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
Later, during the day of their arrival, we civilian prisoners had the
opportunity to fraternise with our fighting compatriots. Then we
ascertained that they had been wounded and captured during the retreat
from Mons. But they had been subjected to the most barbarous treatment
conceivable. They had received no skilled or any other attention upon
the battlefield. They had merely bound up one another's wounds as best
they could with materials which happened to be at hand, or had been
forced to allow the wounds to remain open and exposed to the air.
Bleeding and torn they had been bundled unceremoniously into a train,
herded like cattle, and had been four days and nights travelling from
the battlefield to Sennelager.
During these 96 hours they had tasted neither food nor water! The train
was absolutely deficient in any commissariat, and the soldiers had not
been permitted to satisfy their cravings, even to the slightest degree,
and even if they were in the possession of the wherewithal, by the
purchase of food at stations at which the train had happened to stop.
What with the fatigue of battle and this prolonged enforced abstinence
from the bare necessaries of life, it is not surprising that they
reached Sennelager in a precarious and pitiful condition.
Among our heroes were five commissioned officers, including a major.
These were accommodated at Sennelager for about a fortnight but then
they were sent away, whither we never knew beyond the fact that they had
been condemned to safer imprisonment in a fortress. Among the prisoners
were also about 200 men belonging to the R.A.M.C., taken in direct
contravention of the generally accepted rules of war. They were treated
in precisely the same manner as the captured fighting men. There were
also a few non-commissioned officers who were permitted to retain their
authority within certain limits.
One of the prisoners gave me a voluminous diary which he had kept, and
in which were chronicled the whole of his movements and impressions from
the moment he landed in France until his capture, including the Battle
of Mons. It was a remarkable human document, and I placed it in safe
keeping, intending to get it out of the camp and to send it to my friend
at home upon the first opportunity. But ill-luck dogged this enterprise.
The existence of the diary got to the ears of our wardens and I was
compelled to surrender it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account