My Four Years in Germany Part 10

At Ruhleben there was a hospital which in spite of many representations was never in proper shape. In addition, there was in the camp a special barrack established by the prisoners themselves for the care of those who were so ill or so weak as to require special attention but who were not ill enough to be sent to the hospital. This barrack was for a long time in charge of a devoted gentleman, a prisoner, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, but whose self-sacrifice deserves special mention.

I arranged with the camp authorities and the German authorities for permission to enter into a contract with Dr. Weiler. Under this contract Dr. Weiler, who had a sanatorium in the West of Berlin, received patients from Ruhleben. Those who were able paid for themselves, the poorer ones being paid for by the British Government. This sanatorium, occupied several villas. I had many disputes with Dr. Weiler, but finally managed to get this sanatorium in such condition that the prisoners who resided there were fairly well taken care of.

An arrangement was made between Great Britain and Germany by which civilians unfit for military service were sent to their respective countries, and just before I left I effected an arrangement by which all civilians over forty-five years old, with the exception of twenty who might be held by each country for military reasons, were to be released. I do not know whether this arrangement was actually carried out in full. With the lapse of time the mental condition of the older prisoners in Ruhleben had become quite alarming. Soldier prisoners, when they enter the army, are always in good physical condition and enter with the expectation of either being killed or wounded or taken prisoner, and have made their arrangements accordingly. But these unfortunate civilian prisoners were often men in delicate health, and all were in a constant state of great mental anxiety as to the fate of their business and their enterprises and their families. In 1916, not only Mr. Grafton Minot, who for some time had devoted himself exclusively to the Ruhleben prisoners, but also Mr. Ellis Dresel, a distinguished lawyer of Boston, who had joined the Emba.s.sy as a volunteer, took up the work. Mr. Dresel visited Ruhleben almost daily and by listening to the stories and complaints of the prisoners materially helped their mental condition.

The Germans collected all the soldier prisoners of Irish nationality in one camp at Limburg not far from Frankfurt a. M. These efforts were made to induce them to join the German army. The men were well treated and were often visited by Sir Roger Cas.e.m.e.nt who, working with the German authorities, tried to get these Irishmen to desert their flag and join the Germans. A few weaklings were persuaded by Sir Roger who finally discontinued his visits, after obtaining about thirty recruits, because the remaining Irishmen chased him out of the camp.

I received information of the shooting of one prisoner, and although the camp authorities had told Dr. McCarthy that the investigation had been closed and the guard who did the shooting exonerated, nevertheless, when I visited the camp in order to investigate, I was told that I could not do so because the matter of the shooting was still under investigation. Nor was I allowed to speak to those prisoners who had been witnesses at the time of the shooting.

I afterwards learned that another Irishman had been shot by a guard on the day before my visit, and the same obstacles to my investigation were drawn about this case.

The Irishmen did not bear confinement well, and at the time of my visit among them many of them were suffering from tuberculosis in the camp hospital. They seemed also peculiarly subject to mental breakdowns. Two devoted Catholic priests, Father Crotty and a Brother Warren from a religious house in Belgium, were doing wonderful work among these prisoners.

The sending out of the prisoners of war to work throughout Germany has had one very evil effect. It has made it to the financial advantage of certain farmers and manufacturers to have the war continued. The Prussian land owners or Junkers obtain four or five times as much for their agricultural products as they did before the war and have the work on their farms performed by prisoners of war to whom they are required to pay only six cents a day. When the _Tageblatt_ called attention to this it was suppressed for several days.

At many of these so-called working camps our inspectors were refused admission on the ground that they might learn trade or war secrets. They succeeded, however, in having the men sent outside in order that they might inspect them and hear their complaints. There were in Germany about one hundred central camps and perhaps ten thousand or more so-called working camps, in summer time, throughout the country. Some of the British prisoners were put to work on the sewage farm of Berlin but we succeeded in getting them sent back to their parent camp.

The prisoners of war were often accused of various breaches of discipline and crimes. Members of the Emba.s.sy would attend these trials, and we endeavoured to see that the prisoners were properly represented. But the Germans often refused us an opportunity to see the prisoners before their trial, or even before their execution. The case of Captain Fryatt is in point.

Captain Fryatt who commanded a British merchant s.h.i.+p was captured and taken to the civilian camp at Ruhleben. In searching him the Germans claimed that he wore a watch presented to him for an attempt to ram a German submarine. They, therefore, took Fryatt from the Ruhleben camp and sent him to Bruges for trial. When I heard of this I immediately sent two formal notes to the German Foreign Office demanding the right to see Fryatt and hire counsel to represent him, inquiring what sort of counsel would be permitted to attend the trial and asking for postponement of the trial until these matters could be arranged. The German Foreign Office had informed me that they had backed up these requests and I believe them, but the answer of the German admiralty to my notes was to cause the trial to proceed the morning after the day on which my notes were delivered and to shoot Fryatt before noon of the same day.

