Meeting the Enemy

by Richard van Emden

  Such lads may have been keen to do their ‘bit’ but to their fathers, suffering the indignity of internment, the idea that their sons would fight for the British was, for many, intolerable. In May 1915 William Kunz wrote to the authorities from Knockaloe internment camp on the Isle of Man claiming that his son, William, had been ‘forced by his employer’ to join the ‘English’ Army. ‘I do not want him to fight against his own flesh and blood. He is consequently the son of an unnaturalised German.’ The fact that he was such was actually of no consequence. The father was German, and his British-born wife German by marriage. It might have appeared to William Kunz Senior an anomaly that a child of German parents was legally British, but if that child was born in Britain then he was British until or unless he renounced his citizenship. This he was entitled to do once he had reached the age of majority (twenty-one), but William Junior had not.

  Conscription did not alter the legal status of these boys but it did create one unforeseen problem. In January 1916, all men aged between nineteen and forty-one were according to law deemed to have enlisted for General Service. Exemption from service could be granted only if, for example, the army had previously rejected a man on medical grounds. It was all very well the army holding on to lads of German ancestry who had shown their colours by volunteering, but what should the military authorities do with thousands of British-born children of German fathers unpersuaded by patriotism to freely enlist? By rights, these boys could expect to be called up, but with which country did their allegiance lie? If they were ambivalent about serving, could they be relied upon in battle? It was an issue that was without precedent.

  In early 1916 the Swiss Legation in London passed on a number of letters to the Foreign Office. They were from Germans interned in Britain, pointing out that, while their children had been called up for service by the British, they, the children, were also pro-German.

  Wilhelm Roderwald had lived in Britain since 1890 and his son, Gerald, was born in January 1897. Wilhelm was interned at Alexandra Palace, and he was in no doubt as to where his and his son’s allegiance lay. Wilhelm had registered himself again as a German subject at the Imperial German Consulate in 1900, to ensure that he remained unquestionably German, and he therefore believed his son to be German, too. ‘My son is entirely German as far as his sympathies are concerned.’ Other letters of protest included one from Peter Viel and his sons Johann and Andreas. ‘I, the father, most emphatically forbid my sons to serve in any capacity with the British or Allied Forces . . .’ while Bartholomus Eid asserted that his son ‘would rather be interned than join the British Army’. Was this in fact simply a question of fathers speaking for their sons and not on their behalf? It was impossible to know.

  In May 1916, Carl Martini objected to the conscription of his sons, Charles and Heinrich, aged twenty-three and nineteen respectively. Both sons had been registered in Germany as of German nationality and were, if anything, he claimed, liable to serve in the German army. Unfortunately, Charles, while old enough to choose his nationality, had made no effort to relinquish his British citizenship at the age of twenty-one and as a result was still liable to serve.

  Both sons were called up. In this case they were clearly in sympathy with their father: within days Heinrich was reported absent from his battalion, the 15th (2nd Reserve) battalion of the Middlesex Regiment, followed soon after by his elder brother. Carl Martini was legally obliged to ensure that his sons reported back, as Lieutenant Colonel A. R. Gardiner, the officer commanding the battalion, pointed out to him: ‘It is your duty to use every endeavour to induce him [Heinrich] to return immediately to his Battalion. Your attention is drawn to the gravity of the offence of a soldier deserting his regiment while on active service.’ Whether or not Carl could have effected his sons’ return to the ranks is unclear. Both were recaptured and Charles, though seemingly not Heinrich, served in France with the Army Service Corps.

  Fathers like Wilhelm Roderwald and Bartholomus Eid were antagonistic towards the country in which they had chosen to live, but was their aggressively pro-German sympathy in part due to the conditions of their internment, imposed without material evidence of disloyalty? Sons who might otherwise have been willing to serve were shocked at the treatment meted out to their fathers. Harry Steinke, son of Hermann Steinke, locked up on Knockaloe, wrote that he could not be expected to recognise his native country (Britain) or serve when his father, ‘an innocent citizen of this country for over 25 years, having always promptly paid rates and taxes, should suffer internment’. He did have a point; the problem was that no one was inclined to listen.

  Four months after the introduction of conscription, the Army Council came to a decision on males born in Britain to enemy subjects. An Instruction was issued directing that these men would not be called up under the Military Service Acts, 1916, until they reached the age of twenty-one, at which point they would be given the opportunity to make a declaration of alienage.

  There was little political or public sympathy for the position of such lads. Why should they live under the protection afforded by the state and the sacrifices of millions of other British-born men fighting and dying on the Western Front? The children of German-born parents had to play their part in defeating the enemy’s manifest tyranny, irrespective of whether they might, in theory, be fighting against their ‘flesh and blood’. Internees’ claims that, under German law, sons would lay themselves open to penal servitude for life in Germany were they forced to serve in the British Army were discounted. Where there was genuine concern was whether these conscripts, if allowed to serve in the front line, might act as agents provocateurs.

