BRITISH AND FRENCH COMPLAINTS

2

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was below the scale announced in the regulations. It also complained of the lack of variety, that the bulk of the food served was largely liquid, and that the cooking was absolutely unsuited to French tastes.1 In England and France the cooking was done mainly by German cooks, whereas in the German prison camps the cooks were almost invariably Germans or Russians. This was the cause of much complaint on the part of British and French prisoners who asserted that they could not eat German cooking. The British and French charges were, of course, denied by the German government. It is only fair to state also that the American inspectors found the food in many camps to be "sufficient" in quantity and "satisfactory" in quality, and in some camps they heard no complaints from the prisoners. Likewise the Spanish inspectors limited their criticisms to certain camps. But it is quite clear that even in the camps where the scale of diet announced by the German government was adhered to, the amount and quality of food served were considerably below the English ration. It is obvious that a ration consisting of a concoction called "coffee," with a small piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of soup for dinner, and a cup of tea with a piece of bread and sausage for supper, is not a sufficient diet to support a normal man for any great length of time. Mr. Gerard states that the amount allowed by the German government to the camp commanders for the feeding of prisoners was only sixty pfennigs (between twelve and fifteen cents) per day. It is, therefore, hard to avoid the conclusion that the German government fell far short of performing the humane obligation which the laws of war impose upon belligerents in respect to the feeding of prisoners. It showed an indifference to the welfare of the prisoners which was inexcusable and indefensible. Had it not been for the enormous quantities of food that were sent [1 Le Régime des Prisonniers, pp. 38-39.

2 In a note verbale of January 11, 1915, the foreign office stated that a thorough investigation had been made of the various British charges, and that as to food "the English rank and file are sufficiently fed, and none of them are in a half-starved condition." It added: "It may well happen that the English do not find new dishes so palatable as the extravagant fare which England provides for her mercenaries" and that dishes "which English soldiers are reported to have spoken of as too bad for pigs are readily eaten by many Germans and are even a favorite dish in certain parts of England." Misc., No. 19 (1915), pp. 17 and 19.

3 Cf. Mahoney, Interned in Germany, p. 86.

from England and France through the medium of the postal service, it is not improbable that many prisoners would have died of starvation. The policy of the German government in thus throwing upon the enemy the burden of feeding to a large extent its own nationals held by Germany was unprecedented, and its conduct in successively reducing the ration, apparently with a view to shifting this duty from its own shoulders, was neither honorable nor creditable.

$348. Regulations and Practice as to Postal Correspondence. Article 16 of the Hague réglement provides that

"letters, money orders, and valuables, as well as postal parcels intended for prisoners of war, or despatched by them, shall be exempt from all postal charges in the countries of origin and destination as well as in the countries which they pass through."

In a communication of September 24, 1914, to the American ambassador in London, Sir Edward Grey stated that letters written by prisoners of war, whether addressed to persons in the United Kingdom, allied, neutral, or enemy States, would be free of postal charges. Those addressed to prisoners of war, whether posted at home or abroad would be similarly exempt. The same rule would apply to parcels, which, moreover, would be insured and registered without cost.1 As to the privilege of writing letters, the British memorandum on the treatment of prisoners stated that every interned prisoner would be allowed to write two letters a week, each consisting of two ordinary pages; that they would be posted twice a week; that in special cases the number and length of letters which might be written would be unlimited; that there would be no limit to the number of letters which a prisoner might receive, and that letters to or from prisoners might be written in either German or English." Newspapers, however, were not allowed to be sent or received by post, but prisoners were allowed to purchase English papers from news agents.3

The French government adopted an even more liberal policy in respect to prisoners' correspondence. At first no restrictions were placed upon the number or length of letters which they might write; money orders were allowed to be sent and received, and so were parcels weighing not more than five kilos. All parcels were exempt from the payment of postage charges, 1 Misc., No. 7 (1915), P. 5. 2 Ibid., p. 24. • Ibid., p. 55.

POSTAL PRIVILEGES

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except a stamp of ten centimes. The unrestricted privilege of letter-writing, however, was so abused that in November following, the privilege was limited to one letter per week of two pages, or two letters of one page, or two postal cards. In consequence of the restrictions which the German government placed on the privilege of French prisoners, the French government in March, 1915, still further reduced the privilege hitherto accorded to German prisoners to make it correspond with the German regulations, i.e., one postal card per week and two letters not exceeding four pages for men, and six pages for officers, per month, except in special cases.3

$349. Complaints as to German Policy. The German regulations at the outset limited the number of letters which prisoners might write to two each month (one-fourth the number allowed by the British regulations) and the number of postal cards to one per week. Prisoners were allowed to receive and send parcels not exceeding five kilos in weight, but it was not expressly stated whether the privilege applied to interned civilians. Books and periodicals were permitted under censorship. Nothing was said as to the admission of newspapers. In fact, none were admitted to the German prison camps, not even German papers, before the end of March, 1915.7

1 Circular of the minister of war of October 14, 1914. Text in 22 Rev. Gen. de Droit Int. Pub. (1915), Docs., p. 67.

Le Régime des Prisonniers, p. 46. The commander of the seventeenth region reported that each of the forty-five thousand prisoners interned in his district wrote four or five letters a week from six to eight pages in length. The commander of the eighteenth region made a similar complaint. The American regulations allowed each prisoner to write two letters and four postal cards per month and to receive letters without limit.

3 Rev. Gén. de Droit Int. Pub., October, 1915, pp. 104, 134; also Rapports des Délégués Espagnols, p. 62.

Ibid., p. 39.

