In November, 1914, two of the officer prisoners attempted to escape by bribing the shopman at the stores of the officers’ canteen. This shopman, however, turned out to be a German officer in disguise, and the attempt failed, but it cost the officers concerned very dear. They were put in irons and kept in prison six months in a far worse state than in the barracks.
The above is attested by the evidence of Captain Kosmachevsky, Lieutenant Griaznov, and Sub-lieutenant Yarotsky, given to Major-General Semashko, a member of the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry, and the deponents were admonished that they would be required to swear to the truth of their statements.
VIII.
Peter Shimchak, a peasant from the province of Warsaw, who fled from German captivity, being examined on oath, deposed to the following:—In August I was made prisoner while serving as a sailor on board a vessel under the British flag, going from Denmark to England.
As a Russian subject I was not set free, but was placed in solitary confinement for seven days in a prison at Hamburg, and then sent to a camp for prisoners of war near Berlin, at Zel, where there were already many English, French, and Belgian prisoners. In that camp there was a small yard where offending prisoners were generally punished. On one occasion four Cossacks were brought into the camp. I recognised them by the yellow stripes down the sides of their trousers. They were taken out into the yard and placed about ten feet from the wall of the barrack, and through the crevices I was able to watch the proceedings. They took the first Cossack and placed his left hand on a small wooden post or block, and with a sword bayonet one of the German soldiers chopped off successively half of the Cossack’s thumb, half of his middle finger and half of his little finger. I could plainly see how these finger pieces flew off at each stroke of the sword-bayonet and fell to the ground. The Germans picked them up and put them into the pocket of the Cossack’s overcoat and then took him into a barrack, where there was a reservoir of running water. The second Cossack was brought up and had holes drilled through his ears, the point of the sword-bayonet being turned in the cut several times in order, evidently, to make the hole as large as possible. This Cossack was then led away to the barrack where the first one had been taken. When the third Cossack was brought to the place of torture his nose was chopped off by a downward stroke of a sword bayonet, but as the severed piece of nose was still hanging by a bit of skin, the Cossack made signs that they should cut it off completely. The Germans then gave him a pocket knife, and with this the Cossack cut off the hanging piece of his nose. Finally, the fourth Cossack was brought forward. What they intended to do with him it was impossible to say, but this Cossack with a rapid movement drew out the bayonet of the nearest soldier and dealt a blow with it at one of the Germans. There were about fifteen German soldiers present, and they all set upon this Cossack and bayoneted him to death, after which they dragged the body outside the camp. What was the fate of the remaining three Cossacks I do not know, but I think, says the witness Shimchak, in concluding his account of the case, they must have been also killed, for I never saw them again.
IX.
Evidence of the senior surgeon of the 73rd Artillery Brigade, Gregory Dimitrovich Onisimov, who was captured by the enemy on August 30th, 1914, near “Malvishek” in East Prussia, but has since been released. The most striking and characteristic part of this ex-prisoner’s testimony is a description of the insulting treatment received by Russian prisoners from the soldiers of their German escort on the road to Insterburg. “The peaceful temper of our German convoy did not last long. We soon began to meet detachments of German troops, who swore and shook their fists and levelled their rifles and revolvers at us, shouting, ‘Why lead these men about when they can be settled here on the spot?’ This kind of remark was shouted at us in German, Polish, and broken Russian. The peaceful inhabitants also reviled us, and called upon the soldiers to despatch us there and then. They shouted ‘nach Berlin—to Berlin with them! ... to Welhau! ... Russischer schweinhund—Russian swine,’ and so forth. The soldiers of the escort were taken into houses on the road and made drunk, so that they also began to amuse themselves at our expense. The German soldier walking on my right took his rifle from his shoulder, as if tired, and held it in such a way that the muzzle touched my right temple, and then he played carelessly with the lock of it, as though unaware of what he was doing. When I moved out of the way, he said: ‘Ah! you’re afraid of losing your head, there’s no danger.’ As soon as the guard on one side had had his little joke, his comrade on the other side began. Another soldier on a cart came along purposely handling his rifle so as to stick the muzzle into my chest, and when I warded it off he roared with laughter and seemed highly delighted. When going down a steep part of the road the driver of a cart behind intentionally drove into us and struck me on the legs with the shafts. I shouted to him to stop and not break my legs. He simply replied: ‘Bad to have no legs.’ This kind of thing went on throughout the march. Sometimes we were driven forward like horses, and the wounded men in the carts were so shaken about that they groaned with pain. The guards did not allow us to turn round to speak with them, and no attention was paid to our entreaties to drive them slowly.”
Alexis Krivtsov, Senator,
President of the Extraordinary
Commission of Inquiry.