The Telegraph Book of Readers' Letters from the Great War

by Gavin Fuller

  I consider it the duty, not only of all naturalised Germans, but of every German who enjoys England’s hospitality, to unite in such a petition.

  I am quite sure that the German people realise neither the excellent way in which German prisoners are treated here, nor are they allowed to know the vileness of the treatment of British prisoners in Germany, because the German people are consistently misinformed by their rulers, the Prussian military caste.

  Yours faithfully,

  Paul Windmuller

  72 Mark Lane, E.C.

  SIR – Your correspondent signing himself ‘Scrutator’ suggests that an appeal should be made to the Germans in this country to make representations to the Berlin authorities on the real facts of the case, namely, the contrast in the treatment of Germans in England and British subjects in Germany. I am sure this suggestion will be heartily responded to.

  I, for one, having lived in this country over thirty-three years, have learned to highly esteem the British character for its liberality and generosity. Having, unfortunately, neglected my naturalisation, I am legally classed as an ‘alien enemy of this country’, and as such have had to undergo registration, and have from time to time to report myself at the police station for the renewal of my travelling pass, which enables me to attend to my business. The courtesy and consideration shown to me and my wife by the officials of Brixton police station, as well as locally, is beyond praise, and contrasts most favourably with the treatment meted out to British subjects in Germany. Amongst my numerous English friends and relations in this country none have, since the beginning of this unfortunate war, shown me the slightest animosity (one single solitary case excepted).

  Again, with regard to prisoners of war in concentration camps, I know as a fact that they are treated most liberally and kindly. If only the full facts were made known in Germany I am sure the German people would feel ashamed of the brutality practised by their military authorities upon their defenceless British civilian and military captives. I shall certainly do what I can to make the facts known abroad in neutral countries, as well as in Germany. I feel sure that the majority of the Germans living in England must feel very grateful to the British nation for the humane and generous treatment which is being accorded them during these trying times, and many of them will be glad and proud to become one day loyal British subjects.

  Faithfully yours,

  H.G.

  Carshalton

  REMEMBERED KINDNESS

  SIR – For a long time I have been waiting to see if any German living in England would come forward to protest against the ill-treatment of Britishers in Germany, and I am glad to read Scrutator’s letter, which invites Germans to do so.

  As I have been in camp at Newbury and on board a transport at Portsmouth altogether for seven weeks, I am in a position to speak from experience, and I must say that we were well treated. There was never a case of ill treatment of any sort. The food was sufficient and of good quality, and so much bread at Newbury (five large loaves per day for ten men) that we were able to give daily to the young sturdy seamen, who, of course, can eat a good deal more than men who are used to a life in a city.

  It is impossible to forget the kindness shown to all prisoners at Newbury by the commandant, Colonel Haines, and I shall always remember the day the first lot of prisoners left Newbury for Portsmouth. The men were singing ‘Deutschland Über Alles’ when Colonel Haines was watching them marching off, and a man standing near me said, ‘Can you imagine a lot of British prisoners in Germany singing “Rule Britannia” in front of a German colonel?’ My remark was, ‘No; they very likely would all be shot.’

  Where is there a country that gives everybody such liberty as England does? Where is the country that allows us to earn our living even in wartime, with the only restrictions that are absolutely necessary?

  Let the world therefore know – and I hope it will reach Germany – that we are treated as human beings, and in accordance with British justice, and let Germany take an example and treat British prisoners, and especially gallant officers and soldiers, who have risked their lives for their country, the same way as Germans are treated here. Then, perhaps, we need not be ashamed of the country that once had a great name.

  I am, dear Sir, yours truly,

  Pro-British Alien

  IS IT REASONABLE?

  SIR – We must, of course, support the Government, who are supposed to be putting forth their best efforts to save us from the degradation that the Kultur of Germany means.

  When the infernal German war was imposed on the European world, we, in common with all the other loyal inhabitants of the British Empire, flung our whole weight in to break the Prussian tyranny. We encouraged our sons to fight; we emptied our pockets to help the poor down-trodden Belgians; we drew on our reserves to provide comforts and necessities to our own troops; we suffered the loss of profitable trade with equanimity in the glorious cause; and we assisted our own friends who were punished (even more severely than we were) by the misfortunes of war.

  The casualty lists brought to us the same horror as they brought to everybody. Our dead are lying in France, Belgium, Suez and in the seas. We do not complain. We are British, and we want the flag of freedom to fly in every land. Now we, who have been pursuing honourably and lawfully our vocation of supplying stimulants to those who want them – (we impose our wares on no one) – are asked to suffer ruin because a limited number abuse the goods that we sell. Is this reasonable? If it is, we must suffer in the great cause; but is it reasonable or necessary?

  We do not contemplate without dismay turning adrift many reliable and trusted servants who are too old to take up new vocations.

