverse “unofficial information and rumours,” either as regards our own or other detention camps. What some adverse critics say about our own may be read in the Woman’s [118]Dreadnought, Vol III., p. 551. The rather terrible appeal of the Captains at Knockaloe is also printed on p. 561. It is a letter which is unwise and hysterical. I do not wonder at its hysteria, and I confess that some things in the letter hit me rather hard. But, alas, the desperation of the interned men on either side does not help towards wise judgment, and for that desperation we are all, in every country, in some measure responsible. It is best to remember instead the real sympathy that those actually in touch with prisoners do often feel. Colonel Panzera’s message is clear evidence of this, and from a private letter I take the following:

The following is significant. “In the town near a certain internment camp of ours much indignation was roused by the story that some of the interned aliens had set in motion some railway trucks on a sloping siding, with the intention of allowing them to crash into an arriving passenger train at the bottom. An English friend of mine happened to observe the real origin of the story. The trucks began to move in an accidental way, and two or three of the aliens nearly lost their own lives, certainly risked serious accident, [119]in endeavouring to stop the trucks when they were already moving.”

Thus in the quiet neighbourhood of an internment camp a brave deed becomes by popular passion transformed into something monstrous. What would this popular imagination do in an invaded district? Its vagaries must be experienced and studied by any investigator of the atrocities of war.

Another example of heroism amongst German prisoners I take from the Daily News of April 30, 1918. A small boat in which two men were sailing capsized about 200 yards out from the Leasowe Embankment, Cheshire. The men, clinging to the bottom of the boat, were being driven out by the tide when two members of an escort of German prisoners, Sergeant Phillips and Private Matthews, jumped into the water and with difficulty brought one man back. One of the German prisoners, named Bunte, volunteered to go to the rescue of the other man, who was by then in great danger. The German swam out strongly and brought the man back.

Against Bitterness.

I fear that on both sides it is embittered men who will be released from the civilian internment camps. People do not realise how financial ruin, harassment, illness and death (to which the harassment may have contributed) follow in the track of internment. A man is interned, his wife and family are reduced to a mere pittance, the woman is, it may be, delicate. She falls ill and dies.[31] And amid such incidents and the mental strain of the confinement a brooding hatred gradually settles down upon the souls of these sufferers. Personally, I do not feel one can expect much favourable memory of the authorities on either side. [120]Certainly every one who has worked for prisoners is touched by their gratitude, but the iron has entered into their souls for all that. And perhaps it is well to remind ourselves that a far larger number of civilians have been suffering in the internment camps on this side. Let us not add to their bitterness by unworthy abuse or credulous malice. Men who, after long confinement for no offence of their own, have tried to save enemy lives, and find their efforts described as an attempt at murder, must begin to feel hopeless of justice. Excess of generosity would be far wiser. The world wants no more missioners of hate. Let us try to avoiding creating such.

In our own internment camps there was often, even early in the war, an atmosphere of depression which one worker said “haunted him for days.” The following extract is from the letter of an interned man who showed quite remarkable courage and fought with considerable success against depression till the end of 1917. “I refuse to give way to depression,” he wrote. But in 1918 the strain of useless monotony had become too great, he became physically ill, and how low hope had fallen the letter itself shows: “You can’t think how good it is to hear you speak with so much sympathy. I feel sure you understand the dreariness of this life, the long and fruitless waiting, the nights of anguish—and all the misery of it, the terrible discontent and the passionate heart longings.... You don’t know how sore it is sometimes about my heart....”

Methods that seem to many of us avoidable contribute also to increase ill-feeling. I take the following from the Daily News of September, 27, 1918:

I am sorry to say that I fear acts of kindness and fairness will be largely forgotten by the majority of prisoners on both sides. An Englishman writes to me of his treatment in Germany: “Consideration was extended in even greater measure to others, yet not one has opened his mouth to record it. It makes one loathe one’s fellow-men.” I quote this because I am sure that neither side must expect fairness of statement from men so long exposed to so depressing and often petty a constraint. After all, when we see the war bias of the man who has not suffered at all, a calm regard for both sides of the case can scarcely be expected from those who for wasted years have been too often exposed to hardship, petty tyranny and a kind of barbed annoyance.

Neutral Camps.

Even in neutral internment camps, though there the initial hostility is absent, misery and bitterness may [122]become very great. The following cable from Rotterdam appeared in the Daily Telegraph of June 13, 1918:

It is in the internment camps everywhere, rather than in the fighting line, that bitterness sinks into the soul. It will not be remedied by more bitterness. But if the suffering of these men’s stagnant years helps to strengthen a universal resolve for peace it will not have been a useless suffering. And peace means understanding by each of the good in the other.

[123]III.
PRISONERS IN PREVIOUS WARS.

Some Previous Records.

The suffering of prisoners has been great enough, God knows, yet if we are to help the future we must try to see even this, amongst the other terrible facts, in its proper perspective. The imprisonment of resident enemy nationals has certainly been a most unfortunate step backwards—unfortunate even if we regard it as inevitable.[32] Yet we must recognise that far more solicitude has been shown as to prisoners than was the case in most earlier wars, and this though prisoners have never been taken on so large a scale, and though there has probably never been greater embitterment. It will be useful to cite a few previous records.

Napoleonic Wars.

I quote once more from Dr. Spaight’s work, where much information may be found in a condensed form. “A hundred years ago, England, while she prayed in her national liturgy for all prisoners and captives, had no compunction about confining the French prisoners of war in noisome hulks and feeding them on weevily biscuits, salt junk and jury rum, which sowed the seed for a plentiful harvest of scurvy, dysentery and typhus.” (“War Rights on Land,” p. 265.)

American Civil War.

Here is a description of the state of things in the Confederate internment camp at Andersonville during [124]the American Civil War, which, after all, did not happen so very long ago. “Over 30,000 prisoners were cooped up in a narrow space; there was no shelter from the sun or cold but what the men could improvise for themselves; every possible disease was rampant; the prisoners were largely naked; the dead were pitched into a ditch and covered with quicklime; the smell of the dreadful stockade extended for two miles.... The state of affairs was known, or might have been known, at Richmond, for Colonel Chandler, inspector-general of the Confederate army, inspected the camp, and reported upon its administration in no halting terms. ‘It is a place,’ he said, ‘the horrors of which it is difficult to describe—it is a disgrace to civilisation.’”

Of the prisoners returning from the South, Whitman writes: “The sight is worse than any sight of battlefield or any collection of wounded, even the bloodiest. There was (as a sample) one large boat load of several hundreds—and out of the whole number only three individuals were able to walk from the boat. Can those be men—those little, livid, brown, ash-streaked, monkey-looking dwarfs?” (Cambridge Magazine, August 26, 1916, Supplement “Prisoners,” p. iv.) In spite of such appalling horrors (worse than the atrocities of rage and fear and drink) the North and South became reconciled, and with the passing of war bitterness passed too. The South was hard pressed, supplies often ran out, and there was indifference at Richmond. And so the military bullies often got the upper hand, and their appetite for bullying grew with what it fed on. The North refused all exchanges. “The prisoners at Richmond, Belle-Isle, and Andersonville were the pawns in a great match, and had to be sacrificed to the rigour of the game.” (Spaight, l.c., p. 270.)

Franco-German War, 1870.

In the Franco-German War of 1870 terrible hardships were endured by prisoners on both sides. The [125]winter transport to Germany in open trucks led to scenes of indescribable misery for the French prisoners, who arrived sometimes “frozen to the boards in their own filth.” German prisoners at Pau had for six days only bread and water till English and German ladies took pity on them. Faidherbe’s prisoners had no fire, no blankets and insufficient food in a cold of sixteen degrees. Things now are at least better than that.

Russo-Japanese War, 1904.

The Japanese seem to have behaved remarkably well to their Russian prisoners in the Russo-Japanese War. But even here there was a food problem. The Japanese food did not suit the Russian soldier, and Sir Ian Hamilton was told by Russian prisoners going South that they felt hungry again half an hour after eating their ration of rice. The Japanese have usually been held up as models for their treatment of prisoners, yet, for all that, Professor Ariga admits that in Manchuria the prisoners were in many cases badly fed, badly housed and insufficiently clothed. We know that this involves great misery, suffering and mortality, yet we are, quite rightly, very far from considering the Japanese as barbarians. We are ready to consider their difficulties. Were we, however, fighting Japan, we should not be so ready.

Boer War.

There is plenty of evidence of good treatment of prisoners on both sides during the Boer War. It is in these days strange to find the German General Staff historian quoted in defence of the British treatment of prisoners. They behaved, he wrote, “as perfect gentlemen towards the prisoners.” “The testimony of a responsible writer of this kind,” says Dr. Spaight, “is more valuable than the catch-penny stories of British inhumanity which flooded the Press of Europe [126]at the time of the war.” “One is surprised to find such a writer as M. Arthur Desjardins lending his authority to back the uninformed newspaper abuse, and ascribing the brutality of the British Army (which he presumes) to the fact that ‘a certain number of its soldiers, accustomed to fighting away from Europe, have not the least notion of the laws and customs of war obtaining among civilised nations’.” (Spaight, l.c., p. 275.) Dr. Spaight’s comments on such outbursts is: “There was a popular demand [in Europe] at the time for denunciation of England, the hotter the better, and the writers were too good journalists not to suit their output to the popular taste.” I will not spoil the rather rich humour of these extracts by any remarks of my own.

Undoubtedly the Boers usually behaved well. Undoubtedly, too, there were some bad lapses. A Free State commandant was, for instance, convicted of putting prisoners in the firing line and driving starving prisoners on foot with a mounted commando. Such things, however, were very far from being the rule. During the guerilla warfare treatment depended entirely on the local commandants. The stripping of prisoners before they were turned adrift was often carried out, “and there is some force in De Wet’s contention that the seizure was justified by the British practice of removing or burning all the clothes left in the farms and even taking the hides out of the tanning tubs and cutting them in pieces.” In some cases starving, unarmed and practically naked men were abandoned far from any white settlement. What is and what is not allowable in war seems so largely a matter of “military necessity” that the layman is reluctant to comment, for, in the last resort, it is only the needlessly barbarous that is condemned in war.

Concentration Camps.

On our side, we cannot, I think, contemplate the history of the concentration camps with equanimity. [127]Let us recall a few of the facts. The following are amongst the death rates recorded in July, 1901: Norval’s Pont, 218.4 (per thousand per annum); Bloemfontein, 242.4; Springfontein, 462.0; Kronstad, 459.6. In June the average death rate was practically 200 (199.3). In the year ending February, 1902, the official returns (which are incomplete) show more than 20,000 deaths in camps with an average total population of about 100,000.[33] Our accusers said the camps were instituted for the purpose of killing off the Boer population. The truth is, the feeling against Britain, even amongst the onlookers, was extremely bitter, and great bitterness does not make for sane judgment. What is certain is that the camps illustrated some of the callousness and carelessness which war always produces. “The sites chosen for the camps were mostly chosen on purely military grounds, and were often unsuitable; the medical and sanitary staff was at first insufficient,” writes Dr. Spaight. But, “unsuitable sites, and insufficient” sanitation may produce terrible results, where human lives are concerned, and one would not convert an adverse critic by simply quoting the “Times History” to the effect that “the Boers themselves proved to be helpless, utterly averse to cleanliness, and ignorant of the simplest principles of health and sanitation.” The attempt to shift the chief burden of responsibility on to the prisoners is surely scarcely chivalrous. Carelessness and ignorance amongst the prisoners are certain in all such cases to be contributory causes, they are amongst the difficulties to be combatted, but to suggest that they should have been permitted to produce such appalling results is to court derision. [128]Moreover, the chief authority on the subject, Lieut.-Col. S. J. Thomson, C.I.E., I.M.S., who became Director of Burgher Camps in February, 1902, by no means supports these charges. “Much has been said,” he writes, “about the want of personal cleanliness among the Boers, but it must be remembered that ablutions are apt to be less frequent and popular when water has to be laboriously brought from considerable distances, as is often the case with farms on the veldt. When bathrooms were provided in the camps, they were very freely and regularly used. Nevertheless it is a fact that the Boer’s notion of sanitation as understood by Englishmen is very vague, and all classes resort for purposes of nature to the open country. This custom, probably innocuous enough under the conditions of existence on an isolated homestead, made it extremely difficult to maintain the cleanliness of a camp site, and it was very long before the people could be brought to see that foul matters and dirty water could not be most satisfactorily disposed of by the simple process of flinging them out of the tent. It was found indeed that such proceedings had hopelessly fouled certain camps, and the removal of the people to a fresh site was followed by the best results. In a later chapter, the procedure which was found most successful is described in detail.”[34] In July, 1902, the average death rate for the Burgher Camps had sunk to 23.0, and it fell afterwards even lower.

Tents were, in general, the only housing allowed, and this, though “the cold in the ‘upper veldt’ country in winter was intense.” (Thomson.) What were known as bona fide refugees were allowed meat, but those who had their man on commando were, at first, allowed none. This was altered, however, in March, 1901. As to the families of this class, Major Goodwin reported in this month: “I would, therefore, [129]beg respectfully to here place on record my opinion that had we compelled class 3 to decide between unprotected starvation on their farms, and at their homes, or taking up their quarters in or behind the enemy’s lines, we should have facilitated the work of proselytism.” Thus readily, we observe, may the starvation of women and children be advocated by an English Major as an aid to “proselytism.” There were other ways in which “military necessity” showed itself. A Board of three reported on the site of Merebank Camp in December, 1901. The President was Surgeon-Gen. Clery, C.B., and the two members, Col. McCormack, R.A.M.C., and Mr. Ernest Hill, Health Officer of Natal. “The Board is of opinion that the site is by no means an ideal site, and has imperfection as regards elevation, drainage, etc., but do not recommend that the camp should be removed ... for the following reasons: (1) It is necessary that any camp should be on a railway line. (2) Purely sanitary arrangements as to site have to be held subservient to military exigencies. The latter do not permit the camps being located in the uplands, as military and civil traffic arrangements make it essential that the main line should not be further congested,” ... and so on. The Camp had been condemned by the Ladies’ Commission.[35]

The view I have given is the view admitted gradually and reluctantly by officials themselves. Miss Hobhouse gives a rather different account of things. In the earlier days of the camps, she tells me, the condition of things might be summarised thus: “Overcrowding (up to sixteen in a bell-tent)—no water supply—no soap—no beds or bedding—no fuel supplied—no utensils—barest rations—sanitary staff inefficient or non-existent.” In “The Brunt of the War” Miss Hobhouse writes on page 118 of Bloemfontein [130]Camp: “My request for soap was met with the reply, ‘Soap is a luxury.’ ... Finally it was requisitioned for, also forage[36]—more tents—boilers to boil the drinking water—water to be laid on from the town—and a matron for the camp. Candles, matches, and such like I did not aspire to. It was about three weeks before the answer to the requisition came, and in the interim I gave away soap. Then we advanced a step. Soap was to be given, though so sparingly as to be almost useless—forage was too precious—brick boilers might be built—but to lay on a supply of water was negatived, as ‘the price was prohibitive.’ Later on, after I had visited other camps, and came back to find people being brought in by the hundred and the population rapidly doubling, I called repeated attention to the insufficient sanitary accommodation, and still more to the negligence of the camp authorities in attending to the latrines. I had seen in other camps that under proper administrative organisation all could be kept sweet and clean. But week after week went by, and daily unemptied pails stood till a late hour in the boiling sun, and the tent homes of the near section of the camp were rendered unbearable by the resulting effluvia.”

A sentence at page 120 has a bearing upon other wars and other helpers of distressed “enemies”:—“It became clear to my astonished mind that both the censorship and system of espionage were not merely military in character, but political and almost personal, so that even to feel, much more to show, sympathy to the people was to render yourself suspect.... Everyone knows what class of men accept the work which means spying upon neighbours, and can draw their own conclusions as to the value of such reports.”

As regards the food ration it has been seriously contended [131]by others besides Miss Hobhouse (e.g., T. S. Haldane, M.D., F.R.S.), that it was totally inadequate. Dr. Haldane considered that “nothing but seething discontent” and “an enormous death-rate” could be expected from the dietary allowed. (l.c. p. 159.) But those who wish to learn more about this and many other matters should consult Miss Hobhouse’s remarkable book.

The truth is, the prisoner’s lot is always hard, and all nations have at times made it a terrible one. It is only the recognition of brotherhood that can alter this, and the recognition of brotherhood would end war.

[132]IV
REPRISALS OF GOOD.

For the information contained in this chapter I am greatly indebted to the Friends’ Emergency Committee. Most of it has already appeared in their leaflets and reports, and in articles in The Friend. The following is a reprint of a letter sent by the Bishop of Winchester to the Times. It appeared in the issue of September 29, 1916:

German Work for Prisoners.

The German work is an offshoot of the general work undertaken by the Enquiry and Assistance Agency for Germans abroad and foreigners in Germany (Auskunfts- und Hilfsstelle für Deutsche im Ausland und Ausländer in Deutschland). The following is a translation of the appeal issued by the parent society:

It is important to note that of the families and others helped by the Committee, the largest percentage [135](49) were English. Russians made up 24 per cent, and French 9 per cent. (Dr. Elisabeth Rotten’s circular of April, 1916.)

The following documents explain themselves:—Extract from a letter of Dr. Elisabeth Rotten, dated January 6, 1916.

[136]From Frau Senator Kirchhoff, December 28, 1915:

From Fräulein Jens, December 30, 1915. Work at Hamburg.

Some Thanks on Both Sides.

The following is from the Prisoners’ Aid Society of the German civilians interned in Camp III., Knockaloe, [137]Isle of Man. If the English shows signs of effort, it is an effort of sincerity:—

And here we have an extract from a letter of gratitude from some Serbian prisoners to one of the German Committees. It was despatched by the Serbian Aid Committee at the camp Frankfurt-am-Oder, on February 22, 1917. “The hundred or so parcels for Serbian Prisoners of War mentioned in your kind letter of December 20, 1916, came to hand in good time and in good condition from Switzerland, and were distributed to those who were in the weakest condition, and those who were most needy. In all there were 94 parcels, and you have the blessing of 94 human beings, ill, weak, and altogether deserted by the world. As our former camp (Halbe b. Berlin) was broken up just at that time and distributed amongst four other camps, we have only just learned who it was who had given us such kindly and noble thoughts. We thank you therefore once more with our whole heart [138]for your great goodness and charity—God will repay it to you.

“The gifts (the many good and beautiful things) reached us here in good time, and were divided amongst Serbians who [were in various camps] and the remainder we distributed here on Christmas Eve in the camp. You should have seen the joy of these poor men!... May God only grant a speedy peace!... While thanking you heartily once again, we beg you to think of us in the future also.... P.S.—In all the camps belonging to our group we have a total of 30-40 sick men.”

“Joining Hands with the Enemy.”

The spirit produced by reprisals of good is well shown in the following extracts from an article in The Friend. (April 20, 1917):—

From Dr. Rotten:

The following quotation from Dr. Rotten refers to a specially interesting intercommunication:

The Spectroscope Story.

The spectroscope story is a particularly good example of the way reprisals of good work out. I take [141]the following account from a leaflet signed W.R.H., and already known to many workers in the cause of fellowship.

The ray of light is spread by reprisals of good. When the nephew of a friend of mine was let out from Ruhleben on a fortnight’s leave, and received “overwhelming kindness” from his German hosts, what was it that so specially drew out their kindness? The fact that their own son, interned in this country, has been befriended here. (P. 105.)

A Baby Case Visitor.

Yet, in spite of all the efforts of sympathy, suffering, in camp and out, grows ever greater as the war continues. Here are two short stories of February, 1915, as reported to the Committee on this side. If, for a moment we can forget our passions, the sufferings of [143]these, our fellows, must touch our hearts. Nearly four more years have passed and we know that greater loneliness and sorrow must have come to these hearts, as to so many more.

The work done by the Friends’ Emergency Committee, Dr. K. E. Markel and others on this side, and by Dr. Rotten, Siegmund Schulze, Prof. Stange and their fellows on the other, is indeed as “a clear flame of truth in a dark and haunted night.”

Prof. Stange.

