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A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
Clifford B. Markle. 
 
A YANKEE PRISONER 
 IN HUNLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 CLIFFORD MILTON MARKLE 
 
 > I 
 MEDICAL DEPARTMENT. 102nd U. S. INFANTRY 
 26th DIVISION 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 WHITLOCK'S BOOK STORE, INC. 
 
 NEW HAVEN, CONN. 
 
 1920 
 
4> 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY 
 WHITLOCK'S BOOK STORE, INC. 
 
 PRINTED BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 OEG 13 1020 
 g)CU605197 
 
 .^*V'"W 
 
 { 
 
TO MY MOTHER 
 
Clifford M. Markle, the author of the following 
 sketch, was an employe in my office in New Haven for 
 a considerable period. He was loyal, industrious and 
 reliable. When the war came on, he joined the Medical 
 Corps and was sent to France and was ordered to the 
 Front. In one of the first engagements of American 
 troops in April, 1918, he was captured and the follow- 
 ing pages are an interesting account of his experiences 
 as a prisoner of war in Germany. I am glad to have 
 the pleasure of reading it and of commending it to 
 others. 
 
 WM. H. TAFT. 
 
 Pointe au Pic, 
 
 Province of Quebec, Canada. 
 
 August 29, 1920. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 A Yankee Prisoner in Hunland 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 A Description of the Camp at Darmstadt 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 Incidents of Camp Life at Darmstadt 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 Air Raids ..... 
 
 
 
 38 
 
 Sundays 
 
 
 
 
 
 39 
 
 A Lucky Accident 
 
 
 
 
 
 41 
 
 French from St. Quentin 
 
 
 
 
 
 43 
 
 Beginning of the End 
 
 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 Kriegs Fertigs 
 
 
 
 
 
 48 
 
 Westward Bound . 
 
 
 
 
 
 50 
 
A YANKEE PRISONER IN 
 HUNLAND 
 
 On April 20, 1918, occurred the Battle of Seicheprey, 
 which will go down in American history as the Lexing- 
 ton of the World War. It was at Seicheprey that 2000 
 Prussian shock troops were sent over to overwhelm a 
 mere handful of Yankees, but much to the disappoint- 
 ment and chagrin of the German general who planned 
 the attack, the doughboys, fighting like demons, drove 
 the Prussian horde back, inflicting heavy casualties. 
 Statistics show that the Germans lost four to our one. 
 
 As a first-aid man, attached to the infantry, I was 
 captured, along with a few other medical men while 
 working in a front-line dugout, and carried into Ger- 
 many, where we were regarded as curiosities by the 
 majority of the German people, who thought of the 
 Americans as a cross between an Indian and a cowboy. 
 This conclusion the Boche had reached from seeing 
 moving pictures depicting Buffalo Bill and others of 
 his type. 
 
 The moment I was in the hands of the Germans at 
 our front-line trench they stripped me of my leather 
 jerkin, which I wore outside of my blouse and also my 
 French gas-mask. All the men who wore rubber boots 
 were deprived of them and forced to walk in their 
 stocking feet across No Man's Land, suffering excru- 
 ciatingly, as the barbed-wire entanglements cut their 
 feet. One American first-aid man was confined in a 
 German hospital for five months as a result of this 
 brutality. Even to-day this soldier, who was a chum 
 
8 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 of mine, walks poorly, as infection continually reasserts 
 itself. 
 
 After reaching the German first-line trench, which 
 was thronged with shock troops awaiting the word to 
 go over, with both American and German barrages still 
 very violent, four Americans, including myself, were 
 ordered to carry a wounded German soldier back to 
 their battalion aid station. Before doing this, however, 
 our pockets were rifled, watches, rings, fountain-pens, 
 and francs in silver were taken from us and kept for 
 souvenirs, but letters. Bibles, or personal trinkets were 
 returned. 
 
