13 Days: The Chronicle of an Escape from a German Prison

by John Alan Lyde Caunter

This interested us very much of course, as we had visions of being released by Dutch cavalry. However—cheering as these rumours were at first—they became decidedly unpopular when nothing ever happened according to the programme of the rumour.

Sometimes we heard of misgivings in the town when our offensives were stretching the German armies to cracking point. The people didn't believe their official reports without applying a grain of salt to them first, on many occasions. The Times was largely read in the town, and I have heard it actually said by a German that he read it so as to get news of the war,—the German papers containing nothing but stuff entirely favourable to the Fatherland.

There was an official report issued by the Great Headquarters every afternoon and this appeared in the Extra Blatt, a yellow sheet of paper specially printed. This Extra Blatt used to be carried past the prison by an old Boche, who always shouted the same thing—"heavy losses of the English, French and Russians." At last, after hearing him daily for two years or more, the prisoners began to assert themselves, and he was received with cheers, which daily grew louder, until the commandant ordered that the old man should not come past any more and give opportunities for the prisoners to practise their sarcasm at the expense of the communiqués of the Great Headquarters.

The reports about the Jutland battle sent the Germans into a great state of excitement. At first they were very happy, while we said very little to those Boches we met about the camp. A day or two later their joy was rather more assumed than real, until nearly a week afterwards, the sudden marvellous discovery by the German authorities that they had lost some more ships, and the consequent admission of this unfortunate little fact, finally wiped out altogether the dreams of a German domination of the seas, which many deluded people seemed to consider a "fait accompli" after that battle. It was then our turn to smile and drop insinuations and hints that probably their authorities could tell them more if they liked.

Of course we were told what would happen to England when the submarine campaign began. The Unter-Offizier in charge of the parcel room informed us with great glee that the English would be unable to receive any more parcels. Although pooh-poohing his suggestions many prisoners had secret fears on the subject.

There was great excitement in Boche circles when the first batch of parcels bearing postmarks of a later date to that of the first day of the unlimited submarine campaign arrived in the camp. This did not look a all like a complete blockade of England!

After careful thought a satisfactory explanation was forthcoming from the "under officer." "Of course the English postal authorities must have faked the postmarks in order to cause these very misgivings to arise in the minds of true Germans"! Again he and his satellites were able to look on the bright side of things. But not for long did their joy last. The steady stream of incoming parcels continued and joy gave way to sulkiness and then disillusionment in the minds of those Germans who saw with their own eyes. Depend upon it these men told others what they had seen and so it spread. All the same they still imagined, in May, 1917, that we had far less food in England than was really the case.

Talking about food reminds me of the behaviour of the Crefeld children when we prisoners went out for walks on parole. Although undoubtedly brought up upon ideas of hate against England, and presumably thoroughly informed of the odious natures of all Englishmen, these children very soon forgot their lessons and rapidly became great friends with the prisoners—English, Russians, French, Belgians and Arabs alike. Of course to a certain extent their behaviour was due to their hopes of getting odd bits of chocolate or a biscuit or two from their enemy friends. It was not unusual to see the "Walk," generally consisting of about forty prisoners, returning with a crowd of kids of all kinds and description hanging on to its edges. Their usual practice was to get hold of a prisoner's hand and trot beside him, asking sometimes for chocolate and occasionally for old tennis balls.

These children's disregard of the attitude, which the war lord has decided must be displayed against the English, was not allowed to continue unchecked. I expect the children were the subject of a special army order, as they suddenly ceased to join us in our walks, and the usual crowd of urchins who stood for hours in the road outside the barracks in the hopes of having something thrown out to them, were chased from their points of vantage and silence once more reigned in the one time noisy road.

On special occasions the schools were given holidays by orders from headquarters. A victory or the occupation of a town was always commemorated in this way. On these occasions, the headmaster or mistress would march the school past our prison and order the kids to sing patriotic songs. We always laughed at them, and the girls would sometimes forget to sing and would wave their handkerchiefs to us instead, causing their bear-leaders to get wild with rage. Eventually when the Germans got tired of victories and wanted food instead, their holidays ceased and we no longer had to listen to shrill voices shrieking "Die Wacht am Rhein" or "Deutschland über Alles," time after time ad nauseam.