The Better Germany in War Time: Being Some Facts Towards Fellowship. Harold W. Picton

issued not long after this, was not helpful to these hopes. As regards Germany, this publication consists almost exclusively of the “unofficial information and rumours” which, as Sir Edward Grey stated in February, 1915, His Majesty’s Government “trusted did not accurately represent the facts.” The result is unfortunate. The Blue Book is limited by its title to “the first eight months of the war,” and deals almost exclusively with charges brought before the close of 1914, when, as is well known, there was confusion everywhere. The method of arranging the evidence is too much that of an advocate aiming at producing the maximum effect. For example, we read (page 6): “The United States Consul-General at Berlin heard on October 16 that information regarding the treatment of non-commissioned officers and men of the British Army who are prisoners of war in other camps is anxiously awaited at Torgau. ‘Rumours of their exposure to the elements, their starvation and their treatment, are rampant all along the line.’ ” On turning to Misc. 7 (1915) we find that these last words were not those of the American Consul-General, but those of an officer interned at Torgau. The American Ambassador, Mr. Gerard, writes: “It should also be added that, although the British officers at Torgau state that they have heard reports of starvation and ill-treatment of British soldiers in other prisoners’ camps, the Embassy have no reason for believing that this is the case.” This statement is omitted in the Penny Blue Book.

      To give the public an idea of the camp at Döberitz quotations are made (page 33) from an article by an anonymous American journalist. An early official report is cited which gives a very different impression, but as it is quoted in quite a different part (page 18) of the Blue Book, the contradiction is only seen on careful examination. On the covers of the two copies of the Blue Book which I have are lists of Foreign Office publications. Amongst these (see pages 9, 10) is Miscel. No. 11 (1915) (price 3d.), which contains two official U.S. reports on Döberitz, one by Mr. Jackson, the other by Mr. Lithgow Osborne, both of them entirely favourable. No hint of the existence of these reports (received on April 10 and April 24 respectively) is given in the body of the Penny Blue Book. As regards British camps, the only evidence cited is the report made by Mr. Chandler Hale of the U.S. Embassy after the riot at Douglas in November, 1914.

      I am fully aware that the sufferings of prisoners of war, as of soldiers in the field, cannot be adequately presented in official reports, but the sifting of more human and biased evidence is an extremely difficult task, and it is sufficiently plain that we should not rely on official evidence to exculpate ourselves, while using rumours and unofficial information to condemn the enemy.

      There are very many prison camps in Germany, and their individual tone must depend enormously upon the aims and efforts of the commandant in charge. A mistake of appointment, almost a slip of the pen, and a man may be in charge who will make life unendurable as only unlimited authority can.

      The words used by Lord Newton in the House of Lords on July 31, 1917, are noteworthy in this connection. One impression he derived from his intercourse with the German delegates at the Hague was that “in spite of the German power of centralisation, Berlin headquarters did not know a great deal of what was going on. As the Germans had thirty times as many prisoners as we had, it would be surprising if they did know what went on.” (Daily News, August 1, 1917.)

A Prisoner in Austria.

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      Here is an account of a British member of Parliament, a prisoner in Austria:

      Captain A. Stanley Wilson, M.P., who is a prisoner of war in Austria, has written the following letter to Colonel Duncombe, chairman of the Holderness Conservative Association, here:

      “I am a prisoner of war, and with only one hope—that the war will be over soon. I was taken off a Greek steamer by a submarine on December 6. After two nights and a day on board I was brought here. I must not give any details. Colonel Napier was also taken prisoner, and we are together. Fortunately I have in him a capital companion who can speak German very well.

      I am afraid it will be a very long time before I see my constituents. I wish them all a happy new year and hope that during next year I may meet them again. The outlook for me is not very bright, but I intend to do my best to be cheerful. Up to the present we have been very well treated. We had some most exciting experiences in the submarine. The officers on board treated us as though we were their guests and not their prisoners. We have as companions two French officers who were made prisoners the day before us, their submarine having run ashore.”

      —Manchester Guardian, January 10, 1916.

      Captain Wilson (an able-bodied prisoner) has since been unconditionally released.

The Food Question.

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      The report already given makes it clear that very similar complaints, or (as Mr. Jackson puts it [page 16]) complaints that were “exact counterparts” as to food, have often been made on both sides. It is also plain that complaints on this score in German camps have been by no means universal. I do not in the least suppose that the food in general would be satisfying or other than dreadfully monotonous. (“Oft recht eintönig,” says Professor Stange quite frankly in his interesting pamphlet on Göttingen camp.) Loss of appetite, depression, indigestion will then in many cases produce grave physical trouble. All this may occur and does occur, without anything like a deliberate attempt at starvation. British born wives of interned Germans would sometimes, even before the reduction of rations, speak bitterly of their husbands’ needs. An anti-English journalist might have used such complaints to charge us with starvation. But even perfectly bona fide complaints need indicate only monotony, loss of robustness, and consequent physical (and mental) ills—and indeed the tragedy of these things may become terribly dark. It is, however, something very different from deliberate starvation.

      In any comparison between the two sides it is only fair to take into account the special difficulties of the German case. The number of prisoners in Germany by August, 1915, was probably over one million. This is an enormous figure. While Great Britain and her Allies have tried to prevent food from reaching Germany, the drain upon the German food stock has continually grown as the number of prisoners has increased. By the end of 1917 this famished country had to support probably more than two million extra persons. The French Press long ago frankly regarded this as one of the means of helping towards the starving out of Germany, while in an American cartoon the Russian prisoners were figured as an enormous beast with its head in a cupboard labelled “Germany’s Food Supply.” These are considerations for the fair-minded, and it is for them to recall that as soon as there was in our own case a menace of food shortage, there was also what might in official language be described as a complete revision of the prisoners’ rations. The prisoners’ own language would very likely describe it differently. We can scarcely be surprised at sad and even very bitter words at times from prisoners’ wives.

      That prisoners themselves are, however, sometimes able to envisage the difficulties is indicated by the following extract from a Daily News interview with a corporal repatriated from Münster. He commented on the fact that some men were the recipients of more parcels than they needed, while others got none. The interview continues:

      You see, without regular parcels from home a man simply starves at a camp like Münster. If the Germans had the food I believe they would give it, but they haven’t: they are starving themselves.[3] All they allowed us was bread and water and thin soup. The consequence is that the men who get no parcels have to go round begging from the other chaps just to keep body and soul together.

      From what I saw of it, getting so much while others get nothing isn’t good for a man either. Some fellows—the stingy sort—will save up their parcels against a rainy day. Make a regular little store they will. Others—the lively sort—sell what they have over to the unlucky ones, and spend their time gambling with the few marks they make. Poor devils! You can’t blame them!

      The