Reginald Brodie Dyke Acland

“ But it is not too much to say that the treatment of the prisoners of war on the eastern and western fronts must, so long as the terrible story is remembered, bring indelible disgrace on the German nation, and on those responsible for the appalling cruelty inflicted on defenceless men. ”

“ In the World War no combatant prisoners, with one exception, were allowed to leave Germany or Great Britain on parole, or to reside outside the camps. The only cases in which questions arose were with regard to the temporary parole given when officers left their camps for a walk, and the parole given by those who were interned in neutral countries. According to the custom of the British Army no officer ought to give his parole, it being his duty to escape and rejoin his unit if he can, nor can anyone below the rank of officer give a parole. ”

“ After the Armistice the committee was asked to arrange that every returned prisoner should have an opportunity of making any complaint he wished. A questionnaire was carefully prepared and handed to every returned prisoner on his arrival at one of the dispersal camps to which all prisoners were sent before being allowed to return home. Each company of returning men was addressed by the person in charge of the investigation, and he impressed on the men the importance of stating frankly whether there was any complaint that they desired to make, and, if so, what it was. ”

“ At some large German works the employers seem to have taken a real interest in their prisoners, and to have done whatever in them lay to make their lot endurable and even comfortable. [3] On the farms and similar places, the relations between prisoners and their employers were frequently, as in Great Britain, even cordial, and more than one repatriated British prisoner has spoken warmly of the kindness and consideration with which he was treated, though such cases were, of course, not common. ”

“ The anger aroused by the entry of Great Britain into the war induced on the part of German men and even German women cruelties which any decent person must look upon with disgust. It was inevitable that the passage of wounded prisoners from the battle-front to the interior of Germany should be attended with suffering. ”

“ All that can be usefully accomplished is to put into the form of rules those principles which the good sense of all civilized nations accepts as correct, and for this purpose to use the experience gained during the World War, of which not the least important part was the value of direct conference between representatives of the belligerents during active hostilities for the purpose of dealing with the detailed application of those principles. ”

“ Moreover, prisoners were taken in almost every part of the globe in every kind of climate, and in conditions in which the means of supply and transport varied from being comparatively complete to being almost non-existent. Even if all the belligerent Governments had been actuated by the most earnest desire to apply strictly the provisions of the Hague Convention it was inevitable that there should be much suffering and, owing to the difficulty of effective supervision, cases of cruelty and ill-treatment at the hands of individuals. ”

“ In some cases the German code lays down minimum punishments of great severity, and in many of those cases, in which the infliction of very severe punishments properly raised a great outcry in England, the German court-martial had no option but to pass them. The British military law on the other hand has only one offence—murder—for which there is a fixed punishment; for others it is “such less punishment as is in the Act mentioned.”
In one respect the prisoners of both countries never were satisfied. ”

“ The accommodation provided in Germany varied from a single very-well-lit and ventilated bedroom in a farm to crowded filthy quarters in verminous draughty buildings in mines, quarries and brickyards. In the larger working camps, buildings were sometimes erected for the express purpose of housing the prisoners, and, though not infrequently overcrowded, were generally suited for this purpose. ”

“ Further, while it is possible for the voices of humanity and charity to make themselves effectively heard in times of profound peace, it is useless then to formulate regulations which public opinion, stirred to its depths by alleged misdeeds of the enemy, will not allow to be observed, and which the military authorities will disregard in time of war. ”

“ The non-commissioned officers, trained in the school of the German army and unrestrained by the presence of a superior officer, treated the prisoners in the way in which the rank and file of the German army have so often been treated. Men who refused to work, or in the opinion of the guards did not work hard enough, were kicked, spat upon, beaten with sticks, whips, clubs, rubber tubing, mining hammers and the butts of rifles. ”