  Yours faithfully,

  William Williamson, Managing Director, Haig & Haig (Ltd)

  AN ILL-CONSIDERED SCHEME

  SIR – This wild experiment in teetotal legislation, posing as an attempt to improve the output of munitions of war, will, if carried into law, most seriously affect our business and that of all other distillers. We shall have to reduce our expenditure in purchases of material of every sort, and in many other directions. In a word, we shall have to do very much less than we have hitherto done to keep the business of the country going.

  We have no wish to shirk our share of the cost of the war in any shape or form, but we do not think it fair to make use of the present political truce to force on to the country an ill-considered scheme, which under ordinary circumstances would be strenuously opposed in every possible manner, both in Parliament and in the country.

  Yours faithfully,

  Dunville & Co. (Ltd)

  7 May 1915

  PUBLIC SCHOOLS BRIGADE

  Reply to Criticisms

  SIR – Our attention has been called to correspondence which has appealed in the Press with regard to the selection of members of the Public Schools Brigade for commissions in the Army, and, in view of the erroneous statements which have been made, we think that the true position of affairs should be made known.

  In September last the War Office authorised the raising of a brigade to consist in all of 5,400 public school and university men.

  Recruiting was energetically carried on, and we reached a total of very little short of that number. The need for officers for the new Army then began to make itself apparent, and, as was natural, in a brigade composed practically entirely of public school and university men, large numbers began to be taken from our ranks to receive commissions in other regiments.

  This went on without any check until early in the year, when the brigadier-general and officers of the brigade said the men under them began to fear that the brigade had practically been turned into an Officers Training Corps, and approached our committee with a view to ascertaining the exact position.

  We therefore made inquiries from those in authority at the War Office, and received assurances that the brigade was intended to continue to exist as a unit, and not as an Officers Training Corps.

  Further, we were assured that there w
as no intention of drawing upon the brigade for more officers except in special cases of which there would only be a small number.

  At that time 1,700 men had already been recommended for commissions. Since then further need for officers has arisen. We, realising this, agreed to more men being taken, and when this new demand on us has been satisfied a total of not less than 3,083 men will have been taken altogether out of our brigade.

  We think it is only fair to the brigade itself to ourselves as a committee to make public these facts and figures, which speak for themselves, and surely afford a conclusive answer to the criticisms that have appeared to the effect that the brigadier-general and his officers, and we as a committee, have put obstacles in the way of men obtaining commissions.

  All the men who are fit for and desirous of commissions have now been recommended for appointment.

  Arthur Stanley, Chairman

  Lurgan, Vice-Chairman

  H.J. Boon

  J.W. Orde

  (Committee of the Public Schools Brigade, Royal Fusiliers)

  Committee Room 65, 83 Pall Mall, S.W.

  12 May 1915

  HARD CASE OF THE WOUNDED SOLDIER

  Insufficient Pensions Sir F. Milner’s Appeal

  SIR – Is there no member of Parliament who will take up the case of our wounded heroes and insist on their receiving more generous treatment? I spent twenty years of hard labour in Parliament, but would gladly begin again if anybody will offer me a seat, so that I may devote myself to the cause of these splendid men. Since the opening of the war I have visited many thousands in our hospitals, and it has convinced me as nothing else could have done both as to their sufferings and their needs.

  I have kept in touch with many of the more serious cases that I have visited, and I assert that the pensions that are being awarded to the men discharged as unfit for further service are not sufficient to keep life in them. On 23 November 1914, a paper was issued – Circular NRF, dealing with allowances and pensions authorised by His Majesty’s Government in respect of seamen, marines and soldiers. In the case of the lowest grades, pensions amounting to 23s per week as a maximum were authorised, according to the discretion of the authorities, with proportionate increase for the higher grades. Your readers may be surprised to hear that authority has not yet been received by the Commissioners to award this increased rate, and the maximum rate which the Commissioners are authorised to grant to a man totally disabled is 17s 6d per week.

  Maximum of 17s 6d

  Already well over 2,000 men have been discharged as unfit for further service, not counting the thousands of men still in hospital. Many of these men to my knowledge were earning 45s per week at the time war broke out; many of them had formed comfortable little homes for themselves and their families. They have uncomplainingly gone through sufferings and hardships almost unparalleled in the history of warfare; they have sacrificed what many of them value more than life itself; they have helped to save our hearths and homes from irreparable disaster, and a grateful country awards these pitifully maimed heroes a miserable pittance of 17s 6d a week as a maximum, and my experience has shown me that very few of them get as much as this.

