That was the hardest work of all, that going about in those fever-stricken hamlets, where the patient troops were herded together in wretched mud-huts alongside of the few remaining peasants. Food was scarce, hardly any wood for heating, soap was a thing almost not to be found, linen was a luxury of better days-illness in every form broke out amongst the soldiers and many died before we could give sufficient aid! Ah! Indeed, I have seen death and misery very nearI have moved about amongst them, have felt the despair of my helplessness, have tried with insufficient means to do wonders, but alas! against sickness, cold and hunger goodwill alone did not suffice-not to be numbered were the graves that overfilled the cemeteries; like a wood, the rough crosses grew up side by side. And yet how much more ghastly is the fate of those in the invaded part of the country, where no help can penetrate. Here I can at least get to my people-visit them or send them food, aid, comforts-but there in the dear regions we have lost, what may their sufferings be? Who succors them? Who consoles them? Who helps them to hope? The enemy must have taken everything from them, forcing them to work against their own brothers, and probably he scoffs at their misery, trying to make them doubt the love of those who had to leave them to so cruel a fate! That thought is the hardest of all! And to be so helpless-to have no news, no details, to be entirely cut off! I feel it is a rambling tale, the tale I have told-it is as though I had written in a trance-maybe I have often repeated myself, yet I have only said half of what I had to say. One day perhaps when this period of suffering will be a little more distant I will more clearly be able to write the history of these days of distress. THE GERMAN TREATMENT OF PRISONERS VIERORDE DANIEL MCCARTHY That the Germans did to a wide and even terrible extent mistreat their prisoners of war there is unhappily no question whatsoever. Rumors of this began to spread through the Allied countries in 1915; but not until late in 1916 were the black facts clearly established by official investigation and convincing proof. Then the protest was world-wide and under the influence of neutrals, and especially of the United States, the worst abuses were done away with. Daniel J. McCarthy, official investigator for the United States, made a detailed report and afterward published a book describing what he had seen. His summary of conditions is given here; and as he certainly was not trying to exaggerate, his report may be considered as presenting the best possible side for Germany. The full extent of excuse to which he goes is that the crimes were not national, that the better class of Germans supposed the prisoners were being well-treated, and that the guilt thus falls chiefly on only a few military commanders. Of course this is only another way of saying that militarism had poisoned Germany to the very soul. On the other hand, in reading such statements as that of the Russian Government, here presented, the reader would do well to bear in mind that the Government wanted to excite its people against their foes and therefore resorted to the primitive but effective method of painting these foes at their worst. That is to say, the very worst examples of mistreatment seem to have been picked out and emphasized. The general truth is thus rather to be gained from such documents as the personal experiences of Major Vandeleur, here narrated under oath, or the report of Mr. Younger, who conducted a British Parliamentary inquiry and here presents in carefully restrained fashion the conclusions drawn from a mass of testimony as to conditions in the worst and most deadly of all the prison camps, the "typhuscamp" at Wittenberg. In brief, the indictment against the Germans in this matter seems to come under three heads. First, the Government had long taught its people to despise other races; now it encouraged them to hate the others and especially the English. The result was a coarse mistreatment of prisoners by the German public, which seems to other races the most disgraceful and disgusting feature of the whole. This mistreatment rarely resulted in loss of life, and was a shame far more to those who enacted than to those who suffered it. The first evidences of this coarse spirit may be seen in the picture of the treatment of Belgian prisoners in our earlier volumes, in the commands of General von Bissing, and in Lissauer's "Hymn of Hate." The spirit was kept alive by the German press and even by the German "intellectuals" through the appeal of such poems as that of Vierorde, here reprinted. The second indictment is against the German soldiers, trained in brutality as we have seen, and especially against the German officers. These deliberately ruled their prisoners by a brutal terrorism in which beating and starvation were the mildest punishments, and a deathblow even at the hand of a savage or stupid sentry was sure to be condoned. Moreover, German commissariat officers deliberately trafficked in the starvation of their prisoners. The food officially assigned them was often shown them, weighed as though for cooking, and then sold to German civilians, who eagerly bought it at high prices. A meaner form of thievery can scarcely be imagined. The third indictment is the most serious of all; for it is not against the coarseness of a people or the brutality and thievery of a soldiery, but against the intellectual