Meeting the Enemy

by Richard van Emden

  The wartime blockade on Germany remained in force while the victorious nations met at Versailles to wrangle over a treaty to be presented to the German nation as a fait accompli. Meanwhile, the acute food shortages in Germany continued and in January 1919 the British government acted to alleviate the suffering. In the Rhineland, the average daily civilian intake had shrunk to barely 1,000 calories per person. Orders were given that surplus stores, including 12,000 tons of meat and 100,000 tons of potatoes, were to be shipped from Rotterdam and Antwerp to the west bank of the Rhine. The situation was just as dire in Berlin where there remained a small British contingent, including Princess Evelyn Blücher and the Reverend Henry Williams. In response, the British government authorised surplus Red Cross supplies to be distributed among British residents in the capital, but included an important rider: ‘Beneficiaries must be genuine British subjects and not include British born wives whose husbands are of enemy nationality.’ It meant that naturalised British subjects of German birth living in Germany had a greater right to these parcels than women born in Britain and married to Germans, as long as they could prove ‘a satisfactory connection with the British Empire during residence in Germany’, whatever that was supposed to mean.

  Ada Crosley was desperately worried about her daughter, Lillian Stephan, and her young grandson. Lillian married a German in 1910 and had, prior to the war, moved to Arnstadt where she remained. Although she was considered German by British authorities, her mother insisted her daughter had never been naturalised and neither had her grandson. By January 1919 mother and daughter were practically starving. In a letter to the Red Cross Society, Ada pleaded for help.

  I had a letter today from her begging very hard for food for herself and child whose health is a great anxiety for her for want of food and milk. She has tried to get home to England for the sake of the child’s life. We have no wish nor has she for her husband, only herself and child. Can she soon come home to be fed before it’s too late or can I send her food for the child, please, please can you help in some way to do something . . . she has no German sympathies, but is a thorough true Englishwoman. I have had three sons at the war all wounded severely, one a prisoner, but my daughter’s plight is my greatest trial.

  A reply came shortly afterwards: ‘The Minister of Blockade has been consulted regarding this matter, and has decided that food should only be supplied, for the present, to genuine British subjects. Accordingly assistance should not be given to Mrs Stephan.’

  British-born women who had married for love effectively remained outcasts. By contrast, a German-born woman, Malvina Mendelssohn, received aid once the authorities had checked that her German husband was naturalised British in the 1870s. He had died in the 1890s and his wife moved to Wiesbaden. On the outbreak of war, and owing to her British nationality, she was forced to leave Wiesbaden, spending the rest of the war in Frankfurt. Old and in ill health, she was in a desperate plight but food parcels would be on their way to her. ‘Inform the CPWC [Central Prisoners of War Committee] that Mrs Mendelssohn is a British subject and that there is no objection to their supplying her with food from Berlin.’

  Government policy angered some senior British officers working in Berlin. One, Major General Sir Richard Ewart, complained about the extreme unfairness involved in the ‘hard and fast rule’ that penalised these British-born women. ‘The result was to exclude a considerable number of very deserving cases and to include many which were clearly not so deserving.’ Despite his protestations, Sir Richard was given his instructions: there was to be no change, although he was at least given the courtesy of a three-point explanation.

  1. If once we begin to allow food to go freely to wives of Germans, there will be an end to the blockade.

  2. To relieve the wife is to relieve the husband and I think the principle is unsound, especially as we hear from the Netherlands Minister in Berlin of the number of British subjects there who are in need of relief.

  3. The British-born wife of a German is no longer a British subject . . . German subjects should be helped by their own Government out of the supplies allowed under the terms of the armistice and any such future supplies – not by the British Red Cross.

  If these British-born women were going to be fed, they would have to return to Britain. In March 1919, in a Foreign Office file, an official set out the prevailing view. ‘It’s a Home Office matter, but their attitude we know is that British born widows of Boches may be permitted to come to this country provided that they undertake to apply for naturalisation as soon as possible after arrival. I do not think any children who were German nationals would be admitted.’ It was a stance that would not alter until peace was signed; until then, it was unlikely that any British-born ‘German’ mother was about to leave her children behind.

