Prisoners, Diplomats, and the Great War: A Study in the Diplomacy of Captivity (Contributions in Military Studies) 9780313267291, 0313267294

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Preface (page ix)
Introduction (page 1)
PART I: THE DIPLOMATS (page 13)
1 Prison Camp Inspection: "The American Scheme" (page 15)
2 The Diplomacy of Captivity: Europe (page 31)
3 The German-American Diplomacy of Captivity (page 43)
PART II: THE SOLDIERS (page 61)
4 Captivity in Germany (page 63)
5 Captivity in France (page 81)
6 Captivity in the United Kingdom (page 97)
7 Captivity in Russia (page 107)
8 German Prisoners and the American Expeditionary Force in France (page 123)
PART III: THE CIVILIANS (page 139)
9 "Alien Enemy": A Special Problem in Wartime Captivity (page 141)
10 "Alien Enemies" and War Prisoners in America (page 155)
PART IV: ARMISTICE AND AFTERMATH (page 167)
11 Repatriation, Revolution, and the Radical Tradition (page 169)
12 Conclusion (page 183)
Notes (page 191)
Note on Sources (page 221)
Selected Bibliography (page 227)
Index (page 237)

Citation preview

PRISONERS, DIPLOMATS, AND THE GREAT WAR

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Prisoners, Diplomats, and the Great War A Study in the Diplomacy of Captivity

Richard B. Speed III

CONTRIBUTIONS IN MILITARY STUDIES, NUMBER 97

GREENWOOD PRESS

New York ¢ Westport, Connecticut ¢ London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Speed, Richard B. Prisoners, diplomats, and the Great War : a study in the diplomacy of captivity / Richard B. Speed III. p. cm.—(Contributions in military studies, ISSN 0883-6884 ; no. 97) Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-313-26729—4 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper) |

1. World War, 1914~—1918—Prisoners and prisons. 2. Prisoners of war—History—20th century. 3. World War, 1914—-1918—Diplomatic

history. I. Title. II. Series. D627.A2S67 1990

940.4°72—dc20 89-—25732 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

Copyright © 1990 by Richard B. Speed III All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 89-25732 ISBN: 0-313-26729-—4

ISSN: 0883-6884

First published in 1990 Greenwocd Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, Connecticut 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). P

In order to keep this title in print and available to the academic community, this edition was produced using digital reprint technology in a relatively short print run. This would not have been attainable using traditional methods. Although the cover has been changed from its original appearance, the text remains the same and all materials and methods used still conform to the highest book-making standards.

To my father, Richard B. Speed II,

who introduced me to history

BLANK PAGE.

CONTENTS

Preface ix Introduction 1

PART I: THE DIPLOMATS 13 1 Prison Camp Inspection: “The American Scheme” 15

2 The Diplomacy of Captivity: Europe 31 3 The German-American Diplomacy of Captivity 43

PART II: THE SOLDIERS 61

45 Captivity in Germany 63 Captivity in France 81 6 Captivity in the United Kingdom 97 7 Captivity in Russia : 107 - $ German Prisoners and the American Expeditionary

Force in France 123 PART III: THE CIVILIANS 139 9 “Alien Enemy”: A Special Problem in Wartime Captivity 141

10 “Alien Enemies” and War Prisoners in America 155

PART IV: ARMISTICE AND AFTERMATH 167

Notes 191 Note on Sources , 221 Index 237

12 Conclusion 183 11. Repatriation, Revolution, and the Radical Tradition 169

Selected Bibliography 227

BLANK PAGE

PREFACE | It is widely recognized that mistreatment of war prisoners has become steadily more common during the twentieth century. The brutal treatment of prisoners on Germany’s eastern front and in the Pacific theater during the Second World War is well known. Numerous German and Japanese officers were tried and convicted of war crimes for their part in these events. It is common knowledge that prisoners were brainwashed during the Korean War and that propaganda statements were extorted from downed pilots then and during the subsequent conflict in Vietnam. It was widely reported during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s that Iranians made strenuous efforts to convert Iraqi prisoners to their Shiite fundamentalism in an attempt to turn them against their homeland. With all this in mind, most observers would agree that there is little prospect for improvement in the near future. In the aftermath of the Second World War, many Americans believed that the Japanese deserved the devastation wrought by history’s first atomic bombings because of the pain they had inflicted on American prisoners in the Philippines

during and after the Bataan “death march.” Tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Britons, Australians, and Asians retain bitter memories of Japanese mistreatment of war prisoners during the Second World War. Consequently when, forty-five years after the conclusion of the war, Japanese Emperor

Hirohito died, thousands of British subjects voiced indignation that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher would attend the funeral. In the same manner, millions of Americans cannot forget how American airmen captured by the North Vietnamese were treated, nor the several thousand who remain missing

in action, possibly in captivity. Popular movies continue to capitalize on American anger over this issue fifteen years after the conclusion of the conflict.

x Preface During both the Korean and Vietnamese wars, disputes about war prisoners obstructed diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflicts. The peace negotiations both at Panmunjom and at Paris dragged on for years, in part because the two nations could not agree on how prisoners would be treated. Even after American forces withdrew from Vietnam, lingering disputes about this issue continued to

prevent the improvement of relations between the two states. Clearly, the treatment of war prisoners is an aspect of the conduct of war which, if not handled to the mutual satisfaction of the belligerents, can embitter postwar relations for years, or even decades. However, the experience of World War I, history’s first “total war,” shows that despite enormous obstacles, it is possible for bitter foes to treat prisoners in accord with accepted international norms and procedures. This book is a study of the prisoners of the First World War and the manner in which the belligerents handled the issues that captivity raised. I wish to thank Alexander DeConde, Richard Oglesby, and Albert Lindemann, each of whom read early drafts and made useful comments. I also wish to thank my wife, Lillian

Castillo-Speed, and my son, Nathan, for their steadfast encouragement.

INTRODUCTION

Throughout history the fate of the prisoner of war has been a function of his value in a financial, political, or military transaction. The civilizations of the ancient Near East and classical antiquity valued the prisoner for his labor. Hence, he became a slave who could be bought and sold. With the decline of European slavery and the emergence of feudal society, the status of the prisoner shifted. No longer chattel, his value depended on the ransom he could raise to purchase his liberty. Hence, the practice of ransom became a lucrative activity in medieval Europe. Even monarchs were subject to ransom. With the rise of

the centralized state, however, and the regular, professional armies that supported it, the custody of prisoners shifted from the individuals who captured them to the institutions that employed their captors. Increasingly, in early modern-European history, the value of a prisoner lay not in his ability to work, or in his worth as a commodity in the ransom market, but in his value in exchange for soldiers captured and held by the enemy. Accordingly, the practice of ransom

declined and was supplanted by the organized exchange of prisoners during hostilities. The exchange of prisoners as it developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was essentially a transaction in which each party demanded equivalent

value or reciprocity. Accordingly, exchange agreements, known as cartels, included elaborate tariffs specifying the relative value of the various ranks. Cartels were essentially contracts that defined the terms and conditions of the transaction. Typical exchanges took place on a man-for-man, rank-for-rank basis, which insured reciprocity in the transaction. Reciprocity remains a central element in the international diplomacy of captivity in the twentieth century.

With the rise of nationalism and democracy in the wake of the French Revolution and the wars of Napoleon, the nature of both the prisoner and

2 Introduction captivity underwent another shift. Whether citizen or subject, the captured soldier was an ordinary man representative of the common people. As such the prisoner came to symbolize the nation, and, as means of mass communication appeared to inform an increasingly literate public, the common citizen identified with the prisoner’s fate in a way he never had before. Simultaneously, as armies became larger and the stakes of war less subject to compromise, the practice of prisoner exchange during hostilities declined. The American Civil War saw the

final collapse of this procedure and its replacement by internment for the duration followed by repatriation at the conclusion of the conflict. The often-noted decline in the conditions of captivity that has characterized much of the twentieth century has come about either because the belligerents could not agree on the value of war prisoners or at least one of the powers was incapable of providing equivalent treatment, thereby encouraging its enemy to retaliate. Thus, the vital transaction between the powers broke down. During the First World War, Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian prisoners suffered gravely because Russia was simply not capable of caring for prisoners in

its custody in accordance with the standards codified in international law. Russia, unlike France, Great Britain, or the United States, was unable to supplement the rations its prisoners in Germany received, and Germany did not feel obliged by Russian threats of retaliation to insure that Russian prisoners were treated in accord with the standards of international law.

During the Second World War, the Russo-German transaction collapsed again, this time for a different combination of reasons. A new radical tradition

of captivity placing a different valuation on war prisoners had arisen in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. This, combined with a case of paranoid megalomania, led Joseph Stalin to reject repeated German offers to mutually respect the provisions of the 1907 Hague and the 1929 Geneva conventions. According to Stalin, “There are no Russian prisoners of war. The Russian soldier

fights on till death. If he chooses to become a prisoner, he is automatically excluded from the Russian community.”' German prisoner of war policy thereafter was based on the Soviet renunciation of the Hague Convention and its refusal to sign the Geneva Convention or implement the terms of either. As a result of this unwillingness to agree on the standards of treatment applicable to war prisoners, Soviet soldiers in German custody during the Second World War suffered a much harsher fate than either their Anglo-American counterparts or their predecessors a generation earlier. During the First World War the Central Powers captured a total of 2,417,000 Russians, of whom 70,000 died. During the Second World War, of 5,754,000 Soviet prisoners captured by Germany, between 3,290,000 and 3,700,000 died.” The German authorities during the Second World War took the Soviet refusal to honor the provisions of international law as a breach of contract that released them from any obligation to observe it and as license to wantonly abuse prisoners. The German authorities of the First World

War, unlike those of the Second, did not. Despite the Russian breach, they - continued to attempt to live up to the terms of the contract implied in interna-

Introduction 3 conflict. |

tional agreements. The consequence of this response is reflected in the dramatically lower mortality rate experienced by Russian prisoners during the earlier

The thesis of this book is that, despite the pressures of total war that drove the European powers to violate many traditional restraints during the Great War, on the whole, four of the five states under consideration treated military prisoners as well as could be reasonably expected. They were able to do so for four reasons, First, they managed, with the assistance of a number of neutral powers led by the United States, to maintain rough reciprocity in their relations of captivity. Second, they were committed, within the constraints of military necessity, to a humanitarian, liberal tradition of captivity which was codified in international law. Third, the international law of captivity, which can be best understood as a contract specifying the rights and responsibilities of the parties,

provided standards intended to promote uniform conditions of detention. Fourth, there existed a community of neutral powers that shared a commitment to the liberal tradition and helped the belligerents overcome the obstacles to humane treatment that the war presented. The underlying structure of international law to which the belligerents of the

First World War referred was developed during the previous century. The nineteenth century was generally a period of optimism among Europeans. The human condition seemed to have improved dramatically in the century between the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 and the beginning of the First World War. Not only had science and industry made great strides in taming nature and

turning it to human purposes, but humanity appeared to be on the brink of domesticating warfare. The nations of Europe had fought no general war, and the conflicts that had taken place were local and short. The nineteenth century seemed to bear out the Enlightenment faith in reason and to fulfill its promise of progress. Not only did warfare occur with less regularity than in preceding centuries,

but a peace movement had emerged in Europe during the latter half of the century and had culminated in a series of legislative steps to regulate the conduct

of war.’ Codified in the form of conventions and agreements, this body of international law made special provision for prisoners of war. Prisoners were gradually transformed from chattel into protected persons. Based on the notion first expressed by Jean Jacques Rousseau in 1762, that prisoners were “merely men, whose life no one has a right to take,” the principle was established that “they must be humanely treated.” The first legislative steps were taken shortly after 1862 when Henri Dunant published his Souvenirs de Solferino which depicted the misery of the wounded and maimed on the fields of battle in Lombardy. The International Committee of the Red Cross and its numerous national branches emerged in the following years as a result of the publicity and concern that Dunant’s work aroused. In response to this, the first “Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies of the Field” was adopted at Geneva in 1864.°

4 Introduction In 1863, a year after the appearance of Dunant’s essay, Francis Lieber, a German immigrant and legal scholar at Columbia University in New York, prepared the American “Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field.” This seminal document, issued to the Union Army during the American Civil War, declared that “A prisoner of war is subject to no punishment ... nor is any revenge wreaked upon him by the intentional inflic-

tion of any suffering, or disgrace, by cruel imprisonment, want of food, by mutilation, death, or any other barbarity.”® This assertion, combined with a number of other provisions that stipulated the specific rights of war prisoners, placed the United States in the forefront of the growing movement to make captivity more humane and to regulate the overall conduct of warfare. Indeed, Lieber’s was the first attempt to codify the body of tradition and custom that

formed the laws of war.’ |

At Brussels in 1874 another conference took place. It drafted a code designed to govern warfare that was based heavily on Lieber’s work. In 1899 delegates to

the first of two peace conferences which took place at The Hague drafted a comprehensive set of rules to regulate the conduct of war and protect prisoners.

It too relied on Lieber’s pioneering work.’ Unlike the Brussels draft, the document produced at The Hague was signed and ratified by most of the sovereign states of the world.” Meanwhile, between 1871 and 1896, most of Europe’s major powers and several of its minor ones followed the American example and issued legal manuals for the governance of their armed forces. The French, the British, and the Americans each issued revisions incorporating the Hague rules a few years prior to the outbreak of the First World War.” Thus, a century that began with a collection of unwritten rules of war, largely customary law or usages based on precedent and found in history books and legal treatises,

concluded with an elaborate network of written codes for the conduct of belligerency.

Practice kept pace with the liberal ideals expressed in these documents. Military prisoners were unusually well treated during the several conflicts that took place near the end of the century. Boer combatants captured by the British in South Africa and Russian soldiers taken prisoner by the Japanese in the Far

East were treated in accordance with the highest standards of the times. Likewise, Spanish soldiers captured by the United States in Cuba and the Philippines were repatriated in record time at the close of hostilities.” Unfortunately, the improvements in the conditions of military captivity did not extend to civilians, non-Western peoples, or irregulars, In South Africa, for example, in a manner that ominously foreshadowed the future, women and children were herded into concentration camps where they suffered intensely.”

Both the Spanish in Cuba and the Americans in the Philippines adopted similarly harsh measures to repress insurgencies in those countries. The Western colonial powers applied different standards to uniformed Western enemies than

to rebellious colonial guerrillas, especially those of another race. Thus, there developed by the turn of the century a two-tiered structure of captivity, one that

Introduction 5 Western, predominantly European powers applied to one another, and a second that they applied to their colonial subjects. The improvement in the conditions of captivity to which prisoners from the first tier of nations were subject reached its zenith in 1907. In that year the Hague Convention on the Rules of Land Warfare was adopted.” The treatment of war prisoners that it mandated represented the highest expression of the liberal ideal of captivity prior to the outbreak of the First World War. Writing in 1911, a British expert on international law, James M. Spaight, commented that To-day the prisoner of war is a spoilt darling; he is treated with a solicitude

for his wants and feelings which borders on sentimentalism. ... Under present day conditions, captivity — such as that of the Boers in Ceylon and

Bermuda and of the Russians in Japan—is no sad sojourn by the waters of Babylon; it is usually a halcyon time, a pleasant experience to be nursed fondly in the memory, a kind of inexpensive rest-cure after the wearisome

turmoil of the fighting.“ :

During the half century prior to the 1907 conference at The Hague, the European peace movement had created the liberal tradition of captivity within the legal framework of the Hague conventions of 1899 and 1907. This tradition represented a combination of the Enlightenment’s faith in the ability of reason to triumph over instinct and the Anglo-American faith in the efficacy of law to restrain the brutal passions of war. It was with this tradition that the peoples of

the continent entered the First World War, and it was with this faith that American President Woodrow Wilson and his generation of reformers viewed Europe in the fall of 1914.

The rules of warfare with which Europe entered the twentieth century developed during a long and unusual period of relative peace which lasted for a century. The long peace of the nineteenth century concluded with the outbreak of a war that brought the industrial revolution to the battlefield. The European wars that took place between 1815 and 1914, however, were limited. Had they

resembled the American Civil War in violence, intensity, or duration, it is unlikely that Europe could have taken the steps it did to restrict the conduct of warfare. The long peace was, in effect, a window of opportunity for the development of a movement to regulate and humanize warfare. Accordingly, the peace movement and the regulations it erected should not be seen as the culmination of along chain of progress in the field of international relations, but as contingent on the fortuitous absence of general war; in short, as an aberration in the history of a continent that has been wracked by war with only short intervals of peace for over a thousand years. By the time the First World War concluded, the liberal tradition of captivity had been severely tested; so indeed had the entire effort to regulate the conduct of warfare itself. Many of the specific provisions regarding both prisoners and

the general conduct of operations codified in the 1907 Hague Convention had

6 Introduction been eroded; but nevertheless, the general principles of the liberal tradition remained intact. Indeed, the tradition was reinforced by subsequent conventions

after the war in 1929 and again after the Second World War in 1949. The twentieth century has often been described as a century of total war. Historians have meant by this that modern conflicts, particularly the First and Second World Wars, have involved the entire state. Such wars have been the business of all sectors of society, not just of armies and navies. All citizens or , subjects, from housewives to librarians, have participated in the war effort. Even

| children have been victims. The state has called on the entire resources of its people in order to conduct the war. As the historian Michael Howard has written, war became “a conflict not of armies but of populations.” Such wars have been fought in the name of the people. The First World War broke many of the traditional restraints on war. Civilians became targets. The products of Europe’s factories, the machine gun, the tank, and poison gas, transformed the _ battlefield. Submarines and zeppelins attacked civilian targets. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were interned as potential combatants. Even food became

the object of naval blockade. Many of these practices violated the rules of warfare as they then existed. The war blurred the traditional distinction between

combatant and noncombatant because modern industry made the civilian, whether farmer or factory worker, a vital element in the army’s ability to wage | the struggle. The war was one of previously unimagined violence and intensity. It stretched the economic and social capacity of each nation to and, in some cases, beyond

its limits. The further those capacities were stretched, the more prisoners suffered. Conversely, the less those capacities were taxed, the better the conditions of captivity. Accordingly, the United States, which suffered the least among

the major belligerents, was best able to provide for those it captured. The transformation of war wrought by the industrial revolution drove the nations of Europe to violate many of the rules they had written only a few years

earlier. Many of the Hague rules that the nations of Europe violated were obsolescent and inapplicable to modern conditions of warfare. The jurists, diplomats, and military officers who had codified the rules of war had failed to anticipate the dramatic changes both in scale and intensity that industrialization would bring to the battlefield. Just as it is often said that generals prepare to fight the last war, the diplomats prepared to regulate previous wars rather than future ones. Driven by technology, the erosion of the traditional restraints on

violence was felt most forcefully on the battlefield and among civilians. , As war engulfed the Continent during the winter of 1914-1915, the belligerent powers were confronted with an unprecedented situation. Within six months of

the war’s outbreak, there were between 1.3 and 1.4 million men in captivity , throughout Europe. No country was prepared for this huge influx of prisoners. Consequently, the nations of Europe scrambled to care for the prisoners they caught. They did not always do a good job, but generally they attempted to comply with the terms of the Hague Conventions and the tenets of the liberal

Introduction 7 tradition. Russia failed to care adequately for its prisoners due to incompetence, not malice. The tsar’s army was hard-pressed to carry out a successful offensive.

| It was saved from utter devastation only by similar Austrian incompetence and the failure of the Schlieffen plan which, after the battle of Tannenburg in August

1914, forced the Germans to devote most of their effort to the defeat of the French and British. Russia, however, was flooded with over 300,000 prisoners within the first six months of the war. It was simply not capable of organizing care for so many prisoners on such short notice while fighting a major war. Germany, which is often regarded as the worst offender, had the greatest burden of all. With 625,000 prisoners by February 1915, and 2.5 million in custody by

war’s end, it held several times as many prisoners as the Western powers combined. As the British blockade took effect and the tide of war turned against Germany, it was almost inevitable that prisoners would suffer along with the civilian population.

The nations of Europe were unprepared not only in an administrative and logistical sense, but also in a diplomatic sense. They relied on a convention with an apparently fatal flaw, a clause that rendered the treaty void if all belligerents were not signatories, which did not realistically confront the detailed problems

of captivity.’ Nevertheless, the European belligerents attempted to live up to the terms of the Hague conventions of 1899 and 1907. Where the Hague rules were inadequate, they negotiated comprehensive agreements that overcame diplomatic obstacles to the humane treatment of war prisoners. They even innovated procedures such as neutral internment of invalids in order to improve the conditions of prisoners. Things such as this were not done during the Second World War, nor have they been done in successive wars. Significant international agreements negotiated by enemies during wartime have been most unusual in the twentieth century. No such feat has even been attempted since 1918. The liberal tradition thus survived the war, but it did not survive unchallenged.

Amidst the turmoil of war and revolution there arose along the Russian frontier with Eastern Europe a new view of captivity, itself a product of the imperatives of total war, which challenged the orthodoxies of the Western liberal tradition. This tradition, which may be termed radical, is grounded in a view that holds that persons are not to be understood as individuals, but as members of a social class. According to this view, all political and social events, including wars, are really various forms of class conflict. Prisoners therefore are not merely men, but potential soldiers in the continuous struggle between the classes. Since the working class is transnational in nature, national patriotism is a false allegiance, and the only true loyalty is class loyalty. Nationalism is therefore illegitimate,

and the only state to which a class-conscious worker owes allegiance is the socialist state, which represents his class interests. It is therefore the duty of a revolutionary to subvert a prisoner’s loyalty to a capitalist state. In this way a new tradition in the treatment of war prisoners was born, one that is antithetical

to that developed in the West. Unlike the liberal tradition, which respects nationalism and patriotism, the radical tradition holds both these emotions to

8 Introduction be illegitimate, and contends that war prisoners are potential recruits in the international class conflict. As such they may serve in combat, as revolutionaries,

or to demoralize the enemy through the spread of propaganda. Since the conclusion of the First World War, the liberal and radical traditions of captivity have been in contention with one another. Largely unnoticed, the

existence of the radical tradition has contributed to the deterioration in the treatment of war prisoners which has set in since 1914. Rooted as these two traditions are in sharply differing views of humanity, their competition will continue as long as the ideological confrontation between liberal democracy and

communism continues. , | |

The United States has always been a bastion of the democratic ideals born

of the Enlightenment. American law, political ideas, and institutions all derive from European antecedents. The United States participated in the formulation of the international law which was in effect in 1914. It contributed to contemporary ideas about the treatment of war prisoners. It shared in the tradition of restraint which was predominant in Europe at the outbreak of the war. Thus, when the United States intervened in the First

World War, it conducted its prisoner of war policy accordingly. As the | world’s foremost neutral power between 1914 and 1917, it attempted to ameliorate the conditions of captivity in Europe, and in the process assisted

the European powers to overcome impediments to the realization of the liberal tradition. The United States reinforced the consensus of the old order

because in that respect it was part of that order. — , American participation in the prisoner relationship established among the belligerent powers of World War I was both limited and extensive. It was limited in the sense that the United States held relatively few prisoners, and these only for a short period of time. Nevertheless, when it did, it participated fully in the diplomacy of captivity. American participation was extensive in that the United States protected several hundred thousand foreign prisoners across Europe for

the duration of its neutrality. Even long after the conclusion of the war, Americans, both privately and as representatives of their government, remained concerned with the relief of war prisoners. Throughout its wartime experience with prisoners, the United States applied and upheld idealistic norms parallel

to those it attempted to institutionalize in the League of Nations upon the conclusion of the war.

In recent decades a great deal has been written, of both a scholarly and a popular nature, about prisoners of war. Most works have depicted the period since 1939. The dominant images have been those of the tortured and emaciated bodies of concentration camp survivors depicted in black-and-white newspaper and magazine photographs. There is, however, little scholarly literature on war prisoners during the First World War.” The inhumanity revealed by the Second World War and the conflicts that have followed has obscured our view of what

: preceded it. The contemporary or popular view of captivity during the Great War has been conditioned by the horrors of the Second.

Introduction 9 Most of the literature on prisoners in the First World War leaves a bleak impression. German writings emphasize the privations of hundreds of thousands

of captives in Russia and France. Allied works concentrate on conditions in Germany. French and British materials emphasize alleged German atrocities. In particular, they focus on conditions in the prison camps. The very limited American literature on the subject also tends to emphasize the deprivation and suffering endured by prisoners in Germany. As one American wrote, “Neither treaty nor humanitarian consideration induced the German Government to treat its prisoners of war as human beings, or make much effort to preserve their lives.”'® The impression created by this literature is one of the deliberate and systematic brutalization of prisoners in Germany in direct violation of the laws of war and humanity then embodied in international conventions and the liberal tradition. This impression is not supported by objective evidence. During three of the war’s four years, American diplomats, acting as neutral observers, visited camps throughout Europe and filed reports about what they saw. As neutrals it was their duty to gather accurate information about prison camps. Unlike most of the published accounts, their reports were relatively free

of bias. The American camp inspectors had no reason to sensationalize what they wrote. This contrasts sharply with the published material on which the image of World War I camps is based. Most of these accounts are personal narratives by people who were themselves prisoners. Most were written during

or shortly after the war, when antipathies were high. Their accuracy and reliability as guides to conditions within enemy camps is dubious.” Most material issued by governments is essentially propaganda.” Each side attempted to depict the enemy’s treatment of war prisoners in the worst possible _

light. Much of the prison camp literature produced in Britain and France belongs in the same category as the wartime propaganda which blamed Germany for the “rape” of Belgium, the murder of babies, and the indiscriminate use of the U-boat. Nonetheless, this is the literature that is the basis of most historical generalizations about the prisoners of World War I. In general, many of the complaints about prison conditions made during the war seem petty when measured against the kinds of conditions to which we have become accustomed since 1939. During the Great War, diplomats might object strenuously because prisoners could only take a bath once every two weeks rather than weekly. During the Second World War, however, prisoners might work like slaves, subsist on a diet of rice and water, and never take a bath. They might be tortured, worked to death, or deprived of medical attention as a matter of government policy. Public and official sensibilities about the proper and anticipated treatment of war prisoners were very different in 1914 from what they are today. The public of 1914 had been conditioned by the liberal tradition to expect the sort of camp conditions Spaight had described three years earlier. When the public discovered that such conditions did not exist, it was outraged, and placed pressure on governments to retaliate. Public dismay about the treatment of war prisoners corresponded to its shock at the devastating and indecisive nature of the war on the Western Front.

10 Introduction The archives of the U.S. Department of State reveal a picture of World War

I prison camps sharply different from that told by contemporary writers.” Although these records acknowledge the existence of such evils as overcrowding, disease, neglect, and malnutrition, overall they depict a wide variety of conditions ranging from the surprisingly good to the depressingly bad. Generally, the best conditions prevailed in the West, and the worst were found in the East. German camps were generally similar to, but occasionally worse than, British and French camps, while the poorest camps were those in Russia. Conditions in German camps rivaled neither the Andersonville of the American Civil War nor those prevailing in Japanese camps or along both sides of the Eastern Front in the Second World War. Misery was most common in Russia, where conditions did indeed resemble those of the Second World War. However, there are no grounds for charging the tsarist authorities with war crimes, or placing them in the same category as SS concentration camp guards or the

Japanese who conducted the Bataan death march. On the contrary, there is evidence to indicate that prior to the Russian Revolution, the authorities both in Russia and elsewhere took seriously their obligations under international law to treat prisoners with humanity. In short, they upheld the liberal tradition. This work is arranged into four major subdivisions. Part I, “The Diplomats,” concentrates on the diplomatic and other devices used by the states of Europe

to ameliorate the hardships of captivity and regulate their prisoner of war relationship. Part II, “The Soldiers,” is devoted to an American view of the conditions of captivity within the boundaries of four major European powers

and a description of American camps in France. Part III, “The Civilians,” consists of two chapters that describe how the United States and the European powers handled civilian enemy nationals or “alien enemies,” while Part IV, “Armistice and Aftermath,” describes the repatriation of prisoners in the wake of the conflict, and pulls together major themes in some concluding remarks.

The purpose of the first part of this volume is to describe the remarkable diplomatic activities of the nations at war that related to prisoners. It is also intended to underline the point that in their commitment to the liberal tradition, these states undertook major diplomatic initiatives in order to bridge the gaps in the Hague rules and restore the relationship they mandated. That they made these efforts while their troops were slaughtering one another on the field of battle demonstrates a serious if not total commitment to the tenets of the liberal

tradition. ,

The survey of captivity that constitutes the second part of this book has several objectives. The first is to describe in some detail the living conditions and daily lives of typical war prisoners as depicted by American observers. This is done through the presentation of a series of vignettes, snapshots of a sort, of specific camps at specific times and places. Generally the camps have been selected for

description because they exemplified certain significant characteristics of the prison system under consideration. There are, as a result, examples of enlisted men’s camps, officer’s camps, working camps, hospitals, and civilian camps. In

Introduction 11 most cases those described were not unusual in any way. They were selected because they were ordinary and because they were the sorts of camps in which most prisoners spent the war. They were neither superior nor inferior to the majority of other camps. The only exception to this general rule is when the purpose of the description is to illustrate the best or the worst of camp conditions. In short, the purpose of this section is to provide the reader with a sense of what happened to the long gray lines of exhausted prisoners so often captured in photographs. It is an effort to depict the reality behind the forlorn imagery of photographs. The second objective of this section is to describe the overall organization or “topography,” as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn would say, of the prison camp system established in each of several nations. Another objective is to describe each nation’s efforts to live up to its international obligations and the obstacles it encountered, and to assess its successes and failures. The survey includes descriptions of the prison camp systems of Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States. The four European nations were chosen for essentially two reasons. First, they were each major belligerents and were representative of both the Central Powers and the Entente. These nations held close to 70 percent of all prisoners captured during the war; thus, the survey is broadly based. The other major reason for selecting these countries and not others such as Italy, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, or Japan is the relative abundance of descriptive material that is available.

Part III, “The Civilians,” focuses on an unprecedented development in modern European history, the mass internment of civilian enemy nationals. One

chapter describes conditions and practices in France, Germany, and Great Britain; while a second chapter describes the internment of Germans and Austro-Hungarians in the United States. The former relies heavily on reports prepared by American diplomats who inspected civilian camps just as they did military camps, while the latter is based on similar Swiss reports on American camps. Part IV, “Armistice and Aftermath,” concentrates on the politics of

repatriation and the emergence of the radical tradition. The discussion of repatriation of prisoners in American custody is based primarily on U.S. Army :

records. |

The most useful source of original material on which to base such a study are the voluminous inspection reports prepared by American diplomats acting in their capacity as neutral observers. These reports constitute the largest single source of essentially objective and unbiased information about captivity during the Great War. Without these reports this work would have been impossible. Their use permits a unique and unprecedented view of the prison camps of the First World War. Their value is, however, restricted to the four major European powers covered in this study because the United States did not take on the role of protecting power elsewhere. Spain protected French prisoners in Germany,

Russian prisoners in Austria-Hungary, and Austrian prisoners in Italy and

| Russia. These reports are located among the Spanish archives in Madrid.

12 Introduction Another large body of such reports was produced by Danish diplomats who took

over many of the inspection duties abandoned by the United States when it entered the war in 1917. The chapter on the United States Army’s prison camp

system in France is based in large measure on several hundred pages of unpublished records consisting of unit histories, orders, cables, and other miscel-

laneous items located in the Old Army branch of the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Part I

The Diplomats

BLANK PAGE |

PRISON CAMP INSPECTION: “THE AMERICAN SCHEME”

Lee Meriwether shuddered inside his heavy overcoat. Rain beat against the window of his compartment. The cold moisture was penetrating. He was aboard a train traveling across France in December of 1916. Despite the winter weather,

French railroad cars were seldom heated, especially during the war. After a fifteen-hour journey, Meriwether arrived in Brest. The next morning, after spending the night in a cold hotel room, he went to the Chateau d’Anne, an imposing medieval fortress used to intern German prisoners of war. As a

member of the Austro-Hungarian and German Interests Section of the American embassy in Paris, it was Meriwether’s job to inspect the prison and report his findings. He took his trip in order to investigate a German complaint about conditions within the fortress. The note threatened to retaliate against French prisoners should conditions fail to improve."

Meriwether was not the only American in France who spent that winter inspecting prison camps. Between ten and twenty Americans headquartered at the American embassy in Paris made regular trips to inspect French prison

camps; American diplomats in France were not the only ones to conduct tours of inspection. American embassy and consular officials inspected camps in Russia, Turkey, Austria-Hungary, Serbia, Germany, France, Great Britain, Canada, Japan, and in various colonial outposts of the major bel-

ligerent powers. Americans were not the only prison camp inspectors; diplomats from both Spain and Switzerland also contributed to this activity. The inspection of prisoner of war camps by neutral diplomats or by the Red

Cross is a common activity in modern international practice, but when Meriwether and his colleagues throughout Europe began their inspections, it was entirely new. They were pioneers. How this practice was initiated and conducted is the primary focus of this chapter.

16 Part I: The Diplomats As winter fell across the continent in 1914-1915, the number of men held prisoner increased rapidly. By 25 September 1914, Germany had captured 125,050 French prisoners. Three weeks later the Germans held 141,496 French captives. During the same three weeks the number of Russian soldiers held prisoner in Germany rose from 94,150 to 103,251. Relatively few Britons were imprisoned this early in the war. By mid-October they numbered 8,844. Nevertheless, within three months of the war’s opening shots, Germany had captured about 285,000 of the enemy.” By February 1915, Germany held about 652,000 military prisoners. Between them, the Central Powers had custody of over 900,000 prisoners. The French and the British, who were on the defensive during the early stages of the conflict, held about 65,000 German military prisoners.’

Their ally Russia held an estimated 300,000, mainly Austro-Hungarian, in Siberia.’ Thus, between 1.3 and 1.4 million men were in captivity by the end of the first month of the new year. By the end of the war, over 6.5 million men were in captivity in Europe.°

This huge influx of prisoners was totally unanticipated by any of the belligerents. Although military officers had spent decades preparing for war, they had thought little about prisoners. In any case, neither the Germans nor the French thought in terms of a long war. Europe’s last general conflict had ended on the battlefield at Waterloo almost a century earlier. The statesmen and the generals thought in terms of short conflicts like those that had punctuated the nineteenth century and accompanied the unification of Germany. The French and German general staffs refought the Franco-Prussian War. The Germans expected to sweep along the coast of the North Sea and the English Channel, encircle the French armies, and enter Paris within a matter of weeks. The French planned to lunge into Alsace-Lorraine and the Rhineland, compelling Germany to sue for peace. In a brief war such as the generals contemplated, prisoners would be repatriated at the conclusion of hostilities as they had been during the

nineteenth century. Neither the generals nor the politicians envisioned the slaughter that the industrial revolution made possible nor the stalemate that the juxtaposition of machine gun and trench brought about; nor could they have guessed that the scale of captivity would keep pace with the magnitude of the casualty lists. Captivity caused enormous problems for governments across the continent. With less than 10 percent of Europe’s prisoners, Britain and France had relatively little difficulty finding proper lodgings for the men. However, the situation in central and eastern Europe was quite different. Neither Germany nor Austria-

, Hungary was prepared to house, clothe, and feed 900,000 extra people. While they were able to supply adequate food and clothing, these countries faced great problems in locating shelter for so many. All sorts of old, unused buildings were hastily converted into prison camps. Tent cities sprang up across Europe as the

_ belligerents made desperate efforts to house their captives. The situation became increasingly serious as winter approached and set in. As temperatures dropped and snow fell, those whose resistance to infection had diminished due

Prison Camp Inspection 17 to exhaustion, wounds, and exposure, increasingly fell prey to disease. Tuberculosis, typhus, and pneumonia were among the more common diseases to afflict the prisoners. Conditions in Russia, where medical and sanitary conditions were generally primitive and where the winter was harshest, were more severe than elsewhere. The problems the belligerents encountered were not limited to the care and accommodation of the prisoners. They also faced diplomatic difficulties. It seems clear that all the governments in question wanted to meet their interna-

| tional obligations toward their prisoners. They did, however, face various obstacles to doing so. One set of obstacles had to do with the interpretation of their obligations. Another was posed by each nation’s desire to protect its own prisoners held in foreign captivity by insisting on reciprocity of treatment. The obligations of belligerent powers toward war prisoners were codified in international law. Several conventions, among them the Geneva Red Cross

Convention and its adaptation to maritime conflict, were pertinent.’ Most important, however, were the two Hague conventions of 1899 and 1907.’ Each of the two conventions covered the treatment of war prisoners extensively. They made provision for housing, clothing, food, labor, pay, religious observances, ~ mail, and other privileges. The delegates who drafted these conventions believed that they had produced a comprehensive guide to the treatment of war prisoners. Prior to the war, statesmen had had reason to believe that these conventions would insure prisoners a high standard of treatment in any future war. There were two major flaws in this optimistic outlook. One was explicitly stated in the conventions. According to Article 2 of the 1907 Hague Convention, “The provisions contained in the Regulations referred to in Article 1, as well as in the present Convention, do not apply except between Contracting Powers, and then only if all the belligerents are parties to the Convention.”® The 1899 convention had a similar provision.’ Although the 1907 agreement had been signed and ratified by most major belligerents, Italy, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and the Ottoman Empire had not formally acceded to it. Consequently, the major powers did not regard the convention as binding. Nevertheless, the 1899 convention had been signed and duly ratified by all combatant powers and none of its provisions had been repealed by the conferees at The Hague in 1907. Consequently, the 1899 convention remained in effect.’ Although this rupture in the international legal regime appeared to be very

serious, in reality it was not. The major powers announced that they would attempt to follow the guidelines that the conventions provided. The most serious

flaw in the Hague réglement was not that its most recent version had been technically suspended, but that its provisions were subject to conflicting inter-

pretations. In compliance with Articles 14 and 16 for example, the various governments established enquiry offices that would, among other things, “reply to all inquiries about the prisoners.” Great Britain set up its “Prisoner of War Information Bureau” in late August 1914."' The Germans, Austro-Hungarians,

and French followed suit in mid-September.” These nations had, at least —

18 Part I: The Diplomats formally, attempted to live up to the convention’s requirements, but within weeks, Great Britain and Germany began to disagree about whether they were

obliged to respond to private as well as government inquiries about war prisoners. They also disagreed about whether prisoner lists should include location of internment.” These are just two of the innumerable disagreements that arose regarding rights of prisoners and responsibilities of detaining powers. Almost any provision in the convention was subject to conflicting interpreta-

tion. Article 7 for example, states, “In the absence of a special agreement between the belligerents, prisoners of war shall be treated as regards board, lodging, and clothing on the same footing as the troops of the Government who

captured them.” Even compliance with this provision caused hardships for prisoners. British prisoners in Déberitz, a German camp “[an] hour’s ride by motor from Berlin” lived on a diet of cabbage and carrot stew, supplemented with “war bread” which was made with potato and rye flour. This is what German soldiers ate, and although Russian prisoners liked it, the French and the English did not. One British prisoner whispered to Herbert Corey, an American visitor, while he watched a boiling pot of stew, “I ’ad a sow. And even she wouldn’t eat

skilly.”” In short, the convention even ran afoul of the dietary preferences of different nationalities. By far the most serious problem faced by governments honestly trying to live up to their prisoner of war obligations was the absence of reliable information about the state of their own prisoners abroad. Beyond the struggle for victory itself, the primary concern of each government was not with the prisoners in its

custody, but with its soldiers in captivity. Each nation felt an obligation to demand that its prisoners be treated well. Retaliation or the threat of retaliation was the only instrument at their disposal to compel reciprocity of treatment.

With the closure of all official channels of communication, it became very difficult to obtain accurate descriptions of camp conditions. Under these circumstances, newspaper accounts and rumors, often totally unsubstantiated, became the only source of information. At times they even became the basis of threat and reprisal. When reports of mistreatment were publicized, the public often put pressure on their governments to retaliate. Such pressure was often difficult to resist.!° One American official summarized the situation quite well

in the following words:

It is undoubtedly true that each Government desires to deal with this very difficult situation in a manner which will be satisfactory to all concerned

insofar as circumstances permit. Nevertheless, in view of the known differences, and the lack of confidence on each side in the good faith of the other, inspired by the intense hostility existing between them, there naturally have been misunderstandings and misgivings on both sides about the treatment of their subjects who are held prisoners in enemy territory. This situation has been aggravated by sensational stories of abuses and maltreatment of prisoners in each of the belligerent countries, which have

Prison Camp Inspection 19 been given wide circulation in the newspapers of the enemy countries, and although for the most part without foundation of fact, have been popularly

accepted as true. The result of all this has been to excite and inflame popular opinion in those countries to the extent of demanding retaliation and reprisals, and the Governments of several of the belligerent nations have been in a mood to yield to these demands.” A typically sensational report appeared as a four-page spread in The Graphic, a popular British tabloid. It ran two full-page sketches and one two-page spread

which depicted the mistreatment of British prisoners. The captions told the story. According to one, British officers are shown “scant respect” by their German captors and “are made to sweep the streets, collect refuse, etc.” In another, a wounded soldier is forced to stand at attention on a railroad platform as German marines and civilians jeer at him. “At every station,” according to the caption, “the doors were thrown open and someone called, ‘Come and have a look at the English swine!’ ”” During October 1914, the German Foreign Office received reports that it took very seriously that some of its prisoners had been “taken from France to Algeria and compelled there to perform hard labor on roads like convict gangs, that they [were] watched by Black troops and very cruelly treated, mortality being very high.””® American intervention in such situations was often highly effective. In

early February 1915, for example, reports appearing in Danish and Dutch newspapers claimed that Russian authorities planned to execute, the downed crewmen of a German airship. These reports led Germany to threaten “that for every member of airship executed a high Russian officer will be executed in Germany.” The American embassy in Petrograd effectively defused this situation, when upon investigation, it concluded that “reports concerning airship

[are] pure invention.” Although such newspaper reports may have been true, they were unverifiable. If any country were to act on accounts like these, it could set off an escalating chain reaction of reprisal and counter-reprisal which neither country wanted. Nonetheless, no country was ready to credit its enemy or to let such reports go for long without response. The belligerent powers, then, faced a wide variety of problems stemming from captivity. These included not only the provision for

numerous prisoners, but the interpretation of the convention and the absence of reliable information. The United States entered this picture when several powers asked that it protect their interests in enemy territory. The United States was asked to take on this role because it was the largest, the most influential, and perhaps the most respected neutral power. Within the first month or so of the conflict, the United States agreed to protect the interests of many of the hostile powers. The United States agreed on 1 August 1914 to protect the interests of Germany in Russia and those of Austria-Hungary in Great Britain, France, and Russia.” The United States also agreed to protect the interests of France in Austria-Hungary, Russia

20 Part I: The Diplomats in Turkey, and Great Britain in Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Turkey. Finally,

it protected German interests in Japan, France, Great Britain, Canada, and _ Russia.” With diplomats stationed in all the belligerent capitals and in numerous

) outlying areas, the United States was in a strong position to carry out this assignment and gather information that would later prove useful. Interest protection is a form of diplomatic activity that ordinarily takes place

when the protected power has no diplomats stationed on the territory of the local power. Often this is the result of war or a severance of diplomatic relations. In such a situation, the protecting power, a nation that maintains relations with both hostile states, carries out certain limited but often varied duties. The most

traditional and routine of these is to act as a custodian of all diplomatic and consular buildings and property. When, in time of war, the ordinary channels of diplomatic communication between belligerents break down, the protecting power often transmits messages from the protected state to the other belligerent.

If the protecting power has been entrusted with the interests of both hostile nations, it may transmit the response as well as the original message. If it only represents the interests of one of the two states, it will carry messages one way

and another protecting power will transmit the response. One of the unique features of American interest protection during the First World War is that much of the communication it transmitted was two-way. American diplomats in effect overheard both sides of the conversation.

When the United States agreed to take on the burden of interest protection during the war, it too was faced, although in a different way, with the problems encountered by the belligerents in dealing with prisoners of war. If prisoners under American protection were cold, hungry, or sick, then U.S. diplomats felt it their responsibility to alleviate these conditions, even though legal responsibility for such tasks fell primarily on the detaining power. If one side retaliated

against another without just cause, or because of a misunderstanding, they likewise believed that they could and should do something to prevent it. Initially, Americans saw their activities on behalf of war prisoners as a relief effort. In response to reports of suffering, they attempted to provide supplies not furnished by the detaining power. Indeed, the prisoner’s home nation often requested this sort of aid. Thus, governments transmitted money to American officials so that the latter could purchase food, clothing, medicine, and other

relief supplies locally. Once they had obtained these supplies, American diplomats distributed them to prisoners under their care. Early in October, for example, when the U.S. ambassador to Germany, James Gerard, visited the _ Dobritz camp, he distributed a hundred blankets, and some crutches and canes. He also arranged to send twenty-five hundred pairs of drawers and the same number of undershirts to the prisoners.” This sort of activity became commonplace during the war. By March of 1915, the American embassy in Germany had supplied over ninety-two hundred articles of clothing to British prisoners.” In general, such relief purchases were not paid for with American funds, but

rather with funds set up by the protected power. Initially, however, with the

Prison Camp Inspection al breakdown of international banking arrangements, the United States set up an emergency fund for this purpose. Ultimately all such expenditures would be charged to the benefiting power.” Camp inspections originated in these relief activities. Diplomats visited camps in order to determine which supplies were most critically needed in each place. Naturally, they noted deficiencies. Such inspections, however, were only incidental to the main purpose of distributing relief supplies. When home nations began to enquire about the state of their captive soldiers, the inspections took on greater significance in themselves. Just as each country set up varying procedures to administer their prison camp systems, the American ambassadors in each nation set up varying procedures

for carrying out their duties as protectors. Although the State Department offered some general directions, it provided few details. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan’s instructions, transmitted in August 1914, emphasized

the importance of neutrality of behavior, but said nothing about the relief or protection of prisoners.” Consequently, each mission was largely on its own. Each ambassador — Gerard in Berlin, Walter Hines Page in London, Myron T. Herrick and later William Graves Sharp in Paris, Frederick Penfield in Vienna,

and Frederick T. Marye in Petrograd—could, subject to State Department review and limitations imposed by the host government, conduct these operations as he saw fit. Gerard was quite active in promoting the interests of his charges. Without directions from the State Department, for example, he began to visit different camps personally. When other duties prevented him from doing this, he delegated this task to other embassy representatives. Gerard visited his first camp on 2 October 1914. Meanwhile, in Paris, Herrick requested French permission to visit camps in October, but was informed that he could not until Germany agreed to let the Spanish ambassador visit French soldiers captive in Germany.”’ Meanwhile, the State Department, having received German complaints about the conditions of its prisoners in Russia, asked Marye to have someone inspect camps there. It also asked Page to do the same, as the embassy in London had not yet conducted any inspections.” The first suggestion that camp inspections be made reciprocally and that the information obtained be exchanged between belligerents was made by Julius G. Lay, the American consul general in Berlin. After speaking to the commandant

of the Torgau prison camp, he concluded that “the minor objections, and possibly the major ones, made by the [British] officers in Torgau can be overcome and will be corrected if the commanding general at Torgau is convinced that the

German officers in England are not obliged to bear ... unnecessary and unhealthy hardships.” He went on to suggest that his opposite number, the consul general in London, inspect a British camp.” In short, he suggested that camps be inspected in order to obtain information to reduce tension and the likelihood of reprisal, not simply to ascertain what types of relief supplies were needed. Meanwhile, in London, Chandler P. Anderson, the embassy’s special legal

advisor and the American diplomat most conversant with prisoner of war matters, proposed that he journey to Berlin in order to clear up the “confusion

22 Part I: The Diplomats and misunderstanding” that threatened the work of the two embassies. Unless “these matters [were] soon straightened out,” he wrote, “a great deal of unnecessary suffering will ensue and it will later appear that the United States failed to

do all that could have been done.” He also suggested that he report to the Germans the condition of prisoners in England, and inspect some German camps about which he would report to the British.” In this way he hoped to allay some of the fears that deepened Anglo-German animosity.

Gerard brought Anderson’s suggestion to the attention of the Imperial Foreign Office. On 2 November, about a week after the proposal was made, Gerard relayed the German response to Washington, D.C. Germany was willing

to let Anderson inspect camps in Germany “but desire[d] that someone from this Embassy .. . inspect camps in England and also in Russia and France.”” Anderson made his trip to Germany in mid-November. He visited a number of camps and briefed officials in Berlin on British camp conditions. The Germans expected a member of the American embassy staff in Berlin to make a reciprocal inspection of camps in Britain. They also ir dicated that they would like Page himself to inspect British camps. After all, Gerard had inspected German camps. However, the Department of State intervened in mid-November. It issued a circular to the embassies in Britain, France, and Germany, halting further investigations of camp conditions because they were “futile and might

afford opportunity to one belligerent or another to charge the American

Government with partiality or prejudice.”™ , The department’s order gave Germany ample reason to charge the United States with partiality. The Foreign Office had approved Anderson’s visit on

condition of reciprocity. Having carried out their end of the bargain, the Germans expected the British and the Americans to carry out their part. Failure to do so would almost certainly destroy neutral inspection of prison camps. It would also reinforce the German feeling reported by Anderson “that American Embassies [in London] and in Berlin are pro-British.”“ Gerard objected vehemently, however. He cabled from Berlin: The whole object of allowing Anderson to come into my jurisdiction was to allow the British to see that prisoners were well treated in Germany but he came on condition that some one named by me from here should visit the camps in England. .. . If it was necessary for Anderson to come here

to convince the British, it is just as necessary that someone from here should go to England to convince the Germans.”

In due course the department backed down and asked Page to arrange such a visit with the British government. Apparently Page had not understood the reciprocal nature of Germany’s approval and had not communicated this to the British.* The British acquiesced and had Page notify the department on 2 January that they would accept inspection by “any impartial person from the American Embassy in Berlin.”*’ In response, Gerard nominated, at German

Prison Camp Inspection 23 request, John B. Jackson, a former minister to the Balkan States, to make the trip. The British approved Jackson and he undertook the journey.* During his stay in Great Britain, Jackson visited twenty-two camps and vessels holding both military and civil prisoners. He was allowed to converse freely with

the inmates but heard few complaints from the soldiers. The civil internees, however, complained about the food, housing, mail privileges, sanitation, and medical treatment. Their most serious complaint, however, was about the manner of their arrest. Nevertheless, Jackson concluded that conditions were improving and that the British were trying to do as well as they could.” His inspection of British camps and the report he prepared allayed German fears. Had the United States refused to permit such a visit, American neutrality might have been irreparably compromised in German eyes, and the development of neutral inspection of prison camps as an accepted feature of international diplomacy might have been greatly delayed.

Meanwhile, in London, Anderson prepared a detailed memorandum that

described the prisoner of war problem and proposed a series of steps to

resolve it. He reviewed the background to the controversy over war prisoners, explaining that “the situation ha[d] been aggravated by sensational

stories of abuse and maltreatment of prisoners, which [were] given wide

circulation and... promptly accepted as true.”” Referring to the everpresent threat of retaliation, he argued that the United States could best represent the interests of the enemies by offering factual information about prison camp conditions on a regular basis. In furtherance of this objective he proposed that each belligerent provide a complete statement of the standards that it would apply to the prisoners. Then, he argued that the various standards should be brought into conformity with one

another. Having by this process established uniform standards throughout

Europe, he proposed that “the United States...should establish in each country some systematic and organized method of inspecting and reporting from time to time on prisoners camps.” Inspection reports would be sent to the appropriate nations and steps would be taken to correct deficiencies.” In short,

Anderson proposed to regularize the process of camp inspection which had already begun in haphazard fashion. Anderson also examined the problem posed by the relief of war prisoners. He

pointed out that prisoners throughout Europe were in serious need of warm , clothing for the winter and additional food supplies. He also pointed out that the United States might be asked to coordinate this. In order to facilitate the distribution of relief supplies, he suggested that some experienced American - army quartermasters be delegated to work abroad under the direction of the various American ambassadors in the nations to which they were accredited.” Toward the end of December, Walter Hines Page in London showed a copy of Anderson’s report to British foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey. The latter seemed most interested in Anderson’s suggestion that American officials be placed in charge of the distribution of relief material.”

