THE DAILY BRITISH WHIG, MONDAY, JUNE 7, 1915 xr E-- p-------------- GERMAN BRUTALITY T0 WAR PRISONERS Official Evidence 8hows Specially Severe Treatment Accorded to British Officers--Irish Could Not be Cajoled By Kaiser's Officers The published accounts of the treat-, ment accorded to British prisoners! in Germany are fully borne out by official evidence contained in a For eign Office white paper. One of the most interesting documents is a re. port by Major C. B. Vandeleur, of the 1st Cameronians, who escaped from Crefeld. The following is his descrip: | tion of his journey into Germany from Douay after his escape: : All along the line we were yursed by oicers and soldiers alike at the various stations, and at Mons Bergen 1 was pulled out in front of the wagon by the order of the officer in charge of the station, and, after cursing me in filthy language for some ten min- utes, he or'ered one of his soldiers to kick me back into the wagon which he did, sending me sprawling into the filthy mess at the bottom of the wagon. I should like to mention hers that I am thoroughly conversant with Ger. man, and understood everything that was sald. Only at one station on the road Was any attempt made on the part of German officers to Interfere, and stop their mien from cursing us. Up to this time 1 had mahaged to retain my overcpat; but it was now foreibly taken from me by an officer at a fow stations further on, A Second Black Hole Finglly we arrived at Cologre. Fiftytwo prisoners were in the wagon with me when we left Douay. It is difficult to indicaté or give a proper fdéa of the indescribably wretched condition in which we were in after being starved and confined in the manner stated for three days and three nights. As 18 well known, one of these wagons is considered to be able to accommodate six horses, or forty men, and this only with the doors open 80 a8 to admit of ventilation. What with the filth of the interior, the number of people confined in it, and the absence of ventilation, it seemed | to recall something of hat one Las read of the Black Hole of Caloutta. On reaching the German-Beigian frontier, the French prisoners were given some potato soup, The people in charge of it told us that none was for us, but that if any was left over after the French bad "wen fed we should get what remainéd. This is in accordance with the general-troat: ment of British prisoners by the Ger- | glices of bread | place of mans who always endeavor to attend to our necessities last, and to put ue to as much inconvenience treatment as possible. We quently got a little soup and among twer British prisoners in the same with me, a 1 am strongly of opinidn myselt that. this brutal treatment of British officers and men on their way to a internment is deliberately arranged for by .uperior authority with the object of making us as miserable and despieahle as possible The French officers wers treated quite differently. Barbarcus Methods 1 would espacially call attention '0 the barbarous ivay in which British soldiers are being trcated in the various laagers by the Germans. The information given below has been obtained from the British orderlies who came to Crefeld cs servants, and also from English and French medical officers who had been in the camps, which in many cases were composed of tents. The men all had their greatcoats-- and in many cases their tunics as well--and their money taken away from them, and are in great need of clothing, an¢ particularly under- clothin. The men state that they slept on straw which had not beea changed for months, and was quite sodden and rotten. 1 was also informed by them that the feeding arrangements for the British soldier were very bad indeed, and a8 the men had no money to supplement thelr rations Whey were in a half-starved condiMon, which their appearance corroborated. 1 also wish to gtate that ----, who arrived at Creféld about December, told me that all the Irishmen at his camp were collected together shortly petors hé left, and were harangued by the commandant, who Stated that the Emperor was Aware of the down- trodden stat of Ireland, and now wished that the Irishmen should be placed in a separate camp, where they would be better fed and treated differently from the Englishmen. He further stated that subsequeztly they went in a body to the commandant, and épld they did not wish to have any different treatment from their compatriots, The. American Ambassador in Ber- lin bears witness to the {ill-treatment meted out to British prisoners. and i! subse- a few ity-five wagon Praise For Britain x By Moslem Leaders "Kill the Germans Like Pagans and Perhaps They Will Re- pent," Wrote One Grateful Petty Ruler From Nigeria. Nothing in this war has been more 'vonderfil than the absciute unanim- ity of all the peoples -in any way connected with the British Empire that our cause is a just one. This was strikingly shown in a Blue Book issued by the British Government, which contaified loyal messages from the native chiefs in Nigeria, forward: ed through Sir F. Lugard, Governor General of the Colony, to tha Colonial Becretary. Sheu Berkar Garbal, Emir of Bor ny, wrote: "We know that the King o® eng land is waging war against the Ger mans. , . .. Who knoweth the ways of Allah?! We are wa agai proud and stiff-necked », as the Germans are. In such a case Allah is on our side. Our Lord Mohammed : 'Those wlio break friendship. ¥ them like Pagans. If yon kill om, perhaps they will repent.'