TOMMY IN GERMANY
One day the world will be flooded with some of the most dramatic,
horrible, and romantic of narratives--the life-stories of the
British soldiers captured in the early days of the war, their gross
ill-treatment, their escapes, and attempts at escape. I claim to
be the only unofficial neutral with any large amount of
eye-witness, hand-to-hand knowledge of those poor men in Germany.
One of the most difficult tasks I assumed during the war was the
personal and unconducted investigation of British prisoners of war.
The visitor is only allowed to talk with prisoners when visiting
camps under the supervision of a guide. My tramps on foot all over
Germany gave me valuable information on this as on other matters.
My task was facilitated by the Germany policy of showing the hated
British captives to as many people as possible; thus the 30,000 men
have been scattered into at least 600 prison camps. In the
depleted state of the German Army it is not easy to find efficient
guards for so many establishments. Prisoners are constantly being
moved about. They are conveyed ostentatiously and shown at railway
stations en route, where until recently they were allowed to be
spat upon by the public, and were given coffee into which the
public were allowed to spit. These are but a few of the slights
and abominations heaped upon them. Much of it is quite unprintable.
Many a night did I lie awake in Berlin cogitating how to get into
touch with some of these men. I learned something on a previous
visit in 1914, when I saw the British prisoners at one of the
camps. At that time it was impossible to get into conversation
with them. They were efficiently and continually guarded by
comparatively active soldiers.
On this occasion I came across my first British prisoner quite by
accident, and, as so often happens in life, difficult problems
settle themselves automatically. In nothing that I write shall I
give any indication of the whereabouts of the sixty prisoners with
whom I conversed privately, but there can be no harm in my
mentioning the whereabouts of my public visit, which took place in
one of the regular neutral "Cook's tours" of the prisoners in
Germany.
The strain of my work in so suspicious a place as Berlin, the
constant care required to guard one's expressions, and the anxiety
as to whether one was being watched or not got on my nerves
sometimes, and one Sunday I determined to take a day off and go
into the country with another neutral friend. There, by accident,
I came across my first private specimen of Tommy in Germany.
We were looking about for a decent Gasthaus in which to get
something to eat when we saw a notice high up in large type on a
wall outside an old farmhouse building, which read:--
Jeder Verkehr der Zivilbevolkerung mit den
Kriegsgefangenen ist STRENG VERBOTEN,
"Any intercourse of the civil population with the prisoners of war
is strictly forbidden."
These notices, which threaten the civilian population with heavy
penalties if they exchange any words with the prisoners, are
familiar all over Germany, but I did not expect to find them in
that small village.
My neutral friend thought it would make a nice photograph if I
would stand under the notice, which I did after a cautious survey
showed that the coast was clear.
As I did so a Russian came out of the barn and said, in rather bad
German, "Going to have your photograph taken?" I replied, in
German, "Yes."
He heard me speaking English to my friend, and then, looking up and
down the street each way to see if we were being watched, he
addressed me in English with a strong Cockney accent.
"You speak English, then?" I said.
"I am English," he replied. "I'm an English prisoner."
"Then what are you doing in a Russian uniform?"
"It is the only thing I could get when my own clothes wore out."
Keeping a careful eye up and down the street, he told us his story.
He was one of the old Expeditionary Force; was taken at Mons with
five bullet wounds in him, and, after a series of unpublishable
humiliations, had been drafted from camp to camp until he had
arrived at this little village, where, in view of the German policy
of letting all the population, see an Englishman, he was the
representative of his race in that community. "The local M.P." he
called himself, in his humorous way.
Robinson Crusoe on his island was not more ignorant of the truth
about the great world than that man, for, while he had learnt a few
daily expressions in German, he was unable to read it. The only
information he could gather was from the French, Belgian, and
Russian prisoners with him, and some he got by bribing one of the
Landsturm Guards with a little margarine or sugar out of his parcel
from England. He was full of the battle of Mons and how badly he
and his comrades in Germany felt at the way they had been left
unsupported there. None the less, though alone, with no Englishman
for miles, living almost entirely on his parcels, absolutely cut
off from the real facts of the war, hearing little but lies, he was
as calmly confident of the ultimate victory of the Allies as I am.
I asked him if he heard from home.
"Yes," he said, "now and then, but the folks tell me nothing and I
can tell them nothing. If you get back to England you tell the
people there not to believe a word that comes from English
prisoners. Those who write favourably do so because they have to.