24 Part I: The Diplomats Anderson’s proposals gained support as they were reviewed within the administration. Page thought that, were the proposals put into effect, they would save lives and reduce postwar bitterness. If carried out, the plan would be a “historic act of humanity and neutral kindness,” which would, he wrote, “set a new standard for the treatment of war prisoners.” William Phillips, the third assistant secretary of state, pointed out in support of Anderson’s plan, that “It is merely placing on a business and practical footing the work which we have been attempting to perform in an unsatisfactory and piecemeal way.””

Persuaded by these arguments, the State Department decided to adopt Anderson’s proposals and offer them as a major American initiative to the nations whose interests it was protecting. Thus, on 15 January, Bryan cabled Page and Gerard that the United States would be willing to undertake relief and inspection as proposed in Anderson’s memorandum. There were two basic points to the American scheme as it finally emerged. First, all belligerents were to prepare for one another a statement detailing their prison regulations and policy. Second, the powers were to permit American representatives “to have access to the prisoners and permit the prisoners to furnish written statements about their treatment ... which they wish to have communicated to their own government.” Finally, the United States insisted that it would not take respon-

tion of the supplies.” an |

sibility for anything beyond the “transmission of the statements and the distribu-

In mid-January the United States informally notified Great Britain that it was willing to put Anderson’s plan into effect if asked to do so by the belligerent powers. Almost immediately the British responded with a formal request that the United States proceed.*’” On 16 January, the next day, the department extended this proposal to France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary.® It simultaneously notified Great Britain that the United States was ready to begin the relief and inspection activities outlined in Anderson’s memorandum.” AustriaHungary replied that it had already granted such privileges to Russian prisoners and the Spanish diplomats protecting them and that it anxiously awaited the arrangement for American inspection of Russian camps for its prisoners.” In mid-March, the Austrians essentially accepted the American proposal, but warned that should the Russians fail to agree to camp inspection within a month,

they would retaliate.** |

At about the same time Gerard secured German agreement to the plan. They agreed to permit regular camp inspections by representatives of the protecting power if given twenty-four hours notice, and consented to private conversation

between prisoners and camp inspectors.” They did not, however, explicitly accept the plan to station American quartermasters in Berlin to administer the distribution of relief supplies. This, however, was the aspect of the program that most appealed to Great Britain. Nevertheless, the Germans offered no objection to the distribution of relief material by Gerard and his staff. The embassy had

been doing this for several months and Germany had no reason to halt the process. Meanwhile, in late March Germany issued ten prison camp passes to

Prison Camp Inspection 25 Gerard, who distributed them among members of the American diplomatic staff.°° In mid-April the British government likewise issued passes to the American embassy in London. A series of inspections began a few days later.” With these steps the agreement between Britain and Germany was essentially complete and implementation was underway. However, the situation on the eastern front was more complicated. Although the Austrians had accepted the proposal, the Russians had balked. Primarily they objected to the distribution of supplies by any but the military authorities.” Eventually President Woodrow Wilson wrote Tsar Nicholas II in an attempt to secure Russian approval. He asked that members of the American Red Cross or any “other impartial agency [of] this government” be allowed to distribute relief materials to prisoners in Russia. He pointed out that his request was made “in conformity with a general plan for prisoners’ relief which the Government of the United States is now

trying to arrange.” He explained that he did not offer to distribute relief to Russian subjects in Austria-Hungary or Germany because Russian interests were protected by Spain.”* Wilson’s letter was personally presented to the tsar by Ambassador Marye who had a “most pleasant and cordial” conversation with

him. After reading the letter Nicholas told Marye: “I am going to grant this request. I want to do it, but don’t you think it ought to be coupled with some sort of assurance that the same thing would be done for my people in Germany?” Although Nicholas recognized the obstacle presented by Spanish protection of

Russian interests in Austria-Hungary, he continued to request reciprocity of relief distribution.** In response, the United States made arrangements with Spain permitting American distribution of relief to Russian prisoners in the Dual Monarchy.” Shortly after the Germans accepted the American plan, they made a unique

suggestion of their own. Gerard reported in late April that German military authorities in charge of war prisoners had suggested that there be a conference of the American and Spanish ministers to all of the principal belligerents to resolve all matters relating to the treatment and exchange of war prisoners. They

proposed that war prison authorities from each of those countries attend. According to Gerard, both Foreign Minister Gottlieb von Jagow and his deputy Arthur Zimmerman approved of the idea, but they wanted the United States to propose it to the other belligerents.® Both Bryan and State Department counselor Robert Lansing approved of the general idea, thinking that Germany’s goal was “certainly a worthy one,” but they agreed with Phillips that the Germans should call the conference. Furthermore, they did not think that American ambassadors should leave their posts to attend the conference. Subordinates could attend in their place.*! Nevertheless, Phillips believed that the German proposal was “of the very first importance,” because it could lead to “the formation of a central organization which might have the greatest future usefulness to all concerned.”” We will never know whether Phillips’s assessment was correct, but it appears that such a conference, including all the major belligerents and the world’s major

26 Part I: The Diplomats neutral power, potentially could have simultaneously resolved problems that were the subject of protracted bilateral negotiations during the next three years.

Building on the momentum created by Anderson’s American initiative, the conferees might have at least agreed on how to interpret the terms of the Hague conventions. They might have even reached a general accord much like the bilateral ones they ultimately did reach.

Unfortunately, the proposal died an untimely death. Bryan, Lansing, and Phillips all approved of the basic idea. They immediately sent it to the president for his response. He did not respond for seven weeks, explaining later that “it had been overlooked” among his papers. He agreed with Phillips’s position and assumed it was “long ago taken care of by the Department.”® Unfortunately, the department had not taken care of the matter at all. Perhaps because of the

transition from Bryan to Lansing that took place between 9 and 24 June, the matter had been overlooked in the State Department as well. The department did not get back to Gerard until 23 June, the day before Lansing was sworn in. Despite presidential approval for the idea of a conference, the note was entirely negative in tone. Without intimating that such a conference was approved at the highest level, it merely informed Gerard that the United States would not initiate such a conference and could not approve the attendance of its ambassadors.” Gerard’s response to the Germans could only have been very unpromising. It _ should come as no surprise that Germany failed to pursue this initiative further. The U.S. State Department issued a set of regulations covering camp inspections and the distribution of relief. It instructed its ambassadors to set up a unit within the embassy to administer aid and carry out inspections, and to obtain a

complete list of detention centers and copies of all camp regulations. It explained that American activities on behalf of prisoners had to be conducted in accordance with regulations established by local authorities and any bilateral agreements that existed between the belligerents. Although inspectors were to observe local regulations, they were free to converse with prisoners or their representatives beyond the hearing of camp authorities. Their discussions, however, were limited to the prisoner’s wishes and complaints. Inspectors were

instructed to report the size and locations of camps. Finally, they were to ascertain conditions in camps while avoiding critical comments.® By mid-summer 1915, the American plan for prisoner relief was in operation throughout most of Europe, much as Anderson had envisioned it in December. Despite difficulties, especially in Russia, American diplomats had fanned out across the Continent and beyond to inspect prison camps and distribute relief

materials to those held in captivity. In Germany alone, over two hundred

inspections were made in 1916. In France, which had also acceded to Anderson’s plan, American diplomats were equally busy. Indeed, under Am-

, bassador William Graves Sharp, the United States ran a very active camp

inspection program. :

In September 1914, the United States embassy in Paris established a division of Austro-Hungarian and German Affairs headed by H. Percival Dodge and

Prison Camp Inspection 27 John Work Garrett.* Although the staff of the division was originally rather small, it grew steadily in size until the summer of 1915, when it leveled off at about thirty-three. This staff was composed primarily of stenographers and clerks but also included several assistants who carried out the delicate task of

camp inspection. Until 27 January 1917, when Garrett left the embassy for another assignment, the division’s activities were split into two sections. Garrett was in charge of the

affairs of Austro-Hungarian and German alien enemies interned in France, while Dodge headed the unit assigned the task of protecting German and Austro-Hungarian military prisoners in France. Dodge’s section also was concerned with Austro-Hungarian and German civilians who were not interned and with their property. Garrett’s unit was the smaller of the two. Upon Garrett’s departure, Dodge was made the overall head of the division.” It was originally thought that the division could be housed in the embassy

proper, but the rapid growth of its work and staff necessitated a move to an upstairs apartment which offered more spacious accommodations. Located at Number Five, Rue de Chaillot, the “apartment contained six large and two small rooms, all well adapted for offices.”” The division conducted a great deal of correspondence, with which the typists

were chiefly occupied. This correspondence dealt with the whereabouts and , welfare of particular individuals, the transmission of money and documents, the

transmission of notes between the belligerents, and reports on prison camp conditions. In addition, the division received an average of sixty-seven visitors weekly. During the war’s first few months, as many as forty to fifty people called daily at the embassy.” Despite the volume and significance of these activities, the inspection of camps remained the division’s single most important duty. None of the six assistants to whom the job of camp inspection was primarily

delegated had had any previous diplomatic experience. All these men were Americans who, while in Paris, had volunteered their services to the embassy, which

put them to work in this way. These six assistants were G. W. Atumberg, T. R. Plummer, Herbert Haseltine, Lee Meriwether, Barrett Fithian, and A. N. Ranney. The last man caught pneumonia while on tour of a camp and died in October 1915. Haseltine was a sculptor who became so deeply involved in camp inspection that he visited 277 camps, far more than any other member of the staff.” Numerous

members of the American military mission also volunteered to help with the inspection of prison camps. These included Major James A. Logan, the chief of the

mission, and Major Sandford H. Wadhams of the medical corps. The latter was assigned to the division chiefly because his medical knowledge could be of great

value in assessing the health of prisoners and because in the summer of 1916 | Germany requested that an army physician be part of all inspection teams.”

In Germany Gerard continued to take an active part in the inspection of camps, personally visiting a number of them. Unlike in France, most of the camp inspectors in Germany were professionals attached to the embassy or consular staff. These included Dr. Daniel J. McCarthy; John Jackson; Lithgow Osborne;

28 Part I: The Diplomats Ellis Loring Dressel, an attorney who later attended the German-American prisoner of war conference in Berne; Dr. Karl Ohnesorg, the embassy’s naval attaché; Dr. Alonzo E. Taylor; Dr. Jerome Pierce Webster; and Charles H. Russell, Jr. Those with medical expertise like Taylor and Ohnesorg were particularly effective as inspectors because, like Wadhams in France, they were able to analyze health conditions within the camps. Dressel’s legal background also _ proved very useful in dealing with the German authorities, and complemented the medical knowledge of Ohnesorg and Taylor.”

Inspectors were required to present a pass which in France consisted of a certificate showing the representative’s name and official position signed by the U.S. ambassador and approved by the ministry. This permit was permanent and authorized the holder to inspect any French camp without previous notification of the authorities. German permits were similar but not identical. Since each

German state, such as Prussia, Bavaria, and Wirttemberg, had its own war ministry, each issued separate credentials. Thus, an inspector might have to carry several permits.” It was initially the policy of the division to visit each camp in France every six months, but the rapid growth in the numbers of camps and the few inspectors at the

embassy’s disposal made this impossible. In practice, each camp was inspected about once every nine months. Nevertheless, the camps in which substandard , conditions had been previously noted were visited more often. Whenever Germany requested that a specific camp be inspected, the division did so as soon as possible. Many French camps were situated in remote locations. Thus, it was often difficult and time-consuming to inspect these facilities. Consequently the typical inspection tour lasted several days, and the inspection team visited a number of camps. This was done in order to economize.” Americans in Germany attempted to inspect each camp once every four months. If conditions were substandard, another inspection was scheduled for about one month later to determine whether any improvement

had taken place.”

American inspectors in Germany initially encountered resistance to their efforts from camp commandants. This stemmed in part from the inexperience of the inspectors and the general sense among the Germans that the inspection __- was an investigation of unsatisfactory performance on their part. The resistance subsided, however, when it became clear that good conditions were praised just as poor conditions were criticized. When, in short, the authorities realized that the inspectors were evenhanded and objective, they became more cooperative. Initially, the youth of the inspectors put off many camp commanders who were

| often senior officers of advanced years. In such a hierarchical organization as the German Army, generals did not take kindly to criticism offered by young men just out of college. The use of more mature men such as Ohnesorg and Taylor helped overcome this problem as they commanded more respect from

, the military authorities.” |

The inspection team in Germany gradually responded to these and other problems, and evolved a thorough and systematic routine. An inspection tour

Prison Camp Inspection 29 in Germany usually began at the headquarters of the corps area in which the camps scheduled for a visit were located. There they called upon the commanding general, notified him of their intentions and asked him to detail an officer to accompany them. As an individual unassociated with any particular camp, the inspector was usually objective enough to recognize deficiencies in the camps, and could often effect change on the spot.

Next, the team went to the camp and called upon the commandant, whom they asked to fill out a detailed questionnaire about the camp and its inmates. Among other things, it requested a breakdown of the prisoners by nationality, and the number of prisoners in working camps, jail, sick, or dead. In the last case

it requested the cause of death. Once the questionnaire was completed, the commandant, and occasionally his staff, accompanied the inspectors on a tour of the camp. The senior British prisoner normally went along as well. The inspectors queried him about the state of the prisoners and the conditions of their captivity.

The team went from barrack to barrack, measuring them, counting the windows, and generally assessing the quality of the heating, ventilation, bedding,

lighting, and other arrangements. The prison medical clinic or hospital was likewise scrutinized and careful notes were taken. The name of each British prisoner in the hospital was recorded along with his condition and prognosis. As each building was inspected, its residents were lined up in military formation

outside, where their general appearance, and that of their shoes and other clothing, were assessed. Likewise, the camp jail and any inmates undergoing disciplinary measures were evaluated. The kitchens and food supply were

inspected, meals were tasted, and other facilities such as libraries and athletic | fields were examined. Every prisoner was given an opportunity to privately discuss any requests or complaints he might have. The inspection of officers’ camps worked in much the same way. At the conclusion of this process, the inspectors conferred with the commandant about their findings and tried to reach agreement on measures to be taken to rectify any deficiencies.” Standard procedure for the inspection of prison camps in France was as follows. The inspectors showed their identification to the camp commandant upon their arrival, explained the purpose of their visit, and asked to see the senior prisoner. Then they toured the camp, making notes as they went. Subsequently they met, usually in a private room, with the senior prisoner, granting

him an opportunity to raise any complaints he or the other prisoners might have. | After this conference, any other prisoners who wanted to discuss camp conditions were permitted to enter the room and express their wishes, At the conclusion of this conference, the representatives went to the camp commandant to discuss their findings, and to make informal suggestions. The latter often granted these requests if it was in his power to do so. Other requests that he did not have the authority to grant he passed on to his superiors. At this point the senior prisoner was brought into the commandant’s office so the results of the conference could be discussed with him. He was then asked to inform the

30 , Part I: The Diplomats prisoners about what had taken place.” In this way inspectors attached to the USS. embassy in France visited 331 military camps, 215 camps for civil internees, and 31 military hospitals in France, Algeria, and Tunisia. The division prepared a total of 629 reports on military and civilian camps and hospitals.” During roughly thirty months of neutrality, the United States played a pivotal

role in the prisoner of war relations of the European belligerents. Spurred primarily by humanitarian motives, the United States established the principle and worked out the procedures of neutral inspection of war prison camps. It creatively grappled with unprecedented problems so successfully that neutral inspection was incorporated into the 1929 Geneva Convention. American efforts, however, would have come to naught had the belligerent powers been unwilling to cooperate. That they were willing to cooperate and negotiate with ‘one another through the medium provided by the United States indicates the

depth of their concern about the fate of war prisoners. In permitting the development of neutral inspection and relief of prisoners, they acted in accord with the spirit of the liberal tradition of captivity if not with the letter of the

Hague Conventions. :

In behaving as it did, the United States contributed to the formerly powerful movement to humanize warfare. The necessity for this effort emphasized the flimsiness of the international legal structure and, to progressive reformers like Woodrow Wilson, the desirability of the new international order he attempted to inaugurate after the war. The heroes of this story, however, are not Bryan, Lansing, and Wilson. They

are ambassadors like Gerard, and the second- and third-level diplomats like Anderson, Dodge, and Garrett who created and put the program into effect. They are also the amateur diplomats like Meriwether who traversed the Continent in good weather and bad to inspect camps and distribute food, clothing, and medicine to millions of men in need. They gave several years of their lives to this effort and received very little in return. It is not clear why, but one suspects that they were motivated by the same missionary impulse that has sent thousands of Americans abroad to do good, either as missionaries, as Peace Corps volunteers, or in some other capacity.

THE DIPLOMACY OF , CAPTIVITY: EUROPE

Although the Hague Convention of 1907 was not in effect during the First World War, most of the major belligerent powers voluntarily agreed to comply with its terms. Furthermore, the Hague Convention of 1899, of which that of 1907 was a revision, was legally binding because all belligerents had ratified it.’ Neither

convention, however, served to eliminate controversy over the standard of treatment to be accorded war prisoners. The conventions were flawed in a variety of ways. Most seriously, they were vague and permitted inequality of treatment. Article 7 of the 1907 convention,

for example, held that “prisoners of war shall be treated as regards board, lodging, and clothing on the same footing as the troops of the Government who captured them.”? In short, captors had to treat prisoners as well as they treated their own men, and by and large they attempted with considerable success to do so. But compliance with these treaty provisions did not promote comity among the belligerents in their prisoner of war relations, as the framers of the convention had intended. On the contrary, it sanctioned an inequality of treatment that encouraged controversy and even retaliation, directly undermining the welfare of the prisoners they had intended to protect. German and Austrian prisoners, for example, soon discovered that the normal diet of the Russian soldier failed to match theirs. Likewise, British prisoners in Germany or the Ottoman Empire found their diet inadequate, even though it was the same as that of their German or Turkish captors. No country, however, wanted to feed foreign prisoners better than it fed its own troops. Rations consequently became a constant source of additional friction between the embattled nations of Europe. Even the propor-

tions of different kinds of foods such as meat, fruit, vegetables, and bread, became the subject of disagreement and retaliation.’

32 Part I: The Diplomats Whenever the belligerents considered other aspects of prison conditions, Article 7 tended to generate conflict in much the same way. Clothing, for example, became a subject of controversy. Whereas a British soldier might be issued a new pair of boots each year, a German soldier might go two or three years before getting new boots. Controversy often arose over such issues even though both belligerents were substantially in compliance with the terms of the convention. Similarly, the number of blankets, greatcoats, pairs of socks, underwear, shirts, and caps issued, became subjects of dispute. Virtually everything that was subject to divergent interpretation or practice became the focus of controversy. Article 7 had, in effect, papered over the inherent contradiction between the implicit assumption of equal treatment and the reality of divergent practice and custom. Although the contradiction may not have been apparent when the convention was drafted, it became glaringly obvious when tested in real life. Although the convention was open to various interpretations, there was no

higher authority, such as a court, to which the belligerents could appeal to resolve their differences. They had already resorted to arms because they could not otherwise come to terms on the issues that divided them. The disagreements about war prisoners were really about the rules by which the conflict itself would be conducted. With arms already employed, there was only one way the belligerents could escalate their conflict. They could retaliate against the enemy prisoners in their custody. If one side thought the other did not supply sufficient food to its prisoners, it could respond by cutting the ration it distributed to the prisoners in its custody. The other side would, of course, respond in kind and create a fruitless chain of reprisals, the sole victims of which were the prisoners.

The belligerents commonly did resort to retaliation, and it was often an effective method of insuring reciprocity of treatment. As one former inmate of

a British internment camp wrote after the war: | The treatment in both countries [Britain and Germany] was as nearly identical as circumstances allowed[;]... both sides were continually receiving reports about the camps from neutral observers and hastened to adjust the conditions they controlled to those reported from the other side.

... What happened to prisoners on one side happened to those on the other .. . [and] their lot was subject to a system of mutual reprisals.’

The problem was that retaliation led to a reciprocally downward spiral in the conditions to which prisoners were subject. The only alternative to retaliation was negotiation. Several of the major belligerents ultimately turned to this course of action. In general, the results were satisfactory although initial negotiations tended to deal with one issue at a time.

Early in the war, for example, the British and Germans agreed to permit the mailing of parcels weighing up to five kilograms to prisoners. Likewise, the French and Germans reached an ad hoc agreement about court counsel for

Diplomacy of Captivity: Europe — 33 prisoners accused of civil crimes. The belligerents even agreed to neutral inspection of their prison camps. In short, despite the struggle on the battlefield, the belligerents maintained active diplomatic contact through their protecting powers, and through these contacts they groped toward a mutually satisfactory way of handling prisoners.

Ultimately, however, such efforts were haphazard. Months often passed before the resolution of even a single problem. Meanwhile, many more issues, equally pressing, remained unresolved. The ad hoc negotiating process was

neither systematic nor comprehensive. It was cumbersome and frustrating. Eventually, the major belligerents agreed to meet around a conference table. Without having to send messages through a protecting power and wait weeks or months for a reply, diplomats could accomplish much more in a short period of time. Furthermore, a broad range of issues could be addressed within the span of a few days or weeks. Such conferences could at least address, and could often resolve, all or most of the outstanding differences about war prisoners. Unfor-

tunately, the belligerents did not make use of this method to resolve their differences until late in the war. Nevertheless, without setting out to do so, the nations at war effectively rewrote the prisoner of war sections of the Hague Conventions with a series of bilateral agreements that filled in their omissions and clarified their ambiguities. In so doing they replaced the Hague réglement

with a new regime written during the heat of war. In retrospect, this was a

another on the battlefield. |

remarkable diplomatic achievement for nations that were striving to destroy one

The cooperation this accomplishment demanded was not possible during the first year or so of the war. It was conditioned by a year or two of more limited collaboration on humanitarian projects that could have no significant impact on the outcome of the war. One such project, which involved the internment in Switzerland of sick and wounded war prisoners, generated just enough confidence among the nations at war that they were able to follow up with comprehensive bilateral agreements. An eminently successful experiment, neutral internment was the outgrowth of a proposal first made by Swiss journalist Louis de Tscharner in a series of two articles in the Berner Tageblatt of late 1913.° He proposed that Switzerland offer to care for an equal number of the wounded soldiers of all nationalities in the event of war. When the patients had recovered, they would be sent home. In return, the combatant nations would pledge to respect Swiss neutrality. This idea generated a great deal of favorable comment when it was first suggested. In October 1914, shortly after the war began, the Swiss government acted on a suggestion made by the International Committee of the Red Cross. It proposed to both Germany and France that prisoners of war so seriously wounded that

they could no longer fight, should be exchanged. It offered to serve as an intermediary, transporting prisoners between the two nations. Although both sides approved of this idea in general, they could not reach immediate agreement. Early in the new year, Pope Benedict XV lent his support to the proposal.

34 Part I: The Diplomats By February 1915, France and Germany had reached accord. As a result, the first exchange of invalid prisoners took place on 2 March 1915. France and Germany continued to exchange invalids at a rate of about 500 a month until, by

November of 1916, 2,343 Germans and 8,668 French soldiers had been repatriated. Meanwhile, efforts on behalf of the less seriously sick and injured prisoners were under way. Late in January 1915, Gustave Ador, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, discussed with Alexandre Millerand, the French minister of war, a proposal to exchange prisoners whose injuries were not so severe as to incapacitate them for further service. Millerand was con-

cerned that recuperated prisoners, though not fit for the battlefield, might take noncombat posts, thus freeing others for the front. Germany was likewise concerned about this possibility. Ador then suggested that prisoners such as these could be interned in Switzerland instead of exchanged. In this way, the prisoners could be given the best medical attention while recovering their health

| and escaping the hands of the enemy. They could not, however, contribute to the war effort in any way. This idea met with the general approval of the French government. On 18 February 1915, France sent such a proposal through Spanish diplomats

to Germany. On 12 May the latter country turned the proposal down. The proposal did not die, however, as on 1 May, the pope once again entered the stalled negotiations with another version of the internment proposal. He sent an envoy with a very broad internment proposal to Switzerland. Within a week, the Swiss government agreed. Renewed efforts were made to secure French and German assent.

An early obstacle to accord was each side’s fear that prisoners who had recovered would leave Switzerland and return to their homeland to serve again. Eventually this fear was overcome when each side agreed to return any such prisoners to Switzerland. In effect, they agreed to place interned prisoners on parole. Anyone who left Switzerland violated their parole. This was no innovation: It was merely a new application of a convention of captivity that was several

hundred years old. 7 In early August, Kaiser Wilhelm II personally agreed to the general idea of internment. Nevertheless, other obstacles remained. One disagreement had to do with whether internment would be on a man-for-man basis. Eventually, the surgeon general of the Swiss Army made another proposal. He suggested that Switzerland only intern tuberculosis patients with a good prognosis. The condition of prisoners

would be evaluated by medical commissions comprised of doctors stationed at Lyons, France, and Constance, Germany. The internees would be under the supervision of the Swiss Army Medical Corps. France and Germany finally agreed to this proposal, and late in January 1916, one hundred prisoners of each nationality were transferred to Switzerland on an experimental basis.

_ Events moved quickly in February. Within two weeks, the experiment was broadened to include prisoners in need of surgery. By mid-February there were

Diplomacy of Captivity: Europe 35 833 French and 364 German internees in Switzerland. By 24 February, the two countries had agreed on a list of eighteen medical conditions that would qualify a prisoner for internment. They also agreed to permit itinerant Swiss Sanitary Commissions to visit prison camps in France and Germany to select prisoners

for internment. By the end of December 1916, there were 26,990 prisoners - interned in Switzerland. Of these, about 55 percent were French, and 31 percent were German. The remainder were evenly divided between the British and the Belgians, who began to participate in the internment program somewhat later in the year.° What began in January as a careful experiment was an acknowledged success by year’s end. Late in March 1916, British foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey indicated to

_ the American ambassador in London, Walter Hines Page, that the United Kingdom would also like to participate in the experiment. Accordingly, the United States notified Germany of the British overture. Within one month, Germany gave its assent to this proposal, indicating that the internment of British prisoners should be governed by the same regulations to which French and German prisoners were subject. This was agreeable to Great Britain. The first contingent of British internees arrived in Switzerland on 28 May 1916. Throughout the night, as their train traveled from Constance to Montreux, they

were greeted at every stop by throngs of cheering Swiss civilians.’ During the next two years, the number of internees remained about the same. By the end of 1917 there were 27,077 prisoners interned in Switzerland. When

the war ended on 11 November 1918, there were 25,614 internees. British, French and Belgian prisoners returned to their homelands rapidly. By February 1919, only German and Austro-Hungarian internees remained in Switzerland.

Their numbers declined gradually throughout the year.° | In February 1916, France and Germany reached agreement on a series of medical conditions that would make a prisoner eligible for internment. This was

modified slightly in July, and periodically thereafter. Included on the list were such afflictions as tuberculosis; diabetes; pernicious anemia; malaria; chlorine, carbon monoxide, or mercury poisoning; emphysema; bronchitis; asthma; and digestive, circulatory, or vision disorders. It also included gout, rheumatism, epilepsy, paralysis, sciatica, and dismemberment. Finally, mental disorders such as hysteria and neurasthenia were added to the list.°

In accordance with the agreement that governed internment, the Swiss authorities set up two types of commission. The responsibility of the first type,

the itinerant commission, was to tour the prison camps of the participating powers and make initial selections of those prisoners who fell into one of the categories on the list. These commissions were composed of several medical officers. When in camps, they examined all prisoners who thought they might qualify for internment. They continually made such trips throughout the year. During 1916, for example, they made twenty trips to Germany, examined 82,439

French prisoners, and designated 20,677, or about 25 percent of them, for internment. Simultaneously, eighteen commissions visited France, examined

36 Part I: The Diplomats 46,339 German prisoners, and recommended the internment of 6,522 or about 14 percent of those evaluated.” All prisoners designated for internment were sent to either Lyons or Constance. There they were subject to examination a second time by the commissions of control. The purpose of the latter was to evaluate the condition and status of any prisoner about whom questions may have arisen. The control commissions were composed of two Swiss Army doctors, two physicians representing the army of the detaining power, and an official of that nation’s government. Prisoners rejected by the control commissions were not sent back to

| ordinary camps, but to special ones in which only very light labor was required of them. In France these were known as camps des inaptes. These prisoners were periodically reevaluated to determine whether they should be interned.” Prisoners who were finally approved for internment rode to the localities of their new homes by train. They were not detained in prison camps as they had been, but in hotels, boarding houses, and sanatoria. Consequently, their accom-

modations were far more pleasant than they had been. Between two and four internees were normally quartered in a room. Internees were segregated by nationality into several different districts.” The major objective of internment was to permit the sick and wounded to recover their health and ultimately return to their homelands fit to contribute to the economic and social life of the community. To this end, prisoners were given appropriate medical treatment and allowed to convalesce. Once their health had sufficiently recovered, however, they were expected to work. The primary purpose of this was to further improve their mental and physical health,

while preparing them to return home. Not all internees, however, fully recovered. Accordingly, the internees were divided into four categories ranging from those incapable of any work to those suitable for any form of labor. Two additional categories were established for students and for those compelled by incapacitation to learn a new trade or profession. Internees in the first category were not required to work. Those in the second category were expected to do light work in and around the camps. Such internees were often barbers, tailors, shoemakers, or postal clerks. Third-category internees could perform similar light labor outside the camps for a few hours at a time. They were generally employed in small shops set up by a relief organization known as Pro Captivis. In these shops they manufactured such things as slippers,

shoes, toys, lamps, and leather goods. They also wove baskets, socks, and hammock nets. Class-four internees were physically capable of following the profession they led before the war. They were often employed full-time by private concerns which were strictly regulated by the Swiss government. The internees performed a wide variety of work ranging from masonry, carpentry, and mining, to watchmaking and clerical work. Class-five internees worked as apprentices in order to learn a new trade, while class-six internees were permitted to attend classes at secondary schools and universities. Only a limited number of internees benefited from this educational opportunity, On 22 January

Diplomacy of Captivity: Europe 37 1917, there were a total of 1,364 interned students in Switzerland. This was roughly 5 percent of the total number of internees in the country.” Despite the relatively low number of student prisoners, it seems remarkable that they could attend a major university, as regular students, while interned in a foreign country during wartime. The internment of invalid prisoners of war in a neutral country during wartime was an innovation unique to the First World War. Although it did not include all the prisoners who might have benefited from it, internment nevertheless helped preserve the lives and health of tens of thousands of men who would have otherwise languished in captivity. It was a noteworthy diplomatic accomplish-

ment that depended on the goodwill of the powers that participated. It demonstrated that those powers remained in accord with the general humanitarian principles expressed in the Hague Conventions. They would act accordingly when the military situation permitted. The success of this expertment helped enable the belligerents to take further diplomatic steps to protect the prisoners who remained in captivity. Encouraged by these successes, the Germans and the French met in Berne in May 1917 in order to deal in a more comprehensive way with the captivity issues

that still divided them. By the end of May they had reached accord. The Franco-German agreement provided for the automatic direct exchange of officers who had been in captivity more than eighteen months if over the age of

55 and of noncommissioned officers and men over 48 years of age. These prisoners would be traded regardless of their number or rank. The agreement also provided for the exchange of noncommissioned officers and men regardless

of age at fixed intervals on a head-for-head and rank-for-rank basis. The negotiators at Berne also took the important step of agreeing to treat civilian detainees as though they were enlisted men. In short, they agreed to accord civilians the same rights as military prisoners.“ Late in June 1917, an Anglo-German conference met in The Hague in order to discuss war prisoners. The British delegation was led by Thomas Wodehouse Lord Newton and included Lt. General Sir Herbert Belfield of the army and Sir Robert Younger, a judge of the High Court. The German delegation was headed by Major General Friedrich who previously participated in talks with the French, and included Army Major Droudt, another veteran of prisoner of war negotia-

tions with the French, and a Dr. Eckhardt.” After their deliberations, the delegates drew up a document that broadened and reinforced previous internment and exchange agreements. They also clarified several issues that had complicated prisoner relations between the two states. First, they agreed to prepare “new and more lenient schedules of disabilities” for the determination of eligibility for internment in Switzerland. A new category was added to the list. Those who had been in captivity at least eighteen months and were thought to be suffering from “barbed wire disease,” a debilitating form of depression, would henceforth be considered for internment. They also agreed

to intern all officers, commissioned and noncommissioned, who had been

38 Part I: The Diplomats

wire disease. *° |

prisoners at least eighteen months, whether or not they suffered from barbed

The British and German delegates also asked the Swiss to reevaluate all prisoners who may have been eligible but had not been selected. In order to make room for them, they agreed to repatriate directly from Switzerland all internees whose convalescence was expected to be prolonged. They made further arrangements to intern up to sixteen thousand men in the Netherlands, another neutral state. Finally, they agreed to repatriate all medical personnel who were prisoners.” In addition to these agreements about internment, exchange, and repatriation, the delegates clarified a number of issues relating to the treatment of those remaining in custody. One such issue was the infliction of punishment for escape attempts. Article 8 of the 1907 Hague Convention held that “escaped prisoners who are retaken . . . [were] liable to disciplinary punishment.” This formula-

tion was so general that it gave the detaining powers great latitude in the discipline of recaptured prisoners. The ambiguity caused considerable variation in the punishment of this offense. Prisoners were often charged with collateral, civil offenses in addition to the escape attempt itself. Penalties combined in this way could be fairly stiff. This became an especially difficult problem when sentences differed from state to state. In order to overcome their differences on this matter, Britain and Germany agreed to limit the penalty for a simple escape attempt to fourteen days’ “military confinement.” When combined with collateral offenses, the maximum permissible sentence was two months’ confinement. In this way the two powers established uniformity of treatment where the Hague Convention had permitted variation.” Such variation invited reprisal, a practice about which the Hague Conventions were silent. Here again, the two hostile powers strove to create guidelines where none had previously existed. While neither wanted to sheath this sword completely, both powers wanted to blunt its edge. Accordingly, they agreed to give one another “at least four weeks notice of intention” to retaliate. They also — agreed to meet at The Hague and discuss the problem that gave rise to the threat whenever possible in order “to eliminate the reasons for the reprisals.”” The delegates also reached agreement on a number of other issues, including the delivery of parcels and the notification of capture. In short, the agreement expanded on the internment arrangements already made, and clarified a number of points that had exacerbated the prisoner relations of the two sides. This arrangement was successful enough that Germany and Great Britain met again

the following year to draw up a more comprehensive agreement about the treatment of prisoners. The five German and two British delegates to the second conference met once again in The Hague. The conference lasted from 8 June to 14 July 1918 and was chaired by representatives of the Royal Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The agreement the delegates drafted covered much the same ground as the 1907 Hague Convention, but it provided more detail.”

Diplomacy of Captivity: Europe 39 The Anglo-German agreement ts divided into two main sections and a series of annexes. Like the previous document, the first section is devoted to internment and repatriation. Unlike the previous accord, however, the second part is devoted to the treatment of prisoners while in custody. In its first pronouncements, the agreement echoed Article 4 of the 1907 Hague Convention which stated that prisoners “must be treated humanely.” It went on to reinforce that article’s strictures against confiscation of the personal property of prisoners. Watches and other personal possessions had often been stolen from prisoners. Article 32 of the Anglo-German agreement took up the question of

prisoner labor which had been addressed by Article 6 of the 1907 Hague Convention. The latter had authorized states to employ prisoners, but had placed several restrictions upon the practice. Its prescriptions, however, were

general in nature and often of little use. The convention said nothing, for example, about the hours of work. Accordingly, the delegates addressed this question. They agreed that prisoners should put in no more hours than civilian workers, and that in no case should their labor exceed ten hours daily. Prisoners were permitted an hour for lunch and one day off weekly. Since many prisoners

had been put to work in mines and quarries, the delegates decided that such

labor should be regulated. They agreed that only the physically fit individuals | should be required to perform this type of work.” According to Article 5 of the 1907 Hague Convention, prisoners could “be interned in a town, fortress, camp, or other place.”” The convention said nothing about the geographical location of camps. Thus, the belligerents were free to set

up camps almost anywhere they desired. This omission was the source of continual controversy during the war. The states at war charged one another with setting up camps in inhospitable locations. The Germans were especially

worried about camps in French and British tropical territories. France and Britain likewise complained that certain German camps were located in desolate regions. However, one of the most persistent complaints was that camps, especially working detachments, were located so close to the front that prisoners could be injured by shell fire. In order to overcome this objection, the British and Germans agreed not to set up camps or employ prisoners within thirty kilometers of the front.”

Another practice that occasioned complaints was the detaining power’s failure to send prisoners safely back from the front as soon as they were captured. Normally prisoners were sent quickly into the interior, but sometimes they were held in the dangerous area directly behind the lines. The delegates

tried to eliminate this problem by agreeing that prisoners should be sent to collecting camps at least thirty kilometers behind the front as soon as they were

captured.” The Hague Convention of 1907 had very little to say about the physical accommodations provided for prisoners. It merely asserted in Article 7 that they _ should be lodged in the same way as troops of the detaining power. In a short war with relatively few prisoners, this might have been possible. However, with

40 Part I: The Diplomats several million prisoners and an extended duration of captivity, this proved impossible. Many prisoners were housed in barracks or similar buildings, but numerous other prisoners spent time in castles, barns, tents, hulks, or other odd structures. Most of the time they were crowded, but overcrowding was not a violation of either of the Hague Conventions. In order to alleviate problems of this sort, the delegates established minimum standards of housing, bedding,

heating, lighting, and room capacity, among other things. The standards for officers and men differed. According to the new agreement, enlisted men were to be housed in barracks. Officers could be kept elsewhere as long as the buildings used were “suitable for occupation by officers.” The detaining power had to provide at least three

square meters per man in enlisted dormitories, and was required to provide twice as much room for captains and lieutenants. Eight to ten square meters of space was given to majors and colonels, while general officers were given private

rooms at least twelve square meters in size. The agreement also established minimum standards of building construction. All barracks and dining rooms, for example, were required to have double walls in order to help insulate the rooms against cold, wind, and moisture.” Both officers and enlisted men were to be provided with two blankets for their

bed, but officers were also to be given sheets, to be changed “at least once a month,” “Field officers,” majors and above, were even given pillows. The agreement also provided for lighting, enough to read and write by, and heat. The

detaining power was required to provide a minimum of one latrine for every forty prisoners, whether officers or enlisted men.”’ All officers’ camps were required to have an infirmary. Camps with more than thirty enlisted men were also required to maintain one. In either type of camp, the infirmary had to have at least three beds for every one hundred prisoners. The agreement also prescribed bathing arrangements. It provided at least one shower for every one hundred enlisted men and one for every fifty officers. The

latter were entitled to at least one warm shower or bath weekly and were permitted to shower once daily in cold water. Camps were expected to issue at least 150 grams of soap monthly to each enlisted prisoner.” The detaining power was required to clothe the prisoners it captured. The prisoner’s clothing was to “be regularly renewed and repaired.” Each enlisted prisoner was entitled to one cap, one pair of trousers, one coat, one overcoat, two shirts, two pairs of drawers, two pairs of socks, two pairs of boots, and one

clean towel each week.” |

Officer’s camps had to provide an exercise ground or field on which athletic contests could take place. Officers were also entitled to the services of enlisted prisoners as orderlies. Generals were entitled to one “servant.” One orderly was

provided for every seven officers ranking lower than major, while one was provided for every four officers ranking between captain and general.” The agreement devoted an entire section to punishment. The punishment prescribed for both officers and men was confinement ina “light, dry, ventilated”

Diplomacy of Captivity: Europe 41 room, which was to be heated when the temperature dropped. Men being punished were deprived of a mattress three out of every four nights, and were permitted only one blanket until the temperature dropped below forty-five degrees Fahrenheit, at which time they were given a second. They could have no

more than two blankets. Punished officers suffered no loss of blankets or reduction of ration. Enlisted men were put on a diet of bread and water for three

of every four days. They could receive the standard ration, however, if they worked. Both were allowed to exercise outdoors, officers for two hours a day, and men for one. In other respects, punishment was not severe. Both officers and men were permitted to read and write, and to send and receive mail. For officers, isolation was the only unpleasant feature of punishment. For men, the diminished diet and deprivation of bedding were added to the isolation. The agreement specifically stated that such “aggravations of punishment” as “marching with full equipment . . . [were] forbidden.””'

Given the disagreements that had erupted over the proper nutritional requirements of war prisoners, diet also became a subject of the discussions. According to the agreement, “prisoners of war shall receive as far as possible the same allowance of the rationed articles of food as the civil population.” The overall daily dietary minimum was fixed at “2,000 calories for non workers; 2,500 calories for ordinary workers; .. . [and] .. . 2,850 calories for heavy workers.”” The agreement was thorough and comprehensive. In this respect it was very much like an agreement that Germany and France reached in late April 1918. Although shorter, it too covered many of the same topics as the second AngloGerman agreement. It included sections on repatriation, internment, accommodations, diet, and discipline. In some cases, such as diet, the two agreements employed identical language.” The international political life of Europe in the half century preceding the outbreak of the war featured a strong current of thought that held that it was possible to regulate the conduct of war through legislation. This idea gained

currency throughout the latter decades of the nineteenth century and culminated in the “peace conferences” at The Hague in 1899 and 1907. When the war broke out in 1914, the belligerents violated many of the numerous provisions of the Hague conventions. They violated the neutrality of states such as Belgium and Luxembourg, they used “asphyxiating or deleterious gasses” against one

another, they bombed civilian targets, and they embargoed food. The belligerents refused to let law stand in the way of military imperatives. To many it

appeared that international law was a dead letter. It had been destroyed by nationalism and technology. As the war progressed, however, it became clear that most countries were prepared to accept some form of diplomatic limitation on warfare. While the military authorities were unwilling to accept any restrictions on the manner in

which they conducted operations, they had little objection to humanitarian measures that could have no impact upon the outcome of the war. In general the military authorities wanted a free hand to conduct the battle. As long as

42 Part I: The Diplomats international law did not interfere with this, they were willing to respect it. Britain, France, and Germany were consequently each amenable to international agreements that improved the conditions of those who could play no further role in the war. As long as they remained in captivity, prisoners could have little military bearing on the war. The detaining powers could see no military advantage to the

deprivation or abuse of their prisoners. Indeed, such practices only invited retaliation. This, consequently, was an aspect of the war about which the hostile nations sought restraint. Unfortunately, the Hague rules, written with the limited

wars of the nineteenth century in mind, were inadequate. Consequently, the belligerents sought agreements that would specify comprehensively how prisoners should be treated. They reached these gradually and hesitantly. The Great War was the first of history’s so-called total wars. It absorbed all the resources of the states that fought it, and threatened their obliteration. The methods utilized were unprecedentedly violent and ruthless. Nonetheless, those who fought the First World War never reached the depths of barbarism common to the next war. The first conflict was not as total as the second, and the 1907 Hague Convention, despite its flaws, was not a mere scrap of paper.

The nations that went to war in 1914 shared a common civilization and a commitment to the ideals expressed in the international agreements they had reached. Thus, they were willing to loosely apply the Hague framework to prisoners and to negotiate more satisfactory agreements during the conflict. This was the last time nations negotiated the conditions of captivity while at war. While internment was too limited to be of great value to the imprisoned, at least it demonstrated that the nations of Europe still regarded prisoners as worthy of

compassion. While the Anglo-German and Franco-German accords were reached so late in the war that they had only a brief impact on prison conditions, they indicate that the major powers wanted to insure humane treatment for war prisoners. In short, the powers remained committed, within the limits imposed by “military necessity,” to the tenets of the liberal tradition of captivity. The same cannot be said of several of the major belligerents of the next generation.

THE GERMAN-AMERICAN DIPLOMACY OF CAPTIVITY

At 5:00 P.M. on Tuesday, 24 September 1918, six Germans and four Americans, with their respective staffs, met in the director’s room of the Swiss National Bank

in Berne. The Americans were members of a Special Diplomatic Mission composed of representatives of the American Red Cross and the U.S. depart-

ments of State, War, Navy, and Justice. The Germans were members of a delegation representing the German Imperial Foreign Office, the German Navy, and the Prussian Ministry of War. The meeting was chaired by Paul Dinichert,

a minister of the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs. Despite the war that raged between the two nations, the conferees met for approximately seven weeks. The subject of their discussions was prisoners of war. After complicated negotiations, the commissioners signed a lengthy treaty designed to regulate the

treatment of military and civilian prisoners. The treaty was a liberal and enlightened document which, had it been embraced by the belligerents, would have

helped to alleviate the sufferings of the imprisoned. It never went into effect because it was signed, amidst a strike of Swiss rail, postal, and telegraph workers, on 11 November 1918, the day the western front finally fell silent.’ Its provisions

were superseded by those of the armistice. , When the United States entered the war on 6 April 1917, it shifted roles from a neutral, protecting power to an active belligerent. As such it took on all the responsibilities with respect to war prisoners that the other belligerents had shouldered since the war began. The United States, which had been an observer,

became a participant. In addition to its combat activities, the United States became concerned about two sets of war prisoners: Americans and Germans. Germany was directly responsible for the maintenance of any American soldiers

it captured, while the United States could only indirectly influence how they were treated. Likewise, the United States became directly responsible for all

44 Part I: The Diplomats German soldiers who were captured by its forces. Just as the European belligerents had worked out standards of treatment, rules of behavior, and administrative procedures, so would the United States. It could not, however, do so on its own. It had to do so in conjunction with Germany. Likewise, Germany had to establish camp regulations in conjunction with the United States. Although bitter enemies, the two nations would eventually cooperate with each other to this extent. While fighting with one another, the two nations simultaneously attempted to reach agreement on the rules of captivity. Just as the European belligerents were not bound by the terms of the 1907 Hague Convention on the Laws and Customs of War on Land, neither were the United States and Germany. Nevertheless, they could use both it and the 1899 Convention, which did bind them, to guide their negotiations. Unfortunately, as the experience of the preceding three years had shown, the provisions of the Hague Conventions were too vague to be followed closely. The detaining powers needed detailed provisions covering each aspect of captivity. The conventions instead provided general prescriptions, which, though better than nothing, often became the focus of contention rather than a source of accord. Article 16 of the 1907 Convention, for example, provided for the free passage of mail for war prisoners, but failed to address the question of how much mail prisoners could send or receive.” Consequently, this became the subject of considerable negotia-

tion between belligerents, including the United States. Detail is an essential ingredient of any successful prisoner convention.

, In attempting to formulate guidelines for the treatment of war prisoners, the U.S. War Department consequently encountered many difficult questions. Despite the presence of the guidelines embodied in the Hague Conventions, it was hard to determine how much to pay officers and enlisted prisoners, how much mail to allow them, and other details of their treatment.’ In formulating policy, officials were able to derive only modest guidance from the conventions. As aconsequence, many of these questions were settled tentatively or were held

in abeyance pending the outcome of negotiations. The purpose of the Berne

conference was to resolve these problems. _ |

The United States could only indirectly influence the fate of Americans captive in Germany, the first set of prisoners with which it was concerned. Nevertheless, it set out to do so as best it could. There were several different methods of influencing prison camp conditions abroad. The most effective was through the use of relief materials. Retaliation was also a primitive but often effective method. Negotiation, however, was the most comprehensive way to

modify camp conditions.

Among the first concerns of the U.S. State Department, in its effort to improve camp conditions, was the gathering of relief supplies and their transmission to American prisoners in Germany. To this end the American minister in Switzerland, Pleasant A. Stovall, was asked to take charge of relief activities. In order to carry out this assignment, Stovall created in June the American Prisoners

Central Committee, an umbrella organization headquartered in Berne. In

German-American Diplomacy 45 August this was combined with the American Red Cross, which would coordinate the collection and distribution of relief materials. It was also agreed at this time that the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) would continue

the educational and religious activities it had conducted among European

agencies.’ |

prisoners earlier in the war. A division of labor was thereby established between the American Red Cross and the YMCA, the United States’ paramount relief

Having made these arrangements, Stovall also had to see that the anticipated

cargo of food, clothing, mail, and other goods would be transported across wartime Europe rapidly and efficiently. This entailed negotiations with the postal authorities of several nations. First, of course, Germany had to agree to accept these shipments. In addition, other nations had to agree to ship the goods.

As noted earlier, the 1907 Hague Convention provided for the free transit of mail and relief supplies destined for war prisoners. The major belligerents undertook to abide by this provision, and consequently, relief materials traveled postage-free.”

As the process had developed prior to American entry into the conflict, supplies sent to or from belligerent countries usually passed through neutral nations. British supplies for prisoners in Germany were shipped via Denmark and The Netherlands. Supplies sent to British prisoners interned in Switzerland or in Austria-Hungary passed first through France. In similar fashion, relief material destined for Americans interned in Germany was shipped first to collection points in France and then sent on to Switzerland and Germany. Although the French agreed in July 1917 to permit the free transit of relief material bound for American prisoners, they delayed putting this into effect until January 1918. Meanwhile, the Germans agreed to accept individual parcels weighing up to five kilograms for American prisoners. What in peacetime would

have been routine business, took almost eight months to arrange. In 1914, however, the British and Germans had reached the same agreement in three months.°

In early November, several diplomats attached to the American interests section of the Spanish embassy in Berlin reported the results of their inspection

of a camp at Brandenburg which contained some twenty-eight American prisoners. According to their report, the barracks were leaky, cold, and poorly lighted. The food was also described as unsatisfactory, though the prisoners were receiving food parcels and appeared to be in good health. Finally, the inspectors reported that they were not allowed to discuss conditions privately with the prisoners.’ The last function was a privilege the United States had secured for many of

the prisoners it had protected prior to its own belligerency and which the Germans and British had agreed to accord one another. Therefore, the United States demanded that it also be granted this right. On 1 December US. Secretary of State Robert Lansing informed the Swiss minister in Washington, D.C., Hans Sulzer, that his inspectors would not be allowed to confer privately with German

46 Part I: The Diplomats prisoners in the United States “until the German Government shall have agreed to reciprocity in permitting such conversations.”® Meanwhile, numerous reports of mistreatment of American prisoners filtered

, back to the United States. By late January, the government decided to take action. A protest was drawn up, and the Spanish government, which assumed the protection of American interests when the United States entered the war, was asked to present the protest to the German government. It charged that in various Camps, prisoners were worked excessively, beaten, ill-fed, and illclothed. It mentioned various other problems including the theft of food parcels, and warned that if the situation continued it would result in “an almost certain demand from the people that retaliatory measures be visited upon the large number of German prisoners held” in the United States. The German prisoners

, to which this note referred were not soldiers, but civilian alien enemies who had been interned in the United States. This was the second time in as many months

that the United States resorted to retaliation or its threat in order to influence prison conditions and enforce a demand for reciprocity of treatment. Within two weeks, the Germans replied that although Lansing’s charges were un-

| founded, they would investigate.” The policy of retaliation appears to have borne fruit in its initial application because in mid-February the German government notified the Swiss authorities that the privilege of private discussion between prisoners and camp inspectors | was accorded to all foreign nationals except the French, from whom it had been withdrawn as a retaliatory measure. A month later the United States dropped the restrictions it had imposed on such conversations.” Although this problem was resolved satisfactorily, another arose in November when Paul Nagel, an American merchant sailor held prisoner at Brandenburg, attempted to escape. Nagel’s luck had been hard of late. During his initial effort to escape Germany, he stowed away aboard a ship which the Germans subsequently seized. He made two more attempts to escape. In the course of his third escape attempt, he got as far as Dusseldorf before being recaptured. During one of these episodes he destroyed some German property. He was tried in a German civil court for this offense, and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. _

The United States was informed of this in late February when it received a cable from the American chargé d’affaires in Switzerland, Hugh R. Wilson. He recommended that the United States act on a Spanish suggestion that the nation work out an agreement with Germany to the effect that the Spanish embassy would appoint an attorney to defend any Americans accused of an offense and pay for his services with American funds. Such an agreement would be similar to ones that both France and Great Britain had reached with Germany. The U.S.

