that in violation of the Hague convention it collected customs duties on parcels addressed to prisoners; that it refused to cash money orders, and that it declined to undertake the delivery of letters which did not contain the exact address and place of internment of the addressee, although the writers often did not know where the prisoners were confined.1

Regarding the complaints as to delays and losses of letters and parcels addressed to prisoners in Germany, it should be remarked that the problem which confronted the German government was very great in consequence of the fact that there were nearly two million prisoners in Germany distributed among some two hundred parent camps, to say nothing of the thousands of working camps. The task was also increased by the policy of the German government in throwing upon England and France the burden of feeding and clothing to a large extent their own nationals held in Germany. The sending of enormous numbers of parcels which this entailed overwhelmed the camp officials and the postal service.2

§350. Employment of Prisoners. Regarding the employment of prisoners article 6 of the Hague regulations provides that

"The State may employ the labour of prisoners of war, other than officers, according to their rank and capacity. The work shall not be excessive, and shall have no connection with the operations of the war. Prisoners may be authorised to work for the public service, for private persons, or

1 Régime des Prisonniers, p. 49. The charge was made in the United States that the letters of American prisoners in Germany were in effect dictated by the German camp authorities. Prisoners, it was charged, were required to state in their letters that they were well treated and well fed. Letters which contained statements to the contrary were not forwarded. Statement of the chief of the intelligence branch of the general staff in the Official Bulletin of August 19, 1918.

At the beginning of the year 1916 it was estimated that the German postoffice, exclusive of Bavaria and Würtemberg, was handling daily four and a half million letters and cards for prisoners in Germany. This task, it may be added, imposed heavy burdens upon the postal service of Switzerland, Holland, and Sweden, through which countries the mails were despatched. During the month of April, 1918, the Swiss postal authorities received and forwarded 12,441,211 letters and postal cards, 3,549,523 parcels, and 133,852 money orders for prisoners in the several belligerent countries. From September, 1914, to the end of April, 1918, it had received and forwarded 413,952,089 letters and small packages, 76,037,427 registered packages, and 9,340,836 money orders. In addition 6,244,577 bread parcels were forwarded to prisoners in Germany and Austria. The Swiss government bore the expense of this service. It also waived the collection of all postal dues and customs duties on parcels passing through the country.

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on their own account. Work done for the State is paid for at rates proportional to the work of a similar kind executed by soldiers of the national army, or, if there are no such rates in force, at rates proportional to the work executed. When the work is for other branches of the public service, or for private persons, the conditions are settled in agreement with the military authorities. The wages of the prisoners shall go towards improving their position, and the balance shall be paid them on their release, deductions on account of the cost of maintenance excepted."

The British memorandum on the treatment of prisoners stated that everything possible would be done to find employment for prisoners who desired to work. In certain cases they were employed in building roads and huts and in levelling and clearing ground. Civilian prisoners, however, were not required to perform work of this kind. Mr. Beal of the American embassy reported in 1916 that prisoners in England were doing a great variety of work in and about the camps. Some were working in railroad quarries, some at road making, others were working in the neighboring fields, etc. None, however, were compelled to work.1 In England no elaborate system of compulsory labor as in Germany was ever adopted, and no prisoners were employed in mines, factories, the draining of swamps, and the like.

In France prisoners were employed in agricultural work, in quarries, in the construction and repair of roads and bridges, the unloading of ships, the cutting of timber, and the like. In some cases prisoners were put at the disposal of the departmental and communal authorities, but they were never leased out to private contractors, as was done in Germany, nor were they ever employed in dangerous or unhealthy occupations such as the draining of swamps, or in work which had any relation to military operations. As in England no elaborate system of compulsory labor was organized. The work of the prisoners does not appear to have been excessive, and the representatives of the American embassy and of the Red Cross heard no complaints and found nothing themselves to criticise.3

2

8351. German Practice. The German statement of principles to be observed in the housing, clothing, and feeding of 1 Misc., No. 3 (1916).

? It appears, however, that in September, 1915, a representative of the American embassy found German prisoners at Caen engaged in making shoes for French soldiers; but when he called the attention of the French authorities to the fact, instructions were given to discontinue it. Régime des Prisonniers, p. 78.

Cf. the summary of their reports, ibid., p. 76.

prisoners was silent regarding their employment as laborers. In fact, however, prisoners were worked in Germany on an extensive scale, it being estimated that at least eighty per cent of all those held were so employed.1 Labor was generally compulsory, and those who refused were punished by isolation and deprivation of privileges. They were employed in nearly all the industries of Germany, agricultural, manufacturing, mining, and others, on so large a scale that it may be said that German industry was kept going during the war mainly by prison labor. Several thousand working camps, situated at varying distances from the parent camps to which they were attached, were organized, and to these the prisoners were taken in squads daily or weekly. There were many complaints on the part of the prisoners of being compelled to rise at early hours and travel long distances to the working camp. There were also many complaints that the hours of labor were long, sometimes as many as twelve and even fifteen hours; that prisoners were required to work on Sundays and holidays; that the tasks were unsuited to many of them; that large numbers were set to draining swamps in northern Germany, where they were exposed to the rigors of winter weather, and where they were compelled to work in the water up to their knees; 5 that they were sometimes re

1 McCarthy, p. 22.

2 Rapports des Délégués Espagnols, p. 83. Non-commissioned officers were not compelled to work, but they were frequently asked to do so, and if they refused they were sent to reprisal camps. McCarthy, p. 90.

