camps. At Wittenberg, for instance, there was, when the camp was full, a population of from 15,000 to 17,000 on an area of about 10 acres. There was usually a building set apart for religious services and recreation in the form of concerts and theatrical performances. The sleeping accommodation consisted of bunks arranged in two or sometimes three tiers. The camps were divided by barbed wire into compounds containing about 1,200 prisoners—camps within a camp.
Working Camps.—The housing of the prisoners sent out to work is more difficult to deal with comprehensively, for it depended so much on the locality and nature of the work, quite apart from the goodwill or otherwise of the employer. According to the German regulations, there ought to have been five cubic metres of internal capacity for each prisoner of war. This regulation was by no means always observed. The accommodation provided in Germany varied from a single very-well-lit and ventilated bedroom in a farm to crowded filthy quarters in verminous draughty buildings in mines, quarries and brickyards. In the larger working camps, buildings were sometimes erected for the express purpose of housing the prisoners, and, though not infrequently overcrowded, were generally suited for this purpose. These buildings were sometimes of brick, more usually of wood, set up somewhat above the ground level. In E. Prussia, however, and in a few other places, a construction common in the neighbourhood was used. The huts were sunk into the ground and were in fact something like large lined dugouts roofed over. They were not satisfactory for considerable numbers, but had the advantage that they were in that bleak district warmer in winter than if they had been erected wholly above ground. In other cases, the prisoners lived in the quarters which at many mines and large industrial works the employers provided for their own bachelor workmen. Such quarters were usually satisfactory. The situation of these quarters, of course, depended on the conditions existing locally, and the nature of the work. In mines they were usually in the mine compound, in some places they were situated at a distance from the actual place of working, and thus was added to the day's labour a walk of occasionally as much as 5 km. each way—a serious addition if the work was severe. But in the majority of cases there were no workmen's quarters, and it was impracticable to build barracks for only a few prisoners. Accommodation was then provided in village recreation halls, inns, theatres and similar places. They were not well adapted for the purpose, but where a little goodwill was shewn on both sides, were often made reasonably comfortable.
In a few cases, at Kiel and elsewhere in that neighbourhood, the prisoners lived on board ship where the accommodation, according to the neutral reports, seems to have been satisfactory.
In the places dealt with above, good provision was usually made for bathing, personal washing and laundry; in many mines and industrial works the men were able to get a hot shower-bath daily. In some places, on the other hand, the quarters provided were disgusting. To take two instances out of many which might be given. At Fangsläuse, attached to Döberitz, where the men were engaged in refuse sorting, the barracks consisted of a wooden building divided into two rooms, which were very dirty, in a verminous condition, and overrun with rats and mice. There were no arrangements for bathing or washing; the only opportunity the men had for washing being afforded by a canal near by. At another place, a coalyard, the men were housed in an archway under one of the main lines running into Berlin, and bathing arrangements were nil.
In Great Britain, prisoners of war sent to work were either housed by the military authorities or, in some cases, when engaged in agriculture, by the employer, who was bound to supply housing accommodation, straw for filling palliasses, cooking utensils, crockery, facilities for washing and artificial light. As in Germany, it was not always found possible in England to house prisoners near their work. Any time required to reach and return from their work in excess of one hour was deducted from the hours of labour. One rest day a week was allowed in both countries.
Work.—The construction placed during the World War by the belligerents upon Article 6, which enables the captors to employ the labour of prisoners of war and to authorize them to work for the public service or private persons, probably caused more ill-feeling than any other cause, for the result was to reduce hundreds of thousands of men temporarily to virtual, if not nominal, slavery. In the war of 1870-1 the Germans took some 400,000 French as prisoners. They were permitted, but in no way forced, to work in factories and elsewhere. During the World War, with many exceptions, it is true, practically all able-bodied prisoners, except officers and non-commissioned officers, were ultimately forced to work.
Early in 1915 the British prisoners in German hands were invited to volunteer for work outside the main camps. They refused almost to a man. Then by degrees pressure was applied, and soon men who refused were punished for their refusal, and, eventually, as mentioned below, a formal pronouncement on the subject was made by the German Military Courts.
Meanwhile, a question arose as to the employment of non-commissioned officers. As early as February 1915, the German Government suggested certain privileges for superior non-commissioned officers, and eventually an agreement was come to, that non-commissioned officers should not be compelled to work, except as superintendents, unless they volunteered to do so. A camp was formed for non-commissioned officers at Grossenweder Moor, in the notorious X. Army Corps district, and steps were taken to obtain volunteers for work by withdrawing all privileges and forcing the men to march on parade for nine hours a day. The men did not volunteer and eventually the conditions were improved.
The question of the nature of the work which could be properly demanded of prisoners of war was early found to be a difficult one. In a war of nations such as the World War every able-bodied man replaced by a prisoner is a potential soldier, and, in these circumstances, any work in the enemy country might be said to be “indirectly connected with the operations of war,” especially in cases in which the prisoner was engaged in any step in the manufacture or transport of any one of the multitude of articles necessary for an army in the field.
The position first taken up by the German authorities was that so long as prisoners did not actually handle the finished product—arms, ammunition and such like—there was no infraction of the rules of international law. This, however, did not really cover the whole ground, and the matter was eventually formally considered by the German Military Courts, and the following principles were laid down:—
(1) The work on which a prisoner of war may be employed can only be judged on the merits of each particular case.
(2) It is illegal to employ prisoners of war in the manufacture of munitions intended for use against their native country or its allies.
(3) They may be employed in agricultural or forestry work, as well as on military property, e.g. the improvement of parade and drill-grounds and of rifle ranges.
(4) They may be employed on preparation work, e.g. the transport of coke or of ores for the manufacture of shells, because there is no direct connexion between such work and military operations.
(5) They can only claim exemption from such work as stands in direct relation to military operations in the area of hostilities.
These principles were accepted by the British War Office and the commanders-in-chief of the British armies, and seem on the whole to have been fairly acted on by the German authorities except behind the lines on the eastern and western fronts, though in some cases individual commandants attempted to force men to take part in the actual manufacture of such things as shells, parts of fuzes and the like.
There seem to have been a large number of them employed in labouring work, handling the actual material for guns, shells, etc., in places where munitions were made, and some cases in which they had to take an active part in the manufacture of the finished article certainly did occur. At Krupp's Germania wharf at Kiel, prisoners were employed in riveting ships, including the outsides of submarines, while at Mannheim a number of British were made to work in the manufacture of sulphuric acid in the middle of a large munition factory.