: State Department approved of this suggestion and offered reciprocity in any such agreement with Germany." _ In addition to this offer of a reciprocal agreement about court counsel, the United States brought to German attention American regulations providing for a maximum two-month sentence for the offense that had garnered six months

German-American Diplomacy 47 for Paul Nagel. In asking for a commutation of Nagel’s sentence, the United States pointed out that the sentence of “Lieut. Otto Portwich who recently tried to escape from Fort Douglas, Utah . . . will depend largely upon reply of German

Government.”” There was no German reply to this offer until July when the Foreign Office notified the United States that Germany would be willing to reach an accord like those it had achieved with France and the United Kingdom. It further suggested that the problem be discussed at a conference on war prisoners. The question was subsequently taken up at the Berne conference.”

Several other prisoner of war issues exercised German and American diplomats during the war. One of these related to the pay to be given interned officers. According to Article 17 of the 1907 Hague Convention, “Officers taken prisoner shall receive the same rate of pay as officers of corresponding rank in

the country where they are detained.”"* While the parties were in general agreement on this point, the language of the Convention was too vague to resolve

the questions that arose. First, it was not always clear what German rank was equivalent to what American rank. Second, the convention was silent as to whether the prisoners should be paid at the active or inactive duty rate. As a consequence, these issues had to be negotiated on a bilateral basis. Another

controversial question concerned the exchange of doctors, nurses, and medical orderlies, or “sanitary personnel.” These all became subjects of negotiation. Meanwhile, the two nations traded protests, the United States claiming that some Americans were kept in “reprisal camps,” and the Germans complaining about the American practice of fingerprinting and photographing prisoners.” The question of inspection of camps by representatives of a neutral power was first raised by the Germans in September 1917. Two German cruisers, Kronprinz Wilhelm and Prinz Eitel Friedrich, were seized and their crews interned

when they sought refuge from the British fleet early in the war. Germany requested that Switzerland, its protecting power in the United States, inspect the camps at Fort McPherson and Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, where the prisoners were held. The United States offered no objection.” The existence of these and other questions made it clear that the two nations would ultimately need to reach an agreement about how to treat war prisoners. The question was not whether accord was necessary, but how to bring it about.

The United States employed two distinct strategies in its attempt to bring Germany to terms. Initially, it made a series of ad hoc proposals dealing with specific issues. When, after several months, Germany failed to respond positive-

ly to these American initiatives, the United States began to gravitate slowly toward a new strategy. Following the lead of the British and the French, the United States turned toward a general conference with Germany to resolve all differences about prisoners of war at one time. By 1918 this sort of forum was in favor with the Germans, but in 1917, the ad hoc strategy had yet to fail. In response to an inquiry by the U.S. State Department, in July 1917, Colonel Henry P. McCain, of the Adjutant General’s Department of the United States

48 Part I: The Diplomats Army, prepared a set of three proposals for submission to Germany regarding the treatment to be accorded war prisoners. The first dealt with letters, money orders, and parcel post. The second dealt with lodging, clothing, and the rate of pay to be given officers. The final proposal took up the role of relief societies. The limited range of subjects broached clearly indicates the preliminary nature of these proposals. Nevertheless, McCain’s drafts, with minor modifications, formed the basis of the American effort to reach agreement with Germany on matters pertaining to prisoners of war during the remainder of 1917 and into 1918. McCain recommended that his three draft proposals be submitted to Germany independently “so each can be acted upon separately and subject matter of disagreement in one need not delay the acceptance of the other.”” This negotiating strategy delayed the adoption of the more comprehensive approach to the resolution of prisoner problems which was then in favor with the British, the French, and the Germans. The U.S. War Department’s first draft proposal offered to guarantee on terms of reciprocity Article 16 of the 1907 Hague Convention, which granted free

postal service to prisoners and their correspondents. The war department proposed to extend this privilege to money orders as well as ordinary mail. It also suggested that prisoners be permitted to write two four-page letters per month, and insisted that they be written in ink on ordinary letter-size paper. Prisoners would be allowed to send one postcard a week to supplement their two monthly letters according to this proposal. No limit was placed on the number of letters prisoners could write to the representative of the protecting power. With the exception of the latter, however, correspondents could not write

of political or military affairs, or complain about the treatment they had received. None of the belligerents permitted prisoners to send critical letters home, and all employed censors to make sure they did not. The U.S. military was empowered to delay all mail up to ten days. Finally, all prisoners would be allowed to receive parcels weighing up to twelve pounds. This was slightly more than the five kilograms Germany agreed to. The second of the War Department’s

proposals took up several issues. It offered to provide the same ration to prisoners as to American troops, and to permit the distribution of supplies by relief societies such as the Red Cross. The proposal concluded with a suggested pay scale for officers and men." Early in August the U.S. State Department replied to these proposals with the suggestion that “separate agreements for men and for officer prisoners of war, regarding board, lodging and clothing and rates of pay... would be advisable.” The State Department thus preferred an even less comprehensive approach than did the War Department. The former also pointed out that, in its opinion, Germany would not agree to the proposed pay scale because it was too high. It noted that German and French officer prisoners were only paid the minimum granted a junior officer on leave. The State Department also pointed to various omissions in the drafts offered by McCain. Foreshadowing the agreement that would finally be reached, it

German-American Diplomacy 49 argued that the proposal should specify such details as the amount of soap, and the number of towels, washcloths, and other items to be issued prisoners. Finally it suggested that housing conditions such as ventilation and lighting be specified in as much detail as possible.” By this time the State Department was aware of the significance of detail in prisoner agreements.

On 12 June 1917, the United States formally offered to pay captured German officers at the same rate as Americans of equal rank if the Germans would agree to do likewise. When no reply had been made by November, the United States renewed its offer. As a result of the long delay, however, the

War Department ceased payments to German officers pending an agreement. Finally, in February 1918, the Germans signified their acceptance of this proposal. The German note suggested in detail the pay rates to be granted officers of different grades. The United States cabled its assent to the German proposals with minor modifications in April, and in August the Germans agreed to these. By September 1918 the War and Navy departments

had agreed to pay captured German officers in accordance with these arrangements pending the outcome of the Berne conference, which was scheduled to take up the subject. Although it should have been relatively easy for the two powers to agree on the pay rates for officers, it took fifteen months for them to do so, and by then the war was almost over.” Similar delays attended an American proposal of 4 August 1917 to release reciprocally doctors, nurses, stretcher-bearers, and other sanitary personnel. This proposal was in accord with provisions of the Geneva Convention of 1906.”! The Germans made no reply until November, when they agreed to the American

offer provided that the medical personnel from German warships and from a German garrison captured in Tsing-Tau, China, and interned in the United States, be included in the arrangements. They proposed also to exchange doctors and clergymen who did not fall into any of the categories of the Geneva or Hague conventions, which formed the basis of the proposal. It took the United

States five months to notify Germany that, with the exception of “spiritual personnel” and doctors who were not attached to the armed forces or relief societies, their suggestion was acceptable. The Germans, for their part, failed to respond to this American note at all, and the subject was finally addressed at the Berne conference, which resolved the question.” By the spring of 1918, neither the Americans nor the Germans had captured many of each other’s soldiers. This is one reason the two nations were slow to resolve their differences about war prisoners. By summer of that year, however,

as American forces began to engage in combat on a large scale, the issues dividing the two powers became more pressing and their resolution became more urgent. Throughout 1917 and into the next year, the U.S. administration was divided about how best to approach negotiations with Germany. The ad hoc negotiations attempted through Spain and Switzerland during the first year of conflict and into 1918 resulted in disappointingly little progress.

50 Part I: The Diplomats The initial pressure to address a wide range of problems simultaneously came

from the American Prisoners Central Committee in Berne. As the American agency most directly responsible for the welfare of war captives, the committee wanted to eliminate any obstacles to an efficient operation. Stovall, the minister in Switzerland whose wife chaired the committee, cabled Lansing in August 1917 to suggest that a conference with Germany might gain a number of objectives. On 26 September, Secretary of War Newton Baker wrote Lansing to suggest that

the United States try to arrange a conference at Berne or The Hague. Baker wanted to see a general agreement covering all aspects of the war prisoner problem. Lansing, however, rejected this proposal because he believed that “from the political point of view this would be inexpedient at the present time.” He pointed out that in lieu of a general agreement, the United States had offered a series of ad hoc reciprocal agreements to the Germans. Baker returned to the subject in December, writing that “the War Department is of belief that. . . all of the points covering the treatment of prisoners of war should be combined in one general agreement.” He even went so far as to submit to Lansing a proposed draft of such an accord.”

Meanwhile, American legations in Switzerland and The Netherlands observed the progress of prisoner of war conferences taking place in Berne and The Hague. While Great Britain and Turkey conducted one set of negotiations and the Germans and French another, American diplomats reported the subjects discussed and the methods employed in these conferences to the State

Department. The American chargé d’affaires in The Hague reported in June and July 1917 on the Anglo-German conference and identified some of the

the year.” ,

_ German delegates who would attend the German-American conference later in In early December the American chargé d’affaires in Berne, Hugh R. Wilson, wrote to “recommend serious consideration of similar scheme to reach agree-

ment for our prisoners.” He pointed out that Swiss intermediaries had experience in these matters and would be especially suited to this task.” Pressure continued to build as the acting director of the Bureau of Prisoner Relief of the American Red Cross, John F. Bowie, wrote Lansing to urge that a conference be convened.” The proponents of a conference had two objectives in mind. First, they believed that the entire range of prisoner issues dividing the two nations should be addressed at one time, and second, they thought it should be done on a face-to-face basis rather than through the medium of a protecting power. In this way each side could respond to the other immediately rather than having to wait weeks or months for reaction to proposals.

Finally, in January the U.S. State Department began to relent. Writing in response to the Red Cross, Lansing announced in January that though a “personal conference” was “not considered advisable,” a draft of a proposed general agreement would be submitted to the Germans through Spain. A month later the United States submitted its “Draft of Proposed Informal Arrangement

between the United States and Germany Regarding the Treatment and

German-American Diplomacy Ry | Privileges of Prisoners of War” through Spanish diplomatic channels. The draft included sections on housing, clothing, food, letters, religious freedom, work and pay, punishment, the role of relief societies and camp inspectors, and the treatment of the sick, the wounded, and the dead. Although the Germans failed to respond to this proposal, the United States had begun to shift strategies.”’ The inadequacy of the proposal was underlined when, ten weeks later, the

State Department informed Stovall that it would soon submit another proposal | to Germany for the repatriation or internment in a neutral nation of wounded prisoners. The draft submitted through Spain failed to cover these problems. America’s two major allies in the conflict had already worked out such agree-

ments with the Germans, and as a result, thousands of sick and wounded prisoners spent the war in Swiss hospitals rather than enemy prison camps.” What is clear in all this is that, though the American proposals were often

deficient, the Americans initiated most of the contacts with Germany. The Germans often failed to respond to American overtures unless the latter retaliated or until late in the war when American manpower began to be felt on the battlefield. The German high command, which dominated domestic politics in 1918, failed to take Americans seriously either on or off the field of battle until mid-1918. In the absence of a German response to the proposed American draft of a

prisoner agreement, Assistant Secretary of State William Phillips wrote to Lansing on 9 May 1918 to urge that the United States offer to confer directly with the Germans. In making his suggestion, he pointed out that delays were caused by the various agencies in Washington, D.C. which had to be consulted before decisions could be reached. He implied that plenipotentiaries could cut through the red tape and delays. He concluded by noting that “the British and French agreements framed through conferences with the enemy have proved entirely satisfactory to those Governments and have materially ameliorated the conditions of the British and French prisoners.”” By this time Lansing had become persuaded of the wisdom of this course and forwarded Phillips’s letter to President Woodrow Wilson along with one of his own in which he explained, “I quite agree with Mr. Phillips in regard to this

matter and feel that the suggested course is the only one which will bring practical results.” He asked Wilson for his “judgment in the matter.” On 10 May the president authorized an attempt to arrange a conference with the Germans.” A week later Lansing wired Joseph E. Willard, the U.S. ambassador to Spain,

whom he asked to ascertain whether Germany would be willing to attend a conference to resolve their outstanding differences over the treatment of war prisoners.” After the dispatch of this proposal, the Germans assented “in principle” to the American offer of mid-May to negotiate a reciprocal agreement to intern invalid prisoners in Switzerland.” Finally, on 22 June, the Spanish minister in Berne handed Stovall a cable from Spain’s ambassador in Berlin saying that Germany was willing to attend a conference at Berne as suggested by the United

52 Part I: The Diplomats States but would be unable to begin in early August as Lansing had suggested. The note emphasized that Germany wanted to discuss civilian as well as military prisoners at the conference. The Germans suggested that the conference begin

in mid-September. Meanwhile, the two nations agreed that a Swiss representative would preside over the conference.” The United States appointed a distinguished delegation of four commissioners and nine assistant commissioners. Headed by John Work Garrett, the American minister to The Netherlands, the delegation included John W. Davis, the solicitor general and newly named ambassador to Great Britain, who in 1924 became the Democratic party’s presidential nominee, as well as Major General

Francis J. Kernan of the army and Captain Henry H. Hough of the navy. Nominated for this post by President Wilson, chairman Garrett was well qualified for his task as he had inspected French camps for German prisoners as a representative of the protecting power prior to American entry into the conflict.™

Appointed as assistant commissioners were colonels Ulysses S. Grant III and Samuel G. Shartle of the army, and Commander Raymond Stone of the Navy. Grant was on duty at Versailles at the time of his appointment, while Shartle, a

former military attaché in Berlin, was at the War Department. Both spoke German and French fluently.» Colonel Percy M. Ashburn of the Army Medical Corps replaced American Red Cross Major James H. Perkins who, at the last minute, was unable to attend the conference. Representing the State Department at the assistant level were Ellis Loring Dressel, its expert on prisoner of war matters, and Christian A. Herter, the secretary to the commission. Herter subsequently had a long diplomatic career which culminated in 1959 when he

was appointed secretary of state after the death of John Foster Dulles. The American legation at Berne sent Charles H. Russell, Jr., to attend the conference

as a secretary while the Justice Department sent attorney Charles Morefield Storey. The American Red Cross was represented by its commissioner for Switzerland, J. B. Dimmick. The delegation was rounded out by four army officers who served as aides to the commissioners.” In early September the Germans named the members of their delegation. Initially it was to be headed by a Major General Friedrich who led Germany’s negotiating team at the recent Hague conference with Britain, but he died in early September, occasioning a brief delay in the opening of the conference. The

leadership of the German delegation was turned over to Fuerst zu Ernst Hohenlohe Langenburg, the military inspector of voluntary nursing. The other full members of the delegation were Count Max Adolf Monteglas, the head of

the American section of the German Foreign Office, a diplomat who was married to an American citizen from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and who, after the war helped compile and edit the German papers on the causes of the war; a Doctor von Keller, secret counselor of legation; Captain Wilke von Hinden-

burg of the Imperial German Navy, a nephew of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg; a Colonel von Fransecky, vice director of department in the

German-American Diplomacy — S53 Prussian Ministry of War; and an Army Major Draudt, also of the Ministry of War and a veteran of the Anglo-German conference held at The Hague in July 1918. In a dispatch to Lansing, Stovall described Major Draudt as the “most dependable” member of the German delegation to that conference.”’ Attached to the delegation as assistants were a Doctor Roediger, secretary of legation, Captain-Lieutenant Mensing of the Imperial German Navy, and a Herr von Hindenburg, chief of the prisoners of war division of the German legation in

Berne.* | |

Garrett accepted the position as head of the American delegation to the

conference on the first of August.” Shortly thereafter he made arrangements to take the next convoy from The Netherlands to Great Britain. In order to better

prepare himself for the conference, he made plans to visit some American prisoner of war enclosures in France. In mid-August he cabled Lansing to express some of his ideas and concerns. He thought it important to determine the scope of topics to be discussed at the conference. In particular he wanted to know whether the question of civilian prisoners and their property would be discussed. If so, he believed that the delegation should include someone from the U.S. Justice Department who could speak authoritatively about conditions

in, and administration of, internment camps for alien enemies in the United States.® Although the two nations had agreed to confer about war prisoners, this had not been precisely defined. While Germany wanted to discuss civilian internees,

the United States wanted to avoid this topic, fearing that it “might lead to discussions of entirely irrelevant subjects.”*’ Another unspoken reason for American reluctance to discuss civilians was that the United States held several thousand of them in custody, while very few American civilians were interned in Germany. The United States had nothing to gain and possibly something to lose in such a discussion.

Garrett requested that the State Department furnish clerks and stenographers who were familiar with German, pointing out that the British were seriously handicapped in their most recent negotiations at The Hague because they had overlooked this mundane requirement. Furthermore, he asked that all —

support personnel be “out and out Americans without any German taint.” Finally, he suggested that a special cipher be created for the conference, and that in the interim, any confidential material be sent in the department’s “special

green” cipher.” In the several weeks between their appointment and the beginning of the conference on 24 September, the delegates conferred among themselves and _ with the State Department. On 14 September, Benito Sarda, the most active _ Spanish representative to inspect German camps housing American prisoners, arrived in Berne to consult with the delegates. The commissioners gathered in Paris during the second week of September and departed for Berne on September 19. Meanwhile, American embassies and legations elsewhere gathered information that might prove useful to the conferees. The legation in Berne was

j4 Part I: The Diplomats instructed to keep the State Department informed of General Friedrich’s movements. In August, a member of the United States mission in London _ attended an informal meeting with the British delegates to the most recent Hague conference.” While in Paris the delegates studied the previous agreements reached by the British, the French, and the Germans. They also received various instructions from the State Department and made suggestions of their own. The military members of the American commission favored a man-for-man, rank-for-rank exchange of all combatant prisoners of war, with the exception of submarine crews, after eighteen months’ internment or captivity. They also argued for internment on capture of all officers, except submariners, in a neutral country, regardless of rank or number. These proposals were approved by the State and War departments and became major elements in the American bargaining position. “

When the conference finally opened, each delegation presented the other with its proposed draft. The Americans noticed only three areas of disagreement

between the two sides. The most significant difference was in the German proposal that all prisoners, regardless of rank or number, be repatriated after eighteen months. The American proposal restricted repatriation by rank and number, and excluded submarine crews entirely. The Germans also proposed the liberation and repatriation of all civilian internees and asked the United States to influence Peru and Cuba to free German civilians interned in those countries.” The American refusal to repatriate submarine crews almost, in the words of : Commander Stone, “broke up the meeting.” The Germans insisted that neither they nor the German public could accept such a prohibition. They asserted that the submariners were carrying out legitimate orders and their own government could not agree to treat them differently than other prisoners. The Americans were equally adamant on this point. Their resolve was reinforced by knowledge that Germany was in desperate need of trained submarine crewmen.” Initially

, the Germans refused to continue negotiations unless the Americans withdrew the offending article. Consequently the meeting was adjourned until the next day when, in an informal conference, the Germans agreed to continue. One factor that made the German position especially difficult was that the two sides had already agreed to post copies of the treaty in all prison camps. The German delegates particularly disliked the prospect of their retreat on this

issue being publicized among the prisoners. The Germans feared, and the Americans hoped, that this would have a corrosive effect on the morale of the German armed forces.*’ Ultimately, both sides compromised on the issue, agreeing to the internment in a neutral country for the war’s duration of all

submariners except invalids, who could be repatriated along with others. Though the United States backed down from its initial hard line, it achieved its primary objective: the denial of trained submarine crews to Germany.*

After roughly six weeks the conferees concluded their deliberations and agreed to a treaty draft. The document that they produced is lengthy and

German-American Diplomacy bP) detailed. The Americans insisted on great detail because they believed that the Germans would take advantage of any vague or ambiguous clauses to avoid carrying out their part of the bargain.” As a result, it was the most thorough guide to the treatment of war prisoners yet written. It built on a foundation laid

by the Hague and Geneva conventions and especially by the other prisoner agreements between the British, the French, the Germans, and the Turks. It included the details that were necessary to any workable agreement. They were not necessary to compel German compliance, but they were necessary to avoid confusion and make compliance possible. The agreement is composed of five major sections and seven annexes. Section A deals with military prisoners and their treatment, internment, and repatriation. Section B discusses the treatment and repatriation of sanitary personnel, while section C describes the treatment of civilians. Section D is a set of general

provisions and section E merely deals with approval of the agreement. The annexes amplify regulations set forth more generally in sections A through E of

the agreement. Thus, annex 1 details the conditions that entitle a prisoner to either repatriation or internment. It even included a list of fifteen medical conditions that were grounds for repatriation. Annexes 2 through 5 refer to the treatment of prisoners. They specify housing, bedding, lighting, furniture, medical care, and other camp conditions in great detail for both officers and enlisted men. For example, “Rooms for all army captains and subaltern officers [will be] 6 square meters.”” For enlisted men, who had to live in barracks, the agreement specified that “the floor space of dormitories shall be on the scale of 3 square

meters per head.”' Annexes 4 and 5 offered detailed regulations for the punishment of officers and enlisted men respectively. The annexes conclude with a definition of terms and a table of equivalent ranks.” The most significant part of the agreement is section A, which deals with the repatriation and internment of combatant prisoners. It provided two ways for prisoners to leave enemy captivity during war. Repatriation was made to depend

on physical health. A distinction was made between “valid” (healthy) and “invalid” (seriously ill or wounded) prisoners. According to Article 1, “valid prisoners of war who have been in captivity for one year . . . shall be repatriated on the basis of head for head and rank for rank.” Articles 4 and 5 specified that, regardless of rank and number, invalid prisoners would be either repatriated immediately or interned in a neutral nation depending upon the nature of their infirmity. Annex 1 provided a list of afflictions and the corresponding treatment they entitled a prisoner to receive. Thus, the agreement was most solicitous of those who most needed relief: the sick and wounded. They could be repatriated immediately while healthy prisoners had to wait at least a year before becoming eligible, and even then their exchange depended on the supply of “trading stock” held by each side. This particular provision, had the treaty been adopted, would have been to the distinct advantage of the Americans, who held many more

prisoners than Germany during the last months of the war. Although this exchange provision was similar to those common in the eighteenth and

56 Part I: The Diplomats nineteenth centuries, there was no elaborate cartel attached to the agreement. A simplified cartel established only four categories of rank. It held that “the following shall be deemed to be of equal rank: (a) all general, flag, field and commanding officers; (b) all other officers; (c) all non-commissioned and petty

officers; (d) all other enlisted or enrolled persons.” In its provisions for internment and repatriation, the agreement built upon the practice as it had developed during the war among the other belligerent powers.

| The treaty as a whole was also based on those negotiated before. The structure of the Anglo-German agreement of July 1918 is very similar to that of the German-

American accord. Treating most of the same subjects, these two agreements’ provisions for hospitalization of officers are identical to one another.” In many other cases the provisions are the same though the wording differs slightly.

Nevertheless, there are significant differences between the various treaties. In part these stem from differences between the belligerents. The situation and purposes of the British, French, and Americans were not the same, nor were Germany’s objectives with respect to each of its enemies. The Anglo-German accord, for example, begins with an annex regarding the removal of British officers from two German camps in exchange for the improvement of conditions in two British camps for imprisoned officers. This was a specifically Anglo-German concern and had no place in a German-American agreement. By the same token, the United States and Germany had objectives that did not involve any other power. The Germans were anxious to secure the repatriation of the crews of merchant ships that had been interned in the United States since early in the war. Therefore, this was especially provided in Article 154a of the GermanAmerican agreement.” Likewise, the United States was concerned that Germany would not recognize as U.S. citizens those German-born Americans who had been naturalized after the outbreak of the war in 1914. The U.S. State Department feared that captured

German-American soldiers would be treated as traitors rather than war prisoners. Initially the Germans rejected an American proposal for reciprocity

, advanced at the conference, but ultimately reversed themselves when threatened with retaliation. As a result, among the definitions included in annex 7, “State of Origin” is defined to mean “the State in whose armed forces the prisoners are commissioned, warranted, appointed, enlisted or enrolled.”” _ In many respects, the German-American agreement is more generous than the previous Anglo-German or Franco-German agreements, A case in point is the period of captivity a valid prisoner was required to serve before becoming eligible for repatriation. The former agreement required only a twelve-month waiting period, while the British and French agreements required eighteen months, Similarly, the provisions made for facilities such as showers and latrines

are more favorable in the American agreement than in the British agreement with Germany.” The reasons for this divergence are various. One factor that fostered the tendency toward greater leniency was the battlefield situation. By the time the

German-American Diplomacy 57 negotiations got underway, it was clear that the Allied Powers would be victorious. Whatever advantages were in the treaty would, if it were ratified, accrue

to the benefit of many more Germans than Americans. This encouraged the German delegation to accept the more generous provisions offered by the United States.*® The American delegation proposed more comfortable conditions for prisoners because it represented a nation with a higher living standard than the nations of Europe enjoyed, especially during the war. The Americans were accustomed to superior material conditions and consequently expected them. Finally, the United States could afford to pay for such advantages. The major stumbling block to the adoption of the improvements embodied in the treaty came not from German objections, but from an American fear that such advantages might embarrass the less fortunate British and French.” In the final analysis, however, the favorable conditions obtained at Berne could not have been achieved without the pioneering efforts of the French, the British, and the Germans. In its prescription of camp conditions, the treaty resolved the differenceson __

which the two enemies had been unable to agree earlier. The question of remuneration for prisoners was finally answered with the adoption of Articles 124-132 which spelled out how much each class of prisoner would be paid.” Likewise, the privilege of private conversation between prisoners and the representatives of the protecting power was codified in Article 122. The issue raised when Germany put Paul Nagel on trial for the damage he caused during his escape attempt was also resolved by the treaty. Articles 76-82 gave any prisoner brought before the civil courts many rights. The “Captor State” was obliged to notify the protecting power of the name and rank of the prisoner, the charges against him, and the date and location of the trial. All this had to be done in time

for the prisoner to obtain an attorney through the protecting power. The prisoner could not be compelled to testify against himself, and had the right to appeal the decision of the court to higher authority. Finally, the dispute about the repatriation of sanitary personnel was resolved along the lines the United States had accepted in iate April.”

The work of the German and American negotiators at Berne was readily forgotten amidst the postwar euphoria in the West. Likewise, the agreement that they negotiated was overshadowed by the discussions at Versailles. The American and Allied prisoners had been released and most had returned home. Consequently, the American government saw little reason to concern itself with the war prisoner agreement. Nevertheless, the United States determined the agreement’s fate.

On 11 January 1919, Hugh R. Wilson, the American chargé in Berne, notified

Lansing that Germany had offered to ratify that part of the agreement thathad __ not been rendered void by the armistice terms. A month later, Hans Sulzer, the Swiss minister in charge of German interests in the United States, inquired of the U.S. State Department whether the treaty would be ratified.” Meanwhile, the treaty’s fate was the subject of discussion within the government. In mid-December 1918, U.S. State Department Counselor Frank Lyon

58 Part I: The Diplomats Polk expressed the view that it “would not be wise” to ratify the agreement. Debate on this issue continued at the cabinet level through March, with several different departments commenting. Secretary of War Newton Baker argued that

the agreement should not be ratified because it could not affect American prisoners in Germany as they were “already entitled to repatriation,” and because it was not necessary to compel American “military authorities” to “deal justly with German prisoners.””

, John W. Garrett felt obliged to comment on the fate of the agreement that he had helped to fashion. He recommended that various articles dealing with repatriation of invalids and sanitary personnel be ratified and carried out | immediately. Since he feared that some of the agreement’s stipulations about court proceedings against prisoners were not being observed, he suggested that they too be ratified. In any case, he explained that the conferees had pledged to attempt to induce their governments to carry out for humanitarian reasons, the terms of Articles 4-15, 17, 20-22, and 140-149 pending ratification.“ Although both the War and State departments opposed ratification of the treaty, it received strong support from the Justice Department, which was then headed by Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory. He offered two reasons for support of the treaty. One was practical, and the other idealistic. The Justice

Department held over one thousand German aliens in detention camps. By February it was ready to repatriate some six hundred. The department believed

it could more smoothly accomplish this goal if the repatriation machinery described in Articles 173-184 was in place. In addition to this practical reason for ratification of the treaty, Gregory advanced a humanitarian argument. In a letter to Lansing he described it as the best prisoner convention “in form as well as spirit negotiated during the present war.” If ratified, he argued, “this Convention will stand as a precedent of permanent value.” Gregory was the only

member of the American cabinet to support the treaty on humanitarian grounds.” The treaty’s fate was finally resolved in mid-March, at which time it was decided not to ratify the agreement because, as the United States notified Germany, the terms of the armistice superseded those of the convention.”

Although German and American officials were deeply divided on many issues, the treatment of war prisoners was not one of them. Although there were

differences, they were commonly differences of interpretation, emphasis, and administration. They were seldom differences of principle. The outstanding exception was their disagreement about how to treat submarine crews, an issue that reflected the technological challenge to the laws of war. Compared to the

more recent history of the treatment of war prisoners, German-American disagreements during the First World War were insignificant. From the perspective of eighty years, the German-American prisoner of war relationship seems refreshingly placid. American diplomats actively sought agreements with Germany to clarify the ambiguities of the Hague Conventions. The failure of Germany to respond promptly to American initiatives had little impact on the lives of individual

German-American Diplomacy 59 prisoners. On 11 November 1918, there were only 248 American officers and 3,302 men in German custody. Only 1 officer and 20 men died while in German

captivity.” Very few of these were captured before the summer of 1918. Likewise, of the approximately 48,000 German prisoners held by the United States Army in France, many were captured very late in the war, some even after the cessation of hostilities. By the time most Germans and Americans entered captivity, the Berne conference was either scheduled, underway, or completed.

Throughout 1917 and into 1918, neither side had much reason to hasten war prisoner arrangements with the other. The first major engagement between German and American troops did not take place until 28 May 1918 at Cantigny,

France. Consequently, they had relatively few prisoners with which to deal. While the United States had to set up an administrative apparatus to handle the anticipated influx of prisoners, the Germans had done so in 1914-1915. By the end of 1918, Germany already held about 2.3 million prisoners. Among that multitude, a few thousand Americans were hardly noticed. During 1917 and the first months of 1918, Germany was most interested in resolving the status of civilian internees. However, with over 1,000 prisoners in custody in the United States and fewer than 250 in Germany, the Americans were relatively unconcerned with this subject.

When the two powers sat down together in Berne, they wrote a model convention. Even though it was not ratified, and never governed the treatment of a single prisoner, it was a milestone in the development of international law with respect to prisoners of war. The treaty and the diplomatic efforts that led to it were clearly within the liberal tradition of captivity to which the leadership of both subscribed. The treaty was worthy of a better fate.

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Part Il

The Soldiers

BLANK PAGE

CAPTIVITY IN GERMANY

“We would treat them better if we could.”

Most fundamental questions about modern German history involve National

Socialism in one manner or another. Its impact was so enormous and its practices so morally repugnant to Western sensibilities that it would be impossible to comprehend fully the contemporary world without assessing both the movement’s origins and its consequences. At the heart of Nazi history lies the

holocaust, surely one of humanity’s greatest crimes. In trying to determine whether similar events could again take place in another setting, historians and other scholars have attempted to find out if National Socialism was a unique product of German culture and history, and whether it was a logical outgrowth of the past or a radical departure from German traditions. Given the genocidal similarity between the “final solution,” and the treatment

of Russian prisoners during the Second World War, it is reasonable to ask

whether German treatment of prisoners during the First World War foreshadowed these policies.” Was there continuity between German treatment of prisoners in the two wars? Did the “horrors” of Wittenberg lead to the horrors of captivity on the Eastern Front? Significant as these questions are, they have not been addressed. They cannot be addressed until scholarly work on German prisoner of war policy during the

First World War appears. Scholars of modern German history have quite properly sought the roots of National Socialism in the aftermath of the Great War, and those of the holocaust in Germany’s traditional anti-Semitism. However, they have focused so intently on the Nazis and the Second World War that they have neglected the First. The last conflict has so completely filled our field

of vision that it has obscured our view of the struggle that preceded it. As a consequence the secondary literature about the German prison camps of the First World War, which with rare exception was written during the interwar

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Captivity in Germany 65 period, naturally makes no effort to relate the administration of these camps to the conduct of captivity a generation later. The literature that does exist tends to compare conditions in German camps with those that obtained in Allied camps during the war, or with the ideal that commentators like James M. Spaight had led sophisticated observers to expect.

In such comparisons, harsh conditions are generally emphasized, and the Germans come off badly. However, if the German camps of the First World War are compared with those on the eastern front of the Second World War, or even the Russian camps of the former conflict, they come off relatively well.

In the end the historian must come to grips with the essential question of German guilt or innocence. Most Germans readily acknowledge Nazi guilt, but for obvious reasons resist the broader notion of German guilt. However, the fundamental accusation against Germany, during and in the aftermath of the war, was that despite its art and its science, it was a barbarian country and that Germans remained “Huns,” unfit for a place among civilized peoples. Ironically, it was the Germans themselves who, in their attempt to exterminate the Jews and their pitiless treatment of Soviet prisoners, supplied the strongest evidence to support this accusation. However, it is clear that the case for inherent German barbarism is further strengthened if there was continuity in the mistreatment of war prisoners from the First to the Second World War. If the mistreatment of Russian prisoners during the Second World War was a sharp departure from the practice of the First, then there is evidence not of German guilt, but of Nazi guilt. This overview of the German institutions of captivity during the First World War shows no clear evidence of continuity. Rather, it indicates that the policies pursued on the eastern front during the Second World War were a sharp departure from those in place during the First World War. One German practice that was widely condemned by the Allies during and after the war was that of mixing prisoners of various nationalities in the same camp. According to a postwar account by the American camp inspector Daniel J. McCarthy, a combination of Russians, Frenchmen, Britons, Belgians, and Serbians was awkward enough, but “when to this mixture was added the French Colonial, Negro, Mussulman and the British Colonials from India, the possibilities of social inconvenience can be imagined.” He goes on to point out that the Germans refused repeated American requests that the “different races” be separated. Despite the racial prejudice evident in his remarks and the American demand, he may have been correct in noting that “The difference in customs and habits of life . . . particularly in reference to food and ventilation, produced dissatisfaction and accentuated discontent.”° It is notable that the mixing of different nationalities in prisoner of war camps

- was a violation of neither the Hague conventions nor the tenets of the liberal

tradition, yet Western critics like McCarthy tended to view it as one of Germany’s more serious abuses. Although it might have generated discontent within the camps, given the enormous flood of prisoners that Germany captured

at the outset of the war and the dearth of suitable detention facilities and

66 Part II: The Soldiers consequent overcrowding, it seems likely that the German authorities would not have felt obliged to accommodate national prejudices. It is also notable that a multiplicity of nationalities posed a problem primarily for the Germans and the Russians rather than for the British and French, their most vocal critics, whose prisoners were predominantly German. Although Germany’s critics made much of the mixing of nationalities, Germany can be more justifiably faulted for segregating prisoners by nationality in

an attempt to exploit their ethnicity for its military and political advantage. Germany established two such camps, one for Irish prisoners at Limburg, and another at Zossen for some thirty-four hundred Islamic and Hindu prisoners. The latter, which McCarthy described as “an ideal camp where the men were treated in a humane and kindly way,” was really intended to seduce the men from their allegiance to the Allies so they might be sent to fight for the Ottoman

Empire.’ The former was “one of the best constructed camps in Germany” where “the prisoner was given exceptional care and treatment.” As at Zossen, however, the purpose of the preferential treatment was to recruit Irish prisoners

into an independent regiment allied with Germany. The authorities even brought the British traitor Sir Roger Casement to the camp to deliver lectures that they hoped would induce the prisoners to defect to the Central Powers. Although only thirty-two out of about four thousand prisoners volunteered for the new Irish regiment, and the German effort was a forlorn failure, it set a precedent for far more serious attempts to reverse the loyalty of prisoners in Russia.”

In February 1915 there were roughly 11,000 prisoners in a prison camp at Gardelagen. Of these, about 4,000 were Russian, 6,000 French, 700 Belgian, and 230 British. In accordance with early German policy they were not segregated by nationality, but were quartered randomly throughout the camp. Constructed near the edge of a pine forest on a hillside about two kilometers from town, the camp was bisected by fences which created four distinct compounds, each about 250 yards long by 50 yards wide. Within each compound were a number of large wooden barracks which accommodated the prisoners. In addition there were a variety of additional buildings that served as bath houses, clinics, and kitchens. The primary deficiency in this camp lay not in its facilities, but in the conduct of its administration. Unlike the barracks at many German camps, which were

maintained in a neat and orderly fashion, those at Gardelagen were crammed with prisoners whose “palliasses,” cloth sacks of sawdust, straw, or seaweed used as mattresses, were spread out across the entire floor. As one prisoner said, “It was like one large palliasse all round the room.” According to another, the prisoners “sat on their bags of shavings to eat their meals; they walked over each other in passing out; they lay there sick, and later on, in many cases, died there cheek by jowl with their fellow prisoners.” The prisoners suffered from malnutrition as well as overcrowding. Food packets, which were delivered regularly to British and French prisoners in other camps, had not yet begun to flow to this camp, and prisoners were consequently

Captivity in Germany 67 unable to supplement their meager ration with anything else. According to a Royal Army physician who was present in the camp, “the diet the prisoners received was not sufficient to keep an adult in a normal state of nutrition. ... Every man who subsisted on what was issued to him was gradually getting emaciated and anemic, and was constantly a prey to the pangs of hunger.”’ The Russian prisoners were generally worse off than those of other nationalities. According to another British officer, “It was no unusual sight to see a crowd of Russians on their hands and knees in the pit in which potato peelings were thrown, struggling to find a stray potato or a piece of rind with a little more potato than usual.” The misery of these prisoners was further increased by two additional conditions. The winter of 1914-1915 was severe and the men were not adequately clothed. Consequently, they suffered acutely from the cold. Finally, the sanitation facilities were inadequate. Despite a more than sufficient water supply, there was only one standpipe leading to a trough for twelve hundred men to do their cleaning. The men were given little if any soap with which to wash their ‘personal possessions. The bathing facilities were equally inadequate, and as a result, some prisoners went several months without a shower or bath. Consequently, by February of 1915, “Every man in the camp of every nationality was infected with the body louse; lice swarmed in every garment the men wore, and in every blanket they slept in.”” On 11 February the Germans transferred a number of British medical officers to Gardelagen from Magdeburg. A few days later prisoners with mild symptoms of typhus began to show up at the camp hospital at a rate of forty to fifty a day. The hospital soon filled with patients and several other barracks buildings were converted into hospital wards to handle the overflow. A couple of days later a German medical commission arrived to assess the situation. Within a few hours of the commission’s departure, the Germans, commandant and all, had fled the camp. No German doctors or orderlies remained to treat the sick. The prisoners were left to deal with the epidemic on their own. The commandant summoned

imprisoned French, British, and Russian doctors to the fence, where he informed them that the camp was under quarantine, that nobody was allowed to enter or leave, and that supplies would be sent over the fence daily. Faced by this situation, the Allied doctors reorganized the camp under the leadership of the senior French physician. Utilizing additional food and medical supplies they obtained from the Germans, they began systematically to combat

the epidemic. Eventually a German physician who had been expelled from Egypt by the British entered the camp. He worked assiduously to improve sanitation in the camp. The epidemic lasted about four and a half months, and was over by June. In that period roughly 2,000 of the camp’s 11,000 inmates came

down with the disease. Of these, about 300, or 15 percent, died.” Typhus also struck other German camps such as Wittenberg early in 1915. Scenes similar to those at Gardelagen were reproduced. Many prisoners died and many more suffered. Eventually, however, the typhus was brought under

68 | Part II: The Soldiers control and no longer threatened the lives of prisoners. During the entire war, according to German records, some 1,060 prisoners succumbed to this disease. Although typhus was widely feared, and the German authorities were grossly negligent in their response to the epidemic in 1915, it took the lives of fewer than 1 percent of the roughly 118,000 prisoners who died in German custody.”

Numbers such as these, and events like those at Gardelagen, led Carl P. Dennett, an American Red Cross official, to write shortly after the war that

never before in the history of mankind have such conditions existed... .

| Germany ... notoriously failed to even provide [the prisoners} with the necessities of life, and it is a fact beyond dispute that the ravages of disease, including tuberculosis, due to malnutrition, and even starvation . . . killed

tens of thousands of prisoners.”

There is strong evidence to support Dennett’s contention. The death of so many prisoners suggests the existence of severe conditions. Almost three times as many prisoners died in German custody as were captured by the Americans. Roughly 89 percent died as a result of illness. By far the largest proportion of these deaths are attributable to pneumonia and tuberculosis, which between them took the lives of almost sixty thousand prisoners or about 48 percent of all who died. These conditions were certainly aggravated by cold and inadequate nutrition. Warmer barracks and more blankets would have helped prevent pneumonia and reduced the likelihood of its becoming fatal. Probably little could have been done to avoid deaths caused by tuberculosis, a disease often contracted in the trenches, and for which there was no effective cure at the time. However, there is another large category of deaths, “all others,” in the German records, which probably includes accidents and those related to malnutrition. This category of the dead, which amounts to about 32 percent of the total, need not have been so high. Clearly the death rate in German camps could have been reduced with an improvement in diet and other conditions. What is unclear is how much the

| death rate could have been reduced.

Despite this evidence of suffering, it is difficult to conclude, as Dennett did,

that “neither treaty nor humanitarian consideration induced the German Government to treat its prisoners of war as human beings, or to make much effort to preserve their lives.” American diplomats who inspected German camps for the first two and a half years of the war produced evidence that does not support such sweeping judgments. While American diplomats did indeed find much hardship and suffering in German camps, their accounts generally indicate that most were reasonable, if spartan, places of captivity. Numerous American reports describe camps that were roughly comparable to those in

Britain or France. ,

On 30 March 1915, for example, there were 8,364 men, predominantly Britons

and Russians, interned in such a German camp at Doberitz, a short distance

Captivity in Germany 69 west of Berlin. Surrounded by a pair of barbed wire entanglements, the camp was divided into quadrants by fences that bisected the compound, much like the arrangements at Gardelagen. The prisoners lived in tents and wooden barracks | that were well lighted and ventilated by large windows. Each barrack, which measured forty meters long by fifteen meters high by four meters wide, housed about two hundred men. With a total interior space of twelve hundred cubic meters, each prisoner had roughly six cubic meters to call his own. Although this made for fairly close quarters, it exceeded the minimum German requirement of five cubic meters of space for each enlisted man. Since the same space allocation prevailed in the tents, this camp was not by official standards overly

crowded with prisoners. Both the barracks and the tents were electrically lighted, and were heated by small stoves that were probably inadequate during the winter. However, combined with the two blankets each man was issued, they provided enough heat to keep the men warm throughout the rest of the year. In addition to the tents and barracks, the camp included two hospitals, each staffed by German doctors and British attendants drawn from the twenty-five to thirty members of the Royal Army Medical Corps who were interned in the camp. An American diplomat described one of these hospitals as “admirably clean.” Although British patients complained that the food in the hospital was the same as that in the rest of the camp, they agreed that “the German doctors were very good and the treatment in the hospital satisfactory.” The German medical authorities made vigorous efforts to protect the health of the prisoners in their charge. To this end, they inoculated the men against both cholera and typhoid. Despite their best efforts, however, there had been thirty-five deaths,

most as a result of pneumonia, among the British prisoners since the camp opened early in the war. The sanitary and bathing facilities in the camp were “excellent” by the standards of 1915. There were a “large number of showers with hot and cold water” and prisoners could bathe as often as they wished. Each

of the housing units within the compound had a pair of latrines which were regularly cleansed. The camp served three meals daily at 6:00 and 11:00 in the morning and at 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon. These meals generally consisted of a bowl of thick barley soup with potatoes and vegetables, supplemented with sausage, and three hundred grams of bread. The morning meal usually included a cup of coffee.

Although nobody objected to the quality of the food, many of the British prisoners complained that they did not like the way it was prepared by the Russian chefs. This was a typical problem in German camps where prisoners of

numerous nationalities were thrown together. The prisoners did not like one another’s cuisine. Many of the British prisoners also complained that the quantity of the food was insufficient. This was especially true of those who worked in the nearby fields. Nevertheless, the diet of British prisoners was supplemented by the regular receipt of food packets through the mail and by purchases at the well-stocked camp canteen. The canteen sold both food and other items such as soap, pencils, and toothbrushes at “moderate” prices.

70 Part IT: The Soldiers Prisoners in this camp were allowed to mail one letter every two weeks, and one postcard weekly. As elsewhere in Europe all incoming and outgoing mail was censored. Nevertheless, mail service was essentially uninterrupted, and

prisoners regularly received food, clothing, and other items from the outside world. Although they could not discuss the war, they could keep in reasonably close touch with their relatives and loved ones. When not at work, the prisoners amused themselves with vigorous athletic contests such as football. They read censored periodicals and books sent from home. Numerous religious services

including those of both the Jewish and Anglican faiths were conducted for

prisoners,

The prisoners had no complaints about the camp commandant or the way in which the facility was administered. The guards were neither harsh nor brutal. The only serious complaint voiced by the men had to do with the food although “at least half of the men... admitted that it was quite as good as could possibly be expected.” The American diplomat who inspected this camp concluded that the “impression of the whole [camp] was excellent, and one received the idea that everything that could reasonably be expected was done for the men by the authorities in charge.” Although the conditions of their captivity could have been better, these men did not suffer serious physical deprivation. Indeed, under the circumstances, the conditions that prevailed in this camp seem mild, especially when compared to those in the trenches. Yet camps like this are little noted in the literature. Descriptions like this provide an alternate view of German camps and their administration. As neutral and independent reports they seriously undermine the view that life in German captivity was uniformly brutal and severe. Combined with other statistical evidence they suggest that the misery at camps like Gardelagen was the exception, and that the conditions at Déberitz were more nearly the rule. In the light of such evidence, Dennett’s description appears to obscure more than it reveals. As an overall generalization, it distorts the reality of life in German war prison camps. Nevertheless, this harsh image of German camps was widely disseminated and accepted throughout the West. The discrepancy between the image and the reality of German prison camps is not difficult to explain. Throughout the war reports filtered back to each side that the other was abusing prisoners. In one of the earliest accounts, a British army officer described how he and other prisoners were transported from the

front to a camp at Crefeld in a filthy, unventilated “horse wagon” which reminded him of what he had “read of the Black Hole of Calcutta.”» Regardless of how accurate these accounts were, they were widely accepted

as descriptive of typical enemy behavior. Such accounts made excellent propaganda and they were given wide currency by all belligerents. As a result, the mistreatment of prisoners became a major theme of wartime propaganda

throughout Europe. In the climate of opinion thus created, even the more objective writers were prone to emphasize the worst features of enemy camps and neglect the better. This was particularly true of Allied commentators. Given

Captivity in Germany 71 the intense nationalist feelings aroused by the subject, it is not surprising that they did. The numerous German camps that did not conform to the barbarous stereotype were seldom described in published accounts. Germany announced early in the war that it would attempt to apply the norms codified in the 1907 Hague Convention to the prisoners in its custody. In the

spring of 1915 Germany described in some detail how it intended to treat captured enemy soldiers. Accordingly, the foreign office issued a general state-

ment describing these standards. Broken into two parts, dealing first with officers and then with enlisted men, the document established the minimum levels of food, clothing, and shelter that Germany undertook to provide for its prisoners. Germany announced that camps for both officers and enlisted men would be located in a “healthy place, absolutely unobjectionable from a hygienic point of view.” Older, and presumably senior, officers would be given separate rooms, while younger and more junior officers were promised small rooms with only a

few other occupants and a minimum of fifteen cubic meters of “breathing space.” Enlisted men would be housed in larger rooms such as barracks, “in which a greater number of prisoners are quartered,” and which would provide a minimum “breathing space” of five cubic meters. The prison authorities would provide each officer with a “bedstead with mattress, bolster, bedlinen, and two blankets” and each enlisted man with a “palliasse” and a pair of blankets. They would see to it that the enlisted men’s quarters were equipped with a variety of tables, chairs, utensils, and other household items, while officers were provided

with these and such other items such as closets, dressers, washbasins, and drinking cups. Finally, the government agreed to provide to every five to ten Officers an orderly whose duty it was “to attend to the cleaning of the clothes, living rooms, courtyards and halls, to the heating and table service.” All prisoners were expected to wear their uniforms until they were no longer

serviceable. At that time the Germans promised to replace their old clothes either with new ones or with articles of clothing seized as “booty of war.” Whatever clothing was issued to the prisoners, the Germans intended that it be appropriate for the season and climate. A prisoner’s standard attire was sup-

posed to include socks, shoes, warm underwear, shirts, a suit, a necktie, an overcoat, and a cap. Prisoners would be permitted to write one letter twice a

month. Enlisted men were allowed four pages upon which to express themselves, while officers were permitted six. In addition, both officers and men could write one postcard a week. Officers were expected to purchase their meals from the salary paid them by

the detaining power. Accordingly, Germany promised to make available to officers “on each day a sufficient and nutritious fare the menu of which is to be as varied as possible, and . . . at a moderate price.” Officers were also permitted to drink “beer and light table wines.” Enlisted men were offered “sufficient plain food ... which in its quantity and composition is adapted to such class of work as may be required of the prisoners.” This would be provided in three meals

72 Part IT: The Soldiers daily, consisting of “coffee, tea or soup,” in the morning; “a plentiful fare” of meat, fish, or vegetables at lunch; and “a substantial and plentiful meal” at night. Camp commandants were authorized to increase the daily diet if they deemed it necessary to provide “sufficient and proper nourishment.” Additional food was available for purchase by the prisoners in the canteens. _ Toward the end of April 1915 the German Ministry of War issued a set of regulations that went into much greater detail about the “plentiful” diet Ger-

many intended to provide for its prisoners. It also discussed other kitchen arrangements. According to these regulations, a prisoner “of medium weight and doing light work” would be given food providing twenty-seven hundred calories daily. Those in working detachments, or otherwise doing heavy labor, would be given 10 percent more, while those “doing absolutely nothing — for instance, in hospital— are to receive 10 percent less.” The regulations went on to suggest that the morning meal consist of soup “containing 100 grammes of solid substance,” and that lunch “be a stew containing 500-600 grammes of potatoes, 90-120 grammes of meat,” or corresponding quantities of fish, soya or “horse beans,” plus some 500 grams of vegetables. The evening meal would include, according to the document, 500 grams of “potatoes in their skins,” with a combination of herring, cheese, rice, butter, and sugar.” The official diet went through numerous permutations throughout the war. The first major revision was announced in October 1915. The diet continued to provide twenty-seven hundred calories but added numerous new items to the menu. While previously fixed quantities of each item had been provided, under the new regimen variable amounts and a larger choice would be offered the prisoners. In March 1916, the diet was further modified to permit a variable daily calorie count in addition to variable quantities of specific foods. Despite numerous modifications of the quantities of individual items, the overall amount of food remained roughly equivalent. In short, the calories provided by the basic menu remained much the same throughout the war.”®

In the spring of 1915, Germany was attempting to convert all its prison kitchens to a system of “self-management” from one run by caterers or “con-

tractors.” The authorities were aware that many contractors had failed to provide food that met their standards for either quality or quantity. Camp authorities were instructed not to accept the excuse commonly made by contractors that rising prices made it necessary to cut back on the prisoners’ rations.