  In Berlin, Princess Blücher addressed the plight of such women in her journal, asking why it was that British and American wives were being made to suffer through no fault of their own. Her journal was coming to a close after four and a half years of jotting down disasters great and small, for ‘there was hardly ever a ray of light to vary the long gloomy chapter of history’, she believed.

  We English or Americans who happen to have alien husbands are subject to mistrust and suspicion everywhere. Instead of our position being alleviated by the end of actual hostilities, we shall be treated as pariahs and outsiders in every country.

  From the very outbreak of the war our position was difficult, and the more conscientiously we tried to act up to our feeling of duty to both countries, the more keenly did we feel the slights and insults we often had to bear. Destiny devolved upon us the task of trying to be impartial (as far as this was possible) to both countries, and of endeavoring to keep up some shred of courteous feeling between them.

  It was not an easy moment for many of us, when, loving our country and our families with every fibre of our being, we followed our husbands abroad into their own land, urged by loyalty to them to try and be just in our opinions, at a moment when our relatives were falling at their hands, and all the evil spirits of hatred and resentment were let loose on the world.

  True, our relations in England and America remained faithful, but very often their partisanship for us made them liable to petty persecutions themselves. Here, where we were subject to suspicion and mistrust at every step, and our simplest sayings were wilfully misconstrued, our husbands fought our battles loyally, and although they were patriotic in the best sense of the word, were regarded with doubt in both countries. Now, at this time of spurious peace, we are worse off than ever. We may not return to the home of our youth, even for the most fleeting visit to our parents who are dying to see us, because our husbands, no matter what their way of thinking may be, happen to be aliens; for the same reason our money and belongings are kept back from us. In Germany again we are looked upon doubtfully because our sympathies may be too international; in neutral countries we may not visit or associate with society for fear of compromising our friends; whilst in order not to compromise our husbands we may not be seen talking to English or American friends or relatives anywhere in public. Thus, everywhere we feel banished and in exile, and long for a time when a more charitable feeling shall prevail in the world. These complaints are of course not to be limited to the English wives of Germans, but may be applied to all women married to aliens. There is indeed no place under the sun for us, and absolutely no laws to protect us . . .

  Feelings of alienation and displacement held another group in its thrall, although in many people’s eyes this group had done nothing other than bring trouble down on its own collective head. The Reverend Henry Williams knew about them, the ‘renegades’, he called them, the men of the Irish Brigade as they knew themselves - the four dozen or so who signed up under Sir Roger Casement’s encouragement to fight for Ireland. These men had ended up abandoned and segregated from all other prisoners, sitting out the war in military barracks at Zossen, spending time in pubs, as Williams was led to believe.

  The
last I heard of these Irishmen was that they were still in Germany for some time after the end of the war because they daren’t go home for fear of being shot. One of them, a big fat fellow, made himself conspicuous when the Revolution broke out by finding his way with a Machine Gun on to the top of the Brandenburg Tor in Berlin and remaining perched up here for two or three days. For the sake of that machine gun it is to be hoped he kept fairly sober.

  Whether Williams actually saw the Irishman or not is unclear. If it was second-hand information, it certainly appears reliable and may have come from Major General Sir Richard Ewart, with whom Williams was well acquainted. Through Sir Richard, a more detailed story of Casement and his ill-fated Brigade emerged. In early February 1919, Sir Richard met Princess Evelyn Blücher and her husband at the Continental Hotel in Berlin. Over dinner a number of topics were discussed: Princess Blücher spoke first of the military campaign in Africa where her brother-in-law, Admiral Sir Edward Charlton, had been serving alongside Sir Richard during operations. And then the talk turned to Casement, as Sir Richard recorded.

