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
With their bandages removed the soldiers presented a ghastly sight.
Their clothes were tattered and torn, blood-stained and mudstained,
while the raw wounds seemed to glare wickedly against the sun, air, and
dust. It was pitiable to see the men striving to protect their injuries
from the driving sand, in vain, because the sand penetrated everywhere.
Consequently the gaping wounds soon became clogged with dust, and it is
not surprising that blood-poisoning set in, gangrene supervening in many
instances. Under these conditions many injuries and wounds which would
have healed speedily under proper attention and which would have left
little or no permanent traces, developed into serious cases, some of
which resisted all treatment, finally demanding amputations. The
mutilation which ensued was terrible, and there is no doubt whatever
that many a limb was lost, condemning the wounded man to be a cripple
for life, just because he happened to be British, incurred the hostility
of the military surgeon, and was intentionally neglected. Matters were
aggravated by the military surgeon coming out of the hospital finally,
after the men had been standing uncomplainingly for several hours in the
baking heat, going a certain distance along the line, and then brutally
telling all those beyond that point that they could re-bind up their
wounds and come to see him the next morning. He had no time to attend to
them that day, he remarked.
I do not know how our wounded heroes from Mons would have got on had it
not been for Dr. Ascher, the R.A.M.C. prisoners, ourselves, and a
British military doctor who happened to be among those captured on the
battlefield. The latter was not discovered for some time because he
refused to reveal his identity. Subsequently, realising the serious turn
which matters were taking, and observing the intentional and systematic
neglect which was being meted out to his unfortunate fellow-countrymen,
he buckled in and did wonderful work. Prince L---- and K---- also toiled
incessantly in the attempt to ameliorate the plight of our wounded. Many
of the soldiers were absolutely without funds, but these two civilians
extended them the assistance so sorely needed out of their own pockets,
purchasing food-stuffs from the canteen, which they distributed together
with other articles which were in urgent request, with every liberality.
The lack of funds hit our wounded exceedingly hard. Although they were
on the sick list they received no special treatment. They were in dire
need of nourishing food suitable for invalids, but they never received
it. They were compelled, in common with ourselves who were in tolerably
good health, to subsist on milkless and sugarless acorn coffee,
cabbage-soup, and black bread, which cannot possibly be interpreted as
an invalid body-restoring dietary. As a result of this insufficient
feeding the soldiers commenced to fall away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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