To the great work of Prof. Stange, of Göttingen, I have once or twice alluded. He directs all the instruction given in the Göttingen camp, attends daily, gives lectures and superintends the library. He experienced the usual difficulties of any civilian who tries to practice Christianity in war-time. “One great German newspaper wrote with indignation that the prisoners in the Göttingen Camp had as good a time as if they were at a health resort.” Doubtless this paper, like some others, contrasted the (rumoured) abominable treatment of German prisoners by their enemies with the too great indulgence shown to prisoners in Germany. But Prof. Stange is not abashed. “No internment camp,” he writes, “can be compared with a ‘holiday resort.’ In spite of everything that may be done for the prisoners, internment is and remains always a very hard lot. In the Göttingen camp, too, many a prisoner needs not only the exertion of his whole strength, but help as well to make the endurance of his lot physically and spiritually possible.” Stange is one of those who have learned to envisage the [145]anxieties, the loneliness, the uncertainty, the ennui of the prisoner, and the terrible enervation of long months, and, alas, years of confinement. In this, as in so many circumstances of the war, it is the more sensitive and developed minds that suffer most, and are most easily destroyed, those minds that are indispensable in the building of any worthy future.

Prof. Stange quite frankly acknowledges to a war prejudice against the English. But when he found their great need of help, his prejudices melted away, and he soon engaged in helping them too with books classes, and other means of activity.

Prof. Stange recognises that such work for enemy prisoners helps towards better treatment of their own prisoners abroad, but, he adds, “It must certainly be emphatically stated that we in Göttingen never took up our work for the prisoners with this object. What compelled us to work was simply and entirely the great distress and need of the prisoners themselves.” (P. 36. The extracts are from Prof. Stange’s pamphlet on Göttingen Camp.)

The Last Resting Place.

At last, rest. To many weary hearts it must have become a pitiful consolation that this at least is sure. “After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well.” And in that sleep no fevered passion can even “ruffle one corner of the folded shroud.” At last, rest; where the enmities and the ambitions are forgotten. In the presence of this stillness of death, even to the living their disputes seem small. If the mood could endure, death might not be needed to bring peace.

I.—England.

“In a corner of the bonny little churchyard of Frongoch, adjoining the extended camp, there are two solitary graves. Here, in a strange land, the land of their captivity, two German prisoner soldiers lie at [146]rest, as in many a plot of ground in France and Flanders, German and British lie together, strife hushed in the last sleep. Here there are no grim sounds and sights of battle, but instead there is all the peace and beauty of a lovely spring. Immediately beyond the graves a wooded bank descends to the stream, and over and through the fresh green foliage, amidst which the birds are happily melodious this bright April morning, and all around can be seen the mountains of Wales, the ‘land of freedom.’ Over the grave of one of these liberated captives is a tombstone erected at the expense of, and engraved by, his fellow prisoners. It marks the place where Hugo Schröter, Under-Officer of one of the Crown Prince’s Infantry Regiments, who died on April 9, 1915, as the result of wounds received in the cause of his country, was laid to rest by his grateful comrades.

“The other grave has no stone as yet, but one is being prepared. It is that of a prisoner who died of consumption, after many months of lingering suffering in the hospital, where every care was bestowed upon him. It was in reference to this man that the Chief Officer wrote me: ‘To our regret died last Thursday the patient in the isolation hospital. If only he could have seen the two beautiful bunches of violets you sent! The funeral took place yesterday at 10-30. It was an impressive sight but a very sad one, too.’

“My daughter laid a little offering of white flowers on the grave, and then I photographed them in order to send copies to the families of the poor men, which I hope may prove little winged messengers of sympathy and goodwill.”

W. Whiting.

II.—Germany.

“A British officer, of whom one can truly say that he had not been afraid to speak the truth about his treatment in Germany, and in the Cologne hospital, was carried to his last resting-place yesterday.

“It was Captain Wilfred Beckett Birt, of the East [147]Surrey Regiment No. 31, who, on the occasion of the attack in September, 1915, had his thigh shattered and was taken prisoner. Since January, 1916, he had been nursed in the fortress hospital, No. 6, situated in the Empress Augusta School. His chivalrous character and his conscientious impartiality made him respected and popular with his French and English fellow sufferers and the German Hospital Staff. Gratefully he acknowledged what the surgical art of assistant-surgeon Dr. Meyer had done to lessen his sufferings, and the loving care the German nurses, male and female, had bestowed on him and his comrades.

“The great affection in which he was held by friend and foe alike showed itself in the mourning over his death, which took place a few days ago. His wound, a short time before, had shown improvement, but the heart was no longer equal to the terrible strain. Those of his comrades who were not confined to bed rallied round his coffin yesterday, which had been put upon a bier in the hospital garden surrounded by flowers and palms.

“The principal mourners were his countrymen, who were seated on benches at the foot of the coffin; around it were the French and Belgians, the German doctors and hospital staff. Large lighted candles stood at the head of the coffin, which was covered with wreaths decorated with the English, French, Belgian, and German colours.

“Garrison Pastor Hartmann, in a moving speech, which went straight to the heart of the hearers, spoke about the deceased as a chivalrous fighter for his native land, as a good Christian and a truly noble character. It was touching to hear the parting hymn sung by the sonorous voices of the British wounded, accompanied solemnly on the harmonium by a British performer. All escorted the coffin to the gates. Once outside, it was reverently lifted on to the funeral car, [148]which German gunners escorted to the cemetery. Four British and one French officer, as well as the German doctors who could be spared, followed in motor cars.

“At the gates of the cemetery, Lieutenant-General Schach, Colonel Lindemann, as representative of the Governor of the fortress, Major Esser, Dr. Lamberts, the chief medical officer of the garrison, deputations of the Officers’ and Medical Corps, the Band of the Reserve Battalion Pioneer Regiment No. 25, awaited the cortège.

“Pastor Hartmann spoke again, and, in words which made a deep impression on all, closed with prayer and benediction. Dr. Rademacher, the Catholic priest of the garrison, then made a funeral oration in English, affecting all who heard it.

“In the name of the hospital staff, Dr. Meyer expressed his heartfelt sorrow to the British officers present, the band played the hymn, ‘How gently they rest, those who are with the Lord,’ and, profoundly touched, Englishmen and Frenchmen shook hands with the clergy and the German officers.

“Three handfuls of earth on to the coffin of one who had found eternal rest, and the mourners dispersed.” Kölnische Zeitung.

[149]V.
WHAT THE GERMAN MAY BE.

A Witness from Serbia.

The following letter may not inappropriately open this section. Dr. Ella Scarlett-Synge is the daughter of the third Baron Abinger. She has a long medical experience, and served by Government appointment with Mrs. Fawcett on the Concentration Camps Commission in the Boer War. Dr. Scarlett-Synge was present in Serbia during the Austro-German invasion, she was in Germany afterwards and visited various prisoners’ camps. On her return she wrote the brief letter which follows. Of her bona fides there was no doubt, and she had introductions to various editors. Yet only one daily paper (The Manchester Guardian) would publish her letter. This is a small illustration of the methods of war-time. Belligerent nations manage to convince themselves that by suppression of disconcerting evidence one arrives at truth. It is easy to understand, for all of us who are frank with ourselves know the difficulty of complete fairness even in ordinary controversy. But the consequences of arguing for mere victory are in war sometimes as grave and sad as the consequences of fighting for mere victory. Dr. Synge tells us simply what she saw:

Dr. Scarlett-Synge was, at the outset, intensely anti-German. Her personal experience of Germans (both military and civilian) in war-time has profoundly modified her views. Dr. Scarlett-Synge went out from Canada to take over a position as Medical Officer of Health in the north of Serbia. She had twelve villages under her care, and found the absolute lack of sanitation or sanitary knowledge in that country very trying. At the time of the invasion, Dr. Synge was strongly urged to leave, but decided to stop with her wounded men. Strangely enough the only soldiers from whom she had to flee were the Serbians. The Serbian Army in its retreat through Batochina was absolutely drunk, officers as well as men, and while the soldiers were forcing the doors of the priest’s house, where Dr. Synge resided, she fled with the priest’s wife (at the latter’s terror-struck entreaty) through a back window. The house was rifled by the soldiers, and next day the German patrol arrived. Dr. Synge was asked by the sergeant to assure the people of Batochina that if there was no shooting, they would be perfectly safe. She was urged to collect any firearms, and the patrol then withdrew. The doctor, with the help of the people, collected 17 rifles. There was, however, one obstinate Serbian soldier who had apparently not been able to keep up with the retreat, who threatened to retain his rifle, and seemed quite capable of endangering the whole population. “Your thumb needs attention, does it not?” asked the doctor. “Just let me look at it?” The man opened his hand and she snatched his rifle away. A joyful crowd accompanied her with the rifle to the dispensary, where it was locked up.

Had there been firing by the populace, there would undoubtedly have been reprisals. Our own action in [152]the Boer War, and the action of the military in every invasion, illustrates this fundamental rule. As it was, there was absolutely no destruction and the soldiers were scrupulously honest. When the owners had fled, their houses and their cattle were certainly made use of, but whenever the owner was present the soldiers “were not allowed to touch a single thing.” The exception proves the rule; Dr. Scarlett-Synge’s hostess had her pig stolen, but a German soldier caught her an unowned pig of larger size. She was very pleased with the exchange!

“May we use your schoolhouse for our wounded?” said the German doctors, “it seems the best place.” Dr. Scarlett-Synge was amazed. She had expected anything but this kind of politeness. Only once in her three months’ experience of the Germans was she treated rudely, and that was by an extremely anti-English doctor of the Deutsche Kriegshospital No. 58, Belgrade. This particular man corresponded to a certain type of anti-German here, and a private soldier present afterwards apologised for his rudeness.

The Serbians shelled Batochina, and so killed some of their own people. While the doctor was passing through the streets, some German soldiers beckoned her to take shelter in a café where they were. This she ultimately did. “I could not have had more consideration shown me,” she averred. One little incident is singularly expressive. One of the Germans had bought a glass of brandy. Dr. Scarlett-Synge, with the picture of drunken soldiery very vivid in her remembrance, ventured to remonstrate. She pointed out to the man what the Serbians had become under the influence of drink. He said nothing, but presently he got up and threw the brandy out of the door. “There’s not much good in that stuff, anyway,” he said. It is not surprising that after such experiences the doctor was puzzled at the ordinary British view of the German army. “How do you account for these [153]lies?” she asked a Bavarian soldier. “Ah, without lies there would be no war,” he said.

In her travels in Germany Dr. Scarlett-Synge experienced uniform kindness, and brought away with her a deep conviction of the self-sacrificing patriotism of the German people. “Moreover,” she said, “I was able to express my views to them, and they were always listened to with tolerance and courtesy.”

I give Dr. Scarlett-Synge’s experiences as she describes them. Of her own honesty and accuracy there can be no question. It may be said, with reason, that there is another side. Dr. Scarlett-Synge came across the better German and the better Germany. The important fact is that the better Germany exists, and that those who have been in Germany since the war began have found that better element conspicuous. This is much to say for a country at war.

In case Dr. Ella Scarlett-Synge’s testimony is thought to need confirmation, I may add the following from a private letter:—“Dr. A.P. was interned in Serbia for some months with about thirty other doctors and nurses. She sent to me over twelve months since saying she would like to be of some use to German prisoners in this country, as a slight return for the consideration and kindness shown by Germans and Austrians whom she had to do with while in Serbia.”

A Witness from France.

Madame F. L. Cyon was at Lille when it was taken by the Germans, and spent some time there nursing during the German occupation. Madame Cyon’s general experiences are printed in an appendix at the end of this volume, but she has given me some further details which are worth recording. I think they will serve to bring out the universal facts of human nature. From her mother, Madame D—— she heard the particulars of her father’s arrest. One of the officers who arrested M. D—— was ungentlemanly and rough, the others were polite. The house was searched. [154]Later a second military search was made, the officers on that occasion being most polite, and apologising for the trouble they caused. As he was leaving, the chief officer said to Mme. D——, “We shall carry away with us the memory of your house as a house of peace and quietness, and of you as a very brave woman.” After her husband’s arrest, Madame D—— asked for permission to take meals to him, and this was accorded without any demur. One day later the officer just mentioned crossed the street to speak to her. “I want to bring you some good news,” he said, “the release of your husband is only a matter of time.”

M. D—— was at Maubeuge at the time of his arrest. When he and others were brought back to Maubeuge for trial they got drenched with rain on the way, and were put for that night in the old prison, which was dilapidated and without fire. M. D—— complained next day. The officer to whom he complained apologised and said their imprisonment under these conditions was entirely a mistake. During most of his imprisonment M. D—— lived on the food provided, which he described as good, but not plentiful. Two fellow prisoners complained, and were allowed to get food from outside. As narrated in the appendix, M. D—— was released when it was found that there was nothing against him. He had indeed been indiscreet in order to meet the wishes of another, but that was all. After his release he was engaged professionally in forwarding the repairs at Maubeuge, and was repeatedly in touch with the German authorities, with whom he found it quite possible to work.

For some time Madame D——’s house had guards posted outside. There was on one occasion an unpleasant incident with a drunken soldier who came and demanded wine. A sergeant who came along, however, promptly collared the man and turned him out.

[155]It is fair to add that the long German occupation, with its many requisitions and high-handed interference, has embittered M. D. His wife, however, remains quite unembittered. In spite of all the demands, “She seemed to think that, apart from one or two exceptions, the Germans in occupation behaved very much as any army in such circumstances would have done. Indeed, she added that when the English arrived, some of them were so impertinent ... that people thought that they used to get on better with the Germans.” I have quoted part of the last clause, as it seems fair to do so. For me it illustrates the general experience that the present discomfort tends by its vividness to seem greater than past discomforts which were really equally great.

One other remark of Mme. D. should be quoted: “I have seen many of the Germans, their doctors for instance, look after the poor and the sick with utter devotion.” I have, by request, omitted personal names, except that of Madame Cyon herself.

At the occupation of Lille the Germans at once set about extinguishing fires that had broken out. In order to prevent these spreading, it was necessary to blow up some houses, and the Germans posted bills telling the people not to be alarmed at the explosions. When Madame Cyon returned to England a newspaper-reporter interviewed her. She stipulated that she must see the manuscript before the interview was published, and as she found the tone of the manuscript was not hers, she refused to let it be printed. A later interview with someone else was published in the same newspaper, in which it was made to appear that the Germans had deliberately set fire to the town. This Madame Cyon asserts is directly contrary to the facts. A similar case of exaggeration Madame Cyon noticed while in the occupied districts. There were all kinds of dreadful stories as to what went on about the country, and she was told it would never do to [156]leave Lille. When she did leave, and made her way to Holland, she found no confirmation of these stories. Travelling was uncomfortable and tedious, but there was no peril of any kind.

In the early days of the war there were Belgian refugees at Alexandra Palace. M. Cyon was a journalist, and took his notebook with him to put down interesting facts. He wished to confine himself to facts, however, which not all journalists do. He found the women full of stories about atrocities, but they were always terrible things that had happened to someone else. The student of war atrocities indeed finds this to be a very general feature of the stories told. It by no means follows that atrocities do not occur. Certainly they do, but the number undergoes extraordinary exaggeration in the excited minds of the people. M. Cyon, therefore, as a serious observer, asked for one person who could speak at first hand. One of the refugees, he was told, was a woman whose little boy had been branded on both cheeks by the Germans. He was directed to this woman. He asked for her experiences, but she had nothing startling to tell. “But,” he asked, “was not your little boy very badly treated by the Germans?” “Little boy!” she exclaimed, in astonishment, “I have no little boy, I have no son at all.”

Madame Cyon had various patients at Lille. Her 24 Germans, she told me, gave her no more trouble than any ordinary patients. She had, however, four French Moroccan soldiers to nurse, and she describes them as extremely savage. She was sometimes afraid of them, and of one especially.

Madame Cyon was often overworked, and patients are not always reasonable. One evening she brought her German patients some mutton stew, and one of the wounded men made a dissatisfied remark about it. Madame Cyon was feeling very tired and the remark hurt her. She remained outside in the corridor instead [157]of coming to the men as usual during their meal. Presently one man who had acted as interpreter came out. “Madame, you are cross.” “Yes, I am.” “Why are you cross?” “The men have been well treated, I have done all I could, and now they grumble about nothing.” The man was very sorry, he went back, and presently all who could walk came out and apologised. How strangely alike, after all, we human beings are! But our rulers could never lead us out in armies to kill each other unless they persuaded us somehow that we only were wonderfully fine chaps, and the others were brutes. Yet the appeal of kindness and devotion tells everywhere. So when the German science student, Albin Claus, mentioned in Madame Cyon’s account (p. 262), found her much overworked, he said, “You go to sleep, and I will keep watch,” and he helped in all ways to keep things right.

“I have since written to the same science student,” writes Madame Cyon; “before leaving the hospital he asked my address and I his. He told me he would always be glad to help me in any way, as he knew that I had five brothers in the French army. At the time one of my brothers was missing. I wrote to this man, then promoted a Lieutenant, and I had two letters from him via Switzerland. The correspondence was concerning my brother, and Lieutenant V. R. Albin Claus did his best to help me, and spoke in his letters of his stay in hospital 105, thanking me for my care.”

Another Sort of Witness.

The soldier on both sides has been told all sorts of horrors about the enemy. Hatred is recognised as a great weapon of destruction. The contrast between what the soldier has seen and what he has heard is well illustrated by a story told by Mr. John Buchan in one of his lectures. A wounded Scot had said to him, of the Germans, “They’re a bad, black lot, [158]but no the men opposite us. They were a very respectable lot, and grand fechters.”—Times, April 27, 1915.

War Zone Children.

Under the heading “War Zone Children,” the following paragraph appeared in the Westminster Gazette of the 30th November, 1915:

The Society of Friends’ Emergency Committee for Aliens has just received the following letter from Dr. Elisabeth Rotten, of Berlin (before the war lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge), showing that the German committee for helping alien enemies in distress is not behind similar committees in this country in looking after the little ones belonging to enemy countries:

The last-named committee is a local Frankfort Emergency Committee for Aliens.

[159]A Soldier and the Children.

Here is a German N.C.O. writing in Vorwärts of some experiences in the Russian occupied territory:

He describes the poverty of the people, the lack of even such necessaries of life as salt, boots, etc.; how little children are running about in the snow with bare feet, and often with no other garment on them than a shirt. He adds:

The Child in No Man’s Land.

The story of the child adopted by the Bedfordshires will be remembered by many. She was found in a ditch by the men on their way to the trenches, and was perforce for some time with them there.

Austro-Hungarians in Cetinje.

When the Austro-Hungarian troops entered Cetinje there was already serious famine:

On quarter rations—that is worth remembering.

Not all Barbarians, nor All Chivalrous.

We have all of us heard many stories from our soldier friends. Many statements and opinions we cannot in these days publish, but some are allowable. Such as the following: “Some of our men were hung [161]up on the German barbed wire. We could do nothing to get at them. We saw the Germans trying to make signs from their trenches and we couldn’t at first make out what they meant, but presently some of them ventured out and took in our wounded. I turned to my mate and said, ‘They tell us all the Germans are barbarians, but that doesn’t look much like it.’ It was difficult to keep some of our men from firing on the Germans even then.” The last statement will surprise only those who have not been told the truth about war. Passion gets the upper hand of humanity, and indeed reason may support passion, for is not destruction of the enemy one of the chief aims of war? Shall we spare the enemy when rescuing their own wounded? By war logic that would be inconceivably foolish. Hence such incidents as the following: A lieutenant of Hussars wrote on October 22, 1914, of his work in a loft which he had previously loopholed. The letter is both frank and generous, and as usual with soldiers’ letters, without any of the malicious sanctity which so besets the civilian. The letter was published in the Times, November 26, 1914. “When I got up I could see crowds of Germans advancing. I think they have learnt a lesson from us, for they didn’t advance in masses, but in extended order like we do. They were jolly good, too.... One fellow was jolly brave. I saw him carrying back a wounded man on his back, and it made a very good target. Though we didn’t succeed in hitting him, he had to drop his man.... We were having jolly good fun.” One sentence shows how far removed are the ethics of war from the ethics of peace: “I saw him carrying back a wounded man on his back, and it made a very good target.”

And here is a case where chivalry was remembered and forgotten. The extract is from the Daily News, May 17, 1916. Most of us may get similar information privately, but it is wisest to confine oneself to what has already been published:

A German Priest.

From the Daily News, February 17, 1916, I take the following story of a German priest:

[163]Mutual Fears.