™ Shehu Bukar Garbal iescribed him- #elf as being "Son of Shehn Ibrahim, Son of Shebu Umar, Son ot Mahama. du Liminodl-Kanemy, hutuble slave of Allah, Emir of Bornu, by the power of the King of Haglund, sud he gave horses, cattle corn, his ns towards the maliten- help tess, ard A tert: nih he God to . | ° you the war funds said: "We are continually praying God that He will give you the victory, and that He will destroy the Ger. mans bécause wé know well that they are an evil people of evil customs, therefore may God not help them at all, beciausé theirs i§ the custom to spoil the land." The Emir had intended applying the $1,000 towards the improvement of the land, and he explained in his letter that what was necessary to be done in repairing the roads he would do himself at his. own charge. UNWIELDY ZEPPELINS Very Easy For the Frail Alr Dirigibles to Destroy Themselves On a fnew Zeppelin airship a tun- nel was ed through the gas envélope which enabled the crew to nst bet the nger gondolas Ro Tn PAT om on the top of the machine. The craft climbed to a height of a thousand feet with a full com % a up the reader gh 4 tunnel and primed the gun situated above the envelope. . he given and the wonpdih red; Sad and this proved to be "vim still, ar SS ple | frat for civilia FUSING LYDDITE SHELLS ON PAGE 7 NEWS 4 ARMED MERCHANT CRUISER ¥ # ry 2 /1 7 {4 7 | » 4 Py = - men as possible are engaged in Those sheils are ony fused in war-time. the open deck and cnly ofie projectile worked on at a time. The work must be done As on few this dangerous occupation. A A A dt me ee et dS ed IIo ed NINN {Switzerland Forwards Letters To Captured Men it. must Lave puzzled many people to know how the prisoner of war re- | ceivas communications in the shape | of letters, parcels, and money from his relatives at home, and by what means he is able to send news of him- | self to his friends whiie he Is in the | prisoners' camp of the enemy. The Swiss Government has taken | upon itself gratuitously the generous and humane work of acting as inter- mediary for enabling prisoners of war to receive letters, postcards, and small parcels from their relatives, and thus keep in touch with them. The work is carried out by a mill tary postal departmént, aided by a few specially qualified bilingual sorters. Thé French and German Governmént authorities do not sort -any of the prisonefs of war correspondence with their ives. Letters .re collected into lcs at Pontarlier afd Frank- fort respectively and forwarded to the AN INTELLIGENT ARMY. It is the opinion of Kipling and of other keen observers that in some re- spects the new army will eclipse the old, I brain power and enthusiasm it promises to rise to any emergency that may be in store for it. The new army is composéd of men who are superfor in intelligence to the profes. sional soldier. They are not, at first, content to follow the routine of drill without understanding what it means and why it is insisted on. The old- fashioned recruit did what he was told, and left the thinking to his superiors By the'timeé He was a seasoned soldier, probably, he had come to understand the cause for the tedious drill. He wa$ a good soldier, anyway, but not quite the sort of soldier that is to ve seen in the new army. One thing which the new army had to learn In different way from the old army is uSelessness of "independence" as ordinarily nndefstood. On this point Kipling says: "They are what Is called "independ. ent'--a civilian weakness which they will learn to blush over fn a Tew months, and to discourdge among later recruits; but they are also very quick to pick up 4& and tricks that make a man more comfortabis in 'camp life, and their domestic routine runs on whebls. It must have been hard at ns to see thé necessity for that continuous, apparently per. nickity, house-maiding and 'following. up' which Is vital to the comfort of )! office of the Berne "transit pos:." These 'letters have previously passed through the hands of the camp com- mandant and are stamped "Approved." Similarly, letters addressed to the prisoner bear the Censor's stamp from the piace of crigin. The letters are all read again on their arrival at des- tination before being. delivered, The method of dealing with the transfer of money to prisoners of war is a rather more elaborate affatr. The Money orders aré {issued on large sized distinctive colored cards. They are nét pit in envelopes, but are simply addrssed to thé "tramsit post" at Berne, where théy ate replaced by a Swiss order for payment on a Vel fow ¢ard, which 1s honvied by the postal authorities of both France afid Gérmany. The work of transferring the details trom the