 In transporting the wounded Hun, who was slung 
 in a piece of canvas attached to a pole, one man at each 
 end balancing it on his shoulder, the arrangement of 
 the so-called stretcher forced us to walk very slowly, 
 as the German swung from side to side like the pendu- 
 lum of a clock, nearly throwing us off our balance, 
 especially while passing through shell holes filled with 
 mud and water. We were going over the top along 
 the communication trench while the German first-aid 
 men who escorted us and were armed to the teeth, having 
 a rifle, knife, and huge pistol similar to that carried by 
 the infamous Captain Kidd, walked in the trench with 
 pistols leveled at the backs of our heads ready to blow 
 out our brains if we made a false move. So you see 
 our chances of escape at this particular stage of the 
 game were very slight. 
 
 Upon reaching the German aid station our patient, 
 who had suffered agony, had his wound dressed and 
 was transported by means of a narrow-gauge railway 
 to a German base hospital behind the lines. 
 
 We were more than glad to be relieved of our load, 
 but unfortunately for me I had hardly reached the 
 German third-line trench when a "Flamenwerfer," or 
 flame-thrower, liquid fire apparatus, was hoisted on 
 my already weary back by some unsympathetic son of 
 
A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 9 
 
 Prussia, and I had to march about ten kilometers thus 
 equipped. I had hiked with heavy packs in France, 
 but this hike excelled for length any twenty kilometer 
 hike, or so it seemed. 
 
 As we were passing through Alsace, there were many 
 French people in every doorway, and when they learned 
 that the prisoners were Americans, the women and girls 
 wept bitterly, for they well knew what fate was in 
 store for those who had the ill luck to be captives among 
 the Huns. 
 
 Queer as it may seem, some of these same people 
 were the ones who greeted us seven months later after 
 our release from prison camps at the beginning of the 
 armistice, with cries of "Vive I'Americain," as we passed 
 through Alsace from Metz to Toul en route to the "land 
 of the free and the home of the brave." 
 
 About noon we reached the town of Thiacourt, where 
 we were herded into a church like a flock of sheep, 
 reminding me of the poem "Evangeline," when the 
 British drove the French Canadians of Acadia into 
 the village church. 
 
 Here a German general who spoke English fluently 
 addressed us as follows: "So you Americans call 
 America a free country, do you? Well, it is not free, 
 but Germany is, and you ought to be glad that you have 
 been captured, as we shall soon demoralize America as 
 we have France, England, and Russia. One thing 
 more, if we ever run across your regiment again we shall 
 give no quarter, for to-day the flower of the German 
 army has been severely shattered by your stubborn 
 resistance against overwhelming odds." 
 
 We grinned at that speech, for although we were 
 prisoners and knew not how many days we had left on 
 this planet, it did our hearts good to know that the 
 mettle of the American army had proved to be the best 
 in the world. 
 
 At the conclusion of his brief speech, the general left 
 
10 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 the church, and we were served with "blut-wurst," a 
 sort of bologna, black bread, and a barley soup, which 
 tasted mighty good, as the majority of us had not had 
 a meal since the previous night and were famished. 
 
 Following the meal post-cards were distributed which 
 contained the following message, short and to the point, 
 "I am a prisoner of war in Germany." At the extreme 
 left bottom were the three words, "well, sick, wounded." 
 We crossed out the two not applicable to our particular 
 case, and signed our names at the extreme right bottom. 
 These cards were supposed to be sent to Washington, 
 D. C, but later inquiries failed to prove that such was 
 the case. 
 
 Upon the completion of the cards we were marched 
 from the church to the station (Bahnhof) through 
 streets jammed with German soldiers of all types, in- 
 fantry, machine gunners, artillery, aviators, and even 
 S. O. S. (Service of Supply), who had heard of the 
 capture of the "Amerikaners," and were anxious to 
 catch a glimpse of us. But to our surprise and forced 
 admiration hardly a remark was passed as we marched 
 along. 
 
 Entraining at seven o'clock we rode for about an 
 hour, when we detrained at the town of Conflans, which 
 contained prisoners of all the Allied nationalities, Eng- 
 lish, French, Italians, Belgians, Cossacks, Russians, 
 Siberians, Boumanians, and Serbians. 
 