  She mentioned that they [the Prince and Princess] had seen a good deal of Casement. They looked at him as a most misguided man, and practically off his head . . . Before Casement left for the final trip [to Ireland], he gave Prince Blücher some handwritten papers . . . Princess Blücher asked me to read the papers . . . They are interesting as showing that Casement was averse to any attempted uprising in Ireland unless supported by organized foreign assistance in the shape of men, arms, supplies etc. The Irish Revolutionaries on the other hand asked Germany to send arms alone. Casement thought this a mad scheme, and refused to endanger the men of his ‘Brigade’ by sending them on the venture. The German Government then rounded on him, and threatened to throw the whole blame on him by reporting him to the Irish Revolutionaries . . . it was interesting to see that Ireland was in constant communication with Germany.

  Three days after this convivial dinner, Sir Richard came across five Irish Brigade volunteers; by this time the hand-made green uniforms were gone. Now they were ‘a rough looking lot in civilian clothes’, and included one of the original ringleaders, Henry Burke.

  Our discovery of Burke was interesting. During the fighting in Berlin, the Government troops picketed the Brandenburg Gate at the end of the Unter den Linden and all motors were stopped. Lieutenant Breen went through in a car and to his astonishment the NCO of the picket challenged in a broad Irish brogue!

  This was Private Burke of the Connaught Rangers [he was actually of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers]. In the evening he came round to the Embassy and told his story. It appeared that when the Revolution took place and the German guards were slack, many prisoners got out of their camps and Burke, knowing he was a marked man as belonging to the Casement ‘Brigade’, disappeared with the others. He hung about in Berlin thereafter till one day he saw, during the fighting, a Government soldier throw down his rifle and join the [communist-inspired] Sparticists and he said it was more than he could stand to remain idle when a fight was on so he joined up with the Government troops and fought with them!

  The men had little to do, nowhere to go and in the end they became compliant. Whether they were cajoled or threatened, the five left Berlin and headed for Cologne to report to Second Army Headquarters for repatriation. More men of the Irish Brigade followed and within weeks most of the men who had enlisted into the Irish Brigade were back in Britain. Four never returned. One died of natural causes in 1916; one committed suicide; one more died in a fight with another Irish Brigade recruit, and the last was shot dead during the continued unrest in Germany in February 1919.

  The survivors had every reason to feel nervous returning to Britain after the punishment handed out to the Irish rebels of Easter 1916. In fact they need not have worried. The majority of those who had joined the Brigade had, by providence, achieved absolutely nothing and that in a sense was their saving grace.

  In February 1919, the government considered the fate of Casement’s Brigade. There was little inclination to pursue the men for treason or desertion. The recent amnesty and release of Irish rebels from prison weakened the case for a prosecution, and a trial would, it was acknowledged, only inflame feelings once again in Ireland. Lawyers working for the Crown believed that any trial would have to be pursued through the civil courts and not by court martial, as many of the cases would be disbarred owing to the lapse of time. Section 161 of the Army Act, lawyers advised, stipulated that a court martial had to take place within three years of an offence.

  We are of the opinion that it is highly improbable that a jury would convict anybody of this offence against whom it could only be said that he had joined the Irish Brigade. It would be open to any such a person to say, and to say without the possibility of contradiction, that his reason for joining was not disloyalty to the Crown, but a desire to get a favourable opportunity for escape, or more lenient treatment from the Germans.

  On the same day as the Law Officers’ report, Winston Churchill stood up in the House of Commons and told MPs that as far as the government was aware, thirty-three of the Brigade were now back in Britain and, while their whereabouts were known, none was in custody. A month later at least six of the Brigade had returned to Ireland and the decision was quickly taken not to proceed against any of them for ‘technical reasons’. In reality the best prosecution evidence would either have had to come from members of the Brigade who chose to turn on their comrades, which was unlikely, or from the Germans themselves, and that was out of the question. The Allies’ expressed determination was to prosecute Germans for war crimes, not to call them as witnesses in a trial of British citizens.