Frénch or German origihill order to the neutral Swiss order is done by girl clerks. In four months 06 fewer than 721,687 money orders, representing 3,376,956 francs, passed through the Berné "transit post" to Frénch prisoners in Germany, and 61,045 money orders, réprésénting 1,105,614 Trancs, 10 German prisoners in France. The Swiss Government extended the same facilities for the transfer of monéy to Russian prisoners ih Austro- Hungary and to the Austro-Hungarian prisonérs in Raksta. ThE nédtral Swiss order has to be returiiéd to Berne, so that a settle- meént of the, sums paid out to prison. ers of the respective Governments tay be thade, and In this way it his ofteni béen the means of discovering whether a "missing" {s alive or dead. ---- Italy has 4,080,000 soldiers of all classes. Of this total .,060.000 are first class fighting men, cplendidly equipped; the other 3,000,000 are well trained reerves. consisting of eighteen batfoshivs, | |ers and twenty-two submarines. | Service tn the Italian army or navy | is compulsory and universal. The { total period is nineteen years, begin- | ning at tho age of twenty. | Among the crack regiments are tha Berssglieri, the sharpshooturs of the tltallan army. Light, active soldiers, | wéaring a pleturesque but service: ablé dark green uniform; and hats with dark plumes of cocks' feathers. they kave always been to the front, aiiiiein the Crimea and in the strug gies that resulted in Italian unity. There are over 46,000 Bersaglieri in tha regular army. Akin to them wre the Alpini, a force of mountaineer charpshooters, erganized since 1d, who chief duty is to Cefend the mountein passes leading to Ita.y. A magniiicent shot and keen sol. dier, King Emmanuel has done much towards bringing the Italian army dp | to its present tate of perfection. The motto of his grea: house is firmiy fgraven on his heart, and over and over again he tas shown that "Fear {and Savoy never meet." | His Majesty has many sympathies { with Russia and Montenegro. His | wife, who has taken a prominent _art {in organizing voluntary ambulance {and hospital workers for the front, is | a daughter of Nicholas, King of Méh- | | tenegro. About four years previous -to his ascending' the throne, King Emmanuel fell in love with Princess Helen of [8nd almost Indecorovs cvent which | | Montenegro while on a visit to Rus. throws the ranks Into disorder and | sia, and the marriage took place in | October; 1896. The present population of Italy is nearly 36,000,000. square miles, 10,300 square miles leds than OGréat Buhain. Included in Italy's population are nearly 11,000 Germans and 12,000 Austrians. The number of Italans abroad has been estimated at about 5,568,000. The Roman Catholic Chureh is nominally the ruling State religion of Italy, but the power of the church and clergy is subordinated to the civil government, and there is freedom of worship to the adherents of all recog. niked religions. Of the total popu. lation nearly 32,000,000 y are Roman Catholics. i ie sm i. Water For the Wounded Somewhere in Fance there is bur fed a brave Royal Engineer who gave all he Fad--his lite--for his wounded comrades. Near the trenches theré were a lot of wounded lying, whoeé pitiful cries for water reached the ears bf a yuiet little engineer; he collected together all the water bottles hé could find. Somebody asked him where he was going. He sald he was going out, and he went out. . The air was thick with shell and rifle fire. He reached the first wounded man safely and gave him a drink, but when he had finished his merciful mission one bottle was shot' clean out of his hand. 'He Ctrawled along to another, and another, and #till another, until he wis a full quarter of a mile away from the trenches. Then he stood . fo zig-zag across to some mote wound- ed chaps. His comrades saw him throw up his arms, and that was the last Seén of him a) {ITALY AS WORLD POWER | In addition, Italy has a etrong navy, | thirty-one ecruiscrs, forty-five fest. oy: | | | IN THE HEROISH AT IS BEST PRESENT WAR Famous Belgian Author and Playwright Says Deeds of the An: cients Are Completely Bolipsed by the Men Who Face | Modern Guns | Maurice Maeterlinck, in an artiéle iin the London Daily Mall, contrasts i oe {.the heor erm dirpiayed in the yresent | war with that oI previous conflicts, saying that "one of the corsoling sur prises of 1nis war is the unlooked for and, s6 to speak, universal! herolsm which it has revealed among all the nations taking part in it." "We realize with amazement," he continues, "that unti! to-day we had but an incomplete and inaccurdte idea of 'man's couvage. We looked upon it in8 an exceptional ' virtue and one which fs the' mera admired as being falso the rarer the farther we go ack in history" | Of Homer's heroes M. Maeteriinek | says:-- "There models of ant"quity, the firs: | professors, the firet masters of brav- | ery, wera not really very brave. They have a wholesome dread of being hit l¢r wounded and an ingéeruous and | manifest fear of death. Their mighty | confifets' ave declamatory amd decor