Each side fears the barbarity of the other. “Would it be good military policy,” asked a military official, “to encourage any other idea?” “‘My comrades were afraid,’ said this German sergeant. ‘They cried out to me that the Indians would kill their prisoners, and that we should die if we surrendered. But I said, ‘That is not true, comrades, and is only a tale. Let us go forward with our hands up.’ So in that way we went, and the Indian horsemen closed about us, and I spoke to one of them, asking for mercy for our men, and he was very kind and a gentleman, and we surrendered to him safely.’ He was glad to be alive, this man from Wiesbaden. He showed me the portrait of his wife and boy, and cried a little, saying that the German people did not make the war, but had to fight for their country when told to fight, like other men.... He waved his hand back to the woodlands, and remembered the terror of the place from which he had just come. ‘Over there it was worse than death.’” Yes, and “If any man were to draw the picture of those things or to tell them more nakedly than I have told them, because now is not the time, nor this the place, no man or woman would dare to speak again of war’s ‘glory,’ or of ‘the splendour of war,’ or any of those old lying phrases which hide the dreadful truth.” (Philip Gibbs in the Daily Chronicle, July 18, 1916.)

The Civilian’s Hate.

Yet, appalling as modern war is, there are things which some soldiers find worse. When I spoke to an old friend of mine about a popular print that disseminates hatred he said, “Whenever I see that paper it makes my blood run cold.” Yet in one of the charges which that man had faced only about a quarter of his company came back. That charge was to him less hideous than some newspaper malice—a malice which is so often a matter of business. Since then my [164]friend has given his life, and has left in one heart a desolation that is worse than death. But in that heart there is no hate, only sympathy for all the sorrow, both on this side and the other.

Mr. Frederick Niven tells us the impressions of a wounded soldier who saw the Zeppelin burned at Cuffley. “What stuck in his mind was the roars that occurred when the airship took fire and began to come sagging and flaming down. ‘It reminded me of what I have read of “Thumbs down” in the arenas of ancient Rome. It was the most terrible thing I have heard in my life. I’ve heard some cheering at the front, but this was different. Nothing out there had quite the same horrible sound.’” The difference can be explained. “These men,” says Mr. Niven, “have seen the procession of the maimed, grey propping khaki, khaki propping grey, all trooping down to the dressing station.” (Daily News, October 9, 1916.)

And here is a letter from a brave young officer, since killed. “I drifted into the —— Parish Church last evening to hear the organ and the singing. I was pushed into a pew up in the front, and so could not escape until the end of the service. I could have wept when I heard the sermon; it was a dreadful medieval picture of Heaven and Hell, and a dreadful curse on all the German people as being ready for ‘Hell.’ ... The whole service was as artificial as one could imagine—so heartless and so soulless. It made me feel so very sad that, as I said before, I could have wept openly. Do you think that the congregation, a large one, would take in and believe all that they heard from the pulpit? It seems too dreadful!”

And Civilian Kindness.

Yet even civilians, even German civilians, do not always hate.

There is a better Germany, but it is only occasionally that we are allowed glimpses of it now, and we must go usually among unknown people, and read unpopular [165]or comparatively obscure publications if we seek a wider range of vision. In December, 1914, Mrs. Jackson, wife of a golf professional, returned from Germany to Clacton-on-Sea. Her husband had been in the employ of the Cologne Golf Club. “Do you think,” she was asked, “the German hatred of England is general?” “No,” replied Mrs. Jackson. “Of course, the Germans hate England fiercely as a nation, but I do not think they do as individuals. Everyone treated us extremely well, although they knew our nationality, and my husband’s employers are anxious for him to go back again to them when the war is finished.” “Does Germany know the truth?” “I do not think so. We could not get any British newspapers, and only heard the German side of the question. I was quite thunderstruck when I heard England had joined in, and I am sure the German people were, too. The Germans are confident of victory, and so much is this so that some of my friends did not want me to go back, saying that I should be much safer where I was.” I take this report from the Clacton Graphic of February 20, 1915.

Of course, there has been much kindness on this side, and much gratitude for it in Germany, but I confess that some things I have heard from the other side have given me twinges of patriotic jealousy. I should like to feel that my country is always first in generosity. When Chaplain O’Rorke walked unattended and in khaki through the streets of Burg, there was no offensive remark.[42] Three English ladies travelling in Germany in war-time tell me that they never suffered from one unpleasant word. Miss Littlefair tells of some anti-English demonstrations, but of far more kindness, and when her unpopular nationality became known in a railway carriage, there was no change in the friendliness of its occupants.[43] Again, a [166]Canadian Chaplain has been allowed to travel free, and in his uniform, and to visit his men in different camps. He seems to have had no difficulty with the populace. As regards walks on parole, we hear from Crefeld, “There has been no trouble of any kind with the inhabitants.”[44]

Some German Newspapers and other German Comments.

The Frankfurter Zeitung is one of those German newspapers which has often at least worked for sanity in the national attitude. We may differ from some of its conclusions, but we must admire its stand against the flood of foolish, indiscriminate hate. On February 27, 1915, it asked: “What sense is there in German professors declaring that they will no longer collaborate with this or that scientific institution in England?... Salutations such as the celebrated ‘God punish England’ are not only fundamentally tasteless and theatrical, but are quite ridiculous.... We are deep in war, and we have to collect all our strength to beat our enemies, and especially to subdue our most dangerous enemy, England; but after the war must follow a peace which shall render possible calm and assured work. This work must be performed in conjunction with other peoples which we cannot exterminate.” ... (Quoted in the Times, March 2, 1915.) On April 11, 1915, there appeared another telling little article, “English and German, according to Professor Sombart.” The article is quietly ironical over Professor Sombart, who brings us before the court on the old charge, that we are a nation of shopkeepers. “The traders’ spirit, that is Englishdom.” I confess that as an Englishman I have always felt there was an uncomfortable amount of truth in this sneer. We are surely a somewhat stodgy, money-making people with [167]far too little receptivity for new ideas. “I have long thought and preached,” wrote Lord Haldane in the Nation of August 7, 1915, “that the real problem in this country is the development of thought and ideas.” Dr. Drill does not in his review concern himself with this charge. He remarks in passing that it is quite possible for a tradesman to be a hero and for a minister of war to be a tradesman, and then goes on to point out the futile absurdity of all such general charges. He cites an amusing attack on German culture by a lecturer at Bedford College. “We smile over his attack,” says Dr. Drill. “May we not be afraid that educated Englishmen do the same about Professor Sombart?” The review tears the book to tatters, and the reviewer sums up the opinion of the thoughtful by declaring that the publication of such a piece of writing at this time of crisis is altogether scandalous. The course of journalists during this war has so often been down steep places that we are refreshed whenever we come, either in England or in Germany, upon so brave a stand for a sane view of the enemy. Karl Bleibtreu (as quoted in the Daily News, July 8, 1915) writes in the Kölnische Zeitung, “Such foolish effusions as that of Professor Sombart’s ‘Traders and Heroes,’ revealing no conception of the more profound movements of the soul, must be regarded as an error. The true perception is here blurred by a confusion of the British private character, which is worthy in every way of the highest respect, with the State policy which is dominated by a national megalomania.” We are told that Bleibtreu abuses France. Well, we have known rather distinguished Englishmen abuse France, too. The Frankfurter Zeitung has spoken of “the really heroic bravery” of the Black Watch. The Kölnische Zeitung reproduced a spirited article from the Austrian Danzers Armee Zeitung in which that paper said the generous thing about Serbian, Belgian and Russian armies alike. This article also was a protest against [168]the lower tone which has prevailed by no means only amongst the newspapers printed in German. The Serbians are spoken of as “an enemy who can hardly be surpassed in keenness and untiring energy.” No one has any right, the article says, to abuse the Belgians who had a right to fight and who fought very well, notwithstanding the notoriously unmilitary character of their country. Of the Russians we are told, “We must admit that these armies are well led, excellently equipped, and splendidly armed.... There have been individual cases of disregard of the Red Cross, and one hears of occasional plunderings, but, as regards the majority, it is an honourable and chivalrous enemy that is facing us.” The love of fair play is after all not confined to Englishmen, or to the opponents of Germany.

The Daily News of March 26, 1918, quotes from the Kölnische Zeitung, which writes of the British enemy as “defending himself with extraordinary determination and bravery.... Our men speak in terms of the highest praise of the attitude of the enemy. The Englishman is an extremely brave soldier.” I confess I should be glad to read tributes of like generosity in certain popular newspapers on this side. The Deutsche Tageszeitung is also quoted as saying that the British defended every one of their points of support determinedly and bravely, giving way only step by step. Again, von Ludendorff (March 27) is quoted as saying: “The English use and distribute their machine guns very cleverly,” and there is something out of keeping with the attributed Ludendorff character in the remark: “The district over which the offensive has passed is pitiable.”

On April 4, 1918, the Daily News contained the following under the heading, “A Respectful Greeting sent per balloon by the Germans”:

On April 15 we read of Armentières: “A Berlin semi-official statement says that despite the ever-increasing pressure of the enveloping troops the town held out extraordinarily bravely. Only when, by a flank onslaught of the German troops, envelopment to the west of the town was almost completed, did the remnant of the brave garrison surrender.”

And here is a letter from an Englishwoman in Germany (Nation, May 15, 1915): “‘Gott strafe England’ is a ‘Spruch’ in great use here, and is to be had on rubber stamps.... School children are taught it.... This is a fact, but all the better-thinking people deplore it, and I wonder whether, if it is ever recorded in history, it will also be recorded that the Kaiser has now strictly forbidden it. It will die, but gradually. It is the idea of some silly loud-mouthed ass, and the people, like sheep, followed it.” Professor Wrangel, a German authority on pedagogy, urges the avoidance of instilling hatred into the young, and he tells us that the Bavarian Government has instructed its teachers to avoid in their lessons all language insulting to the enemy. (Daily Chronicle, June 19, 1915.) In July, 1915, the Frankfurter Zeitung published a long article on the situation in England, written by a neutral observer. The London Daily News describes it as giving “on the whole a fair and conscientious presentation of facts.” The article points out that the average Englishman regards the war as a war of defence (just as the average German does). The article warmly praises England for the way in which it won the loyalty of the Boer Republics.

[170]In the Montag (the Monday edition of the Berlin Lokalanzeiger) Herr E. Zimmermann stoutly defended actions of both neutrals and enemies that the more biased in Germany had condemned. “Reproach levelled against America for supplying war material to our enemies is unjust. Germany herself, at the Hague Conference, caused the rejection of the proposal to prohibit the supply of war material to belligerents by neutral countries. Only the prohibition of supply of war material by the Governments of neutral States exists, while private industry is free to act as it likes. So far America, as a State, has supplied no war material.” In his attitude towards America, says Herr Zimmermann, the Imperial Chancellor “need take no notice of those ferocious heroes who take care to keep themselves at a distance from the hail of bullets in safe retreat....” We know something of those ferocious heroes on this side too.

Again, “I cannot share in the political sentimentality which represents England’s attempt to starve us into submission as an exceedingly mean thing. I cannot share in it because it would have been a pleasure to me if I could apply with success the same war tactics to England. We must not forget that it is not really a question of actually starving to death tens of millions of men and women, but only of constraining them to lay down their arms.”

Sir Edwin Pears writes in the Sunday Times of October 10, 1915:

This is a singularly fair and frank statement of the facts of the crisis, as they at first presented themselves. The Frankfurter Zeitung is no doubt distinguished for [171]the reasonableness of its outlook, but I think that anyone reading the better German newspapers must (in the days when they were available) have felt a little prick of wounded pride when he compared them with our own. The Kölnische Zeitung is, for instance, like all belligerent newspapers, ridiculously biased; but in the earlier days, when I was able to see it, I did not find gross misrepresentation or absurd hate. The “not very tasteful ‘Gott strafe England’” has given the English a new word, one writer remarks (Sept. 21, 1915). Naturally, American testimony favourable to Germany is exclusively quoted, just as in this country we quoted exclusively that favourable to the Entente. And some space was given to the utterances of such men as Sven Hedin and Björn Björnson, who, as neutral observers, had formed a high opinion of the way that German character was meeting the crisis. There was not, however, so much of the curious sanctimonious malice which has disfigured some of the well-known English papers.[45]

School-Books.

If children are to be told of the war at all, the central duty of any teacher should surely be to avoid stimulating those feelings of hatred which might obscure the chances of future peace. On the whole, the German school-books I have before me seem to fulfil this duty, or at least to aim at fulfilling it.[46] There are, of course, many stories of the achievements and the courage of the German soldiers. All peoples have dwelt on physical courage in too primitive a way. But these books scarcely encourage hate. A letter from France tells how German soldiers tried to help the starving people. The writer is very obviously sincere. “In [172]one village near our fortifications the people were crying with hunger. It was woeful. I gave them all the bread I had. The children were always asking for more, and kissed our hands. That moved us all greatly. Naturally we told the Commandant.” As a result, twelve women were allowed to pass through the lines blindfolded to fetch food from ——. This story is not one to encourage hate, and again and again there are stories of German sympathy with the enemy.

A sad account of incidents of the Russian invasion begins: “Of course, not all Russians are barbarians, most of the misdeeds are due to the Cossacks.” (I could not help on reading this calling to mind some of the wilder anti-German outbursts. An official in a rather responsible position said to me that he could not see “a single redeeming feature in any one of them.” It was a childish outburst, but childishness in a position of authority becomes cruelty.) A story one German school-book tells of a wounded Belgian sounds only the note of pity, and there is a wonderful little picture of a wounded German’s suspicion of a wounded Russian. The story is finely told, but I cannot reproduce it all here. The Russian is in pain and thirst, the wounded German hesitates between suspicion and pity, but pity gets the upper hand, and he crawls with his water bottle to the Russian. Later, as he lies helpless, his fears are aroused by seeing the Russian fumble with something in his breast. Is it a revolver? The wounded German, overstrained with suffering, waits in terror, but the Russian dies before his hand can bring out what it sought. When the stretcher bearers come the German asks the leader to look for the revolver which he feared the Russian was trying to get out. The leader goes to look. He brings back what the Russian’s dying hand was seeking. No revolver, but the portrait of his mother. This rebuke of hatred and suspicion would live in a child’s mind for long.

[173]The effects of the anti-German outbursts can be traced even in these books. When an officer finds the Sisters of a nunnery in want, his ready help is accompanied by the words: “This little kindness is the act of German barbarians, who refuse all thanks. As long as we are here, each barbarian soldier will give up a little, so that you may have their savings every three days, and then you will have plenty.... Enjoy it, and be as happy as you can.”

Belgium and War Aims.

Professor Martin-Rade of Marburg University is a Protestant Liberal Theologian and a man well known in his own country on account of his literary and political activities. He writes as follows in the Christliche Welt, a widely-circulated magazine of which he is the editor: “I can only deplore the manner in which the Chancellor in his speech ... has treated the question of neutral countries, for there was no need for him to have recourse to the proverb, ‘Necessity knows no law.’ With that proverb I cannot convince these who behold in the existence of neutral States a triumph of the rights of man. That is why it is a pity—for which it is hard indeed to make reparation—that the German Empire should not have abstained altogether, at the very outset, from the sin ... which it has committed against Belgium. Whoever accuses my view of being unpatriotic I challenge, by whatever test he likes, to show that he loves his Fatherland better than I do.” (From a letter in the Nation, November 28, 1914.)

Again, as early as December, 1914, at a meeting of the Socialist Party in the Reichstag a resolution was proposed in favour of (a) the evacuation of Belgium, and (b) the setting up of plebiscites in Schleswig and Alsace-Lorraine to determine the future government of those districts. It was defeated, but twenty four members voted for it. (Nation, January 23, 1915.) [174]To estimate the full value of this we must try to envisage the state of mind of a nation at war. This is notoriously difficult. We cannot picture our own state of mind, because it is obviously impossible at one and the same time to be intensely moved and to picture this emotion without emotional bias. And our bias renders us perhaps equally incapable of envisaging the mind of the enemy. It will be necessary therefore somewhat wilfully to exaggerate an analogy in order to see how Germans may feel. Let us conceive, then, twenty-four members of the House of Commons proposing (in the midst of the war) (a) the raising of all blockade restrictions against neutrals, the evacuation of all neutral territories (whether Grecian or Persian), and (b) the setting up of plebiscites in Ireland, India and Egypt, to determine the future governments of those districts. I can imagine somewhat heated or contemptuous treatment of this comparison. Just so: the Germans are heated too, and they no longer see clearly. And we must never forget that they have had long training in obedience to government. There are not wanting English politicians who would like to see similar training introduced here. It leads however to the hypnotic response of which Colonel Maude has written interestingly in his “War and the World’s Life.” The Government in Germany called for the defence of the Fatherland, the Government declared the invasion of Belgium as unavoidable. The hypnotic response followed, but at least twenty-four members of the national legislature woke from the trance and thought. I have attempted in my comparison only to suggest how much independence, how much cutting of bonds and attachments that thought required. I press the analogy no further. What is noticeable is that this thought, voiced so early and unmistakably, has been gaining wider and wider utterance. It appears that in December, 1914, Herr Haase, speaking in the Reichstag for the Social Democrats, declared that the [175]party were unanimously of opinion that the facts which had come to light since the beginning of the war were not sufficient evidence for them to adopt the Imperial Chancellor’s view that the violation of the neutrality of Luxemburg and Belgium was justified by military reasons. The party had come to the conclusion and had agreed that the violation of Luxemburg and Belgium must be regarded as a violation of justice. The above declaration seems to have been suppressed in the German papers. It reached the Labour Leader from Holland.

Against Annexation.

We have all of us read the celebrated manifesto issued by the National Executive of the German Social Democratic Party which the Vorwärts was suppressed for publishing. Let us remind ourselves of a few passages in that document. It was issued in June, 1915. “When in recent years the threatening clouds of war gathered on the political horizon, the German Socialists stood with all their strength up to the last hour, for the preservation of peace. To the misfortune of the peoples, the Socialists in all countries were not yet strong enough to hold back the terrible fate which has come upon Europe. The torch of war flared up sharply and set the whole world on fire.

“When the Cossacks of the Tsar passed over the frontiers, plundering and burning, the German Socialists proved true to the word which their leaders had given to the German people. They put themselves at the service of their country and voted the means for its defence....

“The Parliamentary Party and the Party Executive have always unanimously opposed the policy of conquests and of annexations. We raise once more the sharpest protests against all attempts to secure the annexation of foreign territories and the violation of the rights of other peoples, particularly as they have been expressed in the demands of great Capitalist [176]Federations and in the speeches of leading capitalist politicians. To make such attempts delays more than ever the peace which is strongly desired by the whole people. The people do not want any annexations. The people want peace.—The Executive of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. June 23, 1915, Berlin.”

When we remember that the Social Democrats of Germany number about four millions,[47] the importance of this manifesto becomes clearer. It is a tremendous fact. The loud-voiced threats of crushing, boycott, etc., by influential sections on this side have been one of the greatest hindrances to the Social Democrats, and one of the greatest aids to German militarists.

We heard much in 1915 of the “annexation split” in Germany. The Delbrück-Dernburg-Wolff Memorial represented, to my thinking, nothing strange, or new, or abnormal, but rather the voice of natural and normal Germany making itself heard again amidst the clamour of foolish hatred and silly bombast in which present-day crises seem always to involve the contending nations. “Germany did not enter the war with the idea of annexation”—thus the Memorial opens. It is easy to scoff at this statement, because it is always easier in a crisis to be swayed entirely by bias. Frankly, as regards Germany, that is (if this word is to have any meaning), as regards the mass of the German people, I believe this statement to be true. Whatever the militarist and commercial schemers may have contrived, Germany as a whole did not enter the war with the idea of annexation, but, as the Memorial goes on, “in order to preserve its existence, threatened by the enemy coalition against its national unity and its progressive development. In concluding peace, Germany cannot pursue anything that does not serve these objects.” Who were the signatories to this Memorial? Amongst the 82 names are those of [177]Professor Hans Delbrück, Dr. Dernburg (the ex-Minister), Professor Adolf von Harnack (the theologian and General Director of the Royal Library at Berlin), Theodore Wolff (Editor of the Berliner Tageblatt), Dr. Oppenheim (who holds an important position in the dye industries), Carl Permet (Judge of the Berlin Commercial Courts), Prince von Hatzfeld, Franz von Mendelsohn (President of the Berlin Chamber of Commerce), Prince Donnersmarck, Count von Leyden (ex-ambassador), Dr. August Stein (Editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung), Major von Parseval (the designer of the famous airship). These are representative names. They stand, I think, with the Social Democrats for the real Germany.

