PAY FOR PRISON LABOR 45 the tasks were excessive; that prisoners were maltreated and half-starved; that many of them were walking skeletons; that the refusal of the German government to permit neutral inspections of prisoners in occupied territory made it difficult to obtain trustworthy information concerning their whereabouts, etc.1 Both the British and French governments emphatically denied the German charge regarding the employment of German prisoners behind the firing lines. §353. Pay for Prison Labor. All the belligerents appear to have paid their prisoners a small amount for work done, especially that done outside the camps. In Germany there was no fixed scale. The usual compensation for farm labor was from sixteen to thirty pfennigs (3 to 5 cents) per day, in the larger technical industries 75 to 100 pfennigs, and in rare instances skilled laborers received as much as 2 and even 3 marks per day.2 The French authorities stated that French prisoners received only 30 pfennigs per day for draining marshes, that for work in mines they received up to 90 pfennigs, and that in munitions establishments, where they were compelled to work in violation of the Hague convention, they were paid as much as 2 marks 75.3 4 In England prisoners appear to have been paid a somewhat larger amount. In one camp at least they received as much as 15 shillings per week for work. In France the usual rate of pay was I franc per day, but those working in mines received I franc 60 centimes (about 32 cents). The Austrian regulations stated that no prisoner should be paid less than 15 hellers (about 3 cents) per day, with extra pay for overtime and for special 1 The report of the committee with accompanying documents was issued as a white paper by the British government in April, 1918. Misc., No. 7 (1918), Cd. 8988. 2 McCarthy, op. cit., p. 167. At Hakemoor prisoners received at least 30 pfennigs per day for their labor; at Treuenbreitzen, 65; at Crassen, from 30 to 60; at Spandau, 90 with extra pay for overtime; at Tegel, from 50 to 125, etc. Cf. reports of American representatives in Misc., No. 16 (1916), pp. 32, 56, 59, 67; Misc., No. 26 (1916), p. 52; Misc., No. 19 (1915), p. 29; Rapports des Délégués Espagnols, pp. 71, 99, 110. 3 Régime des Prisonniers, pp. 76, 80, 81. Report of Mr. Beal on the camp at Cornwallis Road, Misc., No. 3 (1916), p. 5. The British memorandum stated that prisoners would be paid the same rates for labor that were paid English soldiers in the country for similar work. John C. Van der Leer says prisoners at Dorchester earned about six shillings per week. London weekly Times, December 24, 1915. tasks.1 German prisoners in the United States were paid 20 dollars per month for work actually performed, with an additional allowance of 5 dollars per month for those who acted in the capacity of foremen.2 § 354. Punishment and Discipline. Article 4 of the Hague convention declares that prisoners must be "humanely treated." They may, of course, be punished according to military law for misconduct and for violation of the camp regulations, but the punishment should not be brutal or beyond what measures of safety may require. Mr. Beal in his reports of inspections of the British camps in 1916 stated that in almost every case the camp was managed by a committee chosen by and from among the prisoners themselves, and that everywhere he found a spirit of good feeling between the camp authorities and the prisoners. He heard no complaints of brutality or of excessive punishment.1 The inspectors of the French prison camps also reported that the discipline was not over severe; their reports uniformly spoke of the good relations between the prisoners and the authorities; they heard of no instances of collective punishments for individual offences or of the tying of prisoners to posts or other forms of brutality; the only punishments inflicted were imprisonment and reduction of rations, the same punishment that was inflicted on French soldiers, and the like.5 The disciplinary regime in the German prison camps was more severe, and the complaints of brutality and harsh treat F1 New York Times, August 5, 1916. 2 Statement of the department of labor, New York Times, November 30, 1918. This statement, however, applied only to men taken from German merchant vessels in American ports and not to those from German war-ships and other interned Germans. According to a press despatch enemy aliens interned at Ft. Oglethorpe were paid at the rate of twenty-five cents a day for camp work (foremen thirty-five cents). The agreement of November 11, 1918, provided that prisoners should be paid for work done outside the camp at the rate of not less than fifty pfennigs or twelve and a half cents per day, nor more than two marks, or fifty cents. For work done for private individuals or concerns they were to receive the same pay as industrial workers in the locality. A certain portion of the wages earned was to be credited to the prisoner, the remainder to be retained by the captor State. Cf. Spaight, War Rights on Land, p. 280. Misc., No. 30 (1916), Cd. 8324. • Régime des Prisonniers, pp. 65-67. For attempts to escape, offenders were confined for thirty days in a cell, after which they were sent to a camp at Grenoble where the surveillance was more strict, but where otherwise they were treated like other prisoners. PUNISHMENT AND DISCIPLINE 47 ment were numerous and frequent. The expedient of collective punishment appears to have been frequently resorted to, especially for attempts to escape, the entire camp being deprived of its privilege of exercising in the open, of writing letters, receiving parcels, or participating in games; sometimes the entire camp was deprived of food for a period of twenty-four hours, etc. Many such instances were brought to the attention of the Spanish inspectors during their rounds of the German camps. The individual offender, when caught, was placed in solitary confinement for a certain period.2 The forms of individual punishment were various, and some of them not without an element of brutality. The most criticised of these was the practice of tying the prisoner to a post with his hands behind him, where he was compelled to stand for some hours in the heat of the sun or in the cold. Sometimes he was suspended with his feet dangling above the ground; sometimes he was compelled to stand for hours with a heavy load on his back or walk to and fro with a heavy sack of bricks on his back.3 At Ruheleben offenders against the regulations were confined in small, ill-lighted cells for periods ranging from twenty-four to seventy-two hours. Their ration was war bread and cold water. Prisoners who succeeded in escaping, but who were subsequently retaken before reaching the frontier, were placed 1 Ibid., p. 71. The French government protested against the German practice of collective punishment as being contrary not only to the principles of justice but also to a formal engagement of the German government embodied in a note of December 30, 1915. Rapports des Délégués Espagnols, pp. 15, 100. 