 We marched a short distance to a building which con- 
 sisted of a theater on the ground floor and two vacant 
 rooms on the second floor. Into the vacant rooms we 
 were herded and ordered to sleep there for the night. 
 
 The rooms contained some bed-sacks sparsely filled 
 with bits of paper, threads, and rags, a stove, minus its 
 fuel, and two windows whose panes were covered by two 
 blankets to prevent any light in the room from shining 
 out and betraying the building to Allied aeroplanes 
 flying over for bombing purposes. 
 
A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 11 
 
 As it was only April 20, it was still chilly, and only 
 a few of us had overcoats, so that night we secured scant 
 sleep. I had hit upon the idea of walking up and down 
 the better part of the night and of huddling over the 
 stove, imagining that there was heat within, and then 
 when daybreak came I pulled down the two blankets, 
 rolled up in them, and snatched a couple of hours' much 
 needed rest. 
 
 About seven o'clock in the morning we were awak- 
 ened. I say "awakened" because that is the logical 
 thing following a night ; but as a matter of fact, the ma- 
 jority were already out of the "Land of Nod." The 
 guards closed in, and we marched downstairs into the 
 adjoining building, where we were handed a wash- 
 basin apiece containing what the Germans called coffee, 
 but was really made from ground acorns boiled down. 
 The Americans termed it "acorn-water." We soon 
 became accustomed to this liquid, as it was our break- 
 fast for many long days following, but we never grew 
 to like it. With this bowl of "coffee" we were given a 
 small piece of bread about four inches square by one 
 inch, which we were told would be our bread ration "per 
 diem." 
 
 After "breakfasting," details were picked from the 
 men and carrying bricks, digging foundations, chopping 
 wood, shoveling coal, and carrying flour constituted our 
 amusements until noon, when a bowl, alias wash-basin, 
 of soup was rationed out to each man. This soup con- 
 sisted principally of what was known as "Kuhlrube," 
 or in the vernacular, cow-turnips, with an occasional 
 bean or minute particle of fish. The latter item the 
 Germans procured from the North Sea, or, according 
 to them, the German Ocean. 
 
 In the afternoon the same outdoor sports were in- 
 dulged in as characterized the morning. At six o'clock 
 another delicious hot bowl of "acorn-water" was served 
 to the, by now, half-starved Americans. At the conclu- 
 
12 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 sion of the evening meal we endeavored to sleep, and 
 as we were all very tired soon passed into dreamland, 
 where we visualized huge stacks of pies, ice cream, and 
 such dainties, only to be awakened by the cold and dis- 
 cover the real conditions. 
 
 The next day our names, rank, and organizations 
 were taken, and the Germans said they would cable to 
 Washington, D. C, via the International Red Cross at 
 Berne, Switzerland, all the data concerning us, which 
 relieved our minds considerably, as we knew that our 
 folks would be worrying a great deal as to our where- 
 abouts and general condition. 
 
 A German minister with a long, grim face inter- 
 viewed group after group of us, asking us why 
 America entered the war. He said, "America entered 
 the war because of the money she had lent England and 
 France, and had to go to war to save it." Everywhere 
 the retort came to him, "We went to war because of 
 the looting of Belgium and the sinking of the Lusi- 
 tania" and before he got through with it the German 
 dominie knew something more of American sentiment 
 than ever before. This minister was, undoubtedly, a 
 spy sent among us to get information which the officers 
 were unable to obtain. 
 
 On Friday, which was six days after the Battle of 
 Seicheprey, we were given a bath and de-cooterized. 
 
 Saturday morning, early, we left Conflans by second- 
 class coaches for the French prison camp at Darmstadt, 
 passing through Metz, en route. We changed trains 
 at Metz. In this city a large crowd had assembled at 
 the depot and its vicinity, news of the Americans having 
 preceded us, to verify the hardly believable rumors that 
 America really did have men on the firing line. 
 