Commandants were authorized to immediately cancel the contract of any caterer who failed to either provide sufficient high-quality food or make good the difference. The regulations described the variety of food, such as milk, sausage, potatoes,

marmalade, sugar, and fish, that was sold at canteens as “a good source of

| nourishment for the prisoners.” The document emphasized the point that “In letting out canteens the object is not to obtain a high rent, but rather to ensure that the prisoners can obtain good and cheap articles.” In short, neither camp

officials nor contractors should be allowed to profit from the plight of the

Captivity in Germany 73 prisoners. These were not the actions of a government bent on tormenting or otherwise mistreating prisoners. On the contrary, they were the actions of a government that was concerned about the fate of its prisoners and was attempting to eliminate corruption in the system that provided for them. While one may find fault with various aspects of these regulations — for example, the reduction in ration for hospital patients— they nevertheless constitute clear and persuasive evidence that the German government intended to treat its prisoners in a humane manner consistent with the tenets of the liberal tradition and its obligations under the Hague Convention of 1907. Where the standards established in these and similar regulations were not met, there 1s evidence of incompetence and mismanagement, and perhaps avarice or malice on the part of local officials, but not of inhumanity. Critics have often argued that the diet Germany provided to prisoners was insufficient to sustain their health, or even their lives in some cases. Whether many prisoners actually “starved to death” is not clear. A considerable number, however, probably succumbed to the effects of malnutrition. In this, however, prisoners were little different from German civilians who also suffered grievously from widespread malnutrition, associated diseases such as tuberculosis, and even outright starvation. Early in the war, the British Navy established a blockade of Germany that applied to foodstuffs as well as all potential war materials.

This blockade became increasingly effective as the war progressed. The Kohirubenwinter, or “turnip winter” of 1916-1917 was especially harsh. By then, long food lines had become a universal feature of German urban life. One day that winter, the American newspaper correspondent George Schreiner scanned the faces of Berliners standing in one of these lines to see if any looked well fed. “But,” he wrote,

among the 300 applicants for food there was not one who had had enough to eat for weeks. In the case of the younger women and children the skin was drawn hard to the bones and bloodless. Eyes had fallen deeper into the sockets. From the lips all color was gone, and the tufts of hair which fell over parchmented foreheads seemed dull and famished —a sign that the nervous vigor of the body was departing with the physical strength.”

The blockade was so effective that, by the end of the war, the German civilian population was on the brink of mass starvation. According to statistics produced by the German National Health Office in 1918, which had yearly calculated the number of civilian deaths exceeding those of 1913, some 763,000 Germans had died as a result of starvation, malnutrition, and diseases directly attributable to

the blockade.” If German civilians were suffering so, it would be surprising indeed if war prisoners did not suffer in a similar manner. _ German statistics reveal that the prisoners with the lowest rate of death from illness were the Americans at 0.73 percent, the Belgians at 1.90 percent, the British at 2.08 percent, and the French at 2.41 percent. Those who sickened and

74 Part Il: The Soldiers died at the highest rate were Russians at 4.61 percent, Italians at 5.46 percent, Serbs at 5.81 percent, and Rumanians at 28.64 percent. The overall fatal illness rate for these two groups was 2.30 percent for the Western prisoners and 5.34 percent for the Slavic and Italian men. In short, Russians, Serbs, Rumanians, and Italians died at twice the rate of Frenchmen, Belgians, Englishmen, and Americans.” There are several reasons for this divergence. First, the Western prisoners

were generally in better health when captured than the Russian and other prisoners. Second, they were generally clad in warmer and sturdier clothing than

their Eastern counterparts. Finally, and most important, they ate better. The Germans did not discriminate in the quantity or quality of food they provided for their prisoners. The primary reason that French, British, and American prisoners fared better in captivity than other nationalities is that domestic relief agencies regularly sent them substantial shipments of food. The American Red Cross, for example, took charge of efforts to succor American prisoners. Shortly after American forces went into action in France, the organization arranged to obtain regular lists of American prisoners and their

camp addresses from the German Red Cross in Frankfurt. Whenever a new name was added to the list, Red Cross workers prepared a special package for the new prisoner. It included two shirts, a selection of underclothing, and bathing equipment such as a toothbrush, shaving cream, a comb, soap, toothpaste, and towels. Most important, it contained canned food such as corned _ beef, salmon, hash, jam, tomatoes, corn, and peas. Every week thereafter the prisoners received another package full of food, each containing a somewhat different selection than the one that preceded it. These generally weighed about twenty-five pounds and included one-pound cans of meat and vegetables, and packages of bread, butter, rice, and beans. Occasionally the packages included candy, and they always included tobacco.”

Relief groups in Great Britain, principally the Central Prisoners of War Committee, which had warehouses in Berne and Copenhagen, sent similar _ packages to British prisoners. In France such relief shipments were handled by

the Franco-Belgian section of the Bureau de Secours Aux Prisionniers de Guerre. Although the contents of these packages differed from those sent by the Americans, the effect was much the same. The food packages were so generous that they not only supplemented the camp food, they replaced it. Numerous Allied prisoners did not even eat the German food, preferring to eat what was shipped from home. Many Allied prisoners had such a surplus of food that they gave, or sold, their ration of camp food to others. The effect of these relief shipments is reflected in the significantly lower death rates of British,

French, Belgian, and American prisoners. Unfortunately neither Russians, Italians, nor prisoners from the various Balkan States were the beneficiaries of such shipments. The results were reflected in a notably higher death rate. Approximately 94 percent of the Russians and prisoners of other nationalities in the latter group survived on the diet provided by the Germans. Roughly 97

Captivity in Germany 75 percent of the Western prisoners survived on the German diet supplemented by food and clothing shipments. This suggests that the difference between the two rates was caused largely by diet. Thus it appears that a maximum of 3 percent of the prisoners in the second group who died might have survived had they been given a better diet. It also suggests that the food packages helped save the lives of about 3 percent of the Western prisoners. Considering how many prisoners died of illness while in German custody it

seems appropriate to examine the medical facilities in the camps and the precautions taken to prevent the spread of communicable disease. At the camp at Darmstadt, which was visited by the American embassy representative and navy surgeon, Dr. Karl Ohnesorg, there was a thousand-bed hospital for the prisoners. The hospital was under the direct command of a German physician.

The staff included a number of assistant surgeons, 112 orderlies, and a half dozen Catholic nuns. The hospital included an operating room with “all modern appliances for disinfection of instruments and dressings,” and a “large, complete X-ray plant.” In short, it was a fully equipped modern hospital. According to Ohnesorg, “The treatment accorded the sick and wounded prisoners [was] excellent. They [were] given every advantages [sic] of medicines and treatment, and special food when necessary. The same routine, the same food, etc. as in use in German military hospitals [applied] for these various hospitals in prison camps.” Indeed, the rules for prisoner patients and German soldiers in hospitals

were virtually the same. In this respect German treatment of war prisoners matched that required by the Hague Conventions, which stipulated that all prisoners should be treated as the detaining power treated its own soldiers. Not

only were prisoners in the hospital at Darmstadt treated well, but a strong emphasis was placed on sanitation and the prevention of disease within the camp. Weekly showers were mandatory for all prisoners, and each was vaccinated against smallpox, typhoid, and cholera. As Ohnesorg wrote, “Every precaution [was] taken by the authorities against the spread of disease in

camp.” By the end of the war Germany had distributed its prisoners into about 165 primary or “parent” prison camps. Seventy-five of these camps were used for the confinement of officers, while eighty-nine were used for enlisted men. At that time, according to German records, the officer’s camps held 24,293 officers, about 7,400 men who acted as servants and orderlies, and 165 civilians. Over 2 million men, 2,900 officers, and 20,700 civilians were assigned to enlisted men’s

camps.” In addition to these there were numerous working camps which were administratively connected to one of the parent camps. The majority of those assigned to enlisted camps were actually part of these labor detachments. The overall administration of this complex system of detention was decentralized and awkward. During the First World War, the German Empire was divided into twenty-one military districts, each of which corresponded to an army corps - region. The corps commander served as the military governor of the district. Technically the corps commander reported to the Ministry of War of the state

76 Part I: The Soldiers in which his headquarters were located, which in turn reported to the Ministry of War in Berlin; but in reality, the commander had such great autonomy that his actions were seldom subject to close scrutiny or review. In short, the corps commander’s was the dominant voice in the district. The product of this system of command was a prison camp administration that was decentralized. The administration and supervision of the camps in each

district was not the responsibility of the Ministry of War or even the local ministries but of the corps commanders. They selected the camp commandants, often high-ranking officers themselves, and generally gave them broad authority

to run the camps. A consequence of this was that the atmosphere within the camps varied widely. While some commandants emphasized a strict discipline under which the prisoners chafed, others were solicitous of their welfare. The attitude of the commandants toward the prisoners was infectious, and usually permeated the camp.” The commandant set the tone for the camp, and subor-

dinates from the deputy commandant to the guards followed his example. | Another consequence of the decentralization of prison camp administration was that it was very difficult for the central government to enforce within the camps the standards that it had committed itself to maintain.2’ When German camps failed to meet these standards, it was often because of such decentralization of authority. The contrast between the camps at Déberitz and Gardelagen was owing in large measure to the influence of their commanding officers. At Déberitz and

at another camp in Gdttingen, for example, steps were taken to inoculate prisoners against disease, and an effort was made to insure that they were adequately housed, clothed, fed, and rested. As a consequence epidemics were avoided. At Gardelagen the guards were permitted to mistreat the prisoners. As one British physician reported afterward, the men were driven to the daily roll call “with kicks and blows.” At Déberitz, the behavior of the guards was entirely correct. At Gardelagen, “The German officers ... were mostly elderly

men, who seemed quite in the hands of their under-officers. [The observer] never once saw one check an under-officer for the most flagrant bullying.”” German corps commanders failed to appoint competent officers to run all camps, and as a result, conditions prevailed of which the government would not have approved. Eventually such officers were removed, but not before they had done considerable harm. Of Germany’s 2.5 million prisoners, the Russians formed the largest propor-

tion, accounting for about 59 percent. The French contingent of 535,411 prisoners was second in size, amounting to about 22 percent of those in German

captivity. The 185,329 British prisoners constituted about 7.6 percent of the German prison camp population. The remaining 12.4 percent of prisoners

consisted of Belgians, Serbs, Rumanians, Italians, Portuguese, Japanese, Americans, Montenegrins, Greeks, and two Brazilians.” Like other countries at war, Germany employed prisoners in occupations vacated by soldiers at the front. Beginning on a relatively small scale in 1915, the

Captivity in Germany 77 employment of prisoners grew at a rapid rate. By the end of 1916, at least 1.1 million military and civilian prisoners were at work in Germany. Of these, roughly 340,000 were “employed in industry and trade.” At least another 630,000

were employed in German agriculture.” Although each prisoner was officially attached to a stem camp or Stammilager,

they were actually employed at tens of thousands of different locations throughout the nation. Of those engaged in agricultural labor, many worked on family farms while others worked on huge landholdings. Those who worked on family farms were relatively fortunate. While laboring in the fields with the farmer and members of his family, the sense of imprisonment often tended to drop away. Eating at the same table and sleeping in the same house usually eroded the sense of hostility between the Germans and their enemies.”

On these farms the prisoners always ate much better than they did in the camps. Not only did they have the contents of their food packets, but they were also able to consume some of the farm’s produce. They also had a much greater sense of freedom in the fields, where they were not surrounded by barbed wire fences. Such prisoners had numerous opportunities to escape but, realizing how difficult it would be to cross all of Germany to freedom, few made the attempt.

Conditions on the farms were not so bad as to make the risk worthwhile. Although many prisoners working such farms lived with the family, most lived in assembly halls or similar buildings in nearby villages with anywhere from thirty

to two hundred other prisoners. Normally such prisoners would eat their morning meal in town, and then travel to the local farms where they would spend the day. They would return to the village at dusk. The personal relationship that often developed on the small farms was usually absent on the commercial farms

where the prisoners labored in large gangs under the watchful eyes of armed guards and strict overseers. It was difficult for friendships between enemies to flourish under these circumstances. Nevertheless, such work was normally a distinct improvement over the relative idleness of camp life.” Prisoners were employed in numerous industrial capacities. They constructed buildings, roads, and railroads. They worked on the railroads themselves, and

in quarries, steel factories, and coal mines. They worked as stevedores and garbagemen. Those who worked in factories were often housed in dormitories within the building. Others were housed in nearby residential districts of the city in which the factory was located. Such prisoners were supplied with mattresses and a pair of blankets. The larger factories usually provided adequate bathing facilities, latrines, and medical service.

The compensation of prisoners was determined by contract between the employer and the army corps command. The prisoner was ordinarily paid one quarter the amount called for in the contract. The remainder went to pay for housing and other expenses. As in every other country at war, the prisoners were

paid not in the national currency, but in scrip that could only be used in the camps. The normal pay for farm labor ranged from sixteen to thirty pfennigs per day. In the smaller industries it ranged from thirty to fifty pfennigs daily,

78 Part IT: The Soldiers while in larger industrial concerns the rate of pay ranged from seventy-five pfennigs to one mark. Highly skilled prisoners could occasionally command as much as two or even three marks daily. The mark was worth about seventeen American cents in 1917.° There were 530 pfennigs to the American dollar. Typical hours of work were six in the morning until six in the evening, with a half

hour for lunch and a fifteen-minute break in the morning and again in the afternoon.” On 17 October 1916, the American diplomat John B. Jackson visited a detachment of prisoners working at Libau in occupied Russian territory. There he saw approximately five hundred British prisoners who were unloading sacks of flour from a merchant ship and carrying them to warehouses for storage and

to trains for shipment elsewhere. Although they worked hard and steadily, Jackson was convinced “that they were not being overworked.” At night the men slept on “wood fibre mattresses” in a large, “well aired” room. Their dormitory had electric lighting and was heated at night and during the winter by large brick ovens which had recently been installed. Although most of the men preferred

to eat the food sent them from home, the Germans prepared regular meals which Jackson judged “good.” The men got along well with the camp commander, whom they described as a “gentleman.” When not at work, the men were allowed to play soccer with a ball recently sent them by the American embassy, or during the summer, to swim “in a small arm of the Baltic Sea.”» This was a fairly typical working camp.

Prior to the outbreak of the war, German military authorities, like their counterparts elsewhere across the Continent, had given very little thought to the prospect of interning prisoners during the next conflict.” Like most people, they assumed that such a war would be short and decisive, and that prisoners would

be repatriated at the conclusion of hostilities. Thus the Germans were quite unprepared to house, feed, and otherwise care for the flood of prisoners captured at the war’s outset by their victorious armies. Within two months of the war’s beginning, Germany had captured approximately 258,000 prisoners; six months later Germany held about 654,000 prisoners; and by the end of 1915 there were roughly 1.4 million prisoners in German captivity. By the end of 1916

: German camps contained approximately 1.8 million; by the end of 1917, about 1.9 million; and, by the end of the war, 2.5 million prisoners were in German

custody.””

Of the belligerent states only Russia with 1,96 million prisoners in September

1917 rivaled Germany in the number of prisoners captured.* All the other powers trailed far behind Germany in this category. Even Austria-Hungary, . which held 916,000 Russians as of December 1917, had custody of fewer than half as many prisoners as its northern ally.” With about 200,000 prisoners in custody in the spring of 1917, France held only about 8 percent of the number of prisoners in Germany. When, during the later stages of the war and in its aftermath, France captured another 150,000 German soldiers, this proportion

only rose to 14 percent. With a maximum of about 43,000 prisoners, the

Captivity in Germany 79 Americans held only about 1.7 percent of the number of prisoners in Germany. Not only did Germany hold far more prisoners than did its adversaries, it held them for a much longer period of time. The number of prisoners in German custody exceeded 1 million by August of 1915, one year after the conflict began. Even at the end of the war when their prison population was the highest, the Western allies did not approach these figures. If measured in terms of “captivity/days,” the enormous disparity between Germany and the Western powers would be further magnified. In short, the burden of captivity that Germany bore

_ throughout the war vastly exceeded that of the Western allies combined. If prisoners in Germany did not fare as well as they did in France or the United Kingdom, the primary reason was demographic. In conclusion, it is clear that the German government intended to care for the prisoners it captured in a humane and appropriate manner. It is also clear that

in general its prison camps were rigorous but not overly harsh places of confinement. Although many prisoners died in German custody, it is notable that deaths constituted fewer than 5 percent of the total. This is a far cry from the 20 to 30 percent of prisoners who died in Russian custody during the war, or the roughly 60 percent of Soviet prisoners who died in German custody during the Second World War.® In short, German policy during the First World War

was radically different than it was during the Second World War. During the earlier conflict, Germany, like its Western opponents, made a serious if sometimes faltering effort to conform to the tenets of the liberal tradition in the administration of its prison camp system. Consequently, it 1s difficult to conclude that German prisoner of war policy during the Great War foreshadowed subsequent Nazi policy.

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CAPTIVITY IN FRANCE

Early in 1915, the Austro-Hungarian government complained to the United States that it had received “alarming news concerning the state of persons interned in France.” The Austrian note referred to “unanimous complaints of bad and insufficient food, lack of clothing, blankets and heating and even of severe treatment.”’ Germany lodged similar charges against France. The charges were not wholly unfounded. Prisoners in France did, at times, suffer from cold, insufficient food, and harsh treatment. Generally, however, they did not suffer seriously. Conditions in French camps were often spartan, but seldom severe. Although not bound by the terms of the 1907 Hague Convention, the French prison camp authorities attempted to maintain the standards of treatment it prescribed, Normally they were successful. Like other belligerents during the Great War, France was committed to the ideals of the liberal tradition. During the first few months of the war, France captured relatively few enemy soldiers, although it interned a substantial number of German and Austro-Hun-

garian civilians. By February 1915, the French had captured approximately 50,000 German military prisoners. By December, they held an additional 45,000

civilian enemy aliens in fifty-two camps spread throughout western France.

Despite the small number of German prisoners, there was a great deal of confusion about their custody and treatment. This was caused by lack of preparation, major military reverses, and a flood of refugees from Belgium and

northern France who compounded the problems posed by prisoners of war. Consequently, prisoners were handled in an unsystematic fashion. They were often housed in unsuitable facilities including prisons, castles, and hulks. Tents were often used in the North African camps that the French established. There was little uniformity of camp regulations, with commanders often exercising

82 Part II: The Soldiers arbitrary authority. The latter were often hastily selected and consequently some were not suited to the job of running a prison camp. As the front stabilized and the war settled into its extended stalemate, the French began to regularize their

prison camp operation. Prisoners were transferred to more appropriate facilities, barracks were constructed, and unfit commandants were weeded out. By spring 1917, France held over 200,000 military prisoners. With the exception of 14,000 Austro-Hungarians taken prisoner by Serbia, and transferred to France, they were all German. They were held in ninety camps, seventeen for

officers and seventy-three for enlisted men, spread throughout France and Corsica. The North African camps and those France had maintained in its West African territories were abandoned in mid-1916. Attached to each regular camp was a widely varying number of working detachments of from five to several hundred men. Prisoners in these camps engaged in labor of all kinds, and were usually maintained in quarters such as barracks or ships located near the work

site. There were several hundred such camps in France. The country also maintained about one hundred hospitals for wounded and ill prisoners, and a number of camps called “camps des inaptes” for officers and invalids who could not work. Finally, the French established three sorting camps, “camps de triage,” located in Rouen, Orléans, and Dijon. Upon capture, prisoners were first sent

to the nearest of these, and then on to a permanent camp. Altogether, France maintained over a thousand separate facilities for military prisoners, including permanent camps, working camps, hospitals, camps des inaptes, and triage camps.”

This complicated and expensive network was administered by the French Ministry of War. Each camp or detachment was run by a military officer. The commanders of the working detachments reported to the commandants of the permanent camps with which they were associated. The latter reported to the officer in charge of the military district in which the camp was situated. France, including Corsica, was divided into eighteen such districts, each headed by a general. These in turn reported to the inspector general of prisoners of war who headed the Prisoners of War Bureau in the War Ministry. The inspector general’s

immediate superior was the minister of war. Attached to each of the district | commanders was a regional inspector of prisoners whose primary duty was to superintend the administration of the camps in his district. These officials made

regular inspection tours of the camps in order to oversee their operations. Matters relating to civilian internees, détenus, were within the jurisdiction of the ministries of Justice and Interior, which maintained a similar, though smaller, establishment to administer their camps. Within the Ministry of the Interior was a Civil Internees Bureau."

One prison camp that the French set up early in the war was in the city of Toulouse. It was composed of two sections: one within city limits for officers, and another four kilometers away on the city’s outskirts for enlisted men. The officers were housed in a stone building that had once been a convent, and the

men in several large sheds that had been used to store military equipment.

Captivity in France 83 Although the sheds were well ventilated and lighted, they were cold during the fall and winter months. During March 1915, the sheds were home to 885 men, while 48 officers and their 21 orderlies (German enlisted men) lived in the convent. Each of the men was allotted about 8.5 square meters of space on a special wooden floor for his straw mattress and two blankets, while the officers were lodged in the nun’s former quarters. Officers could decorate the rooms as they chose, and some were quite “tasteful” and comfortable, while others were “rather bare.” The rooms were equipped with wood stoves and the officers were allowed to buy their own fuel and keep the rooms as warm as they liked. The men’s sheds, however, were equipped with only a few stoves around which the men huddled during cold weather. The men ate three meals a day. At 7:10 in the morning they had bread and coffee, at 11:00 they had soup, and at 5:30 in the evening they had more soup.

The quantities were almost the same as French enlisted men ate during peacetime, although the prisoners were given less meat. Their daily diet included | 125 grams of meat, 700 grams of white bread, and 50 grams of rye bread. Twice a week the French substituted codfish for the normal meat ration, something to which the men objected. Not only did they dislike the taste of the fish, they did not think 125 grams of fish was an adequate substitute for an equal quantity of meat. Many believed that they were not really receiving even that much, but the

German prisoners in the kitchen who cooked the meals, insisted that they weighed out the proper amount of fish in each prisoner’s portion. Despite their

objection to the substitution of fish for meat, these prisoners were fed in accordance with the requirements of the Hague Convention that prisoners be given the same diet as troops of the detaining power. Officers did not have such problems because they were allowed to spend up to ninety francs a month for the purchase of food from a caterer. Their diet usually included wine and beer, which they could also purchase. Just as the officers purchased their own food, they made their own arrangements for clothing. The men, however, were not so fortunate. They had to depend on the French government to supply them with the proper garb. This the government did not always do. Many of the men in this camp did not have overcoats, although the authorities promised to provide them. Officers were not normally required to work at this or any other French camp during the war, but they were allowed into a large garden to walk and exercise for two hours in the morning and three hours every afternoon. The enlisted men were also allowed to exercise freely in a large yard beside the sheds. However, about a hundred of these men worked regularly. Half assembled cars while the other half worked in a quarry. These men were part of a working detachment stationed outside Toulouse and did not normally spend the night in the camp. The inmates of this camp were healthy. Of the 885 prisoners, only about 10 were sick on any given day during March 1915. The sick were kept in an infirmary building not far from the sheds. It was warm and patients rested in regular beds.

84 Part IT: The Soldiers A full-time German hospital orderly cared for the ill, and they were seen daily by a physician. The seriously ill men were sent to a hospital. There had been relatively little disease or death in this camp. One reason for the relatively low rate of illness was that adequate, though perhaps primitive, bathing and other facilities existed. Beside the shed was a tent covering several large wooden tubs in which prisoners were allowed to bathe twice a week. The officers had bathing facilities within the convent. Although there was not a wide variety of recreational activity in the camp, some opportunities did exist. One group of men rented an organ and organized a choir which practiced every evening. Aside from general objections to imprisonment, and their dislike of codfish, the prisoners had relatively few complaints. They did, however, take exception to arecently imposed rule prohibiting them from getting butter or lard sent from Germany. The French explained that they had adopted this rule for two reasons. First, these items often arrived rancid and made some of the prisoners sick when they ate them. Second, letters and newspaper clippings with war information were often concealed within such gifts, and since war news was not permitted

the prisoners, the French refused to let the prisoners have them. Overall, however, the prisoners in this camp were relatively content with their lot.’ Across the quay, on the outskirts of Rouen, 618 men lived in tents and an abandoned warehouse surrounded by a high wooden fence surmounted by a coil

of barbed wire entanglements. Unlike the camp at Toulouse, this one was exclusively for enlisted men. Camp Levasseur, as it was known, was commanded by a French lieutenant whose superior was the commander of the local military

district. The prisoners were supervised in their daily activity by their own noncommissioned officers. Most prisoners at this camp worked. Their primary task was the loading and unloading of ships. On 4 August 1915 there were 325 prisoners busily unloading cargo from three ships anchored nearby. At times there were as many as five ships for the prisoners to work on. When, on occasion, there was a dearth of work to do aboard ship, the prisoners were ferried to other work sites on a barge pulled by a special tugboat. The workday usually began at 7:00 in the morning and ended between 6:00 and 6:30 at night. The prisoners were given two breaks of one half hour duration each; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. They were also granted two hours off for lunch. Thus, although the prisoners

may have been at the work site for eleven to twelve hours, they were only expected to put in about eight to nine hours of labor per day. The workweek lasted from Monday through Saturday and was from forty-eight to fifty-four hours long. For their work the prisoners were paid at the rate of twenty centimes, or about 3.6 American cents, a day. The money they earned, and any which had

been sent to them from home, was distributed to the prisoners at regular intervals when their accounts had reached ten to fifteen francs. The money could then be used to purchase food and tobacco at the camp canteen. The franc was worth almost $.18 in 1915. In that year there were 557 centimes to the American dollar.

Captivity in France 85 The food distributed to the prisoners at this camp was about the same as that provided for French soldiers. The diet was similar to that at Toulouse, although

the size of the meat ration depended on whether a prisoner worked, a provision that corresponded to German regulations. Those who worked received 250 grams of meat, while those who did not were given only 125 grams. Either way, this was a substantial improvement over the meat ration at Toulouse. The prisoners ate the same kind and amount of bread as French soldiers. Few if any provisions were made for the recreation of the prisoners. There were no exercise fields, games, orchestras, choirs, or clubs as at some camps. Catholic and Protestant religious services were, however, held on Sundays. Other necessities were also provided. The French built some wooden troughs through which water flowed so the men could wash their faces and clothing. They also erected a wood frame building with several large galvanized iron tubs the men could use for bathing. Soap was given liberally to the prisoners and the

latrines were emptied and disinfected three times daily. Showers were under construction in early August 1915, Like Toulouse, this was a healthy camp, though it was not without illness. One day in August there were thirty-eight men listed as sick and in the camp infirmary. Twelve more were so seriously ill as to have been transferred to a nearby hospital. The infirmary was run by a French military physician with the aid of a German medic who had studied medicine before the war.° On 6 June 1915, a German officer of the 17th Hussars was shot and captured by the French. The bullet penetrated his face just below the right eye and exited

behind the right ear. His captors took him to a large French military hospital about four kilometers outside the city of Caen. The officer was very lucky. He not only survived, but he also regained the sight he had almost lost. By August 1915, he was well along the road to recovery. The hospital had about two thousand French and seventy-four German patients in three separate wards. Of the German prisoners, there were seventy-three men and one officer. One doctor, with numerous assistants, was responsible for all the German patients. All patients, whether French or German, were treated in the same way. They all slept in standard hospital beds, and ate exactly the same diet. All the food was

prepared in the same kitchen. Some of the Germans had been there since the battle of the Marne in 1914; others had arrived recently. Since the hospital opened it had treated 272 wounded German prisoners, of whom 30 had died, for a mortality rate of about 11 percent. The officer in charge of the facility explained to a visiting camp inspector that the death rate was high because German prisoners who arrived at the hospital were generally in much worse condition than their French counterparts. He observed that the prisoners’ clothing on arrival at the hospital was so badly torn and soiled that in about 50 percent of the cases it had to be destroyed.’ When the war began, the French at first allowed many German officers the freedom of certain localities provided they gave their parole, promising not to

86 Part IT: The Soldiers escape. Enlisted men were never given this option. The basic difference was the

presumption that an officer was a gentleman who could be trusted, but the enlisted man was neither a gentleman nor trustworthy. He was merely one of the common crowd. This privilege for officers was curtailed early in the war because Germany did not grant it to captured French officers. Consequently, officers in France were confined to camps just as the men were.

They were established in a variety of unused buildings ranging from barracks and schools to castles, monasteries, and forts. Initially, the number of officers kept in a facility was relatively small, like the forty-eight in Toulouse in 1915, but

as the war progressed and the French captured more prisoners, officer’s camps gradually became larger, ranging in size from as few as sixty to as many as five hundred. The French had discovered that larger camps were less expensive and that discipline was more easily maintained there than in small camps. Officers were ordinarily given favorable accommodations. A general normally had one and often two rooms to himself. Colonels and majors were required to share a room with another officer of about the same rank, while captains and lieutenants were normally housed in dormitories, where they were allotted a minimum of four square meters of floor space and fifteen cubic meters of air space. The French issued to each captured German officer a bed with sheets and two blankets, a table and chair, a washbasin, one suitcase, and a couple of

pitchers, Majors and higher-ranking officers were also given pillows. Any additional furniture an officer wanted could be purchased with his own funds. In addition to dining rooms and the rooms in which prisoners slept, officers’

camps usually had other rooms used for purposes such as recreation and libraries. Three times as much fuel was allotted for the heating of officer’s quarters as was allowed to heat the barracks rooms of French noncommissioned

officers. Double the latter amount was allocated for the heating of recreation and other secondary rooms. A captured officer’s room was lighted twice as well as that of the typical French corporal. As with furniture, officers were allowed to purchase more heat and light with their own money. Lights out was at 9:00 P.M. for lieutenants and captains, and at 10:00 p.M. for higher-ranking officers.’ German officers were relieved of any common drudgery by the orderlies who were appointed to wait on them at meals and in their quarters. Orderlies were German privates who were unable to work and were classed as inaptes. A general was allotted one orderly. Every four majors and colonels had one orderly, while six to seven captains and lieutenants shared the services of one. In addition to being personal servants for the officers, the orderlies were expected to do light work about the camps and to act as tailors, barbers, and cobblers. Given such privileges, an officer could live a surprisingly comfortable life.” The imprisoned private led a more rigorous existence. His quarters were not as commodious as those of officers. The typical enlisted man dwelt in a large wooden dormitory with bunks arranged in two or even three tiers along the walls. Each man, like the junior officers, was allotted an average of fifteen cubic meters

of air space. Each prisoner was given a straw- or seaweed-filled mattress of

Captivity in France 87 ticking and two blankets. They received no sheets or pillows such as officers were given. The mattresses were usually arranged in adjoining pairs, separated by about three feet from the next pair of mattresses. Shelves and hooks were normally arranged on the walls for the storage of clothes and other items. In addition, the French gave each prisoner a small wooden box in which to keep his personal possessions. Noncommissioned officers were generally housed in quarters separate from those of the men. This was the chief distinction in the treatment of these two classes of enlisted men, though there were some minor differences in the quality of the bedding. The important point was that the military hierarchy was respected by this distinction. Some camps for enlisted men were equipped with dining rooms, but most were not. More often than not the prisoners ate at tables and benches running down the middle of their barracks. In many camps there were not even tables for the men to eat at, so they ate where they could, often standing or sitting on

a bunk. Few camps had recreation rooms such as officers enjoyed. The American Young Men’s Christian Association did, however, set up recreational facilities in a few of the nonworking camps. Various shows, concerts, and even movies were put on in these rooms. Although French regulations required that prisoners’ rooms be kept as warm as those of barracks troops, this was not always done. Shortages of coal and kerosene, especially as the conflict wore on, made it difficult for the French to maintain this level of heat at all times. These fuel shortages also reduced the amount of light available to German prisoners." Just as there were differences in the quality of accommodations for officers

and men, there were differences in the quality of bathing facilities. These differences were most pronounced at the beginning of the war. As the French prisoner of war administration became more efficient, the gap between the quality of bathing facilities for officers and men diminished. Officers were permitted to take one hot shower and as many cold showers per week as they wanted. They were also permitted to pay for as many extra hot baths as they desired. Men were generally allowed one hot bath or shower a week, but those engaged in dirty labor could often get a hot bath every day. By spring 1917, men who did especially dirty jobs often took more warm showers than did officers. Ordinary washing of hands and face was usually done at “long concrete or wooden troughs” with cold running water, although by spring 1917, all camps

were equipped with one shower for every fifty men. According to French regulations, each prisoner was allotted 30 liters of water daily and 150 grams of soap monthly. The water allowance for officers was 50 liters daily, and one shower was provided for every forty officers. In one respect the French were

impartial. One latrine was provided for every forty prisoners, regardless of

rank, There is probably nothing of greater importance to prisoners than their diet. This was unfortunately the subject of great controversy between France and Germany during the war — with unpleasant consequences for prisoners on both sides of the front. Article 7 of the 1907 Hague Convention required that the

88 Part IT: The Soldiers detaining power feed prisoners the same quality and quantity of food it gave its own troops.” However, disputes about how much each side was actually giving its captives led to reprisals. In France in 1917 there were three dietary regimes in effect. The “favored diet” (régime de faveur) was given to those ethnic and minority groups among the Central Powers with which France sympathized and whom they thought preferred an Entente victory. These groups included Poles, Czechs, Schleswigers, and Alsace-Lorrainers. The efforts of the major powers to manipulate national minority groups to the detriment of the enemy repeatedly

complicated prisoner of war relationships during the war. The normal diet (régime normal) was given to prisoners from Turkey, Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary, countries with which France had no dispute about the food allocation. The “reciprocal diet” (régime réciproque) was reserved for German prisoners. It was called this because the French claimed that it duplicated the caloric value of the diet Germany gave French prisoners.” During the first year of the conflict France provided all its captives with an approximation of the normal diet of 1917. There was considerable variety in diet from camp to camp, however. The menu was often influenced by the regional variability of food, but by 1916, the French authorities had regularized the diet

provided prisoners throughout the prison camp system. They became more efficient. During the summer of 1916 they first set up the three-tiered dietary regimen.

The primary characteristic of the reciprocal diet was a reduction in the amount of meat provided the prisoners. While the normal diet gave the prisoners 1,750 grams of fresh meat weekly, the former only offered 240 grams of fresh meat and 370 grams of preserved meat and sausage for a total of 610 grams for prisoners who worked. This was a reduction in meat of over 65 percent. Those who did not work suffered an even more severe cut in their meat ration. They were given 240 grams of fresh meat like their laboring fellows, but only 220 grams of preserved meat, for a total of 460 grams or a reduction of almost 74 percent.

The French attempted to compensate for this drastic diminution in the meat allowance by substituting macaroni and vegetables in amounts that would supply

equivalent caloric intake. Meat was not the only dietary element the French reduced to create the reciprocal diet. Originally, the amount of bread was reduced to 400 grams daily for workers and 300 grams for nonworkers, but in May 1916 France and Germany reached agreement on the bread ration. As a consequence, France raised this quota to 600 grams of fresh bread daily for all workers. In return, Germany allowed France to send two kilograms of “bisquited bread” weekly to each enlisted French prisoner in Germany.” Enlisted prisoners supplemented the diet the French provided by purchasing

_ other items at a commissary or canteen generally established in the camps by local merchants. The latter were obliged to stock a variety of common foods and sell them to the prisoners at prevailing prices. In a few camps the prisoners set up their own cooperative canteens. These seem to have worked fairly well, but by 1917 the French decided not to allow the establishment of any more. Never-

Captivity in France | 89 theless, they tolerated the continued existence of those already in operation. Prisoners also received food through the mail from Germany, thus further improving their diet. The French did, however, place restrictions on the kind of food that they could buy or get through the mail. They were not allowed to buy liquor, wine, pastries, or candy at the canteen, nor were they allowed “strong drinks” from Germany. If the French public had to do without these things, the French prisoners of war bureau would not let Germans have them.” Officers purchased all their food at a canteen, which, like those in the enlisted men’s camps, was required to maintain a large supply of common groceries. The canteen could not charge officers more than 2.5 francs a day for groceries. For those officers whom the French paid less than 120 francs a month, the commissary had to supply a day’s food ration at no more than 2 francs. Officers could, if they desired, buy up to 25 francs of additional food weekly. They were not allowed to drink “fine wines” or hard liquor."” Although a prisoner’s wardrobe was not as vital as his diet, it was nevertheless important to his health and well-being, especially during the winter. It also had an effect on morale which is impossible to calculate. According to French regulations, all enlisted men were expected to have at least one suit, two shirts, a cloth hat, and two pairs of shoes. One pair of shoes was supposed to be leather, while the other could be either canvas or wooden clogs. In addition to this, working prisoners were

issued a cotton work suit and straw hat for summer, and a woolen work suit for winter. These outfits were all marked “PG.” (Prisonier de Guerre) in large letters, and were cut to look like German army uniforms. These clothes were all made by German prisoners in the inaptes camps. Attached to each working camp were one cobbler and one tailor to make repairs for each one hundred prisoners. A regulation established in retaliation for conditions in German camps held that all clothing had to be worn until it could no longer be repaired.

Officers were required to wear their uniforms at all times, except when in quarters or engaged in athletic contests. Any regulation uniform could be worn, and they could be obtained by mail from Germany. Unlike the men, however, officers had to purchase their own clothing. All officer’s camps had at least 1 cobbler and 1 tailor to repair clothing and boots for each 150 prisoners. These were usually German enlisted men who had followed the trade in civilian life

before the war." Chapter IT, Article 6, of the annex to the 1907 Hague Convention states, “The

State may utilize the labour of prisoners of war according to their rank and aptitude, officers excepted.””” Accordingly, imprisoned German and Austrian officers in France were not required to work. However, since the war caused a labor shortage in France, most German corporals and privates were required to work. Sergeants were only expected to supervise the work of enlisted men or to act as interpreters. This was one of the clearest distinctions in the way officers and men were treated.

From the war’s outset, the French Ministry of War attempted to make thorough use of the labor of war prisoners. Initially, however, it encountered

90 , Part IT: The Soldiers stiff opposition from the public. Fear and hatred inspired by stories of atrocities

allegedly committed by the Germans motivated this opposition. Eventually, however, the Ministry of War insisted that other branches of the government make use of prisoners on an experimental basis. Accordingly, the ministries of Agriculture and Public Works consented to try out prisoner labor. The experiment was so successful that other departments such as the road services, the navigation services, the commercial ports, and the exploitation of forests requested an allocation of prisoners. Shortly thereafter, private farmers also demanded the services of prisoners. In January 1915, scarcely 10 percent of the nation’s prisoners were employed. By July 1915, approximately 75 percent were

working. After November 1915, the war ministry was unable to satisfy the demand for the labor of prisoners.” In short, the employment of war prisoners grew Very rapidly in 1915. The French willingness to employ prisoners relatively early in the war contrasts rather sharply with the unwillingness of the British to do so until over a year later. French employment of German prisoners was tied

more closely to German employment of French prisoners, which also began

Great Britain. '

early in 1915 and expanded rapidly thereafter, than it was to the policy of its ally Prisoners were employed by the state, private syndicates, or individuals. Private organizations employing prisoners signed contracts with the military authorities which required them to pay a fixed wage and provide quarters similar to those in the camps. Furthermore, private employers had to pay the government a fee for the prisoners’ labor. Conditions at such private camps were generally at least as good as those at the official camps. Private employers often made conditions even better

in order to retain the services of the prisoners. They were expected to work as diligently as ordinary workers. French regulations required that the hours of work be the same as those of civilian laborers in the district. Thus, hours varied from one district to another, especially in the agricultural fields where they were shorter in the winter than in the summer when the days were longer. Only one day off per week, usually Sunday, was required. The pay scale, however, was more uniform. Prisoners, such as those at Levasseur, were paid twenty centimes a day and ten centimes per hour overtime. Private employers sometimes raised this base pay to one franc daily, or supplemented the prisoners’ ration with more food or wine. _ Prisoners were not actually paid in cash, however. They received tokens redeemable - inthe camp canteen for an appropriate quantity of goods. Private employers paid

the state one franc, forty-seven centimes, later raised to one franc, ninety-four centimes, daily for each prisoner. This represented the subsistence cost to the government for each man. The value of the franc in 1917 was approximately seventeen US. cents.” Whether employed by the state or by private organizations, prisoners were supposed to engage in labor of public value. Almost all work was interpreted as being of public utility; therefore, prisoners engaged in all kinds of work. They were commonly employed in factories, shipyards, and mines. By November 1917

only about 40,000 prisoners worked in the fields. Mine work was confined to

Captivity in France 9] professional miners. Generally the French tried to assign prisoners to work with which they were familiar, but this was not always possible. Prisoners who were well-educated had not often performed manual labor, yet that was the kind of

work most available. The French attempted to accommodate these “intellectuals” by employing them as clerks, bookkeepers, and translators, but there was simply not enough work of this sort to go around. When this happened, the intellectuals too were assigned manual labor. This practice evoked complaint from Germany, which threatened retaliation. The French responded by amending their regulations to ensure that intellectuals were assigned to only the lightest forms of agricultural labor.” The 1907 Hague Convention states that the work assigned to prisoners “shall have no connection with the operations of the war.”” Nevertheless, prisoners were often employed in work with a direct relationship to the French war effort. Many were employed in the manufacture of military supplies, while many others repaired roads and rails in the “zone of military operations.” Initially the French government was loath to employ prisoners on tasks with a direct relation to the war effort, but by October of 1915, it became convinced that Germany was doing so. Thereafter, it felt that it was no longer bound by the terms of the treaty, and aggressively organized prisoners in such a way as to best serve the war effort.

With the exception of noncommissioned officers who were placed on the favored list because of their rank, enlisted men received no pay except what they earned by their labor. Those few who were admitted to the favored list were paid five centimes a day. Officers, on the other hand, were always paid. This was in

accord with the Hague Convention of 1907 which held that “officers taken prisoner shall receive the same rate of pay as officers of corresponding rank in

the country where they are detained.” At the beginning of the war the French paid all German majors and higherranking officers 125 francs per month, while paying all captains and lower-ranking officers 100 francs monthly. In the absence of an agreement, the Germans extended the same rate of pay to French officers. Subsequently, however, the

two nations negotiated an agreement regarding officer’s pay. Thereafter, all officers were paid the rate given officers absent from duty (solde d’absence) in the army of the detaining power. Officers interned at the outbreak of the war, like civilians, were not covered by this agreement. The French and Austro-Hungarians agreed some time later to abide by this agreement, so it ultimately bound

all three powers.” _ Just as enlisted men were not given cash, officers were paid in tokens. These

were issued to prisoners by the camp cashier, who received all cash and maintained all records. Any funds an officer had in his possession when captured

were turned over to the camp accountant, who credited them to his account. The maximum an officer could receive in a week was twenty-five francs. This was the most he was allowed to possess at any one time. The cost of board, not to exceed half an officer’s monthly pay, was deducted from his account. For a stay in the hospital, up to two thirds of monthly pay might be deducted.”’

92 Part I: The Soldiers The French permitted officers to organize funds for the relief of fellow prisoners who were in financial trouble. In addition to their regular pay, all officers in French camps were permitted to receive an unlimited number of checks or money orders from home. Thus, their financial status was often supplemented from outside. One thing that neither officers nor men could do, however, was to remit monies to family or friends in Germany or Austria-Hungary. The French believed that this would be desirable, however, and attempted unsuccessfully to reach an agreement with Germany to permit this practice.”

Correspondence with family and loved ones was vitally important to the maintenance of good morale in the camps. To this end the French permitted prisoners to receive as many letters and postcards as were sent them. Officers were permitted to send one postcard weekly, and could write two six-page letters

in pencil per month. Enlisted men were only allowed four pages. Otherwise, regulations affecting the two groups were the same. Prisoners could neither send nor receive telegrams, however. All mail sent to or from prisoners was sent free of postage in accordance with Article 16 of the 1907 Hague Convention which reads, “Letters, money orders, and valuables, as well as parcels by post, intended

for prisoners of war, or dispatched by them, shall be exempt from all postal duties in the countries of origin and destination as well as in the countries they pass through.”” All parcels were opened by camp officials in the presence of the recipient. If no contraband was found, the contents of the package were

turned over to the prisoner. | The mail privilege, like all other privileges, was subject to restriction. The French imposed two limitations on it in response to those they believed the

Germans had established. First, all letters to the protecting power were counted toward the total of two letters a month allowed to prisoners. This would remain a significant issue throughout the war. Second, letters containing complaints that the censors regarded as unjustified were held, and their writers were punished. One such letter reads as follows:

Dear Lena: I must bid you good-bye. You will never see me again. They are slowly starving me to death here, and torturing me besides. They make me sleep

in pools of water. I am wasted to a skeleton and am so weak from rheumatism and cold that I want to die.

Good-bye, dear Lena; never forget what these ... swine have done to me. I should love to see you once more but that can never be, as I can never leave this frightful prison alive. So good-bye from

| Thy Hermann *

The charges contained in this letter were totally untrue. Apparently Hermann wanted to impress his girlfriend with the depth of his suffering. Although written

Captivity in France 93 with innocent intent, such letters could have serious repercussions. People at home believed them and told all their neighbors. They complained to their government which, in turn, threatened to retaliate. At first such letters had been forwarded to their intended destination with explanations, but when the French | found that the Germans were withholding such letters and punishing their authors, they retaliated with a similar measure.”’ All prisoners were subject to disciplinary action for the violation of camp rules or other regulations. Enlisted men were punished at the discretion of the camp

commander, whereas officers were normally only punished by order of the regional commander at the request of the local commandant. Only in minor cases could the local authorities discipline an officer. There were two basic types of punishment to which officers were subject, “severe arrest” (arréts de rigueur) and “fortress arrest” (arréts de fortresse). In each case, punishment consisted of confinement in a room, little different from the regular officer’s quarters. In the early stages of the war, such rooms were often dark and cold, but by 1916 these

cells were generally well lighted and heated. Severe arrest meant that the prisoner could only leave his cell for two hours daily for solitary exercise and to use the latrine. An officer under fortress arrest was treated similarly, but was also deprived of all tokens and could purchase no extra food. All officers were

permitted one bath per week while undergoing punishment. The standard penalty for escape attempts was sixty days of fortress arrest. Under special circumstances this could be increased. Those prisoners who had escaped several

times or were otherwise troublesome were ordinarily transferred to special camps where discipline and security were more strict.”

Enlisted men were subject to the same regulations and discipline as the French infantry. Minor infractions were cause for incarceration in the camp prison —a large room where many prisoners undergoing punishment could be held. More serious violations of the rules justified detention in one of the camp cells. These were small rooms about four feet wide and just long enough to permit a man to lie down. An American inspector who visited Camp Biesard in Rouen during November 1916 wrote that its “prison cells in wooden sheds are each 6x8 x 10 feet high; a small hole in the roof admits light and air, and also water when it rains, which it does about every day during the winter.””° Confinement in a cell was solitary, while prison detention was not. Prisoners being punished were deprived of their mattresses, though they were allowed to

keep their blankets. Both prisons and cells were normally above ground and were reasonably well lighted and ventilated. Prisoners sent to the cells suffered a severe cut in diet. They were given the normal nonworker’s ration only once in four days. This restriction was a retaliatory measure. It was the duty of the camp commandant to determine whether a prisoner being punished would continue to work. If so, he was given particularly hard fatigue labor. Otherwise, such prisoners were forced to march about for three hours in the morning and three hours at night wearing a heavy pack. Escape attempts by enlisted men were punishable by thirty days’ detention in a cell.*

94 Part II: The Soldiers All prisoners, whether officers or men, who were charged with more serious offenses against French civil, criminal, or other laws were tried by courts-martial. They were subject to the same discipline and regulations as French soldiers. The trial and punishment of prisoners for civil or criminal infractions was the subject of considerable diplomatic exchange and was ultimately resolved by negotiation.»

According to an agreement between France and Germany reached in late June 1916, the protecting power — in Germany, Spain, and in France, the United States — would appoint counsel for prisoners to be tried before courts-martial.

Since trials took place in numerous districts throughout France, the American embassy decided to hire local attorneys to represent the prisoners rather than sending lawyers from Paris. A French law firm headquartered in Paris was,

however, hired to act as liaison between local attorneys and the embassy. Initially, the embassy asked German authorities whether to hire an attorney on a case-by-case basis, but before long, the procedure became automatic. Toward

the end of September 1916, the two nations reached a further agreement whereby prisoners who had been or might be condemned for offenses committed on or before 1 September would be given suspended sentences until after

the war. The embassy was accordingly asked not to represent any prisoners accused of committing offenses on or before that date. This system seems to have worked satisfactorily. There were no complaints from Germany. During the nine months after the agreement went into effect, and during which the United States continued to represent German interests in France, the American embassy hired a total of 47 lawyers to defend 207 German prisoners. Typical offenses were theft, insubordination, and striking a superior. Typical punishments were one to three years for theft, and two to five months in jail or up to ten years at “public labor” for insubordination.” The 1907 Hague Convention provided that “Prisoners of war shall enjoy complete liberty in the exercise of their religion.” Accordingly, the French saw to it that both Protestant and Catholic services were conducted in all officers’ camps. While no specific provision was made for religious services in camps for enlisted men, these were not prohibited. Likewise, though no effort was made to provide Jewish or other non-Christian services for either officers or men, no obstacles to such worship were established. The American Young Men’s Christian Association often conducted religious services in the camps.” Initially, music was prohibited in many French camps. This led to reprisals and considerable acrimony, which culminated when these prohibitions were rescinded. Consequently, all prisoners regardless of rank were permitted to acquire and play musical instruments, and to form chorale and other musical groups. The musical and dramatic life in the camps was often quite active. The American camp inspector who visited Biesard saw “hundreds of prisoners crowding around” to listen to the “lively music” of a prisoner band which was playing “prison-made instruments.” The prisoners were quite ingenious in constructing instruments. “The frame of the big bass violin was made of thin boards taken from a macaroni box; the violin keys were cut out of bones from the kitchen.”*

Captivity in France 95 Officers had fairly extensive opportunities to engage in sports. By 1917 almost all French officers’ camps were equipped with at least one tennis court, a soccer

field, gymnastic equipment, and other athletic facilities. This equipment was usually purchased by the officers and maintained by the orderlies.” By 1919 when the Allied Powers met in Versailles to prepare the peace documents, there were about 350,000 German prisoners in French camps. Most were busy repairing damage wrought by the war. Many remained prisoners until

1920 when the French finally began to repatriate the Germans. Many of the German prisoners spent between a year and a half and two years in French custody after the signature of the first armistice agreement. Others had been prisoners since the battle of the Marne or even earlier. When the war began, France rapidly set up a loose chain of small, inadequate prison camps in which abuses were common. Little planning had been done to house thousands of war prisoners on a semipermanent basis. However, before

long France developed a much larger, more efficient prison system in which abuses were more infrequent. By 1915 the French had begun to use “Adrian” barracks. These were made of prefabricated walls, floors, and roofs, which could be rapidly assembled to accommodate any influx of additional prisoners.” The

French prisoner of war bureau discovered the same economies of scale that industry had pioneered in the preceding decades. Increased efficiency not only helped the French to administer their prison system, but also tended to improve camp conditions for the prisoners. While in captivity the typical German or Austro-Hungarian soldier fared relatively well— certainly better than his friends back in the trenches. Despite

the reciprocal diet, the most serious problem with the French camps, the prisoners ate adequately. Shelter, almost always reasonable, improved throughout the war. Mail and other privileges were among the best in Europe. Work, though dangerous when performed near the front, generally promoted rather than undermined the health of the prisoners. Overall camp conditions in France were superior to those further east. It is, however, unfair to compare German and French prison camp conditions directly. Compared to the German prison camp population, the French camp population was rather small. In the spring of 1915, the French held about 7 percent of the number of prisoners held by the Germans. By spring 1917, France held about 10 percent, and at the war’s conclusion, about 14 percent of the number of prisoners in German custody. Consequently, the care of prisoners did not tax the French as much as the Germans. Under the circumstances, it is no surprise that French conditions were superior to those in Germany. Although the French government generally strove to adhere to the provisions of the Hague Conventions and the norms of the liberal tradition, it occasionally fell short. At times it felt driven to violate these standards in order to secure proper treatment of its own captive nationals. At other times deficiencies in French camps were the result of administrative or logistical failures. Whether caused by bureaucratic bungling, political pressure, or diplomatic maneuvering, such problems are attributable in the long run

96 Part IT: The Soldiers to the impact of total war. Like France, the liberal tradition of captivity itself

was subject to the pressures of such a conflict.

