How the Germans treated Russian Travellers
Thirty-two Russians belonging to the highest aristocracy, who were passing the summer at Baden and other bathing resorts, were arrested at Hamburg and detained for several days. Thanks to the intervention of the Spanish consul, M. Veler, they were able eventually to continue their journey; but at Neumunster, M. Schebeko, on the authority of a telegram from Berlin, was suddenly arrested in the train, compelled to get out of the carriage guarded by soldiers with fixed bayonets, in the midst of a crowd shouting “Shoot him!” He was then dragged off to prison, where he spent twenty-four hours in a dark cell, in the company of malefactors under the common law.
The Countess of Vorontsoff, daughter of the Viceroy of the Caucasus, went so far as to protest. Immediately the soldiers, in a rage, forced themselves into her carriage, pushed her with the butt-ends of their rifles on to the platform and began to search her. It was only with great difficulty that the travellers were able to resume their journey, which, from Baden to the Danish frontier, lasted seven days. At Reudsburg station they were again dragged from their carriage and carefully searched: at the Fleusburg station they were detained for four hours under a guard of armed soldiers. Other Russian travellers of note were at first brought to the frontier town of Eydtkuhnen, and then dispatched again to Mecklenburg, and the Island of Ruegen.
The travellers were fearfully crowded together. Some of them were put into cattle-trucks and had nothing to eat or drink. Even women were not spared blows with the fist and with the butt-ends of rifles, nor threats of death. Several had to make long marches on foot between rows of armed soldiers, and at stopping-places had no shelter but pig-sties. A large number of men aged from seventeen to fifty were stopped.
Husbands were taken away from their wives, children were harshly treated, and left alone at the stopping-places in spite of the cries of their mothers, who were forced to continue their journey.
In the sanatorium at Frankfurt, which was filled with a large number of foreigners, especially Russians, several of whom had just been operated on, shameful behaviour of the same kind took place. The sanatorium was cleared in twenty-four hours. A woman who had just been confined was sent to Berne, where she arrived in a dying condition. Her baby died on the way.
After stories like these, we can easily imagine what bad treatment travellers of less distinction had to endure. The vicissitudes through which they passed not merely astound, but revolt, the hearer. The Russians who were brought to Sasuitz, for the most part robbed of all that they had, agreed to make the following declaration—
“Those who wish to do so may take the boat to go back to Sweden. Those who do not wish to return to Sweden will remain here, as prisoners of war, until the end of the war. The women will sew linen for our soldiers, the men will be employed in making trenches. Whoever departs from the appointed place where he is to stop will be brought before a court-martial and will be shot. We do not guarantee regular food.”