Behind the Scenes in Warring GermanyFox, Edward Lyell
History
Behind the Scenes in Warring Germany
Fox, Edward Lyell
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
I saw the soldier with the flowers enter by a distant door and give them
to the priests. When the priest handed him a plain vase and let him fill
it himself, the soldier seemed ready to cry out with happiness. Silently
the three figures at the altar went about their devotions. Again the
door opened, a line of prisoners appeared, walking on tip-toe, their
rough boots creaking; they filed across the room, and making two lines
before the altar, dropped on their knees, their lips moving in a
monotonous monotone of prayer. Rising, they tip-toed out and another
file came in, and among them the vivid garments of a Turco. Making a
sign to the Captain, I left the chapel. Presently they brought the Turco
to me. He could speak French. I asked him why he had turned Christian
and he said something to the effect that he had seen the way to the one
real religion. He was explaining volubly about his conversion just
before a battle in France, when the Captain pulled off the Turco's fez
and grabbed a little braided pigtail concealed beneath.
"Christian, eh?" laughed the Captain. "What are you still wearing that
thing for, then?"
The Turco began to grin.
"This religion," he said, "makes it pleasant among the Frenchmen, and
then when I get home--well, how can I be a good Mohammedan without
this?" and lovingly he patted his braided hair.
Prisoners of war? Are they ill or well treated? I leave my reader to
judge the facts. I have tried to give you accurate pictures of the
varied camps, typical of the German system. Of the camps in England and
France, I do not know; of the camps in Russia no man knows. To silence
the stories of ill-treatment that official press bureaus intermittently
produce, why not apply a remedy?
Why not standardize the prison camps? As it is a task for humanitarians
why should not the suggestions come from Switzerland, the home of the
Red Cross, with the tacit understanding and backing up of the United
States. A standard set of prison camp recommendations could be drafted
recommending certain quantities and kinds of food, certain conditions
for sleeping quarters, certain limitations to the enforced labor. The
old Geneva document is out of date; its compilers could not foresee a
World War; no nation to-day could meet its recommendations; the problem
of handling prisoners of war has become too vast.
X
ON THE HEELS OF THE RUSSIAN RETREAT
The Russians were retreating! In Pschoor's our waiter told us; on the
Linden great pennants began to appear; an hour and Berlin had bedecked
itself in flags.... The Russians were retreating! In front of the
newspaper offices the crowds stood twenty deep, their faces turned to a
bulletin which said that Hindenburg was driving the enemy from East
Prussia. Magically, vendors selling little photographic buttons of the
German hero, swarmed on to the streets. _"Bilder von Hindenburg! Bilder
von Hindenburg!"_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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