inspected all the prison camps in England in 1916, reported that he heard no complaints as to food, that in every camp the kitchens were neat and clean, that many of the cooks were Germans, and that in most cases the food was "excellent." 1

The French government at first gave German prisoners the same rations of bread, meat, and vegetables that French soldiers received, but in consequence of the reduction by the German government of the daily meat ration from 350 to 125 grams, the French government in December, 1915, correspondingly reduced the meat ration hitherto served to German prisoners inside the camps, but not that served to those who were at work outside or who were sick or wounded. The bread ration was likewise reduced from 700 grams per day to 300 grams.2 In many camps the food was delivered in bulk to the camp steward, and it was prepared and cooked by German cooks.3

$345. The. German Ration. The German memorandum of October, 1914, stated that non-commissioned officers and soldiers would receive the same ration as German non-commissioned officers and soldiers received, and that it would be "simple but sufficient." The "statement of principles observed in the housing, feeding and clothing of prisoners" issued in February, 1915, announced that the daily diet was as follows:

"In the morning: coffee, tea or soup.

"At noon: a plentiful fare consisting of meat and vegetables. The meat may be replaced by a correspondingly larger portion of fish. "At night: a substantial and plentiful meal."4

Comparison of this ration, so far as comparison is possible, with that announced by the British government shows that it was decidedly inferior. Thus it does not appear whether prison

1 The only serious German complaint against the English in respect to the food of prisoners that I have found was that contained in the "open letter addressed by the association of physicians of Hamburg to the physicians of England" referred to above, which charged that the food served in the camp at Newbury was insufficient in quantity and that the potatoes were not well cooked. 2 Régime des Prisonniers, p. 35, and Lemoine, p. 29. In consequence, however, of an agreement between the two governments in April, 1916, the daily bread ration served in French prisons was increased to 600 grams. Reports made by American inspectors described the cuisine in the camp at Tours as of "good quality"; that at Poitiers as "very good," and that at Castelnaudary as "excellent."

3 This last statement is made on the basis of the author's personal observations during a visit to France in the summer of 1918.

• Ibid., p. 14.

THE GERMAN RATION

31 ers in Germany received sirup, milk, butter, sugar, or even bread for breakfast, as prisoners in England did. The statement that "a plentiful" meal was served in the evening indicated little as to quantity or quality. As stated above, prisoners in Germany were not allowed to purchase cigars, tobacco, or chocolate from the canteens, though they might receive them from home through the mails.

It appears from the reports of the American inspectors and from numerous published statements of prisoners that the usual diet in the German prisons was: for breakfast, a cup of "coffee" usually made of acorns or chicory, without sugar or milk; for the noon meal, a bowl of soup in which there were vegetables and generally, though not always, a bit of meat or dried fish, and for supper, tea, cocoa, or "coffee," supplemented usually by boiled potatoes or sausage. A piece of black bread, frequently described as "absolutely uneatable," the amount of which was successively reduced from one-third to one-fifth and finally to one-sixth of a loaf, was served with each meal.1 No knives, forks, or spoons were furnished by the camp authorities. Often the prisoners never saw a piece of meat for an entire week. The menu was hardly ever varied from, except as to the composition of the soup. This diet was obviously insufficient, and both the American and Spanish inspectors complained of

