Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons: Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, RuhlebenTalbot, Frederick Arthur Ambrose
History
Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons: Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben
Talbot, Frederick Arthur Ambrose
World War, 1914-1918 -- Prisoners and prisons
The soldiers were accommodated in tents. We had observed the raising of
a canvas town upon the "field," and had been vaguely wondering for what
it was required. Were German recruits coming to Sennelager to undergo
their training, or were we to be transferred from the barracks to tents?
At first we thought the latter the more probable, but as we reflected
upon the size of canvas-town we concluded that provision was being made
for something of far greater importance.
The Belgian prisoners were sent into the stables. These, however, were
scrupulously clean and empty of all the incidentals generally associated
with such buildings, because the civilian prisoners had been compelled
to scour them out a few days before. Consequently the Belgians had no
room for protest against the character of their quarters, except perhaps
upon the ground of being somewhat over-crowded. A number of the French
soldiers were also distributed among the stables, but the surplus shared
tents near their British comrades.
Upon reaching the field the prisoners were paraded. Each man was
subjected to a searching cross-examination, and had to supply his name
and particulars of the regiment to which he belonged. All these details
were carefully recorded. In the preparation of this register the German
inquisitors betrayed extraordinary anxiety to ascertain the disposition
of the British troops and the regiments engaged in the battle-line.
Evidently they were in a state of complete ignorance upon this point.
Nearly every soldier was requested to give the name of the place where
he had been fighting, wounded, and captured. But the British soldiers
did not lose their presence of mind. They saw through the object of
these interrogations and their replies for the most part were extremely
unsatisfactory. The man either did not know, could not recall, or had
forgotten where he had been fighting, and was exceedingly hazy about
what regiments were forming the British army. In some instances,
however, the desired data was forthcoming from those who were most
severely wounded, the poor fellows in their misery failing to grasp the
real significance of the interpellations. It was easy to realise the
extreme value of the details which were given in this manner because
the Germans chuckled, chattered, and cackled like a flock of magpies.
As may be supposed, owing to the exacting nature of the search for
information, the registration of the prisoners occupied a considerable
time.
[*large gap]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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