Misc., No. 7 (1915), pp. 63, 81. Ibid., p. 8o. The agreement of November 11, 1918, between Germany and the United States allowed prisoners to send two letters and four post cards each month and to receive an unlimited number of parcels, provided they did not weigh over seven kilograms each. The length of letters, however, was limited, and the privilege of correspondence was restricted in other particulars. Supp. to 13 Amer. Jour. of Inter. Law, pp. 30-32.

Statement of the American consul-general at Berlin. At the Ruheleben camp, however, the sale of certain German newspapers was permitted with the beginning of the summer of 1915, and prisoners of German nativity were allowed to receive local newspapers from home. The pro-German Continental Times was also allowed to be sold. All papers, however, were rigidly censored, and those which contained news regarding allied successes were excluded. Cohen, p. 211, and Mahoney, p. 127.

2

In other respects the German regulations were much less specific than those of Great Britain and were far less liberal. By an ordinance of the Prussian minister of war of February 3, 1915, prisoners were forbidden to use ink in writing their letters, and they were advised "in their own interest" to request their families not to write too often and to keep their letters within the limits prescribed for prisoners. Exchange of correspondence between prisoners of different camps, except when it related to family matters, was not allowed.1 Charges were also made that in some camps prisoners were not allowed to write letters at all; that they were required to write in German, and the like. Until September, 1915, correspondence with prisoners of war in the occupied regions of Belgium and France was not permitted, nor could parcels containing food or other articles be sent to French prisoners held in those regions. Prior to that date letters and parcels addressed to prisoners there were returned to the senders. This appears to have been contrary to the assurances of the Imperial government, which had in the beginning declared that prisoners interned in the invaded regions would be allowed the same privileges in respect to correspondence that were enjoyed by their comrades who were interned in Germany.5

Against this harsh restriction, as against the restrictions imposed on prisoners held in Germany, in respect to letterwriting, the French government protested and abandoned its own early liberal policy only after the refusal of the German government to promise reciprocity of treatment. It also protested against the "long and unjustifiable delays" in the delivery of letters and parcels addressed to prisoners in Germany 1 Text in 22 Rev. Gén. de Droit Int. Pub. (1915), Docs., p. 153.

Misc., No. 7 (1918), p. 13. • Rapports des Délégués Espagnols, p. 201. In September, 1915, an agreement was reached between the French and German governments under which correspondence with French prisoners in the invaded regions was permitted. Rapports des Délégués Espagnols, p. 72. Lemoine, Conventions Internationales sur le Régime des Prisonniers de Guerre, p. 52.

Ibid., p. 75. In consequence of this attitude of the German government the French government by way of reprisal refused to permit correspondence with German prisoners captured in Africa, and who were interned for the most part in Algeria and Morocco, and later extended the prohibition to correspondence with German prisoners interned in hospitals in the French war zone. Régime des Prisonniers, pp. 48, 53. These measures appear to have caused the German government to remove in September, 1915, the restrictions referred to above and to allow correspondence with prisoners held by the Germans in the occupied regions.

POSTAL PRIVILEGES

3

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(they were sometimes held more than a month, it was alleged), and on July 4, 1915, the minister of foreign affairs caused the German authorities to be informed that unless steps were taken to remedy the abuse, the French government would feel obliged to impose by way of reprisal a systematic delay in a certain number of camps in the delivery of letters to German prisoners,1 and this appears to have been done. There was also much dissatisfaction with the policy of the German authorities in delaying for a period of ten days all letters before despatching them, and by way of reprisal the French government in March, 1915, adopted this rule. It was even complained that the detention often exceeded the ten-day period prescribed by the regulations. There were likewise complaints relative to long delays in the delivery of letters addressed to prisoners.5 Complaints regarding the delivery of parcels were even more numerous and frequent. Ordinarily it required from two to six weeks for a parcel posted in England to reach a prison camp in Germany, in consequence of which the food which it contained was often unfit for eating when it was received. The enormous number of parcels, however, imposed a heavy burden upon the camp postal service and made delays in many cases unavoidable.6

The French government also complained that the German government by an order of January 3, 1915, forbade the use of the telegraph as a means of communication with prisoners; 1 Rapports, p. 136; also Le Régime des Prisonniers, p. 50. 2 Rapports des Délégués Espagnols, p. 75.

Ibid., p. 62; Lemoine, p. 52.

Mr. Gerard in a report of November 6, 1915, on the conditions prevailing in the camp at Stendal states that the head of the camp admitted that in some cases letters were detained beyond the ten-day period, the excuse being the lack of a sufficient staff of censors who could read English and French. Misc., No. 16 (1916), p. 15.

The French minister of war stated on March 10, 1915, that the delivery of letters to French prisoners was often delayed from one month to six weeks. 22 Rev. Gén. de Droit Int. Pub. (1915), p. 126. Cf. also the report of the American consulgeneral on conditions at the Torgau camp. Misc., No. 7 (1915), p. 13. Cohen (p. 62) says that after April, 1916, letters from England to prisoners in the Ruheleben camp were held for ten days before delivery, for "military" reasons, so that on an average a prisoner had to wait for six or eight weeks for a reply to his letters. • At the Stendal camp, for example, thirty-two thousand packages are said to have been received by the prisoners in a single month. The British government complained that as late as November, 1917, there were from eighteen thousand to twenty thousand undelivered parcels at Limburg-am-Lahn, addressed to British prisoners. Misc., No. 7 (1918), p. 8.