“ Every enemy alien had a right to have his case dealt with by an advisory committee, of which Mr. Justice Sankey was chairman and Lord Justice Younger was a member, and by this committee many exemptions were granted.
In Germany, on the other hand, the internment of civilians—ultimately much more indiscriminate than in the United Kingdom—resulted from popular indignation in Germany at the entry of Great Britain into the war. ”

“ These arose not only from the passions and prejudices inevitably engendered in the course of such a vast conflict between the entire manhood of the nations concerned, but also from the facts that unexpectedly large numbers of combatants were taken prisoners, and that the captors had to deal with men of different nationalities, of varying characteristics and with widely different views as to the accommodation and food requisite for a prisoner of war. ”

“ It is clear, therefore, that no general charge of inhuman treatment is well-founded; it is, however, true that, apart altogether from the camps on the eastern and western fronts, there were actually, if not proportionately, a large number of cases in which the German treatment of British prisoners was certainly bad, and, in some cases, very bad. ”

“ Application of the Military Law of the Captors.—Article 8 enacts that prisoners of war are subject to the laws, regulations and orders in force in the army of the captor State, a provision which gave rise to a good deal of trouble, owing, in England, to the difficulty of carrying it out strictly while in some cases, as in Bulgaria, punishments were allowed—such as flogging—for ordinary breaches of discipline—which were quite alien to British ideas of what is permissible. ”

“ The German military law is in general far more severe than the British, and there is this further great difference, that in Germany officers as well as men may be summarily sent to cells or awarded other severe punishments for trivial offences, while in the United Kingdom, strictly, any offender above the rank of private should have been tried by court-martial, a provision amended during the war by the substitution of military courts. ”

“ Men were made to stand at attention on hot asphalted roofs, or before coke ovens, where they were nearly roasted, or sometimes in exposed positions without an overcoat in the freezing atmosphere of a winter's night. At more than one mine, the dark cells, in which, according to the German law, prisoners of war under punishment were obliged to pass their periods of close arrest, were constructed in close proximity to the main steam pipe and became so hot that the men had to strip themselves almost to the skin. ”

“ During the World War, with many exceptions, it is true, practically all able-bodied prisoners, except officers and non-commissioned officers, were ultimately forced to work.
Early in 1915 the British prisoners in German hands were invited to volunteer for work outside the main camps. They refused almost to a man. Then by degrees pressure was applied, and soon men who refused were punished for their refusal, and, eventually, as mentioned below, a formal pronouncement on the subject was made by the German Military Courts. ”

“ The large majority of German doctors worked hard, often with infinite kindness, in the interests of those in their charge, and unreservedly placed such knowledge and skill as they possessed at the disposal of the prisoners. ”

“ While of course all active ill-treatment should be prohibited, the lot of a prisoner must not be made so attractive in comparison with that of soldiers in the firing-line as to afford a temptation to them to desert or to do anything incompatible with their military duty. ”

“ Work.—The construction placed during the World War by the belligerents upon Article 6, which enables the captors to employ the labour of prisoners of war and to authorize them to work for the public service or private persons, probably caused more ill-feeling than any other cause, for the result was to reduce hundreds of thousands of men temporarily to virtual, if not nominal, slavery. ”

“ Officers.—The treatment of officers in a camp depended very much on the commandant, and, to some extent, on the personality of the general of the army corps district in which the camp was situated. As officers were under no obligation to work, one grievance which was so fruitful a cause of trouble in the men's camps did not exist in their case. ”

“ As soon as it was apparent in February 1915 that something was wrong, captured medical officers were dispatched to Gardelegen, where the conditions were favourable for the propagation of disease. Though there were empty huts in the camp, the commandant refused to allow them to be used, and the prisoners' rooms were very overcrowded, the nationalities, as usual, being all mixed up together. To each company of 1,200 men was allotted for washing one outdoor trough, which was often frozen, and there was a small hut containing at the most thirty showers for 11,000 men. ”