  I assert positively, from my own knowledge, that many of these men, just discharged from hospital, for whom plenty of good nourishing food is a necessity if they are ever to hope to regain even partial health, would have had to break up their homes and be deprived of what was absolutely necessary for them but for the timely assistance of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Help Society, which help cannot be indefinitely continued, unless greatly increased support is given by the public. I assert this state of things is a disgrace to the country. The Government pay members of Parliament £400 a year for attending the House of Commons as little as they please for a few months in the year; they are paying well-to-do people 25s a week per horse for keeping remounts for the cavalry; they pay 22s up to 25s per week per head for billeting their men; they are paying exorbitant rents for practically useless buildings; and 17s 6d a week is the highest allowance they will give to these splendid men who have gone through sufferings no pen could describe, and who have saved their country from horrors unspeakable.

  It is indeed time somebody should speak out, and try to stir up the people to insist that justice shall be done to these heroes. It is true that the hospital arrangements are splendid. In all the hospitals I have visited I have never heard a complaint. The work done by the Red Cross is beyond all praise, but what is the use of patching up their poor maimed bodies if we are only going to leave them to starve?

  The unfortunate thing is that so few people seem to realise the necessities of these gallant men. Millions of money are being poured out to help the Belgians, the Serbs, the Poles, the French wounded; even wounded horses are thought of; but little or nothing is being done for these splendid men. I write hundreds of letters every week imploring people to recognise the great needs of these poor maimed heroes, and to enable the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Help Society to supplement the wretched pittances that are doled out to them, but I am told that they have already subscribed so much to all these other funds that they have nothing left for their own countrymen. May I suggest this, that for the first year, at any rate, the Government should allot greatly increased pensions to these men. With good nourishment and proper care many of them may regain some measure of health and be able to do light work.

  Duty of the Public

  Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Help Society hope, if the necessary funds are forthcoming, to add to their workshops in different parts of the country, where many of these poor chaps will be taught and employed at good wages. It is to be hoped that everybody will vie with each other in finding easy jobs for those who have lost an arm or a leg, and then the pensions can be revised, but for months after they have left the hospitals or homes, numbers of these men are utterly unfit for even the lightest work. The suffering they have gone through, and the consequent shock to the nervous system, is such that they must have plenty of nourishing food and be tenderly nursed back to health.

  I am giving up my whole life to this work, and I have personal knowledge and experience of what I have written. I could fill columns of your paper with cases of individual suffering. I believe when once the British public realise the urgent necessity they will insist on generous treatment being promptly given to these heroic men who have given so much and suffered so much for King and country.

  I remain, obediently yours,

  Frederick Milner

  11 Hereford Gardens, London W.

  20 May 1915

  SIR ERNEST CASSEL

  Horror of German Methods

  SIR – As many other British subjects of German extraction have given public expression to their feelings, silence might be misunderstood.

  Nearly half a century of my life has been spent in England, and all my interests – family, business and social – are centred here. All my male relatives of military age are serving with the King’s forces.

  My unfailing loyalty and devotion to this country have never varied or been questioned, and, while affirming this, I desire also to express my deep sense of horror at the manner in which the war is being conducted by the German Government.

  I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

  E. Cassel

  Brook House, Park Lane, London W.

  1 June 1915

  ROLL-CALL OF THE NATION

  Large Employer’s View

  SIR – As one of the employers invited to attend the meeting of the wholesale and retail trades, convened by the Home Office, and designed to secure a further enlistment of men engaged in the distributing trades, may I ask your permission to suggest, as a businessman, that the necessity has now arisen for dealing with the recruiting question in a more drastic manner on business lines?

  In fairness to the men of military age remaining in these businesses, and incidentally, in justice to the employer, we have reached a point, in my opinion, where the principle of compulsion must be recognised, ther
eby giving a complete system of national service.

  Up to this point our voluntary system has achieved wonders. The Empire has not only surprised itself, but the whole world, by raising a volunteer Army of enormous strength. This splendid Army has been gathered from all quarters of the world where the flag flies, and trained by a master mind; and whatever shortcomings there may have been, inseparable from such a mighty effort made so spontaneously, it is still a triumph of organisation.

  Business Firms and Registration

  It is our pride that this firm has sent many hundreds of gallant fellows to this great Army. Several hundreds of military age remain in our employ, and, admittedly, there is a very large number of fine young men yet available in the great London shops – excellent businessmen, and therefore very proper men to be employed in a national service. But I am convinced that it is certainly not wise to take all these men away from their business usefulness until, and unless, they are wanted; and not altogether fair that they should go while many thousands of men throughout the country, equally fit, are not called upon at all.

  For instance, under the system of voluntary registration now being pursued, my firm, with many others, will be asked to give a return of men of recruitable age. This we are pleased to do, and these men will then be directly approached by the authorities. Most probably all these men will feel the call to service imperative, and forthwith enlist, whilst thousands of other men, escaping registration for various reasons, will never be directly approached.