As to the evidence regarding the watch, the British Foreign Office learned that, when captured, Captain Fryatt had neither a watch nor any letter to indicate that he had tried to ram a submarine!

This cruel and high-handed outrage caused great indignation in England, and even in certain circles in Germany; and the manner in which my request was treated was certainly a direct insult to the country which I represented. In conversation with me, Zimmermann and the Chancellor and von Jagow all expressed the greatest regret over this incident, which shows how little control the civilian branch of the government has over the military in time of war. Later on, when similar charges were made against another British sea captain, the Foreign Office, I think through the influence of the Emperor, was able to prevent a recurrence of the Fryatt outrage.

As I have said, many of the camp commanders in Germany were men, excellent and efficient and kind hearted, who did what they could for the prisoners. It is a pity that these men should bear the odium which attaches to Germany because of the general bad treatment of prisoners of war in the first days of the war, and because certain commanders of prison camps were not fitted for their positions.

The commander at the camp at Wittenberg was replaced, but the Germans have never acknowledged that bad conditions had existed in that camp. Shortly before we left Germany the war department seemed to gain more control of the prisoners of war situation, and on our representations at least one camp commander was permanently relieved. If examples had been made early in the war of the camp commanders who were not fit for their places and of those who had in any way mishandled prisoners of war, the German people as a whole would not have had to bear the burden of this odium. The many prisoners will return to their homes with a deep and bitter hatred of all things German.

The British Government took a great interest in the British prisoners in Germany. Nothing was omitted and every suggestion made by me was immediately acted on; while many most valuable hints were given me from London as to prisoners' affairs. Their Majesties, the King and Queen, showed a deep personal concern in the welfare of the unfortunate British in German hands; and this concern never flagged during the period of my stay in Berlin. Lord Robert Cecil and Lord Newton were continually working for the benefit of British prisoners.

At a time when the British prisoners were without proper clothing, the British Government sent me uniforms, overcoats, etc., and I hired a warehouse in Berlin as a distributing point; but, after some months, the German authorities refused to allow me to continue this method of distribution on the ground that it was the duty of Germany to provide the prisoners with clothes. But Germany was not performing this duty and the British prisoners had to suffer because of this German official woodenheadedness.

In the spring of 1916, quite characteristically, the Germans broke their "treaty" concerning visits to prisoners, and refused to permit us to speak to prisoners out of hearing. Von Jagow told me that this was because of the trouble made among Russian prisoners by the visits of Madam Sazonoff, but this had nothing to do with the arrangement between Great Britain and Germany.

I think that the Germans suspected that I had learned from fellow prisoners of the cruel and unnecessary shooting of two Irish prisoners at Limburg. It was not from prisoners, however, that I obtained this information. but from Germans who wrote to me.

In addition to the English and j.a.panese, I had the protection of the Serbian and Roumanian subjects and the protection of the interests of a very small country, the Republic of San Marino.

Soon after the Serbians and Roumanians appeared in the prison camps of Germany we made reports on the condition and treatment of these prisoners, as well as reports concerning the British.

I was able to converse with some Serbians, in the first days of the war, in their native tongue, which, curiously enough, was Spanish. Immediately after the persecution of the Jews in Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella and other monarchs, a number of Spanish Jews emigrated to Serbia where they have remained ever since, keeping their old customs and speaking the old Spanish of the time of Cervantes.

The German authorities, in the most petty manner, often concealed from me the presence of British prisoners, especially civilians, in prison camps. For a long time I was not informed of the presence of British civilians in Sennelager and it was only by paying a surprise visit by motor to the camp at Brandenburg that I discovered a few British, the crew of a trawler, there. It was on information contained in an anonymous letter, evidently from the wife of some German officer, that I visited Brandenburg where the crew of this trawler, deprived of money, were without any of the little comforts or packages that mitigate life in a German prison camp.

CHAPTER XI

FIRST DAYS OF THE WAR: POLITICAL AND DIPLOMATIC

At the commencement of the war for some days I was cut off from communication with the United States; but we soon established a chain of communication, at first through Italy and later by way of Denmark. At all times cables from Was.h.i.+ngton to Berlin, or _vice_versa_, took, on the average, two days in transmission.

After the fall of Liege, von Jagow sent for me and asked me if I would transmit through the American Legation a proposition offering Belgium peace and indemnity if no further opposition were made to the pa.s.sage of German troops through Belgium. As the proposition was a proposition for peace, I took the responsibility of forwarding it and sent the note of the German Government to our Minister at the Hague for transmission to our Minister in Belgium.

Dr. Van d.y.k.e, our Minister at the Hague, refused to have anything to do with the transmission of this proposition and turned the German note over to the Holland Minister for Foreign Affairs, and through this channel the proposition reached the Belgian Government.

The State Department cabled me a message from the President to the Emperor which stated that the United States stood ready at any time to mediate between the warring powers, and directed me to present this proposition direct to the Emperor.

