MARGINAL COMMENT

By HAROLD

NICOLSON

THE Prime Minister's statement on Tuesday satisfied the House of Commons that the delicate problem of prisoners of war was being dealt with on humane and sensible lines. There were no Members who did not share the general indignation at the action of Germany, and few who questioned the strict logic of the counter-measures taken by His Majesty's Governments in the United Kingdom and Canada. It was generally recognised that it was the Germans and not ourselves who had violated the provisions of the Geneva Convention. " There is all the difference in the world between emergency precautions and calculated wrong ; nor is there any possible analogy between steps taken during the rush and fury of a trench-raid and the employment of gyves and manacles inside the wire of a detention-camp. If the Germans felt that they had cause for complaint they should, under the Convention, have applied to the Protecting Power ; they should not have violated the express provisions of the Convention by imposing punishment upon indi- viduals who were manifestly innocent of all offence. The fact that we ourselves have appealed to the Swiss Government places us both legally and morally in the right. And if the Germans reject the good offices of the Protecting Power then the alternative will be open to us of carrying out Mr. Churchill's Edinburgh pledge that "no weakness will be shown." The action of the German Government is, in fact, so incredible that people are seeking for some motive, other than the ostensible motive, for such barbaric conduct. Is it that the nightmare of encirclement is beginning to drive the cornered animal into desperate ferocity? Is it that the Axis Governments are seeking some opportune diversion whereby to distract the attention of their peoples from their Eastern dis- comfitures? Or is it but the prelude to further violations?

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Stich are the questions which are being asked. Each one of these several motives may, in fact, be present in the Nazi mind. Yet it may also be that we misunderstand, or underestimate, the psycho- logical motive which prompted such intemperance. Our own con- ception of " honour " is something different from the German conception of " Ehre." For us the word "honour" is associated with such terms as " honesty " and " honourable" ; for the Germans the primary association of "Ehre" is with the epithet "dishonour- ing." Thus, whereas the Englishman, when manacled, would probably think first of the extreme discomfort involved, the German would think first of the outrage to his personal dignity. We often misunderstand the motives of foreigners, since we forget that their pride is mechanical, whereas our own is organic. We shall never, even with the disinterested help of the Swiss Government, find a solution of this abominable controversy, unless we recognise that this furor germanicus is very possibly caused by their most peculiar conception of dignity. And I earnestly pray that the Prime Minister's wise decision to appeal to Berne will achieve the success that it deserves. The spontaneous and universal feeling in the House of Commons and in the country that negotiation is preferable to reprisals (while it is a heartening sign of our continued spiritual health) is not only based upon the consideration that numerically the Germans are bound to win the reprisals game. The fact that at the last moment Mussolini bounced into the business with his accustomed "Me too, please!" will not induce us to redress the balance by inflicting upon Italian prisoners punishment for decisions taken in Berlin which are alien to Italian gentility. But let neither Berne nor Berlin suppose that because we hate doing a thing we shall refrain from doing it if all else fails. That would be a

grievous error. * * * * The treatment of prisoners of wat is in fact one of the most accurate barometers of civilisation. I should recommend to those who have doubts regarding the progress of human enlightenment a study of the ever-increasing reason and humanity with which nations have approached this problem of prisoners of war. Gradu- ally the original conception of massacre or enslavement was super- seded by fne device of ransom, a device which during the Middle Ages was worked out with sense and care, a generally agreed tariff being imposed. By the eighteenth century it came to be realised that a prisoner of war was not to be regarded as the personal pro- perty of his captor, and that his treatment should be based, not upon motives of profit, punishment or revenge, but upon the sole consideration that he must be prevented from again taking up arms. It was not until the 1785 Treaty between Prussia and the United States that the principle was firmly established that a prisoner of war should not be confined in any convict prison and should not be loaded with irons.

* * * * 'I should like to feel that we in Great Britain had been pioneers in this enlightened movement. It cannot be said, however, that during the Seven Years War, the American War or the Napoleonic Wars our record was better than those of other belligerents. The French were convinced that we treated our prisoners abominably, and among the many legends curt ent in France was the story that the English doctors were so terrified of contracting typhus that they felt the pulses of their prisoners with the tip of their canes.

The care of prisoners of war, which had originally been in the charge of the "Sick and Hurt Office," was transferred in aoo to the Transport Office. From time to time the House of Commons would institute enquiries, or individual Members, such as Lord Cochrane, would seek in vain to visit the prisons themselves. Such enquiries were always met by the affidavits of the commandants or warders and by the production of the printed regulations in force.

Nothing could have exceeded the humanity of these regulations. The prisoners were treated in every way as well as the correspond- ing ranks in His Majesty's Forces ; their rations were almost lavish ; on six days of the week each man received i lb. of bread, 1 lb. of beef and a quart of beer. On the seventh day he received four ounces of buttes and six ounces of cheese. Full clothing was also provided, and it was explained to the commissioners that if the prisoners appeared naked and half-starved it was due to their un- fortunate propensity for gambling and the fact that they diced their rations and their clothes away. * * * *

There can be little doubt, however, that only a very small pro- portion of the rations or the clothes provided by regulations and paid for by the exchequer ever reached the prisoners themselves. The contractors, the gaolors, and even the commandants, made a lucrative business out of their appointments. It is a significant

fact that although a commandant only received 7s. a day, and although his duties must have been arduous and unpleasant, there

was a long waiting list at the Transport Office of officers applying for these posts. And as always, the conduct, the discipline and the health of the camps depended, not upon the excellence of the regula- tions, but upon the character of the commandant himself. During the Napoleonic Wars there were 122,240 French prisoners in

England, the majority of whom were confined in hulks moored in a row off Rochester and Gillingham. Camps were also established on Dartmoor and at Norman Cross. The mortality was not so very heavy, being some to per cent, over all those years. But the suffer- ing was certainly intense.

* * * s* In my own home at Sissinghurst 2,000 French prisoners were incarcerated between 1756 and 1763 for seven long years. When

Gibbon was there with his yeomanry he recorded the fact that they were " naked " and that their "distress exhibited the calamities of war." It does not seem to have occurred to him that these

calamities might well be mitigated or the prisoners clothed. Yet the greatest of all their hardships must have been that of over-

crowding. Over some of the doors at Sissinghurst there still remains a printed notice of the number of men allotted to each room. One small closet, for instance, measuring no more than twelve foot by

seven, is still marked with the words "No. 51, Six Men." I hope that this was the "caehor," or "black-hole," in which prisoners were confined as punishment. But I am by no means sure.