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автор Joseph Johnston Lee

A CAPTIVE AT CARLSRUHE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

BALLADS OF BATTLE

WORK-A-DAY WARRIORS

Each 3s. 6d. net.

A CORNER OF CARLSRUHE CAMP

A CAPTIVE AT CARLSRUHE
AND OTHER GERMAN PRISON CAMPS

BY JOSEPH LEE

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR

“Now you shall have no worse prison than my chamber, nor jailer than myself”

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXX

WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND

TO

ALL MY FELLOWS IN MISFORTUNE OF MY OWN KIN AND OF THE ALLIED COUNTRIES WHOSE VARIED COMPANIONSHIP HELPED TO LIGHTEN MY MANY DAYS OF CAPTIVITY

CONTENTS

PART I

CAUDRY—LE CATEAU—CARLSRUHE

I

PAGE

The first day—The search—Letters of divorcement—A reading of the Pickwickians—Fellows in misfortune—A sculptor—A Sappho—The bell for the dead—Sedan—The vulture

15

II

Carlsruhe camp—Crumbs from the rich man’s table—Tea with Colonel Turano—Shamrock for dinner!—First letters and parcels—A Nazarite—Christmas at Carlsruhe—Sketching the Commandant

29

III

Funeral of a prisoner of war at Carlsruhe—First freedom for a year—In the streets—A wreath from the Grand Duchess of Baden—The Rev. Mr. Flad—A lecture on Abyssinia—A black mood

45

IV

Entertainment in exile—The camp theatre—“Asile de Nuit”—Scene-painter, scene-shifter, poster-artist, actor, prompter, “noises-off,” and playwright—“A Chelsea Christmas Eve”—“A Venetian Vignette”—A nightingale “off”—“How he Lied to her Husband”—“The Rising of the Moon”—“The Homeland”

59

V

Victims of the cruiser

Wolf

—Suicide of a Japanese captain—“In the dark and among the ice”—A bottle message—Clinging to office—The Debating Society—The vines and vineyards of France—“Happy in all things—saving these bonds!”—A straining of the Entente—A “stirring time”—A voluntary fast!

80

VI

Air raids—British airmen brought down—Dust to dust—An inimitable imitator—Songs from Coimbra—A German bombardment—March, 1918—The bath attendant—Our orderlies—Gustav—Imprisonment “for revolt”

96

VII

Carlsruhe at its kindliest—The chestnut trees—Aspen and poplar—The new hut—“Torrents of Spring!”—Linguistic efforts—A surprise to Mother—A dinner with the Italians—The last day in Carlsruhe

113

PART II

BEESKOW—BERLIN

VIII

The journey—“A Roman holiday”—Our new quarters—The old tower—The

Kantine

and the catering—“Much reading——”—“East Lynne,” by Carlyle!—Our walks abroad—The stork tower—Birds of a feather

131

IX

Escapes and escapades—“

Achtung!

”—The flight that failed—Confinement in the “Tower”—Massacre of the innocents—“Patience” and impatience—Ragging the Commandant—“His Excellency wishes”

153

X

The

Marienkirche

—Organ pipes for munitions—Madame Reinl—For the dead—A Polish baptism—Adventures afoot—“

Kuchen!

”—The ancient road-mender—“In since Mons!”

170

XI

The Revolution—“

Bientôt la paix!

”—A smuggled copy of The Times—Abdication of the Kaiser—The passing of the Commandant—The Red Flag is flown—Latitudes and liberties—Sketching in the streets—“

Nach der Heimat!

”—A soldiers’ ball—“

Warum ist der Krieg?

”—Murillo’s “Immaculate Conception”

185

XII

In Berlin during the Revolution—“Thank God, Britain has won!”—The

Dom

and the Galleries—The Palace—“

Für Ebert und Hasse!

”—The Hindenburg statue—Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg—The machine-gun waggons come up—Caricatures of the Kaiser—Captivity de luxe!—“Are you English officers?”—Freedom—“

Es ist vollbracht!

”

203

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

A Corner of Carlsruhe Camp

Frontispiece

Fellows in Misfortune

15

A Reading of the Pickwickians

21

A Sculptor

23

The Unter-Offizier

25

Christmas Day at Carlsruhe

28

Arrival of the Parcel Cart

29

The Chapel at Carlsruhe

31

Col. Albert Turano

33

The Camp Commandant at Carlsruhe

38

A Game of Cards

41

Funeral of a British Prisoner of War

44

A Serbian Colonel

45

The Catholic Priest

51

The Rev. Mr. Flad

52

An Italian Major of Mountain Artillery

56

Playbill, “The Rising of the Moon”

58

Our Orchestra

59

A Carlsruhe Concert Programme

62

“A Chelsea Christmas Eve”

64

“A Venetian Vignette”

70

“How He Lied to Her Husband.” Playbill

72

“J’invite le Colonel.” Playbill

73

One of our Orchestra

79

Engineer of the “Hitachi Maru”

80

Captain of the “Tarantella”

84

A Serbian Officer Prisoner

86

A Rehearsal

88

Twice Wounded

95

Orderly Hanet, “Le Père Noël”

96

Funeral of Two British Aviators

100

Captain Teixeira

104

Orderly Toulon, Chasseur Alpini

110

The two Serbian Colonels take the Sun

112

Lt. Bertolotti

113

Lt. Caruso

116

Lt. Visco

119

Lt. Lazarri

121

Maggiore Tuzzi

125

The “Altes Amt,” Beeskow Lager

130

The Outer Walls of Beeskow Lager

131

The Prison Camp at Beeskow: An Audience with the Commandant

135

The Old Tower, Beeskow

138

Herr Solomon, the Kantine Keeper

141

“Only One Book!”