Every truthful letter is burned by the military censor. Tell the
people to arrange the parcels better and see that every man gets a
parcel at least once a week--not send five parcels to one man and
no parcels to some poor bloke like me who is alone. How is the war
going on, guv'nor?" he asked. I gave him my views. "I think it's
going badly for the Germans--not by what they tell me here or what
I gets in that awful _Continental Times_ paper, but from what I
notice in the people round about, and the officers who visit us.
The people are not so abusive to the English as they used to be.
The superior officers do not treat us like dogs, as they did, and
as for the Landsturmers--well, look at old Heinrich here."
At that moment a heavy, shabby old Landsturm soldier came round the
corner, and the Cockney prisoner treated him almost as though he
were a performing bear.
"You're all right, ain't you, Heiny, so long as I give you a bit of
sugar now and then?" he said to his decrepit old guardian in his
German gibberish.
This state of affairs was a revelation to me, but I was soon to
find that if the British prisoners are weary of their captivity
their old German guardians are much more weary of their task.
These high-spirited British lads, whom two years of cruelty have
not cowed, are an intense puzzle to the German authorities.
"You see," remarked a very decent German official connected with
the military censorship department, "everyone of these Britishers
is different. Every one of them sticks up for what he calls his
'rights': many of them decline to work on Sunday, and short of
taking them out on Sunday morning at the point of the bayonet we
cannot get them to do it. We have to be careful, too, with these
Englishmen now. As a man of the world, you will realise that
though our general public here do not know that the English have
captured many Germans lately, and the fact is never mentioned in
the _communiques_, we have had a hint from Headquarters that the
British prisoners may one day balance ours, and that hardship for
these _verfluchte Englander_ may result in hardship for our men in
England."
That incident was long ago. It is important to relate that since
the beginning of the battle of the Somme there is, if I was
correctly informed, a marked improvement in the condition of
English prisoners all over Germany--not as regards food supplied by
the authorities, because the food squeeze naturally affects the
prisoners as it does their guardians, but in other ways.
In addition to the British capturing numbers of German hostages on
the Somme to hold against the treatment of their men in Germany, I
think I may claim without undue pride that much good work has been
done by the American Ambassador and his staff of attaches, who work
as sedulously on behalf of the prisoners as though those prisoners
had been American.
The German authorities hate and respect publicity and force in
matters not to their liking, and Mr. Gerard's fearlessness in
reports of conditions and urgent pleas for improvement have been of
great service. All the threats and bluster of Germany have failed
to cow him.
To continue my narrative of the Cockney soldier in Russian uniform.
So many Englishmen are in Russian uniform, Belgian uniform, French
uniform, or a mix-up uniform that there is no possibility of my
Cockney Russian being recognised by the authorities, and the
photograph which my neutral friend took of him and me was taken
under the very eyes of his Landsturmer.
"Heiny," said the Russian Cockney, "is fed up with the war. Aren't
you, old Heiny? During the last few weeks a fresh call for more
men has cleared the district of everything on two legs. We have
had to work fourteen hours a day, and I wonder what my mates at
home would think of 3 shillings pay for ten days' work?"
I was able to comfort him by giving him some cigars, and a great
deal of really true and good news about the war, all of which he
repeated to Landsturmer Heinrich. I suggested that this might be
unwise. "Not a bit of it," he said. "Lots of these old Germans
are only too anxious to hear bad news, because they think that bad
news will bring the thing to a stop."
How true that remark was I knew from my minute investigations. The
incident was closed by the distant appearence of a _Feldwebel_
(sergeant-major). My Cockney vanished, and Heinrich patrolled
onward.
This particular incident is not typical of the life of a British
prisoner in Germany, but it is indicative of the position many of
the 30,000 prisoners have taken up by reason of their strong
individuality and extraordinary cheerfulness and confidence. My
impression of them is of alert, resourceful men (their escapes have
been wonderful)--men who never know when they are beaten. If
Britain has sufficient of these people she cannot possibly lose the
war.
* * * * *
The world does not need reminders such as that of Wittenberg or of
such singularly accurate narratives as several in _Blackwood's
Magazine_ to know what _has_ happened to British prisoners in
Germany.
It is common knowledge throughout the German Empire that the most
loathsome tasks of the war in connection, with every camp or cage
are given to the British. They have had to clean the latrines of
negro prisoners, and were in some cases forced to work with
implements which would make their task the more disgusting. One
man told me that his lunch was served to him where he was working,
and when he protested he was told to eat it there, or go without.
Conversations that I have had here in London about prisoners give
me the impression that the British public does not exactly
apprehend what a prisoner stands for in German eyes.