3 One hundred and fifty such camps are said to have been organized in the neighborhood of the parent camp of Giessen alone. McCarthy (p. 175) says that in the sixth army corps alone there were eighteen thousand working camps. Mr. Gerard says by the summer of 1916 virtually all prisoners were being forced to work in such camps. He states that at many of these camps the inspectors were refused admission on the ground that they might learn the trade secrets. Where prisoners were leased out to contractors for work in mines and industrial establishments, they were worked like convicts at the point of the bayonet and were often badly treated, but where they were employed at farm labor, they lived with their employers and were generally well treated. Such is the opinion of McCarthy, ch. X. The physical impossibility of inspecting all the working camps, even if inspection had been permitted, which it often was not, had the effect of depriving large numbers of prisoners of the benefits that frequently resulted from inspection of the parent camps.

4 Misc., No. 19 (1915), p. 25. Dr. Ohnesorg and Mr. Osborne reported that the prisoners at Amberg left the camp at 5 o'clock in the morning and travelled seven kilometres to their place of work. Misc., No. 19 (1915), p. 49. Cf. also Mr. Jackson's report, ibid., p. 59.

The French government protested that fifteen thousand French prisoners were sent to drain the swamps of Hanover, Westphalia, and Schleswig, for which

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quired to work in cement factories, nitrate plants, and even ammunition plants, and the like.1

Among the more serious charges of this kind was that some one thousand five hundred French prisoners were forced to work in a Krupp cannon factory. In April, 1916, the French government requested representatives of the Red Cross society to investigate the charges, but the German authorities refused to allow them to visit plants of a military character. They were, they were paid thirty pfennigs a day, apparently as an act of reprisal for the internment of German civilians in Dahomey and Morocco. Representatives of the Spanish embassy found French prisoners working in the water eight hours a day. Régime des Prisonniers, pp. 80-82. The French government also protested against the working of French prisoners in coal, salt, and potash mines under conditions that were unhygienic and otherwise objectionable. Delegates of the International Red Cross committee investigated the charges at the request of the French government and found them in the main true. Prisoners of every social status and rank were found working in some of the mines. Ibid., pp. 82-83, 173, 252. Strong protests were made that the sickness, accident, and death rate among prisoners in the mines was distressingly large. In some instances French prisoners who were employed in coal mines went on a strike because they regarded such work as contrary to the Hague convention, since the products of their labor were used for military purposes. Mr. Gerard says some of the British prisoners were put to work on the sewage farms of Berlin, but upon his remonstrance they were withdrawn.

1 Representatives of the Spanish embassy heard many complaints from the prisoners that they were required to do war work. Cf. Rapports des Délégués Espagnols, pp. 86, 90, 101 313. Representatives of the Red Cross committee found notices posted at several camps, notably at Friedrichsfeld and Sennelager notifying prisoners that they must work in cannon and munitions factories, that every means would be employed to compel them to work, and that excuses based on the laws and regulations of their own country would not be accepted. Ibid., pp. 266-267. Sir Edward Grey in a communication to Mr. Page dated January 20, 1916, stated that he had learned with "great concern" that at Friedrichsfeld British prisoners were being compelled to work in ammunition factories. Misc., No. 16 (1916), p. 44. Drs. McCarthy, Taylor, and others heard complaints of this kind. In some cases they found the charges not well founded, as to others they expressed no opinion. McCarthy (p. 162) says that only in rare instances were prisoners found at work directly in munitions and similar plants. But they appear to have been frequently employed at labor which was "preparatory" to such work. Is such labor forbidden by the Hague convention? Art. 6 forbids labor which has "any relation with the operations of war." Strupp (Internationales Land Kriegsrecht, p. 48) interprets this provision to exclude all work which serves the military purposes of the enemy, but a German jurist in an article published in the Berliner Tageblatt of September 21, 1916, argues otherwise. A French translation of his article may be found in 44 Clunet, pp. 505 ff.

* Neutral inspectors, both American and Spanish, reported that it was the general policy of the German authorities not to permit inspection of industrial establishments, apparently because it might result in the revelation of trade secrets. It was difficult, therefore, to verify the charges as to the employment of prisoners in war work.

however, permitted to visit the Krupp plant at Rheinhausen where railway rails, but apparently no munitions or arms, were being manufactured, and there they found large numbers of prisoners at work. They were also told that French prisoners were being worked from four o'clock in the morning until eight in the evening in a munitions plant at Bremen. The evidence is fairly abundant that in not a few cases prisoners were employed at work forbidden by the Hague convention, if the convention be interpreted to exclude forced labor which indirectly serves the military operations of the enemy, such as hauling coal, transportation of munitions, construction of military railroads, and the like.

§352. Employment of Prisoners behind the Firing Line. Strong protests were made by the British and French governments against the conduct of the German government in employing its prisoners at forced labor close behind the firing line, with the deliberate intention, it was alleged, of exposing them to the fire of the guns of their own soldiers and of their allies. As early as August, 1916, it was charged that the Germans were systematically employing prisoners in this way, a fact which the German government carefully concealed. When the facts became known to the British government, the German authorities admitted it, but pleaded the excuse of retaliation for similar conduct by the British. French prisoners were similarly exposed for the same reason. In April, 1917, an agreement between the British and German governments had been reached under which prisoners of war were not to be employed by either belligerent within thirty kilometres of the firing line. Nevertheless, it was charged by the British government, the German authorities continued to employ prisoners close to the firing line in violation of the agreement. A British government committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Younger in March, 1918, made a report in which a large amount of evidence was presented, showing that the Germans had long before the conclusion of the agreement referred to above, systematically employed British prisoners within the range of the artillery of their own soldiers; that it had continued to do so since the conclusion of the agreement; that the work required of prisoners was forbidden by the laws of war; that the hours of labor and 1 Le Régime des Prisonniers, p. 84.