Art. 1. Civilian prisoners, regardless of age or sex, are authorized, upon their own demand and under conditions hereafter stated, to leave the country where they are held; this applies alike to interned persons and to those who have been liberated after a period of internment.
Art. 2. The word internment is to include all civilians who, whatever the cause or date of their commitment, are or have been detained in any place of internment against their will.
Art. 3. Civilians who at the beginning of the war had their domicile or habitual residence either in the State where they are or on the free territory of the other State will be conducted to the Swiss frontier, whence they can proceed to Germany if they come from France or to France if they come from Germany.
Art. 4. Civilians who at the beginning of the war had their homes in a locality of the occupied regions will be sent back there. They can ask to be taken to the Swiss frontier, and the request will be complied with whenever military necessity does not stand in the way. In cases where, for military reasons, the return of such persons to their homes is impossible, the civilians in question shall be sent to the frontier or to another part of the occupied territory, which will be assigned to them, as nearly as possible, in accordance with their wishes.
Art. 5. If a civilian desires to remain in the territory or State where he now is interned, he will be authorized to do so on condition that his residence there shall be permanent.
Art. 9. The civilians interned in Switzerland at the moment when this agreement goes into effect will be freed from internment.
Art. 12. Civilians who return to their country under the present agreement cannot be employed in military service, either at the front, or in the war zone, or in the interior of occupied enemy territory, or in the territories or possessions of an allied State.
Art. 13. The arrangements for the liberation of civilians shall be put into operation immediately after this agreement goes into effect. Reckoning from that date, the transportation ought to be finished in a space of not more than three months for civilians now actually interned and six months for those interned at some time in the past. This transportation will be furnished free.
The following articles deal with the population of occupied territory:
Art. 17. The inhabitants of occupied territory cannot be compelled to work, except under the following rules: The work must be done under the best material and moral conditions, with due regard to personal aptitudes, social conditions, sex, age, and the physical status of the workers. Members of a family, so far as possible, must not be separated. Their labors must never involve any obligation to take part in war operations against their own country. Work can be demanded only (a) as service for the needs of the army of occupation, within the limitations laid down in Article 52 of The Hague Convention regarding war on land; (b) with the object of preventing idleness on the part of persons capable of working, who are supported at public expense, and who have refused voluntary employment; (c) with the object of providing, in the absence of other means, for the existence of the population.
Art. 18. Persons compelled to work under Article 17 must be employed, with the exception mentioned, in the locality of their domicile or in its immediate neighborhood. If for military or economic reasons an inhabitant has to be removed from his home in order to put him at work, this removal shall not in any case take him outside the occupied territory, nor shall it bring persons whose residence is more than thirty kilometers from the firing line within the limits of that zone.
Suitable provision shall be made for housing and food for workers who shall receive fair remuneration, and, if need be, medical service. Besides rest periods and normal changes they shall be given permission as often as possible to visit their families, with whom they shall also be allowed to correspond and exchange parcels.
Art. 19. Aside from the cases designated in Article 18, and aside from the case of a total or partial evacuation of a locality for military reasons, an inhabitant of occupied territory cannot be displaced from his home against his will, unless, because of his personal attitude, his presence endangers military security or public order.
Art. 20. No civilian coming from one of the two States can in future be interned in the other State or in the occupied territories. Nevertheless, a civilian who, by reason of his personal attitude, and in the interest of military security or public order, has to be removed from his domicile in occupied territory, can be taken into the territory of the occupying State. The duration of his absence from occupied territory must be limited to a period of strict necessity and must not exceed six months, save in exceptional cases. At the expiration of this period the interested person is authorized to return to the occupied territory, unless the authorities should prefer to conduct him to the Swiss frontier.
The foregoing Franco-German agreement was entered into for an initial period of fifteen months, beginning May 15, 1918, and can be renewed for periods of three months each. A Belgo-German agreement of narrower scope was signed at Berne on March 22, 1918, relating only to civilian prisoners.
Horrors of Austrian Prisons
Inhuman Treatment of Civilian Women and Men at Internment Camps
A correspondent of The London Telegraph who spent three years in captivity in Austria has told of the horrible brutalities and cruelties suffered by interned aliens in that country. He states that there are both stations and camps for the interned prisoners, but the former are employed to exploit the captives; they are more livable than the horrible camps, but to live at a station one is charged three to ten times more for food and lodging than the current rates for citizens, and the prisoners suffer greatly for want of food and decent sanitation.
He describes the experiences of prisoners at a place called Illmau, in lower Austria, as typical of Austrian methods. A party of Englishmen were taken there shortly after they had been arrested in Vienna. They were marched along for about twenty kilometers, carrying their bags or packages. It was very cold, below freezing point, and when at last they arrived at Illmau at dark they were pushed into a kind of cellar, three or four steps below the level of the ground. A soldier locked them in, telling them they could go there and die. It was a place with no windows—only a small hole in floor. The floor, bare earth, was wet and muddy, water trickling down the walls. For every two men was one straw sack, also damp, of course, and they were so closely packed that they could not lie straight.