2 Mr. Jackson reported that the punishment at Dulmen for attempt to escape was fourteen days (increased to twenty-four for a second offence) solitary confinement, during which the fare for three days out of four was bread (900 grams or three times the usual allowance) and water. On the third day the prisoner received the ordinary evening meal, and the next day he had the usual morning and midday meals, so that he was actually on bread and water only two days out of four. Misc., No. 19 (1915), p. 59. Mr. Jackson was told by the commandant at Zerbst that the regulation punishment for breaches of discipline at camps where there were no cells was tying to a stake, usually for two hours a day. Misc., No. 19 (1915), p. 11. 3 Régime des Prisonniers, pp. 70-71; Rapports des Délégués Espagnols, p. 93; Hennebois, In German Hands, p. 229; and Mahoney, Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons, ch. X. The French authorities frequently protested against these forms of punishment as brutal and contrary to the law of nations. In May, 1918, an agreement was reached between the German and French governments regarding the punishment of prisoners. Among other stipulations agreed upon was one which forbade solitary confinement for the same punishment for a longer duration than thirty days. Text in 45 Clunet, 846 ff. in solitary confinement until the end of the war.1 Punishment for refusal to work was very common, and the offences were numerous, since British prisoners, in particular, could not be induced to work at tasks which had any connection with the war. The punishment was usually severe and consisted of long terms in a military jail, especially where the refusal was general and indicated a "conspiracy.' conspiracy." Not infrequently the prosecution demanded terms varying from five to twenty years, and sometimes even capital punishment was insisted upon, but this extreme punishment does not appear to have ever been inflicted.2 4 There were, of course, charges of brutality and cruelty in some of the camps. German officers were accused of striking, beating, and handling roughly prisoners in some cases, and the employment of vicious dogs in some of the camps like Wittenberg was a source of special complaint. The American embassy protested against this practice. An Irish prisoner was shot by one of the guards at Limburg, and a young Russian prisoner at Ruheleben who was mentally deranged in consequence of his long confinement, was shot and killed by a guard while attempting to escape. He failed to obey a summons to stop, which he did not understand.5 The British government in March, 1918, issued a white paper charging the German prison authorities at Brandenburg camp with responsibility for burning to death eight prisoners. The French government made a number of charges that prisoners were thrust with bayonets and sometimes seriously wounded for trivial offences, in some cases for disregard of orders which the prisoners did not understand.7 Punishments were generally inflicted without trial. When Misc., No. 16 (1916), pp. 3, 22; Misc., No. 17 (1915), p. 43; Misc., No. 19 (1915), p. 23; McCarthy, pp. 83, 202. McCarthy, p. 25. When the American embassy learned of the affair at Limburg, which the military authorities had endeavored to conceal, it undertook to make an investigation, but the authorities placed all manner of obstacles in the way of the investigation. Ibid., p. 25. Mahoney, Interned in Germany, p. 239. • Misc., No. 6 (1918), Cd. 8987. The prisoners in question were confined in a dungeon and were undergoing punishment for certain offences. The hut having taken fire, the prisoners endeavored to escape, but were thrust back with a bayonet in the hands of the guard who was waiting orders from his superiors. All eight were burned to death. 7 Instances are given in the Rapports des Délégués Espagnols, p. 69. REPRISAL MEASURES 49 trials for capital offences took place, the American ambassador endeavored to see that prisoners were represented by counsel, but representatives of the embassy were often refused permission to see the accused before trial and even before execution.1 $355. Reprisal Measures. The alleged mistreatment of prisoners led to numerous reprisals and threats of reprisals by belligerents on each side. Reference has already been made to various instances in which the British and French governments altered their policy in respect to the treatment of German prisoners in consequence of the refusal of the German government to accord reciprocity of treatment. From time to time there was wide-spread popular demand in England for the adoption of measures of retaliation against German prisoners for the mistreatment of English prisoners held in Germany. In April, 1915, the subject was discussed at length in both houses of Parliament, and the strongest condemnation was pronounced against the conduct of the German authorities. In the course of the debate in the House of Commons Prime Minister Asquith said: "When we come to the end of this war we shall not forget this horrible record of calculated cruelty and crime; we shall hold it to be our duty to exact such reparation against those who are proved to have been the guilty agents and actors in the matter as it may be possible for us to do." He added that a careful record was being kept of evidence which could be obtained in order that when the proper hour came, proper punishment might be meted out. Lord Kitchener, in the House of Lords, denounced the "barbarous conduct of the enemy toward those who had fallen into their hands." 2 The evidence, he said, clearly showed that articles 4 and 7 of the Hague con 1 Gerard, My Four Years in Germany, p. 192. McCarthy (p. 100) says the whole procedure of the trial of prisoners was more like that of a legal persecution than of a prosecution The agreement of November 11, 1918, between Germany and the United States contained detailed provisions regarding the trial of prisoners. The protecting power was to be notified of the trial, the nature of the offence, etc., and was to be allowed to appoint counsel to defend the accused and to send a representative to attend the trial. Supp. to 13 Amer. Jour. of Int. Law, pp. 22-23. 2 In January, 1919, a British committee of inquiry into breaches of the laws of war made a report in which it stated that "some 100,000 cases of ill treatment of prisoners of war have already been investigated, and it is estimated that at least 150,000 still remain to be sent in." London weekly Times, January 17, 1919. VOL. II-4 |