I may state at once that no Germans over the age of 45 are being arrested.[13]
I should, however, be glad if your Excellency would endeavour to bring home to the German Government that His Majesty’s Government are faced with a problem which does not apply to the same extent in Germany.
There are, roughly, 50,000 Germans resident in this country, and the presence of such large numbers of the subjects of a country with whom Great Britain is at war must necessarily be a cause of anxiety to the military authorities who are concerned with taking adequate measures for the defence of the realm.[14]
In detaining persons who might, in certain eventualities, become a source of danger to the State, His Majesty’s Government are only acting in accordance with the dictates of a legitimate and reasonable policy, and they would be clearly lacking in their duty to the country if they neglected to safeguard its interests by allowing the continuance of possible risks to the public safety.
In proceeding as they have done they have only had this one consideration before them, and it has never once been their intention to indulge in a domestic act of hostility towards German subjects as such, or in any way to inflict hardship for hardship’s sake on innocent civilians.
Every endeavour is being made, as Your Excellency is aware from Mr. Chandler Anderson’s report on the concentration camps, to mitigate the inconvenience to the persons detained, and to provide the best possible treatment for them under the circumstances.
As time goes on it is hoped that it will be possible to improve further the necessarily austere conditions of the military discipline to which the prisoners are bound to be subjected, and every endeavour is being made already to rectify any mistakes that may have occurred, both in the arrest of persons who should properly be exempt, and in the régime, which, through its hurried organisation, could not fail to contain a certain number of defects at the outset....
Into the case for and against general internment I do not propose to enter; it has nothing to do with the main purpose of this book. It does, however, concern that purpose to point out first that the general internment of resident enemy nationals (whatever its justification in any particular case) is contrary to modern usage, and second that the order for general internment was given first not in Germany, but in Britain. The popular view on this subject is erroneous. The German order was issued as a “reprisal,”[15] but, once issued, it was carried out with dispatch, a dispatch which was, of course, easier because of the comparatively small number of British subjects in Germany.
It will, I think, be useful to quote some further letters. The first document is an extract from a telegram received, via Copenhagen, by the U.S. Embassy in London on November 7, 1914. The telegram is from the Ambassador (Mr. Gerard) at Berlin, and conveys the representations of Mr. Chandler Anderson, of the American Embassy in London, who was at the moment in Berlin. Anderson says:
Tell Foreign Office that there is no compulsory military service required by German law for men over 45, and any men over that age serving in the army are volunteers. Agreement to release all men over 45 would produce better understanding, refusal is regarded as questioning truth of their assurances, which were endorsed by our Ambassador. Would like to settle these matters while here, and want to leave on Tuesday or Wednesday. Am arranging to have someone from this Embassy return with me to report, for information of Foreign Office here, about concentration camp and reasons for internment of civilians, in order to establish common basis for their treatment and provisions and clothing furnished and pay of officers, on the understanding that accounts will be balanced at close of war or at stated intervals.—Gerard, Berlin.