1 Cf. the report of the commandant of the Ruheleben camp in a note verbale communicated by the German foreign office to Mr. Page on February 23, 1915; cf. also reports of American inspectors in Misc., No. 7 (1915), pp. 8, 20, 47; in Misc., No. 26 (1916), pp. 22, 35, 43; also reports of Spanish inspectors in Le Régime des Prisonniers, p. 37, and in Rapports des Délégués du Gouv. Espagnol, pp. 66, 68, 69; McCarthy, op. cit., p. 165; Cohen, op. cit., pp. 34, 66, 178; Mahoney, Interned in Germany, pp. 31, 33, 337, 341; Aubry, Ma Captivité en Allemagne, p. 105; Wood, Note Book of an Attaché, p. 297. Mr. Wood says the soup served to the prisoners at Döberitz was a concoction chiefly of barley and potatoes. He was told that there was meat in it, but he could find no evidence of it. Breakfast consisted of black bread with a slice of cheese or sausage and either tea or coffee. The diet, he added, was "evidently insufficient"; "I should say it was calculated with German accuracy to just keep body and soul together." Mr. Gerard, who visited the camp in October, 1914, made a similar report. Misc., No. 7 (1915), p. 8. The German authorities, however, denied the charges as to the insufficiency of the diet. Misc., No. 19 (1915), p. 20. The American consul-general at Leipzig found a similar diet at Merseberg in November, 1915. Misc., No. 7 (1915), p. 20. A month later the camp was visited by Messrs. Jackson and Osborne who reported that the diet there as elsewhere was of a "monotonous character," and that the British prisoners depended largely upon parcels from home. Misc., No. 16 (1916),

* Mahoney, op. cit., p. 33.

it. Mr. Gerard, who visited Ruheleben before the reduced scale of rations was put into effect, informed ambassador Page (January 23, 1915) that there were a "good many cases of destitution among the British civil prisoners and they are increasing weekly. The authorities do not provide the men with margarine or sugar, both of which are necessary for their proper nourishment." A month later he informed Mr. Page that of the 4273 men at that time interned at Ruheleben, approximately 2000 "are in the greatest destitution." 2 Dr. E. A. Taylor, a nutrition expert and representative of the American embassy, made two elaborate reports on food conditions at Ruheleben,3 in the latter of which he stated that after the putting into effect of the new and reduced scale, prisoners were receiving only a little more than one-third of the protein-carrying foods allowed to regular prisoners of war in the military camps, while the potato rations were less than half the amount allowed the latter class of prisoners. In a letter of June 14, 1916, to Mr. Gerard, Dr. Taylor submitted dietary statistics which indicated, he said, that the food supplied to the interned civilians at Ruheleben during the previous week represented less than half of~ the requisite food units. A notable feature of the diet for that week, he said, was the absence of vegetables, except one serving of rhubarb without sugar, against which the camp as a unit protested."

§ 346. Dependence of British and French Prisoners on Parcels from Home. Taking advantage of the increasing number of parcels of food which the men were receiving from abroad, the German camp authorities successively reduced the quantity of food served to the prisoners. Many lived wholly on what they

3 Misc., No. 18 (1916), Cd. 8259, and Misc., No. 21 (1916), Cd. 8262. Misc., No. 21 (1916), p. 5. Mr. Gerard states that Dr. Taylor's report showing that the official diet of the prisoners at Ruheleben was a "starvation diet" so incensed the German authorities that they forbade him to revisit Ruheleben. My Four Years in Germany, p. 184.

The agreement concerning the treatment of prisoners between Germany and the United States of November 11, 1918, fixed the minimum food value of the daily ration at 2000 calories for non-workers and 2850 for heavy workers. The minimum daily ration of bread for ordinary workers was fixed at 250 grams.

6 Thirty-nine thousand, five hundred and forty-seven packages during the month of May, 90 per cent of which were estimated to contain food. Twenty-five organizations were sending food to Ruheleben.

DEPENDENCE ON PARCELS POST

1

33

received from their governments or from what was sent them through the parcels post by friends or relatives, although much of this food was unfit to eat, because it required from two to five weeks to reach the camp from England. Dr. Taylor states that the German authorities seemed to regard the food sent from abroad as "the regular diet and the camp allotments as the addenda." He further added that the parcels post food consisted mainly of biscuits, cake, jam, tea, honey, and the like, with almost no fats, such as the prisoners most needed and which the German authorities seemed least inclined to provide. The inspectors throughout the year 1916 reported that at most of the camps visited by them, British prisoners were living almost entirely on the contents of their packages, and in some camps they ate none of the food supplied by the German authorities, either because it was unfit, or because it was not prepared or cooked according to English tastes.2 Thus it came to pass that Germany was largely relieved of the burden of feeding English prisoners. French prisoners likewise relied largely on food sent them from home. The Russian prisoners, however, received little from this source3 and were compelled