 Here occurred the only occasion where I ever saw the 
 iron discipline of the German army violated. Marching 
 with us was a ' lieutenant-doctor who was captured 
 while doing his duty in taking care of the wounded at 
 
DESCRIPTION OF CAMP AT DARMSTADT 13 
 
 his battalion aid station in Seicheprey. Of course, 
 we were completely surrounded by guards with fixed 
 bayonets, and this fact undoubtedly saved the lieu- 
 tenant's life. An intoxicated German soldier standing 
 along the line of march made a thrust at the lieutenant 
 with his bayonet, at the same time shouting "Ver- 
 dammte Amerikaner" ; but the guard parried the mur- 
 derous blow with the butt of his own rifle, thereby sav- 
 ing the doctor's life and another blot on Germany's 
 already stained escutcheon. From Metz the American 
 doctor was sent to an ofiicers' camp, from which place 
 he was soon transferred to conduct a hospital for 
 American wounded prisoners of war. 
 
 A DESCRIPTION OF THE CAMP AT 
 DARMSTADT 
 
 The entire camp was surrounded by barbed-wire 
 fences, twelve feet high with double strands at the top, 
 making escape somewhat difficult. 
 
 Every seventy feet was a sentry box at which was 
 stationed a member of the "Landsturm," or reserve 
 soldier of the German army. 
 
 Within the camp, which was subdivided into sections 
 with a certain number of barracks to a section, barbed 
 wire separated the French from the Americans. A dirt 
 path ran between the French quarters and the Ameri- 
 can quarters, which was six feet wide and terminated 
 at one end in the barracks and guard-house, where our 
 captors lived, and at the other at the main entrance to 
 the camp. 
 
 The French would sometimes throw their black bread 
 rations across the barrier to the Americans and there 
 followed a wild scramble for the possession of the 
 precious "staff of life" even though the "staff" was 
 black. 
 
14 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 Right here I may say that the German bread con- 
 tained about as much nourishment as a piece of wet 
 sawdust, and tasted very similar. 
 
 At Darmstadt the soup consisted mostly of meal 
 gruel, cow-turnips, black mushrooms, beans, and some- 
 times a potato. 
 
 Upon our arrival at Darmstadt we were asked our 
 occupations, and we thought the work would be based 
 on our answers, but later learned through bitter experi- 
 ence that a doughboy who said he was a traveling sales- 
 man was usually assigned to a coal-mine, and that one 
 who signed as a farmer or day-laborer stayed in camp 
 on Red Cross Committees or received work which re- 
 quired a minimum amount of muscle. It was the same 
 with all the prisoners of the Allied Powers. 
 
 Of course we joked the lad who put "traveling sales- 
 man" on his blank. He might have surmised that as a 
 prisoner of war his traveling would be more or less 
 limited, and his sale of goods small. 
 
 At Darmstadt we found a few English, a dozen 
 Americans who had been captured while on raids pre- 
 vious to April 20, and some Italians and Russians ; but 
 its population consisted chiefly of French, who num- 
 bered five thousand. 
 
 We were quartered in barracks which were clean and 
 airy; we received two blankets, a bed-sack filled with 
 bits of paper, rags, and thread, and also a bowl for 
 soup. 
 
 Outside each barracks were wash-stands and faucets 
 providing running water which was also "Trinken- 
 wasser," and as such was fit to drink without chlorina- 
 tion or boiling. 
 
 We arrived at this camp on the 28th of April, and 
 remained there until the 1st of June. During that 
 period we received four inoculations and one vaccina- 
 tion, administered to us by a very skilled German 
 doctor who had been a prisoner of war in France. The 
 
DESCRIPTION OF CAMP AT DARMSTADT 15 
 
 Germans exchanged for him two French doctors and 
 ten French Red Cross men, for they considered this sur- 
 geon very valuable for their work at Darmstadt both 
 because of his professional skill and his fluent French 
 tongue. 
 
 Every morning we received our bowl of "acorn- 
 water" and our thin ration of black bread, which had to 
 do us all day. 
 
 Usually men would be picked for detail by our own 
 non-commissioned officers, and the work started at 
 seven o'clock, ending at six o'clock. 
 
