placed in prison or in prison camps--about 300. The German
Government is informed that a great number of German civilian
prisoners--over 6,000--are in prison camps in England.
Department is requested by Ambassador, Berlin, to suggest that
liberty, so far as possible, be allowed alien enemies detained
by war.
_Mr. Page, United States Ambassador in London, to
Sir Edward Grey._ (Received Oct. 31.)
American Embassy, London,
October 30, 1914.
Sir,--I have the honour to transmit herewith enclosed the
attached copy of an open telegram I have received from the
Minister at Copenhagen relating to reports on the imprisonment
of German subjects in England.
Inasmuch as the Minister at Copenhagen has dispatched this to
the Secretary of State at Washington, it seems probable that I
shall receive definite instructions from him to transmit it to
you, but in view of the desirability of an early consideration
of the matter I now venture to submit this copy of the telegram
for your information.
I have, etc.,
WALTER HINES PAGE.
Copy of Telegram received October 29, 1914.
Following telegram sent to Department to-day (by the Ambassador
at Berlin):
The Foreign Office requests this Embassy to find out through the
American Embassy in London whether the reports concerning the
imprisonment of German subjects in England are well founded.
Unless a reply is received from the British Government before
November 5 that all Germans who have not rendered themselves
especially suspicious have been released, the German Government
will be obliged to take retaliatory measures, and accordingly
arrest all male British subjects in Germany between 17 and 55
years. American Minister, Copenhagen.
Copy of Telegram received from Berlin by the American Embassy,
November 3, 1914.
Are Germans over 45 being arrested wholesale in England? If
arrests are only of those under 45, I may be able to keep
English over that age out of jail. Will not British Government
allow all over 45 to leave? That is the legal military age here,
and no one over that age can be compelled to serve.
_Sir Edward Grey to Mr. Page, United States Ambassador in
London._
Foreign Office,
November 9, 1914.
Your Excellency,
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your
Excellency's note of the 30th ult., and of subsequent notes
informing me of the attitude likely to be adopted by the German
Government with regard to the measures that have been taken in
this country for the detention of German subjects of military
age.
The decision of His Majesty's Government in this respect being
clearly irrevocable, the communications which you were good
enough to transmit did not appear to call for an immediate
reply, although, as your Excellency is aware, the German
Government threatened, and have since carried out, reprisals
against British subjects in Germany.
At the same time, I hope in due course, when the measures taken
here have assumed a definite form, proper consideration having
been given to reasonable claims for exemption as regards
particular categories of persons, to address your Excellency
further on the subject, with a view of obtaining the release at
least of British subjects in Germany who correspond to those
categories.
I may state at once that no Germans over the age of 45 are being
arrested.[13]
I should, however, be glad if your Excellency would endeavour to
bring home to the German Government that His Majesty's
Government are faced with a problem which does not apply to the
same extent in Germany.
There are, roughly, 50,000 Germans resident in this country, and
the presence of such large numbers of the subjects of a country
with whom Great Britain is at war must necessarily be a cause of
anxiety to the military authorities who are concerned with
taking adequate measures for the defence of the realm.[14]
In detaining persons who might, in certain eventualities, become
a source of danger to the State, His Majesty's Government are
only acting in accordance with the dictates of a legitimate and
reasonable policy, and they would be clearly lacking in their
duty to the country if they neglected to safeguard its interests
by allowing the continuance of possible risks to the public
safety.
In proceeding as they have done they have only had this one
consideration before them, and it has never once been their
intention to indulge in a domestic act of hostility towards
German subjects as such, or in any way to inflict hardship for
hardship's sake on innocent civilians.
Every endeavour is being made, as Your Excellency is aware from
Mr. Chandler Anderson's report on the concentration camps, to
mitigate the inconvenience to the persons detained, and to
provide the best possible treatment for them under the
circumstances.
As time goes on it is hoped that it will be possible to improve
further the necessarily austere conditions of the military
discipline to which the prisoners are bound to be subjected, and
every endeavour is being made already to rectify any mistakes
that may have occurred, both in the arrest of persons who should
properly be exempt, and in the régime, which, through its
hurried organisation, could not fail to contain a certain number
of defects at the outset....
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 London, who was at
the moment in Berlin. Anderson says:
Tell Foreign Office that there is no compulsory military service
required by German law for men over 45, and any men over that
age serving in the army are volunteers. Agreement to release all
men over 45 would produce better understanding, refusal is
regarded as questioning truth of their assurances, which were
endorsed by our Ambassador. Would like to settle these matters
while here, and want to leave on Tuesday or Wednesday. Am
arranging to have someone from this Embassy return with me to
report, for information of Foreign Office here, about
concentration camp and reasons for internment of civilians, in
order to establish common basis for their treatment and
provisions and clothing furnished and pay of officers, on the
understanding that accounts will be balanced at close of war or
at stated intervals.--GERARD, Berlin.
American Minister, Copenhagen.
The following documents deserve careful consideration:
_Memorandum communicated by American Embassy._
November 9, 1914.