“ It perhaps throws some light on the sufficiency of this ration that in July 1918, nearly two years later, it was agreed between the representatives of Great Britain and Germany, who met at The Hague, that the combatant prisoners of war should receive as far as possible the same allowance of rationed articles of food as the civil population, and that in no case should the daily calorific value fall below 2,000 calories for non-workers, 2,500 for ordinary workers, and 2,800 for heavy workers. ”

“ In the latter stages of the war, at all events in England, a small proportion of prisoners volunteered to work in order to escape the ennui of camp life, and for some 1,500 out of the whole number, useful work was found, mainly in agriculture. No British civilians did any work outside the camps in Germany. ”

“ In Great Britain, prisoners of war sent to work were either housed by the military authorities or, in some cases, when engaged in agriculture, by the employer, who was bound to supply housing accommodation, straw for filling palliasses, cooking utensils, crockery, facilities for washing and artificial light. ”

“ But it does seem desirable that regulations should be made dealing with the case of civilians found in any enemy country at the outbreak of war, for it is improbable that in any future war of nations civilians will be allowed to return home or to remain at large in view of the means of communication which modern science has made possible. ”

“ In general, the officers commanding were gentlemen, who treated their charges with courtesy and consideration, though in most cases there was occasional friction owing to the propensity of the young officers to attempt to escape, and, in some measure perhaps, owing to the inability of German officers to understand the exuberance—even in captivity—of British subalterns.
Men in the Main Camps.—In the main camps the treatment on the whole seems to have been reasonable, and in some cases more considerate than might have been expected. ”

“ Sick and wounded whose recovery may be anticipated within a year, and whose cure will be more speedily and surely brought about by the facilities obtainable in Switzerland than by a prolongation of imprisonment. (2) Prisoners of war whose health in the opinion of the medical authorities appears to be seriously menaced either physically or mentally by the prolongation of captivity, and who would probably be saved from this danger by internment in Switzerland. ”

“ There remains the most difficult question of all: whether it is possible to provide penalties for the infraction of any regulation which may be made, and to establish a tribunal with authority to punish individuals and States. ”

“ The German Government provided some, but inadequate, accommodation for the very poor, and did not put any great obstacles in the way of prisoners who could themselves afford, or for whom the British Government or others were willing, to pay for better treatment. ”

“ Working Camps.—The housing of the prisoners sent out to work is more difficult to deal with comprehensively, for it depended so much on the locality and nature of the work, quite apart from the goodwill or otherwise of the employer. According to the German regulations, there ought to have been five cubic metres of internal capacity for each prisoner of war. ”

“ There seem to have been a large number of them employed in labouring work, handling the actual material for guns, shells, etc., in places where munitions were made, and some cases in which they had to take an active part in the manufacture of the finished article certainly did occur. At Krupp's Germania wharf at Kiel, prisoners were employed in riveting ships, including the outsides of submarines, while at Mannheim a number of British were made to work in the manufacture of sulphuric acid in the middle of a large munition factory. ”

“ They are not reciprocal, the vanquished are given no right to have judicially investigated any complaints they may have against the victors. It would be far more satisfactory to have an alleged “atrocity” investigated than that, for want of public investigation, an unfounded legend of brutality should grow up. ”

“ Most of the men had no wash during the whole time they were there. The treatment was bad. Were it not established beyond the possibility of doubt, the story would be unbelievable. Men were driven out to work—breaking ice on the river, felling trees, making and repairing trenches under fire—when they could hardly stand, and had to be supported by their comrades to and from their work. One man died while being carried home ”

“ Ruhleben was a race-course near Berlin, with stables, grandstand and all the usual appurtenances of a race-course. The prisoners were housed in the loose boxes and attics without at first any beds, though eventually ships' berths were fitted, six to a box. As the numbers grew, huts were added. The washing and sanitary arrangements, at first rudimentary only, were never satisfactory. No arrangements were made by the Germans for the housing of the prisoners according to their vocational or social affinities—a real boon in the case of civilians. ”