142

The Stork Tower, Beeskow

147

Prisoners All

149

The Prison Gateway

152

The Marienkirche, Beeskow

156

The Late Lieut. Robinson, V.C.

159

Caricature of the Camp Commandant

165

Narrow Alley, Beeskow

169

Service for the Dead

175

Old Inn at Beeskow, now burned down

179

“In since Mons!”

183

Kirchestrasse, Beeskow

184

The Oldest House in Beeskow

196

Murillo’s “Immaculate Conception of the Virgin.” (

Painted by a French officer, prisoner of war, on the outer wall of the camp

)

200

Captain Tim Sugrue

202

A Caricature of the Kaiser. (

Bought in the streets of Berlin during the Revolution

)

213

PART I

CAUDRY—LE CATEAU—CARLSRUHE

A
CAPTIVE AT CARLSRUHE

Cap improvized from
an aviator’s boot.

A modern Icarus.

Chausseur à pied.

FELLOWS IN MISFORTUNE.

I
The First Day

As we limped and stumbled into Caudry in the dusk we presented a very disturbing spectacle.

Two young French women stood at a cottage door, and, when our doleful procession passed, one of them flung herself into her sister’s arms in a paroxysm of grief.

The good folk of the town would have slipped bread into our hands, but our German guards pressed them back with their rifles. Bayonets and rifle butts could not prevent them, however, from flinging us words of cheer and encouragement. “Courage! Bonne chance! Bonne nuit!”

How illogical is war! This very morning, as we entered the first village in which German troops were billeted, we found them waiting to serve us, with outset tables on which were clean glasses and pitchers of clear water! Earlier, while the enemy attack was still developing, I observed a German—himself at the charge, and with at his elbow Death, the equal foeman of all who fight—wave a reassuring hand to a British soldier prisoner who was showing signs of distress.

So in the dark we came to a grim factory, into which we were shepherded for the night. We had had nothing to eat all day; we were to have nothing to eat now. There was, however, an issuing of bowls of what, for lack of a better name—or of a worse—was designated coffee.

There was now also to be a search, and a giving up of all papers, knives, razors, or other steel instruments—bare bodkins by which we might be disposed to seek redress, relief, or release. Search had already been made at a German headquarters within a few miles of the line. Prior to which, as we marched down heavily flanked by our guards, I had, with surreptitious hand thrust into my tunic pocket, succeeded in tearing up and scattering over the land, sundry military papers, and the proof sheets of a book of mine in which were some very complimentary references to the Kaiser. Here it was also that a wounded fellow-officer, giving up his letters, and asking me to explain that two from his wife he had not yet read, the gnarled old German officer handed them back with a salute.

It was difficult to parade the men for search now. They raised themselves on an elbow or sat up and endeavoured to shake the sleep from their eyes, and then dropped heavily back upon the floor again. Ultimately they were herded to one end of the factory, from which they emerged in file, dropping as they passed their poor, precious epistolatory possessions—letters with crosses and baby kisses—into an outstretched sack. One man approached me and asked that he might retain papers, including a written confession, necessary to divorce proceedings against his wife. I put the case to the German officer; he put it to his military conscience, and decided. Yes, they might be retained.

That first night I slept without dreaming; it was when I awoke that I appeared to be in a dream.

At noon next day I received the first meal of which I had partaken for the last forty-eight hours. It consisted of a mess of beans and potatoes, which I, being then in fit state to sympathize entirely with Esau, found more than palatable. Later, in the afternoon, when a red sword lay across the western sky, we marched to Le Cateau. Here there was a separating of sheep from goats, the senior officers being housed somewhere with more or less of comfort, doubtless, while all below the rank of Captain were packed into another discarded factory, whose only production for some time to come seemed likely to be human misery.

Followed four melancholy and miserable days, whose passing was not to be measured by figures on a dial or dates upon a calendar, but by the clamour of appetites unappeased; by the entry of our dole of bread and our basin of skilly. In our waking hours we discussed only food; by night we dreamed of monumental menus displayed on table-covers of snowy whiteness. Scenting a possible profit, a German soldier insinuated into the camp and put up for auction some half-dozen tins of sardines, to the provocation almost of a riot.

Our billets were dirty and verminous. Properly organized and harnessed there was a sufficiency of performance and activity in the fleas to have supplied the motive power to the whole factory! We could not shave, because we had no soap nor steel; we could not wash, because the water was frozen in the pump, and icicles hung by the wall.