The American Embassy has the honour to submit the following copy
of a telegram which the Ambassador at Berlin has sent to the
Department of State at Washington:
"Order for internment British between 17 and 55 has gone into
effect. This does not apply to clericals, doctors, or women, or
to British subjects from colonies or protectorates where Germans
are not interned. German Government wishes to receive official
information regarding such colonies, as it understands Germans
are interned in South Africa. Germany is willing to release men
over 45 if England will do so. Germans over 45, except officers,
have no compulsory military obligations."
American Embassy, London, Nov. 9, 1914.
_Memorandum by Sir Edward Grey._
The American Ambassador asked me to-day whether the American
Embassy would be allowed, as reports were being made in Germany
about the treatment of German civilians in England, to send
someone to visit the Germans interned in Newbury and Newcastle.
The Ambassador also said that he had received specific
complaints from Germans interned in Queensferry.
He has given me the following copy of a letter from the American
Ambassador in Berlin.
The object of the Ambassador's enquiry is simply, by bringing
out the facts, to prevent false statements from doing harm in
Germany, and at the same time, I assume, to contribute to the
remedying of any grievances that may exist.
The American Ambassador in Berlin is, I know, doing all in his
power to secure good treatment for British subjects in Germany,
and I think that it would be desirable to let the American
Embassy here have full information as to our treatment of
Germans.
I have, etc.,
E. GREY.
Foreign Office, November 13, 1914.
_Mr. Gerard to Mr. Page._
American Embassy, Berlin.
November 8, 1914.
Sir,--Although it may already be too late to be of much
practical effect, I feel it my duty, in the interest of
humanity, to urge upon you to obtain some formal declaration on
the part of the British Government, as to its purpose in
ordering the wholesale concentration of Germans in Great Britain
and Ireland, as is understood here to be the case. It is known
here that many of the Germans interned belong to the labouring
classes, and that their position is actually improved by their
internment, and it is recognised that the British Government has
the right to arrest persons when any well-founded ground for
suspecting them to be spies exists. Great popular resentment has
been created by the reports of the arrests of other Germans,
however, and the German authorities cannot explain or understand
why German travellers who have been taken from ocean steamers
should not be permitted to remain at liberty, of course under
police control, even if they are compelled to stay in England.
The order for the general concentration of British males between
the ages of 17 and 55, which went into effect on the 6th inst.,
was occasioned by the pressure of public opinion, which has been
still further excited by the newspaper reports of a considerable
number of deaths in concentration camps. Up to the 6th
considerable liberty of movement has been allowed to British
subjects in Germany,[16] and, as you were informed in my
telegram of the 5th, many petitions were received from them
setting forth the favourable conditions under which they were
permitted to live and to carry on their business, and urging the
similar treatment of German subjects in England. I cannot but
feel that to a great extent the English action and the German
retaliation has been caused by a misunderstanding which we
should do our best to remove. It seems to me that we should do
all in our power to prevent an increase of the bitterness which
seems to have arisen between the German and English peoples, and
to make it possible for the two countries to become friends on
the close of the war.
I have, etc.,
JAMES W. GERARD.
_Mr. Harris to Mr. Gerard_.
Frankfort-on-Main,
November 9, 1914.
Sir,--In a letter of the same date as this I have referred to
the return from Giessen of four officers sent to Giessen, and
returned again to Frankfort and to Nauheim, from which they
came. I referred in this letter to the commander of the XVIIIth.
Army Corps here. The commando is in charge of Excellenz de
Graaf, who has, as he tells me, an American wife, and who
through the past few months has shown this consulate all
possible consideration, as it seems to Mr. Ives and myself.
Twice during the great press of the first few weeks of the war,
he came to the office in person and made known his desire to
assist us in any way possible. Both Mr. Ives and myself have had
occasion to go to the commando many times on various errands,
and in nearly every case we have been granted the things we
desired. It would be difficult to find a man at home or abroad
with a more pleasant manner than de Graaf's, or who shows less
of the harsh or severe. Many of the English have gone to him,
and they in all cases, so far as I have heard, speak in highest
terms as to the way he has received them, and as to the entire
freedom given them in this city until the order of last Friday.
I have gone into the matter just a little because of a vicious
and, I think, wholly unwarranted attack in the papers, in which
Mr. George Edwardes, of London, is made to say quite improbable
things as coming from de Graaf, and perhaps made our work just a
little more difficult. Whether this be the case or not, I am
sure you will be glad to know that the commander here has given
ample evidence of desire to meet Mr. Ives and myself in every
request we have had to make of him.
I have, etc.,
H. W. HARRIS, American Consul-General.
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] 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 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 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 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 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.]
The following minutes of a meeting of the select committee of
the camp committee and of the overseers,[18] which was called by
Baron von Taube on February 2, were read by the Secretary:
At 6-30 p.m., Baron von Taube received a select committee of the
camp committee in the presence of the assembled overseers of the
latter. Messrs. Powell, Fischer, Jones, Blakely, Cocker,
Overweg, Asher, Hallam, Russel, Aman, and Jones were present;
also[19] Messrs. Delmer, Butcher, Stern, Scholl, Mackenzie,
Horn, Klingender, Butterworth, and Hatfield.