The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2 1918. THE MARK OF THE BEAST

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 84, 2 January 1918, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2 1918. THE MARK OF THE BEAST

Dark as are the pictures they conjure up, messages which appear today relating to the treatment of Allied ■prisoners in German camps-are in a very important sense. timely and eminently to the point. Here, and in all Allied countries, these plain statements of fact will serve as a reminder to the .thoughtless and to those who may be inclined to give ear to pacifist persuasions of the kind of enemy we. are dealing with—an enemy not merely branded as utterly unscrupulous in war and diplomacy, but _ tainted .with bestial savagery in his treatment of those who have been unfortunate enough to fall weak and helpless into his hands. If no other reason appeared for _ rejecting any thought of compromise with Germany, or palliation , of her crimes, an all-sufficient reason would appear in the record of fhe prison camps and deportation, depots in which she has immured and tortured tens of thousands of unhappy Allied soldiers and- civilians. The indictment covering these inhuman crimes will not be made out in all its details until the war is over and the surviving victims of German barbarism are- everywhere free to speak. But already such a tale of horror has been unfolded as should steel the least resolute members of Allied nations in an inflexible determination that there shall bo no thought of peace until all that human effort can do to bring the authors of these, crimes to justice has been done.

Brief as they are, tho reports published to-day make such additions to the story of Germany's infamy as in themselves would suffice to brand any nation in the eyes of decent men and women. They show that in spite of the hypocritical professions she is now making to Russia, and through Eussia to the Allies, Germany is maintaining in her prison camps to-day the conditions which made the horrors of Wittenberg possible. An American sailor, one of tho captives of the raider Moewe, has carried home the hews that men in German prison camps are in fearful want, and that fifteen hundred prisoners perished of starvation in a single month. To this is added the testimony of British prisoners—veterans of Mons and others—that their lives were saved by parcels of food from home, and that tho food provided by the Germans was "very bad." That men arc dying in hundreds in German:prison oamps for want of the simple necessaries of jlifc means that in essentials the conditions which made the Wittenberg horrors possible arc- extant to-day. It is by turning to the story of Wittenberg, told in circumstantial detail in an official report to the British Government, that we may realise what is entailed in the conditions now reported. For the benefit of those whoso memory is short—and in these matters, vital as they are, the memory of the British public is much too short—it may be recalled that at Wittenberg Camp, in 1915, the Germans crowded more than 15,000 men—including between 700 and 800 British prisoners —on a space of ten and a, half acres in conditions too revolting in many of their details to bo described. The prisoners endured a bitter winter, scantily clad in verminous rags. Even for personal ablution there was only ono trough or tap in each compound, and that was often frozen. At a time when good food

was plentiful in Germany the inmates of Wittenberg were all but starved, and the scanty food provided was bad and dirty. Out of these conditions a frightful epidemic of typhus arose. In the days which followed, disease-stricken prisoners —British, French, and Russian—endured, with the full knowledge of the German authorities, conditions which could not have been surpassed for revolting horror had their gaolers been savages at the bottom of the human scale.

At the first sign of the epidemic tho German staff, military and medical, precipitately left the camp. So far as the British prisoners were concerned it was left to six British doctors, illegally detained in Germany, to fight the epidemic. Every means to that end was lacking, and for many months horror was piled on horror. Filth, starvation, and misery were the common lot—tho sick and the dying for weeks received ho more consideration at the hands of their inhuman gaolers than those who still escaped tho scourge of typhus. Three of the British doctors paid for their devotion with their lives. Amongst the I British prisoners there were CO deaths under conditions of indescribablo horror, and the deaths amongst the French and Russians were very much greater in number. It was months after the epidemic broke out before even becls and clothing were provided, and then they were provided only gradually. The recital of barbarity might be continued at length, but the main point to be emphasised is that, as tho conimitteo which reported to the British Government observes in its report, "the terrible sufferings and privaI tions of the afflicted prisoners . . .

ave directly chargeable to tho deliberate cruelty and neglect of the German officials, whose elementary duty it was, in the words of the Geneva Convention, to respect and take caro of theso men, wounded and sick as they were, without distinction of nationality, but who acted as if neither that Convention nor even tho ordinary instincts of humanity had any place in their scheme of things." As to tho estimation in which these officials are held in Germany, it is enough to mention that the medical officer in charge at Wittenberg, the cowardly and inhuman brute who fled at the first appearance of danger, and refused even to 'supply the British doctors with the necessaries for their tortured patients, was decorated with tho Iron Cross. The story of the German prison camps, to which, as today's reports remind us', there are terrible chapters yet to be added, should in itself suffice to instantly silence any suggestion that Germany [ should be met on even terms by self- ; respecting cations. In order that I peace may return to the world the j Allies must not merely extort from Germany firm guarantees that she will abandon her unscrupulous schemes of conquest, but must exact such reparation as will ensure the re-establishment of the laws of common humanity which in Germany and wherever Germany holds sway have been dethroned and submerged in bestial savagery. To take any other course with Germany would be to share her abysmal infamy.