justify direct repatriation should be transferred to Swiss custody. They were selected by mixed travelling boards composed of Swiss medical men and medical officers of the captor State, those selected being afterwards examined by a Control Board, whose decision was final. After the Conference at The Hague in 1917, these travelling boards were abolished, and the first selection made by the camp medical officer, an arrangement subsequently modified at the meeting of 1918.
The guiding principles for internment in Switzerland were stated in 1917 as follows:—
“The following shall be interned:—(1) Sick and wounded whose recovery may be anticipated within a year, and whose cure will be more speedily and surely brought about by the facilities obtainable in Switzerland than by a prolongation of imprisonment. (2) Prisoners of war whose health in the opinion of the medical authorities appears to be seriously menaced either physically or mentally by the prolongation of captivity, and who would probably be saved from this danger by internment in Switzerland.”
If the person's disabilities increased so as to bring him within the category entitled to direct repatriation, he was to be sent home.
In 1917 the Netherlands Government offered to receive in all 16,000 persons, British and German, divided into three categories: (i) invalid combatants (7,500); (2) officers and non-commissioned officers who had been in captivity for 18 months (6,500); and (3) invalid civilians (2,000). This offer formed the basis of the agreement made between the British and German Governments at The Hague in June 1917. By that agreement the schedule of disabilities for the invalids was the same as in the case of Switzerland, except that the British Government insisted with the assent of Switzerland that tuberculous patients should go to that country. Much resentment was felt in consequence of the exclusion of privates who had been 18 months in captivity from the benefit of this agreement. But the British delegates were powerless. Every attempt to induce the German delegates to agree to their inclusion was vain.
The provisons of the agreement arrived at in 1917 were largely extended at a further meeting in 1918, by which all warrant and non-commissioned officers, as well as men who had been prisoners of war for more than 18 months, should, with exceptions, be repatriated, head for head and rank for rank.
General Treatment.—So far an attempt has been made to show how the principal articles of the Hague and Geneva Conventions relating to prisoners of war were applied in Great Britain and Germany during the World War. It remains to be considered how far the over-riding principle laid down in Article 4 of the Hague Convention was observed. That article requires first, that prisoners must be treated with humanity; and second, that all their personal belongings, except arms, horses and military papers, shall remain their property.
With regard to the second requirement charges were made against both armies that this obligation was not observed, and it cannot be doubted that on both sides the wounded were sometimes on their first capture relieved of valuables. But this was not due to any official action; it was due to the unauthorized and wrongful acts of individuals. In respect of one matter only was there anything which could be treated as an authorized disregard of this article. British prisoners often had their boots taken from them by the Germans, either at first capture or later even in the camps in the interior of Germany. This was justified by the Germans on the ground that a man's boots were as much a part of his military equipment as his arms, and that therefore they were entitled to take them away. This claim seems only specious; the practice it sought to support or excuse certainly had the most cruel results in many cases, as men were forced to go about without any covering on their feet, or, if the boots were replaced, as they sometimes were, by wooden clogs, the men suffered much, especially during the winter or in mines from that unaccustomed footwear. However, in other respects this part of the article appears to have been fairly observed, though a somewhat liberal construction was placed on the expression “military papers” by both sides.
We turn now to the other part of the article, which enjoins that the prisoners must be treated with humanity. There existed during the war much misconception with regard to the treatment of prisoners in Germany, partly owing to the fact that only stories of horrors were published in England and the Allied countries, partly owing to the prominence given to this subject as a method of Allied war-propaganda, in the dramatic form of cinematograph films, and notably in the pictures relating to the work of Mr. Gerard, the American ambassador.
Some of the stories thus circulated were untrue. As an instance, it may be recorded that every story as to the tattooing of prisoners by the Germans, to which great prominence was given, pictures of the alleged victims being produced in the cheap illustrated papers, was, as far as possible, carefully investigated and was in no case shown to have any foundation. But the stories had their effect, for an idea got abroad that a prisoner once in the hands of the Germans was subject to every kind of indignity and cruelty.
It is possible now to weigh all the evidence, and express a judicial conclusion unaffected by the passions of war. The materials for doing so are ample. In the summer of 1915 a committee, presided over by Lord Justice Younger, was appointed by the British Government to enquire into the treatment by the enemy of British prisoners of war. As far as possible, each escaped or repatriated prisoner was examined by a person experienced in taking evidence, and arrangements were also made by the committee for examining the prisoners interned in neutral countries. In all, over 3,500 persons who had been prisoners in Germany, including 445 officers and 90 medical officers, were examined by this committee during the war, and most of their statements were printed and all indexed. After the Armistice the committee was asked to arrange that every returned prisoner should have an opportunity of making any complaint he wished. A questionnaire was carefully prepared and handed to every returned prisoner on his arrival at one of the dispersal camps to which all prisoners were sent before being allowed to return home. Each company of returning men was addressed by the person in charge of the investigation, and he impressed on the men the importance of stating frankly whether there was any complaint that they desired to make, and, if so, what it was. The result was remarkable. Out of not less than 170,000 forms issued only some 59,000 were even returned, and of these only about 22,000 contained information of any value whatever.
While this information was being collected, the then Attorney-General, Sir F. E. Smith (afterwards Lord Birkenhead), appointed a further committee to enquire into the breaches of the laws of war, the sub-committee dealing with prisoners being under the presidency of Mr. Justice Peterson. This sub-committee carefully considered the whole of this mass of evidence, and, in addition, the reports, nearly 2,000 in number, of the American and Dutch representatives who visited the camps. The German military law was also carefully studied.
Information was thus obtained with regard to 57 camps for officers and 78 main camps for men, besides the working camps, the number of which, shown by lists (admittedly not quite complete) from time to time furnished by the German authorities to the Netherlands minister, was 7,157. There were certainly not less than 7,500 places in all where one or more British prisoners were at one time or another confined, in addition to the camps on the eastern and western fronts, which are left for separate consideration.
The result of the investigation was that complaints, some uncorroborated, some trivial and some very serious, were received as regards 929 places, in only 349 of which—rather less than 5% of the whole—did a first study of the evidence seem to call for further examination.
It is clear, therefore, that no general charge of inhuman treatment is well-founded; it is, however, true that, apart altogether from the camps on the eastern and western fronts, there were actually, if not proportionately, a large number of cases in which the German treatment of British prisoners was certainly bad, and, in some cases, very bad.
To form a just estimate of the gravity of the situation so disclosed, consideration must be given to the differences of the