CAPTIVITY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

When in August 1914 war broke out in Europe, the United Kingdom, like its enemies and its allies elsewhere in Europe, was unprepared to care for large numbers of war prisoners. Unlike its enemies, it was not immediately called on to do so. The British Expeditionary Force in France did not meet with great success during the war’s first few months and consequently captured relatively few of the enemy. Indeed, by February 1915, when Germany had custody of 625,000 prisoners, Great Britain held only 15,000.’ With so few prisoners the British authorities had relatively little trouble finding suitable housing. Initially at least, the British housed many prisoners in unused buildings that had formerly served an entirely different function. These included factories, schools, rural mansions, and farm buildings. One such camp was located in an old distillery at Frongoch near the town of Bala in Wales. By the end of June 1915, the camp was home to 992 captured German soldiers, 4 sailors, and the

captain of a merchant vessel. |

The distillery was an old stone building constructed around a courtyard in the shape of a quadrilateral. Within it were four large and two smaller rooms fitted out as dormitories. The structure also included a dining hall large enough to seat all the camp’s prisoners simultaneously. This hall was also used for concerts, plays, and classes in such subjects as French, English, mathematics, and shorthand. The four large dormitory rooms each measured 156 feet long by 56 feet wide and accommodated between 190 and 350 men each. Thus, each prisoner was allocated between 25 and 45 square feet.

In addition to the rooms within the building, four standard British army barracks or “huts,” each fifteen feet wide by sixty-six feet long, had recently been

erected. Thirty-five prisoners were quartered in each of these structures. Each prisoner had about twenty-eight square feet of space to call his own.

| 98 Part II: The Soldiers The camp was also equipped with fourteen showers, and a large wash room, each with hot and cold running water. Among prisoners during the First World War, hot water was a relatively uncommon luxury. Two bathrooms were attached to the ends of the dormitory rooms and to each of the huts.

All food served the prisoners was cooked by German chefs in the camp kitchen. In this way the British catered to the culinary preferences of their prisoners. The camp also included a small hospital which in late June had five patients. Since the camp’s opening one prisoner had died of pneumonia contracted after being wounded in battle.

Adjacent to the camp was a three and a half acre playing field that the prisoners were allowed to use. Prisoners could also entertain themselves by reading newspapers or one of the 520 volumes, some printed in English and others in German, that were in the camp library. _ Many of the prisoners in the camp were musically inclined. These prisoners organized an orchestra with a piano, several violins, and a large brass section.

For those who could not play or did not have an instrument there was a seventy-man choir which often combined with the orchestra in presenting concerts to the other inmates.’ This was a fairly typical early camp for German prisoners in the British Isles. Camps like Frongoch were ordinarily surrounded by a series of three fences. _The innermost fence was about three feet high and of ordinary wire. About ten feet beyond this was a six-foot barbed wire fence. The third fence, which stood another ten feet beyond the second, was also six feet high and constructed of barbed wire. The space in between the two outer fences was filled with loose coils of barbed wire. This maze of barbed wire presented a formidable obstacle to any prisoners attempting to escape.”

One of the more unusual features of captivity in Great Britain was the temporary use of ships to house prisoners. When in the winter of 1914 the British concluded that many of their camps failed to provide sufficient shelter from the

inclement elements, a number of passenger liners were pressed into service.’ These were inspected by American diplomat John B. Jackson on behalf of the

German government. |

Jackson discovered that almost 11,000 German prisoners, predominantly civilians, were quartered aboard nine ships moored in three separate groups

of three. One group of ships, Royal Edward, Saxonia, and Ivonia, was anchored in the middle of the Thames. Another group consisting of Scotian, Ascania, and Lake Manitoba, was located near Portsmouth. The third group, which included Canada, Tunisian, and Andania, was anchored off the Isle of Wight. Although the use of ships to incarcerate war prisoners is reminiscent of the British use of “hulks” to imprison rebels during the American Revolutionary War, these vessels were nothing like their infamous predecessors. They were modern ships that had recently been used to ferry Canadian troops across the Atlantic to France. Nevertheless, conditions varied from ship to ship.

Captivity in the United Kingdom 99 The prisoners who were most content with their lot were military men. Accustomed to regimentation, they adjusted to captivity with relative ease. This contrasts sharply with the civilians, many of whom objected strenuously to being imprisoned in the first place. Discontent among civilians was exacerbated by the

widespread existence of a class system that the prisoners established among themselves. Prisoners on several of the ships were divided into three classes based on their

relative ability to pay for various privileges. Aboard the Royal Edward, for example, there was a “first class mess,” admission to which could only be gained by the payment of two shillings, a “first class club” confined to those of higher social standing, and first class cabins, which only the wealthier could afford. The

other prisoners were relegated to steerage and slept on bunks stacked in tiers of three. The restrooms and other facilities provided for these prisoners were the same as those for emigrants destined for the United States or other nations in the Western Hemisphere. Among the “better classes” aboard this ship were three German consular officials. Despite the discontent of many men, the health of these prisoners was fairly good. Aboard the Saxonia, the “rougher element” had been collected. As a result, there was only one class. This caused difficulties of another sort, however. On the day that Jackson visited the vessel, a number of prisoners were being tried by court-martial for attempting to escape. Numerous complaints, which Jackson judged groundless, were made about the food. Additional trouble had cropped up recently when some “undesirable females” had attempted to visit the ship.

Aboard the Ivernia were about 1,700 military prisoners. Generally their morale was good, and although the food was virtually the same as that on the other ships, there were few complaints. The military prisoners were also more used to military cuisine. Conditions aboard the Tiisian were “generally depressing.” A large number of prisoners were sick, many with tropical diseases such as malaria and blackwater fever which they had brought with them from Africa, where they had been captured. Two had died. In addition to the illness, the Tunisian was riven with

dissension. The British had, for example, temporarily suspended the mail privilege in response to the widespread disregard for one of their regulations. The prisoners also complained because newspapers were not delivered to the ship. The problems aboard these ships were not unrelieved. Despite the evident tensions aboard several, many prisoners were able to engage in recreational activities. Prisoners on the Scotian even organized a boat race against a crew from the Ascania. Prisoners aboard other ships were permitted to exercise by rowing.’ Nevertheless it was evident that ships could not provide long-term

housing for prisoners. As a result, prisoners were gradually transferred to regular camps on dry land. The diet in all British camps was essentially the same at any given time because this was closely regulated by the army. The menu changed often during the war,

100 Part IT: The Soldiers however, as the Army Medical Department in the War Office made adjustments according to the availability of various food items, the level of work being done

by the prisoners, and shifting views about appropriate quantities of food. Nevertheless, the basic framework of the prisoner’s diet was established in 1914. At the war’s outset, the daily ration included one and a half pounds of bread or one pound of biscuit, eight ounces of meat, a half ounce of tea or one ounce of coffee, eight ounces of vegetables, one ounce of butter or margarine, and a half ounce of sugar. The ration also included small quantities of condensed milk and pepper daily, and two ounces of tobacco weekly. Within a few months two ounces of beans, lentils, peas, or rice were added to the ration. The diet remained much the same for the next ten months, when two ounces of jam and two ounces of cheese were added to the menu of those engaged in hard physical labor. At

this point the British diet was at its most generous, providing the working prisoners about forty-six hundred calories daily. This was far superior to the diet Germany provided its prisoners, which hovered around twenty-seven hundred

calories throughout most of the war. |

The diet was often modified as flour replaced bread, fish replaced meat, and margarine replaced butter. As these substitutions were made, the caloric value of the diet declined. By May 1917 the standard manual-labor diet provided about 3,000 calories daily. Thus, largely in response to a food shortage in Britain, the diet had declined by almost sixteen hundred calories. In March 1918 as British food shortages increased, beef was replaced with horse meat. Despite this, the

caloric value of the British diet remained higher than that of the standard German diet. In 1919 after the conclusion of the war, the food shortage was alleviated and the prisoners’ diet once again began to rise in caloric content.° British postal regulations were fairly strict. The British permitted prisoners to write two letters weekly. They were supposed to be written in ink, in English “if possible,” and on stationery supplied by the camp authorities. Letters could not exceed two pages and prisoners were not allowed to write between the lines. The contents of letters either written to or received by prisoners were supposed to be limited to their personal or business affairs. It was forbidden to discuss

military or political matters. All correspondence was subject to censorship, which made it possible to enforce these restrictions. Prisoners who violated these rules might lose their postal privilege altogether. Letters sent to a prisoner

that referred to forbidden matters were confiscated and destroyed by the censors. This was not unusual, however, as similar measures were taken by authorities throughout Europe during the war. In addition to mail, prisoners were permitted to receive a maximum of one package monthly.’ Articles 14 and 15 of the 1907 Hague Convention required each belligerent power to establish an “enquiry office” during wartime, the function of which was to maintain accurate records of the “welfare and whereabouts” of all prisoners

of war. The purpose of keeping this information was to enable the office to provide precise details of each prisoner’s status to relatives and others back home who were concerned about his fate.*

Captivity in the United Kingdom 101 Accordingly, the British government set up such an agency at the beginning of the war. It was known as the Prisoners of War Information Bureau. Under the direction of Sir Paul: Harvey and Sir William Lawrence, the British created an individual return for each military and civil prisoner interned anywhere in the British Empire. According to a War Office circular, the “Bureau receives from places of internment lists and particulars of all... prisoners .. . and of releases, admissions into hospitals and deaths. . . . It takes charge of the personal effects of prisoners who die whilst interned in this country and of enemy dead.” This

information was all recorded in a complex card index system that made it possible for the bureau to respond accurately to hundreds of thousands of requests for information about individual prisoners.’

During the course of the war, British forces captured 328,000 enemy prisoners. During the first year and a half or so, all captured German soldiers were transferred across the English Channel to Great Britain for internment. Eventually a total of 164,000 prisoners were distributed in camps throughout Britain. The remaining 184,000 prisoners were held in British-run camps in France.” The prisoners in Great Britain were held in 440 main or “parent” camps and thousands of small working camps spread throughout the country. The large parent camps such as Frongoch normally held a minimum of two hundred prisoners. Camps any smaller than that were subordinate to parent camps, which were administrative and communication centers responsible for the activities and maintenance of their detachments. The parent camps were self-contained units on which the detachments depended for mail, clothing, tools, and other material to carry out their tasks. The number of detachments dependent on one of the larger camps varied widely. One camp had 164 lesser camps associated

with it.

Initially prisoners in British camps were not required to work, although the

1907 Hague Convention permitted the detaining power to require labor of enlisted prisoners. Thus, the prisoners at Frongoch, though enlisted, were not employed. Indeed, the British did not begin to employ prisoners until April 1916, and then only on an experimental basis. The use of prisoners of war was first proposed in order to reduce the need to transport building materials from England to the British Army on the Continent.

Great Britain and France reached an agreement enabling the Expeditionary Force to cut timber and quarry cobble stones in its zone of operations as long as it provided the necessary labor. When the use of prisoners for this purpose was originally suggested to General Sir Douglas Haig, the British commander in chief in France, he reacted nega-

tively. Among the reasons for his opposition to the idea, he cited the likely expense of constructing suitable camps, the fear of escapes, and his expectation

that the prisoners would perform poorly. Despite Haig’s objections, Lord Horatio Kitchener, secretary of state for war, and Walter Runciman, the president of the Board of Trade, prevailed on him to permit the use of prisoners on

102 Part II: The Soldiers a trial basis in France. In the first experiment 3,000 German prisoners were employed at Rouen and Havre. Prior to the battle of the Somme, which began in July 1916, most prisoners were confined to working in ports and forests, but as their numbers increased and the demands of combat intensified, they were employed on a wider variety of tasks. By the beginning of October there were twenty-eight Prisoner of War Working Companies in France, with 12,300 men. Such companies originally had

a complement of 425 prisoners. Four hundred of these were laborers. The remainder consisted of 10 noncommissioned officers whose responsibility it was to supervise the work of the enlisted men, 6 interpreters, 2 tailors, 2 shoemakers,

4 cooks, and 1 medical orderly. Subsequently, another 20 laborers and 10 noncommissioned officers were added, to bring the total complement to 456 prisoners per labor company. The labor companies were guarded by British escort units of between 66 and 116 enlisted men and between 2 and 5 officers. The size of the escort varied with the distribution of the laborers. One officer described the men assigned to escort

companies as “practiced leadswingers, degenerates and physical and mental deficients.” These men were always subject to hard discipline, and were them-

selves equally vigorous in imposing discipline on the prisoners.” : The use of prisoners in Great Britain also began in early 1916. Their use, however, grew at a very slow pace. By March of the following year there were still only 7,000 German prisoners at work in Great Britain. By the end of the war, about 67,000 prisoners were employed in the British Isles. Thus, almost 97,000

prisoners in Britain remained unemployed by war’s end. Compared to Germany’s use of prisoners, this seems remarkably inefficient.

Most of those employed were engaged in agricultural work. The standard workweek was Monday through Saturday, except during harvest season when many prisoners were required to work on Sunday. The prisoners labored for the same number of hours daily as British workers. In the parent camps prisoners who were physically incapacitated for heavy work manufactured such items as mailbags, thermometers, and brushes. An experiment in fabricating glass eyes _ was discontinued after a short time when the only color available was a bright blue that was not popular among the prisoners.” A number of restrictions were initially placed on the labor of those prisoners held in France. The primary purpose of these limitations was to comply with the 1907 Hague Convention, which stipulated that “the tasks must have nothing to

do with military operations.”"* The British interpreted this to mean that prisoners could not be required to do anything with a “direct” relationship to combat. Thus, while prisoners could not be made to handle shells or other ordnance, they could be required to quarry or transport coke or other materials

used in the manufacture of munitions. , Nevertheless, these restrictions were gradually dropped as the necessity for labor intensified. By November 1917, most prisoners were engaged in activities

with a very direct connection to the pursuit of the war. These included the

Captivity in the United Kingdom 103 maintenance of roads and rail lines, quarrying, logging, agriculture, and the construction of barracks and hospitals. Specially qualified prisoners even worked in factories manufacturing locomotives and railroad cars. Given the nature of modern warfare, most ordinary economic activities had some relationship to the prosecution of the war. It would have been virtually impossible to

find employment for so many men that had no impact whatever upon the outcome of the war. Indeed, all Europe’s major belligerent powers became heavily dependent on war prisoners to replace workers who had been sent to the front. Prisoners in France worked six days a week like their comrades in Britain, and nine hours daily. The seventh day was usually devoted to bathing, doing laundry,

and general cleaning around the camp. The prisoners were paid in camp scrip at arate of fourpence daily for laborers and sixpence a day for noncommissioned officers and interpreters.” The British camps for prisoners in France varied from those in Great Britain in that they never included any old buildings like the brewery at Frongoch. They were standard seventy-six- by fifty-eight-yard enclosures surrounded by barbed wire fences eight and a half feet high. Within they consisted of a number of barracks or tents to accommodate the prisoners and a variety of other buildings including kitchens, dining halls, laundry facilities, showers, latrines, hospitals, and administration buildings.” Throughout the war all wounded prisoners and officers were interned in

Great Britain. In accordance with the Hague Convention and practice throughout Europe, officers were not required to work and generally received

treatment superior to that given other ranks. One major camp for interned officers was at Donington Hall in Derby. The main feature of this camp was a “stately mansion” which had formerly belonged to the Marquis of Hastings. The building was surrounded by 10,000 acres “full of splendid trees” through which “cattle, red deer and fallow deer

graze[d] in all directions.” According to a neutral observer, the view was “delightful.” The prisoners were free to walk about on ten acres of this land. They were also permitted to use a portion of it for athletic contests. The rest of the land, however, was fenced off by barbed wire. When the camp was originally opened on 10 February 1915, it had a capacity of 174 prisoners, who were all lodged within the mansion. During the ensuing few months, eight barracks, each intended to accommodate fourteen persons, were erected, thus expanding the capacity of the camp to three hundred. The increased capacity was not used, however, until late in the war. By 15 August 1915, with only 161 prisoners, the camp was barely half full. This was fairly typical

of British camps, especially for British officers’ camps early in the war. It was

also unusual, for throughout Europe, overcrowding was the rule. Of these prisoners, 156 were German and 5 were Austrian. There were 3 civilians among 158 military and naval prisoners. Forty of these prisoners were enlisted men who acted as servants for the officers and civilians.

104 Part II: The Soldiers Among the civil prisoners was Friedrich von Bulow, the brother of Prince Bernhard von Bulow, the former imperial chancellor of Germany. In deference to his rank, he was assigned a room of his own in the mansion. When asked, “he expressed complete satisfaction with his treatment.” The mansion itself was three stories high. The first floor was devoted to sitting

rooms and offices, while the sleeping quarters were located on the two upper

floors. Between one and fourteen officers were accommodated in each bedroom. The higher-ranking officers had fewer roommates. The largest bedrooms, which housed fourteen, measured thirty-five feet by twenty-four feet. Thus, each officer was allocated about sixty square feet, substantially more than the area set aside for enlisted men in Frongoch. Each room was equipped with a fireplace and a stove which provided sufficient heat to keep the prisoners warm at night. The prisoners were also provided with sheets and four blankets with

which to cover themselves. (Most prison camps in Europe during the war provided prisoners with no more than two blankets no matter how cold it was outside.) The beds had steel frames and springs, on top of which were hair mattresses. In short, the prisoners’ nocturnal comfort was amply provided for. In addition to these items, each pair of officers was furnished with a four-drawer dresser and a washstand. The first floor contained a number of sitting rooms, each with a fireplace, two dining rooms, two halls used for a variety of purposes, and a number of other rooms including the kitchen and an infirmary. The latter occupied four rooms each with between two and four beds. When visited in August 1915 there were two patients in the clinic, one suffering “nervous strain,” and the other a “slight fever.” The building also housed a tailor, a shoemaker, a barber, and a canteen “where anything in reason” could be purchased. Latrines and bathing facilities were located in a separate structure about a hundred yards from the main building. It included seven baths and one shower with hot and cold running water for the officers. One separate bath was set aside for the enlisted men. The officer’s diet was not regulated in the same manner as that of enlisted prisoners. Since officers paid two shillings daily for their meals they could eat their fill, and within the limits of availability, determine what they would eat. The acquisition and preparation of food was overseen by a committee composed of

three German officers. A typical daily menu was that of 29 July when the prisoners ate porridge, fried cod steaks, and butter for breakfast, cold meats, fried potatoes, beetroot salad, and butter for lunch, and Vienna steaks, onions, beans, mashed potatoes, and pancakes for dinner. The imprisoned officers could purchase additional items to supplement their diet inthe camp canteen. Its inventory of food included a variety of meats, lobster and herring, vegetables such as asparagus, and fruits such as peaches, pears, apricots, pineapples, and dates. It also included a selection of jams and sauces. The jams available to the prisoners included red plum, strawberry, raspberry, apricot, marmalade, and honey. They could also purchase cakes, cheeses, and

Captivity in the United Kingdom 105 chocolates. The canteen even had a large stock of wines and beer that the prisoners could drink with their meals. In short, an officer interned at Donington Hall could eat as well or better than an ordinary civilian in British society at that time. The canteen was not limited to the sale of food. It also had a large supply of

sundries. Among these were nine brands of tobacco, and ten brands of cigarettes. The canteen also sold books, paper, postcards, diaries, pencils, and pens. It sold clothing and such furnishings as belts, suspenders, gloves, ties, and braces, and such “toilet requisites” as combs, toothbrushes, pomade, shampoo, shaving

cream, soap, razors, and strops. Prisoners could even purchase recreational equipment such as tennis racquets, balls, and “running shoes.” The prisoners used this athletic equipment to play soccer and field hockey on grass fields set aside for this purpose. They also played tennis on two lawn tennis courts located in the camp. Even a gymnasium was set up in a structure that had formerly been a carriage house. The prisoners diverted themselves not only with athletic activities, but also with carpentry, music, and a series of classes in foreign languages, shipbuilding, chemistry, and other sciences. Although the prisoners did have a few complaints, about the price of dental care for example, the conditions in this camp were a far cry from those to which war prisoners have become accustomed in more recent decades. Indeed, they were far superior to conditions in most of Europe during the First World War. Prisoners in Japanese, German, or Russian camps during the Second World War would certainly have regarded Donington Hall as an idyllic country club. Indeed, so would have most other prisoners during the Great War.’” Frongoch and Donington Hall were representative of British prison camps during the First World War. They were relatively pleasant places for internment camps. There was little of the hunger, malnutrition, and disease that stalked many Central and Eastern European camps. British camps were not cold or overcrowded. The prisoners were not overworked or harshly treated. This is not

to say that there were no abuses or deficiencies, but those that existed were relatively few and were usually corrected when pointed out by neutral observers. In short, British camps more nearly matched the prewar ideal of captivity than did those of any other European belligerent. The success of the British prison camp system was primarily the result of two factors. First, the government took seriously the injunction of the Hague Conventions to treat prisoners with humanity. Second, the British captured relatively few prisoners. With fewer than 15 percent of the number captured by Germany, the British naturally found it much easier to care properly for their prisoners. In short, it was relatively easy for Great Britain to comply with the norms of the liberal tradition.

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CAPTIVITY IN RUSSIA

“Unfortunately for Russia’s enemies she lives in a cold country.”"

Three miles outside the city of Orenburg there stood an “ancient one story quadrangular building” called the Myenovoi Dvor or Hall of Barter. For centuries it had been used as a bazaar and a storage area for caravans traversing central Asia. In 1915, however, it was home to about 2,000 Austrian prisoners of war. The building was divided into several rooms measuring eight by fifteen

feet. The ceiling was nine feet high, and each room had one door and a three-by-one-foot window, both of which opened onto a central courtyard. Within each room, about two feet above the brick floor, there was a wooden platform covering three quarters of the floor space. This served as bed, floor, table, and chair to the fifteen prisoners who lived within. At night the men rolled

out the “old and filthy” straw mats on which they slept, and pulled up their overcoats for warmth. The room was heated by a single iron stove, and lighted at night by a small kerosene lamp. When the door was closed against the cold, the room’s only ventilation was provided by the stove pipe. Not all the camp’s prisoners lived in the Myenovoi Dvor. About nine hundred of them lived in one large building approximately seventy-five feet long, forty feet wide, and twenty-five feet high, which was situated in the middle of the quadrangle formed by the walls of the old building. They too lived on wooden platforms, but this building’s interior, unlike that of the other, had three tiers

constructed one atop the other. Each tier provided about three thousand square feet of living space for three hundred prisoners. Thus, each man had about ten square feet to himself. The building was poorly lighted and ventilated,

becoming more uncomfortable near the top. Nevertheless, it was adequately | heated by eight large stoves. There were no restrooms in any of the buildings,

but there were, according to one report, “simply enclosures, boarded over

holes in the ground,” located at some distance from the barracks. The

108 | Part II: The Soldiers prisoners found them difficult to use amidst the snow and inclement weather of the winter. The camp included a clean kitchen, staffed by the prisoners. The daily diet consisted of three pounds of black bread, three fourths of a pound of meat mixed into soup, and all the tea the prisoners could drink. The food was all purchased locally. Unlike most of Russia’s prisoners, these men were given new boots, overcoats, and other clothes when needed. They were allowed two hot baths a month, and could wash their clothes whenever they wanted. In addition, the camp had a small infirmary with six to eight beds set up in one of the Myenovoi Dvor’s twin two-story towers. The infirmary was supplemented by a nearby lazaret (clinic) which contained about eighty Austrian prisoners suffering from minor afflictions. The patients had plenty of warm blankets and clean linen. By Russian standards, this was a good camp.’ When the war began, Russia was no better prepared to care for thousands of

prisoners than were France, Britain, or Germany. Nevertheless, the nation began to accumulate prisoners, both military and civilian, at a rapid rate. There

is no general agreement among scholars about the number of prisoners the

Russians captured. According to official Russian figures, they captyred 1,961,333 enemy soldiers between the war’s outbreak and 1 September 1917, Of these, 159,390 were German, 1,736,764 were Austro-Hungarian, 64,505 were Turkish, and 670 were Bulgarian.? German estimates are significantly higher. According to one analyst, for example, the Russians captured 2,497,378 soldiers from the Central Powers. A Swedish Red Cross worker reported the capture of 2,322,278 prisoners. Another expert, however, reported that the Russians cap-

tured only about 1.5 million Austro-Hungarians. Most experts agree that between 160,000 and 180,000, or between 5 and 10 percent of the total, were German. Most of the remainder were Austro-Hungarians who were captured

in great “catches” in Galicia, Przemysl, and the Carpathians. Hungarian prisoners numbered approximately 600,000. In short, the total number of military prisoners in Russia during the war is unclear. It is reasonably safe to say,

however, that they numbered between 2 and 2.4 million. By comparison, the French held about 200,000 prisoners by this time, or less than 10 percent as many

: as the Russians had captured. In addition to military prisoners, the Russians seized and interned approximately 200,000 civilian enemy aliens.‘ It is not clear how many of Russia’s prisoners died in captivity. The best one

can do is make a rough estimate about the mortality rate. Russian figures compiled between the wars indicate that of a total of 1,961,333 prisoners held in Russian custody during the war, 51,608 died. This is 2.63 percent, a figure regarded by one scholar as “impossibly low, even for the civil population of

Russia.” Other figures seem impossibly high. One could, for example, compare the number captured with the number repatriated. According to one observer, 1,494,000 military and civil prisoners were repatriated from Russia between 1918 and 1921.° Subtracting the 214,000 civilians from this total leaves 1.28 million

Captivity in Russia 109 repatriated military prisoners. Subtracting from Russia’s total number of prisoners the 148,000 who died, escaped, were exchanged as invalids, or enlisted in the Russian Army to fight the Central Powers, leaves 1,813,458 men who could have been repatriated. The difference between this figure and those who were actually repatriated is 319,458. This represents the number of missing, which exceeds the total of all prisoners France held during the war. Adding this figure to the acknowledged dead gives 371,066 dead and missing prisoners. If all these

prisoners died, the mortality rate would be 18.9 percent. High as this figure

seems, it may be too low. Hungarian records alone indicate the death of approximately 300,000 Hungarian prisoners.’ Red Cross officials at the time

estimated that as many as half of Russia’s prisoners had died. Since many _ prisoners died en route to camps and were not officially listed as prisoners, they were not included in the official tally. Many others probably died in the chaos of Russia’s civil war, in which they became embroiled. Considering that 5 to 10 million Russians are known to have died during the civil war and subsequent famine, perhaps it is not unreasonable to estimate that between 400,000 and 600,000 war prisoners died in Russian captivity. This is a range between 17 percent and 25 percent, or roughly five times the death rate in the German camps, which themselves were severely criticized for their harshness by the Allies both during and after the war. Indeed, the death rate in German camps led to accusations of war crimes, although no major trials took place in the aftermath of the First World War as were held after the Second. If such accusations could be brought against the Germans with their 5 percent mortality rate, they could also plausibly be brought against the Russians with their much higher rate of death. Given the professed adherence of the Russian government to the tenets of the liberal tradition as encoded in the 1907 Hague Convention, how could so many prisoners have been permitted to die in Russia?

Much of the answer lies not in the attitude of the government, but in a combination of circumstance and ineptitude. The capacity of the Russian Army was stretched to the limit by the struggle on its western front. It could not conduct a successful offensive let alone run a huge system of prison camps. With the outbreak of revolution, the army lost all capacity to administer the camps, and with the onset of civil war, the prisoners became pawns in the intense political conflict that led to the development of the radical tradition of captivity. Harsh circumstances and ineptitude cannot fully absolve the Russian government or its successor, the Soviet government, of responsibility for the fate of prisoners who fell into its power. Within the war’s first few months, Russian authorities made decisions that constituted serious departures from the spirit if not the letter of the liberal tradition as codified in the Hague conventions. As a result of these decisions, the government treated prisoners as potential recruits in an ethno-political struggle against the Austro-Hungarian Empire rather than as disarmed enemies, for whom the war was over. Early in the war, for example, the Russians decided to put the majority of their prisoners, including all Germans, in Siberia. Russian officials claimed that this

110 Part IT: The Soldiers was done because there was not enough room for all these men west of the Urals, but this was clearly not the case. One reason for sending prisoners to Siberia was military. Prisoners could be more easily guarded in the enormous Siberian hinter-

land than in the more populous region to the west. As one observer noted, “In _ Siberia one hundred prisoners could be guarded by one Russian soldier, whereas in Russia it would have taken ten.”* This allowed more soldiers to go to the front. Furthermore, just as Britain, France, and other powers used remote parts of their empires as penal colonies, Russia had a long tradition of using its Siberian hinterland to banish or incarcerate troublesome subjects. The reason for banishing all German prisoners to Siberia, however, was not military, but political. Itwas a deliberate effort to make life more uncomfortable for German prisoners and to give preferential treatment to prisoners of Slavic descent. The Russian authorities hoped in this way to exploit the ethnic divisions within Austria-Hungary and to hasten the dismemberment of that empire. This was a sharp departure from the liberal tradition that held that once captured, prisoners were no longer participants in the conflict. After the collapse of the old regime, the Soviets continued and expanded this policy, harnessing it to revolutionary purposes. Although the Russian authorities intended to send most prisoners to Siberia, they never accomplished this objective. As it turned out, Russia’s prisoners were distributed among all its thirteen military districts. According to official figures,

some 836,437 prisoners were held in six districts distant from the front, while the remaining 977,021 were distributed among the seven districts adjoining the

front.? Nevertheless, the Russians did succeed in sending most German prisoners to Siberia. That vast region was divided into three large military districts, the Steppny district in the west, with headquarters in Omsk; the Irkutsk and Trans-Baikal district in central Siberia, with headquarters in Irkutsk; and the Priamur district in the far east with headquarters in Habarofsk. The supervision of war prisoners was the direct responsibility of each regional military commander.” By mid-April 1915 there were about 150,000 military prisoners in the Steppny district. Of these, 100,000 were Austrian, about 25,000 were German and the remaining 25,000 were Turkish. There were relatively few Germans because they

had been sent as far east as possible."

Conditions in the Steppny district during the early spring of 1915 were uniformly poor, although they had improved since winter. An epidemic of spinal

meningitis or “spotted typhoid,” which had carried off several hundred prisoners during the winter, had mysteriously faded away. The Russians had organized a workshop at a camp in Omsk, and about two hundred prisoners were busy making boots, tailoring uniforms, sculpturing, and painting. The food was more “abundant and palatable” than it had been. Despite these and other

improvements, Russian camps remained desperately overcrowded. Medical and water supplies remained inadequate. The men complained that there was not enough water to wash their clothes— and sometimes not even enough to wash themselves.”

Captivity in Russia 111 After the initial onrush of prisoners captured during the winter of 1914-1915, the Russians attempted to catch up with the flow by constructing more barracks in which to house them. Tragically, their efforts failed, and accommodations were never able to keep up with the huge flow of Austro-Hungarian prisoners seized on the battlefield.

On 20 April 1915 there were 71,270 military prisoners in the Irkutsk and Trans-Baikal district. By early June there were about 100,000. Of these, about 12,500 were German and about 2,000 were Turkish. The remainder were Austrian.” Conditions varied greatly from one camp to another. In one camp on the outskirts of Irkutsk in April 1915, 5,370 prisoners dwelt in one-story wooden barracks ordinarily used by the Russian army. Each building was divided into two large rooms which were home to about 125 prisoners. They slept on wooden platforms with straw mattresses. Noncommissioned officers were billeted in a separate room. The barracks were cleaned by the prisoners and inspected daily by the Russian commandant. Each prisoner was given three pounds of black bread daily, one pound of potatoes, two thirds of a pound of cereal, and all the tea he could drink. This was the same ration given the ordinary Russian soldier. The camp had a small infirmary which was equipped to treat minor ailments. In addition to the infirmary, the camp had a small boot-making _ shop which employed thirty prisoners. A clothing repair shop was under construction during the spring of 1915. When completed, this shop allowed the prisoners to repair their clothes."

Conditions in a camp at Krasnojarask were distinctly inferior to those at Irkutsk. The hospital, for example, was overcrowded. There were only 415 beds for over 1,000 patients, about 600 of whom had meningitis. Since about 200 of the patients were Russians who were given preference for the beds, only about 200 beds remained for some 800 prisoners. With about 60,000 prisoners, the Priamur district was the least populated in Siberia during the early stages of the war. The prisoners were primarily Hun-

garians, Turks, Germans, and Austrians who lived in seven large camps distributed along railroad spurs. Prisoners of Slavic descent were seldom sent this far east. During the first year of the war relatively little was known about the prisoners in this region, although meningitis was thought to be common in several camps.”° Since there were no official camp inspections in 1914, and few if any reliable

reports were made, the fate of prisoners in Russia during the first few months of the war was a mystery to the outside world. In this information vacuum, rumors of terrible conditions spread rapidly. Many unofficial reports about prison conditions filtered back to the American mission in Petrograd, which as representative of the protecting power, was responsible for looking after German prisoners in Russia. Travelers, foreign diplomats, and even high-ranking Russians described the allegedly deplorable situation of German and Austrian prisoners they had seen or heard about. The persistence and variety of such

reports led American ambassador George Thomas Marye to conclude in

112 Part IT: The Soldiers February 1915 “that the condition of German and Austrian war prisoners at various places in Russia is one of much hardship and suffering.” In his judgment, this was not due to cruelty or any “intentional disregard . . . of the principles and

promptings of humanity,” but rather due to a “faulty system for the care and management of the prisoners which does not take sufficiently into account the difficulties and necessities existing at the different places of detention.””” Modern scholars agree with this assessment, pointing out that the Russian authorities efficiently handled small numbers of prisoners taken during relatively quiescent periods, but that they were overwhelmed when they captured huge armies of prisoners at the peak of battle."® - John K. Caldwell, the thirty-three-year-old American consul in Vladivostok,

submitted one of the earliest reports about prisoners. He relayed complaints that guards had beaten prisoners and stolen their belongings. He also reported that the Russians had not paid their prisoners in several months. According to Caldwell, military prisoners “receive[d] nothing but lodgings in barracks and food—no bedding, and no clothing. .. . In many cases they have only tattered summer uniforms and worn out shoes.” His report, however, was based on secondhand information. The Russian authorities did not grant permission to inspect camps to the American diplomatic mission until 20 February 1915, and the first trip did not begin until 5 March. It was a month later before a report about this trip was submitted to the embassy.” Even this trip covered only a minority of Russia’s prison camps. Pending the completion of more extensive inspection tours, Marye had to rely on unofficial sources of information. Among these sources were several Americans who interested themselves in the fate of the Austrian and German war prisoners in Siberia. A number of Germans, Austrians, and Americans formed a relief committee called the Hulfsaktion in Tientsin, China, in November 1914. In cooperation with Paul Reinisch, the American minister in Peking, and the Red Cross, it attempted to arrange for the distribution of relief materials to the prisoners in Siberia. The

_ forty-six-year-old Reinisch, a noted scholar of Far Eastern affairs who was appointed to his post by President Woodrow Wilson in 1913, set up an advisory

committee on the relief of war prisoners which included F A. Sterling, the legation’s second secretary; Dr. C. W. Young of Union Medical College; Dr. Charles Lewis, president of the Medical College at Paotingfu, China; Charles L. Ogilvie of the American Presbyterian Mission in Peking; and Roger Ames Burr and Dr. Harry V. Fuller, both of Peiyang University in Tientsin, China.”

Reinisch made several unsuccessful efforts to gain permission from the Russian authorities for the distribution of relief materials. Frustrated by Reinisch’s failure, Fuller and Burr decided to go to Siberia on their own. Accordingly, they left Tientsin on 23 December 1914 and, after stopping off in Harbin, arrived in Vladivostok on the morning of December 28. After spending a couple of days there conferring with Caldwell and making arrangements for the shipment of relief supplies from China to Vladivostok, Burr departed for

Habarofsk. During the late afternoon of 31 December, his train stopped at

Captivity in Russia 113 Nikolsk, a city of about 30,000, where he encountered Dr. Eugene Baracs and Dr. Emmanuel Distler, two Austrian physicians, in a pastry shop.” Over tea and cakes, the two doctors explained that they had been captured near Lublin in September, transported to Nikolsk, and given the freedom of the town by the Russians. They informed Burr that there was a large camp for

enlisted prisoners located nearby, but that owing to an “epidemic” of escape attempts, most of the officers had been sent to a camp at Krasnaia Retchka where they could be more closely guarded.” The doctors had been allowed to remain in Nikolsk to help treat some 265 German and Austrian prisoners in a hospital attached to the camp. After dark, Burr and the two doctors slipped by _

a sentry and entered the hospital in order to talk to the patients and other medical personnel. The hospital was located in one of several barracks buildings vacated by Russian

troops who had been sent to the front. Of the 8,000 prisoners in the camp, the 250 most seriously ill were in the hospital, while the other 7,750 lived in the remaining barracks. The hospital rooms were heated, but the stoves were only sufficiently large and numerous to heat the rooms to between fifty and fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit

during the daytime. At night the temperature dropped sharply. Nevertheless, in Burr’s judgment, the patients were “comfortably quartered in large, airy rooms.” Each had a cot with mattress and pillow, one blanket, pyjamas, robe, and slippers. Those in the barracks, however, slept on a wooden platform they had constructed over the concrete floor in December. Previously they had slept directly on the concrete. Most had neither blankets nor overcoats. They were clad only in light spring uniforms. Bronchitis, influenza, and pneumonia were consequently quite common among the men, many of whom wished they could go to the hospital where

they would receive better treatment.” Most of the patients had relatively minor illnesses and were convalescing well, but there were others whose plight was more serious. Three were “hopelessly ill with brain fever,” a condition said to prevail among prisoners in the region. One old man had already “lost his mind.” Burr also saw one patient whose feet “were literally eaten up by the frost,” and he learned that “cases of frostbite were daily

occurrences and that a great many men had lost fingers, ears and toes in this manner.”” The daily meal, which consisted of a bowl of soup and a pound of black bread, was served at noon. The soup usually consisted of cabbage, potatoes, and some meat or fish. This, Burr judged, would have been adequate if the “raw materials” were better, but they were not. “The result” was, he noted, “that the men cannot

eat a great deal of what they get; or if they do eat it, they are apt to go to the hospital suffering from stomach and bowel complaints.”” Numerous prisoners were suffering from typhoid which Burr attributed to drinking polluted water. Although the camp itself left much to be desired, Burr’s overall impression of the hospital was “decidedly good.” It was superior to a pair of camps further up the rail line, which usually transferred their sick and wounded to Nikolsk for treatment because their own facilities were so inadequate.”

114 Part IT: The Soldiers After leaving Nikolsk, Burr continued his northward journey toward Habarofsk, the location of the headquarters of the Priamur military district. Since the army was in charge of prisoners, this was the administrative center for all prisoner of war affairs in the Priamur region. Here he spoke with the chief

of staff, who explained that he could not visit the officer’s camp at Krasnaia Retchka, a small town about twenty versts from Habarovsk (one verst equals thirty-five hundred feet), because numerous escape attempts had been made, causing an outbreak of “spy fever” among Russian officials.” Despite the handicap caused by relatively uncommunicative officials, Burr pieced together the first overall view of Russia’s east Siberian prison camps. He determined that in December 1914 there were seven camps in the Vladivostok _

and Priamur districts with a total of twenty-three thousand to twenty-four thousand prisoners. One camp in Habarofsk held about four thousand noncommissioned officers and men. Mainly Austrian, they were quartered in relatively good conditions in Russian army barracks. The prisoners were paid fifty rubles

per month and slept on straw mattresses and cots. Burr concluded that they

could not “be regarded as being in a very bad plight.” a During his journey through the Priamur district, Burr found several additional

camps with serious problems, At one there were about fifteen hundred prisoners, many of whom could not be housed in the military barracks that were

the primary quarters at the camps. Instead, they were forced to live in old wooden sheds which provided little shelter from the cold, and as a result, the prisoners suffered “terribly.” Burr also noted that the water was bad and that the men suffered from a wide variety of maladies caused by the war and the rigors of the journey to the camp. Exhaustion reduced the ability of the men to

resist illness; thus colds, influenza, rheumatism, pneumonia, typhoid, and dysentery were commonplace. Water, food, and fuel supplies were generally low in Siberia. Lighting was almost always insufficient, a matter of major concern in northerly camps where, during the winter, daylight lasted only a few hours daily.

Sanitation in camps was rudimentary, and the enforcement of standards of cleanliness was lax. It was as a consequence of conditions such as these that thousands of prisoners perished during the winters of 1914-1915 and 19151916.” Burr also noted that prisoners suffered grievously on the trip from the front

to the prison camp. They were not given enough to eat, and were often transported in “unheated and even open, freight and cattle cars... . The result,”

he wrote, “was that many of the prisoners arrived at their destinations with clothes that were masses of ice, and with their toes, fingers, ears, and noses frozen, while others were exhausted and weak from lack of food.” Burr concluded his trip in early January just as two other Americans representing the Red Cross, Charles Lewis and Charles L. Ogilvie, departed Peking with a shipment of medical supplies for prisoners in Russia. Like Burr, they traveled first to Vladivostok and then to Habarofsk, where they made arrangements with Russian military officials to distribute the relief materials. Unlike

Captivity in Russia 115 Burr, however, they succeeded in traveling westward to the Irkutsk, Yenisei, and Trans-Baikal provinces, becoming the first neutral observers to investigate the condition of Russia’s war prisoners in central Asia. While en route to Irkutsk

they passed many troop trains carrying prisoners east. By this time prisoners were arriving in Siberia at the rate of about three thousand a day. About five hours east of Harbin, their train collided with another train carrying Russian soldiers. While there were no injuries aboard their “express,” six soldiers on the

other train were killed and about forty were injured. Lewis and Ogilvie took charge, spending the next several hours bandaging broken limbs and gashedand torn flesh.*!

Once they arrived in Irkutsk, Lewis and Ogilvie conferred with the local military commander who agreed to have the army distribute relief material shipped from China. Their meeting was cordial, yet they noted in their report that “there seem[ed] to be a feeling” among Russian officials in general “that somehow or other the Americans [were] working for the Germans.”” Given that Austrians and Germans dominated the Hulfsacktion, such Russian suspicions

should not have been surprising. As a result of these fears, neutrals were not allowed to distribute anything in the camps directly. Ogilvie and Lewis consequently were denied permission to visit any of the camps. Despite this handicap, they gathered a good deal of information about camp conditions. They identified

a half dozen camps for military prisoners, which varied in size from three thousand to fifteen thousand men. They also located civilian camps at several sites along the Angara and Lena rivers.” Based on the evidence they reviewed, Lewis and Ogilvie concluded that there were “many irregularities” in the treatment of prisoners. There was not enough soap or water to keep the men clean. “Some of the camps are alive with vermin

at the present time and unless something is done speedily to remedy this condition,” they warned, “there is great danger of a terrible epidemic within a few months. Already several cases of typhus fever have developed as well as smallpox and the danger cannot be over-emphasized.”™ This warning was to prove prophetic. A typhus epidemic in a camp at Stretensk which lasted until January 1916 killed a major proportion of the camp’s inmates despite the efforts of a pair of prisoner physicians. Lewis and Ogilvie attributed the generally poor conditions in Russian camps to four basic factors. First, prisoners began to arrive long before they were expected. Five thousand prisoners arrived at one camp in Siberia in October although none were expected before the next April. Camps such as this were consequently unprepared. There were no bed racks, baths, or adequate toilets. These problems caused serious suffering. Second, the weather was more severe

that winter than it had been for many years, with temperatures sometimes descending to “fifty and even sixty below zero [F]” Even had the barracks and

heating stoves been in good repair, it would have been difficult to keep the prisoners warm. The leaky old frame buildings could not be kept warm. This promoted illness among the prisoners. Contributing to this problem was the

116 Part II: The Soldiers third factor mentioned by Lewis and Ogilvie: the prisoners’ lack of adequate clothing. Most were captured wearing summer uniforms, These rapidly wore out, leaving the soldiers with little clothing to keep themselves warm. As the observers noted, “Some were barefoot and others were half naked.” Finally, they pointed to the long trip from the front to the place of detention. Prisoners were transported in the same sort of boxcars used for Russian soldiers. A typical boxcar had a small window in each corner, two doors, and a stove in the middle. Three wooden tiers were located at each end of the car. The lowest reached from the door to the wall, while each succeeding tier was narrower than the one below it. The men lived on these wooden racks for the duration of their trip, which could be as short as several days or as long as several weeks. “Those fortunate enough to get upper berths managed to keep warm, but those who were below had their legs and feet frostbitten.”*’ Those who sat against the thin wall often had their “clothes frozen to the boards.” Russian soldiers, who were accustomed to the cold weather and were clad in heavy boots and sheepskin coats, could keep reasonably comfortable in the cars, but prisoners, exhausted by wounds, illness, and the rigors of combat; clad only in light garments; and used to a warmer climate, suffered greatly on these journeys, and arrived at camps with little remaining resistance to disease. Frequently, the prisoners waited at railroad sidings for days without food or sanitary facilities. When

in transit, the doors were locked from the outside, thus preventing the prisoners from ventilating the car with fresh air. Occasionally, carloads of prisoners were totally forgotten. On one such occasion, the Russian authorities opened a boxcar and found scores of Turkish prisoners frozen to death.” _ Given these conditions, Lewis and Ogilvie were not optimistic about the fate of Russia’s prisoners. When they returned to China, they turned their report over to Reinisch, who sent it to the U.S. State Department. In mid-February, Russia gave the United States permission to inspect its prison camps. Unfortunately, the permit granted the American embassy enabled only one person to conduct tours of inspection. This was in marked contrast to the authorization given American embassies in other belligerent capitals. In France, Germany, and England, ten to fifteen different embassy representatives were allowed to visit camps. Consular officials were also permitted to conduct inspections. This was not allowed in Russia. This restriction would have made the task extremely difficult in any country, but Russian distances multiplied the problem. As Marye wrote, “In view of the vast distances which must be covered in order properly

to report respecting these matters, the work which the embassy in Russia is carrying out is incomparably more difficult than the same task in more compact

countries.” As a consequence, it became virtually impossible to conduct a thorough and regular program of camp inspections. The American mission did

the best it could, but became embroiled in constant disputes with both the Russians and the Central Powers. The Americans could not please both sides.” Nevertheless, Marye appointed Montgomery Schuyler, a career diplomat, to

attempt the task. Schuyler decided to survey Russia’s camps in a series of

Captivity in Russia 117 separate trips. He began with the Turkestan military district, avoiding ground covered by Burr, Lewis, and Ogilvie. During this trip, he traveled over six thousand miles by train and visited seven camps in sixteen days. In general his report was reassuring, despite the “irregularities” and other problems he encountered. He noted that military prisoners fared much better than civilian prisoners. Military prisoners, however, also had difficulties. Many of the Austro-

Hungarian prisoners complained that they never received any mail. Upon investigation Schuyler discovered that, owing to a shortage of translators, the censors in Tashkent refused to forward mail unless written in German, French, Russian, or English. Since most of these prisoners could only read and write in their native Magyar or Serbo-Croatian tongue, they were unable to communicate with their loved ones. Another American inspecting a camp in the Moscow military district a few months later found a similar situation prevailing. The only prisoners who had received mail from home were Galician. None of the Hungarians, Rumanians, or Bohemians had received any mail.” This unfortunate situation was not caused by Russian animosity toward their captives. It was merely another expression of the numerous ways in which the government was unprepared to deal with war prisoners. Schuyler discovered another bureaucratic impediment to rapid communication between prisoners and their families when he investigated the Inquiry Bureau of the Russian Red Cross. There he found that lists of prisoners were not made out until after the prisoners arrived at their final destination. Since several months could elapse while prisoners were shipped into the interior by train from central distribution points such as Penza, their fate would remain unknown for an inordinate period of time. Those who died en route were never even recorded as captured. They would be listed as missing in action and their families would never learn their fate. Again, however, the Russians did not do this out of spite. It was merely the unforeseen consequence of a bureaucratic military regulation. Schuyler did, however, note that the Russians discriminated deliberately against their German prisoners. Overall he concluded that “Austrian subjects, especially Slavs, are treated as well as can be expected. Germans, however, are being systematically annoyed and humiliated in many minor ways as a protest against the treatment of Russian prisoners in Germany as reported in Russian

newspapers.” During his inspection of camps in the Tashkent area, Schuyler found some 10,000 Austro-Hungarian prisoners, of whom about 100 were officers. They dwelt in about thirty barracks buildings located within two miles of the city. Overall, he found this camp to be quite satisfactory. The prisoners were allowed to take sun baths during the spring, and most of the men would soon begin farm labor at ten kopecks a day. Among these Austrians, however, there were 112 Germans for whom life was not so pleasant. The commandant, “a surly brute,” had received “orders from Petrograd to make life miserable for them.” Accordingly, they were housed in “Disciplinary Row,” a poorly ventilated, foul-smelling

118 Part IT: The Soldiers building barely large enough to contain the men. The other German prisoners had already been sent further east, where conditions were distinctly harsher than they were in the Turkestan district. In a camp at Krasnovodsk, he found that the Russian policy of harassing German prisoners in retaliation for the alleged mistreatment of Russian prisoners in Germany had been extended to Germanspeaking Austrians. Schuyler attributed this to the camp’s officious comman-

dant, an officer who seemed unable to recognize the difference between Germans and Austrians, but it is likely that this was part of a deliberate campaign to divide Germanic Austrians from Slavs and Hungarians. “

~ Commandants often exercised their authority in an arbitrary manner. The camps were usually situated at some distance from regional headquarters, and commandants were granted wide latitude in their administration. This led to a lack of uniformity of treatment from camp to camp. Each commandant ran things in his own way. In many cases, commandants did much to alleviate the suffering of their charges, but others abused them in ways of which the Russian government would not have approved. In some cases, even the guards could seriously affect the quality of camp life. In one camp of three thousand men in Samarkand, Schuyler insisted on seeing the toilet facilities, whereupon he was taken to a corner where he found “a sort of open cistern, planked over with only nine holes, and no roof or covering of any sort for rainy weather.” Upon further investigation he discovered that there was a perfectly good restroom in camp which had been reserved for the guards.” The apparently well-meaning but incompetent Russian commandant claimed ignorance of this abuse and immediately ordered it eliminated. Such examples

of poor administration abounded in the Russian prison camp system and - contributed to the hardships suffered by the prisoners. On completion of his inspection tour, Schuyler returned to the United States. His place was taken by Herbert H. D. Pierce, who picked up where Schuyler had left off. During the spring of 1915 he inspected a series of camps in the Moscow military district. He found, to his initial surprise, that many of the camps were “quite devoid of prisoners.” This, he discovered, was because the Russians

had begun to make use of the labor afforded by the prisoners.” Shortly before the overthrow of the Romanov monarchy in February-March |

1917, the government estimated that 1.077 million prisoners of war were employed at some form of labor. Of these, about 43 percent were in agriculture,

27 percent in mines and factories, 16 percent in railroad and canal work, 3 percent in forestry, and about 11 percent were engaged in other forms of labor. Agricultural labor allocation was regulated by a complicated system. A farmer : who wanted to employ prisoners had to apply to the local zemstvo, or governing assembly, for permission. If the board approved the request, its recommendation was sent to the district governor, who in turn sent the request to the military. If the military approved, the zemstvo board allocated prisoners to the applicants

for their labor. During 1916, they allocated 62 percent of prisoners to large landowners, and 38 percent to small peasant farmers. The army placed various

Captivity in Russia 119 restrictions on the use to which prisoners could be put. One required that they be employed in gangs of no less than thirty at a time. This restriction was quite a hardship for small farmers. Nevertheless, prisoner labor was a bargain for those who obtained it, because prisoners were paid at much lower rates than those prevailing in the region. In Taurida, for example, a Russian laborer was paid four rubles daily. For a prisoner’s labor, the farmer paid only eight rubles a month. Of this sum, the prisoner was allowed to keep only 4.42 rubles, or roughly $.98 a month in American currency.” Despite the 1907 Hague Convention’s prohibition of the use of prisoners for work related to the war effort, Russia employed approximately one third of its working prisoners on the construction of fortifications and roads within military regions. This released numerous Russian soldiers for combat operations and may have influenced the course of battle. However, as one historian noted, the Central Powers were doing the same thing.” The labor performed by prisoners was often conducive to their health and well-being. It provided good exercise — which was very salutary when combined with sufficient food and a reasonable climate. However, just as often the labor was not salutary. It has been asserted, for example, that twenty-five thousand prisoners lost their lives constructing the Murman railroad during 1916.” Russian prisoner of war camps, like those elsewhere, quickly became complex social organizations. Beneath the formal organization imposed from above by the camp authorities, informal arrangements flourished. The camps were immigrant communities, with their own languages, cultures, customs, and conflicts. Numerous newspapers reflecting the variegated background and interests of the

prisoners were published in the camps. By 1920, there were published, with Bolshevik encouragement, over two hundred newspapers in twelve different languages. With sixteen dailies, six weeklies, and a number of journals, there were a total of fifty-nine German-language publications alone.” Each national group thus had a number of newspapers that tended to encourage that group’s social cohesion. These ethnic groups tended to stick together, protecting their own interests and advancing their own claims against those of their ethnic rivals. Politics were tinged with ethnic conflict. They initially revolved around such issues as the distribution of work assignments, quarters, and various privileges. Later, the issues raised by the revolution became paramount within the camps. The camps were not closely knit communities. Prisoners often became disenchanted with one another. In an environment devoid of meaningful employment or responsibilities, petty rivalries, disputes, and malicious rumors often occupied the prisoners’ time.”! Like prisoners throughout Europe, those in Russia did everything they could imagine in order to overcome the tedium of captivity. They formed orchestras and choruses, theatrical groups, and debating teams. They played cards, chess,

and checkers. They developed a variety of handicrafts ranging from carving wooden figurines to sculpture and pottery. They did calisthenics, and organized athletic teams and leagues.