 There were several different kinds of work for the 
 prisoners, and old "Ein-und-zwanzig," who was the 
 German sergeant in charge of us, had his hands full 
 arranging suitable work for the Yanks. 
 
 The worst detail was shoveling coal, and the best was 
 package detail. 
 
 The camp was situated near a large aviation field, 
 and every day a detail of fifty men would march down 
 there to work all day. Of course we all tried to "duck" 
 the coal-pile job, but one was never sure at which end 
 of the line to stay. If one remained at the head of the 
 formation upon arrival at the field, as like as not the 
 sergeant would hand out coal shovels to the first ten 
 men. On the other hand if one remained at the rear of 
 the column, the Boche would distribute coal shovels 
 commencing at the rear; so it was a constant source of 
 irritation to the exceptionallj^ fastidious among us to 
 figure out a way to elude the Ethiopian detail. 
 
 As Darmstadt was a French camp established in 
 1914, the French had things pretty well systematized, 
 and food from home as well as from the government 
 via the Red Cross at Berne, Switzerland, arrived daily 
 for assortment and distribution. To expedite the dis- 
 tribution of these packages, many of which had to go to 
 French prisoners who were out at work all over Ger- 
 many, a committee composed of French non-commis- 
 
16 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 sioned officers, permanently stationed in the camp, and 
 a detail of French soldiers, who for one reason or 
 another could not do hard manual labor, were appointed 
 by the German authorities in charge of the camp. 
 
 Fortunately for the few Americans in the camp, the 
 comimittee and its aid-de-camps were very much behind 
 in their work, and the storehouse at the station was piled 
 high with as yet undistributed packages ; so the Ameri- 
 cans were called into service and responded nobly to 
 the summons. Accordingly, a detail of fifteen men was 
 selected and at five o'clock on the following morning 
 marched to the depot at Darmstadt, which was about 
 five kilometers from the camp. 
 
 We certainly presented a motley spectacle to the Ger- 
 man onlookers. Some of us were clad in Russian uni- 
 forms, others in old French costumes, and five of the 
 men, wearing wooden shoes, stumped clumsily along 
 trying to keep up with the rest of us. After reaching 
 the storehouse, we were assigned to our work, one 
 American, one Frenchman, and one German inspector 
 in a group of three. As prisoners, we opened the pack- 
 ages, the German inspected its contents, and we then 
 replaced the articles and tied up the packages. 
 
 An average package from home contained the fol- 
 lowing : a small piece of soap, biscuits, wearing apparel, 
 chocolate, potatoes, macaroni, tea, coffee, sugar, rice, 
 salt, pepper, beans, and tobacco. Although nearly 
 every package contained, biscuits, the biscuits were ap- 
 propriated by the Hun, as the French government sent 
 a ration of hard bread to its prisoners, and the Germans 
 took advantage of this fact. Cigarette papers were 
 also removed from the packages, as the Hun feared 
 messages might be written on one of the thin sheets in 
 the middle of the bunch. 
 
 Naturally it was a great temptation to us to steal 
 some of the food and carry it back to camp for our own 
 use, but as it was too much like "robbing Peter to pay 
 
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INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT DARMSTADT 17 
 
 Paul" we resisted the impulse. The French were our 
 Allies, and as such we were friends in a common cause 
 against the Boche. 
 
 At noon we lunched with the French committee, on 
 macaroni, bread, chocolate, and coffee — a great im- 
 provement on our usual noonday repast. 
 
 The afternoon passed quickly, and we were soon back 
 in camp having really enjoyed ourselves. 
 
 INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT 
 DARMSTADT 
 
 The French received a great deal of canned goods 
 from their government, fish, meat, and vegetables. The 
 empty cans were collected and flattened by means of 
 a huge plank operated on a hinge against a block. Then 
 the cans were shoveled into carts drawn and pushed by 
 prisoners, who transported the cans to the Darmstadt 
 freight yards, where they were loaded onto box-cars, 
 and sent away to be melted up so as to extract the metal 
 of any value. 
 