The Berliner Tageblatt has returned again and again to the charge. Here, for instance, is an extract from an article by Herr Theodore Wolff as given in the Daily News of February 4, 1916:

Germany and Contracts.

The real German is not simply a brute, though the brute lies perdu in every civilised man. Mr. Herbert [178]Hoover, formerly Chairman of the Commission of Relief in Belgium, said, “The German authorities place no obstruction in the way of relief, and, as far as can be ascertained, not one loaf of bread or one spoonful of salt supplied by the Relief Commission has been taken by the Germans.” (Times, c. December 6, 1914).

It has often been said in this country that according to German rules contracts with enemy subjects are cancelled by the mere fact of war. The Kölnische Zeitung published a legal opinion disposing of this statement. No law to this effect exists, and none has been enacted. “Only the right of enemies to secure enforcement of contracts by means of legal process has been curtailed. Moreover, the making of payments to England, France or Russia has been prohibited. But these last-named prohibitions presuppose the legal validity of the contracts themselves, since they declare the payments due under them to be merely postponed.” (Daily News, August 20, 1915.)

An old friend of mine was in process of negotiating patent rights in Germany for an invention of his at the time that war broke out. He was allowed to complete the claim to the patent, and it was granted him after Germany and Britain were at war.

“Frightfulness.”

Not every one in Germany is obsessed with a conviction of the efficacy of “frightfulness.” This is plain from the fact that the Frankfurter Zeitung published articles from its neutral correspondent in England which point out that each phase of frightfulness had precisely the opposite effect of that which was intended. The bombardments of coast towns, the use of asphyxiating gases, the sinking of the Lusitania all led, he remarks, to increased recruiting and intensified war feeling. Each act of frightfulness has of course been represented to the German public in a very different [179]light from that in which it has been presented to us,[49] and it is therefore the more striking that so influential a newspaper should publish such an opinion. When the Lusitania was sunk, both the Berliner Tageblatt and the Vorwärts maintained an absolute silence, and these are the two most influential organs in Berlin.

The Brotherhood of Enemies.

The soldier’s attitude is often that of Captain Ball, the boy who did such wonders in the air fight:—

Quoted in the Daily News, May 7, 1918. Captain Ball has finished the killing in the only way boys can finish the killing now, for he is dead. The last words, Requiescat in pace, have a new poignancy in days when children are growing up who have never known peace.

Yet underneath all the wild recriminations prompted by fear and hate, there is brotherhood. For at the worst what do all these charges mean? That a few foolish men without vision have slipped into power and direct the great beast-machine that kills. That Frankenstein is apt at all times to wild, primitive cruelty. What may it be when foolish, hard theorists are its masters? Yet, for all that, the people out of whom Frankensteins are made are of one flesh, are all brothers, all parts of the great Life which some call God. Now and then, amidst their fiercest fighting, this becomes plain. It sometimes seems as if the [180]main concern of rulers were to prevent any permanent realisation of this truth; for if the peoples should realise their oneness, war would cease, and there is nothing that stops awkward questions as war does. Yet some day these awkward questions will be asked again, I hope, and Hans and Jack and François and Ivan may come to realise their brotherhood. Let us remind ourselves how now and then they can realise this even in war. “Who will not recall in this connection,” writes Prince Eugéne Troubetzky in the Hibbert (July, 1915), “the touching description of the Christmas festival in the trenches, when the Germans, hearing the English singing their hymns, went out to meet them and heartily shook their enemies by the hand? Similar scenes have occurred more than once between the Russians and the Germans. At the present moment there lies before me the letter of a Russian soldier which refers to them: ‘What I am going to tell you,’ he says, ‘is a true miracle.’ The ‘miracle’ which had so appealed to his imagination was that, during an armistice, there were ‘handshakes and hearty acclamations on both sides, to which no description could do justice.’ ... From the very heart of war there issues this mighty protest of life against the destructive force of death. But whenever life asserts itself, its object is always to re-establish a living unity. The more violently unity is threatened by war, or by the mutual hate which would tear it asunder, the more powerful becomes the answer of this spiritual force in its effort to re-establish the integrity of mankind. In this we have the explanation of a fact, which at first sight seems incredible, that in time of war the perception of the universal solidarity of mankind reaches a degree of elevation which would hardly be possible in time of peace.”

“On Christmas Eve,” writes a member of the London Rifle Brigade, “the Germans burned coloured lights and candles along the top of their trenches, and [181]on Christmas Day a football match was played between them and us in front of the trench. They even allowed us to bury all our dead lying in front, and some of them, with hats in hand, brought in some of our dead officers from behind their trench, so that we could bury them decently. They were really magnificent in the whole thing, and jolly good sorts. I have now a very different opinion of the German. Both sides have started the firing, and are already enemies again. Strange it all seems, doesn’t it?” (Nation, January 2, 1915.)

“These Germans were enduring the same hardships, and the same squalor. There was only pity for them and a sense of comradeship, as of men forced by the cruel gods to be tortured by fate. This sense of comradeship reached strange lengths at Christmas, and on other days. Truces were established and men who had been engaged in trying to kill each other came out of opposite trenches and fraternised. They took photographs of mixed groups of Germans and English, arm-in-arm. They exchanged cigarettes, and patted each other on the shoulder, and cursed the war.... The war had become the most tragic farce in the world. The frightful senselessness of it was apparent when the enemies of two nations fighting to the death stood in the grey mist together and liked each other. They did not want to kill each other, these Saxons of the same race and blood, so like each other in physical appearance, and with the same human qualities.... The monstrous absurdity of war, this devil’s jest, stood revealed nakedly by those little groups of men standing together in the mists of Flanders.... It became so apparent that army orders had to be issued stopping such truces.”

It is only by artificial stimulus, by artificially made ignorance, that war can be kept going in these days. By which I do not mean to imply that commanders and leaders are wilfully cruel men; but the leaders [182]on each side are afraid lest their men should give up fighting first. To be the first to acknowledge brotherhood seems like being the first to give in, and actually does foreshadow serious dangers. And yet the time will come when we shall have to face danger for the sake of brotherhood, as we do now for the sake of self-assertion. The orders to avoid friendship with the enemy were, even in these circumstances, not always obeyed. “For months after German and British soldiers in neighbouring trenches fixed up secret treaties by which they fired at fixed targets at stated periods to keep up appearances and then strolled about in safety, sure of each other’s loyalty.” (Gibbs, “The Soul of the War,” p. 351.) Prisoners were sent back to their own trenches, and sometimes went with great reluctance.

Wounded.

“He told me how on the night he had his own wound French and German soldiers talked together by light of the moon, which shed its pale light upon all those prostrate men, making their faces look very white. He heard the murmurs of their voices about him, and the groans of the dying, rising to hideous anguish as men were tortured by ghastly wounds and broken limbs. In that night enmity was forgotten by those who had fought like beasts and now lay together. A French soldier gave his water-bottle to a German officer who was crying out with thirst. The German sipped a little and then kissed the hand of the man who had been his enemy. ‘There will be no war on the other side,’ he said. Another Frenchman—who came from Montmartre—found lying within a yard of him a Luxembourgeois whom he had known as his chasseur in a big hotel in Paris. The young German wept to see his old acquaintance. ‘It is stupid,’ he said, ‘this war. You and I were happy when we were good friends in Paris. Why should we have been made to fight with each other?’ He died with his arms [183]round the neck of the soldier, who told me the story unashamed of his own tears.” (Gibbs, l.c. p. 282) “At one spot where there had been a fierce hand-to-hand fight, there were indications that the combatants when wounded had shared their water bottles.” (Sheffield Telegraph, November 14, 1914.)

The following letter must not be forgotten. It was found at the side of a dead French cavalry officer: “There are two other men lying near me, and I do not think there is much hope for them either. One is an officer of a Scottish regiment, and the other is a private in the Uhlans. They were struck down after me, and when I came to myself, I found them bending over me, rendering first aid. The Britisher was pouring water down my throat from his flask, while the German was endeavouring to staunch my wound with an anti-septic preparation served out to them by their medical corps. The Highlander had one of his legs shattered, and the German had several pieces of shrapnel buried in his side. In spite of their own suffering they were trying to help me, and when I was fully conscious again, the German gave us a morphia injection and took one himself. His medical corps had also provided him with the injection and the needle, together with printed instructions for its use. After the injection, feeling wonderfully at ease, we spoke of the lives we had lived before the war. We all spoke English, and we talked of the women we had left at home. Both the German and the Britisher had only been married a year. I wondered, and I suppose the others did, why we had fought each other at all....” (Daily Citizen, December 21, 1914. Quoted in Edward Carpenter’s “The Healing of Nations,” p. 261.)

More Christmas Incidents.

Let us take one or two more of the Christmas experiences as quoted by Mr. Edward Carpenter, in his book, “The Healing of Nations”: “Last night [184](Christmas Eve) was the weirdest stunt I have ever seen. All day the Germans had been sniping industriously, with some success, but after sunset they started singing, and we replied with carols. Then they shouted, ‘Happy Christmas!’ to us, and some of us replied in German. It was a topping moonlight night, and we carried on long conversations, and kept singing to each other and cheering. Later they asked us to send one man out to the middle, between the trenches, with a cake, and they would give us a bottle of wine. Hunt went out, and five of them came out and gave him the wine, cigarettes and cigars. After that you could hear them for a long time calling from half-way, ‘Englishman, kom hier.’ So one or two more of our chaps went out and exchanged cigarettes, etc., and they all seemed decent fellows.”

Again. “We had quite a sing-song last night (Christmas Eve). The Germans gave a song, and then our chaps gave them one in return. A German that could speak English, and some others, came right up to our trenches, and we gave them cigarettes and papers to read, as they never get any news, and then we let them walk back to their own trenches. Then our chaps went over to their trenches, and they let them come back all right. About five o’clock on Christmas Eve one of them shouted across and told us that if we did not fire on them they would not open fire on us, and so the officers agreed. About twenty of them came up all at once and started chatting away to our chaps like old chums, and neither side attempted to shoot.” Another soldier relates how his comrades and the Saxons opposed to them sang and shouted to each other through the night. He goes on, “When daylight came, two of our fellows, at the invitation of the enemy, left the trenches, met half-way and drank together. That completed it. They said they would not fire, if we did not; so after that we strolled about talking to each other.”

[185]On Christmas morning, elsewhere. “We mixed together, played mouth-organs and took part in dances. My word! The Germans can’t half sing part songs! We exchanged addresses and souvenirs, and when the time came we shook hands and saluted each other, returning to our trenches. I went up into the trenches on Christmas night. One wouldn’t have thought there was a war going on. All day our soldiers and the Germans were talking and singing half-way between the opposing trenches. The space was filled with English and Germans handing one another cigars. At night we sang carols.” Another records how souvenirs and food were exchanged, and how jollification and football were indulged in with the Germans. But “next day we got an order that all communication and friendly intercourse must cease.” The Germans had said frankly they were tired of the war, the English soldiers wished to be their friends, but far away were a few elderly men who wanted the fighting to go on.

Into what depths the need of exacerbating hate may lead one is shown by the following extract from a telegram headed, “British Headquarters, France,” which I take from the Daily News of December 23, 1915:

The last sentences must surely, in any generous heart (if the moral destruction of war has left us such), produce a feeling of acute shame. In all the multitude [186]of truces that occurred at Christmas, 1914, I have not seen a single case of German treachery reported. What is it that is feared in the truce? “In some places,” said a German officer, “we have had to change our men several times. They get too damn friendly.”[50] “If we don’t take care,” said an English officer that Christmas, “there will be a permanent peace without generals or c.o.’s having a say in the matter.” Is that thought really more terrible than the thought of unnumbered shattered bodies and hopeless hearts?

How ineffectual so far are all European attempts at democracy! Carlyle’s satire about the thirty men of Dumdrudge called out, they know not why, to kill thirty men from a Dumdrudge elsewhere is not referred to in these days; but it still expresses the essential absurdity of wars.

Here is an extract from the Labour Leader of August 19, 1915:

The Labour Leader is much disliked by the orthodox of England, as is the Vorwärts by the orthodox of Germany. It seems to me that both may be rendering a fine service to the cause of humanity, and one may surely say this without implying complete agreement with the opinions or the policy of either.

Wounded Enemies.

Writing home to his mother in Somerset, a member of the R.A.M.C. says: “You will find inside a German [187]button for a souvenir. It was given me by a wounded German prisoner. After he had had his wound dressed, he pointed to his buttons and made signs for me to cut one off. He hardly knew how to thank us after he had finished his tea, and his eyes gleamed with gratitude as he looked around at us.” (Daily News, August 26, 1915.)

From a private letter: “The following is first hand, and of interest. Dr. S. lectures on first aid to C.’s squad. During the course of a lecture on the heart he referred to a visit paid to the local hospital. In the hospital was a man who had been a prisoner in Germany. Dr. S. asked the man about his treatment. In the course of the talk the man said that if he had his choice he would prefer to be in a German hospital! Dr. S. smiled when he related this. ‘This is not the kind of statement,’ he said, ‘that is published in the newspapers!’”

There comes into my mind the photograph of a British prisoner in a German camp. The boy’s mother was delighted to see him looking so well. The photograph was the more striking as the lad was wounded in the stomach at the time he was taken prisoner.

From a private letter: “My nephew was in the Canadians and was wounded in the spine in a recent advance.... He was brought back to London, where I saw him, and he died in hospital shortly after. He told me himself all about it. He lay for several hours after being wounded, unable of course to move. When the ambulance came up, the stretcher bearers were Germans—prisoners of war. They saw he was cold and took off their own coats and wrapped him up. All the while they were under fire from the British guns.[51] One of them was wounded in the arm by shrapnel as they were carrying him, but he kept his [188]hold. He called to his mate to let down the stretcher, but till it was on the ground, he never flinched. My nephew knew what this meant, and as he thought of what had been done for him by an ‘enemy’ his face lighted up, as he said, ‘That man is a hero!’ And he added, ‘We don’t feel hard towards them at the front.’”

Again, a wounded soldier who had been prisoner in Germany says: “I could not have been better treated, and I know ninety companions who say the same. But this is not the sort of story the newspapers want.” People very generally do not like to hear good of an enemy. In war-time this very human objection may become an important cause of continued strife. (cf., p. 108.)

In the following, Philip Gibbs tells of a German doctor who tended friend and foe alike. “A number of Germans ... —about 250 of them—stayed in the dug-outs, without food and water, while our shells made a fury above them and smashed up the ground. They had a German doctor there, a giant of a man with a great heart, who had put his first-aid dressing station in the second line trench, and attended to the wounds of the men until our bombardment intensified so that no man could live there.

“He took the wounded down to a dug-out—those who had not been carried back—and stayed there expecting death. But then, as he told me to-day, at about eleven o’clock this morning the shells ceased to scream and roar above-ground, and after a sudden silence he heard the noise of British troops. He went up to the entrance of his dug-out and said to some English soldiers who came up with fixed bayonets, ‘My friends, I surrender.’ Afterwards he helped to tend our own wounded, and did very good work for us under the fire of his own guns, which had now turned upon this position.” (Daily Chronicle, July 5, 1916.)

It must be easy to tell bad stories of every furious [189]fight, but the right spirit is surely that shown by Mr. Gibbs in another despatch (Daily Chronicle, July 7, 1916): “The enemy behaved well, I am told, to our wounded men at some parts of the line, and helped them over the parapets. This makes us loth to tell other stories not so good.”

Again, on July 21, 1916: “It was the turn of the stretcher-bearers, and they worked with great courage. And here one must pay a tribute to the enemy. ‘We had white men against us,’ said one of the officers, ‘and they let us get in our wounded without hindrance as soon as the fight was over.’”

“‘This war!’ said a German doctor, ‘We go on killing each other to no purpose.’” (Daily Chronicle, July 5, 1916.)

And on this side:

I remember a Cockney boy of fifteen telling me how at Southend he had gone for fun to see wounded Germans brought ashore. But the fun died out in his heart at the reality, and he ran away.

The little incident I will next mention has special charm because of the beautiful spirit shown by every one concerned. A wounded German, Albert Dill, lay in hospital here. He was asked by a visitor if there was anything that he specially wished for. He answered. “Flowers for the dear English nurse, more than anything else.” The flowers were sent and his letter of gratitude is touching. There were far more [190]than he expected, he said, and his joy was the greater. “The pleasure of the nurses and the doctors too was great when they saw this rich gift of flowers (diese reiche Blumenspende).... This day will often remind me of the good and self-sacrificing nursing that I have had here in this hospital.” And the “dear English nurse” writes: “The flowers you sent at the request of Albert Dill were indeed most beautiful.... I have been nursing the German patients for a considerable time, and their gratitude has always been most marked. We sincerely hope that while carrying out our duties we have been able to relieve their sufferings, and have perhaps helped them to bear the misfortunes of war a little more patiently.” This little incident is surely the greatest of victories, for it is a victory of the spirit.

Nurse Kathleen Cambridge, who was near Mons at the time of the British retreat, spoke as follows of some of her experiences (Daily News, January 8, 1916):

Neglect and honourable conduct are both recorded in the next cutting from the Manchester Guardian (September 17, 1917).

From the Daily News, April 16, 1918:

From the same paper of April 11, 1918, I take the story told by a naval prisoner exchanged through Switzerland:

The following is from Lloyd’s News, May 12, 1918, under the heading of “Back from the dead”:

The following is from a private letter: “I am happy to be able to tell you that through the German Flying Corps dropping a message, we heard of [my son’s] safety early in July. He writes to us and appears to be well and comfortable.... He was shot through the neck. He has happily quite recovered after being about four weeks in hospital. He has spoken only of kindness and attention from doctors and nurses.”

Again: “As you have probably heard by now, I am a wounded prisoner of war.... I myself got my shoulder rather badly smashed up by a machine gun which knocked me out, and I lay in a shell hole for about ten hours while our guns strafed like hell and I expected every moment to be blown to bits. However, I at last managed to crawl up and stagger along, and as I was in German lines, ran into a lot of Germans. They were awfully kind to me, gave me food and drink and bound up my wound, and then sent me along to the dressing station. I am at present [193]in hospital in Belgium and expect to go to Germany almost directly. My address at the back will find me.” What follows from the same correspondent has some bearing on the feeding in hospitals. “You mentioned in your last letter whether you could send me anything. Well, dear old chap, if you are feeling an angel, plenty of good plain chocolate and other delicacies would be awfully welcome, also some Gold Flake cigarettes.” It was only “delicacies,” it will be observed, that were asked for. This was in the middle of 1917.

The next extract is from Common Sense, July 13, 1918:

“The following experience of an Ullet Road boy, Private Arthur Bibby (6th S.W.B.), who is now recovering from a severe wound, is recorded in the Ullet Road Church Calendar for July:

“Private Bibby was forced to lie down by the side of the road, and shortly afterwards an advance party of the Germans came along delivering their attack. The first wave swept past, but of those who followed one stopped to give Private Bibby a cigarette, another took off his wounded foe’s equipment and made it into a pillow for his head, and put his water-bottle within reach, while a third made a pad out of his field dressing with which he staunched the wound. As he turned and followed his comrades, he assured his patient that the Red Cross would come soon.

“A German Red Cross orderly came up shortly afterwards, and was engaged in dressing the wound when the order came for the Germans to retire before a British counter-attack. ‘About ten minutes after the[194] last had passed down the road our lads, counter-attacking, were creeping up the road, and it was not long before the R.A.M.C. lifted me on a stretcher and took me to the advanced dressing station.’

“We congratulate Private Bibby on the recovery he is making from a severe wound, and are glad that he is able to bear this testimony of gratitude to a company of unknown but chivalrous foes.

“It is, of course, well known that the Northcliffe Press refuses to print experiences of this kind.”

“Many of our wounded have passed through the same conditions of captivity and deliverance. They bear witness to the honourable conduct of the German Army doctors (majors). Here, for example, is one of the stories that I have heard: ‘I found myself in a ditch after the battle, unable to move. A German doctor came by; he gave me bread and coffee and promised to come back in the evening if he could, or next day. That night and the following day passed without my seeing any one; the time seemed long. In the evening he came: ‘I had not forgotten you,’ he said, ‘but I have had no time.’ He had me carried away and gave me careful attention.’” (La Guerre vue d’une Ambulance, par L’Abbé Félix Klein, Aumonier de l’Ambulance américaine, p. 80.)