— 120 Part IT: The Soldiers In addition to all these activities, they organized colleges with sophisticated

curricula, qualified faculty, regular lectures and examinations, printed schedules, and reserved class space. The most popular courses were in foreign languages and the administration of business. Many illiterate prisoners learned to read and write in these colleges. After the war many prisoners were given credit at colleges or universities back home for the classes they took while in captivity. These educational activities were supported by libraries built in large measure with books contributed by German and Scandinavian charitable organizations. The American Young Men’s Christian Association also contributed

to this work.” |

Despite these diversions, the prisoners were still beset by harsh conditions of captivity. Overcrowding was endemic, clothing and housing were poor, diet was usually unsatisfactory, and labor was often grueling. To this litany of difficulties the Russian government added another that would bear fateful fruit in the years after the fall of the monarchy. It conducted a systematic campaign to exploit the ethnic animosities of its prisoners. Schuyler and other American observers often noted the Russian practice of favoring their Slavic prisoners and harassing those of Germanic origin, but they failed to appreciate the significance of this practice. In mid-1915 the Russian government began its systematic but unofficial policy of ethnic favoritism. Military officials attempted to recruit Slavic prisoners to fight against the Central Powers. They succeeded in attracting between twenty and thirty-six thousand. Within the camps Serbs, Czechs, or other Slavs generally were given the coveted clerical positions, while Austrians, Germans, and Hun-

garians were bypassed. This discrimination was the source of considerable tension within the camps. It contributed heavily to the resentments against the

tsarist government which led Hungarian prisoners to play a significant pro-Bolshevik role in the revolutionary turmoil and civil war to come.® The practice of ethnic discrimination was also a major departure from the tenets of the liberal tradition that Russian authorities had previously attempted,

albeit unsuccessfully, to live up to. It was a policy that opened the way for Bolshevik policies that would ultimately establish the radical tradition of captivity in Russia.

The purpose of Russian discrimination in favor of the Slavic prisoners was not merely to retaliate against the Germans for the alleged mistreatment of Russian prisoners. It was part of an overall effort to promote the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire into its constituent parts. To achieve this objective, the Russians encouraged the nationalism of various minority groups such as the Croats, Slovenes, Czechs, and Serbians. As a result, these groups of prisoners generally received favored treatment at Russian hands, while Austrians, Hungarians, and, of course, Germans were given the poorest treatment.” Not only were these groups given better treatment, they were even released from captivity if they would join one of the “volunteer” detachments that the tsar’s government permitted representatives of the Serbian and Yugoslavian governments in exile to recruit among the prisoners. Only about 10 percent of

Captivity in Russia 121 the 200,000 South Slav prisoners responded to this appeal, entering units that were formed to fight against Austria-Hungary.” The relative lack of recruiting success prior to the fall of the monarchy is largely attributable to the domination of the nationalist movement by Serbians, whose objective, the unification of the South Slavs under their leadership, did not coincide with that of other national minorities. Croats, Slovenes, and others retained little or no loyalty to either the Dual Monarchy or Serbia. They were unwilling to trade Austro-Hungarian hegemony for that of Serbia. In short, Imperial Russian authorities subverted the loyalty of prisoners, armed them, and turned them against the state that had sent them into combat. In this way they attempted to transform the burden of captivity into a potential benefit. In addition to recruiting, the Russian authorities spread propaganda among the prisoners which was designed to reverse their political loyalty. In so doing, the Russian government departed sharply from the liberal tradition to which the Western powers clung. Although this was not new in warfare, and other belligerents did this in a minor way during the war, none pursued this effort so vigorously or on such a scale as the Russians. With the possible exception of

Russia itself, no state was more vulnerable to this sort of attack than AustriaHungary. However, Russia, the most reactionary power in Europe, aggressively fostered revolutionary movements of the sort that would overwhelm it a few years later. After the revolution the Bolsheviks built on the propaganda efforts of the tsar’s government. They conducted very active propaganda in the camps in order - toencourage prisoners to volunteer for combat against the counterrevolutionary Whites during the civil war. They successfully recruited large military units, particularly among Hungarian prisoners, which saw a great deal of combat. In addition to exploiting ethnic differences between prisoners, the Soviets also exploited class differences, especially those between officers and enlisted men. The prisoner of war had come a long way from being a mere man whom none could harm. In an age of revolutionary nationalism and total warfare, he had

become a potential soldier in both propaganda and armed combat. After indoctrination, he could either be recruited into a fighting unit or repatriated to sow dissension and rebellion at home. Such practices as brainwashing had their embryonic beginnings among Slavic prisoners in Russian prisoner of war camps. They originated in the nexus between revolution and total war. The fate of Russia’s prisoners was bound up with the nation’s own harsh fate. Prisoners suffered for a wide variety of reasons, including the climate, poor transportation, administrative disorganization, battlefield reverses, and social upheaval. Burr observed in 1915 “that it is the intention of the Russian government... to do right by its prisoners[;] ... however, everything was apparently done in a slipshod, careless manner, the results of which it was hard to make good again.”** This was an accurate characterization of the origins of the tragedy

that befell Austro-Hungarian and German prisoners in Russia, but incompetence does not explain the use of propaganda to exploit Balkan nationalism

122 Part Il: The Soldiers and ethnicity and manipulate the loyalty of prisoners. This was deliberate policy adopted in response to the pressures of the conflict and subsequent revolution. It is notable, however, that such policies were only possible within the context

of the nationalistic ferment prevalent in the Balkans at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was a practice that expanded the meaning of the term total war.

If the Russians pioneered the exploitation of ethnicity for nationalist purposes, the Soviets pioneered the exploitation of class for revolutionary purposes.

. What the old regime began tentatively and on a limited scale, the new one pursued with enthusiasm and on an almost unlimited scale. In this way it created

the radical tradition of captivity. The latter is merely one more aspect of the Russian Revolution’s challenge to Western liberal orthodoxy.

GERMAN PRISONERS AND

THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE IN FRANCE

Corporal Karl Gerlach went out on patrol one night with a unit of the German Army. His mission was to determine where American outposts were located. During the course of the evening he became separated from the rest of the patrol and found himself behind American lines. When challenged by a sentry he dropped his weapons and shouted “kamerad,” hoping to surrender. He was fired on instead. He dropped into a shell hole about sixty yards from the American position and remained there throughout the following day. That night, around midnight, as he attempted to work his way back to German lines he was captured by American soldiers. Simultaneously, across the battlefield an American patrol

surprised Lance Corporal Erich Tinkler and Private Wilhelm Schmidt at their machine gun emplacement. By the time the Germans noticed the approaching Americans, they were surrounded. Although Tinkler fired five shots from his pistol, it was too late. He and Schmidt were made prisoners.’ They were neither the first nor the last German soldiers captured by American forces during the Great War. On the night of 27 October 1917, privates Adam Blazikowski and John Chochanski captured America’s first German prisoner, Mail Orderly Leonard Hoffman, who later died of wounds suffered in combat. Gerlach, Tinkler, and Schmidt were merely 3 of the 48,280 Germans made prisoner by the United States during the First World War. By the time the United States entered the First World War it had had more than a little recent experience with war prisoners and internees. Beginning in 1914 the army had interned approximately five thousand Mexican soldiers who

had fled across the border, defeated by their rivals in the civil war.’ It had interned several hundred German sailors and other belligerents forced to request asylum in the United States. Finally, it had represented the interests of hundreds of thousands of war prisoners in Britain and onthe Continent. In short,

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American Expeditionary Force 125 the government was familiar with the administrative and diplomatic problems associated with wartime captivity. When on 6 April 1917 the United States intervened in the European conflict, it was nevertheless ill-prepared for war. The United States Army numbered only about 200,000 men. Although the 1st Division landed in France in May of 1917, it saw no action until October. It was not until a year after the arrival of the 1st Division that U.S. forces fought their first major battle at Cantigny, France, where they captured 255 German soldiers. This was the first substantial number of prisoners captured by the United States during the war.’ By this time there were about a half million American soldiers in France. Just as the United States had been unprepared for combat, the army had been unprepared to administer the captivity of war prisoners. The absence of immediate action gave the army over a year to prepare for the task. This was a luxury afforded none of the other major belligerents. During the period between April 1917 and June 1918, the United States attempted to reach an accord with Germany on the standards of treatment to be applied to war prisoners. As recounted elsewhere in this work, the diplomats had notably little success in this endeavor and the two sides agreed to resolve their differences in a conference that began in September, 1918. Meanwhile, the army had to determine what to do with the prisoners it expected

diplomatic one. |

to capture. This proceeded on two tracks: an administrative track and a The operation of prisoner of war camps was an administrative activity handled almost exclusively by the army, which made all day-to-day decisions. Only the broadest general questions were resolved by the U.S. War Department itself or

in consultation with other departments or governments. One problem arose shortly after American forces entered combat. Initially, American units served as replacements for exhausted French units. They entered the lines piecemeal _ and were placed under the command of the French. Since the United States had not yet established its war prison apparatus, prisoners captured by American

troops were turned over to the French. Until the end of August 1918, for example, all prisoners captured by soldiers of the American 3rd Corps were turned over to the intelligence section of the French Army, which in turn sent them to a French prison camp at Langres, France. The United States surrendered jurisdiction over these prisoners to its allies. In February 1918, however, the U.S. War Department decided that this course of action invited German reprisals. American authorities realized that the only way to

| assure reciprocity of treatment of prisoners was to retain custody of all prisoners captured by American forces. Indeed, to transfer them to the custody of another power could be seen as a provocation. At one point the British loaned some German prisoners to the French for railroad work and the Germans threatened to send an equal number of British captives to Turkey or Bulgaria in retribution. As a conse-

quence, it was decided that any German soldiers captured by American troops would be kept in enclosures guarded and maintained by Americans. On 5 June 1918, after some discussion with the French, the latter agreed to send prisoners captured

126 Part II: The Soldiers by American units to American enclosures. The agreement with the French

emphasized that “these prisoners of war will be reported to the Imperial German Government through the agency of [the U.S.] Government and not by

the agency of the French Government. This latter point is important ... as it _ definately [sic] fixes our jurisdiction. It is upon this jurisdiction that we must look

for reciprocal treatment . .. of our Prisoners [in Germany].”” | When by the end of July very few prisoners had actually been transferred from French to American custody, the Provost Marshal General wrote to the chief of the French mission to the American Expeditionary Force in order to hasten the process. As a result, the French began to transfer several thousand prisoners to

American custody on 2 August 1918. According to one German prisoner, the Americans were held in great esteem by the prisoners because they had made such an effort to retrieve those who had been transferred to the French. The United States also had to determine whether German prisoners would be shipped to the United States or kept in France. The answer to this question initially appeared to depend on rank. According to Article 6 of the 1907 Hague Convention, enlisted prisoners could be expected to work but officers could not. _ Since there was a labor shortage in France, U.S. Secretary of War Newton Baker accordingly decided on 4 June 1918 that enlisted men would remain in France. General John J. Pershing, pointing out that officers “do not work and their maintenance here involves unnecessary use of guards, lodging, and subsistence,” recommended that officers be sent to the United States for detention. Although _ Baker initially approved this suggestion, it was subsequently reversed, and all : German prisoners captured by American soldiers, including officers, were held in camps in France.’ Meanwhile, Secretary of State Robert Lansing pointed out that Article 24 of the Prussian-American Treaty of 1828 remained in effect, and held that prisoners of war “shall be placed in some parts of their dominions in Europe or America”;

consequently, strict adherence to the treaty might require the removal of all prisoners to the United States. Nevertheless, he believed that the maintenance of the prisoners in Europe was consistent with the spirit of the treaty and that the United States should leave them there unless the Germans objected.® Since

the Germans offered no serious objection to this arrangement, the prisoners remained in France. Had Germany objected strenuously, the prisoner burden of the United States would have grown substantially and the subsequent history of German war prisoners would have been quite different. The headquarters of the American Army in France had overall authority over the disposition of war prisoners. Accordingly, it produced a pamphlet entitled Prisoners of War: Regulations and Instructions which guided the administration

of captivity. The regulations prescribed the organization and structure of prisoner of war enclosures, labor arrangements, and details of camp life such as clothing, sanitation, discipline, and correspondence.” According to the first article, the U.S. Provost Marshal General’s department had custody of war prisoners and was responsible for their maintenance. This

American Expeditionary Force 127 confirmed orders issued by the War Department in December of 1917 designat-

ing the Provost Marshal General’s department as the unit responsible for prisoners. By the end of May 1918, when further orders were issued, the army had determined that, although army headquarters had overall authority over prisoners, the Provost Marshal had immediate day-to-day responsibility. Accordingly, a Prisoner of War Division was established within the Department of the Provost Marshal General in April."® The Prisoner of War Division was the unit that ran the network of camps that the army established for German war prisoners. It retained this responsibility until the task was transferred to the Bureau of Prisoners of War in Services of Supply on 28 May 1919.” During its tenure the Prisoner of War Division set up a total of ten large prison camps and seventy-six smaller labor camps throughout France. American camps

in France were of five different types. Three were permanent, while two were temporary. The permanent camps included one sorting camp, one officer’s camp, and several enlisted men’s camps. In addition to numerous labor camps run by the Prisoner of War Division, each corps and division maintained small temporary enclosures commonly called cages, where freshly captured prisoners were held prior to shipment to the main sorting camp, the Central Prisoner of War Enclosure number one at St. Pierre des Corps, France. During any assault on enemy positions, the army arrayed a “barrage line” of military police approximately one kilometer behind the front line. It was their duty to assume custody of prisoners captured by the infantry and to escort them back to the divisional enclosures that were normally located approximately three kilometers behind the line. A second barrage line of military police stationed behind divisional headquarters was assigned the task of picking up stragglers and escorting prisoners to the corps enclosure, which was six to eight kilometers behind the line.” In short, German soldiers captured at the front were shipped through the divisional and corps cages before being sent to permanent facilities. These were temporary holding camps where prisoners were subject to search and interrogation. Maps, documents, or other military papers found in their possession were taken from the prisoners and given to intelligence officers. It was the duty of the latter to select prisoners for questioning. Those chosen were sent to a separate portion of the enclosure set aside for this purpose. The remaining prisoners were sent to the main section of the enclosure. Prisoners selected for interrogation

were not allowed to speak with those who had already been questioned. Prisoners were permitted to keep personal effects such as watches, mess kits, backpacks, and identity discs. If for any reason intelligence officers believed it necessary to take such items, the prisoner was given a receipt.” Prisoners were generally evacuated from the divisional and corps cages as early as practicable. Their destination was usually the central prisoner of war enclosure. The general arrangement of American camps was prescribed in the Regulations and Instructions. Camps were supposed to be about “75 yards square” and surrounded by two barbed wire fences a minimum of eight and a half feet high.

128 Part IT: The Soldiers Surmounted by “curtains” of overhanging barbed wire, the fences were at least five yards apart. The strip of land between the fences was patrolled by armed guards. Two thirds of the space within the inner fence was reserved for buildings. The remainder was left vacant. No buildings were to be constructed within five

yards of a fence.” |

During their initial construction stages, many of the American camps were not suitable for the maintenance of prisoners of war. Hastily erected and designed for small numbers of prisoners, many had to be expanded repeatedly. With the strife at the front reaching its climax in September, October, and November 1918, there

was a rapid influx of prisoners while camps were still under construction. Meanwhile, vital supplies were sent to the front rather than to prisoner of war camps.

Inclement weather compounded the difficulties encountered in the erection of the camps. At Ft. Montoir, Central Prisoner of War Enclosure number three near St. Nazaire, for example, “the season of rain was on and the most serious problem confronting the P.WE. [prisoner of war escort] organizations was that of digging themselves out of the mud, for every foot took the form of a thick, heavy mass that

made the use of rubber boots necessary for both guards and prisoners.” One observer wrote that “conditions in the seven stockades making up the Enclosure were in every way adverse.” Shortly after the armistice was signed, however, the flow

of supplies increased and the flow of prisoners decreased. Although the weather remained foul for several months, remarkable progress was made on the completion of barracks and other facilities.”

The first of these camps to be constructed, the central prisoner of war enclosure at Gievres, was opened on 28 April 1918 and closed barely two anda half months later on 22 July. The Prisoner of War Division intended to make this a sorting camp that would distribute recently captured prisoners to permanent camps elsewhere. However, the Division soon encountered objections that the

camp was too close to a major supply depot. Therefore, it was closed and replaced by Central Prisoner of War Enclosure number one at St. Pierre des Corps. — Located near Tours, St. Pierre des Corps was an ideal location for a sorting

camp because a major railroad terminal was nearby. Prisoners shipped to the camp from the front could be readily transferred to other camps by train. The enclosure was divided into eight sub-enclosures each 130 meters long by 110 meters wide. Each sub-enclosure was a self-contained unit with barracks,

infirmaries, mess halls, recreation halls, and other buildings. A camp for American guard units adjoined the barbed wire surrounding the prisoners.” The prisoners at St. Pierre des Corps were housed in wooden barracks heated with stoves and illuminated with electric lights. The barracks were outfitted with

a double tier of wooden bunks each equipped with a straw mattress. Each prisoner was issued fifteen pounds of fresh straw monthly with which to fill his mattress. This helped to eliminate the problems associated with infested bed

sacks which were common in camps run by other powers. One latrine was provided for each 450 prisoners.

American Expeditionary Force 129 As provided by paragraph 34 of the Regulations and Instructions the prisoners

were given the standard U.S. Army ration. It was prepared by German chefs selected from among the prisoners. There were three meals daily. Breakfast typically included corn meal, bread, syrup, and coffee. Lunch consisted of meat

and potatoes, coffee, and bread. Supper included such items as corned beef, rice-bread, cheese, bacon, bread, and coffee. Prisoners were normally issued the standard field gray German uniform. If this was unavailable they were given outdated American uniforms dyed gray and

prominently marked “P.W.” Prisoners were expected to repair their own uniforms. According to the guidelines, each prisoner was issued the following: one complete uniform, two pairs of shoes, two pairs of drawers, two undershirts, one belt, one barracks bag, one hairbrush, one toothbrush, one flannel shirt, two pairs of socks, two towels, two handkerchiefs, one can of meat, one canteen, and a knife, fork, and spoon. The camp maintained a canteen where prisoners could make purchases with the camp scrip they earned while at work. The proceeds of these sales were used

to purchase musical instruments and other recreational equipment for the prisoners. Some of the prisoners formed an orchestra that performed for their fellow internees at least six times a week in the camp’s three theaters. Numerous other forms of recreation were permitted the prisoners. Dances in which the

prisoners served as partners for one another often took place during the evenings and on Sundays. Many prisoners participated in athletic activities such

as football, handball, baseball, and boxing. The soccer players organized a league with five teams and held regular matches on Sundays. Numerous prisoners also played games of chess, cards, and checkers. Upon arrival at the camp, all prisoners were checked in at the main gate where a record was kept of all arrivals and departures. New prisoners were first sent to a receiving stockade, where overcoats, blankets, mess kits, and other such items were taken away and sent to the salvage department. Next, the prisoners were sent to the receiving office. Here they were searched, and given a serial number and a receipt for money or any other items confiscated. After being searched, the prisoners were herded along a row of desks where clerks filled out index cards with each prisoner’s name, rank, serial number, unit, date of arrival, and occupation or trade prior to military service. Prisoners were next given a tag with their serial number on it. Finally, they filled out a postcard addressed to their families explaining where they were and what their physical condition

was. These were mailed to Germany and constituted official notification to relatives of their captivity. These procedures were in compliance with various provisions of the Regulations and Instructions.” After completing these tasks, the prisoners were sent to the bath house where

their clothes were taken and sent through the camp’s delousing facility. The prisoners were given showers and were inspected by medical officers. Almost all the prisoners had lice. Therefore, the inspections were especially thorough. If after the first shower the inspectors found any lice, the prisoners were returned

130 Part IT: The Soldiers to the showers until they were completely clean. In this way, lice, and therefore

typhus, were eliminated from the camps. The prisoners were issued clean uniforms, classified according to occupation, and sent to a stockade for food and to await assignment to a labor company.

Sick or wounded prisoners were carried by ambulance from the railroad terminal in St. Pierre des Corps to the enclosure. When they arrived they went through the same procedure as the other prisoners. They too were bathed and

inspected for vermin. Medical personnel also inspected them for gunshot wounds and venereal or other diseases. Those with minor afflictions were treated at the camp infirmary. The more seriously ill or wounded men were transferred to camp hospitals in Tours. After 10 January 1919 they were sent to the camp’s new 250-bed hospital. Staffed with German medical men and supervised by American medical officers, the camp hospital was able to treat serious as well as minor medical problems. After passing through this examination all prisoners were issued clean clothing and sent to the appropriate destination.”

The prisoners’ destinations varied, depending upon their health and their trade. Those in good health were sorted by trade into labor units. The army had

- decided in accordance with the terms of the 1907 Hague Convention that all enemy prisoners with the exception of officers would be required to work. Accordingly, all enlisted prisoners were organized into prisoner-of-war labor companies. Initially, these companies were comprised of 400 men, but on 26 November 1918, the total number of men in a labor company was increased to 432. It was subsequently raised again, this time to 450. Such a company was composed of 400 laborers and 50 prisoners who were assigned other types of work. Many of the latter were noncommissioned officers who served as chefs, hospital order-

lies, clerks, tailors, shoemakers, and interpreters. The others were usually sergeants who served as supervisors. They were all, of course, subject to American authority. The first prisoner-of-war labor company, comprising 400 prisoners, was organized on 26 July 1918 and sent to work at St. Nazaire. At its peak, the Department of the Provost Marshal General had organized 47,373 enlisted prisoners into 122 labor companies.” According to paragraph 17 of the Regulations and Instructions, prisoners were

| not to “be used upon work which has a direct connection with military operations.” Instead, they were to “be employed in construction and repair work.”” Accordingly, prisoners were assigned to general construction work, railroad labor, and quarry and road work. They also worked as stevedores, loading and unloading ships at the docks. In line with an agreement first reached by the British and German governments in July 1918, and subsequently by the United States and Germany in November, prisoners were not employed within thirty kilometers of the front. This eliminated the fear that they might be killed or injured by artillery fire. The normal working day lasted nine hours, including the time it took to go to and from the work site. The standard work week lasted six days. Sunday was

American Expeditionary Force 131 usually a day of rest, although prisoners were occasionally required to work on Sunday. When this happened they were given a different day off in compensation for the rest time they had lost.”7 According to the Regulations and Instructions, the prisoners were supposed to be paid in scrip redeemable at the camp canteen

at a rate of twenty centimes daily for enlisted men and forty centimes for noncommissioned officers. At the 1918 exchange rate of 5.62 francs to the dollar this was a pay range of 3.6 to 7.2 cents per day. Prisoners with special skills such as chefs, interpreters, tailors, and barbers could be paid more. Such an increase in pay was made at the discretion of the provost marshal. In practice, the money paid enlisted men ranged widely between twenty centimes and one franc. Many plumbers, mechanics, blacksmiths, painters, carpenters, and electricians were paid between thirty and forty-five centimes. Prisoners could not be employed as

servants for American officers. According to one prisoner at St. Pierre des Corps, the work required of the prisoners was beneficial. It helped maintain discipline yet was not too difficult. The proof of this, he wrote, was that the prisoners had plenty of energy left over for athletic contests in their spare time.” Prisoners were guarded by American soldiers at all times. Ordinarily the ratio of prisoners to guards was ten to one. In accordance with paragraph 21 of the Regulations and Instructions, escort units varying in size from 80 to 100 soldiers

were formed. A typical escort company consisted of 65 to 70 privates, 12 noncommissioned officers, and 2 or 3 officers. Originally class B and C soldiers (those considered unfit for combat) were assigned to these units. Some of these soldiers could neither read nor write. At one camp a great deal of clerical work devolved on the medical officer as a result. However, these soldiers were rapidly replaced with class A personnel, who were better suited to the task of guarding prisoners. The first escort company was formed at Blois and assigned to duty at Gievres on 1 June 1918. There was a maximum of 122 companies comprised of 241 officers and 8,921 enlisted men.” The work that prisoners were required to do was not always innocuous. They

were often assigned to help dispose of old munitions, especially after the armistice was signed and its terms had superseded those of both the 1907 Hague Convention and the Berne agreement. Ultimately this led to tragic consequences. The first signs of trouble appeared in June 1919, By this time the administration of the camps had been turned over to the Bureau of Prisoners of War. On 9 June the majority of a detachment of war prisoners at Montierchaume, who had been working with explosives, refused to continue. They said it was too dangerous. Other prisoners, however, continued their labor. Nine days later, on 18 June, a fire broke out when several hand grenades “spontaneously” exploded. In the ensuing conflagration, “two or three” railroad cars full of fragmentation and gas grenades blew up. Miraculously, nobody was injured.” Meanwhile, at St. Loubes, prisoners were routinely disposing of ammunition and other explosives such as rockets and flares. On the afternoon of 9 July, forty

German prisoners from labor company 98 under the direction of Corporal Lester Horwitz and four other American guards from escort company 236 were

132 Part IT: The Soldiers in the process of destroying guncotton and cordite in a special pit dug for this

, purpose. The pit was located about seven hundred meters from the stockade in which the prisoners were housed. Piled about the top of the pit a few yards from

its edge were ninety-eight boxes of propelling charges for six-inch trench mortars. The prisoners were systematically opening the boxes, separating the cordite and guncotton from the metal casings, and throwing the boxes with their flammable contents into the pit to be incinerated. By four in the afternoon one crate was in flames. As the next one was pitched into the fire, a sheet of flame erupted from the pit. The wind caught some sparks and carried them to one of the open boxes outside the pit. Within seconds, the entire “reserve pile” of crates

had exploded into flames. Moments later, twenty-five prisoners and one American soldier were dead, and eight prisoners had been injured.” The wounded prisoners were rushed to the base hospital. On 11 July the men of labor company 98 were relieved by those of company 101. Prisoners from the two companies mingled, and news of the explosion was passed to the new men. On the morning of the next day, 12 July, several labor details refused to work with or near ammunition. By the afternoon almost the entire company had refused to work at all, claiming that the work was dangerous and a violation of the Hague and Geneva conventions. — The commanding officers reminded the Germans that they were prisoners and contended that it was legal to require them to handle explosives. They also warned the prisoners that they would be punished in accordance with army regulations for further refusal to carry out their orders. The men of company

101 continued to refuse such work. Consequently, they were confined to quarters and placed on a diet of bread and water. The prisoners still refused to work with munitions, and remained on the punitive diet until 21 July when they agreed to return to work. Several other units also refused to handle munitions. Before long, a total of 463 prisoners were participating in the work stoppage. Like those from labor company 101, these prisoners were also put on a bread and water diet. Like the men of company 101, they also returned to work after a few days on bread and water.” Colonel Raymond Sheldon, assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of Prisoners of War, investigated this “mutiny.” He concluded that

general sentiment among prisoners is that work of this kind is highly dangerous [and] is forbidden by International Law and should not be required of them now that [the] Peace Treaty has been signed. They fear another accident like [the] recent one at St. Loubes. They desire after the long war and long imprisonment to return safely to their families.””

, The ensuing investigation concluded that “there was gross neglect on the part of the Ordnance authorities ... for not properly safeguarding the personnel... against a danger of which... they seemed to be quite well aware.” As a result of this incident, Second Lieutenant Scott M. Julian was relieved of

American Expeditionary Force 133 command, and the base ordnance officer faced charges before a court-martial

board.” This episode raised the question of whether it was indeed legitimate to require

prisoners to work with munitions. Although the prison officers assured the prisoners that it was, Colonel Edgar Conley, the director of the Bureau of Prisoners of War, was not so certain. Accordingly, he queried his superiors about the matter. Pointing out that “the issue involved is international and by the death of 25 prisoners of war, has assumed such importance,” he argued that it should be “well considered from the points of view of expediency, necessity, legality and international obligations.” Without going into any explanation, Services of

_ Supply headquarters informed Conley that “prisoners may be required to do this or any other similar work.”” _ Initially, the War Department was uncertain where to hold captured German officers. On 4 June 1918, Secretary of War Newton W. Baker decided to bring

them to the United States rather than leave them in American enclosures in France. Although this decision was subsequently rescinded, it had an impact on the establishment of the first American camp for German officers.” At one point the Americans attempted to locate an island in the Bay of Biscay to use as a camp for officers. They learned, however, that early in the war the French had used such an island and, after granting the prisoners their liberty found that they were signaling to passing German submarines. After that, the French restricted the prisoners to a compound. The American effort was finally dropped when the French explained that there were no appropriate islands available.*!

Anticipating that the officers would be shipped to the United States, the provost marshal decided to set up camp in or near an American base port from which it would be easy to load prisoners onto transport ships making the return

trip across the Atlantic. Accordingly, the army acquired Fort Penfield, or Penfield Prison as it came to be called, near Brest. Penfield Prison was a pentagonal French fort surrounded by thick walls and a thirty-foot moat. The prisoners were housed in the casemates which, as originally arranged, had a capacity of 100 officers and their servants. With the arrival of the first contingent of 149 enemy officers, the camp’s capacity was exceeded. Nevertheless, more prisoners arrived, further aggravating the problem of overcrowding. The prob-

lem was temporarily alleviated in October when 112 officers were transferred to the camp at St. Pierre des Corps. Meanwhile, since Penfield could not be significantly expanded and the War Department had decided to keep German officers in France, the Prisoner of

War Division began to search for a new location for an officer’s camp. In September, Chateau Vrillays at Richelieu was selected and work began on the enclosure. Penfield was finally closed on 28 November 1918, and all imprisoned officers were transferred to Richelieu, which ultimately had a capacity of one thousand.” Chateau Vrillays was an imposing white structure built during the nineteenth

century. It was located amid a “quiet and beautiful park,” surrounded by a

134 | Part IT: The Soldiers ten-foot stone wall. A variety of outbuildings were symmetrically arranged along the approaches to the chateau. The authorities initially planned to house only about 150 prisoners at Richelieu, but by November they had made more realistic

plans. Although forty barracks buildings were constructed, the camp never reached its authorized capacity of 2,000. This proved unnecessary; the camp population reached a peak of 874 officers and 497 enlisted men, a total of 1,371,

on 1 March 1919." : |

Fighty-five of the officers dwelt in the chateau itself, where those above the rank of major were permitted separate rooms. The remaining officers and all enlisted men lived in barracks buildings approximately one hundred feet long by twenty feet wide. The roofs and sides of the buildings were covered with tar

paper, electrically lighted, and heated with stoves. Barracks used by both German prisoners and American enlisted men had only an earthen floor, while officers’ barracks had wooden floors and were divided into four large rooms. Eight to twelve officer prisoners were assigned to each of these rooms. They had an average of seventy square feet of floor space each.” The enclosures were constructed of chicken wire, stretched around a series of ten-foot-high posts, which were topped by sixteen strands of barbed wire.» As at other camps, there was initially a great deal of difficulty getting proper supplies. Those that did arrive were the subject of considerable disagreement among the Americans. It was hard to decide, for example, whether a given shipment of lumber should be used for barracks, bunks, or latrines. Medical facilities at Richelieu were neglected initially because the camp’s first commander believed that it was more important to incarcerate prisoners than to care for their ills. Overcrowding at the facility was compounded because “as soon as a barrack was up,” the commanding officer “would telegraph the Provost Marshall [sic] General that he was ready for more Prisoners, and in they would

| come by the hundreds.””** In December 1918 after a new commander was appointed and the armistice went into effect, conditions at the camp began to improve. The population leveled off, barracks were completed, medical conditions improved, and regular

routines were established. Despite the initial neglect of medical care, the prisoners were quite healthy. Between December 1918 and May 1919, only 1.4

percent of prisoners were sick, and one prisoner died as a result of injuries suffered before he arrived at the camp.” Since officers were not employed, they had a great deal of time on their hands,

which they occupied primarily with recreational activities of various types. In this they were unlike enlisted men and very like civilian prisoners. There was a large open field within the stockade on which the officers played soccer and held track meets. Handball and tennis were very popular with the prisoners.” The prisoners at Richelieu put a great deal of energy into artistic work, music, and dramatic presentations. Almost as soon as the camp opened, one group of prisoners improvised a stage in the back of the mess hall from a pile of loose boards placed across a number of cots. Scenery and other props were made from

American Expeditionary Force 135 blankets and candles inserted into cut out tin cans. Despite the crude equipment and the absence of scripts, the first production in this makeshift theater was a “decided success.” After a few weeks of hard work, the stage crew built a more

permanent theater, which was the scene of a variety of productions. The prisoners devised all sorts of ingenious devices that enabled them to have movable scenery. Although no paint was available in the camp, the prisoners decorated the stage with chalk and charcoal retrieved from the camp’s stoves.

Throughout December the prisoners concentrated on producing their Christmas play. Subsequently, they produced at least ten different plays including several comedies and their own version of Faust. Since it was often impossible to find the words to these plays, the prisoners produced scripts from memory.

Among the prisoners were many with musical talents. They formed large choirs that were supported by pianists and an orchestra composed primarily of stringed instruments. The orchestra and choirs gave regular and well-attended concerts. A number of other prisoners busied themselves with various artistic endeavors. Many made tables, chairs, chessmen, lampshades, picture frames, and other ornaments from odd scraps of wood and metal that were available to them. Numerous painters produced landscapes, portraits, and sketches in oils, watercolors, ink, and charcoal. The camp acquired paints for the painters and musical instruments for the musicians. The prisoners displayed their creations at a very popular arts and crafts week in February 1919. According to one prisoner, the arts and crafts week “splendidly demonstrated that imprisonment

had not broken the prisoners’ spirits; it revealed their vigor and spirit of

enterprise.” The prisoners at Richelieu even set up a university. As early as the beginning of November 1918, a class in the “theory of animal development” was offered.

Shortly thereafter, other prisoners, often teachers or experts in their fields, offered courses in such topics as English, French, Hebrew, German history, pedagogy, civil rights, psychology, chemistry, mathematics, agriculture, bookkeeping, and shorthand. Gradually, more courses in such fields as theology, economics, medicine, law, philosophy, and physics were added to the curriculum. Approximately 180 prisoners were enrolled in the school’s most popular course, “The History of Modern Times since the Reformation.” Almost

850 students attended one or more classes. Through the efforts of Dr. Otto Zalhe, a representative of the Danish Red Cross who was authorized by the provost marshal general to supervise educational work in the camp, students were granted credit at German universities for their studies. Thus, the courses helped to relieve the tedium of the camp routine and simultaneously helped prepare the prisoners to return to a productive civilian life in Germany. Captivity was not a complete waste of time for such prisoners.“

The prisoners also had an opportunity to practice democratic politics. The first group of 238 prisoners to arrive at the camp was composed exclusively of

lieutenants and captains. Among the latter were several who claimed to be senior and in charge of the prisoners. The Americans were consequently not

136 , Part IT: The Soldiers sure which of the prisoners to deal with; the Germans were likewise unsure how

to approach their captors. Under the circumstances, German prisoners went directly to any American officer with their problems, complaints, and requests. The Americans were overwhelmed by this deluge of demands, some important and some trivial. They resolved the dilemma by asking the Germans to organize

a committee to represent their interests to the American authorities. The Germans agreed to this suggestion and elected a committee that, subject to American review, was empowered to settle minor differences among the prisoners. It also screened all requests and complaints addressed to the Americans, In this way the number of problems the Americans had to deal with was dramatically reduced. The committee itself elected officers to oversee the kitchen, the distribution of rooms, and the orderlies. The system worked well at first, but as the camp grew, so did dissension. Newly arrived officers felt unrepresented by the incumbent committee members. In one case a licutenant colonel arrived and asserted that as senior officer

in the camp, he was in charge. He even demanded preferential treatment as though it were his due. His demands collided with the will of the other officers.

The Americans engineered a compromise by which the lieutenant colonel agreed to govern the officers through the committee. Eventually, however, the lieutenant colonel lost his role when a full colonel arrived in camp. This did not solve all the camp’s political problems, however. Many of the younger junior officers remained dissatisfied with the committee.

The Americans dealt with this problem after the population stabilized by dividing the camp into two discrete enclosures. The first enclosure, known as

enclosure A, contained those who were satisfied with the committee. This included all the senior officers. Many of the junior officers and all those who were displeased with the committee’s rule moved to enclosure B. This group decided not to elect a committee at all. Instead, they elected one of their officers

to head their unit and gave him authority to appoint a number of assistants to help him carry out his responsibilities. This solution worked well until German Captain George Harte was assigned to enclosure B. Claiming seniority, he attempted to assert authority over the elected officer and the other prisoners. The Americans reacted quickly to this incipient problem. They transferred Harte to enclosure A where, much to his chagrin, he was outranked by several

senior officers.”

All prisoners, whether officers or men, had mail privileges. They were regarded as privileges because they were not specified in the Hague conventions. Article 16 of the 1899 and 1907 conventions indicated that mail dispatched

by prisoners or sent to them would be carried free of postage. These articles clearly implied that prisoners had a right to send and receive mail but were silent

about the permitted length and number of letters. This was left up to the detaining power. Accordingly, the American authorities decided to permit German prisoners to send two letters or postcards weekly, but no more than one on any single day. Letters were to be written on official stationery provided by

American Expeditionary Force 137 the provost marshal general’s office. Throughout the first several months there was a severe shortage of this stationery. Prisoners could only write in English, French, or German. Any other language required the express permission of the officer commanding the company. All letters were subject to censorship by the Prisoners of War Information Bureau, which was headquartered at Tours. The prisoners were not permitted to divulge the location of their camp or the type of work they did, nor were they permitted to make unjustified complaints about their food or living conditions. Letters containing such complaints were referred to the officer commanding the prisoner’s unit for investigation. If that officer found that the complaints were not justified, the letters were returned to the prisoners who wrote them, with the notation that they would not be mailed. Prisoners who made “repeated

and aggravated attempts to send... false and misleading complaints or undesirable information” were subject to disciplinary action. If the investigation found that the complaint was well-founded, the letter was forwarded to the bureau. Prisoners could both send and receive mail and packages. These were sent through the Prisoner of War Information Bureau, which acted as censor and clearinghouse for all mail. There was no limitation on the number of parcels that

a prisoner could receive, but he could send none. He was not permitted to receive contraband of any kind. Contraband included liquor, civilian clothes, weapons, and secret messages “of any kind.” Messages were often ingeniously concealed. They were hidden in the false bottoms of packages, glued to the backs of photographs, mixed into pouches of tobacco, and inserted into cakes of soap and bars of chocolate. Although prisoners were permitted to receive books “of

a harmless character,” they were not allowed newspapers or magazines from Germany. All packages were opened in the presence of the recipient.” On 1 March 1919, many of the restrictions on the prisoners’ communication with Germany were rescinded. The limitation on the number of letters and cards was dropped, and prisoners were permitted to send as many as they desired. Prisoners

were no longer required to use the official stationery supplied by the army, and instead were allowed to write on any paper available. Letters could indicate where the prisoners were held and the type of work they did. Finally, the prisoners could send photographs of themselves to their relatives, as long as the picture did not depict their stockade or quarters “for the reason that photographs of this kind can easily be changed and used for propaganda [sic] purposes.” After the United States entered the war, over a year passed before American

troops had captured a substantial number of enemy soldiers. This contrasts sharply with the experience of the other major belligerents. As detailed elsewhere Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary each had captured several hundred thousand prisoners within a few months of the war’s outbreak. Britain and France had captured tens of thousands.“ With virtually no warning of the

war’s approach, it is understandable that they had some difficulty locating adequate shelter in a timely manner.

138 Part HI: The Soldiers The United States, on the other hand, had several years’ advance warning and

captured comparatively few prisoners. During the entire conflict, the United States captured fewer than 2 percent of the number of prisoners captured by German forces. Thus, the United States had a much lighter burden than did most of the other belligerents, and it had much more time to prepare for the burden it did carry. Under the circumstances the United States should have been able to do a far better job of caring for its prisoners than the other belligerents did, yet it made many of the same mistakes. If Germany can be criticized for housing prisoners in tents during the winter of 1914-1915, then the United States can be criticized for accommodating prisoners in tents during the French rainy season in 1918. When the final offensive got underway, Americans captured Germans at a rate of about twenty six hundred per week.® The provost marshal general was barely able to keep up with this flow of prisoners. If the war had lasted another couple of months and the flow of prisoners had continued into the winter at the

same rate, the American prison capacity would have been overwhelmed. Prisoners would have suffered very seriously as a consequence. The American government made other mistakes as well. Inadequate supervision of the disposal of munitions caused the death of twenty-five prisoners. A chronically insufficient supply of official stationery for the prisoners’ use caused delays and consequent unnecessary hardship of the sort that would have brought protest and retaliation earlier in the war. Overall, however, the United States Army did a creditable job of caring for the prisoners in its custody. The rates of death, illness, and escapes were lower in American camps than in any other. Despite the initial difficulties, most prisoners were reasonably satisfied with the

_ treatment they received at the hands of the Americans. AsoneformerGerman prisoner wrote, “I am persuaded that of all the prisoners of this long and unhappy war, those in the hands of the Americans were treated the best.”

Part Ill

~The Civilians

BLANK PAGE

“ALIEN ENEMY”: A SPECIAL PROBLEM IN WARTIME CAPTIVITY

During the summer of 1914, Monsieur Herman L. lived in an attractive apartment on the Rue Copernic in Paris. For a quarter of a century he ran a large and profitable electrical equipment business. He had many friends and was widely respected by his neighbors and associates. He was an ardent French patriot, yet in 1917, he lived in a “long, cold, cheerless barrack,” on a “barren island” off the coast of Normandy. The plight of Monsieur L. was unusual, but not unprecedented. He was born in Vienna, and had come to Paris when a child. Unfor-

tunately, he had neglected to become a naturalized Frenchman. As a consequence, his life was disrupted, his business destroyed, and he spent the war’s duration on the windswept Isle of Tatihou.' He was an alien enemy, a détenu. As such, L. was one of a new class of war prisoners that first appeared in 1914. Alien enemies were civilians of enemy nationality. At least 400,000 alien enemies

were interned by the European belligerents during the war. They were not accused of any crimes, or convicted by any courts. They were interned on the sole basis of their nationality. Unlike L., most interned aliens were not longtime residents of the nation that imprisoned them, although some were. Most were travelers or temporary residents taken by surprise and trapped when the war began in August 1914. Others were merchant seamen caught in hostile ports and interned when their ships were seized by local authorities. By December 1915, France held approximately 45,000 German and Austro-Hungarian détenus in fifty-two detention camps located primarily in its western departments.” Within the first days of the war, most governments took steps to regulate the activities of aliens and restrict their departure for home. On2 August, the French government, for example, decreed that foreigners had until the end of the first day of mobilization to leave the country. After that they were required to notify

142 Part II: The Civilians the police of their identity and whereabouts. Austro-Hungarians and Germans were required to leave the fortified areas around Paris, Lyons, and large sections of northwestern France, which would soon become a battle zone. On the next day the government issued another decree that halted the departure of foreigners from France. Despite the brief period allowed them, numerous Austro-Hungarians and Germans escaped France. Nevertheless, a great many remained.’ Many of them besieged the American embassy in Paris, which did all it could to cope with the thousands of aliens who were stranded. Eric Fisher Wood, an attaché at the embassy during the first seven months of the war, described the plight of the refugees he saw: Last week they were everywhere treated with respect and politeness, today they are looked upon with suspicion and hostility. They are hungry and they have no money. They are surrounded by looks of hatred and they are

terror-stricken. ... Many have lost all their worldly goods and possess nothing except the clothes in which they stand. There are refined women who have slept in the streets and parks [or]

... have walked all night in their patent leather pumps. There are rich men... whose eyes have taken on the nervous look of hunted animals.‘ Both Britain and Germany gave aliens a somewhat longer period of time in

| which to depart. This, however, did not diminish the size of the crowds at the railroad terminals or their frantic efforts to escape. Malcolm M. Thomson, a British reporter in Berlin, described his own hasty departure. Here in the station a vast confusion reigned. The platforms were littered and piled high with a congested mass of luggage, round which porters and

officials buzzed in a perspiring and flurried despair. Outside Friedrichstrasse Station there was over an acre of heaped trunks and portmanteau, in which a multitude were vainly searching. ...Some had left their baggage scattered all across Germany leaving a trunk here, a dress-basket there and the last gripsack at a third place. One man indeed had lost his motorcar.”

At London’s Victoria Station, similar scenes were enacted nightly throughout the second week of August. Amidst the sobs and clamor of friends and relatives, thousands of Germans, allegedly reservists, boarded trains leaving the city.° The restriction and internment of civilians created as many difficulties for the belligerents as did imprisoning captured soldiers. This was particularly true

because there were no international conventions or agreements that dealt specifically with the treatment to be accorded civilians of enemy nationality on hostile soil. Although the two Hague conventions each devoted a chapter to war prisoners, they were virtually silent about civilian aliens. In requiring belligerents

“Alien Enemy” 143 to permit enemy nationals access to the courts, the 1907 convention made its only mention of civilians on enemy territory.’ It was clear, however, that they were not “prisoners of war.” Only those formally attached to the hostile army could claim that status.° This is not to say that international law totally neglected these unfortunates. There existed a tradition of toleration of enemy civilians stretching back several

centuries. This tradition was based on numerous treaties stipulating that civilians would be allowed a period of time, usually six to nine months, in which

to settle their affairs before being required to leave the country. Some even provided that enemy nationals who behaved peacefully would be allowed to remain indefinitely. Emeric Vattel, the eminent eighteenth-century jurist, wrote in 1758 that “the sovereign who declares war has not the right to detain the subjects of the enemy who are found within his state, nor their effects. .. . A suitable time should be given them to withdraw with their goods.” The United States and Germany were bound in this way by the terms of such a treaty.”® By the turn of the century, it was widely held by most authorities “that

modern international law forbids making prisoners of the persons of enemy subjects ... at the outbreak of war.”" Nevertheless, the appearance of mass military reserve systems throughout

Europe created circumstances that did not exist in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These new conditions were reflected in the opinions of a minority of legal scholars who defended the right of nations to intern enemy subjects, especially reservists, during wartime.” Lassa Francis Oppenheim, one such authority, argued that reservists could be detained because “the principle of self-preservation must justify belligerents in refusing to furnish each other with resources which increase their means of offense and defense.”™

Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, alien enemies had been a problem of negligible proportions. Before the industrial revolution and the enormous expansion of rail and other transportation systems that attended it, relatively few tourists or others traveled or resided abroad. Furthermore, those who did were of little military value anyway. Therefore, they constituted only a minor threat to the host nation. With the advent in the late nineteenth century of mass military training and the establishment of reserve systems that embraced millions of male civilians, the situation changed. Many of the men traveling abroad were reservists or were subject to a military obligation, and would take up arms if allowed to return home. The problem posed by alien enemies first cropped up during the Franco-Prussian War when France refused to permit 39,000 Germans to depart. After some

months of vigorous debate between the French foreign minister, Antoine Duc | de Gramont, and American Ambassador Elihu Benjamin Washburne, who was in charge of Prussian interests, France reversed itself and expelled the Germans." The issue surfaced again in 1914. By that time, alien populations were

much larger and more widespread. The situation on the battlefields seemed more grave, and the measures taken were more severe. Not only were aliens

144 Part III: The Civilians prevented from returning home, but in measures unanticipated by any legal scholar, they were interned on a massive scale. The alien problem was not perceived as particularly serious in Germany at the war’s outset. There were approximately fifty-three hundred British subjects and a somewhat larger number of French citizens in Germany at the time. While Germany was on the offensive, the aliens within its borders did not seem very threatening. The situation in Britain and France, however, was rather different. There were approximately fifty thousand Germans and fifteen thousand AustroHungarians living in Great Britain, and an indeterminate number traveling in

that country in August 1914. While British authorities did not regard these people as an acute threat, they considered them a potentially serious problem. With one and a half million foreigners in the country, most of whom were enemy

subjects, and about four hundred thousand concentrated in Paris, France had far more resident and transient aliens than any other nation. France may have had a hundred times as many aliens as Germany. With an alien population of this magnitude, and with German armies sweeping across its border toward Paris, the French believed that they had a severe problem that justified harsh measures. Not only were many of the men reservists, but in France, and elsewhere, it was believed that many were spies.” French authorities interned not only Germans, Austro-Hungarians, Turks, and Bulgarians, but also Czechs, Greeks, Poles, Armenians, and natives of Alsace-Lorraine. On the assumption that the second group was more sympathetic to the goals of the Entente than the goals of the governments to which they were nominally subject, they were treated more leniently. They were interned in separate camps, and often permitted to spend the day at liberty.’® This was an early example of the attempts most countries made to exploit ethnic differences within the populations of enemy powers. Even naturalized French citizens were not immune. By an ordinance of 13 April 1915, almost all French citizens born in enemy countries, with the exception of Alsace-Lorrainers, were

denaturalized.'’ Thus, even if Monsieur L. had become a French citizen, he would still have been in jeopardy. One camp set up for détenus by the French was located in an old convent beside a stream near the town of Monleon Magnoac at the foot of the Pyrenees. Of the 452 people interned in this camp in late November 1914 107 were women and about 60 were children. Most of the women had requested internment for

themselves and their children in order to remain with their husbands. The women and children were housed in a separate portion of a large, run-down old building that was formerly a boarding school for boys. The building was unheated and had no running water. Many détenus shivered at night because the French had failed to supply enough blankets to keep everyone warm. The beds

consisted of “small piles of straw placed on the floor.” The residents were crowded into their rooms “as closely together as it [was] possible to crowd them.” The détenus were segregated by nationality, and within these subdivisions

they were permitted to choose with whom they would room. Alsatians, Poles,

“Alien Enemy” 145 and Czechs, however, received more favorable treatment than Germans and Austrians. They were given the more desirable rooms and were not crowded together as tightly as the others. The prisoners had to retrieve all water for washing and bathing from the stream that passed through the courtyard of the convent. Most rooms had a wash basin that the residents could use, but the camp had only one bathtub. The camp authorities charged sixty centimes for its use, a common source of complaint. The camp served only two meals a day, one at noon, and another at 5:00 in the evening. The main entree at these repasts was a bowl of meat and vegetable soup.

