World War One: the Great War?

My father passed to me The War Behind The Wire by John Lewis-Stempel, (“The life, death and glory of British prisoners of war 1914-18”) after he’d read it (part of his study of military history, currently going through the centenary, run up to war, phase).

I knew a bit about PoWs, but essentially only from WWII; what I’ve found from this book is actually how bad the Germans treated British prisoners. Admittedly, they apparently treated Canadian soldiers worse, but it was seemingly nothing to let British soldiers starve to death, be beaten or bayoneted to death as punishment or on a whim, or die whilst being forced to work long and dangerous hours in foundries or down mines with little or no protective equipment and certainly no medical care (for example, a German doctor at Gustrow refusing to treat British PoWs, insisting that if they hadn’t joined the war they wouldn’t be here; an Australian officer deliberately had both legs sawn off without anesthetic at Wurzburg, or the typhus epidemic at Wittenberg, from December 1914, where the Germans totally withdrew from the camp and threw supplies over the fence – leaving hundreds dead including most of the British doctors. When the dead were carried out to be buried, more likely stacked due to lack of burial space, they were jeered by the local inhabitants).
Lewis-Stempel’s writing is a bit annoying (irritating and confusing one word sentences, for example, or the sort of emotive foreigner-bashing language that wouldn’t be out of place in the Daily Mail or Express), but the hatred of the Germans for their captives beats through his shortcomings.
Funnily enough the French were apparently treated comparatively decently by les Bosch, to the point that they shared their own rations when it was decided in one camp that the British shouldn’t eat for a while, but there was none of the rules and regulations that were in place for later wars so it was all down to individual commandants to carry out what discipline they saw fit. And since these officers were Teutonic trained Prussian officers the punishments could be as harsh as the men themselves – standing for days next to an iron foundry, skin blistering, being beaten for moving or making any form of noise, or kicked, beaten or savaged by guard dogs for not understanding German orders.
Perversely British officers and men were allowed to order books, clothing and food supplies from German shops and even from London itself, as long as they paid for it – even travel guides until their captors caught on…
But the beating and the punishment reads so much like the way the Japanese treated Allied PoWs three decades later, with the prisoners having a lower life expectancy than troops being shelled on the frontline.

Of course I have no comparison with how German PoWs were treated, but I cannot imagine it was anything like their contemporaries, watched over by the Prussian regime.
Little wonder the current German government doesn’t want the history of a war a century ago to be remembered.

Incidentally, The Independent is A History of the First World War in 100 Moments – which makes for interesting reading. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/history-of-the-first-world-war-in-100-moments/

This was yesterdays:

The French general and the deserter

Even early in the war, desertion was punishable by death. Edward Spears, a British liaison officer, saw the macabre spectacle of an execution

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A French firing squad escorts a deserter to his execution in November 1914

“General de Maud’huy had just been roused from sleep on the straw of a shed and was standing in the street when a little group of unmistakeable purport came round the corner. Twelve soldiers and an NCO, a firing party, a couple of gendarmes, and between them an unarmed soldier. My heart sank and a feeling of horror overcame me. General de Maud’huy gave a look, then held up his hand so that the party halted, and with his characteristic quick step went up to the doomed man.

“He asked what he had been condemned for. It was for abandoning his post. The General then began to talk to the man. Quite simply, he explained discipline to him. Abandoning your post was letting down your pals; more, it was letting down your country that looked to you to defend her. He spoke of the necessity of example, how some could do their duty without prompting but others, less strong, had to know and understand the supreme cost of failure. He told the condemned man that his crime was not venial, not low, and that he must die as an example, so that others should not fail. Surprisingly, the wretch agreed, nodding his head. He saw a glimmer of something, redemption in his own eyes, a real hope, though he knew he was about to die. Maud’huy went on, carrying the man with him to comprehension that any sacrifice was worthwhile while it helped France ever so little. What did anything matter if he knew this?

“Finally, de Maud’huy held out his hand: ‘Yours also is a way of dying for France,’ he said. The procession started again, but now the victim was a willing one. The sound of a volley announced that all was over. The general wiped the beads of perspiration from his brow, and for the first time perhaps his hand trembled as he lit his pipe.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/history-of-the-first-world-war-in-100-moments/a-history-of-the-first-world-war-in-100-moments-the-french-general-and-the-deserter-9256651.html

Chilling stuff.