The writer continues: “Facts of this nature deserve to be recorded. Amidst this setting loose of horrors and hates it would be well to lay stress on some of those deeds which are able to soften the soul. This morning I see that an article has been passed in one of the most widely read French journals recommending that no prisoners should be made in forthcoming battles, but that our enemies should be ‘struck down like wild beasts,’ ‘butchered like swine’! Nothing, not even the sack of Senlis, nothing justifies such outbursts of fury.” The French soldiers, M. L’Abbé indicates, confine their denunciations to the Prussian regulars and speak well of the reserves. “They are [195]men like us, married men, fathers of families, fair-minded.” But for the doctors there is often a good word: “Le major allemand est venu, nous a soignés, nous a donné du café, du pain.” “Le major nous a soignés et donné de la soupe.” There was however, much plundering. The armies which do not plunder are indeed raræ aves. “The animosity of the English against the enemy,” says the Abbé, “is greater even than ours.” “In the evening,” runs one narrative, “the soldiers of the 101st put me in the wood where were many wounded Frenchmen and a German captain, wounded the day before. He suffered, he too, poor man (le pauvre malheureux).” When the Germans came, “some looked askance,” but the captain said the Frenchmen had been kind, and when the Germans had taken him they came back and attended to the French. It was a bad time in the retreat, but French and German wounded shared the same fate. (l.c., p. 98.)

Whose Fault?

The poor soldiers, obliged to obey orders under penalty of death, defending (as they believe) their homes from wanton attack, are surely, in the mass, but little to blame. The blame rests elsewhere. A body of Russian prisoners was brought into a village in East Prussia. The sufferings of the inhabitants during the invasion had made them bitter, and from the crowd of onlookers there was a scornful outcry. “At that one of the prisoners bent forward, shook his head and said slowly, with great, sad eyes, ‘It is not your fault, and it is not mine.’” (Dr. Elisabeth Rotten in Die Staatsbürgerin.) Looking at it all with fresh knowledge, after more than three years of war, I feel that this Russian spoke for all the peoples, “It is not your fault, and it is not mine.” Meanwhile there still goes on what my wounded friend, writing from Rouen described as “this orgy of slaughter, this incredible and criminal lunacy.”

[196]An Order Against Kindness.

A girl who, with others, was attending to the enemy wounded, writes: “Doubtless we should have more consolation among our little soldiers, since here we are forbidden to give little kindnesses and attention; but I believe that before the end we shall disobey the order, because we put our hearts into our devotion and our pity.” (La Guerre vue d’une Ambulance, p. 116.) It is a little startling to learn of orders against kindness to enemy wounded. In a country one of whose chief newspapers advocated slaughter of the enemy like swine, such orders seem unwise. They can surely scarcely be made except when we wilfully blind ourselves and imagine that our enemies do not share our humanity.

Our Common Humanity.

Here is a letter found on one of the German dead, a man with “a good face, strong and kindly,” so wrote the Daily Mail correspondent. “My dearest Heart,” runs the letter, “when the little ones have said their prayers and prayed for their dear father, and have gone to bed, I sit and think of thee, my love. I think of all the old days when we were betrothed, and I think of all our happy married life. Oh! Ludwig, beloved of my soul, why should people fight each other? I cannot think that God would wish it....”

These words of Austin Dobson were written of a French sergeant in an earlier war, yet they serve equally well for the German soldier in this. Strange that we leave it to the dead to prove their brotherhood and ours.

Philip Gibbs tells us how in a German dug-out he picked up some letters. “They were all written to ‘dear brother Wilhelm,’ from sisters and brothers, sending him their loving greetings, praying that his health might be good, promising to send him gifts of food and yearning for his home-coming.” They were anxious, for here had been no news for some time. “Every time the postman comes we hope for a little note from you.” Can any generous heart think of that anxious waiting unmoved? Shall we children of one Life wait till we have wholly darkened each other’s homes, and then call our handiwork peace?

But by that time, by the judgment of God, our eyes will be opened.

It is we at home who seem to yield only to this dread proof. With the fighters it is often different, as we [198]have seen, and though the stories savour of repetition, the repetition is surely worth while. I have aimed here at no literary production, but simply at a collection of facts that may reach the heart. “We sing,” said a soldier from Baden, “to the accompaniment of the piano—especially during the interval for dinner. We have indeed entered into a tacit agreement with the French to stop all fire between 12 and 1 o’clock, so that they and we might not be disturbed when we feed.” (Zeitung am Mittag, as quoted in the Daily Chronicle, November 10, 1914.) “One of our teachers, a lieutenant in the R.F.A., who has been out most of the time, had a few days’ leave some weeks ago. He said to the school, assembled to do him honour, ‘Boys, do not believe the stories you read about the Germans in the newspapers. Whatever they may have done at the beginning of the war, the German is a brave and noble soldier, and after the war we must be friends.’” (From a private letter.) A soldier writes that a diary he kept was blown to bits by a shell. He gave what remained of it to a wounded German who pleaded for it. He had met many German Socialists in the fighting. “It is a blessing to meet such men and amid all the slaughter brought about by our present system, it seems heaven upon earth.” (Labour Leader, June 24, 1915.)

Are We Always Chivalrous?

It will only be making the amende honorable if we do our best now to spread reports of good deeds of the enemy, for in the early stages of the war we deliberately deleted them from messages, and we have certainly done a great deal to conceal them ever since. Writing to the Times in October, 1914, Mr. Herbert Corey, the American correspondent, said: “The Times leader quotes the Post as charging that I ‘flatly made the charge that dispatches had been altered for the purpose of hiding the truth and blackening the German character.’ I do not recollect this phrase. [199]I did charge that dispatches of German atrocities were permitted to go through unaltered, and that sentences in other dispatches in which credit was given the Germans for courtesy and kindness were deleted. I abide by that statement.”

There have been many angry references to unfair German attempts to influence neutral opinion. A letter such as Mr. Corey’s makes me able to understand why some neutrals have accused England of the very same unfairness. There is other testimony to the same effect. Mr. Edward Price Bell, London Correspondent of the Chicago Daily News, has, in a pamphlet published by Fisher Unwin, indicted the British censorship in the following terms:

There is no doubt that people often fear to tell of German good deeds. An acquaintance of mine told me that his boy got decorated for bringing in a badly wounded comrade from near the German trenches. A little shamefacedly my informant went on: “I don’t mind telling you, but I shouldn’t like it to be known generally here, that I know the Germans act well sometimes. My boy wrote he would have had no chance, but he heard the Germans give the order to cease fire.” [200]My informant evidently feared the neighbours would call him pro-German if he told this to them, but he thought he might venture to tell a pacifist.[53]

One notices this fear sometimes in rather amusing ways. In a railway compartment with me were a loud-mouthed patriotic woman “war-worker” and a mere soldier back from the front. I’m afraid I got a little at loggerheads with the war-worker, who adopted in argument a kind of furious grin which revealed a formidable row of teeth that in my mind-picture of her have become symbolically almost gigantic. I turned for relief to the mere soldier, and while the train was moving we had a pleasant dip into soldier philosophy. “I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s good and bad everywhere,” he said. “I’ve known bad Germans, and I’ve known Germans to look after our wounded as well as a British Tommy could look after his chum.” There was more to this effect, but whenever the train stopped and our voices became audible to others, we were silent. The fear of that row of teeth was, I think in both our hearts, and I could see the mere soldier looking timid before them.

Fair play to the enemy’s character is a concession not quite so easy to the average Englishman as he supposes. “The Anglo-Saxon race has never been remarkable for magnanimity towards a fallen foe.” Just now, when we are inclined to be almost afraid of the excess of chivalry which possesses us, there may be useful corrective in these words of Lieutenant-General Sir William Butler, K.C.B. There has been much searching of old history books of late to find out what was said in the days of Tacitus against the Germans.[54] (What Tacitus said in their favour is not considered.) Perhaps on the other side there are investigators searching their history books for ancient opinions of the [201]English. “Strike well these English,” said Duke William to his Normans, “show no weakness towards these English, for they will have no pity for you. Neither the coward for running well, nor the bold man for fighting well will be better liked by the English, nor will any be more spared on either account.” Butler approved this verdict. We shall not readily agree with him. Yet he did not speak without cause: he had known an English general kick the dead body of an African King, who “was a soldier every inch of him,” and he had known the colonists spit upon an African chief brought bound and helpless through Natal. (“Far Out,” p. 131.) I believe myself there is a great and ready generosity in the hearts of the English people, but he must surely be a man invariably on the “correct” side who has not more than once come across the official Englishman who could be a bully to those in his power.

Some British Opinions.

“I am disgusted by the accounts I see in the papers of the inferiority of Germans as soldiers. Don’t believe one word of it. They are quite splendid in every way. Their courage, efficiency, organisation, equipment and leading are all of the very best, and never surpassed by any troops ever raised. They come on in masses against our trenches and machine guns, and come time after time, and they are never quiescent, but always on the offensive. I am full of admiration for them, and so are all who know anything about them. It is a pity that such fine soldiers should have behaved so badly in Belgium and here; they have behaved badly, there is no doubt about it, but nothing like what is said of them—any way in parts I have been through.” These words from a General Officer commanding a brigade occur in a letter published in the Times of November 19, 1914. Yet these “quite splendid” fighters are the men of whom a learned[202] professor appointed by the Government has written that they are “rotten to the core.” There is some discrepancy here. “They are great workers, these Germans,” wrote Philip Gibbs (Daily Chronicle, July 5, 1916), “and wonderful soldiers.”

“An officer of the Sydney gave a quite enthusiastic account of the officers of the Emden. ‘Vitthoef, the torpedo lieutenant, was a thoroughly nice fellow. Lieutenant Schal was also a good fellow and half English. It quite shook them when they found that the captain had asked that there be no cheering on entering Colombo, but we certainly did not want cheering with rows of badly wounded men (almost all German) laid out in cots on the quarter deck. Captain von Müller is a very fine fellow.... The day he was leaving the ship at Colombo, he came up to me on the quarter-deck and thanked me in connection with the rescue of the wounded, shook hands and saluted, which was very nice and polite of him.... Prince Hohenzollern was a decent enough fellow. In fact, we seemed to agree that it was our job to knock one another out, but there was no malice in it.’ This is the ideal fighting, ‘with no malice in it.’ It has been achieved by many English and Germans, and that gives hope for the future. Let us make the most, not the least, of what points towards a better understanding.... At the beginning of November ‘Eye-Witness’ records how English prisoners had been sheltered by the Germans in cellars to protect them from the bombardment of their own side. An Anglo-Indian tells of a wounded havildar who was noticed by a German officer. ‘The German officer spoke to him in Hindustani, asking him the number of his regiment, and where he came from. He bound up his wounds, gave him a drink, and brought him a bundle of straw to support his head. This will be remembered to the credit side of our German account.’

“A wounded officer addressed some students at one [203]of our universities. He protested humorously that he was not a ‘pro-German,’ and then spoke up for a fair view of the enemy. When he was being carried into hospital, he noticed an anti-aircraft gun just outside the hospital. This struck him as, to say the least, unwise. He expected the hospital to be shelled, and this occurred. He did not blame the Germans. On another occasion a farm near the firing line was used for first aid. It was not obviously a hospital and was fired on. The Commanding Officer sent a note to Von Kluck to explain matters, and the farm was never after exposed to fire.[55] He had seen a church damaged by German shell fire, but this was one which he had himself seen used by the French for observation purposes.[56] The same officer uttered a warning against believing all that was in the ‘Tommies’ letters. At one time when he was censoring letters, one passed through his hands from a Tommy only just arrived in France, and never in the firing line. He described an immense battle in which the English did wonders and he himself had marvellous duties to perform. As far as the military situation was concerned the letter was quite harmless, so it was allowed to go through. It was something like the intelligence to the publication of which the Press Bureau ‘does not object.’”[57][58]

In her book, “My War Experiences on Two Continents,” Miss Macnaughten writes of the Germans: [204]“Individually, I always like them, and it is useless to say I don’t. They are all polite and grateful, and I thought to-day, when the prisoners were surrounded by a gaping crowd, that they bore themselves very well.” (p. 127). Again, “I found one young German with both hands smashed. He was not ill enough to have a bed, of course, but sat with his head fallen forward trying to sleep on a chair. I fed him with porridge and milk out of a little bowl, and when he had finished half of it he said, ‘I won’t have any more. I am afraid there will be none for the others.’” (p. 37.) Unfortunately, Miss Macnaughten too readily accepted war stories. She writes of “country houses” where he heard German prisoners here lived in luxury, “and they say girls are allowed to come and play lawn tennis with them.” The humour of this will be apparent to any who have visited internment camps. Lawn tennis was, however, possible at some camps, both here and in Germany—there were seven courts at Ruhleben. Some of the atrocity stories many of us will recognise as not so reliable as Miss Macnaughten supposed. It is her personal experiences which are important, and, like the Scotchman[59] (whom she quotes) she has, not hatred, but respect, for the Germans whom she herself meets.

The Ease of Accusation.

Again and again, everywhere, we find readiness to accept stories against the enemy on very slender evidence. At the time of the loss of our three cruisers I saw in one of the better newspapers a large heading, “German Treachery. Fighting under the Dutch Flag.” I looked down the columns for evidence. No mention of such a circumstance in the official report, none in the letter from the chief correspondent; but at last I found that some one at Harwich had “heard of” such an incident. We must remember that only cool [205]and clear intellects are likely at such a time to give an accurate account of facts. Between others mutual recrimination may readily arise. An officer on H.M.A.S. Sydney wrote after the attack on the Emden: “It was very interesting talking to some of the German officers afterwards. On the first day they were on board one said to me, ‘You fire on the white flag.’ I at once took the matter up, and the torpedo-lieutenant and an engineer (of the Emden) both said emphatically, ‘No, that is not so; you did not fire on the white flag.’ But we did not leave it at that. One of us went to the captain, and he got from Captain von Müller an assurance that we had done nothing of the kind, and that he intended to assemble his officers and tell them so.” Note how readily on the other side, amongst those less responsible or less cool-headed, a tale may grow up against us. Let us observe in considering tales against them the same caution that we should wish them to exercise in considering tales against us.[60]

Troops in Occupation.

Witnesses from Brussels and from Ghent have spoken well of the personal behaviour of both soldiers and officers. A neutral correspondent writes in the Times of January 28, 1915:

Mr. Gabriel Mourey has written an account of his custody of the Palais de Compiègne during the invasion. The Times review of this book is so interesting that I propose to give some extracts from it:

I think we know such men, and many privates know such men, elsewhere than in the German army. Germany may have cultivated them in greater numbers—that is highly probable—but they are rife everywhere, and under favourable circumstances they thrive exceedingly.

“The Irish Nuns at Ypres” gives an account of their experiences by a member of the Community. In a review (May 27, 1915), the Times Literary Supplement says:

Another French account of the invaders in Northern France is given by Gabriele and Margerita Yerta, “Six Women and the Invasion.” Their experiences were variable. “It is clear,” writes a reviewer in the Nation, “that Herr Major, and ‘Barlu,’ and ‘Crafleux’ and the two ‘model Prussians,’ who replenished the house with coal and provisions, and offered the ladies game they had shot, only sinned by their over-gallantry. But things changed for the worse with the coming of a hundred Death’s Head Hussars and Lieutenant von Bernhausen.... Nothing very outrageous is recorded, but there was dragooning, inquisition, drunkenness. Bernhausen’s reign lasted two months.” As to outrages on women, Madame Yerta writes: “To be sure there were rapes, but, thanks be to God, these were few, and they took place [208]at the beginning of the invasion.... I must confess that many a woman was the victim of her own imprudence.” The book is, naturally, fiercely anti-German, its facts are, however, those of any war story.

Again, “On the whole the Germans behaved well at St. Quentin. Their rule was stern but just, and although the civil population had been put on rations of black bread, they got enough, and it was not, after all, so bad.” This testimony is the more noteworthy because, “as one of the most important bases of the German Army in France the town was continually filled with troops of every regiment, who stayed a little while and then passed on.” (Philip Gibbs, “The Soul of the War,” p. 152.) It is a little startling to read some more that Mr. Gibbs has to say. French-women were ready to sell themselves to German soldiers, and “such outrageous scenes took place that the German order to close some of the cafés was hailed as a boon by the decent citizens, who saw the women expelled by order of the German commandant with enormous thankfulness.” I am not so surprised at this now as when I first read it. An English soldier has since told me that the “silliness” (as he called it) of women for soldiers leads them, in more cases than he could have imagined, to bestow themselves on either friend or enemy. Women with child had said to him quite proudly that it was by a German soldier!

From a private letter: “One of the party is a French officer who tells the tale. After the Marne retreat he was crossing over the territory evacuated by the Germans, and made inquiry of the villagers who had housed the enemy, how they had been treated, what barbarities had been committed, and so forth. The villagers were surprised. The Germans had behaved like gentlemen, had paid for what they used, and had treated them with perfect courtesy. What, no looting? On the contrary, the German officer had [209]a soldier shot for a very small act of pillage.... ‘We’re soldiers, not robbers,’ he said.” I cannot vouch for this story, but it gives just the same impression as the account given by Dr. Scarlett-Synge (see pp. 149ff). It is also remarkably similar to experiences recounted by C. A. Winn (Baron Headley) who was with the Prussians in 1870. (“What I saw of the War,” p. 44.) When he himself had taken some vegetables from a garden, he was told by his officer friends that any sort of pillage was the “greatest offence a friend of the Prussians could be guilty of.” And Mr. Winn speaks of “the many instances of the remarkable efforts of the authorities of the Prussian army to prevent plunders by their soldiers.” It must be remembered that deliberate destruction for military reasons, or as punishment (carried out by all armies) is very different from theft. I do not for a moment suppose that this standard is always reached by the German armies. That it has often been aimed at is something to remember.

I may add here a rather interesting quotation from Colonel F. N. Maude’s book, “War and the World’s Life.” On page 11 he writes: “I do not suggest that life in the Prussian army has at any time been ideal, but I do assert, from personal knowledge, that relatively to their respective stages of civilisation the treatment of the Prussian soldier, since 1815, has at all times been fairer and more humane than in any other army. The fact is proved by the very high standard of discipline maintained, together with the extraordinary absence of military crime which has so long distinguished it.”

I am reminded, too, of one of the first experiences of a friend of mine in France. He reached a village through which the Uhlans had passed. Had the inhabitants any complaints of their behaviour? None whatever.[62] Their only indignation was directed [210]against some English soldiers who (if their story be correct) had behaved abominably. It was a curious shock of reality for my friend. He realised that sometimes the enemy might behave well, and sometimes bad stories of English soldiers might be circulated (even amongst Allies). I am quite sure that no soldiers in the world would, in general, have more natural humanity than the British, and perhaps none would have as much. I contend only against the belief that one side is impeccable, and the other hopelessly barbarian.

From the International Review; a Common Memorial.

Here are a few extracts from the International Review, a periodical published at Zürich, and with co-operators in Russia, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Italy, America, Great Britain. “The yearning of human beings towards mutual understanding needs to-day a new organ for its expression.” Hence this review—a review naturally pronounced pro-German by our Junker Press, since it presents, amongst other things, moderate statements of the German standpoint. The only internationalism which this Press can recognise is one that is exclusively English. So exactly, mutatis mutandis, do German and English chauvinism coincide. The extracts which follow are taken from the first number of the review. “Under the title, ‘German-French Chivalry,’ the Volksstimme, of Frankfurt a.M. (June 19, 1915), describes the dedication of a memorial to three thousand dead at Sedan on June 12. The leaders of the German army were present, and the French authorities officially shared in the proceedings. The short inscriptions on the simple monuments are in both French and German. They refer alike to the seventeen hundred French and the thirteen hundred Germans who fell on August 27 during the battle on the heights of Noyers.”

[211]A Story from France.

From L’Action Française, Paris (June 12, 1915), is cited a description of the poignancy of war, of which the following is a translation:

How much sanity is there in a world that sets such men to kill each other, and eggs them on to hate?

German Help of “Alien Enemies.”

In Germany (as already mentioned in Chap. IV.) is a ‘Committee for advice and help to natives and foreigners in State and international affairs.’ It deals with those of all nationalities, and one branch of it corresponds in many ways to the similar Emergency Committee in England for assistance of Germans, Austrians and Hungarians in distress.

