A CRUEL FOE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2406, 11 March 1915, Page 7

A CRUEL FOE

PRISONERS IN GERMANY,

The Paris "Tamps" states that all the women and children of : Marcheville (a small village of the Mouse) and of the neighbouring hamlets were made prisoners on- October 20. Three letters,.whioh were written on different dates, show that they are in Bavaria. It appears that 680 women and children are living in a barn. They state that the fact that they all know each other is some consolation in their misery. They complain greatly of the cold, for they were not allowed to take away with them any warm clothes.

A French doctor, who i was made prisoner by the Germans near Arras, suffered a long and harsh captivity in & caprp on the shores of the Baltic, where ne was kept'two months, despite the Geneva Convention. He writes :—

"I, with eight other doctors, who, like myself, had vainly protested, shared a tent in which the only comfort was a little straw scattered on the- ground. We were, however, given two blankets of a sort. This was our condition, for exactly fifty-eight days, and during that time we were unable to undress. We were given 110 pay, in spite of the convention agreed to by Germany at The Hague. We were allowed to get our food from the canteen when we were able to pay for it with our own money. In this camp I saw; the most lamentable sights —soldier-prisoners, lying on meagre supply of straw, ill-j>rotected by linen tents, and they received in food only 250 grammes of bread, a. little coffee, and a small quantity of soup twice a day. Shortly after we arrived we saw an old man beaten unmercifully by German soldiers. They were so violent that he died the next day. One of the civilians showed me his wounded hand. When arrested an officer had ordered him to put up his hands; then, in cold blood, he deliberately shot through one with a .revolver, _ and then turned his back on his victim without a word.

"There were in this camp the whole male population of several villages of th© north of France—boys of 12 and 13 and old men of 74. In'one case an old man in ill-health begged these brutes to take pity en him, as he was 70 years of age, but the German soldiers merely jeered at his misfortune. If you pointed out to them the absurdity of taking thildreri and old men, they merely 6hook their head, saying, 'Free-shooters, freeshooters.'

"The English in our oamp were given the heaviest of tasks to do. Thoy were allowed soup only onco instead of twice a day. An officer captured at Dixmude told us that he had seon Germans going into an ambulance and forcing into a line the wounded officers, and shooting thorn.' .Among the officers shot dead wore a chaplain and a doctor. Most of the prisoners in the camp are civilians. Of the 6000 hero barely 600.have been uudpr arms.

"At last we eight were roleased, but when we asked to havo our property that had been taken away returned to us, stating that wo were medical men and non-combatants, tlicy jeered at us. The German military authorities also ignored the appeal."