First, he is a hostage. If he be an officer his exact social value
is estimated by the authorities in Berlin, who have a complete card
index of all their officer prisoners, showing to what British
families they belong and whether they have social or political
connections in Britain. Thus when someone in England mistakenly,
and before sufficient German prisoners were in their hands, treated
certain submarine marauders differently from other prisoners, the
German Government speedily referred to this card-index, picked out
a number of officers with connections in the House of Lords and
House of Commons, and treated them as convicts.
The other German view of the prisoner is his cash value as a
labourer. I invite my readers to realise the enormous pecuniary
worth of the two million prisoner slaves now reclaiming swamps,
tilling the soil, building roads and railways, and working in
factories for their German taskmasters.
The most numerous body of prisoners in Germany are the Russians.
They are to be seen everywhere. In some cases they have greater
freedom than any other prisoners, and often, in isolated cases,
travel unguarded by rail or tramway to and from their work. If
they are not provided with good Russian uniforms, in which, of
course, they would not be able to escape, they are made conspicuous
by a wide stripe down the trouser or on the back. They are easy,
docile, physically strong, and accustomed to a lower grade of food
than any other prisoners, except the Serbs.
The British, of course, are much the smallest number in Germany,
but much the most highly prized for hate propaganda purposes.
"More difficult to manage," said one _Unteroffizier_ to me, "than
the whole of the rest of our two million." It is, indeed, a fact
that the 30,000 British prisoners, though the worst treated, are
the gayest, most outspoken, and rebellious against tyranny of the
whole collection.
There is, however, a brighter side to prison life in Germany, I am
happy to record. A number of really excellent camps have been
arranged to which neutral visitors are taken. When I told the
German Foreign Office that I would like to see the good side of
prison life, I was given permission by the _Kriegsministerium_ (War
Office) to visit the great camp at Soltau, with its 31,000 inmates
with Halil Halid Bey (formerly Turkish Consul in Berlin) and Herr
Muller (interested in Germany's Far Eastern developments).
Five hours away from Berlin, on the monotonous _Luneberger Heide_
(Luneberg Heath), has sprung up this great town with the speed of a
boom mining town in Colorado.
On arrival at the little old town of Soltau we were met by a
military automobile and driven out on a road made by the prisoners
to the largest collection of huts I have ever seen.
There is nothing wrong that I could detect in the camp, and I
should say that the 300 British prisoners there are as well treated
as any in Germany. The Commandant seems to be a good fellow. His
task of ruling so great an assemblage of men is a large and
difficult one, rendered the easier by the good spirit engendered by
his tact and kindness.
I had confirmation of my own views of him later, when I came across
a Belgian who had escaped from Germany, and who had been in this
camp. He said:--"The little captain at Soltau was a good fellow,
and if I am with the force that releases the prisoners there after
we get into Germany, I will do my best to see that he gets extra
good treatment."
Our inspection occupied six hours. Halil Halid Bey, who talks
English perfectly, and looks like an Irishman, was taken for an
American by the prisoners. In fact, one Belgian, believing him to
be an American official, rushed up to him and with arms
outstretched pleaded: "Do you save poor Belgians, too, as well as
British?"
The physical comfort of the prisoners is well looked after in the
neat and perfectly clean dormitories. The men were packed rather
closely, I thought, but not more than on board ship.
One became almost dazed in passing through these miles of huts,
arranged in blocks like the streets of an American town.
We visited the hospital, which was as good as many civilian
hospitals in other countries. There I heard the first complaint,
from a little red-headed Irishman, his voice wheezing with asthma,
whose grievance was not against the camp itself, but against a
medical order which had reversed, what he called his promise to be
sent to Switzerland. He raised his voice without any fear, as our
little group, accompanied by the Commandant and the interpreter,
went round, and I was allowed to speak to him freely. I am not a
medical man, but I should think his was a case for release. His
lungs were obviously in a bad state.
We were also accompanied by an English sergeant, one Saxton--a
magnificent type of the old Army, so many of whom are eating out
their days in Germany. He spoke freely and frankly about the
arrangements, and had no complaint to make except the food shortage
and the quality of the food.
The British section reminded one now and then of England.
Portraits of wives, children, and sweethearts were over the beds;
there was no lack of footballs, and the British and Belgians play
football practically every day after the daily work of reclaiming
the land, erecting new huts, making new roads, and looking after
the farms and market gardens has been accomplished.
An attempt has been made to raise certain kinds of live stock, such
as pigs, poultry, and Belgian hares--a large kind of rabbit. There
were a few pet dogs about--one had been trained by a Belgian to
perform tricks equal to any of those displayed at variety theatres.
Apparently there is no lack of amusement. I visited the
cinematograph theatre, and the operator asked, "What would you like
to see--something funny?" He showed us a rather familiar old film.