What, however, is most striking is the number of cases of individual kindness shown by Germans to “alien enemies.” The minds of many might be cleared on this subject if they would read a charming and unpretentious little book, “An English Girl’s Adventures in Hostile Germany,” by Mary Littlefair, published by John Long, Ltd. The authoress saw and heard absurd Press charges on the other side, and something, too, of the irrational hatred of war-time, but the little book is a record of almost nothing but kindness, and gives fresh hope to those who had begun to despair of human nature.[63] Here are two cases of singular beauty from Nauheim. A postman “happened to know of a poor English lady whose funds had come to an end, and who had in consequence offered to wash up the crockery at her pension in return for her board and lodging, and he told her one morning that he had forty pounds saved up which she should have, and welcome, if she was in need.” The case of the bath-chair woman was not less touching and [213]generous, for she and her husband, a crossing-sweeper, also put their savings at the disposal of an invalid lady his wife used to wheel out every day, telling her that, though their cottage was only small, they did possess a tiny spare room, and they would be so glad if she would come to them as their honoured guest, supposing—as at present seemed likely—the English would have to spend the winter in Nauheim; they would indeed do their best to make her happy and comfortable.[64]

On more than one occasion in the railway trains the “enemy” character of Miss Littlefair and those who were with her was revealed, but no unkindness was shown. The last occasion was in October, 1914. “‘Shall you have to travel farther, or does your journey end in Munich,’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘we hope to go on to Switzerland to-morrow.’ ‘O, how delightful! You are lucky. It is such a beautiful country. Tell me, are you foreigners by any chance—American, or perhaps English?’ she queried. ‘English,’ I replied. The truth was out, and I looked to see a change of feeling reflected in her pleasant, winsome face; but her expression remained as kind and as interested as before, and her manner as cordial, so I told her more about ourselves, as there was no longer any need of reserve, and she had told me so much of their affairs.” There was, of course, the usual patriotic bias, but it was expressed with real good feeling. “‘Of course, we don’t hold the English people personally responsible for the war,’ she said, ‘but we think that England[65] has behaved very shabbily. It is very grieving, though, that the two countries should be at war.’ She had two or three English friends, and told me about them till our arrival in Munich, [214]where our confidences were necessarily cut short, and we took an affectionate leave of one another.” (p. 123.)

The following incident also shows simple folk made clear-sighted by kindness of heart: “On another occasion Christine and one of the ladies in our hotel went into a shop to buy some beautiful lace which was being sold at half-price. ‘We have to sell it cheaply because of the war,’ explained the assistant: ‘ach! it is terrible! We never wanted this war, and I am sure you did not either. You and I are not enemies, it is ridiculous. Let us shake hands to show we are friends. Yes!’ And they did.”[66] Good! That handshake, let us hope, will outweigh many a hysterical outburst on both sides.

An English schoolmaster was, with his wife and family, in Germany at the outbreak of war. He testifies to the quite wonderful kindness he received. Almost daily he was taken by his hosts to other houses, and at the Kaffeeklatsch which ensued there was never anything but a finely chivalrous courtesy. So grateful did the schoolmaster feel that (just as with Germans befriended here) he felt he must make some sort of return to the “enemy.” He explained the situation, and obtained permission to take two interned enemy nationals into his house. They in their turn felt that movement of gratitude which the preachers of hate refuse to believe in. They wanted to make some return to the schoolmaster, for schoolmasters are usually poor men. “If you do that,” he said, “I shall feel I am doing nothing.” There was a dispute of kindness, and in the end a modus vivendi of gratitude was arrived at. How strange the methods of force seem by comparison. The two men are now interned once more—surely a sorry end to a story of such fine humanity.

From Mrs. K. Warmington: “There are two little instances that stand out in my mind very clearly, and [215]I think speak for themselves. The first relates to an English lady, her husband, and her son, with whom I made acquaintance at the English Consul’s office. Later on I met the same lady at the American Consul’s office; she was in deep distress, as her husband and son had been arrested and put into prison. Through the influence of an American that we met at an hotel, we got a permit to go and see a military commandant at the barracks to see if anything could be done for them. When we arrived, he treated us most courteously, and listened patiently to what we had to say. He rang a doctor up on the telephone, and, as far as we could make out, told the doctor to examine these men, and to pronounce them ill. He then turned to us, and told us to return in the afternoon, when he would fetch them in his own motor-car, which he did. He also gave us a paper asking the civil authorities to do all they could to aid us to get away, shook hands, and wished us a safe journey.

“The other instance relates more to myself. We were at Nüremberg, Bavaria. We had permission to leave for Lindau, on the borders of Lake Constance, on our way to Romanshorn in Switzerland. The journey was a rather expensive one for me, as I had very little money, little more indeed than a cheque, which was valueless. A young German, who was shortly going into the Navy, whom I had known only about a month, hearing of my case came to me, and gave me £9 in English gold to enable me to travel more comfortably.

“My father was German, my mother English, and my husband English. I was in Germany in 1914 from July 26 to August 26. As my son was of military age, and I did not want him interned, I got what influence I could to get him away. He was finally released at the end of August, and we were allowed to go on to Switzerland.”

In the course of 1915 an English born woman [216]returned to her husband in Munich. Her sister wrote to me of the extreme kindness with which this lady was received by her German friends. Many English wives of interned men have gone to Germany to their husband’s families, and one hears the same account of extreme kindness. In Offenbach alone there are twenty English wives with forty English born children. Special classes have been opened for them. After all, there are some German methods which are worthy of imitation. There seems at times a danger of our imitating what is worst in our enemies, partly as a result of a desire to ignore what is better.

The letter which follows appeared in the Times of September 2, 1914:

Some account may be given of a party of 190 Englishwomen and 14 children who landed at Queenborough on September 22, 1914. (Times, September 23, 1914.) “... With one accord they spoke in terms of praise, both of their treatment in Germany and of the kindness shown to them on the journey.... ‘We have received kindness everywhere,’ said one of a party from Dantzig. ‘The Germans have been absolutely stunning to us.... I have not heard of one English person being molested anywhere in Germany.’” The Englishwomen did noble work on their part, especially for the fugitives from East Prussia. “One Sunday we fed and clothed 290 who had come in without a rag to their backs.”

“I was arrested in Berlin as a Russian spy, because a bomb had been found in the house next to mine, and because a woman in the street said that she had seen me putting bombs in my hat-box, and that she had seen me with a Russian. I did, as a matter of fact, know a Russian student, but he was not the man she meant. I was taken to the police station and searched twice in the same day. They kept me in prison for two days and nights, giving me very bad food, and then they released me because they had no real evidence against me. When I came out, strangely enough it was German people who gave me hospitality until I was able to leave Berlin.”

[218]Again, “The German women are crazy over our Scottish troops and their kilts. Some of them used to go out and give the prisoners cigarettes, chocolates and flowers, but that has been forbidden now.”

A party of 178 who landed at Folkestone had varying stories to tell. “Nothing could possibly be better than the treatment we have received,” said one, “everybody—official, police and public—treated us with the greatest kindness and the utmost courtesy.” “The Germans are brutes, absolute brutes,” said another. Probably a third, who described both statements as exaggerations, came nearer the average truth. One of this same party described the kilts referred to above as causing matronly indignation in Berlin.[67]

In the Times of September 24, 1914, appeared a letter on the subject of English exiles in Berlin:

Here also is a fact that should give us pause. In a prisoner camp at Frankfurt a-Oder is a large building erected as a place of entertainment and general meeting hall. It is used by Russian prisoners, and a considerable [219]contribution towards its erection was collected by house-to-house visitation in Frankfurt. To appreciate this fact at its true significance we must remember that Germany suffered from direct invasion by Russia immediately on the outbreak of the war, and that all the stories of atrocities and devastation that we heard of Belgium were also told of East Prussia.

“An old friend of our family,” a correspondent writes, “has been residing in Bavaria over forty years. He is an artist, and married a Bavarian lady. His eldest son is a doctor in London, and two of his daughters are married in London, but the father has no difficulty in getting permits to paint in the Austrian and German mountains, and still finds a sale for his pictures in Germany.”

Forty years is, I know, a long time, but not by any means always sufficient to prevent persecution in the present war. On my writing table is a little ivory elephant. It was carved by a German who had been forty years in the service of one British firm. He was dismissed (a man over seventy) because of the war. This is not a unique case. “N.S., clock-maker, who had been here thirty-nine years, and P.W., baker, fifty years. (He had two sons at the front, and ‘the longer he thought the more the number of his English grandchildren grew.’)” (See the Third Report of the Emergency Committee for these and other cases).

I do not in the least wish to suggest that there has been little kindness on this side and much on the other. I am simply trying to restore the balance. So far (as is usual in war-time) the game of hatred has been played with loaded dice. Let us welcome kindness everywhere. Here, then, is a different kind of story from one of the Friends’ reports:

The kind landladies and other kind hearts exist, thank God, on both sides.[68] To enquire on which side there are most would (even if we could do so without bias) probably be profitless. The important point is that the kind hearts on the other side are there, and that a brotherhood of blessing will help the world more than a brotherhood of revenge—if, indeed, this last could be any brotherhood at all.

Miss G. H. writes: “I am particularly anxious to do something for interned Germans. For four months of the war I was in Germany with my mother, sister, nephew and niece, and we were all most kindly treated and helped in every possible way both by friends, by my lawyer, my banker and the neighbouring peasants. Also by all the guards and waiters along our journey on November 21. Friends, peasants, and my lawyer are still looking after my property in Germany, and I have left everything in the hands of a neighbouring peasant, who sends me accounts of it. I would like to be able to do some kind acts here in return, and for the furtherance of better relationships later on.” Yet it can never be pleasant to be in an “enemy” country. Miss H. writes further: “In spite of having such unspeakable sympathy, really understanding sympathy, shown me by not only friends, but the common people—though I hardly like using this term, as no one with so much fellow feeling could really be [221]termed common—in spite of this kindness, I know so well how one can suffer. Over there we are looked upon in the same way that Germans are looked upon here, as quite outside the pale of common morality. Fully realising what this must mean for me, these kindly Germans would go off into a day dream of wonderment as to how they might feel in a similar plight, and one ended up with the reflection, ‘Ja, es ist halt jetzt die Zeit der Märtyrer’ (it is indeed the time of the martyrs once more).” Surely there is something strangely poignant about the convinced and steadfast martyrdom and self-sacrifice of both sides. Surely the peoples who can thus offer themselves in destroying each other must both have noble gifts to give together one day in a nobler cause.

The following is from the Nation (Jan. 19, 1918):

In Vienna newspapers there were in 1915 many advertisements in which French, English, and Russian natives offer their services as teachers, thus:

Such advertisements, we learn from the International Review of July, 1915, appear daily in Vienna.

From Die Hilfe, June 22, 1915: “in a weekly concert in Noyon the collaborators were Prof. Rivière, Sergeant Bonhoff, and Director Günzel. The performance of the Frenchman from an organ composition of his own was most effective.” There are, of course, also exhibitions of narrow-mindedness. In Halle the police forbade a performance because one of those who took part was an “enemy alien.” (Vorwärts, June 1, 1915.) On the other hand, when some Italian musicians complained of unjust dismissal, the court awarded them damages of 700 marks. The Volksstimme, of Frankfurt a.M., June 8, 1915, writing of Italy, deprecates any hatred of Italians. As soon as the responsible authorities had decided on war, obedience was the duty of each Italian citizen, just as of each German.[69] This outspoken deference [223]to “responsible authority” is characteristically German, but the doctrine is here applied with great fairness. Some of our militarists apply it less fairly. And, alas, when the Italian Avanti published an article “Against the Blunders of International Hate,” the wisdom of the Censor caused it to be largely blanked out. The Censors seem to have strict orders to keep us hating each other.[70]

Brotherhood Again.

And yet—“We picked up scrappily the hint, however, that ‘some of the Germans were all right.’” This from an article in the Times on a homecomer from the front. With unconscious self-revelation the writer adds: “That somehow sounds depressing. One has heard the opposite.” Just so, it is disconcerting and depressing to have it suggested that the enemy is a man very much like ourselves; it injures our feeling of superiority. We “confess” any favourable impression of him as if it were a fault of our own. A correspondent of the Petit Parisien tells of the capture of a German officer of Hussars, near Arras. “I confess,” he says, “that the impression he produced was rather favourable than otherwise.” (Daily Telegraph, June 11, 1915.)

With others the confession is less reluctant.

From Belfort in September came the report: “A German aviator this morning flew over Belfort, dropping a wreath on the spot where Pégoud was killed. The following inscription was placed on the wreath: ‘To Pégoud, who dies a hero. (Signed) His Adversary.’”

The following is from the Daily News of October 9, 1915:

The next extract is from the Nation of November 13. 1915:

From a private letter: “What impresses one most are the graveyards. All these are beautifully kept, all the graves have been cared for, and no distinction has been drawn between German, English, and French, who lie side by side. ‘Hier ruht ein tapferer Engländer, gefallen im Luftkampf’ (Here lies a brave Englishman, fallen in the air fight), etc., etc.”

The Daily News of March 10, 1919, has the following:

The roll of honour in the chapel at New College, Oxford, includes the names of three Germans, and the words of charity: Pro patria—Memento fratres in Christo.

The Way of New Russia.

In reprisals of good we may learn something from the new Russia. When the German prisoners were set to work Kerensky said, “Prisoners or not, they shall be paid at the same rate as other men,” and they were. What was the result? Again the movement [226]of gratitude, which is so potent a force, if only we would believe it. The German prisoners presented half their wages to the Russian Red Cross. I have to rely on private information for this.

Thoughts From the Other Side.

The thoughts of the others are much like our own—that is the difficult truth we have to learn. It is a truth that is absolutely essential to any peace that is to be more than an armistice of fools.

Ideas imprisoned, narrowed (beschränkt, as the Germans say), become putrescent through lack of free air. It is in this putrescence that the gospel of hate is bred. Here is a German officer’s protest against the infamy of this gospel. It is quoted from the Kölnische Zeitung by Mr. A. G. Gardiner in his book, “The War Lords”:

Personally, I believe this to express the soul of the real Germany and the soul of the real England. The soul of any people is the best that is in it.

The following is from a lecture delivered by Prof. H. Gomperz in Vienna, early in 1915:

Magnus Schwantje spoke very plainly at a meeting of the Schopenhauer Society at Düsseldorf in June, 1915. He allows that the state has a right to wage a war of defence, but not to force anyone to serve in the army. Schopenhauer, he tells us, “esteems sympathy with all that lives and suffers more highly than love for the Fatherland.... During a war a noble man desires such an issue as may be most beneficial to the whole world.... With all our readiness to recognise the merit of patriotic self-denial, we, the admirers of Schopenhauer, have to warn our compatriots, especially during a war, of the danger of patriotism degenerating into injustice, or even hatred and malicious joy at the misfortune of other nations.... Not one of the European peoples can be suppressed without heavy loss to the whole world, and not one has the right to force its special character on the others.” (International Review, September, 1915.)

War Literature.

It is the elderly gentlemen on both sides who exude vitriol. It is a pity that they are so much in evidence. But even some of them retain their sanity. The following is from the Cambridge Magazine of May 15, 1915:

Romain Rolland bears out the idea that “in all countries the extremest views have been expressed by writers already past middle age.” So it is in Germany, Rolland tells us. Dehmel, the enemy of war, has enlisted at 51; Gerhart Hauptmann, “the poet of brotherly love,” cries out for slaughter. But Fritz von Unruh has, from the battlefield, written “Das Lamm”: “Lamb of God, I have seen Thy look of suffering; lead us back to the heaven of love.” Rudolf Leonhard, who was caught up in the storm, wrote afterwards on the front page of his poems: “These were written during the madness of the first weeks. That madness has spent itself, and only our strength is left. We shall again win control over ourselves and love one another.”

No “glory” of war is in these simple, poignant words of Ludwig Marck—simply a dire evil that we have not the sanity to avoid. “Whether you gaze trembling into the eyes of the beloved, or mark down your enemy with pitiless glance, think of the eye that will grow dim, of the failing breath, the parched lips and clenched hands, the final solitude, and the brow that grows moist in the last pangs.... Be kind.... Tenderness is wisdom. Kindness is reason.... We are strangers all upon this earth, and die but to be reunited.” Thus Franz Werfel. Since these words cannot be called barbaric, they will perhaps be called sentimental. It is true that to those of us who have loved our comrades, of whatever nation, the sentiment of brotherhood does just now make a somewhat tragic appeal. If that appeal, in these days of decimated ideals, be at times strained and feverish, it scarcely lies in the mouths of the apostles of hate to deride us. The sentimentality of hatred is uglier and more fatuous than the sentimentality of brotherhood.

Hermann Hesse is living at Berne. He has implored the writers of all nations not to join with their pens in destroying the future of Europe. From a poem of later date come these words: “All possessed it, but no one prized it. Like a cool spring it has refreshed us all. What a sound the word peace has for us now. Distant it sounds, and fearful, and heavy with tears. No one knows or can name the day for which all sigh with such longing.”

Do not let us forget that almost everything that is most militarist is old. It is only the old who affect still to glory in war—the old newspapers, the old reviews, the old statesmen, and some, perhaps, of the old soldiers—it is to what is newest, youngest, most creative, most living that we look not in vain for an unshaken belief in brotherhood, for a clear acknowledgment that [231]any other belief would throw us back into the ape and tiger struggle of world beginnings, but with the ape ten thousand times more cunning and the tiger ten thousand times more cruel. To some German publications the war is a stupid eruption of barbarism into a workshop where work was being done. Die Aktion scoffs mercilessly at the Chauvinists and at Lissauer with his Hymn of Hate.[72] Even Lissauer, be it remarked, has published his repentance, and, personally, I respect him for it. The man who can say that he spoke too strongly is always worth knowing. The man who insists elaborately on his consistency (as the politicians do) is usually singularly devoid of any appreciation of truth. Die Aktion (1915) goes on steadily with its appreciation of French artists, as if no war were in progress. There may be some affectation in this attitude, but it is to be preferred, I think, to the complete ostracism of work of the enemy called for by a noisy but, I believe, small section on this side. Die Weissen Blätter appeared in January, 1915, with the following announcement:

Evidently the editor has in his mind a contrast between the dictates of conscience and the dictates of officialism. He was born in Alsace, so he may well know this contrast. We are learning it here. In the February number the Krieg mit dem Maul (war with the mouth) was most vigorously condemned:

I am reminded of words used by one of my Swiss friends: “As soon as soldiers must get their fighting force from suggestions of puerile besmirching of the enemy, then war indeed becomes intolerably base.”

Annette Kolb, daughter of a German father and a French mother, had the courage to proclaim openly in a public lecture at Dresden that she was faithful to both sides, and to express her regret that Germany should fail to understand France. After all, German intolerance must have its limits for such a bold speech to be possible.

Wilhelm Herzog in the Munich Forum has attacked the intellectual fire-eaters, the patriots who insult other peoples and the Chauvinists generally. He defends France, the French army and French civilisation, against the brilliant novelist, Thomas Mann. Above all does he condemn the intellectual babble: “The wrong that these privy councillors and professors have done us with their ‘Aufklärungsarbeit’ can hardly be measured. They have isolated themselves from humanity by their inability to realise the feelings of others.”

Mr. Lowes Dickinson has called attention in the Hibbert of October, 1915, to a pamphlet by Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Förster, entitled “Deutschlands Jugend und der Weltkrieg.” The same pamphlet is quoted in The Ethical Movement of the same date. Here are some extracts:

Again:

[234]Again:

Granted that voices such as those of Herzog, Förster, Schücking, Schwantje are a minority, it is yet plain that they represent more than themselves. The existence of such reviews and utterances implies the existence of at least many thousands who have not been deluded by their governors. Of those who have been deluded into enmity, but who have never dreamed of world dominance, there are, I am convinced, many millions. Bernhardi was introduced to Germany by England. There were four million Social Democrats. They have defended their country, but they have never dreamed of aggression. The time will come to claim the help of these men and the many others of the wiser Germany. That wiser Germany will yet live to be, not an army of destruction, but an army of progress.

Henrietta Thomas, of Baltimore, Maryland, went early in 1915 with a message of fellowship from English people to German people. There was some surprise, some tendency to view the message as Utopian, but always a cordial acknowledgment and a real goodwill. Dr. Siegmund Schulze was most heartily in sympathy. “He feels that the ultimate hope of peace lies in the increasing use of arbitration.” “One very sweet-spirited elderly gentleman in Berlin said that when he prayed things looked different—he seemed to see things through God’s eyes—but as a man he had to fight.” “At Stuttgart and Frankfurt I found the peace people more thoroughgoing in their [235]sentiments.” The secretary of the Stuttgart Peace Society said: “The armed peace of Europe is an exploded idea. As long as we have armies we shall use them. We must educate the people to realise this, and to work for disarmament.”