If there was little to eat there was even less to read, the only literature in the whole company consisting of one Testament and one Book of Common Prayer, and these being in continual demand.

On the fifth day there came a break in the monotony, some sixteen of us being removed to the headquarters, where had been an examination on our arrival. As we waited for admittance a few French folk gathered around, and two girls from a house opposite made efforts at conversation. Our guards menaced them not too seriously with their bayonets, whereupon they scampered for their house and slammed the door. In a few minutes the door was cautiously opened again; there was a ripple of laughter, and two mischievous faces, with a mocking grimace for the Army of Occupation, appeared round the post.

In our new quarters eight of us occupied one room. Report had it that the walls, besides various pieces of pendent paper, had ears, a dictaphone being supposedly secreted on the premises. That being so, the Germans are never likely to have heard much that was good of themselves.

A READING OF THE PICKWICKIANS.

A search disclosed treasure in the shape of sundry parts of the Pickwick Papers, not certainly the famous original parts in their green—shall we say their evergreen covers?—but sections devised for the simultaneous satisfying of a number of readers. These parts we carefully gathered together, when it was discovered that the immortal transactions began with the celebrated bachelor supper given by Mr. Bob Sawyer at his lodgings in Lant Street, in the Borough. Here, indeed, was matter to cause gastronomic agitation in starving men! Yet, need we, then, go supperless to bed? Shall we not also become Pickwickians, and, constituting ourselves members of the Club, drop in upon the party as not entirely unwelcome guests? And so I read until “lights out” sent us perforce to bed.

Recalling that it was my birthday, and by way of a gift to myself, I succeeded in persuading the Unteroffizier to purchase for me a sketch-book and pencils, with which I amused myself and comrades by a series of portrait studies of more or less veracity. One of these my fellows in misfortune was a sculptor who had exhibited at the R.A., and who now exhibited a photograph of one of his works—a statue of Sappho—which he carried in his pocket. We two decided to hang together—unless we were shot separately—as we had heard amazing reports of ateliers to be secured in certain Läger by humble followers of the arts graphic and plastic.

During all the days of our stay here, and precisely at four o’clock of the afternoon, a bell tolled solemnly from the church under whose shadow we lay. It was for the burial of German soldiers killed at Cambrai.

Early on a Sunday morning, while the stars still shivered in a frosty sky, we set out to entrain for Carlsruhe, very optimistically with one day’s rations in our pouches, and that a day’s rations which would have shown meagre as the hors-d’œuvre of an ordinary meal. We arrived at Carlsruhe on the evening of Tuesday, and in the interim would probably have succumbed to starvation for lack of food, if we had not been in a state of suspended animation owing to the cold.

A SCULPTOR.

Only one incident of that journey do I desire to recall. In the middle of the night I awoke shiveringly from a fitful sleep to find that the train had come to a stop in a large station. I glanced idly from the window, and an arc lamp lit up a great signboard, on which was painted in large ominous letters the one word—SEDAN.

From Carlsruhe Station we passed through streets not uninteresting architecturally, and without exciting undue curiosity or comment, until we came to the Europäisches Hotel. This to famished men seemed to suggest something at least of hopeful hospitalities, but, on entering, the place was obviously as barren of festivity as a Government Board room. We shall have food to eat at five o’clock. At five we wept that it had not come; at six, at seven. We wept even more when at eight it actually arrived.

I observed then, and on subsequent occasions, that after a meal, myself and Marsden (who, as befits a good sculptor, has fashioned for himself a frame of fine proportion) were inclined to emerge from a more or less languorous state and kick up our heels like young colts.

The Vulture

We discovered that by climbing on to the frame of the iron bedstead, and clutching perilously at the ventilating portion of the window in our cell, we could just succeed in gaining a glimpse of the street. To the right we seemed to be in the neighbourhood of a zoological garden or an aviary of some dimension. The only inhabitant of the cages visible to us, however, was a large vulture, which sat there day after day, an unchanging picture of sullenness and stolidity. I wondered if perchance it scented or visioned the red fields which lay not so many miles away.

And so the days passed. After considerable agitation I succeeded in securing a few volumes of the Tauchnitz edition, amongst them Stevenson’s “The Master of Ballantrae.” This possibly, however, induced in me a greater home-sickness for Scotland than ever.

THE UNTEROFFIZIER.

Finding a draught-board to our hand outlined upon the table, and making counters of paper white and blue, we four prisoners on a day played for the championship of the cell and a superadded stake of four thin slices of bread. I won somewhat easily, being a Scotsman, and something of a player as a boy; indeed, heaven forgive me! it was I who suggested the game. As victor, however, I was seized with compassion and compunction, so that, while I retained the title, I returned to each man his share of that staff of life, on which, it has to be confessed, we were having to lean somewhat heavily.

At last came the order that we were to shift from the hotel to the Offizier kriegsgefangenenlager. Whereupon, clapping my steel helmet upon my head, and thrusting my uneaten morsel of bread into one of my tunic pockets, I was ready for the road.

CHRISTMAS DAY AT CARLSRUHE.