and political leaders, the so-called "upper classes," the "nobility" of Germany. From these leaders there came repeated orders that prisoners should be treated harshly, and even that prisoners were undesirable nuisances and had better die. Hence came the abominable overcrowding in transit, the abominable sanitary arrangements, the deliberate abandoning of a prison camp to disease. That there was also misery suffered by Germans in Ally prison camps, none would deny. During the War, Germans talked much of the "horrors" of British prisons, but afterward abandoned all serious charges of this sort. Since the War, they have specially directed attention to certain French camps where the rule seems to have been harsh if not savage. But the worst individual cases evidenced by German testimony never for a moment approach the fully established and customary German methods pictured here. C. F. H. BY VIERORDE O Germany, Hate! my Germany, into thy soul thou must etch a deep and indelible hate; This hate thou hast lacked for a long, long time. Retribution, vengeance, fury are demanded; Stifle in thy heart all human feeling and hasten to the fight. O Germany, hate! Slaughter thy foes by the millions And of their reeking corpses build a monument. Let it reach the clouds. O Germany, hate now! Arm thyself in steel and pierce with thy bayonet the heart of every foe; No prisoners! Lock all their lips in silence; Turn our neighbors' lands into deserts. O Germany, hate! Salvation will come of thy wrath. Beat in their skulls with rifle-butts and with axes. BY MAJOR C. B. VANDELEUR Sworn Testimony of a Captured British Major Who Escaped in 1915 The narrative begins at the French city in the invested district to which he was first sent, on October 13, 1914. "At Douay I was detained on the square in front of the Hôtel de Ville with a sentry over me, and was subjected to continual abuse and revilement. On the arrival of the other prisoners we were all confined in a large shed for the night. No food, except a little provided by the French Red Cross Society, was given, also no straw, and we spent a terrible night there, men being obliged to walk about all night to keep warm, as their great-coats had been taken from them. "On October 17th, in the morning, the French Red Cross people gave us what they could in food, and did their very best, in spite of the opposition from the Germans. At about 2 p. m. on the same day we were all marched off to the railway station, being reviled at and cursed all the way by German officers as well as by German soldiers. One of our officers was spat on by a German officer. "At the station we were driven into closed-in wagons, from which horses had just been removed, 52 men being crowded into the one in which the other four officers and myself were. So tight were we packed that there was only room for some of us to sit down on the floor. This floor was covered fully 3 inches deep in fresh manure, and the stench was almost asphyxiating. We were thus boxed up for thirty hours, with no food, and no opportunity of attending to purposes of Nature. All along the line we were cursed by officers and soldiers alike at the various stations, and at Mons Bergen I was pulled out in front of the wagon by the order of the officer in charge of the station, and, after cursing me in filthy language for some ten minutes, he ordered one of his soldiers to kick me back into the wagon, which he did, sending me sprawling into the filthy mess at the bottom of the wagon. I should like to mention here that I am thoroughly conversant with German, and understand everything that was said. Only at one station on the road was any attempt made on the part of German officers to interfere and stop their men from cursing us. This officer appeared to be sorry for the sad plight in which we were. I should like also to mention that two of the German Guard also appeared to be sympathetic and sorry for us; but they were able to do little or nothing to protect us. "Up to this time I had managed to retain my overcoat, but it was now forcibly taken from me by an officer at a few stations further on.1 "On reaching the German-Belgian frontier the French prisoners were given some potato soup. The people in charge of it told us that none was for us, but that if any was left over after the French had been fed we should get what remained. This is in accordance with the general treatment of British prisoners by the Germans, who always endeavor to attend to our necessities last, and to put us to as much inconvenience and ill-treatment as possible. We subsequently got a little soup and a few slices of bread amongst 25 British prisoners in the same wagon with me. "On October 18th, early, we arrived at Cologne, and the four officers and myself were removed from the wagon and, after some delay, sent on to Crefeld. "I said that 52 prisoners were in the wagon with me when we left Douay. These were: [here follow the names of five officers, 15 English soldiers and 32 French civilians of all grades of society.] It is difficult to indicate or give a proper idea of the indescribably wretched condition in which we were in, after being starved and confined in the man 'It is scarcely necessary to emphasize that this taking of a prisoner's clothes is as unusual as it was wholly unnecessary. The Germans at this time had more clothes and spoils of every sort than they could possibly make use of or even carry away. Food also was super abundant. |