An American observer who inspected this camp thought the soup appetizing

but the “quantity...hardly sufficient to nourish the people properly.” Of - course, he only ate it once. The inmates ate the same soup twice a day, every day. In all, the daily ration consisted of 1 kilogram of vegetables and 500 grams of bread. In addition, the camp supplied 375 grams of meat weekly, on three separate days. Those inmates with money could purchase more food to supplement their diet, but most could not afford this luxury. About thirty inmates _ regularly purchased all their food and gave their camp ration to their poorer comrades. All male prisoners were obliged to work several hours daily. All the détenus were allowed to leave the camp for up to one hour twice daily and permitted to walk as far as one kilometer from the camp. The inmates were allowed to write postcards daily, but could not send letters. Nevertheless, they could receive mail as long as it did “not contain any remarks displeasing to the French authorities.” An infirmary was set up in a small building beside the convent. It was attended by a doctor who visited daily and by a German nun who volunteered to stay rather than accept repatriation when this was offered her. In summarizing his findings, the American diplomat who inspected this camp concluded “that the food-supply of the ‘internees’ is insufficient, that the sanitary conditions are very poor and that the people lack sufficient clothing and blankets

to keep them warm.” Unlike the French, the British government did not immediately intern its enemy alien population. Upon the outbreak of the war however, it did restrict aliens in a number of ways. On 3 August 1914, Parliament passed an Aliens Restriction Act that enabled the government to issue Orders in Council to limit the travel, residence, and general activities of aliens, whether friendly or unfriendly. Simultaneously, Orders in Council called the Aliens Restriction Order were issued which required all aliens to register with local officials and to inform them of any contemplated change of address. Furthermore, enemy aliens were

prohibited from living in or entering any of about a hundred designated areas, especially near the coastline. They were not allowed to travel more than five miles from their homes without a special permit good for only twenty-four hours. Enemy aliens were not allowed to possess such items as firearms, communica-

tions equipment, boats, aircraft, automobiles, cipher codes, telephones, petroleum, and military or naval maps. They were prohibited from reading

146 Part Ill: The Civilians German-language newspapers or working in the banking business.’® During the first eight months of the war, however, relatively few enemy aliens were interned in the United Kingdom.

As zeppelins raided British towns, as the Germans used poison gas on the battlefield, and as reports circulated about the alleged mistreatment of British war prisoners in Germany, public anger in England grew. This bitterness culminated in widespread anti-German rioting when in May 1915, a German U-boat sank the steamship Lusitania. One large rally in London adopted a

resolution that objected to permitting relatives of “German mutilators, poisoners, and murderers” to remain free in England. Claiming to fear “riots, fires, and spread of disease germs and poisoned water,” the crowd demanded that all alien enemies be interned as they had been in France. Another public meeting demanded that the government take action “to free the country from

the menace of the alien enemy in our midst.”” The government could not resist this intense public pressure, and accordingly, on 13 May, Prime Minister Herbert H. Asquith declared that most alien enemies

would be interned. In June the home secretary was authorized to intern any enemy subject. By 14 December 1915, there were 45,749 enemy aliens in British detention camps. Of these, 13,475 were said to be military reservists, while the remaining 32,274 were German and Austro-Hungarian civilians.”’ Among them was Paul Cohen-Portheim, an Austrian set designer who was visiting friends in

England when the conflict began. _ Cohen-Portheim spent the duration of the war in various British internment camps. He was first notified of his impending detention by a detective who called on him in the evening of 24 May and told him to report to the local police station at 10:00 A.M. the next morning.” Upon his arrival he was arrested and sent to an old warehouse where about a thousand other prisoners were waiting.” Shortly thereafter, he began the journey to a permanent detention camp at Knockaloe on the Isle of Man. On their way to the train station the prisoners were marched through the streets by soldiers with fixed bayonets. Crowds of people jeered, spat, and pelted them with refuse. One old woman with wild white hair screamed

“Uns!” and “Biby-killers! [sic]” as the detainees passed by.” After this experience, Cohen-Portheim expected to be herded into dirty boxcars for the trip to the coast, but in fact, he and his fellow prisoners had a pleasant trip in ordinary passenger cars. Upon their arrival at Knockaloe, they were greeted by the camp commandant, an old gentleman with a “quavering” voice who announced, “If

you will obey my orders I will treat you with kindness and consideration.

h ope.”> |

Anybody attempting to escape will be shot. The latrines will be finished soon. I When Cohen-Portheim arrived at the camp, efforts were underway to expand it enough to accommodate the influx of detainees seized in May and June. There were at least two thousand prisoners already in the camp. Most of these were

sailors who were interned when the war began and their ships were seized. Knockaloe was one of the camps that John B. Jackson toured when he made his

“Alien Enemy” 147 reciprocal inspection of British camps at German request.” When he was there, he noted a number of barracks within which bunks were arranged in two tiers against the walls. In between was a row of tables and benches. The rooms were heated with wood stoves, and electric lighting illuminated them at night. Showers

and warm water were available in another building, and the food seemed “satisfactory” since German chefs prepared it as they would have at home. Thus, meals were prepared in a way to which the men were accustomed.” The typical menu featured for breakfast one pint of porridge, two ounces of syrup, eight ounces of bread, one ounce of margarine, and one pint of tea with

milk and sugar. Dinner consisted of six ounces of bread, twelve ounces of potatoes, and a pint of soup, which Cohen-Portheim described as “watery... with bits of grease swimming around in it.” Twice a week the authorities substituted an eighteen-ounce meat-and-potato stew for the potatoes. On two other days of the week, five ounces of meat replaced the bread. Supper usually included eight ounces of bread, margarine, and marmalade, jam, or cheese. Prisoners could supplement these rations with food purchased at the camp canteen. Among the items available at the canteen were corned beef, canned salmon and sardines, peaches, pears, sausage, cream cheese, biscuits, crackers, apples, oranges, bananas, jam, chocolates, and cocoa.” The camp authorities divided the prisoners into companies, the members of which selected a “captain” whose duty it was to help maintain order and act as liaison

between the commandant and the men. He was supposed to pass along any complaints the men might have so something could be done about them. There was

a more informal and complex social organization that evolved among the men themselves. Money, for example, was held by the camp purser and could be withdrawn at a rate of one pound per week. This, however, was regarded as a great “social injustice” by many of the men who had no money. In this way the camp was divided into two classes, a “bourgeoisie” of about 10 percent and a “proletariat” of about 90 percent.” These were not the only kinds of divisions, however. One of the prison compounds was set aside specifically for a large number of German pimps who accompanied their prostitutes from Hamburg to London when the illicit sex

trade flourished prior to the war.” The prostitutes themselves were repatriated along with the other women and children shortly after the war began. As previously noted, German authorities were not so alarmed at the presence

of alien enemies within their borders as were the governments of the Entente. With a maximum of perhaps fifteen thousand British and French nationals, Germany had a much smaller number of aliens to be concerned about. Accordingly, German policy was initially more lenient than that of either of its Western enemies. Although Germany permitted no grace period in which civilians might leave the country, neither did it adopt any immediate internment measures. Numerous French and British subjects, such as those described by Thomson, escaped Germany in the last days before war was declared. During the first four months of the war, alien enemies in Germany were left largely unhindered to go about their business.*!

148 Part IIT: The Civilians On 6 November 1914, however, the German government ordered the internment of all British men between the ages of seventeen and fifty-five. It took this measure in retaliation for the British internment policy. As of 16 October 1914, Germany had interned only about three hundred British civilians, while Great Britain had interned over six thousand Germans.” Newspaper reports about the detention of civilian tourists in Britain created a public demand for the internment of the British in Germany. Given the disparity between the numbers of Germans and Britons interned, the Imperial government was unwilling to resist this demand.™ Germany also retaliated against France which, as we have seen, had taken drastic action against Germans and Austro-Hungarians as soon as the war began. Perhaps as many as ten thousand French civilians were in Germany at this time.” Two hundred twenty-five civilians — thirty British, and the remainder French, Belgian, and Russian—were in mid-March 1915 interned in Schloss Celle, a “large and attractive castle” located on top of a hill in Hanover. The prisoners

were accommodated in well-lighted rooms with space for between six and fourteen beds, and an assortment of tables, chairs, and shelves. Although there were large dining and smoking rooms, bathing facilities were limited to one bathtub and one shower. The food was not always as tasty as the inmates might have wished, but they could purchase additional food if they wanted. Overall, “the entire atmosphere” was “as cheerful and healthy as could be expected under the circumstances.” This was a good camp set up for “civilians of the better class.”* British prisoners from a wider variety of classes were generally interned at Ruhleben, a racetrack located two miles from Berlin beside the industrial suburb of Spandau. Ruhleben is the most famous prison camp of the First World War, and among

the most famous of all time. It is exceeded in notoriety perhaps only by the Confederate camp at Andersonville, and by some of the Nazi extermination camps such as Belsen and Auschwitz. It was not remotely comparable to any of these. Its fame springs neither from the inhumanity of the camp authorities, nor from barbaric conditions within, but from the inmates themselves. The roughly forty-four hundred prisoners were exclusively British, and a good many of them were highly literate individuals who wrote extensively about their experience. At least fifty books and articles dealing wholly or partially with Ruhleben have been

published. In addition, many of the inmates kept diaries, and the prisoners published several periodicals while in captivity. Among these were In Ruhleben Camp, issued ten times in 1915, The Ruhleben Camp Magazine, issued six times in 1916-1917, and Prisoner’s Pie.*’ A number of the prisoners were well known at the time of their incarceration, and many more became famous in later life.

This attracted the attention of British newspapers which reported often, if inaccurately, about this camp. In short, while thirty of “the better class” were in Schloss Celle, most were in Ruhleben. Overall, however, the largest group of British prisoners in Ruhleben were merchant seamen, officers, and fishermen, who had been interned when their

“Alien Enemy” 149 ships were seized in German ports as the war began. The 1,400 seafaring men comprised about 34.5 percent of the camp’s population in March of 1915, The next largest group of prisoners was made up of businessmen, managerial personnel, and clerks. They numbered about 1,000 and comprised about 24 percent of prisoners. Accounting for about 18 percent of the inmates were approximately

750 professionals, students, and scholars. The bulk of Ruhleben’s literary production was the work of these men. About 700 laborers, skilled and unskilled,

constituted about 16.5 percent of the camp population, while the remaining 7 percent represented prisoners with other occupations.* When the camp opened in November 1914, it occupied about ten acres and included eleven stables, a “Tea House,” and three grandstands. The initial four thousand prisoners were crowded into these buildings, which had been converted into barracks. Ten of the stables, constructed of brick and stucco, were about 160 feet long by 30 feet wide. Through the middle of each building ran a central aisle. Twenty-seven “horse boxes,” each ten feet square, were arrayed on opposite sides of the aisle. Six prisoners were assigned to each box. The second story was a hayloft, reached from the outside by a steep staircase. Approximately a hundred prisoners lived in the loft. They slept side by side, in single rows alongside each wall and in a double row down the middle. Only in the middle was the roof high enough to permit the men to stand upright. Along the side walls the prisoners had to crouch or sit. At all times they had to beware of the beams that ran the breadth of the building and divided it into “bays.” Not only was the loft very crowded, but with only a few small windows, it was very dark. The boxes down below were also dimlly lit, as the only electric lights were in the aisle. A sort of permanent twilight existed indoors on even the brightest days. Many of the men developed a craving for light with which to read, write, or play chess. The men often crowded under the lamps or around drafty windows in order to satisfy this craving.

In order to relieve the overcrowding, the authorities added twelve temporary buildings in 1915. These were wooden buildings with large windows which afforded much more light than was available in the lofts. The walls were sealed against moisture, and the roofs were covered with tarpaper. They accommodated 120 prisoners each.”® Nevertheless, the camp remained congested. The grounds, dry in summer, became a sea of mud during the rainy season.” The camp’s infirmary was located in what had been the racetrack’s casino. It too was overcrowded. This was rectified in early 1915 when the authorities made

arrangements to treat the sick in a sanatorium in Charlottenburg, a suburb of Berlin. Here there were two classes of accommodation, both pleasant and restful. Those who could afford ten marks a day shared a large, clean room with one other patient, and were permitted to walk about a two-acre garden. Those who could not afford this fee stayed in similar rooms but shared them with four or five others. They were permitted the freedom of a small courtyard rather than the garden. Their fee of seven marks was paid with British funds administered by the American embassy. All the patients were given five meals daily. Although these were not large, the patients described them as excellent.”

150 Part Il]: The Civilians The life of the British internees was not one of unrelieved misery. In numerous

creative ways the prisoners overcame the unpleasant circumstances in which

| they found themselves. As mentioned, they published several periodicals. They also produced plays, gave concerts, and organized athletic contests. In March 1915 the camp was expanded by the acquisition of the racetrack’s infield. This provided a playing field 200 yards long by 150 yards wide.” The camp provided athletic equipment, and the prisoners began to organize soccer and cricket leagues. Teams representing each barrack were formed, and a full season was scheduled. The prisoners played up to eight games daily, often attracting large crowds. Some of the players were professionals, and consequently the quality of

play was quite high. Prisoners also participated in numerous other sports, including rugby, field hockey, fencing, tennis, rounders, boxing, and golf, which was played on a five-hole course laid out on the infield. Some of the Canadians played baseball, while other prisoners organized track and field meets. At least one Olympic runner participated.” In addition to their athletic activities, the prisoners also pursued intellectual

endeavors. In December 1914, an organization called the Arts and Science Union was formed. By spring it had begun to sponsor numerous classes in subjects as diverse as calculus, organic chemistry, heredity, psychology, Shakespeare, German literature, and Mandarin Chinese. James Chadwick, the physicist who worked with Ernest Rutherford at the Cavandish Laboratory after

the war and discovered the neutron in 1932, lectured on radioactivity. J. C. Masterman, an Oxford historian, lectured to audiences of over 300 prisoners on “The Development of England as a Great Power.” At the union’s peak in 1916, enrollment ranged from 1,000 to 1,400. In 1917, the Arts and Science Union had 246 teachers and seventeen departments.“ In addition to the lecture classes, the prisoners formed numerous seminars devoted to the discussion of a wide variety of topics. Examples of these included a Technical Circle, a Nautical Circle, a Business Circle, an Irish Literary and Historical Circle, and a Textile Circle. All these educational activities were supported by a library of over 6,000 volumes shipped to the camp from England.* The Ruhleben Dramatic Society supplemented the prisoners’ course work with numerous productions ranging from Shakespeare to Galsworthy. Not to be outdone, musicians formed an orchestra and chorus which performed works by such composers as Hayden and Mendelssohn.* Before long, the camp began to resemble a university town more than a prison. With the formation of this web of organizations and personal relationships, the prisoners created a community that helped sustain them through four years of captivity. Each prisoner who participated in one or more groups became more than just a man behind barbed wire. He became an important member ofa social unit. Instead of just marking time, prisoners found creative and refreshing ways

to use it. Indeed, more than a few former prisoners looked back on their experience in Ruhleben as one of the high points of their lives. Many experienced

the same sense of unity and comradeship that leads many former soldiers to

“Alien Enemy” 151 regard their wartime service wistfully as a rewarding and exciting adventure. One university professor, summarizing his experience, wrote in 1933, “For me the word ‘Ruhleben’ connotes just four amazingly interesting and stimulating years which I would not have missed for anything.” A seaman wrote in 1949 that “to my mind those four years are more vivid and real than the years of World War II[;] ... we were happy although we did not know it.”” Few internment camps, military or civilian, were as active as Ruhleben. On the other hand, few if any were socially inert. Once the basic necessities of survival, food, clothing, and shelter had been provided, participation in social

activities enabled prisoners to endure the tedium of time and the enforced inactivity of confinement. The Ruhleben prisoners were not required by their captors to work. Civilian prisoners in general were not expected to perform labor beyond that necessary to keep the camp clean and orderly. The same was true in Great Britain. Thus, unlike enlisted prisoners, who were required to work, civilians had a great deal of time on their hands. They also had a great opportunity to make constructive use of their time. The prisoners at Ruhleben made a remarkably good job of this. The vast majority of the credit for this belongs to the prisoners themselves, who spontaneously created the community that sustained them. Nevertheless, the German commandants who wisely permitted the inmates such freedom also deserve some recognition. American Ambassador James Gerard, who was in close contact with the camp, had nothing but praise for the authorities. “It is impossible,” he wrote in 1915, “to conceive of better camp commanders than Graf Schwerin and Baron Taube.” Ruhleben was not the only camp in Germany that held civilian prisoners. The number of alien civilians in German custody gradually increased from about 48,000 in June 1915 to over 110,000 in October 1918. These were distributed _ throughout Germany in approximately eighty camps.” Civilians were usually interned in military camps along with prisoners of war from several different countries. In a few camps such as Rastatt and Holzminden they formed the majority, but in most they were a small minority.” Few if any of these prisoners had the same quality of experience as the Ruhleben detainees. Many of the several hundred thousand alien enemies throughout Europe were not interned, and many who were spent relatively little time in captivity. Almost as Soon as internment measures were taken, the various belligerents began to negotiate the exchange of alien enemies. As a result, many civilians gained their freedom in this way. As early as October 1914, for example, France and Germany

agreed to repatriate all men older than sixty or younger than sixteen and all women regardless of age. Late in 1916, the two countries agreed to exchange all men under seventeen or over fifty-five and any men who were incapacitated by

any of twenty afflictions. Approximately twenty thousand Germans were released by the terms of this agreement.”' Substantially fewer French citizens were released. The disparity existed because the agreements covered an age range (all males above fifty-five or below seventeen), regardless of how many men were in it.

152 Part III: The Civilians The excess of German over French repatriates meant that more German aliens were in France than there were French civilians in Germany. Those who were not included in the exchange agreements were those the two governments feared would serve in the armed forces or otherwise aid the enemy if released. These are the men who spent the duration in detention camps. The French and Germans reached accord with relative ease on this issue because the relative size of their alien populations, though different, were not so disparate that either side believed the other would receive a significant advantage by trade. The Anglo-German relationship was different. Early in the war, Germany offered to permit all British subjects in Germany to return home if Great Britain

would reciprocate. In short, they proposed a universal exchange of aliens without regard to numbers. This would have been the most humane course of action. Had the British accepted the German offer, there would have been no

Ruhleben, but humane considerations did not govern the British decision. Military factors were paramount, and the British could not accept the German proposal because they would receive only about five thousand Britons in exchange for over fifty thousand Germans. The British reply on 31 August 1914 offered to exchange all women and all men under sixteen or over forty-four. When they subsequently realized that Germans up to age fifty-five could serve in the armed forces, the British raised the upper age of their proposal to fifty-six. The proposal to release women and children remained unaffected by this change and went forward accordingly. In addition, the British offered to repatriate all ~ men between those ages who were under no military obligation and who agreed not to participate in the German war effort. The last stipulation resembled an old-fashioned parole extended to civilians. On 15 September, Germany agreed to all points of this proposal except the one concerning parole. After this, the negotiations settled down into a long stalemate which lasted throughout 1915 and 1916. Finally, in January 1917, the two nations agreed to exchange all men over forty-five. By this agreement approximately seven thousand Germans and six to seven hundred British subjects were repatriated.” Driven by fear that the enemy would derive advantage by the repatriation of enemy aliens, the belligerents of the First World War adopted measures directed

against civilians that were unprecedented in a thousand years of European history. In incarcerating hundreds of thousands of civilians, these powers departed most radically from the norms of the liberal tradition of captivity. Although the Hague Conventions did not speak of the status of enemy aliens, in a general sense the liberal tradition did. The silence of the Hague Conventions emphasizes the unanticipated nature of this problem. The appearance of the

alien enemy problem during the First World War is another aspect of the often-discussed blurring of the distinction between combatants and noncombatants. It is another way in which civilians became victims, and is another aspect of total war. Wartime diplomats did not solve the problems posed by the presence of the alien enemy. They did, however, make a serious effort to grapple with the

“Alien Enemy” 153 problem. The results of their efforts appear in the various bilateral prisoner of war treaties that the belligerents negotiated. The Anglo-German agreements of July 1918, for example, give civilians the same protections as soldiers. The German-American agreement of November 1918 devotes an entire section to the treatment of civilians. Despite these belated efforts, further attempts to resolve this problem were not made until 1949 when the Second World War had made it abundantly clear that existing arrangements were inadequate. The 1949 Geneva Convention elevates civilians to the same level as military prisoners and contains elaborate regulations designed to protect them from abuse.

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“ALIEN ENEMIES” AND WAR PRISONERS IN AMERICA

The steamship Kronprinz Wilhelm left New York harbor at 8:10 P.M. on the night of 3 August 1914 after hurriedly taking on large supplies of food, coal, and other stores. Owned by the North German Lloyd Company, it was a four-funneled commercial vessel with a displacement of 14,908 tons. The ship sailed south toward the Caribbean until it reached a point about 150 miles from Watling Island where, at 7:00 A.M.

on the morning of 6 August it met the German cruiser Karlsruhe. While the two ships were roped together at sea, two guns and gun crews along with a naval officer, Lieutenant Commander Paul Thierfelder, were transferred to the Kronprinz Wilhelm. That afternoon the steamship escaped a rapidly approaching British naval vessel and began an eight-month career as a surface raider. In that time the Wilhelm captured or sank fifteen Allied merchant ships. By April 1915, however, it was near the end of its cruise. The ship was low on supplies and the crew was suffering from scurvy and beri-beri. Thierfelder therefore decided upon internment in the United

States. On 11 April he steamed into Newport News, Virginia and asked for permission to stay three weeks and make repairs. The United States government refused to permit the repair of damage caused by the war, and on 26 August 1915

seized the ship and interned its crew.’ | The crews of other German vessels, such as the surface raider Ejitel Friedrich,

were likewise interned in the United States. Prior to American belligerency, German ships and their crews were seized for violation of American neutrality in ports in the continental United States and in many of its island possessions such as the Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Most of these sailors were taken to internment camps, where they remained until the conclusion of the war. British control of the seas insured that the internees seized in this way were almost exclusively German. Sailors taken from naval vessels were treated as prisoners of war.

156 Part II: The Civilians The United States operated four permanent internment camps within its borders during the First World War. These camps were established under the authority granted the president by the Alien Act of 1798 and by a series of presidential proclamations regulating the activities of alien enemies during the war.” The War Department established camps at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, and at Fort Douglas, Utah, for twenty-three hundred civilian internees. It built a third camp at Fort McPherson, just outside Atlanta, Georgia. This camp held 1,356 German naval officers and men. The final camp was run by the Labor Department until April 1918, when it was turned over to the War Department. Located at Hot Springs, North Carolina, a Blue Ridge mountain resort community, this

camp housed some eighteen hundred German merchant seamen seized in American ports in April 1917 as Congress voted to approve the war resolution President Woodrow Wilson had submitted. Another five hundred crewmen of German merchant vessels captured in Panama and the Philippine Islands were also held at Hot Springs.’

, During the two and a half years of American neutrality, the belligerents, primarily Britain and Germany, courted American public opinion. It was a propaganda battle that Germany had little chance of winning. Before long the Entente had obtained the upper hand, and every ship sunk by a U-boat made the Germans look even worse. One element in the propaganda campaign fostered rumors of a widespread network of German spies and saboteurs that threatened the nation’s security. Secret Service agents of William Gibbs McAdoo’s Treasury Department who were assigned to investigate found evidence of “German intrigues” that made spectacular headlines. When, in July 1916, a munitions facility on Black Tom Island in New York Harbor exploded, public fears of German agents reached a peak of hysteria. By the time Wilson read his war message to Congress, much of the general public was convinced that enemy agents had organized multitudes of Austro-Hungarian and German immigrants into a huge fifth column ready to attack the nation from within. Spies were thought to be everywhere.’ Early in 1917 as German-American relations deteriorated and the two nations headed for war, German Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Artur Zimmermann suggested to American ambassador James Gerard in Berlin that the two nations should reach agreement on how they would treat alien enemies in the event of war. Zimmermann proposed that they adopt asupplementary statement

expanding on a unique treaty that bound the United States and Germany.” Originally concluded in July 1785, the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between

the United States and His Majesty the King of Prussia was negotiated by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.° Article 24 dealt with the treatment that would be accorded prisoners “if war should arise between the two contracting parties.” Article 23 protected civilian enemy nationals together with their property in time of war. It held that “merchants of either country then residing in the other, shall be allowed to remain nine months to collect their debts and settle their affairs, and may depart freely, carrying off

“Alien Enemies” in America 157 all their effects, without molestation or hindrance.” The treaty concluded with a most remarkable clause:

neither the pretense that war dissolves all treaties, nor any other whatsoever, shall be considered as annulling or suspending this and the next preceding article; but, on the contrary, that the state of war is precisely that for which they are provided, and during which they are to be as sacredly observed as the most acknowledged articles of the law of nature and nations.’ This treaty was in effect for a term of ten years. Although it expired in 1796, it was revived with minor changes on 11 July 1799 for another ten years. John Quincy Adams, then American minister to Prussia, signed for the United States in Berlin.® Although the 1799 treaty was allowed to lapse in 1809, the crucial articles relating to war prisoners and what are now called alien enemies were revived in Article 12 of a new treaty negotiated by Secretary of State Henry Clay in 1828.° This is the treaty to which Zimmermann referred when he approached Gerard in Berlin in 1917.

The “special arrangement” Zimmermann proposed made several major points. It began with a reaffirmation of Article 23 of the treaty of 1899, and stated

that aliens should be permitted to remain beyond the nine-month time limit originally provided. Next, it stated that aliens should be free to leave and take their personal property and money with them. It provided that no restrictions should be placed on aliens to which other neutral nationals were not subject. It upheld contracts made between Germans and Americans, and it specifically stated that alien enemies could “not be transferred to concentration camps, nor shall their private property be subject to sequestration or liquidation.” Finally, the German proposal offered various protections to merchant ships and their crews. Vessels in enemy port at the outbreak of war could not, for example, “be forced to leave port unless at the same time they be given a pass, recognized as binding by all the enemy sea powers, to a home port.” Since Great Britain and the United States controlled the seas at this time, the primary effect of the final provisions would have been to protect German merchant vessels from the British Navy. Likewise, since there were many times more Germans

resident in the United States than Americans resident in Germany in 1917, the prohibition of internment would likewise have primarily benefited Germany. Nevertheless, in view of the melancholy fate of hundreds of thousands of hapless civilians caught on enemy territory when the war broke out in Europe, an agreement not to intern aliens may have been desirable on general humanitarian grounds. However,

the two nations agreed to neither this, nor to any other part of Zimmermann’s proposal. While deciding to make good use of their own advantages, American officials were unwilling to concede any unwarranted advantage to Germany as the two nations approached war. As Gerard cabled, “I think we have many Germans. There are very few real Americans left in Germany.”"

(158 Part III: The Civilians The United States declined to accept the German proposal, arguing that the sinking by submarine and capture of various American merchant vessels al-

legedly carrying contraband violated various other articles of the treaty. Secretary of State Robert Lansing indicated that in the opinion of the Wilson administration, Germany may have abrogated the treaty by its many alleged violations of the terms. For its part, Germany denied violating the terms of the treaty and asserted that it would continue to honor Article 23.” Although Germany was unsuccessful in its effort to supplement the treaty provisions regarding aliens, Austria-Hungary did obtain an agreement with the United States. On 6 April, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office proposed to Ambassador Frederic C. Penfield in Vienna that the two nations agree on the following two points. First, all Americans in the empire and all Austrian subjects in the United States should have four weeks from the severance of diplomatic relations to leave the country. Second, those who chose to remain in either country despite the rupture in relations would “be neither interned nor confined and... unmolested” as long as they did not “render themselves guilty of misdemeanor.” The United States had two reservations to this proposal. First, it

| objected to the four-week time limit for departure, and second, it wanted the words “or a menace to the national safety” added to the last clause. The Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary was amenable to these changes, and

the two nations reached agreement.” |

When on 6 April the Congress of the United States declared war on the German empire, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation placing various restrictions on the activities of alien enemies. In his statement Wilson defined alien enemies as “all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of Germany,

being males of the age of fourteen years and upwards, who...[were] not actually naturalized.” The president’s statement informed alien enemies that as long as they would “refrain from actual hostility” and “conduct themselves in accordance with law, they shall be undisturbed in the peaceful pursuit of their lives and occupations.” It went on to ask that American citizens treat all alien enemies who conducted themselves peacefully “with all such friendliness as may be compatible with loyalty and allegiance to the United States.” Those aliens who failed to conduct themselves accordingly, Wilson noted, would be “liable to restraint.” He then set out a list of regulations limiting the activities of alien enemies.

Accordingly, alien enemies were not permitted to possess any weapons, aircraft, codes, ciphers, or signaling apparatus. They were not allowed to approach within one half mile of any naval base, military base, or other federal outpost, nor could they reside within any district the president might designate. They could neither leave nor enter the United States without permission. Finally, the government was empowered under section 12 of the proclamation to confine in a “penitentiary, prison, jail, military camp, or other place of detention” any enemy alien about whom there was “reasonable cause” to suspect had or might violate any of these regulations or laws.’

“Alien Enemies” in America 159 In mid-November 1917, the president issued another proclamation that further restricted the liberty of alien enemies. It forbade them from approaching various wharves, docks, railroad terminals, and canals, and restricted travel on American waterways. They could not enter the District of Columbia or the Panama Canal Zone, and were not permitted to “ascend into the air in any airplane, balloon, airship, or flying machine.” Finally, all alien enemies were instructed to register with federal authorities.” On 11 December 1917, when

Congress declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a similar set of restrictions were applied to its subjects.’® The rules governing the behavior of alien enemies were further extended in April 1918 to include women.”” The president’s declaration that alien enemies could not leave the country without special permission was inconsistent with Article 23 of the PrussianAmerican treaty, which provided them with nine months in which to leave. The administration became aware of this almost immediately when the State and Justice departments were flooded with queries about whether the 1828 treaty remained in effect. The question took on some urgency when a number of alien enemies attempting to cross the border into Mexico were arrested and confined to detention camps. Secretary of State Lansing referred this problem to the president in mid-April. The secretary was ambivalent about how to handle the problem. On the one hand he wanted the United States to be able to protect itself against any domestic threat posed by alien enemies, yet on the other, as he wrote in his letter to the

president, “it would be unfortunate to open the war by tearing up a treaty.” Lansing attempted to resolve the dilemma by arguing that although the treaty was “technically” in effect because the United States had not given the required twelve months’ notice of termination, Germany’s alleged violations of the treaty undermined its status, permitting the United States to “prevent the departure of its enemies.”*®

Wilson did not want to tear up any treaties either. Indeed, he believed it important to honor them. “I do not feel,” he wrote, “that Germany’s playing fast —_ and loose with the obligations of this treaty . .. affords, for us who are proud to observe obligations and would like to set an example, a sufficient ground for repudiating our own promises.“ He decided that the United States must allow “the full nine months” to all Germans wishing to depart except those “who might

... be plotting ... mischief against us.” Acknowledging that “the line will be hard to draw,” he argued that the nation had a right to distinguish and restrain such individuals. ” This task, the enforcement of section 12 of the president’s proclamation of 6 April 1917, was given to the Justice Department. Accordingly, the department’s Alien Enemy Bureau maintained surveillance over the roughly 4 million AustroHungarian and .5 million German subjects living inthe United States. Informers __

and agents worked in German, Austrian, Hungarian, and other ethnic communities within the nation’s large cities. Meanwhile, the administration debated

what internment steps to take. McAdoo and Lansing favored a large-scale

160 Part II: The Civilians internment program similar to those in Europe, but Secretary of War Newton Baker and Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory did not believe that such

sweeping measures were necessary. Since Baker and Gregory headed the departments that had jurisdiction over internment matters, their preference for amore limited program prevailed. By30 June 1917, 295 aliens had been arrested; by 30 October, 600 more were in custody. The Justice Department ultimately arrested and interned about 4,000 suspects.” This is approximately 1 out of every 1,100 enemy aliens in the United States at the time. By present standards this may seem like very harsh treatment, but compared to the standards set in Europe where hundreds of thousands were interned simply because of their nationality, this was remarkably lenient. ©

Suspects arrested by the Justice Department were interned in camps run by the adjutant general of the army in the War Department. These were often the same camps used to hold the military prisoners taken from ships. One such camp was the War Prison Barracks at Fort Douglas, Utah. Located about three miles from Salt Lake City in the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains, the camp was built on sloping ground overlooking the Utah valley. The compound comprised an area 748 feet by 922 feet surrounded by a pair of barbed wire fences. Within the compound were approximately sixty wooden buildings painted yellow and brown. These buildings were sturdy and durable. Built on pilings in order to raise them above the snow and moisture of winter, they had double-wall and double-floor construction. Tar paper was used throughout in order to weatherseal the buildings. They had gable ventilation, electric lights, and were heated “by coal stoves of the latest pattern.””* The camp was arranged into twelve sections, each with a 20’ x 63’ officer’s building, a 21’ x 105’ mess hall, a 20’ x 217’ barracks, and two restrooms, one 14’ x 63’ and the other 14’ x 78’ in length. One had eight toilets, while the other contained seven showers and a number of sinks and bathtubs. The officers’ quarters were spacious. Each building consisted of eight individual bedrooms, a dining room and a kitchen. In November 1917 only one or two officers were assigned to each building. Thus, they had a great deal of space to themselves. The mess halls were designed to serve one hundred prisoners. They included a dining room and kitchen equipped with a large refrigerator and all necessary utensils. The barracks, also designed for a hundred men, were divided into several sections by various partitions and curtains. The bunks consisted of a mattress with metal springs, two sheets, a pillow, and a pair of blankets. A third blanket would be furnished on request. They were arranged in two tiers of fifty each. In addition to these buildings, the camp had a 28’ x 30’ jail with four cells, a20' x 120’ hospital building, and a30’ x 90’ foot building erected by the inmates

- for the Young Men’s Christian Association.” In November 1917 the population of the camp consisted of the 327 officers and crewmen of the Cormoran, the 179 officers and crewmen of the Locksun and the gunboat Geier, and 95 civilian enemy aliens, for a total of 601 prisoners. The civil internees were quartered in two of the twelve sections of the camp.

“Alien Enemies” in America | 161 Surrounded by an eight-foot barbed wire fence, they were separated from the naval prisoners. As a result they were unable to make use of the recreational activities provided by the YMCA or the athletic field, which was located on the other side of the fence. In every other respect their treatment and accommodations were identical to those of the other inmates. The civilian prisoners were separated from the military men as the result of an order issued by the War Department which, correctly, did not regard the civilians as prisoners of war in

international law.” ,

The diet provided to the prisoners was the same as that provided to the American soldiers stationed at the adjacent fort. On Monday, 12 November 1917, the menu included the following: Breakfast was “macaroni with bacon, tomatoes, coffee, bread and preserves”; lunch was “soup, roast beef, savoy cabbage, potatoes and plum jam”; and dinner was “mock rabbit with gravy, potatoes, butter, bread, coffee.” On Friday, 16 November, the menu was as follows: Breakfast was “oatmeal with milk, boiled eggs, butter, bread and coffee”; lunch was “bread soup with raisins, fried flounder with sauce and mashed potatoes”; and dinner was “chopped raw beef with onions, cucumbers, bread, butter, coffee.” The meals were prepared by German chefs in such a way as to agree with the tastes of the prisoners. According to the Swiss commission that inspected the camp, “the food and service 1s very good . . . and [is served] in sufficient quantities.””

All war prisoners were furnished with four pairs of underwear, two for summer and two for winter; three pairs of trousers of differing weight; a light working jacket; a heavy winter coat; one pair of shoes; two pairs of socks; and a cap. Nothing was issued to the civilians, who continued to wear their own clothes.” Medical care was provided in the camp. A twenty-bed hospital was supervised

by American and German doctors and staffed by corpsmen from the crews of the interned vessels. Serious cases were transferred to the hospital at the fort. Dental work was originally done by a dentist in Salt Lake City, but this duty was later transferred to the Army dentist at the fort. This caused some complaint on the part of the prisoners, who said that he was so busy working on the teeth of the soldiers that he had little or no time to attend to their needs. The American authorities responded to this complaint by making arrangements for a dentist to visit the camp. The prisoners did, however, have to pay for his services out of their own funds.” Unfortunately, there was very little opportunity for the prisoners to earn

money. They were required to clean and maintain the camp. Beyond that, however, there was relatively little work that needed doing. When prisoners were paid for work they did, it was at a rate of fifty cents a day. With little work to do, the prisoners suffered from the boredom inevitable in

such camps. They dealt with this in the usual ways. They formed a variety of educational, cultural, and athletic organizations. A dramatic club was formed and interested prisoners spent weeks in preparation of various plays which they

162 Part III: The Civilians performed for their fellow inmates. The prisoners also formed an eighteen-piece orchestra, a brass band, and a so-called “Paris Orchestra,” which played theme music to accompany the motion pictures that were shown twice weekly. Sixty of the prisoners also organized a chorus. The more athletically inclined prisoners

, formed a sports club called Vater Jahn. A total of 392 prisoners were enrolled in a variety of courses taught by instructors selected from the crewmen. Classes ranged from art, history, and penmanship, through foreign languages, to mathematics, navigation, and steam engineering. The prisoners could supplement their educational activities by reading the books in the several-hundred-volume library.”’

Despite the apparently good conditions that prevailed in this camp, many

tensions existed just below the surface. In part these were caused by the preferential treatment that was given to the naval prisoners. As noted, they were issued new clothes while the civilians were not. Despite the recommendations of Swiss camp inspectors, the camp’s athletic field remained off-limits to the

civilians. In addition to these petty annoyances, the prisoners often suffered anxiety because they did not know on what charges they were held, who their accusers were, how long they would be in custody, or whether they would be allowed to remain in the United States after the war. This naturally stirred discontent among the civil prisoners. While the military prisoners often adapted quite well to camp discipline because they were used to that of the armed forces, civilians found it hard to tolerate. This was compounded by the fact that many of these civilians had come to the attention of the authorities in the first place because they were opinionated and outspoken in their political views on the war and other social issues. Camp

authorities both at Fort Douglas and elsewhere thought many of the inmates were Wobblies, members of the anarcho-syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World. According to Erich Brandeis, an inmate who apparently held Prussians

in contempt and had emigrated to the United States a decade earlier, Fort Douglas was a “little Germany” full of ardent German nationalists. Brandeis noted the appearance of a small clique that dominated camp life and blacklisted

those inmates who rejected its leadership. Among the rebels a number of “radicals” and “agitators” preached resistance. As a result, rebellion was endemic at Douglas. Prisoners planted firebombs in the barracks, broke windows, stole plumbing fixtures, destroyed doors and partitions, and stopped up toilets. Twenty-eight inmates even attempted to set the camp on fire. Another group plotted a mass escape by blowing up the guard towers and storming the gates. The authorities responded to the last scheme by planting spies among the prisoners in order to thwart their plans. The camp authorities came to depend increasingly on force to control the unruly men, many of whom were eventually isolated in special

barracks where they were denied any privileges. In March 1918 the less troublesome naval prisoners were transferred to Fort McPherson where they would not be subject to the corrosive influence of the civilian prisoners.”

“Alien Enemies” in America 163 Discontent was not as severe at other camps. Nevertheless, there were difficulties. Tensions between inmates and guards were commonplace. They

tended to regard one another with distrust. The guards were a mixture of reservists and recruits from the military disciplinary prisons at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and Alcatraz, California. Many resented the fact that they were limited to domestic guard duty and were not at the front. The Labor Department camp at Hot Springs, North Carolina, was guarded by local civilians, many of whom were hostile to the Germans in their custody. As a result, there were a number of incidents that exacerbated the tension. One incident at Hot Springs came to the attention of the Swiss legation. Lieutenant Georg Nissen was cursed and beaten while attempting to talk with his wife, who was standing on the other side of the fence. Even at Fort McPherson, which was the most orderly of the camps, relations between the guards and prisoners deteriorated in the wake of an attempt by some sailors to escape through a tunnel. There followed a series of incidents in which several seamen were clubbed, bayoneted in the buttocks, or shot with buckshot. One was even killed for coming too close to a barbed wire fence while chasing a ball.” The Justice Department was not the only administrative unit that helped to

enforce the president’s proclamation. The Labor Department was also empowered to seize aliens alleged to be attempting to enter the nation illegally. As Congress debated the president’s war message of 2 April 1917, agents of the Labor Department were poised in ports throughout the nation to seize German merchant sailors and ships in American harbors. On 4 April the Labor Department issued the following instructions to its officers:

Lay all plans, but take no actual step until receipt of cablegram reading

“proceed,” to take charge of and detain in immigration station every officer and crewman of German merchant vessels only. Customs officers will take charge of vessels and later turn over personal effects of officers and men. Military or naval officers will furnish soldiers or marines needed to aid in safely and surely conveying men to station. Immigration officers may carry arms if .. . necessary.”

As a result the Labor Department arrested several hundred German merchant sailors while aboard their ships in American ports. They were detained at several immigration stations across the nation. These included Ellis Island in New York City, Angel Island in San Francisco, Gloucester City in New Jersey, Boston, New Orleans, New London, Baltimore, Newport News, Philadelphia, Jacksonville, Seattle, Honolulu, San Juan in Puerto Rico, and Manila in the Philippine Islands. Prisoners detained at these stations were gradually transferred to the Labor Department’s main internment camp in Hot Springs, North Carolina.”! The United States was unique in granting custody of alien enemies to im-

migration authorities. This unusual situation came about in a general sense

164 Part II: The Civilians because the United States had had so much experience with immigration in recent years that the administrative apparatus for detention of aliens was well developed and situated. It also occurred because during the period of American

neutrality the internment of belligerents like the crewmen of the Kronprinz Wilhelm was regarded as an immigration matter. When the United States entered the war, this was a natural extension of the department’s prewar activities. Labor Department provenance, however, created an unusual definition of the status of these prisoners. Unlike aliens detained by the Justice Department who were regarded simply as alien enemies within the framework of the president’s

declaration, those arrested aboard ship had another status entirely. Prior to American belligerency, those interned had been regarded as “aliens who, while physically within the jurisdiction of this country, were constructively outside and

in the same situation as any other alien arriving in a United States port and applying for admission but not yet formally admitted.” Once the United States entered the war and Wilson issued his proclamation restricting alien enemies, the status of the crewmen was transformed from that of “aliens at the portals” to “alien-enemy applicants for admission.” As alien enemies they could not be

admitted to the United States and “their deportation not being practicable, [they] have been detained.” As applicants for admission these sailors were under the jurisdiction of the Labor Department, which held them in the immigration stations, the only facilities initially available to it for this purpose.” Neither the Labor Department nor its immigration stations were adequately prepared to care for prisoners for a long duration. The holding facilities in the

ports were designed only for the short-term detention of aliens before their

deportation. Nevertheless, the Labor Department attempted to treat the detainees reasonably well. As much as possible the officers were given the same accommodations and food as “would be given to first-class passengers.” The crewmen were treated as though they were third-class or steerage passengers.

Nevertheless, the Labor Department acknowledged the inadequacies of its detention facilities.” The deficiencies of these facilities caused the prisoners to complain regularly to the German Interests Section of the Swiss embassy which in turn relayed their objections both to Germany and to the United States. The German government also lodged numerous protests against the treatment of these sailors. Implicit in

these protests was the threat that retaliatory action would be taken against American civilians held in Germany. The German complaints were not without substance. On 24 May 1917, for example, a request for parole was sent to the Labor Department on behalf of Jacob Hamm, an alien interned at Ellis Island who was suffering from tuberculosis. Hamm died on 1 September while awaiting action on his request. The department explained its failure to act promptly as “orowing out of the great volume of work placed upon the Department coincident with this country’s entrance in the war.” Joseph C. Grew, then chief of the State Department’s Division of Western European Affairs, used this incident in

“Alien Enemies” in America 165 an October 1917 memorandum urging that alien enemies be removed from the custody of the Labor Department. Anticipating a conference with Germany to resolve differences over military prisoners and civilian detainees, Grew pointed out that the United States held prisoners in three separate jurisdictions: war, justice, and labor. He believed it advantageous to the United States to consolidate the administration of captivity so the nation could speak with one voice at any prisoner of war conference. “Dual jurisdiction and responsibility,” according to Grew, “lead to several evils. The red tape is doubled, responsibility is divided, the executive and the judicial

are separated and opportunities for avoiding decision are unlimited.” | Referring to the Hamm case, Grew argued that the Labor Department did not have adequate facilities for the “proper treatment of all the aliens under its jurisdiction” and was “unable to perform... strictly in accordance with the spirit which this Government has endeavored to pursue with regard to enemy aliens.” Pointing to the possibility of violent incidents at the Hot Springs camp, he explained that while the Labor Department might be unconcerned, “it is on the Department of State that the international embarrassment would fall should

unpleasant incidents occur.” In conclusion, he recommended changes to “enable the representatives of the State and War departments exclusively to

speak with authority on any questions which might arise touching either prisoners of war or interned enemy aliens in the United States.” The response to Grew’s memorandum was slow but decisive. In April 1918,

representatives of the State, War, Justice and Labor departments met to discuss the problems raised by Grew. The participants agreed to transfer the

detainees from the custody of the Labor Department to that of the War Department. On 11 May 1918, the Labor Department officially consented, and the administration of the Hot Springs camp was transferred to the War Department.’’ Meanwhile, internees held at the various immigration stations

had been transferred to permanent camps. The United States had consolidated the custody of alien enemies in time for the prisoner of war conference that took place in Berne. As noted previously, the internment of alien enemies during wartime was new to the modern world. In previous centuries alien enemies had been permitted a

“reasonable” period of time, usually at least nine months as specified in the Prussian-American treaty, to wind up their affairs and depart. At the turn of the century, a consensus of international legal opinion held that no nation could indiscriminately intern enemy nationals on its territory. However, by mid-1915, well over two hundred thousand people had been interned throughout Europe. They were interned merely because of their nationality. The detaining powers

did not require proof that the individual detainee was a threat to the national security or had acted in a hostile manner. Nativity was a sufficient basis for incarceration. Nations such as France and Russia felt justified in taking such extreme measures. The former had Europe’s largest population of enemy aliens and was partially occupied by German forces.

166 Part ITI: The Civilians In the United States, however, circumstances were different. Although many more alien enemies resided in the United States than in France, there was no direct threat from enemy forces. Although the threat of espionage and sabotage

that many perceived was real, it was far more remote than in France. Furthermore, despite widespread ethnocentricity and nationalist sentiment, Americans had become accustomed, if not always hospitable, to numerous immigrants during the preceding half-century. As a consequence, the American program of internment was, by comparison with that of contemporary Europe, selective and restrained. The restrictions placed on the movements and activities of enemy nationals would have constituted a massive violation of the rights of American citizens, but these were not citizens, and their rights were quite limited. Although it is offensive to civil libertarians, the state of affairs remains much the same today. Aliens still have relatively few legal rights in this or any other country. Enemy nationals were not arrested and detained en masse as they were in

Europe. They were detained individually, and on an evidentiary basis. The evidence may have been inaccurate, and the arrests may have been motivated by ideological zeal, personal antipathy, or greed, but they were individual, not collective. The detainees were arrested as individuals and not as members of an ethnic or national group. The difference was to be seen a generation later when

virtually all members of an ethnic group, the Japanese, were incarcerated regardless of loyalty, citizenship, or individual behavior.

The arrest and detention of roughly twenty-three hundred German and Austro-Hungarian civilians was unnecessary from the standpoint of national security. Nevertheless, given the wartime clamor and European precedent, it was almost inevitable. On the surface it constituted a departure from the liberal tradition, yet its limited nature was consistent with the American emphasis on individual responsibility. Finally, it was a small step in the century-long process that has obliterated the distinction between combatant and noncombatant,

between soldier and civilian.

Part IV

Armistice and Aftermath

, BLANK PAGE

REPATRIATION, REVOLUTION, AND THE RADICAL TRADITION

Captivity during warfare invariably raises the question of repatriation of prisoners. During the nineteenth century, the once common practice of prisoner

exchange gradually died out. The last conflict during which prisoners were exchanged on a large scale was the American Civil War. The practice was _ abandoned toward the end of the war because the federal authorities believed that the trade was unequal. During the ensuing half-century, exchange was widely replaced by repatriation on the conclusion of hostilities. Thus, French prisoners were returned from Germany after the Franco-Prussian War, and Boers were repatriated in the aftermath of the conflict in South Africa. By the turn of the century it was generally understood that repatriation of

prisoners should take place expeditiously. Nevertheless, international legal scholars recognized that certain delays were unavoidable. The sheer number of French prisoners in Germany in 1871, for example, made repatriation difficult. Likewise, the repatriation of Boers from such locations as India, Ceylon, and

Bermuda, where they had been interned, was delayed by distance and by a shortage of shipping. The United States set a standard of prompt repatriation, however, when, between 9 August and 17 September 1898, it repatriated approximately twenty-three thousand Spanish soldiers captured in Cuba and the Philippines. Accordingly, the 1907 Hague Convention declared that “after the conclusion of peace, the repatriation of prisoners of war shall be carried out as quickly as possible.”"