  With this in mind, the Army Council issued instruction 1209 on 17 June 1916, authorising the creation of a new battalion of the Middlesex Regiment, the 30th (Works) Battalion, to which such men would be sent on enlistment or transferred from existing units. The following month the battalion was founded in Crawley to be followed in September by a second battalion, the 31st (Works) Battalion, in Mill Hill. While neither unit was destined to serve overseas, they would supply trained but unarmed men to eight 500-strong Infantry Labour Companies (ILCs) that would work behind the lines in 1917 and 1918. As may be imagined, there was no fanfare to herald the establishment of these two units and for a while they filled their ranks without unwarranted attention.

  Only in September 1916 did one of the battalions (perhaps in ignorance of the second) become the focus of sarcastic press attention. Headlined ‘The Kaiser’s Own’, the London Evening Standard ran an article about the ‘Queerest Battalion in the British Army’. The journalist had come across the case of an army defaulter who, on appearing before a magistrate, explained that he had absconded after being sent to a battalion in which ‘all the members were more or less directly descended from enemy aliens’.

  The journalist continued:

  The battalion in question is hardly known at all to the general public. Many soldiers are quite unaware of its existence and even recruiting experts have been known to deny that there is any such body of men.

  Yet the Middlesex Regiment knows all about it, for the battalion forms part of itself. Not that the Fighting Middlesex – who have lived up to their regimental nickname ever since the first days of the war – are at all proud of the fact. On the contrary. To them the foreign legion has nothing attractive, and on the rare occasions when they refer to the battalion it is only as the ‘Kaiser’s Own’.

  Until a very few months ago, the problem of what to do with enemy alien Britons seemed beyond the powers of the Army. The enemy alien pure and simple (if such adjectives are not somewhat out of place) could easily be dealt with. He was either interned or allowed to roam about at liberty, explaining in guttural accents that he was really more British than the British.

  The journalist went on his merry literary way referring to the attitude of those young men born in Britain to unnaturalised alien enemies. Some lads, he conceded, had tried to volunteer but suspicious recruiting sergeants had rejected their
approaches; other boys enlisted under false names.

  ‘However,’ he continued, ‘it is not to be imagined that all enemy alien Britons are either heroes or aching to die for their Stepmotherland.’

  The War Office, it was suggested, could hardly allow these Germans to roam free in British front-line trenches, nor could they be allowed to stay at home and enjoy war wages while ‘pure Britons’ fought. Hence the Army Council Instruction.

  There are men of every variation of accent, their proximity to the true British standard being more or less judged by the facility with which they manage the letters ‘R’ and ‘W’. The man who can manage ‘Around the rugged rocks the ragged rascals ran’ three times without sounding like fizzy water is entitled to sergeant’s stripes.

  No doubt readers smiled at the jocular descriptions, and the writer did conclude by saying that the men were ‘stated to be quite loyal’, but his scorn was palpable and unfair. The vast majority of these men could speak English as well as any ‘pure Briton’, and were frequently the children of an English-born mother. Most were born in Britain and had lived all their lives there; they included men such as Charles Kuhr.

  In June 1916, Charles was in his mid-thirties. Born and raised in Hull to an English mother and German father, he joined the 1st Volunteer Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment in 1899, serving until 1908 when he became part of the Territorial force. A musical man, he played in the regimental band that gave numerous concerts around Yorkshire. After the outbreak of war, his military history remained opaque until he was sent to join the 30th Middlesex Regiment in training near Reading. Once again he joined the battalion band, The Snapshots, of which he was conductor, giving concerts at St Dunstan’s Hospital for blinded sailors and soldiers. In 1918, he was sent on a draft for France and one of the Infantry Labour Companies. This was hardly a man of questionable loyalties who would struggle to pronounce the letters ‘R’ and ‘W’.

  Another who joined the ‘Kaiser’s Own’ and who hardly fitted the journalist’s stereotype was Otto Vollmar. Born in Islington, north London, to German parents, he had found work in the United States where he could have remained in safety working as a stockbroker’s clerk in New York. Instead, he returned to Britain in November 1915 to volunteer under the Derby Scheme (allowing men to enlist and, until required, return to their civilian jobs), being called up the following year when he was sent to the 30th Battalion.

  In the same battalion was warehouseman Charles Eshborn. In September 1914, the twenty-one-year-old had written an eloquent letter to the Manchester Guardian about the pointless banning of German music at public performances. He used a nom de plume, hiding his German heritage for fear, perhaps, that his views would be dismissed as partisan. The son of a German father, Eshborn was reluctant to enlist, having lived for eight years in Germany, but after the introduction of conscription he knew it would only be a matter of time before he was called up.

  All men liable for conscription were divided into classes according to year of birth and marital status. Those who were unmarried would, in the normal course of events, be called up before married men. Charles was engaged to a local girl, Janie Puleston, and it is possible that it was with a mind to delaying his call-up that the couple had married in early 1916.

