[18] _Prisoners_, as well as wounded, have very often been massacred on
the field of battle. As to the treatment that prisoners--French,
Belgian, Russian and English--have undergone in German camps, it is a
pitiful tale that we do not intend to begin here. Some day it must be
written. With the actual evidence before us, the lot of the German
prisoners in England, Russia and France must be compared with that of
ours in Germany. The most indifferent reader will feel his heart stirred
within him, and will hesitate to say whether we were "generous," or
whether we were "fools."
[19] We speak of those who have left--but what of those who have
remained in Belgium and France, under the German heel? The time has not
yet come for writing this piece of history, but we cannot refrain from
referring to the sufferings of these children of the North, boys and
girls, torn from their families, carried off like bands of slaves to
other invaded regions to be employed on forced labour. France has
apprised the neutral countries of these facts: Will they remain silent?
[20] Further on it will be seen that much worse happened on numerous
other journeys.
[21] "We got one pound of black sour bread per diem. In the morning we
had a tepid decoction intended for coffee; at mid-day a pint and a half
of thick soup, and at night rather less than a pint of thin soup. On
three occasions only did we get potatoes, but never once meat. Cabbage
soup was the usual thing and after a certain time it turned our
stomachs. Certain prisoners were employed in chopping up the cabbages to
make sauerkraut, and they had to keep the broken leaves, as these were
used up for our soup."
[22] Through an old habit, the Commission makes use of this word; they
are not "hostages," of course.
[23] It must also be noted that when the Commissioners making the
enquiry saw the repatriated people, they had had some time in which to
recover, first in Switzerland, and then in France. The arrival of these
pitiable drafts gave rise (even among those of the Swiss people who were
in principle the least hostile to Germany) to such a feeling of horror
for their executioners that the Kaiser took warning and thought it wiser
to suspend the repatriations for several months. For the welcome and the
kind care which our poor martyrs received at the hands of the Swiss, our
grateful thanks and salutations are due!