Lichtstrahlen was originally founded as an independent monthly periodical by a Socialist, Julian Borchardt. The periodical was unofficial and had a difficult struggle for existence. This was before the war. When the war broke out the editor took as strong a line against it as the censor allowed. The circulation rose so much that Borchardt was able to convert the monthly into a weekly. Rosa Luxembourg and Frank Mehring, greatly daring, started the Internationale with the object of rebuilding the International Labour and Socialist movement during the war. The review was instantly suppressed, but was reprinted afterwards at Berne. Among the contributors is the well-known Clara Zetkin. She refers enthusiastically to the Christmas message sent by British women to the women of Germany and other belligerent countries. (Labour Leader, June 17, 1915.) Marie Engelmann, of Dresden, has protested with equal strength.

From an American Lady.

The following is an extract from a valuable letter by Madeline G. Doty, an American, which appeared in the Nation of June 12, 1915:

“Germany no longer cares whom she hurts,” runs another passage in this letter; “like an unloved child [237]at bay she means, to smash and kill. The pity of it! Never was there a more generous, soft-hearted, kindly people. Germany, the land of the Christmas tree and folk songs, and hearthsides and gay childish laughter, turned into a relentless fighting machine! But each individual is a cog firmly fixed in the machine, which will go ever on as long as the ruling power turns the crank.”[73]

Two Soldiers’ Letters.

“If I were not firmly convinced that even this war will help to establish the Kingdom of God I could hardly endure it. But I believe that after passing through this hell humanity will come to itself and learn to believe in the reign of human brotherhood.... I cannot tell you the moral suffering I go through. These butcheries are utter madness. I cannot forget for a moment that our enemies are men, and consequently our brothers.” So wrote a young German soldier student quoted by Mr. Jerome K. Jerome.

The following letter is from the Vossische Zeitung. A soldier’s young sister had written asking him to “kill a lot of Russians” and “to gain a new victory in order to cheer us up.” “‘Kill a lot of Russians.’ You have not seen them lying about—those poor dead, with their singularly solemn faces.... You have not seen the battle which preceded, and the bad wounds which so many of my friends got in trying to kill a lot of them. You do not think of the fact that those dead men had parents, brothers, and sisters whom they loved. And you have not seen the harrowing destruction of the villages and towns—how the poor, hunted-down population is running away, leaving everything they had behind them to be consumed by the flames.... And then, remember, we are not [238]fighting in order to cheer you up—we are not lying about in the open-air day and night, starved and suffering from wounds and homesickness, in order that you at home may be cheerful at the tea or beer table. We are fighting and bearing this terrible wretchedness in order that you may he spared the horrors of war, and that Germany’s future may be bright.” That is, I believe, what the enormous majority of Germany’s soldiers are fighting for. Soldiers on both sides have similar and quite reconcilable aims; but government is too complex to express the simple will of the people. In every country, it seems to me, anti-militarist opinion only needs its chance. I was struck by the frequency with which such an opinion cropped up when I was travelling a few weeks in Germany not long before the war. On the top of the Belchen I encountered it in talking to a native of Würtemberg. Again in a walk with a young German to the Feldberg; again in a book-shop at Freiburg; again in chance railway talk with a very well-educated German on my way to Berlin. In Berlin itself a giant Westphalian accosted me, as he wanted to make the acquaintance of “one of these terrible fellows who mean to smash up Germany.” His political ideal consisted in the belief that England and Germany, understanding each other, could keep the peace of the world.

Albert Klein.

Dr. Albert Klein, of Giessen, who was killed in the Champagne in February, felt compelled to side with his Government, as so many do in times of crisis. To that extent his was a biased judgment. It is a bias that one has seen possessing almost everywhere the noblest souls. But Klein could write thus:

The following is another extract given by M. Romain Rolland. It is taken from the letter of a German soldier to a Swiss professor:

Germany in Peace Time.

Enough has been cited to give a glimpse of the better Germany in the time of this war. Let us remember, too, what she has been in peace. “After all, in our saner moments we all of us know that the Germans are a great people, with a great part in the world to play. Their boasts about their ‘culture’ are not idle boasts, and, when one comes to think of it, it is rather important to have in our midst a people that cares to boast about its culture. The Englishman is more given to complaining than boasting, and when he does boast it is certainly not about culture. As it seems to me, the Germans excel in two things—simple tenderness of sentiment and the work of patient observation. I am aware that it has for a considerable time been the mode in England to slight German literature. Personally, I consider this one of those temporary poses to which superior persons are liable. Leave out all the great names if you will—Goethe, Schiller, Heine, and the rest—and we still have the folk-songs. A nation that can produce those folk-songs has got unusual gifts for the world. And, of course, we envy the Germans their music. Of all the contemptible utterances that this war has produced (and it has produced a good many) none has been worse than the silly blathering against German music just because it is German. What have Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner got to do with the politics of the present war? Leaving the arts aside, it is quite certain that in any region where careful observation and painstaking thought are required, no one can afford to neglect Germany. Recently I was looking through May’s ‘Guide to the Roman Pottery in the York Museum.’ Among the names of those dealing with the subject of Roman pottery I suppose [242]the best known are those of Déchelette and Dragendorff—the one French, the other German. Among the other references I found fourteen to German publications and four to English, one of the latter being merely a museum catalogue. No one can study philosophy without continual reference to German thought. Even in a subject so English as the study of Shakespeare the work of Gervinus is fundamental, and from the time of Lessing to that of Ten Brink there has been a succession of German commentators. Those of us who have worked at all at science know only too well what we owe to Germany there. It has, indeed, been at times painful to compare the mass of the German output with the comparatively thin stream of English work. Of course, there has been splendid English research, but as a people we are not lovers of knowledge, and we are specially loath to apply it. Again and again our scientific papers have been filled with diatribes against our English neglect of science, and the diatribes were needed. I remember asking a British firm of repute to construct for me a resistance ‘bridge’ of a simple kind. I explained the whole purpose of the apparatus, but when it came back to me the resistance wire was soldered down in two places to broad bands of brass. This, of course, altered the resistance and rendered the apparatus useless. A rudimentary knowledge of electricity would have made such a mistake impossible. Contrast this with the following: When I was a student a lecturer wished to prepare a rather rare compound for some work of his. We both tried for long to prepare a specimen, but failed, probably because the temperature of our furnace was not high enough. We then sent to a German firm of manufacturing chemists, and they prepared it for us at once. I remarked recently to an English scientific chemist, ‘No English firm would have done that.’ ‘Well, if you had pressed them,’ he replied, ‘they would have [243]sent over to —— (a German firm) and then put their own label on the bottle.’ A ‘chemist’ in too many of our works has too often been a lad who has picked up some routine knowledge, but who has no more scientific equipment than a farm labourer. Contrast this with the state of things at the Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik, where as many as sixty trained chemists are employed.

“I have often thought of these things when I have heard manufacturers bewailing German competition. The war has produced many strange intellectual somersaults, and it is curious to notice how many Free Traders are now eager for the destruction, not temporarily, but permanently, of German trade. A few months ago they would have preached in season and out on the advantage to England of receiving cheap goods, they would have extolled German scientific methods, and they would (with every right) have pointed out that a customer who buys forty million pounds’ worth of our goods is scarcely one whom we should wish to destroy. All these facts remain absolutely unaltered by the war. All that has happened is that a half-ashamed jealousy is no longer ashamed, and is masquerading as patriotism so successful as to have misled the majority of our countrymen—for a time. The day of reckoning will come, and we shall not then find it any better than previously to buy dear goods to please the manufacturers. Moreover, our men of business will not have learned scientific methods by the end of the war. A publisher’s circular that I recently received appealed, on patriotic grounds, for the purchase of a book on applied science. I am not very cynical, but I confess that I distrust these trade appeals to patriotism. The true patriot does not advertise his patriotism in order to make money. In this case the work was well known and important, but it was interesting to observe that almost every one of the contributors was German, and [244]that the rest were German-Swiss. Surely, in spite of its horror, there are many things in this contest to make the gods laugh.”[74]

British Recognition.

It is pleasant to find recognition of Germany’s commercial deserts among British commercial men. The annual conference of the United Kingdom Commercial Travellers’ Association was opened at the Town Hall, Manchester, on May 24, 1915. Sir William Mather, who was unanimously elected president, referred to Germany as follows:

As regards chemical research there also fortunately remain those who still ungrudgingly admit our enormous indebtedness to Germany. In March, 1915, [245]Professor Percy Frankland, F.R.S., addressed the Birmingham Section of the Society of Chemical Industry on “The Chemical Industries of Germany.” With true and chivalrous courtesy, Professor Frankland, in a footnote to his printed address, writes: “The author has much pleasure in acknowledging the assistance he has received from the valuable compilation by Professor Lepsius of Berlin, ‘Deutschlands Chem. Industrie, 1888-1913,’ and from that by Dr. Duisberg, of Elberfeld, ‘Wissenschaft und Technik,’ 1911.” I believe such courtesy is more characteristically British than the lack of it sometimes shown by others. The following quotations from Professor Frankland’s address are of interest:

Industries Dependent on Synthetic Organic Chemistry.

Professor Frankland goes on to urge that we should at least pay heed to “the warnings repeated ad nauseam by the chemical profession during a whole generation.” Those warnings told us of the stupidity and peril of neglecting science. It is not mere commercialism but science that is needed. The help of science, it may be added, will never be gained unless devotion is paid to it for its own sake, and not simply as a means to money. That reward is too far off for mere commercialism. Adolf Baeyer synthesised indigo in 1880, but it cost 17 years of laborious investigation and the investment of nearly £1,000,000 of capital before that synthesis could be made a commercial success. So long a chase is not carried out by those who are thinking only of the prize. The hunt itself must interest them. That, I personally fear, is where we in Britain (and especially in England) are somewhat lacking.

Two other points in Professor Frankland’s address I would draw attention to. In emphasising the need of scientific men on the directorates he asks: “What does not the firm of Messrs. Brunner, Mond and Co., for example, owe to the late Dr. Ludwig Mond, F.R.S.?” Just so. Dr. Ludwig Mond was a German. He came to this country and brought with him his energy, enterprise, and his very exceptional scientific endowments. With Mr. J. J. Brunner he was thus able to found what became the largest alkali works in the kingdom, and undoubtedly one of the most scientific and enterprising works we have. Incidentally it is worth mentioning that the firm of Brunner, Mond [247]and Co. was one of the first to introduce the eight hours day. There are people about (a few of whom ought to know better) asking for the exclusion of the German in the future. I would venture to suggest that we might well exchange very many English people of such limited brain capacity for one Ludwig Mond. To shut the door to men is to shut the doors to talent, and talent produces its best by cross-fertilisation.

I may at this point insert an illustration communicated to me privately. My informant said: “When I was a very young man I determined to try to save a business which was falling in ruin. My project was strongly opposed by my friends, but I determined to carry it out. The works which I took over were then employing 150 men. There was a great lack of scientific training, and this I saw was the chief cause of disaster. So I began sending my men to Germany to be trained. The Germans have always, at their State-supported universities, welcomed the foreigner and given him their best knowledge. My men brought that knowledge back to England. The result was that by the time I withdrew from active work we were employing about three thousand men. The Germans had thus given work to nearly three thousand Englishmen. People should remember facts of this kind when they talk of Germans coming here and ‘taking the bread out of our mouths.’”

The wife of an interned man struggled to keep his business. She was, however, ruined. “Serve you right,” she was told, “coming here and taking the bread out of our people’s mouths.” What a strange idea of humanity! What are “our people”? If a Scotsman settles in London is he “taking the bread out of our people’s mouths’”? We forget that the foreigner is very often an enormous accession to a State. The Norman conquerors who organised us, the Flemings who improved our weaving, the Huguenots [248]who gave new ideas to our commerce, the Germans who brought us scientific method have all been amongst the makers of England. Exclusiveness is a constricting cord that strangles progress. Exchange of commodities is, we know, the life of trade, and exchange of men and ideas is the life of more than trade.

The last quotation I shall make from Professor Frankland’s address has, I venture to think, very considerable bearing on the possibilities of future friendship:

One has met with so much pettiness and folly masquerading as patriotism that it is delightful to welcome such a truly noble utterance.

The allusion to the conditions of labour in Professor Frankland’s address is also important. Most of us regard the German labourer as far too controlled and regulated, but everyone knows that Germany was to the fore in care for the health and well-being of the workman: “As to the factory legislation in general, not only do they afford to children and juveniles a greater measure of protection in regard to hours and other conditions of work than is enforced by the English Factory Acts, but many of their provisions for ensuring the health, comfort, and safety of all workers go beyond the limits which are thought sufficient in this country.” (W. H. Dawson, “The Evolution of Modern Germany,” p. 332.)

[249]Insurance against sickness and old age were measures that we learned from Germany. They were intended to increase British efficiency and well-being, and our statesmen received every courtesy and help in studying German methods. It will be said by many that we shall not study those methods again. Perhaps not. They may prefer an English method as propounded by Lord Headley when speaking at a luncheon in connection with the Bakery and Confectionery Trades Exhibition held at Islington. The report is from the Glasgow Herald as reproduced in the Labour Leader (October 21, 1915):

It seems to me that in this way we should “defeat” not only the foreigner, but the Englishman as well—except the privileged few who could get workmen at low wages without lowering their profits. I remember saying to a Colonial lady that we had gained much from the science of German settlers in this country. “Damn German science,” was her reply. A certain type of employer desires two protections—protection against the knowledge of the foreigner, and protection against the aspirations of the worker. Both the knowledge and the aspirations of others are a disturbance of repose.

At a Nottingham meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry the unscientific character of British methods was again emphasised. So, too, at the Edinburgh meeting in December, 1914.

[250]Principal A. P. Laurie, speaking of paints and colours, said: “There were very few cases among those he had inquired into of a chemical, a colour product, or a pigment which was being made both in Germany and in England in which the German product was not better than that made in this country.... Again, it was admitted that German barytes was better ground than English. Yet an extensive literature on barytes and barytes mining had been published by the Germans, showing exactly how German barytes was ground. They had not found a barytes miner in England who owned a microscope.... The English manufacturer did not believe in or use the man of science.

“Mr. Tatlock, speaking from the laboratory glass apparatus makers’ point of view, said that British manufacturers were finding it exceedingly difficult to replace German and Austrian products.... Professor Henderson had referred to the possibility of people buying more readily goods of British manufacture. They did not find that to be the case. The goods had to be cheaper or better; they would certainly never be bought purely because they were British, and he did not altogether think that they should be bought for that reason.”

It is surely clear that the only wise world policy is one in which each nation brings its own particular contribution to the common stock and in no way tries to shut others out.

The Policy of Boycotting Thought.

We find it impossible to shut out German music. “Germany, it must be said to its credit,” I read in the daily Press, “is not boycotting foreign art.” In the autumn of 1915 the Royal Theatres of Berlin announced Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” and “Antony and Cleopatra,” and Scribe’s “Glass of Water.” “Shakespeare, one hears,” writes a reviewer in the [251]Daily News, of December 4, 1915, “is still being played in the German theatres. If you go to a theatre in London you are more likely to see a performance with a title like ‘I don’t Think!’ or ‘Pass the Mustard, Please!’ Shakespeare, to tell the truth, is in England left largely to professors and schoolboys.”

A silly crusade was started in this country against German thought in general, a crusade so petty that it made some of us wince for shame. The upholders of creeds joined in hastily, for German investigators had given our beliefs many uncomfortable shocks. We remember how it came about that the President of the Training College in Mark Rutherford’s Autobiography could with such satisfaction to himself destroy the “infidel.” “The President’s task was all the easier because he knew nothing of German literature; and, indeed, the word ‘German’ was a term of reproach signifying something very awful, although nobody knew exactly what it was.” The obscurantist and opponent of free thought has shown signs of hope that the German’s reputation for awfulness may turn us from his evil companionship into the restful paths of British piety. The Englishman (especially, I believe, the Saxon element) has too often been prone to make a stronghold of ignorance. This stronghold has certainly in industry proved to be a house of cards, and I think it has proved to be equally a house of cards in religion. It would, indeed, be a disastrous outcome of the war if it led us still more to emphasise our insularity. Unless we are readier after the war to learn from everyone, we shall, as a nation, be mentally moribund. It matters not in the least whether the thought be German, French, Austrian, Swiss, Russian, or any other. Miss Petre, in her “Reflections of a Non-Combatant,” has finely stated the wider view:

Any other attitude is extremely likely to degenerate into a petty jealousy that is bred of fear. This is how Mr. H. G. Wells wrote of our attitude towards Germany years ago:

Such jealousy is a strangely short-sighted mistake. No valuable or lasting peace will come till jealousy is exorcised. There are ominous signs of the possible triumph of a deadly Saxon insularity, but there are other signs that give us hope. When so ardent a combatant as Mr. Lloyd George can speak well of the services of Germany to the world, all is not lost. It is pleasant to be able to quote these passages from an interview reported in the Daily News of January 25, 1916:

“Mr. Lloyd George is not among those who imagine they are doing their country a service by decrying everything German. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that America and all of us should realise that there were two Germanies before the war. On the one hand, there was the industrial, the commercial, and the intellectual Germany, and in a most remarkable way she had blended the three elements. That Germany was rendering a great service to civilisation. It was conquering the world by the success of its methods and [253]of its example, and that conquest would have proved a very genuine blessing. It would have been the means of saving some of the terrible waste from which most of the social evils of humanity spring. As an ardent social reformer, I freely confess that I myself was learning a good deal from that side of Germany, particularly in the direction of municipal and national organisation.’” Mr. Lloyd George goes on to say that the other Germany, the military Germany, had overthrown the Germany from which he had drawn inspiration. Our task then surely is to help to reduce military dominance everywhere and to help to set free that Germany whose peaceful conquest of the world “would have proved a very genuine blessing.”

That Germany was, and still is, a Germany of simple hearts, of men and women who can love well. I have talked to many British-born wives of interned men. Over and over again I have heard the same story. “I could not have had a better husband, and the children could not have had a better father.” That is why many English wives have already gone to Germany to their husband’s families.

It is time we got rid of grotesque caricatures of the German people. Such caricatures always represent the outlook of war-time, but they do not make for a lasting peace. There is a great German people, and that people and ours should find each other’s hearts. I am not so much concerned as to the Germany of brilliant science and industrious commerce. That is good, but there is something better: It is the Germany of loving husbands and true comrades, of true wives and devoted mothers. It is the heart that rules the world, and we need the true hearts in Germany, England, France, and over all the world to recognise each other. The one prayer for us all in every land in these days surely is, “Lord, that our eyes may be opened!” When we can pray that prayer, we shall begin to see the war to a peace of the heart—the only peace that will not be a “patched-up peace.”

[255]APPENDIX

[267]INDEX

Where there are several references and one is of chief importance, that one is printed in heavy figures.

