A Court-Martial in Which Vengeful Malice Mocked Justice and the Rules
of Naval War In the Lust of Blood
Brutal blundering was a German characteristic throughout the war.
Indeed it has been declared more than once that her abandonment of
moral restraints and obligations, imposed by international codes
and the laws of humanity, is responsible for Germany’s overthrow.
Without entering into that question it is admitted that two of the
German blunders—both of which were subjects of diplomatic efforts at
prevention—which incensed the world and roused the United States from
its dream of neutrality were the murders of Edith Cavell and Capt.
Charles Fryatt. We have told the story of Miss Cavell; that of Capt.
Fryatt is no less a testimony to German turpitude if less revolting to
sentiment in that the first was a nurse, a ministering angel to the
sick and wounded (German soldiers included) whose offense was due to
her compassion for the helpless and hunted.
Capt. Fryatt, an Englishman, was master of the Great Eastern Railway
Company’s steamer _Brussels_, a merchant vessel. June 23, 1916, the
_Brussels_ was captured by German warships. (The circumstances of the
capture are presented in the report of First Officer Hartwell, which
follows later.) The steamer, its officers and the crew were taken to
Zeebrugge and searched. On Capt. Fryatt was found a gold watch that had
been presented to him by the Mayor of Harwich at a public demonstration
in his honor, the inscription commemorating an incident of March
20, 1915, when Capt. Fryatt attempted to ram the German submarine
_U-33_, to avoid capture or destruction. After a brief imprisonment at
Zeebrugge he was transferred to Bruges, where, July 27th, he was tried
by court-martial, was condemned to be shot as a _franc-tireur_ and was
executed that same afternoon.
June 28th the English Government first learned of the Germans’
intention to try Fryatt by court-martial, and immediately undertook
to arrange for his proper defense. Sir Edward Grey telegraphed to the
American Ambassador at Berlin requesting his efforts in this behalf and
that he would convey to the German authorities the contention of the
English Government that “in committing the act impugned Capt. Fryatt
acted legitimately and in self-defense for the purpose of evading
capture or destruction, and that the act of a merchant ship in steering
for an enemy submarine and forcing her to dive is essentially defensive
and precisely on the same footing as the use by a defensively armed
vessel of her defensive armament in order to resist capture, which both
the United States and His Majesty’s Government hold to be the exercise
of an undoubted right.”
In spite of possible influence and efforts, Ambassador Gerard’s
intervention was unavailing, and on July 27th, the very day of the
execution, he telegraphed to London that his efforts to secure a
postponement of the trial were futile because the German Government
insisted that “the German submarine witnesses could not be further
detained.” In other words, the men whose business it was to conduct a
sea campaign of lawlessness and “frightfulness” could not be delayed
from their destructive work by anything so paltry as a consideration of
justice and honor in the trial of a prisoner.