The First World War and the ensuing Russian Revolution transformed this optimistic prescription into a pious anachronism. The repatriation of prisoners in the aftermath of the First World War was seldom carried out by the victors in a timely and efficient manner. The kinds of obstacles that hindered the rapid repatriation of the French prisoners in 1871 and the Boers in 1901 were present

170 Part IV: Armistice in 1918-1919, but they played a minor role in delaying the repatriation of prisoners. Repatriation, which was envisioned as a simple, straightforward, humanitarian act, was subject to complex and powerful political forces. The primary obstacles to the rapid repatriation of prisoners in the wake of the First World War were political in nature. Repatriation on a significant scale first began during the war on the eastern front when Germany and Russia signed an armistice on 15 December 1917. A supplement to the armistice agreement provided for “the immediate exchange of civil prisoners and prisoners of war unfit for military service.” As a result of this clause, trainloads of five hundred Russian sick and invalid prisoners were exchanged for an equal number of Germans and Austrians twice weekly.” Given the enormous number of prisoners held by each side, this was a relative trickle. It proceeded without major difficulties. It was not until 3 March 1918, when the two nations signed the Treaty of Brest

| Litovsk, that provision was made for the repatriation of the general prisoner population. According to Article 8 of the treaty, “the prisoners of war of both parties will be allowed to return home.” According to the terms of an additional agreement, “the exchange of prisoners of war unfit for military service, which has already begun, will be continued with the greatest possible speed. The

| exchange of other prisoners of war will take place as speedily as possible.” The Germans were reluctant to comply with the terms of the treaty that they had compelled Russia to sign. The Soviets were even more reluctant to comply

| with the terms of a treaty that the Germans had dictated. As a result, both sides evaded their responsibility to repatriate prisoners “as speedily as possible,” and engaged in a vicious competition to exploit the prisoners in their custody. Russian prisoners were used widely on German farms. Consequently, Ger-

man agriculture had become heavily dependent on the labor of Russian prisoners. They were also used extensively in other activities vital to the German

wartime economy. Germany could ill afford to lose the labor of Russian prisoners, as they could only be replaced by soldiers desperately needed at the front. As a result, the German authorities repatriated primarily invalids, consumptives, and others who were unfit for any type of labor.’ The Russians also circumvented the terms of the treaty. Article 2 stated, “The contracting powers will refrain from all agitation or propaganda against the governments or all state or military institutions of the other side.”” This clause did not prevent the Soviets from continuing to indoctrinate the prisoners in its custody with revolutionary propaganda, nor did it prevent them from repatriating only those prisoners who had become ideological converts dedicated to spreading the revolution to Germany.

According to one historian, the prisoners the Russians repatriated were “infected with Bolshevism... and contributed immensely to the deterioration of the German army’s fighting morale.”® Not only did the Russians attempt to convert prisoners into revolutionaries, but they also enlisted them on a large scale into the Red Army. It is unclear how many prisoners enlisted, but estimates

Repatriation 171 vary from a low of about fifty thousand to almost two hundred thousand. The

most recent scholarly estimates suggest that approximately one hundred thousand Hungarians and ninety thousand Germans and Austrians fought as part of the Red Army’s International Brigades.’ Although the propaganda effort was intense, food most effectively induced prisoners to sign on with the Bolsheviks. As one Austrian officer wrote: “The Red Army was our only recourse

to escape starvation. That was the principal recruiting inducement with the bolsheviki.”®

The Soviets rejected the outcome of the war and did whatever they could to alter its results. Believing that the fate of the revolution depended on its spread to the industrialized West, the Soviets strove energetically to spark insurrection abroad. To this end, Adolph Joffe, the first Soviet ambassador to Germany, carried out an extensive propaganda campaign among Russian prisoners there

with the aid of some three hundred staff assistants and contacts among the Independent Socialists and Karl Leibknecht’s Sparticist group.’ In short, the Soviets conscripted prisoners into the class war. In so doing, they attempted to reassert the primacy of class over nation that the international socialist movement had so proudly proclaimed prior to the war’s outbreak in 1914. In so doing, they also set a precedent for the ideological exploitation of prisoners.

With the collapse of German resistance in November 1918, the physical condition of the roughly one and a half million Russian prisoners deteriorated rapidly. Although the armistice terms required the immediate release of Allied prisoners from Germany, Russians had not been regarded as allies since Russia left the war, and so were not covered by the terms of the agreement. By this time Allied soldiers were fighting Bolsheviks on Soviet soil, and the Western Powers were unwilling to accept any responsibility for the fate of Russian prisoners even

though they had been captured in combat against a mutual foe. The Allies insisted that the repatriation of Russian prisoners not interfere with that of Western captives. The armistice repealed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and its provisions for the repatriation of prisoners. Thus, Germany was no longer obligated by even those terms. The repatriation of Allied prisoners was top priority, while that of Russians was merely incidental.

With the collapse of the German economy, the breakdown of the political order, and the continuation of the Allied blockade, the shortage of food became widespread. The nation was on the brink of famine, and Russian war prisoners, exhausted by four years of disease, malnutrition, and harsh living conditions, were particularly vulnerable. Upon learning that the war was over, tens of thousands attempted to walk the thousand miles or more home. One historian described them as they moved “across the broad plains ...a pitiful, broken parade of unfortunate men on the long gray roads to the east.” Simultaneously, tens of thousands of German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners began an equally sad trek west, creating a mirror image of the bedraggled Russian prisoners. Thousands of these unfortunates perished from the effects of cold, hunger, disease, or violence.” In the absence of an Allied policy guiding the repatriation ,

172 Part IV: Armistice of Russian war prisoners, this process took place in a totally disorganized manner. The Russian prisoners were unwelcome wherever they went. The Bolsheviks regarded the former prisoners, especially the officers, as potential counterrevolutionaries who might join the White armies. The Whites regarded them, especially the enlisted men, as potential Bolsheviks who would join the Red Army if allowed to reach Soviet territory. Poles and others whose territory they

crossed regarded them with equal suspicion. The prisoners were feared as “carriers of typhus, Bolshevism, and disorder.” Polish authorities also feared that prisoners who succeeded in reaching the Soviet Union might return as soldiers in a revolutionary and revanchist army of occupation.” In early January 1919, the Allies began to recognize the plight of the Russian war prisoners and to realize that a great many of them were being impressed

into the Red Army as soon as they reached Soviet lines. As a contemporary observer noted, the “enlisted man either goes directly into the ranks of the Bolshevists or is abandoned to his fate and probably starves while walking eastward.” Officers had the choice of enlistment or “death at the border.” Marshal Ferdinand Foch of France was one of the first high Allied officials to recognize that released prisoners were reinforcing the Bolsheviks at the expense

of the counterrevolutionary forces backed by the Western Powers. Early in January he brought his concerns to the Supreme War Council where he argued that the Entente had a “duty of humanity to save the lives of soldiers, who fought

for her.” In Foch’s opinion the Allies needed to take control of the Russian prisoners and their repatriation. Recognizing that the prisoners were on the brink of starvation, he recommended that the first food shipped to Germany be reserved for the prisoners, and that a special executive committee be established to supervise the camps and the distribution of relief. He argued that, beyond these measures, the Allies should halt the repatriation of prisoners directly east into the hands of the Bolsheviks. Instead, he persuaded the council members that the Allies should only repatriate prisoners to regions of Russia under the control of the Whites, and then only those prisoners who were “able to reinforce

the parties faithful to our cause.”” The council approved his proposal, and shortly thereafter its substance was incorporated into the armistice extension signed at Treves on 16 January 1919. Accordingly, Article 4 reads in part, “the allied Governments reserve the right to arrange for the repatriation of Russian prisoners of war to any region which they may consider most suitable.”"* The

Allies decided to organize repatriation of the prisoners in such a way as to further their own political objectives. They would send prisoners to Deniken,

Yudenich, and Kolchak, rather than to the Reds. In short, they too would - manipulate the repatriation and political allegiance of prisoners for their own benefit. Late in January, Foch took the first step in asserting Allied control over repatriation. He ordered the Germans to halt the release of prisoners. In the ten weeks since the armistice had been signed, roughly a million of the million

Repatriation 173 and a half Russian prisoners had left captivity. Immediately, the Allies were faced with the problem of feeding the half million remaining prisoners. This and the concomitant problems of clothing, housing, and otherwise caring for them had not been confronted by the Supreme War Council. Financial arrangements had been neglected. When they finally were discussed, it became clear that none of the Western Powers wanted to pay for the prisoners’ maintenance. As a result, the Allies repeatedly reversed themselves on this issue. At times when fear of Bolshevism was dominant, they asserted control of the prisoners. When fear of the cost was foremost in their minds, they relinquished control and insisted on

German responsibility for the prisoners. While the Allies vacillated, the , prisoners suffered from inadequate food supplies. As a result, their impatience grew and many refused to remain in the camps despite Allied promises of food

and repatriation. Roughly three hundred thousand more Russian prisoners filtered out of the camps between January and August, when the Allies, realizing that the Reds had gained ascendancy in their civil war, finally abandoned the

prisoners to Germany.” The Germans in turn released the remaining two hundred thousand prisoners, most of whom made their way home on their own.

Had the Allies accepted responsibility for the fate of the Russian war prisoners on 11 November 1918 and assumed control of them as rapidly as possible, they could have organized an orderly repatriation and forestalled the death of tens of thousands who perished on the way back to their homeland. Had they fed, clothed, trained, and armed the prisoners and systematically handed them over to the counterrevolutionary forces in Russia’s civil war, Allied intervention might have been far more effective than it was. As one historian has suggested, “the entire course of European history might have been changed.””® However, the Allied powers were neither so ruthless nor so farsighted. Though they considered exploiting prisoners in this manner, their parsimony got in the way.

The fate of German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners in Russia was equally harsh or harsher. Those prisoners, predominantly Austro-Hungarian, who were located in European Russia, however, were relatively fortunate. During the period that the Treaty of Brest Litovsk was in force and the Germans were able to compel Soviet cooperation, roughly a million military and civilian prisoners were repatriated or made their way home. However, with the end of the war in November and the subsequent uprisings in Germany, the repatriation of AustroHungarian and German prisoners ceased. At that time, between four hundred thousand and a million prisoners remained in Siberia and Turkestan.” During the ensuing two years, war prisoners fought on all Russia’s internal fronts during its civil war. During that time, repatriation “moved at a snail’s pace — obstructed at every turn by the Soviet government.” In July 1919, Herbert

Hoover’s American Relief Association estimated that 200,000 prisoners remained in captivity at that time.”* In May 1920, Fridjof Nansen, the Norwegian arctic explorer who had been appointed by the League of Nations to investigate

the repatriation of prisoners from Russia, estimated that roughly 100,000

174 Part IV: Armistice remained. According to the American Red Cross, as late as 1924 there were still 6,773 prisoners in Russia, of whom 450 were German. In the final analysis, there is no way of knowing how many prisoners failed to return from their captivity in

the Soviet Union.” |

The impact of Soviet prisoner of war policy on modern history is difficult to

gauge. One scholar, referring to prisoners who were recruited into the Red Army, asserts that “if not for those foreign nationals in the armed forces of the Bolsheviks, it is very doubtful whether their regime could have survived the challenge of the opposition which began to gather momentum during April and

May 1918.” According to another historian, however, who pointed to the virulent right-wing reaction to the violent upheavals in Germany and Eastern Europe in which repatriated prisoners played a prominent role, it would be ironic if “the Bolsheviks, by repatriating indoctrinated prisoners, inadvertently created Fascism in Germany.”” The role of war prisoners was significant, but probably not a decisive factor in either instance. However, regardless of how one assesses the impact of German and especially Russian prisoner of war policy on the revolutionary turmoil with which the Great War concluded, it is clear that the manipulation of repatriation for political, military, and ideological ends originated at the dawn of Soviet history. By comparison with the tragedy that occurred east of the Elbe, the repatriation of prisoners in the West was relatively swift, uncomplicated, and humane. Indeed, the repatriation of Allied prisoners from Germany was so prompt as to meet the 1907 Hague Convention’s strictures on the timely return of prisoners at the end of the war. The only obstacles that impeded the return of British, French, Belgian, and American prisoners were those of a logistical nature, similar to those that the Germans had encountered in 1871 and the British had overcome in 1901, These included a critical shortage of railroad cars, ships, and other efficient means of transportation. They also included the general break-

down in public-order that accompanied the fall of the monarchy and the revolutionary upheavals that took place in the wake of the war. Despite these and other problems, the German authorities generally complied with the Allied insistence on the rapid repatriation of prisoners. They were in no position to do otherwise. The Allies, in contrast to the Germans, were victorious, and consequently in a position to regulate the pace of repatriation. Unlike the Germans they were under no compulsion to repatriate their captives rapidly. Like the Germans during the brief period of their triumph over Russia, the Allies were inclined to delay the return of enemy prisoners to their homelands. The purpose of these delays, however, was neither political nor military. It was primarily economic. France in particular wished to retain German war prisoners as long as possible so that they might repair some of the damage wrought by the war.

: According to the armistice of 11 November 1918, which ended the struggle on the western front, Germany was required to carry out the “immediate repatriation, without reciprocity . . . of all Allied and United States prisoners of

Repatriation 175 war, including those under trial and condemned.” In contrast, the Allies were under no obligation to repatriate German prisoners quickly. The agreement

asserted that “the return of German prisoners of war shall be settled at the conclusion of the Peace preliminaries.” The armistice also nullified “all other Conventions regarding prisoners of war” that had previously been negotiated.” Thus, the armistice superseded the German-American agreement (which was concluded the same day the armistice was signed), the two Anglo-German agreements, the Franco-German agreement, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and all provisions of the Hague and Geneva conventions bearing on war prisoners. Since the armistice had nothing else to say about either the repatriation or the treatment of prisoners, the Allies had effectively given themselves carte blanche to deal with prisoners as they saw fit. They had the power to do so. They were under no juridical obligations with regard to prisoners, and Germany had no power to exact compliance with any previous agreements through the use of reprisals or other sanctions. German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners were at the mercy of the Allies. The collapse of German resistance in the West occurred suddenly. Asa result, the armistice caught the Allies without plans or adequate preparations for the repatriation of their soldiers from Germany. They hastily attempted to formulate plans and to organize the return of their men, but they were too late. Upon the conclusion of the armistice, many Allied prisoners, including Americans, were released and came through the lines. Throughout the latter part of November, American and Allied prisoners made their way west on foot into France just as released prisoners on the eastern front had done several months earlier. Impatient after many years of captivity, they simply walked off, heading west across Germany. Given the virtual collapse of the Imperial German Army and

the civil strife throughout the nation, there was often little the German authorities could do to enforce order among Allied prisoners. Indeed, they were hardly able to enforce order among their own men. According to one observer, “discipline gradually became lax” in the camps shortly after the armistice went into effect. The prison guards overthrew their

commanders and began to issue their own orders. “The orders relative to Hygene [sic], to the distribution of foodstuffs and of clothing, and to order were unknown, and anarchy spread from day to day.” Order was reestablished in the camps by French officers who entered them and took command. Not only did this end the chaos that had reigned in the camps, but it improved the morale of the prisoners and made it possible to begin an organized evacuation.”

The prisoners who made their way west on foot did not face the daunting obstacles that the Russian, German, and Austrian prisoners had encountered. Although this disorganized exodus caught the triumphant Western Powers by

surprise, they quickly recovered and arranged for the care of prisoners who : encountered Allied military units in the course of their homeward trek. Returning Americans were sent to replacement depots where they were temporarily

cared for with the assistance of the Red Cross. The reception given these

176 Part IV: Armistice escapees was decidedly different from that given those in the East. Unfortunate-

ly, many of the prisoners who straggled out of Germany were ragged and exhausted at the end of their journey. This led the French and British to threaten

- . harsh retaliatory action against the authorities held responsible for the prema-

ture release of the prisoners.” |

The Western Powers attempted to impose order on the repatriation of Allied prisoners. The State Department urged that “the repatriation of American and allied prisoners should be a joint enterprise.” As the prisoners fled west, the

Allies established a Subcommission on Prisoners of War of the Permanent International Armistice Commission which on 28 November issued orders to organize their return from Germany. In late December the German War Office issued a plan for the return of disabled prisoners which it submitted for Allied

, approval. According to this plan, the sick and wounded would be repatriated

before the able-bodied.” |

For purposes of repatriation Germany was divided into four zones: the left bank of the Rhine, northern and central districts east of the river, and a southern district. The German authorities were instructed to keep prisoners in camps or collection centers until Allied troops arrived to take custody of them. Five such camps were established at Friedrichsfeld, Limburg, Darmstadt, Mannheim, and Rastatt. Trains with a capacity varying from one thousand to fifteen hundred were sent daily to each of these camps and transported prisoners to the most convenient port cities. Prisoners held in northern and central Germany were sent to Baltic and North Sea ports such as Danzig, Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam, or Antwerp. They were turned over to Commissions of Reception

of Prisoners of War established by the Allies in the principal ports. These commissions handled the transfer of prisoners to Allied vessels which carried the former prisoners home. Prisoners held in the southern part of Germany were to be sent to Switzerland by rail where they were greeted by commissions of reception. Those on the Rhine’s left bank were released to advancing Allied

soldiers.”’ |

Although the plan worked imperfectly, the large majority of prisoners were _ repatriated by one of these methods. According to German records there were approximately 937,000 non-Russian Allied prisoners in custody. Of these, about 476,000 were repatriated by 19 December and 576,000 by 30 December 1918. All of the 3,609 Americans in captivity had been released by the end of December. German records only indicate that between 11,000 and 13,000 prisoners were released daily. The repatriation of Allied war prisoners was complete by 1 February.”

| On 9 December three Danish vessels transporting former Allied war prisoners stopped in Aarhus, Denmark. Aboard one of these ships were 86 Americans, of whom 79 were merchant seamen off the ship Esmeralda who had been interned at Brandenburg. The other Americans were military personnel. The American consul in Aarhus, Joshua E. Kehl, noted in a dispatch to the US.

State Department that “our men appear to be in good health.” They departed

Repatriation 177 for Leith, Scotland within a week.” Between the end of November and midDecember, about 2,500 American officers and men, formerly prisoners, passed through Geneva on their way home. They rode four trains, each equipped with an operating table, bathrooms, kitchens, and 320 beds. The United States had twenty-one similar trains for use in evacuating war prisoners. Of these, three were fully equipped hospital trains.” Ralph Ellinwood, an American who had been interned in a camp at Langensalza along with a number of his countrymen when the armistice was signed, described numerous days of promises, rumors, and waiting for repatriation during which the camp became increasingly crowded as prisoners from various working detachments in the vicinity were concentrated. “No tenement could have been worse,” he wrote. “The men lay so close to one another it was almost impossible not to step on them at night.””" During the first week in December an American officer arrived from Berlin as the representative of one of the repatriation commissions. His visit aroused

expectations of quick repatriation, but about two more weeks passed before Ellinwood and his compatriots were evacuated from Langensalza on 18 December. That evening at about 6:00 P.M. they boarded a train and traveled throughout the night in a third-class coach to Cassel, which they reached at about 8:00 in the morning. They stayed in a camp there until 25 December. Conditions there, as elsewhere throughout Germany, had deteriorated rapidly since the armistice.

As a result, “Cassel resembled a pig pen.” According to Ellinwood, “As all details had ceased, the lack of sanitation around the barracks had become practically unbearable.” As if this was not enough, “no food shipments were arriving, and no convoys [of prisoners] had been leaving.” On Christmas night, the prisoners again boarded a train and rode third-class

to Frankfurt, where they arrived at about 2:00 in the morning. The sixty American prisoners in the party spent the night in the Kolnerhof Hotel in real beds for the first time in months. They spent the next three days in Frankfurt.

During this time they were placed in the custody of French and American authorities, who on 29 December drove them into the French occupation zone in a convoy of ambulances festooned with miniature American flags. Then they traveled through Darmstadt and Mannheim. On New Year’s Day, they crossed the Rhine at Strassburg.” Meanwhile, as Allied prisoners returned from captivity, German prisoners remained in custody awaiting the outcome of the peace negotiations. The peace

conference lasted until late June 1919. When the treaty of Versailles was completed, ten articles were devoted to prisoners of war. Article 214, the only one dealing with their repatriation, stipulated that prisoners would be returned “as soon as possible after the coming into force of the present Treaty.” Thus,

repatriation was delayed by several months as the various governments deliberated about ratification of the treaty.

These delays were the cause of a good deal of anxiety and insecurity among | the German prisoners. They wanted to know when they would be permitted to

178 Part IV: Armistice return to their homes and families, but the only answers they got were vague and indefinite. On 2 July 1919, for example, twenty prisoners in American custody directed a letter to the head of the U.S. Bureau of Prisoners of War. “We have,” they wrote,

been longing for the day of peace because we thought it would at last end ... the uncertainty of our fate. But the state of affairs has not changed. All newspapers say that we are not to be repatriated till after the ratification of the peace treaty and that even this shall have to be considered. These news [sic], in themselves contradicting, augment the terrible suppression under which we are living and leave us in... disheartening suspense. Colonel Edgar T. Conley, director of the Bureau of Prisoners of War, could only respond by pointing out that the army expected to repatriate them “so soon as three of the Allied or Associated Powers have ratified the Peace Treaty,” that

one country had already done so, and that “we have reason to hope that two more will follow shortly.” Prisoners were not the only ones who wanted repatriation to take place quickly. During this period of time the United States held roughly forty-one thousand German captives in stockades at a monthly cost of two million dollars. Simultaneously, the British held approximately two hundred thousand prisoners

who cost almost thirteen million dollars to guard and maintain each month. Although some of these prisoners remained in Great Britain, neither the British nor the Americans were deriving much benefit from the labor of these prisoners,

most of whom were repairing battle damage in France. This consequently became a burdensome expense. This was especially true of the Americans, who were demobilizing rapidly and wanted relief from this task. As aconsequence, this problem was raised by Arthur Balfour and Frank Lyon

Polk, the British and American representatives, respectively, at a heads of delegations meeting in Paris on 23 August. The British and Americans explained the problem as they sawit, and Georges Clemenceau, the French prime minister, responded with his view of the situation. He pointed out that France had 350,000 prisoners of war repairing some of the devastation caused by the war, and that he would like to keep them at work as long as possible. In order to relieve his allies of their burden, he proposed that they lend their captives to France. In any case, he believed that the prisoners could not be repatriated until the treaty was ratified.*

A week later, when the heads of delegations met, Polk again raised the repatriation question. Neither the British nor the Americans believed they could legally transfer their prisoners to French custody, and they pressed their desire to begin repatriation before the treaty was ratified. Believing that ifthe prisoners held by the British and Americans were returned before those in French custody it would be several months before the French-held prisoners could begin their journey home, Clemenceau reluctantly agreed to the Anglo-American proposal.

Repatriation 179 In any case, the treaty would by then be in effect, and France would have no choice but to repatriate its prisoners. In accordance with this decision, Balfour drew up an announcement released on the next day, 28 August, stating that repatriation would not await the ratification of the treaty.*” The way was thus cleared for the British and American governments to repatriate their prisoners. Two days later, on 30 August, the British began repatriation. These prisoners were sent to Cologne from a camp in Calais. They were men whose homes were either in the part of Germany that was occupied by British forces or unoccupied territory. By the end of September, over 120,000 prisoners from these regions had been shipped home by way of Cologne. The British repatriated prisoners from areas occupied by the other Allied powers in October.* The roughly 41,000 German prisoners in American custody were repatriated in late September 1919, Although almost a year had passed since the signing of

the armistice, the army set a new efficiency record in its transportation of German prisoners once it was ordered to begin the process of repatriation. The Army had been planning the return of the Germans for several months; conse-

quently it was ready when finally authorized to begin on 7 September. The

process was complete by the beginning of October.

All transportation was by rail, although elaborate plans had been drawn up to repatriate the prisoners by sea. Officers were concentrated at Gievres, while enlisted men were held in five major base camps. The officers were

transferred to Germany in two shifts. Half of them, with their servants, orderlies, and baggage, boarded a train for Limburg “on or about” 12 September. The other half departed Gievres when the train returned on approximately 19 September.”” During the interval between the two trains that transported officers home, the army began to repatriate the enlisted men. Beginning on 16 September when the first train of enlisted men left Gievres, the Army made 34 trips carrying an average of 1,250 prisoners each through Is-Sur-Tille to Limburg, where the prisoners were released to German authorities. With two trains running each day, the process took approximately seventeen days, and was complete by the beginning of October. Each train stopped in Is-Sur-Tille where the prisoners

were bathed, deloused, and physically examined. They were issued clean uniforms, paid in full, and given back any personal property that had been seized _ when they were initially captured. Thereafter, they were sent home.” While the trip home was a welcome experience for most prisoners, it was not without dangers and reminders of wartime antipathy. A popular postwar Ger-

man novel describing the repatriation of prisoners from French camps noted that some of the first trains of German prisoners passing through Belgium on their return were pelted with stones by the local populace. In some cases people even threw hand grenades at the trains. As a result, subsequent trips were always made at night. The novelist also noted that a number of prisoners were shoved

off the trains by compatriots retaliating against those thought to have collaborated with the French prison camp authorities.”

180 Part IV: Armistice While most German prisoners awaited the outcome of the discussions at Paris

and went home in September, the Americans repatriated some of them early. These fortunate prisoners were drawn from two different categories. The first included some three thousand sick or wounded German prisoners who were repatriated in April, and “sanitary personnel” who, according to the 1906 Geneva Convention, were not war prisoners in the first place. They had been detained, in accordance with the convention, to treat the injured until their services were no longer necessary, at which time, as the agreement stipulated, they were to “be sent back to their army or to their country.”” Accordingly, they were repatriated along with the wounded.

The other group of prisoners repatriated early consisted of members of nationality groups favored by the Allies. These included natives of Alsace-Lorraine and Schleswig in Germany, and citizens of Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Yugoslavia in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. France had never regarded natives of Alsace-Lorraine serving in the German Army as enemies, but rather as Frenchmen forced to serve the enemy against their will, and treated them very differently than they did ordinary German prisoners. Accordingly, France often asked the United States to give preferential treatment to prisoners from AlsaceLorraine. In particular, France requested that they be released early. Consequently, the United States complied in early February, and permitted the release of prisoners from Alsace-Lorraine.” As a result of efforts by representatives of a number of countries, the army concentrated 500 Poles, 10 Czechs, 52 Belgians, and 199 prisoners from Schleswig in the Central Prisoner of War Enclosure number 1 at St. Pierre des Corps in late June. There they awaited examination by representatives of their governments to verify their nationality. Pending this examination and approval by the

prisoners.“ -

governments concerned, the Americans were prepared to release these

The British also made special arrangements for prisoners of various

nationalities. In January 1919, for example, they released some six thousand Poles of German nationality for service with the newly formed Polish Army. Rumanians and Czechs were turned over to their respective legations in October, and Austrians were repatriated in November.” In short, the Allies played favorites with the various nationality groups they captured just as the Russians did. However, it is worth noting that they did not conduct extensive propaganda or recruiting campaigns among them. Though favorites were often given special treatment, especially by the French, those who were not in favor were not singled out for mistreatment as they were in Russia. The Allies, especially the French, attempted to control repatriation for their own benefit, but they did not manipulate the allegiance of their prisoners or brutally

exploit them. |

The prewar optimism that prisoners would be repatriated rapidly at the

conclusion of hostilities was not vindicated by the behavior of the belligerents of the First World War. Upon the conclusion of an armistice, both the Germans

Repatriation 181 and the Allies retained enemy prisoners for economic reasons. The Germans held Russian prisoners to continue agricultural work that was vital to their war effort, and the French retained German prisoners as long as practicable in order to repair war damage. In this way they extracted from Germany a form of reparations that were not specifically sanctioned by the peace treaty. Neither the British nor the Americans, however, desired to hold prisoners any longer than necessary because it was not to their advantage to do so. Their coalition with France, however, made it impossible for them to release prisoners as soon as they would have liked. Had they been free to conduct repatriation independently of their allies, they might have conformed to the mandate of the Hague Conventions. In any event, German prisoners were repatriated with rapidity and efficiency once the approval of the political leadership was obtained. The Russo-German armistice of December 1917 marked the inauguration of

a repatriation policy unprecedented in modern European warfare. The armistice did not mark the end of hostilities but rather the opening of a new phase of the conflict, one in which war prisoners played a prominent role. They were retained in captivity to fight in a civil war, and sent home to spark revolution. They were not “merely men,” but soldiers for whom the war was still not over. At the conclusion of the First World War, the belligerent powers followed two traditions. The tradition represented by the Hague Conventions was followed,

despite delays, in the West. An entirely new tradition, which is still with us, however, was established in Eastern and Central Europe. The conflict of those two traditions has animated the history of prisoner of war relations ever since.

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CONCLUSION

As the twentieth century opened, Europe thought of captivity in terms of the liberal tradition that its statesmen had created and codified during the preceding fifty years. Recent military conflicts such as the Boer, Spanish-American, and Russo-Japanese wars had been distinguished by relatively humane treatment of military prisoners, and by the apparent willingness of modern European states

to govern their armed forces in accordance with international law. Consequently, there was reason for the optimistic hope that increasingly humane norms of captivity would characterize future European conflicts. The nature of the war that engulfed the Continent in the summer and fall of 1914 soon shattered this illusion. Mass armies, massed artillery, the submarine, the machine gun, chlorine gas, and the myriad other products of the industrial revolution inextricably bound the military effort to modern economic systems and thereby transformed war in such a manner as to make much of the interna- | tional law of warfare anachronistic. Despite the unprecedented demands of history’s first total war, the states of Europe remained committed to the core principles of the liberal tradition which had originated in the nineteenth century. Although the new technology and the imperatives of survival drove the belligerents to violate many of the norms of war that formed the liberal tradition’s overall context, they were reasonably successful in adhering to the spirit if not the letter of international law in the treatment of war prisoners. Although the international legal structure for the governance of war was a remarkable achievement, neither the 1899 Hague Convention nor its 1907 revision realistically anticipated the magnitude or the problems of captivity in modern warfare. Nevertheless, the European belligerents attempted to live up

to the terms of the Hague conventions and the standards of captivity they __

184 | : Part IV: Armistice represented. Where the conventions were inadequate, the belligerents negotiated comprehensive agreements that overcame obstacles to the humane treatment of war prisoners. With the assistance of a number of neutral powers, led by the United States, and all equally committed to the liberal tradition, the belligerents permitted the inspection of camps and the relief of prisoners within their borders. They even innovated procedures such as neutral internment of invalids in Switzerland in order to improve the conditions of prisoners. Such measures were not taken during the Second World War, nor have they been taken in successive wars. Significant international agreements negotiated by enemies during wartime have been rare in the twentieth century. Indeed, they were unique to the First World War. No such feat has even been attempted since 1918, yet the issue that inspired such efforts was the fate of war prisoners. The belligerents of the Great War, despite the privations suffered by hundreds of thousands of prisoners, clung to the tenets of the liberal tradition both in the administration of their internment systems and in their conduct of the diplomacy of captivity. They did sO in part because they believed it was right to do so, and in part because the threat of retaliation gave them little alternative. Accordingly, the belligerents of

the First World War attempted to treat prisoners in a decent and dignified manner. They did not always succeed, but that was not for lack of trying. Among the more serious obstacles to humane treatment of prisoners early in

the war was ignorance about conditions that prevailed in enemy camps. An

. information vacuum fueled widespread rumors about mistreatment which in turn generated popular pressure on governments to retaliate against enemy prisoners. The action of several neutral powers including the United States, Spain, and Switzerland, and the cooperation of the belligerents, made possible a thorough process of neutral camp inspection that reduced the influence of ignorance and rumor. This in turn made it possible for governments to resist pressure to retaliate against prisoners. While this did not eliminate retaliation as a weapon, it did insure that when nations resorted to such measures they did so on the basis of real rather than imaginary conditions. It also served to insure that conditions in France, Germany, and Great Britain were substantially similar

| by enabling these states to adjust the conditions prevailing in their camps to those reported by neutral observers to exist in enemy camps. Rather than promoting the deterioration of conditions, this process tended to stabilize, and at times even improve, the treatment of prisoners. Neutral inspection of prison camps was a remarkable achievement in itself, but the European belligerents took further steps to relieve the suffering of sick and wounded prisoners. Acting on the suggestion of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Swiss government, the Germans, the French, and the British agreed to intern invalid prisoners in Switzerland where they would no longer be in enemy custody and could be assured of the best medical care possible. Although Switzerland could only accommodate about twenty-six thousand prisoners at any one time, neutral internment was a substantial step

Conclusion 185 that the belligerents took to ameliorate the conditions to which incapacitated prisoners were subject. Another serious obstacle that the belligerents of the Great War faced were the ambiguities of the Hague conventions. Numerous clauses of the conventions were vague and unclear, especially as they applied to prisoners of war. Consequently, there was a good deal of disagreement among the powers about their precise obligations under international law. These were honest disagreements among reasonable governments that attempted to balance the demands of war

against the “promptings of humanity.” Since these governments were administered by reasonable men, mindful of the liberal tradition and concerned about the fate of their own nationals in enemy hands, they were willing to compromise in

order to reach mutually acceptable arrangements that would satisfy the requirements of both military necessity and international law. The result was that several belligerents entered into comprehensive bilateral prisoner of war agreements that overcame the ambiguities of the Hague conventions. Thus Germany negotiated two

such agreements with Great Britain, two with France, and one with the United States.

These nations did not enter into these agreements for purely humanitarian or altruistic reasons. They had something to gain. They could improve the condi-

tions to which their own captive nationals were subject. Nonetheless, their motives should not diminish their achievement. Such efforts demonstrate a certain solicitude for the common soldier, and constitute an acknowledgment that prisoners were, after all, merely men who had fallen into enemy hands. They were neither traitors nor counterrevolutionaries. They were victims. That each

side had something to gain was a motivation for compromise, an essential prerequisite of any satisfactory agreement. This is not to suggest that prisoners during the First World War did not suffer. Indeed, there was a great deal of suffering. However, most of the suffering that did take place was not the result of malice so much as incompetence and military, economic, or political collapse. The failures were the greatest in Germany and Russia; in addition, of the five major European powers surveyed in this work, they were the two most burdened with prisoners and the two that collapsed economically and politically under the pressure of the war. With custody of over 2.5 million men by the end of the war, Germany far exceeded the totals held by Britain, France, and the United States combined. With a minimum of 1.96 million prisoners, and perhaps as many as Germany, Russia also bore a much larger burden of captivity than the three Western Powers, which held about 721,000 prisoners combined by December

1918, a total that swelled rapidly during the war’s last few months. , Added to the disproportionate burden of captivity borne by the Germans and the Russians were of course the catastrophic consequences of the war. In Russia,

where conditions were by far the harshest, the monarchy fell and prisoners became embroiled in a civil war in which millions of Russians died. Between four hundred thousand and six hundred thousand prisoners, or 15 to 30 percent

186 Part IV: Armistice (depending on the estimates used), died in Russian custody. In Germany, the British blockade brought much of the population to the brink of starvation, yet fewer than 5 percent of the prisoners in German custody died. It should come as no surprise that soldiers detained by the losing powers should suffer more than those detained by the winners. Much of the Western literature about captivity during the First World War depicts conditions in Germany as particularly harsh, yet compared to those that prevailed in Russia they were mild indeed. Numerous American inspection reports make abundantly clear that the conditions of captivity that prevailed in Germany were little more spartan than those in France, and that the German authorities made a genuine effort to comply with the requirements of interna-

tional law. Indeed, the reciprocal nature of the war’s prisoner relationship virtually insured that the conditions to which German prisoners in France were subject would be similar to those of French prisoners in Germany. Likewise, the conditions of German prisoners in Britain would be similar to those of British prisoners in Germany. This symmetry only collapsed in the case of Russia, which was unable to maintain the standards of captivity that existed in Germany; the latter country was unwilling to retaliate by reducing its standards to the level of those in Russia. Among the most serious departures from the norms of the liberal tradition of captivity was the widespread attempt by the belligerents to exploit the ethnic divisions among their enemies. Thus, the French gave preferential treatment to

German soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine and Schleswig, while the Germans attempted to enlist Irish soldiers and turn them against the Allies. Finally, the Russians gave preferential treatment to Slavic prisoners in an attempt to turn them against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. While the French and German efforts had negligible results, the Russians met with modest success, recruiting between twenty and thirty-six thousand prisoners to fight against Austria-Hungary prior to Soviet withdrawal from the war in 1917. During the civil war that followed the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviets were much more successful in recruiting perhaps as many as two hundred thousand Hungarian, German, and Austrian prisoners to fight in the Red Army’s International Brigades. Tens of

| thousands more fought against the Bolsheviks in counterrevolutionary units. The Bolsheviks added another twist to the attempt to exploit the ethnicity of

war prisoners by exploiting class differences. Accordingly, they conducted extensive propaganda among their prisoners in an effort to turn them into

tion at home. |

revolutionaries. Indeed, many of the prisoners they repatriated to Austria-Hungary and Germany were ideological converts dedicated to spreading the revoluIt was within the context of the turmoil of the Russian Revolution that a radical

tradition of captivity emerged. Prisoners were no longer merely men, whom none could exploit. They were potential recruits in the class war. Since class conflict would not end until the final triumph of the proletariat, war did not end for a prisoner just because he was captured. Indeed, it did not even end with the

Conclusion 187 ratification of a peace treaty. Captivity merely meant that the international war was supplanted by the class war. In this way a new tradition in the treatment of war prisoners was born, which is antithetical to that developed in the West. Unlike the liberal tradition, which holds that war prisoners are protected persons, the radical tradition regards war prisoners as soldiers in the international class conflict. As such they may serve in combat, as revolutionaries, or to demoralize the enemy through the spread of propaganda. It was this tradition that enabled communist authorities in Korea and Vietnam to extort propaganda statements from American prisoners during the conflicts in those countries. When the First World War began, Europe had one tradition of captivity. When the war reached its conclusion, it had two, the liberal and the radical. In their treatment of civilian enemy nationals, the belligerents also departed from previous practice and humanitarian norms. Neither the nineteenth-century European peace movement nor any of the agreements it produced anticipated the large-scale internment of civilians; hence, modern international law offered few guidelines. The Hague conventions were silent about the treatment of alien

enemies. Nonetheless, modern military reserve systems made millions of civilians subject to active duty in wartime. As a consequence, the European belligerents believed they could ill afford to release the tens or even hundreds of thousands of tourists, students, businessmen, or other enemy nationals within

their borders when war broke out. As a consequence, the European states interned perhaps as many as four hundred thousand civilian enemy nationals, roughly half of these in Russia. During the first two and a half years of the war, the United States was a nonbelligerent. An aspect of its neutrality policy that is seldom mentioned in scholarly studies of American diplomacy during the Great War is the role the United States played in inaugurating the system of camp inspections that played such a vital role in minimizing retaliatory contests among the powers. In accepting this responsibility, the United States helped the European belligerents to live up to their international responsibilities, and, in so doing, it helped preserve the liberal tradition.

When the United States entered the war, it, like the European powers, interned and placed restrictions on the movements of enemy aliens. As the

world’s largest recipient of immigrants during the latter decades of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, the United States had a much larger population of enemy nationals to worry about than any European power. Although some of these aliens sympathized with their country of origin, most remained loyal to their adopted homeland. Despite widespread fears of sabotage and espionage, the United States interned only about twenty-three hundred German and Austro-Hungarian aliens. These detainees were held in a series of camps and facilities run by the Labor, Justice, and War departments. The division of administrative responsibility for detainees among several agencies, which was unique to the United States during the war, caused a variety of

_ 188 Part IV: Armistice irregularities and problems that were eventually overcome as authority was transferred to the War Department. Unlike the European belligerents, the United States did not intern alien enemies en masse, but individually and on the basis of evidence.

During its few brief months of combat, the United States Army captured approximately forty-eight thousand enemy soldiers. Both officers and men were held in camps in France, administered first by the Prisoner of War Division of the Provost Marshal General’s department, and later by the Bureau of Prisoners of War in Services of Supply. Although initial construction delays briefly caused some overcrowding, conditions in American camps were superior to those on the Continent. The diplomats at The Hague had assumed that prisoners would be promptly

repatriated in the wake of any future conflict. To them it’'seemed a simple, straightforward process that should not be attended by delays. In fact, the repatriation of prisoners in the aftermath of the First World War proved to be a complex and drawn-out process impeded by a variety of political and economic obstacles. Neither the Germans nor the Russians, whose war ended before that

on the western front, were disposed to abide by the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which governed the repatriation of their men. The victorious Germans had become dependent on the labor of Russian prisoners in the mines and fields, and were consequently reluctant to relinquish them. The Soviets, embroiled in civil war, realized that German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners were trained soldiers who were of great potential value in combat. Accordingly,

they preferred to recruit them into combat units rather than send them back home. Committed as they were to world revolution, they made every effort to repatriate prisoners who had become revolutionaries dedicated to the overthrow of the Austro-Hungarian and German governments. In short, both the German and the Soviet governments resisted rapid repatriation of prisoners. While German policy delayed the return of Russian prisoners, Soviet policy cost

the lives of tens of thousands.

When the war finally reached an end in the West, Allied and American prisoners were repatriated rapidly, although initially in a haphazard manner. Primarily as a result of French efforts, however, the Western Powers blocked the repatriation of German prisoners until after the negotiation of the peace treaty. Just as the Germans had wanted to make use of the labor of Russian prisoners for as long as possible, the French wanted to use German labor to begin the task of rebuilding the devastated regions of northern France. The labor of German prisoners in France constituted a form of reparation payment. As a consequence of French policy, the return of German prisoners held by British and American forces was delayed for ten to eleven months. The repatriation of those in French custody was delayed for well over a year.

Although a majority of Russian prisoners still in Germany after the war’s conclusion began the long trek home on foot to face an uncertain fate, the return

of a substantial minority of prisoners was likewise impeded by political con-

Conclusion 189 siderations. Fearing that returning prisoners would merely reinforce the Red Army, the Allies delayed repatriation to zones of Soviet control, and attempted to funnel prisoners to the counterrevolutionary forces with whom they were aligned. In short, repatriation was far from the humanitarian process that the Hague delegates had envisioned. It was instead a highly politicized process that subjected the prisoners to exploitation by all sides. Overall, the record of the great powers during the First World War is uneven. On the one hand they generally strove to adhere to the general outlines of the liberal tradition, but on the other hand they often failed to approach its high standards. The British and Americans came nearest the mark, while the Russians were tragically far from it. Through their efforts, the European powers and the United States preserved the liberal tradition of captivity. The belligerents

tested the Hague arrangements, and strengthened them. In the aftermath of the war, the major powers of the world confirmed their commitment to the liberal tradition of captivity when they negotiated a new convention at Geneva in 1929. However, the war also saw the birth of a darker vision, one in which prisoners were not merely men, but soldiers in ideological causes.

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NOTES

INTRODUCTION 1. Nikolai Tolstoy, Victims of Yalta (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1977), 34.

2. Ibid., 33-35. 3. For a scholarly discussion of the European peace movement in the latter half of the nineteenth century, see Geoffrey Best, Humanity in Warfare (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), especially chapters 2 and 3, pp. 75-216. 4, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract or Principles of Political Right,” in The Social Contract and Discourses, trans. G.D.H. Cole (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1950), 11; “Convention with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land,” The Hague, 1899, Article 4, in Treaties and Other International Agreements of

the United States of America, 1776-1949, ed. Charles I. Bevans (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, Department of State Publication 8590, October 1971), I: 253; and “Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land,” The Hague, 1907, Article 4, in Bevans, Jreaties and Other International Agreements, I: 632. 5. “Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded on the Field of Battle,” Geneva, 1864, in Bevans, Treaties and Other International Agreements, I: 7-11;

and “Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies of the Field,” Geneva, 1906, in Bevans, Treaties and Other International Agreements, I: 516-534. 6. Francis Lieben, “Instruction for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field,” Article 56, in Prisoners of War, ed. Herbert C. Fooks (Federalsburg, Md.: The J. W. Stowell Printing Co., 1924), 328.

7. James W. Garner, International Law and the World War (London: Longmans,

Green and Company, 1920), I: 2-3. , 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid., 19.

192 Notes 10. Official manuals were issued in 1871 by the Netherlands, in 1877 by France, in 1879 by Serbia, in 1882 by Spain, in 1890 by Portugal, and in 1896 by Italy. Germany issued its Kriegsbrauch wn Landkriege in 1902 and the fourth edition of the French manual

Les Lois de la Guerre Continentale, drafted by Robert Jacomet, was issued in 1913. Japanese and Russian manuals appeared in 1904, concurrently with the war they fought, and the Austro-Hungarian regulations, embodying most of the Hague text, were published in 1913, shortly before the outbreak of World War I. A British manual, begun in 1879,

was completed in 1882. In 1904 the British government issued legal scholar Thomas Erskine Holland’s Laws and Customs of War on Land as an official manual, and in 1908 issued a revised version that included the provisions of the 1907 Hague Convention. The last edition of the British manual to appear was published in 1914, just in time for the war. The American manual, entitled The United States Rules of Land Warfare, \ikewise incorporated the texts of the Hague and Geneva conventions, and was issued in 1914. A discussion of these manuals is in Garner, International Law and the World War, I: 3-8.

11. The most comprehensive discussion of the Japanese treatment of Russian prisoners during the Russo-Japanese War is Sakuye Takahashi, International Law Applied to the Russo-Japanese War with the Decisions of the Japanese Prize Courts (London: Stevens and Sons, 1908), 94-147. On Spanish prisoners, see James M. Spaight, War Rights on Land (London: MacMillan and Company, 1911), 318-319, and Fooks, Prisoners of War, 308. 12. An extensive discussion of captivity during the Boer conflict is in Byron Farwell, The Great Anglo-Boer War (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), 392-428.

13. “Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land,” in Bevans, Treaties and Other International Agreements, I: 631-653. 14. Spaight, War Rights on Land, 265. 15. Michael Howard, War in European History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 93. 16. For a discussion of the applicability of the 1907 Hague Convention to the war,

see p. 17 ,

17. The relative handful ofscholarly works on the prisoners of the First World War include: Charles Burdick and Ursula Moessner, The German Prisoners of War in Japan, 1914-1920 (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1984); J. Davidson Ketchum, Ruhleben.A Prison Camp Society (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965); the essays in Samuel R. Williamson and Peter Pastor, eds., Essays on World War I: Origins and Prisoners of War (New York: Social Science Monographs, Brooklyn College Press, 1983); Gerald H. Davis, “Deutsche Kriegsgefangene im Ersten Weltkrieg in Russland,” Miluargeschichilichte Mitteilungen 1 (1982): 37-49; Gerald H. Davis, “Prisoners of War in Twentieth Century War Economies,” Journal of Contemporary History 12, no. 4 (1977): 623-634; Richard K. Debo, “Prelude to Negotiations: The Problem of British Prisoners in Soviet Russia, November 1918-July 1919,” Slavonic and East European Review 58, no. 1 (1980): 58-75; William B. Glidden, “Internment Camps in America, 1917~1920,” Military Affairs 37 (December 1973): 137-141; Rudolf Koch, “Das Kriegsgefangenenlager Sigmundsherberg, 1915-1919,” Unsere Hewunat 52, no. 2 (1981): 109-122; Ernst Rutkowski, “Die Flucht Osterreichisch-Ungarnischen Offiziere, Unteroffiziere und Mannschaften aus der Italienischen Kriegsgefangenschaft Warend des Ersten Weltkrieges,” Mitteilungen des Osterriechischen Staatsarchivs 31 (1978): 402-417; Peter 'T. Scott, “Captive Labour: The German Companies of the B.E.F, 1916-1920,” Army Quarterly and Defense Journal 110, no. 3 (1980): 319-331; Ivan Volgyes, “Hungarian Prisoners of War in Russia, 1916-1919,” Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovietique 14, no.

Notes 193 1/2 (1973): 54-85; and Robert C. Williams, “Russian War Prisoners and Soviet-German Relations, 1918-1921,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 9, no. 2 (1967): 270-295. 18. Carl P. Dennett, Prisoners of the Great War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,

— 1919), 13.

19. These personal narratives include L. J. Austin, My Experiences as a German Prisoner (London: Andrew Melrose, n.d.); Henry Baerlin, The March of the Seventy Thousand (London: Leonard Parsons, 1926); H.C.W. Bishop, .A Kut Prisoner (London: John Lane, Bodley Head, 1920); Paul Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still: My Internment

in England, 1914-1918 (London: Duckworth, 1931); Georges Desson, A Hostage in Germany, trans. Lee Holt (London: Constable and Company, 1917); Robert V. Dolbey, A Regimental Surgeon in War and Prison (London: John Murray, 1917); H. G. Durnfors,

The Tunnellers of Holzminden (Cambridge: The University Press, 1920); Ralph E. Ellinwood, Behind the German Lines: A Narrative of the Everyday Life of an American Prisoner of War (New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1920); Edmund Gilligan, One Lives to Tell the Tale (New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1931); Horace Gray Gilliland, My German Prisons: Being the Experiences of an Officer during Two and a Half Years as a Prisoner of War (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1918); R. S. Gwatkin-Williams, Prisoners of the Red Desert, Being a True History of the Men of the ‘Tara’ (London:

Thornton Butterworth, 1919); Michael Charles Cooper Harrison, Within Four Walls (London: E. Arnold, 1930); Edouard Victor Issacs, Prisoner of the U-90, Being the Personal Narrative of the Adventures of the Only Line Officer of the United States Navy to be Captured in the Great War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1919); Eric A. Keith, My Escape

from Germany (London: Nisbet and Company, 1918); John Austin Lorimer, My Experiences as a German Prisoner (London: A. Melrose, 1915); Henry C. Mahoney, Interned in Germany (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Company, n.d.); Clifford Milton Markle,A Yankee Prisoner in Hunland (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1920); Pat O’Brien, Outwitting the Hun: My Escape from a German Prison Camp (New York:

Harper, 1918); Lord Phillimore, Recollections of a Prisoner of War (London: Edward Arnold and Company, 1930); Joseph Powell and Francis Gribble, The History of Ruhleben: A Record of British Organization in a Prison Camp in Germany (London: W. Collins Sons Company, 1919); Herman Reefe, Kriegsgefangen! (Berlin: Verlag Tradition Wilhelm Koilf, 1930); Gaston Riou, The Diary ofa French Private—War Imprisonment, 1914-1915, trans. Eden Paul and Cedar Paul (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1916); Ivan Rossiter, In

Kultured Kaptivity: Life and Death in Germany’s Prison Camps and Hospitals (In_ dianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1918); John C. Thorn, Three Years a Prisoner in Germany (Vancouver, B.C.: Cowan and Brookhouse, 1920); Andre Warnot, Prisoners of War, trans. M. Jourdain (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1916). 20. Governmental and semigovernmental works in this category include Les Prisionniers Allemandes Au Maroc: La Campagne de Diffamation Allemande, Le Jugement Porté par Les Neutres, Le Temoignage des Prisonniers Allemands, (Paris: Libraire Hachette et cie, 1917); Le Régume des Prisonniers de Guerre en France et en Allemagne au Regard des Conventions Internationales, 1914-1916, (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1917); British Civilian Prisoners in German East Africa: A Report by the Government Committee on the Treatment by the Enemy of British Prisoners of War (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1918).

21. These records have been reproduced in their entirety in United States, National Archives and Record Service, Records of the Department of State Relating to World War I and Its Termination, 1914-1929, microfilm publication M367. All decimal file citations in this work are from this collection unless otherwise noted.

194 Notes CHAPTER 1 1. Lee Meriwether, The War Diary of a Diplomat (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1919), xvii—xix.

2. Walter Hines Page to Sir Edward Grey, 4 November 1914, enclosure no. 4, Correspondence between His Majesty’s Government and the United States Ambassador Respecting the Treatment of Prisoners of War and Interned Civilians in the United Kingdom and Germany Respectively, Miscellaneous No. 7 (1915): Cd. 7815 (London: His Majesty’s

Stationery Office, 1915), hereinafter referred to as Misc. No. 7, p. 15.

Military Captivity in Europe, September-October 1914

25 September 14 October

| Officers | 2,050 2,356 Men 123,000 139,140 French

Russian

Officers 2,150 | 2,164

Men 92,000 101,087 |

Officers 470 521 ‘Men 30,000 31,086 Officers 180 203 Men 8,600 8,641

Belgian

British

3. Eric Fisher Wood, The Notebook of an Attaché: Seven Months in the War Zone (New York: Century, 1915), 305.

1915 |

Number of Prisoners by Nationality and State of Custody, 1 February

Germany Austria England France

British 18,000 — a a a oe “