lative, but ot 86 very bloody; they {inflict more noise than pain upon | their adversaries; they deliver many { more words than blows, "Their defensive weapons -- and [this {8 characteristic--are greatly | superfor to thelr arms of offence; {and death 1s an unusual, unforseen | most often puts a stop to the .om- bat or provokes a headlong fight | that seems quite natural. This kind Its arca is 110,669 of courage 1s that of all antiquity | more or less." | Couragé Ic Different To-day In thé great wars of the Empire M. Maeterlinck sees a courage which begins to resemble that of the _re- sent day but with notable aifferences. The troops engaged were solely pro- fessionals, and never, as today, em- bracing every man between the ages of 18 and 50 capable of bearing arms. "Again, and above all," he continues, "every war vas reduced to two or more pitched battles, that is to say, two or three culminating moments; immense efforts, but efforts of a few hours or & day at most, toward which the combatants diréetéd all the vigor and all the heroism accumulated dur. ing lob weeks or months of prepar ation and waiting. Afterward, wheth. er the: résuit was victory or defeat, the fighting was over; relaxation, re- spite and rest followed; meh went back to ety homes, "Nowadays everything fs changed, and death ftselt is no Tonge what it was. Formerly you looked it in the FRANCE MOURNS GARROS Capture of Wonderful Aviator by Ger mans a Sad Blow The capture of Roland Garros by the Gérmans wah & sad blow to France and the allies' cause. The idol of the World's hérodrdmes fn timed of peace, and the most popular pilot in the French Air Service after the war started, the loss of the amating little man is mourned r venturer: 'A¥ An &VAWOr he is un. rpassed. Born with the national French Qukiity of daring, he was attracted to fiying fn the very earliest days of the @d the tricky high Speed monoplanes which ted him with ample op- 168" Tor "his nerlal acrobatics. For several months before his capture 2 horsepower | 7 i ¥ i > -~ 3 >» : { i SEE, i i] | it i fei { fdcé---you knéw whence it came and | who sent it to you. It had a dreadful Laspect, but one that rémained human. | "At present, to all thele horrors, It i adds the great intolerable fear 6f mys- tery. It is always ready, always on | the watch, everywhere présent, .cat- | tered, intangible and dense, stealthy and cowardly, diffuse, all encompass ing, innumerous, : looming at every ipeint of the horizon, rising from the y waters and falling from the skies, in- defutigable, inevitable, filling the whole i whole of space and time for days, . weeks and months without a minute's lull, without a second's intermission. {Men live, move and sleep In the ! meshes of its fatal web. They know that the least step to the right or left, {a head bowed or lifted, a body bent jor upright, is seen by its eyes and 'draws its thunder. Heroism At Its Test "Hitherto we had no example of this preponderance of the "destructive i forces. © We should never have be- {Neved that man's nerves could resist {80 great & trial. 'The nerves of the (bravest man are tempered to face death for the space of a second, but not to live in the hourly expectation of death and nothing else. And so, at the very moment when man ap. peared! most exhausted and enervated by the comforts and vices of clviliza- tion, at the moment when he was happiest and therefore most selfish, when, possessing the minimum of faith and vainly seeking a new ideal, he seemed least capable of sacrificing himeelf for an idea of any kind, he finds himself suddenly confronted with an unprecedented danger, which he is almost certain that the most. herole nations of history would not have faced nor esen have dreamed of facing; whereas he does not even dream that it 's possible to do aught but face it. "It is not man's life that is at stake, but the dea which he forms of the honor, the happiness and the duties of his life. To save his life he had but to submit to the enemy; the in- vader would not have exterminated him. We are not therefore speaking of & herdlsm that would be but the last resource of despair, No, it Is herofsin freely donned, hafled de- liberately and unanimously, heroism on behalf of an ided and a sentiment; in other words, herdism in its clear. est, 'purest and most virginhl form, a disinterested and whole hearted sacrifice for that which men i as their duty to themselves, to kith and kin, to mankind and to the future." | ! in wind or rain he will climb from his machine as immaculate as th less. Tt was a sad day for him when, through engine trouble, he was forced 16° descend in the Gerididn lines, for Oarfos In a German concentration camp without the necésuities for his detailed toflet will be in & sory plight. Although outwardly the most reck. less of 'aviators, Garros Is fn aman who takes 10 unheécessry' He knows that as dehitn hig machin holds together he 'cant do whit he It he 18 high "enough in the air to redover from & dive, tail sfide, or by welldiréctéd shots from the im. perturbablé Garros. How Sand Bags Are Made