Short Rations.
At Ruhleben there are (with the exception of some negroes) English only. The English receive many packages. The German authorities have been tempted to rely on those packages increasingly. That is the state of things revealed in Dr. A. E. Taylor’s report of June 14, 1916. [Miscel. No. 21 (1916).]
A review of the present ration of the prisoners of war indicates that it is the aim of the ‘Kriegsernährungsamt’ to supply a ration which shall be physiologically adequate, though professedly containing little more than enough to cover minimal requirements; and it is believed that the official prisoners’ ration contains as much as the daily food of many millions of German subjects. There is no question that the official prison ration is an adequate ration from the standpoint of animal nutrition. In addition to this allotted camp ration the prisoners possess the food sent in from abroad as addenda.
In the case of the Russian prisoners, these extra food stuffs sent in from abroad are small in amount; in the case of the French, moderate; in the case of the English, large. In all the prison camps that I have visited it is the practice to prepare food for the number of men in the camp, irrespective of nationality, in accordance with the menu of Professor Backhaus. As a rule, the British prisoners take little or none of the food, and their share is eaten by prisoners of other nationalities. In Ruhleben the state of affairs at present existing has convinced the interned civilians that the situation is, so to speak, reversed: that the German authorities seem to regard the foodstuffs sent in from abroad as the regular diet of the interned men, and the camp allotments as the addenda.
It is not surprising that “the interned men are deeply dissatisfied with the present state of affairs.” The German authorities, finding that at least half the total number of the interned at Ruhleben subsist largely upon private packages, have made a “sharp reduction in the amount of foodstuff allotted to the camp.” I have no wish to defend this proceeding, but it must be allowed that to the Government of a blockaded country there is a great temptation to cut down supplies when this will not be a danger to the prisoners themselves.
Both reports of Dr. Taylor [Miscel. No. 18 (1916) and Miscel. No. 21 (1916)] are important studies of the question of nutrition, and his short discussion (No. 18, p. 4) of the psychological aspects of monotonous diet and the nutritional effects of internment is worth careful attention. “A diet that would be tolerated if the subject were at liberty may become intolerable under conditions of imprisonment. There is a large personal equation operative in this direction. The soldier imbued with a high sense of his value to his country and of the justice of his cause will endure a monotonous diet that would not be endurable in the prisoner overwhelmed with disappointment and crushed with sorrow.” These considerations are obviously of general application.