  The Versailles Peace Treaty included specific clauses to deal with the thorny issue of war criminals and their prosecution. By signing the Treaty, the Germans committed themselves to Articles 228, 229 and 230 which required them to hand over alleged criminals for trial in Allied courts. Yet, despite Germany receiving a combined Allied list of 854 names, including German war heroes such as Hindenburg and Ludendorff, not one senior ranking politician or soldier was ever prosecuted.

  Fleet Street fury over enemy atrocities led the public to believe that British politicians would lead the way in demanding the handover of war criminals; there had certainly been enough vitriolic political speeches made after the ceasefire to gave that impression. Britain would take the lead but, ironically, not in prosecutions. Among the Allies, Britain backed out of putting anyone on trial who had or still held any significant political or military standing in Germany.

  By contrast to France or Belgium, Britain was effectively untouched by the destruction of property. Significantly, Britain’s war aims were broadly satisfied by the end of June 1919. Germany’s High Seas fleet, interned at the Royal Naval base in Scapa Flow, had been scuttled by the ships’ skeleton crews. Without a navy and shorn by the Treaty of all colonial possessions, Germany would never again threaten the Empire, or so it was thought. The political imperative to hunt down German war criminals faded with declining public pressure at home and the general desire to move on and address domestic economic and social problems. When the Dutch refused to hand over Kaiser Wilhelm, the British huffed and puffed but ultimately accepted the decision. Indeed, in time the British strove to ameliorate the far more aggressive stance of French and Belgian politicians towards the realisation of war crimes trials, fearing that prosecution of senior German officers would cause a right-wing backlash and further destabilise the country. The truth was that the British fear of Bolshevik ideology spreading from the east, rather than the issue of war criminals, held the attention of politicians. In a note found amongst Foreign Office papers and dated March 1920, Winston Churchill made clear where his sympathies lay.

  In my view the objective which we should pursue at the present time is the building up of a strong but peaceful Germany who will not attack our French allies, but will at the same time act as a moral bulwark against the Bolshevism of Russia . . . The advice of the War Office throughout
the last fifteen months has consistently [con]tended that recovery, stability and [the] tranquilization of Europe, will enable Britain to enjoy the fruits of victory . . .

  It was a pragmatic statement. Even so, after all the politicians’ promises, some attempt to prosecute would have to be made, and each nation drew up its list of targets, starting from the top.

  British military intelligence officer Stewart Roddie was a man acutely aware of Germany’s precarious political position. In early 1920, six months after Versailles, he attended a supper at the home of a prominent businessman who acted as host to the country’s political elite. The President and Prime Minister of Germany were to be there, as was the country’s Defence Minister, Gustav Noske. According to Roddie, using this private house allowed people to speak frankly and openly.

  As Roddie was about leave his hotel that evening, his batman handed him his coat. In the pocket, he had placed a loaded service revolver and half a dozen rounds of spare ammunition. Roddie was surprised, seeing no reason for such extravagant precautions. ‘Much to his [the batman’s] disgust I refused to be armed to the teeth, but when I reached the rendezvous and found the house surrounded by detectives who certainly were, I wondered if I had not been unduly rash.’

  At dinner, Roddie spoke at length to the Defence Minister. Noske impressed upon Roddie that his government had struggled for a year to build even the semblance of stability and now the Allies demanded the one thing that would make the German people fulminate.

  ‘You want us to arrest the Kaiser, the Crown Prince, Hindenburg, Ludendorff, hundreds of officers, high and low, and deliver them over to you to be tried for crimes against you. Since when has it been the custom for the accuser to be the judge? What would our people think of those who made such a foul demand of them, and what would the world think of the people who complied? . . . I can easily afford to risk my life; I have little to live for. My only son you shot to pieces . . . Oh, he’s not dead. He’s only in a madhouse. That is the end of my family.’