The Better Germany in War Time Part 9

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 circ.u.mstances.

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 regime, 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 doc.u.ment is an extract from a telegram received, _via_ Copenhagen, by the U.S. Emba.s.sy in London on November 7, 1914. The telegram is from the Amba.s.sador (Mr. Gerard) at Berlin, and conveys the representations of Mr. Chandler Anderson, of the American Emba.s.sy 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 a.s.surances, which were endorsed by our Amba.s.sador. Would like to settle these matters while here, and want to leave on Tuesday or Wednesday. Am arranging to have someone from this Emba.s.sy 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 doc.u.ments deserve careful consideration:

_Memorandum communicated by American Emba.s.sy._

November 9, 1914.

The American Emba.s.sy has the honour to submit the following copy of a telegram which the Amba.s.sador 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 Emba.s.sy, London, Nov. 9, 1914.

_Memorandum by Sir Edward Grey._

The American Amba.s.sador asked me to-day whether the American Emba.s.sy 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 Amba.s.sador 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 Amba.s.sador in Berlin.

The object of the Amba.s.sador's enquiry is simply, by bringing out the facts, to prevent false statements from doing harm in Germany, and at the same time, I a.s.sume, to contribute to the remedying of any grievances that may exist.

The American Amba.s.sador 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 Emba.s.sy 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 Emba.s.sy, 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 cla.s.ses, 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 pet.i.tions 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 a.s.sist 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 regime ...

through its hurried organisation, could not fail to contain a certain number of defects at the outset."

The regime, 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 G.o.ds 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. Attache 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 a.s.sistance 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 Amba.s.sador 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 const.i.tute 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 Attache, Mr. Jackson, who formerly visited the detention camps in England, and has now again visited the German detention camps, has confirmed to me the a.s.sertion 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 a.s.sists 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 a.s.sembled overseers of the latter. Messrs. Powell, Fischer, Jones, Blakely, c.o.c.ker, Overweg, Asher, Hallam, Russel, Aman, and Jones were present; also[19] Messrs. Delmer, Butcher, Stern, Scholl, Mackenzie, Horn, Klingender, b.u.t.terworth, and Hatfield.

Having greeted the a.s.sembled members, the Baron proceeded to say that he thought it would be best if only three or four delegates from the camp committee were to discuss matters directly with the overseers. He expressed his views and compared the management of the camp with the administration of a town of 10,000 inhabitants. Too many partic.i.p.ants might only render the work of the overseers more arduous. He therefore suggested that at the meetings of the overseers, the select committee of the camp committee should consist of from three to four gentlemen with deciding votes. The suggestion was accepted. Thereupon the Baron informed the meeting that Messrs. Butcher, Klingender, and Stern had been proposed. In reply to this, Mr. Delmer, chairman of the camp committee, said that from among the eight men whose names had been submitted, three or four should from time to time be chosen as delegates according to their special knowledge and the business to be transacted. After a short discussion it was agreed, upon the proposal of Mr. Powell, that three or four gentlemen should, as delegates from the camp committee, take part in a general meeting of overseers to be held once a fortnight. At these meetings a strict account of the work of the overseers during the interval should be rendered. On the proposal of the chairman, Mr. Delmer, it was further agreed that delegates of the camp committee should have the right at all times to require the overseers to furnish explanations of any incidents affecting the interests of the camp. A motion of the chairman, which was also approved by the Baron, was to the effect that, in order to spare the overseers' committee time and trouble, any incidents occurring in the camp should be thoroughly sifted and investigated by the camp committee, and then reported to the administration as soon as possible by a single competent deputy through the overseers.

The presiding overseer welcomed a further motion by the chairman, Mr. Delmer, which was as follows: In the interests of the necessary reciprocity, a delegate of the overseers should attend the meetings of the camp committee.