The Better Germany in War Time: Being Some Facts Towards Fellowship

Part 1

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THE BETTER GERMANY IN WAR TIME

Being some Facts towards Fellowship.

BY HAROLD PICTON.

THE NATIONAL LABOUR PRESS, LIMITED, MANCHESTER AND LONDON.

TO THE BRITISH AND THE GERMAN PEOPLES AND IN MEMORY OF MY MOTHER WHO KNEW AND LOVED THEM BOTH.

"Forsooth, brothers, fellowship is heaven, and lack of fellowship is Hell."--A Dream of John Ball.

"Either we are all citizens of the same city and war between us, a civil war, a monstrous iniquity to be forgotten, as soon as it may bring in peace; or else there is no city and no home for man in the universe, but only an everlasting conflict between creatures that have nothing in common and no place where they can together be at rest."--Times Literary Supplement, Nov. 11, 1915.

"He had to be extremely careful, said Lord Newton at Knutsford last Saturday, because if he made any statement which did not accuse the Germans of brutality he was denounced by many people as pro-German."--Common Sense, April 20, 1918.

"Des faits de ce genre meritent detre mis en evidence. Il faudrait, dans ce dechainement d'horreurs et de haines, insister sur les quelques traits capables d'adoucir les ames."--La Guerre vue d'une Ambulance par L'Abbe FELIX KLEIN.

"Hate as a policy is either inadequate to deal with the crimes (real and invented) of our enemies, or, if adequate, so recoils on the hater that he himself becomes ruined as a moral agent."--G. JARVIS SMITH, M.C. (late Chaplain at the Western Front). Nation, Nov. 2, 1918.

"The belief at home that the individual enemy is an incurable barbarian is simply wrong...."--Second-Lieut. A. R. WILLIAMS, killed in action August, 1917.

"I will go on fighting as long as it is necessary to get a decision in this war.... But I will not hate Germans to the order of any bloody politician; and the first thing I shall do after I am free will be to go to Germany and create all the ties I can with German life."--J. H. KEELING (B.E.F., December, 1915).

CONTENTS

CHAPTER. PAGE.

FOREWORD xi.

I. MILITARY PRISONERS 1

II. CIVILIAN PRISONERS 75

III. PRISONERS IN PREVIOUS WARS 123

IV. REPRISALS OF GOOD 132

V. WHAT THE GERMAN MAY BE 149

APPENDIX 255

FOREWORD

One kind of German has been too often described, and not infrequently invented. I propose here to describe the other German. At a military hospital a lady visitor said to the wounded soldiers: "We've had lots of books and tales of horror; why don't some of you fellows prepare a book of the good deeds of the enemy?" There was a slight pause. "Ah," said one of the soldiers, "that would be a golden book." Very imperfectly, and in spite of all the barriers raised by war passions, I have tried to collect some of the materials already to hand for such a book.

In any quarrel it is difficult to recognise that there is good in one's opponent. Yet in order that any strife may be wisely settled, this recognition is plainly necessary. Mere enmity, without recognition of good, belongs to primitive barbarism. It was against the foolish unpracticality of this older barbarism (not surely only against its wickedness) that Christ protested in the words, "But I say unto you, love your enemies." He saw around him the folly and unenlightenment of the perpetual feud. I have collected the testimonies that are in the following pages because such facts seem to me to need wider recognition, if we are ever to gain an outlook upon a fairer and a truer world.

If my desire for peace has anywhere shown itself unduly, or in a way irritating to others, I ask forgiveness. Whenever peace is made, the world will need a peace built on all the facts of human nature. I have tried to give here some of those which war passions inevitably obscure. That is the whole of my task.

HAROLD PICTON. September, 1918.

FOOTNOTES:

Part 2

The Better Germany in War Time

MILITARY PRISONERS.

The cases of bad treatment of prisoners in Germany have been made known very widely. No one, I imagine, can wish to defend bad treatment of prisoners anywhere (even of criminal prisoners), and such a horrible state of things as that of Wittenberg during the typhus epidemic is a disgrace to human nature.

But Mr. Lithgow Osborne says: "My whole impression of the camp authorities at Wittenberg was utterly unlike that which I have received in every other camp I have visited in Germany." (Miscel. 16, 1916, p. 6). I propose to give some account of these other camps. I shall not exclude adverse criticism, but as the public have heard little but such criticism, I do not think it will be unfair to deal in these pages more fully with the favourable reports.

LETTERS FROM OFFICERS AND OTHERS.

The following letter from a British Officer appeared in the Times of December 30, 1914. It may well serve as an introduction and a caution:

I do not doubt Private O'Sullivan's wonderful experience as a prisoner, but his is, I am sure, only an isolated case, and not at all the usual treatment to which British prisoners are subjected. I can speak from experience, as I, too, was a prisoner (wounded), but afterwards released, as the building in which I was, along with several German wounded, was captured by the British. During the time I was with the Germans they treated me with every consideration. Food was scarce, owing to the fact that the roads were so well shelled by our artillery that their transport could not come up; but they shared their food with me. They also dressed my wound with the greatest care, and in every way made me as comfortable as possible. Being able to speak a little German, I talked to the other wounded, and found that their papers also published dreadful tales of our treatment of prisoners, which I am glad to say I was able to refute.

I am, Sir, yours faithfully, A BRITISH OFFICER. December 27.

I would especially call the attention of fair-minded men to the last sentences.

Here is a letter written by Second-Lieut. F. Phillips Pearce (aged 18) of the 2nd Essex Regiment, from Crefeld on October 27, and printed in the Times of November 19, 1914:

We are treated very well indeed here. We have good beds and fires in the rooms, three good meals a day, and a French soldier for a servant, and this morning I had a splendid hot bath. We have roll call twice a day, at 8 a.m. and 9.45 p.m., and lights out at 10.45, and we have a large courtyard to walk about in. We have a canteen here where we can buy clothes and anything we want. Prison fare is very good--new rolls and coffee and fresh butter. Not bad! I had a very decent guard when I was coming up on the train; he got me food, and when one man tried to get in to attack me he threw him off the train. I am afraid I am out of the firing line until the war ends (worse luck). I am in no danger of being shot unless I try to bolt, which I shan't do. I shot the man who was carrying their colours, and he wanted to have me shot, but luckily nobody seemed to agree with him. The next time I saw him he had been bandaged up--he was shot through the shoulder--and he dashed up and shook me by the hand and shouted, "Mein Freund, mein Freund."

On November 25 other letters appeared in the Times. One was from a cavalry subaltern in a German fortress:

You ask about money; they provide lights and firing and all the men's food. The officers get 16s. a week and buy their own. Quite sufficient, as it is cheap. I have learnt German fairly quickly and do interpreter now in the shop for the men, though, I am afraid, tant mal que bien. One of the officials here used to be a professor, and is very kind trying to teach us. Thanks for the warm underclothes, and most awfully for the footballs. We have quite good matches.... It is better not to try to send any public news of any kind from England; people having been stupid trying to smuggle letters in cakes and things, and it only makes trouble for everyone.

A Captain writes:

For dinner at 1 p.m. we are given soup, meat and vegetables.... Supper takes place at 7 o'clock and consists of tea, sausages or meat and potatoes.... We receive L5 a month as pay, of which 1s. 6d. is deducted for food each day. We have a canteen here at which we can buy everything we want, ... so there is no need to send me anything at all, except perhaps those small 7d. editions of novels.

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