A prisoners’ “show” camp—Filthy conditions—Scanty fare—Racial characteristics—“Upholding Britain’s dignity”—Russian princes in disguise—A blind artist—A physical insult—Deadly monotony of prison life—Drilling—Hamburg a dead city—A hate of the pocket—The “system” at a Berlin hospital—Effects of the war in Berlin—At the Opera—A plethora of Iron Crosses—Immanence of the Kaiser—Imperial propaganda—The Crown Prince marooned—Glory to the Kaiser and von Hindenburg—President of the German Corporation—Always the offensive—“America too far away!”
Only a week before I had seen the wounded Germans in the freight shed at Calais and all the prisoners that I had seen elsewhere, whether in ones or twos, brought in fresh from the front or in columns under escort, had been Germans. The sharpest contrast of all in war which the neutral may observe is seeing the men of one army which, from the other side, he watched march into battle—armed, confident, disciplined parts of an organisation, ready to sweep all before them in a charge—become so many sheep, disarmed, disorganised, rounded up like vagrants in a bread-line and surrounded by a fold of barbed wire and sentries. Such was the lot of the nine thousand British, French, and Russians whom I saw at Döberitz, near Berlin. This was a show camp, I was told, but it suffices. Conditions at others might be worse; doubtless were. England treated its prisoners best, unless my information from unprejudiced observers is wrong. But Germany had enormous numbers of prisoners. A nation in her frame of mind thought only of the care of the men who could fight for her, not of those who had fought against her.
Then, the German nature is one thing and the British another. Crossing the Atlantic on the Lusitania we had a German reserve officer who was already on board when the evening editions arrived at the pier with news that England had declared war on Germany. Naturally, he must become a prisoner upon his arrival at Liverpool. He was a steadfast German. When a wireless report of the German repulse at Liége came, he would not believe it. Germany had the system and Germany would win. But when he said, “I should rather be a German on board a British ship than a Briton on board a German ship, under the circumstances,” his remark was significant in more ways than one.
His English fellow-passengers on that splendid liner which a German submarine was to send to the bottom showed him no discourtesy. They passed the time of day with him and seemed to want to make his awkward situation easy. Yet it was apparent that he regarded their kindliness as a racial weakness. Krieg ist Krieg. When Germany made war she made war.
So allowances are in order. One prison camp was like another in this sense, that it deprived a man of his liberty. It put him in jail. The British regular, who is a soldier by profession, was, in a way, in a separate class. But the others were men of civil industries and settled homes. Except during their term in the army, they went to the shop or the office every day, or tilled their farms. They were free; they had their work to occupy their minds during the day and freedom of movement when they came home in the evening. They might read the news by their firesides; they were normal human beings in civilised surroundings.
Here, they were pacing animals in a cage, commanded by two field guns, who might walk up and down and play games and go through the daily drill under their own non-commissioned officers. It was the mental stagnation of the thing that was appalling. Think of such a lot for a man used to action in civil life—and they call war action! Think of a writer, a business man, a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, reduced to this fenced-in existence, when he had been the kind who got impatient if he had to wait for a train that was late! Shut yourself up in your own backyard with a man with a rifle watching you for twenty-four hours and see whether, if you have the brain of a mouse, prison-camp life can be made comfortable, no matter how many greasy packs of cards you have. And lousy, besides! At times one had to laugh over what Mark Twain called “the damfool human race!”
Inside a cookhouse at one end of the enclosure was a row of soup boilers. Outside were a series of railings, forming stalls for the prisoners when they lined up for meals. In the morning, some oatmeal and coffee; at noon, some cabbage soup boiled with desiccated meal and some bread; at night, more coffee and bread. How one thrived on this fare depended much upon how he liked cabbage soup. The Russians liked it. They were used to it.
“We never keep the waiter late by tarrying over our liqueurs,” said a Frenchman.
Our reservist guide had run away to America in youth, where he had worked at anything he could find to do; but he had returned to Berlin, where he had a “good little business” before the war. He was stout and cheery, and he referred to the prisoners as “boys.” The French and Russians were good boys; but the English were bad boys, who had no discipline. He said that all received the same food as German soldiers. It seemed almost ridiculous chivalry that men who had fought against you and were living inactive lives should be as well fed as the men who were fighting for you. The rations that I saw given to German soldiers were better. But that was what the guide said.
“This is our little sitting-room for the English non-commissioned officers,” he explained, as he opened the door of a small shanty which had a pane of glass for a window. Some men sitting around a small stove arose. One, a big sergeant-major, towered over the others; he had the colours of the South African campaign on the breast of his worn khaki blouse and stood very straight, as if on parade. By the window was a Scot in kilts, who was equally tall. He looked around over his shoulder and then turned his face away with the pride of a man who does not care to be regarded as a show. His uniform was as neat as if he were at inspection; and the way he held his head, the haughtiness of his profile against the stream of light, recalled the unconquerable spirit of the Prussian prisoner whom I had seen on the road during the fighting along the Aisne. Only a regular, but he was upholding the dignity of Britain in that prison camp better than many a member of Parliament on the floor of the House of Commons. I asked our guide about him.