  By July, Charles had sought and gained a temporary exemption owing to the fact that his widowed mother was in very poor health, while a younger brother, Bernard, was an invalid; ‘both are absolutely dependent on me,’ he wrote to the tribunal assessing his case. That exemption was due to run out at the end of August and Charles knew that he was unlikely to be granted an extension or leave to reapply on additional grounds. Nevertheless, he decided to write to the tribunal to ask if they would give the following circumstances their ‘kindest consideration’.

  Charles was born in Cumbria but had lived in Germany until the death of his father when the family chose to return to England. Indeed, he was eligible to serve in both German and British armies, as he pointed out to the tribunal. ‘On the death of an uncle I was to inherit some property [and this] made my father register me in Germany. Had I been in Germany at the outbreak of war, the Germans could have compelled me to serve in their army according to the law.’

  Charles assured the tribunal that he would have refused outright to fight against the British but he found the prospect of fighting against the Germans almost as difficult.

  Not only was my father German but I have two brothers who were born in Germany and who are now being educated there by an uncle. Also my grandparents were most kind to my mother at the time of my father’s death when our financial circumstances were very precarious . . . I ask in all sincerity is it right that I should actually fight against them in these circumstances? How awful would be my position if I ever fell into their hands. Since I can perhaps hardly be treated as a neutral is there nothing else I can do than fight? I shall be only too willing to undertake anything else – clerical, munitions or Red Cross Work . . .

  Charles’s exemptions naturally brought him under the umbrella of the two Middlesex battalions, to one of which he was duly sent. A year later he would join the 3rd ILC and leave for the Western Front.

  The passing of the Military Service Act in January made British-born children of German parents liable to serve. These parents would be entitled to separation allowances except when in receipt of relief from Germany, as paid through the American Embassy. In the winter of 1914, the German government had severely restricted those entitled to relief but had continued to provide financial support for German-born women whose German husbands were interned. That support would cease the moment the German government became aware that sons of German-born parents were serving in the British Army, leaving families cut off in an instant without an income. The conscription of a son when he was the principal breadwinner was also a cause for great family anxiety. With the father interned, it was problematic whether the separation allowance alone was enough to keep a family going, without relief, especially when working opportunities were so limited for those with German surnames.

  Family finances were uppermost in the mind of Hugo Biskeborn when he was called up. Interestingly, it was not entirely clear whether he should have been serving at all. Hugo was born in Germany in August 1898 to a German father and English mother, Elizabeth, who brought her family to Britain after the death of her husband in 1902. At some point (it is unclear when) Hugo registered himself as an enemy alien at Paddington Green police station but does not appear to have been interned during the war.

  In early March 1918, Biskeborn reluctantly enlisted after a visit from the police. He was told, he claimed, that if he refused he would be interned and his mother repatriated to Germany. This was bluster by the policeman, but does suggest that Elizabeth Biskeborn had not reapplied for British citizenship. A visit to the Biskeborn residence was also made by a representative of the Ministry of National Service. Hugo stated that the representative confirmed that on his enlistment Elizabeth would receive ‘an adequate allowance’. In the event, and for reasons unknown, his mother did not receive any money and was soon in great difficulty, according to her son. In July, Hugo, now Private Biskeborn, wrote to the authorities requesting that his mother be adequately paid as he was her only support, but he was told that ‘nothing could be done’ in his case, although a ‘paltry sum’ was subsequently offered that did not cover even half her rent. Hugo then wrote to the Swiss Legation in London for help, stating the facts as he saw them and adding: ‘I wrote to the Captain of this Company, requesting him to do something in the matter or else apply for my release. I received a most insulting and ungentlemanly letter from him, reminding me I am “a German and have no rights whatsoever” and to be “grateful for the consideration” I and my mother had received.’

  Private Hugo Biskeborn took a dangerous stance: he went on strike, refusing orders. He was given fourteen days confined to barracks, but as he refused to accept the punishment he was placed in the guard room pending a court martial. He was subseq
uently sentenced to twenty-eight days’ detention. What happened to him is not known although the Armistice may have come to his rescue. His absence from the Medal Roll indicates he was never sent abroad.

  The outlook for German-born naturalised Britons was increasingly bleak. Although British, they were despised and mistrusted in their adopted land and interned as enemy aliens in the country of their birth.

  Ever since returning from Germany in early 1915, British-born Nellie Fuchs had been attempting to get her naturalised husband released from detention in Germany. Nellie Fuchs’s husband, Carl, was the world-renowned cellist whose friends included the elite of Britain’s conductors and composers. Sir Edward Elgar had written to the government on his friend’s behalf, but Elgar’s views were out of step with public opinion. Government policy at home flowed irreversibly against these German-born men, even those with impeccable pedigrees.

  In May 1916 an agreement was reached with Germany facilitating the repatriation of alien civilians aged over fifty. Furthermore, those over forty-five could be released if adjudged to be permanently unfit for service in the field. It was shortly after the conclusion of the agreement that the Prussian government unexpectedly proposed to exchange Fuchs for the safe passage home of the German-born painter, novelist and poet Max Dauthendey, marooned on the Dutch East Indies territory of Java since the outbreak of war.