The reels are those that have been passed out of service of the
German moving picture shows. In the large theatre, which would
hold, I should think, seven hundred to a thousand people, there was
a good acrobatic act and the performing dog, to which I have
referred, with an orchestra of twenty-five instruments, almost all
prisoners, but a couple of German Landsturmers helped out. The
guarding of the prisoners is effected by plenty of barbed wire and
a comparatively small number of oldish Landsturmers.
A special cruelty of the Germans towards prisoners is the provision
of a lying newspaper in French for the Frenchmen, called the
_Gazette des Ardennes_. The _Gazette des Ardennes_ publishes every
imaginable kind of lie about the French and French Army, with
garbled quotations from English newspapers, and particularly _The
Times_, calculated to disturb the relations of the French and
English prisoners in Germany. For the British there is a paper in
English which is quite as bad, to which I have already referred,
called the _Continental Times_, doled out three times a week. The
_Continental Times_ is, I regret to say, largely written by
renegade Englishmen in Berlin employed by the German Government,
notably Aubrey Stanhope, who for well-known reasons was unable to
enter England at the outbreak of war, and so remains and must
remain in Germany, where, for a very humble pittance, he conducts
this campaign against his own country.
For the Russians a special prevaricating sheet, called the _Russki
Visnik_, is issued. All these newspapers pretend to print the
official French, British, and Russian communiques.
For a long time the effect on the British prisoners was bad, but
little by little events revealed to them that the _Continental
Times_, which makes a specialty of attacks on the English Press,
was anti-British.
The arrival of letters and parcels is, of course, the great event
for the prisoners and, so far as the large camps are concerned, I
do not think that there are now any British prisoners unprovided
with parcels. It is the isolated and scattered men, moved often
from place to place for exhibition purposes, who miss parcels.
Soltau, although a model camp, is bleak and dreary and isolated.
At the outset cases of typhus occurred there, and in a neat,
secluded corner of the camp long lines of wooden crosses tell the
tale of sadness. The first cross marked a Russian from far-away
Vilna, the next a Tommy from London. East had met West in the
bleak and silent graveyard on the heather. Close to them slept a
soldier from some obscure village in Normandy, and beside him lay a
Belgian, whose life had been the penalty of his country's
determination to defend her neutrality. Here in the heart of
Germany the Allies were united even in death.
As I made the long journey back to Berlin I reflected with some
content on the good things I had seen at Soltau, and I felt
convinced that the men in charge of the camp do everything within
their power to make the life of the prisoners happy. But as the
train pounded along in the darkness I seemed to see a face before
me which I could not banish. It was the face of a Belgian,
kneeling at the altar in the Catholic chapel, his eyes riveted on
his Saviour on the Cross, his whole being tense in fervent
supplication, his lips quivering in prayer. My companions had
gone, but I was held spellbound, feeling "How long! How long!" was
the anguish of his mind. He must have been a man who had a home
and loved it, and his whole expression told unmistakably that he
was imploring for strength to hold out till the end in that dreary,
cheerless region of brown and grey.
His captors had given him a chapel, to be sure, but why was he in
Germany at all?
* * * * *
Soltau and other camps are satisfactory--but there are others, many
others, such as unvisited punishment camps. The average Britisher
in confinement in Germany is under the care of an oldish guard,
such as Heiny of the Landsturm, but the immediate authority is
often a man of the notorious _Unteroffizier_ type, whose cruelty to
the _German_ private is well known, and whose treatment of the most
hated enemy can be imagined.
The petty forms of tyranny meted out to German soldiers such as
making a man walk for hours up and down stairs in order to fill a
bath with a wineglass; making him shine and soil then again shine
and soil hour after hour a pair of boots; making him chew and
swallow his own socks have been described in suppressed German
books.
I believe that publicity, rigorous blockade and big shells are the
only arguments that have any effect on the Prussians at present.
It is publicity and the fear of opinion of certain neutrals that
has produced such camps as Soltau. It is difficult for the
comfortable sit-at-homes to visualise the condition of men who have
been in the enemy atmosphere of hate for a long period. All the
British soldiers whom I met in Germany were captured in the early
part of the war when their shell-less Army had to face machine-guns
and high explosives often with the shield of their own breasts and
a rifle.
Herded like cattle many of the wounded dying, they travelled
eastwards to be subject to the insults and vilifications of the
German population. That they should retain their cheery confidence
in surroundings and among a people so ferociously hostile so
entirely un-British, so devoid of chivalry or sporting instinct, is
a monument to the character of their race.