1 Ibid., p. 7.

Cf., e.g., reports in Misc., No. 26 (1916), pp. 15, 22, 29, 47, and Misc., No. 19 (1915), p. 52. Dr. McCarthy says British women interned at Holzminden were unable to eat the camp diet and were in 1916 subsisting entirely on food sent through the parcels post. Op. cit., p. 221. Speaking generally of food served in the German camps, he says: "The British prisoner takes one look at it, sniffs, 'not fit for a dog to eat,' he says, and turns to a can of beef or ham which has been sent him" (p. 60). The camp at Friedrichsfeld, he says, was "one of the few camps in Germany where the prison food was taken by practically all the British prisoners" (p. 72). At Minden one-fourth of the English prisoners took the noonday meal served by the Germans, and one-fourth to one-third took the bread ration only (p. 79). Mr. Gerard says, "British officers in Germany virtually subsisted on their parcels received from home." Mahoney (Interned in Germany, pp. 343, 347) says that had it not been for the parcels received at Ruheleben, few of the prisoners would have survived. At the Sennelager camp fifty-eight thousand packages were received by the British prisoners alone in January, 1916. Misc., No. 26 (1916), p. 15. At Ruheleben from twelve to fifteen thousand parcels were received each day. Mahoney, p. 149.

According to a statement given to the Associated Press by the Copenhagen office of the Moscow prisoners' war relief committee in October, 1918, two million Russian prisoners in Germany and Austria-Hungary were in a "starving condition," large numbers were ill, and other large numbers were dying every day. New York Times, October 29, 1918. According to a semi-official statement from Havre on June 12, 1918, five hundred Belgians interned in a German prison camp at Lübeck had died of starvation during the three months preceding.

VOL. II-3

to rely upon the prison fare which, in consequence of the successive reductions due to the increasing quantities received through the mails by British and French prisoners, was entirely inadequate.

§ 347. British and French Complaints. The treatment of interned civilian prisoners in particular caused the British government great concern, and Sir Edward Grey pressed upon the German government a proposal for the exchange of such prisoners, adding that if Germany was not in a position to feed them properly, it was her duty to release them. This proposal was again and again renewed, and in a communication of June 23, 1916, to Mr. Page he asked the American ambassador to inform the German government that if the proposal were not accepted within a week, the British government would be obliged to consider what course it should take with reference to the rations then being supplied German civilians interned in England.1 But the German government for a long time refused to take action, and it was believed in England that the starvation scale of rations introduced at Ruheleben was intended as a measure of retaliation against Great Britain for interning German civilians.2

The Spanish inspectors of prison camps in which French captives were confined, likewise found the food in some camps to be entirely insufficient in quantity or inferior in quality. The French government complained that the scale of diet announced by the German government was not only insufficient in respect to albuminous products, but that the quantity actually served

1 Misc., No. 7 (1915), p. 9.

2 The Tageszeitung in an editorial attacking the British proposal for a wholesale exchange of civilian prisoners and referring to the British blockade reminded the English that Germany did not begin the interning of civilians nor the hunger war, and it added: "Perhaps we have gone too far in permitting these food packages to reach the prisoners since England bars us from private mail communication with America and stops even milk from America." The Kölnische Zeitung remarked that "if it comes to starving, the British prisoners should starve first." It does not appear, however, that the British government resorted to measures of retaliation, and German prisoners continued to receive rations in accordance with the scale announced at the outset. There was some popular demand for retaliation in kind, but the London Times expressed the view of the majority of the nation when it declared that the slow starvation of German prisoners in England was "utterly abhorrent to the humanity and the self-respect of the nation."

3 Cf. Rapports des Délégués du Gouv. Espagnol sur leurs Visites dans les Camps de Prisonniers Français en Allemagne, pp. 37, 66, 68, 69.