declined to carry out the terms of the article and paid the German subalterns 4s. a day and other ranks 4s. 6d., naval officers being paid according to their relative rank. Out of this an officer was required to pay for his food, laundry and clothing, a deduction being made if he was in hospital (where, of course, he was provided with everything necessary). By an arrangement made later the German Government was allowed to make a small addition to these daily rates of pay. Medical officers employed in the care of sick and wounded prisoners of their own nationality received the full pay of medical officers of corresponding rank in the army of the captors.
Religious Exercises.—Article 18 is designed to secure to prisoners complete liberty in the exercise of their religion, and during the World War no real complaint was made on either side.
In the United Kingdom German pastors who had been resident in the country were allowed to hold services in the camps, but difficulties arose and the permission was withdrawn. Thereupon some pastors elected to be interned, with a view to ministering to the prisoners. Later, however, the permits were issued in a modified form, and English and American clergy and laymen and members of the Danish and Swiss Student Christian Movement were allowed to visit the camps, the necessary funds being provided by the American Branch of the Y.M.C.A. The Roman Catholic prisoners were usually attended by the priest of the district in which the camp was situated and every facility was given to them. Where no German-speaking priest was at hand the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster charged the German priests of his archdiocese to visit the camps every now and then in order to enable the prisoners to go to confession and to hear a sermon in their mother tongue.
In Germany, at first, the Rev. F. Williams, who had been in charge of the English Church in Berlin, was allowed to visit the different camps and hospitals. But this permission was withdrawn and the prisoners were left to conduct their own services, to which, except at Grossenweder Moor, no objection was raised. A few British chaplains were captured, and did good work until they were repatriated. Great assistance was given also by the American branch of the Y.M.C.A., and by Archdeacon Nies, an American clergyman at Munich, until the United States came into the war.
The German clergy also did what they could for the prisoners in many camps and hospitals. Some of them were spoken of very warmly by the British prisoners.
The needs of the Roman Catholics were more easily met owing to the presence among the French prisoners of many priests who did excellent work, and the Bishop of Paderborn (afterwards Archbishop of Cologne) did much for the prisoners. Moreover, Father Crotty was sent from Rome and was permitted to minister at Limburg and Giessen, partly perhaps because he was an Irishman, and it was hoped his influence might be useful to the Germans.
In the German working camps there was no regular provision for religious services, though Mr. Williams seems to have visited some of the larger places, and in one district a German pastor is said to have travelled around the small camps and ministered to the prisoners. There was a standing order of the Kriegsministerium that, at all events in the country districts, the prisoners should be allowed to attend the local churches. This, though of value to Roman Catholics, was not much use to the Protestants, owing to the difficulties of language.
At Zossen the Germans built a mosque for Mahommedan prisoners, and generally arrangements seem to have been made to avoid hurting religious and caste prejudices.
Medical Treatment.—Up to this point an attempt has been made to show how the provisions of the Hague Convention were applied in Great Britain and Germany. But this Convention does not deal with everything which affects the well-being of prisoners of war. The Geneva Convention of 1906 requires the belligerents to respect and take care of the wounded and sick without distinction of nationality, and leaves them at liberty to agree for the restoration of wounded left on the field, the repatriation of wounded after rendering them fit for removal or after recovery, and for handing over the sick and wounded to a neutral State to be interned by it till the conclusion of hostilities. What was in fact done must be considered under three heads: the attention given (1) in the regular hospitals, (2) in the main camps and (3) in the working camps.
Hospitals.—In Germany at first there seem to have been inadequate arrangements made for the reception of seriously wounded prisoners, but later well-arranged and well-equipped hospitals were available, the principal being in Berlin, at Cologne and Paderborn, though of course there were a large number elsewhere. As time went on and the pressure on Germany became more and more acute, the supply of medical requisites became deficient, bandages were made of paper, drugs and anaesthetics were less plentiful, but, though naturally British prisoners would fare worse than the wounded Germans, there is no evidence that the former were intentionally deprived of anything necessary for them if there was an adequate supply.
The conduct of the German doctors to the prisoners in the regular hospitals is one of the bright pages in the sad history of the World War, and is worthy of their great profession. Most of the returned British prisoners reported that the doctors were kind and humane, while many of them spoke of them in warmest possible terms and told how the doctor had said that when a prisoner was wounded or ill he no longer looked on him as an enemy, or how, though he hated the English, he did his very best. There were exceptions, who formed a very small minority. The large majority of German doctors worked hard, often with infinite kindness, in the interests of those in their charge, and unreservedly placed such knowledge and skill as they possessed at the disposal of the prisoners.
The nursing in Germany was carried out by orderlies, by trained nurses or by sisterhoods. It seems to have varied very much. In some cases it was good and kind, in some indifferent, and in some rough and bad. But there appears to be no reason to think that in any case it was intentionally less good than circumstances permitted.
Main Camps.—The same satisfactory account of the medical arrangements in the main German camps cannot be given, even after the first disorganization was overcome. There was in each camp a lazaret providing accommodation for a number proportionate to the number for which the camp was designed, but the arrangements were often very incomplete.
There seem to have been a large number of Russian doctors employed in the German camps, while in a few, for short periods, English medical officers were employed—though in all cases a German seems to have been responsible. The nursing was in the main done by prisoner orderlies, many of whom of course were quite untrained, though they seem to have done their best. It is impossible to generalize as to the conduct of the German medical staff in hundreds of camps over a period of four years, but the general impression produced by the evidence is that the staffs were humane and did all they could.
There is reliable evidence that the nature of the food provided in the German camp hospitals, as distinguished from the regular hospitals, where, until supplies became very short, it seems to have been satisfactory, was quite unsuited for invalids. A sick prisoner was a non-worker, and therefore received the ordinary camp ration, less 10 per cent. This was even the case in the typhus camps, where the requisite milk and light food for the fever-stricken patients had to be provided by the British and Allied medical officers themselves.
There seems to have been insufficient care, at all events in the early stages of the war, to prevent the spread of tuberculosis by the segregation from the healthy of those suffering from that disease. Later, however, steps were taken to effect this, and more than one place was established exclusively for tuberculous patients, while the arrangement made for their internment in Switzerland did still more to deal with this evil.
It must not of course be said that this mingling of the sick and healthy was deliberate. It was probably due to want of thought, an excuse which cannot be made for the policy adopted by the German Government of mixing all the Allies together,
