ments. Others received nothing, and there can be no doubt that in not a few cases gross fraud was practised on sympathetic persons. Early in 1915 the Prisoners of War Help Committee was established in London. It tried to coördinate the work of the different associations and individuals, but failed as it had no powers, and was dissolved in Sept. 1916, when the Central Prisoners of War Committee of the British Red Cross and Order of St. John was officially established and without its authorization no individual or body could send a parcel to a prisoner.
Amongst its functions were (1) to authorize committees, associations and approved shops to pack and despatch parcels to prisoners of war, (2) to control and coördinate the work of all such committees, associations and shops, and (3) to act as a care committee for all prisoners who for any reason were without a care committee, for all civilian prisoners, and, after Oct. 1917, for all officer prisoners.
Under the presidency of Sir Starr Jameson, Bart., and, after his death, of the Earl of Sandwich, the committee of which Sir P. D. Agnew was vice-chairman and managing-director, not only organized the whole of the despatch of parcels of food and other things to the prisoners of war by 181 care committees, 81 local associations and 67 shops, but packed and despatched parcels to individual officers and men, numbering, at the date of the Armistice, no less than 47,500. Three parcels of 11 lb. weight were sent each fortnight to every prisoner and contained, together with 13 lb. of bread sent once a fortnight from Copenhagen or Berne, sufficient, without other food, to maintain a man doing reasonably hard work. Officers did not come under the scheme till the autumn of 1917.
At first the scheme was very unpopular, because it interfered with the power of individuals to send what they liked to their friends, and in April 1917, a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament was appointed to enquire into it. The report was published in June of that year, and while paying a high tribute of praise to the work accomplished made certain suggestions which did much to allay the discontent, as they provided for the introduction of the personal touch into the parcels. In its main features the scheme continued till the end of the war.
Besides the despatch of parcels to individuals the Committee sent food, either in bulk or in the form of emergency parcels, to the larger camps in Germany, for newly captured prisoners.
Though it is obvious that the despatch of parcels of food on the great scale indicated above relieved the German Government of a very great responsibility, yet it must be recognized that credit is due to the German nation for the fact that all but a small percentage reached the addresses to which they were sent, notwithstanding that they contained articles unobtainable in Germany, except by the very rich.
Though it is true that the parcels arrived, it is also true that in some camps the German commandants as a punishment delayed or prohibited for some days or even weeks their issue to the addressees, and that there were complaints as to the way in which the censoring of the contents of the parcels, necessary of course to prevent the introduction of prohibited articles, was carried out. Latterly, however, in all good camps the parcels were opened in the presence of the addressee, and the tinned food was stored and not opened till it was required.
Owing to the increasing shortage of food in Germany, and to the fact that the rations in England for a long time were maintained at a reasonable level, the number of parcels sent to German prisoners was far smaller than that sent to British prisoners. At first a considerable amount of food was sent into the German prisoners' camps in England from their relations and friends residing in Great Britain, but when the shortage became acute it became necessary to prohibit this practice.
The Hague Convention also requires the captor to treat his prisoners as regards clothing on the same footing as his own soldiers. The German Government claimed that it strictly observed this article and forbade the sending of clothing by the British Government. The article was not observed at all in some German camps, and great trouble was caused by the claim, in at all events some army corps, that boots were part of a soldier's military equipment, and that the captors were entitled to take them. The clothing in any case supplied by the Germans was quite insufficient, and arrangements were made by which an adequate supply was despatched according to a regular scale. Some of it went astray and some was stolen, although a good proportion reached the addressees. In England clothing was issued when necessary to enemy prisoners, other than officers, on a regular scale, which provided for them having a sufficient change of clothing, while in both countries officers made their own arrangements for the supply of the necessary clothing.
Application of the Military Law of the Captors.—Article 8 enacts that prisoners of war are subject to the laws, regulations and orders in force in the army of the captor State, a provision which gave rise to a good deal of trouble, owing, in England, to the difficulty of carrying it out strictly while in some cases, as in Bulgaria, punishments were allowed—such as flogging—for ordinary breaches of discipline—which were quite alien to British ideas of what is permissible.
The German military law is in general far more severe than the British, and there is this further great difference, that in Germany officers as well as men may be summarily sent to cells or awarded other severe punishments for trivial offences, while in the United Kingdom, strictly, any offender above the rank of private should have been tried by court-martial, a provision amended during the war by the substitution of military courts.
In another respect the German code is more severe in that all sentences of arrest involved solitary confinement, while one of close arrest, which was limited to four weeks, meant that the prisoner was confined in a dark cell, with a plank bed and bread and water diet, though these aggravations of the punishment were omitted on the fourth, eighth and subsequently every third day, the prisoner receiving the ordinary camp diet on these days.
One punishment officially termed “field punishment,” but more generally known in England as the “post punishment,” caused a great outcry in that country and much resentment among British prisoners in Germany. It is provided in the German Manual of Military Law that the punishment is to be inflicted in a manner not detrimental to the health of the prisoner, who is to be kept in an upright position with the back turned to a wall or a tree in such a manner that the prisoner can neither sit nor lie down. These last words were construed to mean tying the prisoner to a post; sometimes his feet were placed on a brick which was removed after he was securely tied, and sometimes his hands were secured above his head. Apart, at all events, from these aggravations, this punishment was in strict accordance with the military law of the captors; indeed it corresponds to the field punishment No. 1 authorized by the British military law and described in the rules for field punishment for offences committed on active service made under Sec. 44 of the Army Act. These rules authorize the keeping of the offender in fetters or handcuffs or both, and when so kept he may be attached by straps or ropes for a period or periods not exceeding two hours in any one day to a fixed object during not more than three out of four consecutive days nor more than twenty-one days in all.
In Germany all prisoners are liable to be treated as “in the field,” i.e. on active service.
In one respect, viz. the punishments for attempted escape, the German military law was less severe than the British, the greater severity of the latter having apparently arisen from a misunderstanding of the expression “peines disciplinaires” in the second paragraph of the 8th Article of the Hague Convention. This seems to have been understood on the Continent as a punishment which could be awarded summarily: that is, arrest, open, medium or close, for a period not exceeding six weeks. In Great Britain the punishment was limited to 12 months' imprisonment; in Germany it was far less for the simple offence, though it was frequently added to by the addition of charges for damaging Government property, and the like. The matter came under discussion between the British and German Delegates at The Hague in 1917 and 1918, and an agreement was arrived at by which the punishment for a simple attempt to escape was to be limited to fourteen days, or if accompanied with offences relating