I, therefore, asked for an audience with the Emperor and received word from the chief Court Marshal that the Emperor would receive me at the palace in Berlin on the morning of August tenth. I drove in a motor into the courtyard of the palace and was there escorted to the door which opened on a flight of steps leading to a little garden about fifty yards square, directly on the embankment of the River Spree, which flows past the Royal Palace.

As I went down the steps, the Empress and her only daughter, the d.u.c.h.ess of Brunswick, came up. Both stopped and shook hands with me, speaking a few words. I found the Emperor seated at a green iron table under a large canvas garden umbrella. Telegraph forms were scattered on the table in front of him and basking in the gravel were two small dachshunds. I explained to the Emperor the object of my visit and we had a general conversation about the war and the state of affairs. The Emperor took some of the large telegraph blanks and wrote out in pencil his reply to the President's offer, This reply, of course, I cabled immediately to the State Department.

_For_the_President_of_the_ _United_States_personally:_

10/VIII 14.

1. H. R. H. Prince Henry was received by his Majesty King George V in London, who empowered him to transmit to me verbally, that England would remain neutral if war broke out on the Continent involving Germany and France, Austria and Russia. This message was telegraphed to me by my brother from London after his conversation with H. M. the King, and repeated verbally on the twenty-ninth of July.

2. My Amba.s.sador in London transmitted a message from Sir E.

Grey to Berlin saying that only in case France was likely to be crushed England would interfere.

3. On the thirtieth my Amba.s.sador in London reported that Sir Edward Grey in course of a "private" conversation told him that if the conflict remained localized between _Russia_--not Serbia--and _Austria_, England would not move, but if we "mixed" in the fray she would take quick decisions and grave measures; i. e., if I left my ally Austria in the lurch to fight alone England would not touch me.

4. This communication being directly counter to the King's message to me, I telegraphed to H. M. on the twenty-ninth or thirtieth, thanking him for kind messages through my brother and begging him to use all his power to keep France and Russia--his Allies--from making any war-like preparations calculated to disturb my work of mediation, stating that I was in constant communication with H. M. the Czar. In the evening the King kindly answered that he had ordered his Government to use every possible influence with his Allies to refrain from taking any provocative military measures. At the same time H. M. asked me if I would transmit to Vienna the British proposal that Austria was to take Belgrade and a few other Serbian towns and a strip of country as a "main-mise"

to make sure that the Serbian promises on paper should be fulfilled in reality. This proposal was in the same moment telegraphed to me from Vienna for London, quite in conjunction with the British proposal; besides, I had telegraphed to H. M.

the Czar the same as an idea of mine, before I received the two communications from Vienna and London, as both were of the same opinion.

5. I immediately transmitted the telegrams _vice_versa_ to Vienna and London. I felt that I was able to tide the question over and was happy at the peaceful outlook.

6. While I was preparing a note to H. M. the Czar the next morning, to inform him that Vienna, London and Berlin were agreed about the treatment of affairs, I received the telephones from H. E. the Chancellor that in the night before the Czar had given the order to mobilize the whole of the Russian army, which was, of course, also meant against Germany; whereas up till then the southern armies had been mobilized against Austria.

7. In a telegram from London my Amba.s.sador informed me he understood the British Government would guarantee neutrality of France and wished to know whether Germany would refrain from attack. I telegraphed to H. M. the King personally that mobilization being already carried out could not be stopped, but if H. M. could guarantee with his armed forces the neutrality of France I would refrain _from_attacking_her_, _leave_her_alone_ and employ my troops elsewhere. H. M. answered that he thought my offer was based on a misunderstanding; and, as far as I can make out, Sir E. Grey never took my offer into serious consideration.

He never answered it. Instead, he declared England had to defend Belgian neutrality, which had to be violated by Germany on strategical grounds, news having been received that France was already preparing to enter Belgium, and the King of Belgians having refused my pet.i.tion for a free pa.s.sage under guarantee of his country's freedom. I am most grateful for the President's message.

WILLIAM, H. R.

When the German Emperor in my presence indited his letter to President Wilson of August tenth, 1914, he asked that I cable it immediately to the State Department and that I simultaneously give it to the press. As I have already stated, I cabled the doc.u.ment immediately to the State Department at Was.h.i.+ngton, but I withheld it from publication.

My interview with the Emperor was in the morning. That afternoon a man holding a high position in Germany sent for me. I do not give his name because I do not wish to involve him in any way with the Emperor, so I shall not even indicate whether he is a royalty or an official. He said:

"You had an interview today with the Emperor. What happened?"

I told of the message given me for the President which was intended for publication by the Emperor. He said:

"I think you ought to show that message to me; you know the Emperor is a const.i.tutional Emperor and there was once a great row about such a message."

I showed him the message, and when he had read it he said: "I think it would be inadvisable for us to have this message published, and in the interest of good feeling between Germany and America.

If you cable it ask that publication be withheld."