The Prisoners of Mainz

by Alec Waugh

Before, this particular German had always been especially agreeable to us. The only possible excuse for his behaviour lies in the fact that he was very fond of the bottle, and might have been a little drunk. But however one looks at it, it was a sufficiently discreditable affair.

Of the insults and degradations to which the officers of the camp at Holzminden were subjected we had no experience. The Germans adopted towards us an invariable attitude of respect that was if anything too suave. They were always profuse with promises, but it was very hard to get anything out of them.

“Oh, yes,” they would say, “we can do that easily. We will go to the General and it will be all right. Don’t worry any more about it. We’ll see to it, it will be quite simple.”

But nothing ever happened. The simplest request always managed to lose itself somewhere between the block office and the Commandant’s study; and gradually we learnt that formal applications were no use whatsoever, and that if any one wished to change from one room to another, the surest way to get there was to collect all his baggage into a heap and move there independently.

The probable cause of this was the General himself, who was one of the most arrogant and pompous little men that militarism could produce. He was the complete Prussian, the Prussian of the music-hall and the Lyceum. Very small and straight, he would strut about the parade-ground clanking his spurs, or else he would stand in a pose, his cloak pulled back to reveal his Iron Cross. And he was utterly vindictive. One does not wish to misjudge any human being, but I feel sure he must have derived an acute pleasure from sitting at his window and looking down on the court, his eyes hungry for some misdemeanour on our parts, in which he might possibly find an excuse for some punishment.

He was certainly given opportunities, and I think that considering the man he was, it would have been judicious to have approached him in a slightly different way. But it always happens that the majority have to suffer for the faults of a few thoughtless people, and several restrictions were placed on the camp that could have been easily avoided. In every community there is the rowdy section, and this rowdiness was accentuated by the lack of freedom. There was no outlet for energy, except a walk round the square, or a very occasional game of hockey. And the spirits of the swashbucklers found expression in “rags” organised on an extensive scale.

But it was unfortunate for those who, having realised that they were prisoners, wished to make the best of their conditions. And really the rags were extraordinarily futile. One sportsman conceived the idea of lowering from the top-story windows dummies which the sentries would mistake for escaping Britishers and fire at. Luckily this scheme was suppressed, but there was nevertheless one night a very large and organised jollification, which was of course exactly what the General wanted.

For three weeks he closed the camp theatre, and put a stop to music and concerts of any description, which meant the removal of the only form of amusement that we had.

On another occasion when bombs were being dropped on Mainz, a few officers began to cheer and shout. It was again playing straight into the General’s hands. He immediately stopped for a period of two months all walks outside the camp, and any one who has been a prisoner will know what the curtailing of that privilege meant. It was a great pity, and our prison life would have been much more easy, if only the turbulent few had realised that it was in their own interests to keep quiet, considering the man with whom they had to deal.

Though as a matter of fact I have little doubt that, however well we had behaved, the General would have found some excuse for inflicting reprisals. For he was quite capable of inventing regulations off his own bat. He was a sort of self-elected dictator, and drew up his own code and Army Act. His most scandalous infliction was an order that the covers should be removed from all books before being issued to the camp. The old excuse was brought forward; the French used to hide maps and poison between the cardboard and the cloth.