• Accusation, Ease of, 204-5
• Achim, 136
• Aktion, Die, 231
• Alexandra Palace, Internment at, 103
• Altdamm, 8
• American Civil War, Prisoners in, 123-4
• Anderson, Chandler, 79
• Annexation—
• Delbrück-Dernburg-Wolff Memorial Against, 176;
• German Socialist Party Manifesto Against, 175
• Assistance Agency, German, for Prisoners, 12, 133-142
• Assistance to British Subjects in Germany, 212-21
• Atrocities—
• and Credulity, 31, 38;
• German, 264, 265;
• Unfounded Story of, 156
• Auskunfts- und Hilfsstelle für Deutsche im Ausland und Ausländer in Deutschland, 133-4
• Austin, L. J., 33, 37
• Austria, a Prisoner in, 26
• Avanti, 223
• Bad Blenhorst, 48, 57
• Baden, Prisoners in, 60, 61
• Basler Nachrichten, 66
• Bathing Facilities—
• in British Camps, 65;
• in German Camps, 11, 13, 15, 48, 50
• Bath-Chair Woman and English Lady, 213
• Batochina, 150-2
• Bayreuth, 55
• Belgian Relief Commission, Germany’s Attitude to, 177-8
• Belgium, German Protests Against Annexation of, 173-177
• Bell, Mr. E. P., on the Censorship, 199
• Belle-Ile, 43
• Beresford, Lord, 29
• Berliner Tageblatt, 177, 179
• Bernhardi, 234
• Bernstein, Ed., 231
• Berry, Dr. F. M. Dickinson, 72
• Bibby, Private A., 193
• Birt, Capt. W. B., 146
• Bischofswerda, 45-6, 49
• Bishop of Winchester, 12, 132-3
• Björnson, Björn, 171
• Blankenberg-i-Mark, 51
• Blankenburg, 19, 52
• Blue Book on Prisoners in Germany, 24
• Boer War—
• Concentration Camps, 126-131;
• Prisoners in, 125
• Bogen, Col., 11
• Borchardt, Julian, 235
• Bouvigny, 38
• Boxing in Prison Camps, 51
• Brandenburg, 56
• British Subjects in Germany, Kindness to, 212-21
• Brunner, Mond & Co., 246
• Bryan, Mr., 6
• Buchan, John, 157
• Bulgaria, British Prisoners in, 73
• Burg, 34-37
• Burg-bei-Magdeburg, 10
• Bury, Bishop, 28, 102-3, 107-8
• Butler, Lt.-Gen. Sir W., quoted, 200, 201
• Cambridge Magazine, 30, 73, 124, 228
• Carpenter, Edward, 183
• Cassabianda, 44
• Catering, Self-management in, 22
• Celle, 57
• Censor Fined by Prisoner, 35
• Censorship, E. P. Bell on the, 199
• Cetinje, Starvation in, 160
• Chemical Society, British, 229;
• German, 229
• Chemistry, Germany and, 245ff
• Child in No-Man’s-Land, 159
• Children in Russia, 159
• Children Taken Home from Occupied Territory, 135, 158
• Christliche Welt, 173
• Christmas Truces, 180-2, 183-6
• Cimino, Dr., 84, 104
• Civilian Hate, 163-4
• Civilians, Resident Enemy, Treatment of, 75
• Clacton Graphic, 165
• Clausthal, 49
• Clothes, British Prisoners and, 23
• Cohen, Israel, 79, 104
• Colenso, Miss, 4
• Cologne—
• Hospitals at, 12;
• Military Prison at, 54
• Commandants, Good German, 56
• Common Cause, 66
• Common Sense, 111, 193
• Compiègne, Palais de, 205-7
• Complaints by Prisoners, 73
• Concentration Camps, Boer War, 126-31
• Contracts, Germany and, 177-8
• Corey, Mr. Herbert, and the Times, 198
• Correspondence, Complaints about, 6-8
• Cottbus, 57
• Coulston, Capt., 52
• Credulity and Atrocities, 31, 38
• Crefeld, 2, 13, 55, 65
• Cüstrin, 49
• Cyon, Madame F. L., 153-7, 255ff
• [268]Daily Chronicle, 83, 163, 168, 188, 189, 198, 202
• Daily Citizen, 183
• Daily Mail, 6, 196
• Daily News, 4, 7, 26, 28, 45, 59, 60, 61, 68, 71, 107, 119, 120, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 168, 169, 177, 178, 179, 185, 187, 190, 191, 199, 224, 225, 226, 251, 252
• Daily Telegraph, 96, 105, 122, 223, 224, 244
• Damm, Mr., 8
• Dartford Prisoners of War Hospital, 64
• Dawson, W. H., 248
• Dehmel, 229
• Delbrück-Dernburg-Wolff Memorial, 176
• Dernburg, Dr., 176-7
• Desmond, G. G., 61
• Deussen, Prof., Against Hate, 228-9
• Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 73
• Deutsche Tageszeitung, 168
• Dickinson, Lowes, 232
• Döberitz, 5, 9, 25, 30, 135
• Dobson, Austin, quoted, 196-7
• Dogs in German Prison Camps, 33, 39
• Donington Hall and Luxury, 64
• Dorchester Camp, 9, 64
• Doty, Madeline, 235
• Douglas, 25
• Dresel, Mr., 33, 110
• Drill, Dr., 167
• Dülmen, 61, 62
• Dyffry Camp, 9
• Dyffryn Aled Camp, 64
• Dyrötz, 52
• East Africa, German Women Prisoners from, 69
• Elswick, 7
• Emden, 202, 205
• England, Military Prisoners in, 63ff
• English Girl’s Adventures in Hostile Germany, 212-14
• Englishman, Kamerad, 8
• Erfurt, 22
• Erzberger, 73
• Escape, Attempts to, 48
• Ethical Movement, 232, 234
• Ethics of War, 161-2
• Eugster, Nat. Councillor A., 40-2, 45, 67
• Evolution of Modern Germany, 248
• Ey-Steinecke, Gen. von, 56
• Families of Germans in England, 143-4
• Far Out, 201
• Farm Work—
• Prisoners in Germany and, 21;
• German Prisoners and, 68, 69
• Food—
• at Ruhleben, 90, 91, 101-2, 104;
• During Transport of Prisoners, 46;
• German Prisoners and, 30, 69-70;
• In Boer War Concentration Camps, 131;
• In English Camps, 9, 27, 117;
• In French Camps, 43, 44;
• In German Camps, 3, 5, 10, 14, 15, 18, 20, 23, 27-31, 34, 40, 50, 51;
• Problem in Germany, 99
• Fougères, 44
• Foerster, Prof. W., 134
• Förster, Dr. F. W., 232
• Fort Friedrichshafen, 50
• Forum, Das, 231, 232
• Franco-German War, Prisoners in, 124
• Frankfort, Freedom of English in, 83
• Frankfurt-am-Oder, 137, 218
• Frankfurter Zeitung, 166, 169, 170, 177, 178
• Frankland, Prof., 245
• Frentz, Gen. Raitz von, 56
• Friedberg, 23, 48, 65
• Friedrichsfeld, 46
• Friend, The, 132, 138
• Friends’ Emergency Committee, 87, 132, 137-144, 158
• “Frightfulness” Condemned by German Newspapers, 178
• Frongoch, 145
• Funeral of an English Officer in Germany, 146-8
• Gardelegen, 15
• Gardens, Prisoners’, 23, 49
• Gardiner, A. G., 226
• Gerard, Mr., 23, 25, 45, 47, 50, 53, 81, 82, 93, 97-8, 100, 102, 104
• German—
• Feeling Towards England, 165;
• Heroism at the Front, 161-2;
• Newspaper Comments, 166ff;
• Officers, Professional, 263-4;
• Officers and Privates, Familiarity Between, 38;
• Soldier, British Opinions of the, 201-3;
• Soldiers, French Women and, 208;
• School-books and the War, 171-3;
• Tribute to Pégoud, 224;
• Troops in Occupation, 205ff
• Germany—
• and Commerce, 244;
• Conditions of Labour in, 248;
• In Peace Time, 241ff
• Germersheim Hospitals, 55
• George, Lieut., 36
• Gibbs, Philip, 163, 182, 183, 188, 189, 197, 202, 208
• Giessen, 48, 53, 150
• Gilliland, Lieut., 73
• Glasgow Herald, 249
• Glass Apparatus, Germany and, 250
• Gmelin, Prof., 53
• “God Punish England,” 166, 169, 171
• Gomperz, Prof. H., 227
• Görlitz, 49
• “Gott Strafe England,” 166, 169, 171
• Göttingen, 11, 27, 53, 67, 144
• [269]Graaf, Excellenz de, and English Civilians, 82
• Grey, Sir Edward, 8, 24, 50, 77, 78, 80, 92, 97
• Güstrow i/Mecklenburg, 16, 52, 53, 57
• Haase, Herr, on Belgian Neutrality, 174
• Hakenmoor, 51
• Hale, Chandler, 25
• Hall: International Law, 76
• Halle a/d Saale, 10
• Halle, 49
• Hamilton, Sir Ian, 7
• Harnack, Prof., 177
• Harris, H. W., 82
• Harte, A. C., 11
• Harvey, Lieut.-Observer J. E. P., 3
• Hate—
• Civilian, 163-4;
• Hymn of, 231;
• Prof. Deussen Condemns, 228;
• Prof. Gomperz Condemns, 227
• Hauptmann, Gerhart, 229
• Havelberg, 110
• Hay, the Hon. Ivan, 36
• Headley, Lord, 249
• Healing of Nations, 183
• Hedin, Sven, 171
• Herald, 109
• Heroism of German Prisoners, 119
• Herzog, Wilhelm, 232
• Hesse, Hermann, 230
• Hibbert Journal, 180, 232
• Hilfe, Die, 222
• Hobhouse, Miss Emily, 127-31
• Holderness, 26
• Holyport Camp, 9, 64
• Holzminden, 135
• Hoover, Herbert, 177
• Hope, James, 71
• Horrors of War, 163
• Hospital at Lille, 156-7, 258ff
• Hospital Treatment, Prisoners in Germany, 12, 18, 20, 21, 23, 47, 48, 55, 57-58
• “Hymn of Hate,” 231
• In the Hands of the Enemy, 31
• Indian Prisoners at Wünsdorf, 55
• Indian Prisoners, Wounded, 13
• International Red Cross—see under Red Cross
• International Review, 210, 220, 222, 228, 240
• Internment Camps, Neutral, 121
• Internment—
• Effects of, 6, 83-7, 110, 114, 120;
• Origin of, 76ff
• Is it to be Hate? 203, 205, 244
• Isighem, 47
• Isle of Man, 9
• Jackson, Mr., 9, 10, 16, 19, 25, 27, 29, 49, 51, 52, 56, 57
• Jealousy, English, of Germany, 252
• Jens, Fräulein, 136
• Johnson, Capt. Benjamin, 13
• Journalists Condemned, 232, 238
• Kaiser, 207
• Kerensky, 225
• Kindness, Order Against, 196
• Kirchhoff, Frau, 136
• Klein, Albert, 238
• Klein, L’Abbé Félix, 194
• Kluck, General von, 203, 206-7
• Knockaloe Camp, 114-17;
• Accommodation at, Compared with Ruhleben, 115-16;
• Prisoners’ Aid Society, 136-7
• Kolb, Annette, 232
• Kölnische Zeitung, 148, 167, 168, 171, 178, 226
• Königsbrück, 49
• Kothe, Oberst, 56
• La Guerre vue d’une Ambulance, 194, 196
• Labour Leader, 117, 175, 186, 189, 198, 235, 249
• L’Action Française, 211
• Landrecies, 31
• Langen Halbach b/Haiger, 54
• Laurie, Principal, 250
• Leonhard, Rudolf, 229
• Letters, German Soldiers’, 237ff
• Lichnowsky, Prince, 12, 133
• Lichtstrahlen, 235
• Liebknecht, 236
• Lille, 153-7, 255ff;
• Hospital at, 156-7, 258ff
• Limbau, 57
• Limburg, 21
• Lissauer, 231
• Literature, German War, 228-34
• Littlefair, Mary, 165, 212-14
• Lloyd George, Mr., on the Two Germanies, 252
• Lloyd’s News, 192
• Lokalanzeiger, 170
• Lorient, 43
• Ludendorff, 168
• Lusitania, Sinking of, 178-9
• Luxembourg, Rosa, 235, 236
• Macnaughten, Miss, 203-204
• Maffe, 37
• Magdeburg, 10, 33, 46
• Mainz, 20, 36
• Malcolm, Ian, 6
• Manchester Guardian, 26, 74, 106, 149, 190
• Mann, Thomas, 232
• Marck, Ludwig, 230
• Markel, Dr. K. E., 144
• Martin-Rade, Prof., 173
• Marval, Dr. de, 41, 45
• Marwitz, von, 206-7
• Mather, Sir William, 244
• Maubeuge, 154, 255, 264
• Maude, Col. F. N., on the Prussian Army, 209
• Mehring, Frank, 235
• Merseberg, 23
• [270]Merseburg, 4, 51
• Michelson, Mr., 12, 46
• Minot, Mr., 93-5
• Mond, Ludwig, 246
• Monotony of Camp Life, 6—
• See also under Internment, Effects of
• Morgan, Mr., American Consul at Hamburg, 47
• Morning Post, 29
• Mourey, Gabriel, 205-7
• MS. Returned, 37
• Müller, Capt. von, 202, 205
• Münden, 23
• Munich, 3
• Münster, 17, 28, 56
• My Experiences as Prisoner in Germany, 33, 37
• Motor-cycles, German Privates Ride Officers’, 38
• Namur, 37
• Napier, Col., 26
• Napoleonic Wars, Prisoners in, 123
• Nation, 72, 167, 169, 173, 207, 221, 225, 235
• Neubrandenburg, 48
• New College, Oxford, 225
• News of the World, 4
• Newspaper—
• Advertisements in Vienna, 222;
• Comments, German, 166ff;
• Reports, Inaccurate, 53-4, 82
• Newton, Lord, on Prisoners in Germany, 26, 28, 105
• Nies, Archdeacon W. E., 55
• Nobbs, Capt. Gilbert, 7, 8
• Nurses, French, 260-1
• Observer, 107
• Occupation, German Troops in, 205ff
• Officers—
• German, and Privates, Familiarity Between, 38;
• German, at Lille Hospital, 263-4
• Ohnesorg, Dr., 12, 15, 18, 20, 33, 47, 48
• Ohrdruf, 22
• O’Rorke, Chaplain Benjamin, 31-37, 165
• Orchies, Burning of, 257
• Osborne, Lithgow, 1, 10, 19, 25, 50, 53
• O’Sullivan, Private, 1
• Ozendaal, 39
• Packages, Complaints About, 6-8, 43, 50, 67, 96
• Paderborn, Lazarets, 47
• Padwick, Mr. H., 68
• Page, Mr., 9, 11, 24, 77, 78, 81, 92, 97
• Paillet, Léon, 11
• Panzera, Col. F. N., 116
• Parchim, 56
• Paris, Enemy Nationals in, in 1870, 76-7
• Pearce, Second-Lieut. F. Phillips, 2
• Pégoud, German Tribute to, 224
• Petre, Miss, 251
• Portsmouth Camp, 9
• Postman’s Help to English Lady, 212
• Prince Heinrich of Reuss, 38
• Princess Friedrich Leopold of Prussia, 52
• Prison, Military, at Cologne, 54
• Prisoner in Austria, A, 26
• Prisoner’s Life, Monotony of the, 6
• (See also under Internment, Effects of)
• Prisoners—
• British, Alleged Bad Treatment of, 16, 24, 53, 60;
• British, and Clothes, 23;
• Civilian and Military, Compared, 83-7;
• False Statements by, 66;
• Food During Transport of, 46;
• Friction Between, 5-6, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 52;
• German Army and, 190;
• German, Heroism of, 118-19;
• German Populace and, 32, 36;
• Harsh Treatment of, During Transport, in France, 43;
• Harsh Treatment of, During Transport, in Germany, 16, 45-6;
• in American Civil War, 123-4;
• in Boer War, 125;
• in France, 43-5;
• in Franco-German War, 124;
• in Germany, Lord Newton on, 26, 28, 105;
• in Germany, Officers’ Rooms, 23;
• in Hospital, Germany, 12, 18, 20, 21, 23, 47, 48, 55, 57-8;
• in Napoleonic Wars, 123;
• in Russo-Japanese War, 125;
• in Russia, 125;
• Indian, at Wünsdorf, 53;
• Indian, Wounded, 13;
• Military, in Germany: General Conclusions, 62;
• on Farm Work, 21, 68, 69;
• “Reprisal,” 36, 71;
• Tact in Treatment of, 42
• Queensferry Camp, 9
• Railway Trucks and Interned Prisoners, 118
• Rastatt, 60
• Reciprocity in Good Treatment, 47
• Red Cross, International—
• and English Prison Camps, 9;
• Committee of the, 71;
• Reports of the, 39-45
• Release of Civilian Prisoners, Appeals for, 111ff
• Repatriations—
• of Civilian Prisoners, 109;
• of Prisoners of War, 58ff
• “Reprisal Prisoners,” 36, 71
• “Reprisals of Good,” 24, 105, 132ff
• Reuss, Prince Heinrich of, 38
• Rolland, Romain, 229, 240
• Rotten, Dr. Elizabeth, 65, 85, 134, 138-40, 144, 158, 195
• [271]Roubaix, 258
• Ruhleben, 84, 133, 135;
• Reports on, 87ff
• Ruhleben, Accommodation at, 102;
• Accommodation at, Compared with Knockaloe, 115-16;
• Camp Committee, 99-100;
• Leave of Absence from, 140;
• Mr. Jackson on, 86;
• Overcrowding at, 102-3;
• Prisoners’ Activities at, 106-7;
• Relatives’ Visits to Men at, 139
• Ruhleben, My Visit to, 102, 107-8
• Ruhleben Prison Camp, The, 79, 104
• Rumours, 66, 156, 157;
• Sir E. Grey on, 9, 24
• Russell, Mr., 51
• Russia, Prisoners in, 73
• Russo-Japanese War, Prisoners in, 125
• Sackville, Lady Margaret, quoted, 197
• Salzwedel, 15
• Scarlett-Synge, Dr. Ella, 50, 149-153, 209
• Scheuen, near Celle, 17
• Schloss Celle, 49
• School-books, German, and the War, 171-3
• Schopenhauer Society, 228-9
• Schulze, Dr. Siegmund, 85-7, 103, 133, 144, 234
• Schwantje, Magnus, 228
• Schwerin, Graf, 95, 98, 104
• Scotswood, 7
• Senne, 19, 29, 41
• Serbia—
• Austro-German Conduct in, 150-3;
• Austro-German Prisoners in, 72
• Serbian Prisoners and German Assistance Agency, 137
• Shakespeare, Germany and, 242, 250
• Sheffield Telegraph, 183
• Soltau, 17
• Sombart, Prof., 166-7
• Soul of the War, 182, 208
• Southend Camp, 9
• Spaight, Dr. J. M., 75-6, 123, 125-6
• Spandau, 52
• Spectroscope Story, 140-2
• St. Quentin, Germans at, 208
• Staatsbürgerin, 195
• Stange, Prof., 11, 12, 27, 30, 53, 144
• Stargard, 8
• Steen, M. T. E., on German Prison Camps, 62
• Stendal, 50
• Stettin, 68
• Stobs Camp, 65
• Stobsiad, 65
• Stücklen, Herr, 30
• Sunday Times, 170
• Swiss and Red Cross, 39
• Sydney, 202, 205
• Sympathetic Ink, 66
• Taylor, Dr. A. E., 56, 101-2
• Taube, Baron von, 88ff, 98
• Tennant, Mr., 67
• Tennis-court, Officer Prisoners’, 48
• Times, 1, 2, 3, 6, 12, 53, 64, 96, 132, 158, 161, 166, 178, 198, 201, 205, 216, 217, 218
• Times Literary Supplement, 207
• Torgau, 23, 24, 32, 33
• Treatment of Prisoners—See under Prisoners.
• Tourcoing, 258
• Turkey, Prisoners in, 71
• Uhlans, 37, 206, 209
• Unruh, Fritz von, 229
• Vermin in Camps, 41, 43
• Vienna Newspapers, Advertisements in, 222
• Visits Outside Camp, 35, 52, 55, 57, 105, 142
• Vitré, 43
• Volksstimme, 210, 222
• Vorwärts, 159, 175, 179, 186, 222
• Vossische Zeitung, 237
• Wahn, 18
• War and the World’s Life, 209
• Warmington, Mrs. K., 214
• Webster, J. P., 56
• Weissen Blätter, 231
• Wells, H. G., 252
• Werfel, Franz, 230
• Wesel, Lazarets, 48
• Westminster Gazette, 158
• Wilson, Capt. A. Stanley, 26
• Winchester, Bishop of, 12, 132-3
• Wittenberg, 1, 50, 62, 129
• Wolff, Theodore, 176-7
• Woman’s Dreadnought, 117
• Women, French, and German Soldiers, 208
• Working Camps, 48, 51
• Wounded—
• Brotherhood Among, 182-3;
• German, at Orchies, 257;
• German, at Lille Hospital, 262-3;
• German, Killed, 258;
• Treatment of, by Germans, 187-195, 211
• Wünsdorf, 55
• Y.M.C.A. at Göttingen Camp, 11
• Ypres, The Irish Nuns at, 207
• Zetkin, Clara, 235
• Zimmermann, Herr E., 170
• Zossen, 23, 41, 66
• Züder Zollhaus, 18
• Zwickau, 49

[272] The National Labour Press, Ltd.,
Manchester and London.