 Another act illustrative of the German ingenuity: as 
 is generally known, the American helmet has for a 
 bumper on the inside a circle of small rubber cushions, 
 which are placed so as to soften the shock of a blow 
 striking the outside of the helmet. The Germans 
 ordered us to turn in all our helmets, thinking they could 
 extract the bumpers, thereby furnishing themselves 
 with a small but precious quantity of rubber. Through 
 the French interpreter at the camp we were notified of 
 the Germans' intentions, and secretly each one of us 
 extracted the rubber cushions one by one from our 
 helmets, burying them surreptitiously. The next day, 
 the Germans collected the helmets, but much to their 
 chagrin found the rubber missing. Of course they as- 
 sembled the Americans and wanted to know why the 
 
18 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 rubber had been removed, but our interpreters merely 
 shook their heads and repHed that nothing could be done 
 about the matter. 
 
 We were permitted to write one letter every two 
 weeks, which of course was censored by the Germans. 
 The difficulty of procuring the proper writing paper 
 made even one letter in two weeks impossible for some 
 of us, as the paper required had the prison headings 
 stamped on it, and could only be obtained at the camp 
 canteen at a cost of one-half mark per sheet and en- 
 velope. Due to the fact that the average American 
 doughboy is "financially embarrassed" a day or two 
 after every pay day the majority of us didn't have a 
 "sou" or rather a "pfennig" when we were taken pris- 
 oners. I wrote a letter May 2nd which was received by 
 my folks in the States on June 16th, not such a long 
 time getting there, all things considered. 
 
 It was the custom for the Huns to pick a detail of 
 ten men for kitchen police, or in the American parlance 
 "K. P." The duties of the K. P.'s were to peel potatoes 
 for the soup; one bowl of soup usually contained one 
 portion of one "spud"; therefore, we didn't have so 
 many that we couldn't eat a few outside of the regular 
 menu. Well, to make a long story short, potatoes 
 began to appear mysteriously in the barracks, and the 
 next problem was to cook them. Some of us procured 
 wood obtained by pulling the pickets lining the gardens 
 in the camp, and surreptitiously prepared a fire after 
 posting our own "plain-clothes" guards, who were to 
 notify us when the Boche sentinels approached the im- 
 mediate vicinity. Everything went along finely, and 
 three of us had cooked our "spuds" ; the fourth man was 
 just putting his potatoes over the fire when the German 
 sergeant, old "Ein-und-zwanzig," so called by the 
 Americans for his especially gutteral pronunciation of 
 "twenty-one," came running around the corner of the 
 barracks in search of trouble, and he was not disap- 
 
INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT DARMSTADT 19 
 
 pointed. However, the potato cooker, out of the corner 
 of his eye (the American watchers had run at the first 
 glimpse) saw "Ein-und-zwanzig" and grabbing the 
 "spuds" jumped up and started to run; but the Hun's 
 fingers closed on the Yank coat-tail and clung there 
 with the tenacity of a bulldog. As it happened, when 
 the American started to run he was headed straight for 
 the guard-house; so the oddly assorted pair continued 
 their flight until the door was reached. The sergeant 
 shoved his man roughly into a cell and there he was 
 confined for a week, with a cup of water and two thin 
 slices of bread for that period. After that example 
 the theft of the potatoes diminished remarkably and the 
 starved expression on our faces increased considerably. 
 
 Tobacco was another source of great irritation, or 
 rather the lack of it. The poor fellows would go prowl- 
 ing around trying to scrape up enough for one cigarette 
 with their noses to the ground like a fox terrier hot on 
 the scent, and it would take them all their spare time 
 to secure enough of "the makings," for even a thin 
 cigarette, as the Germans smoked their cigarettes down 
 till they burned their whiskers on account of the scarcity 
 of tobacco in "Deutschland." 
 
 One evening much to our surprise and delight we 
 were told that we could attend the moving pictures at 
 the French theater in the camp. This theater had been 
 built by the prisoners who were permanently located at 
 camp, and seated about five hundred. The price of ad- 
 mission was fifty pfennigs or a half mark. Some of us 
 had received a mark that day from the camp authorities 
 for the work of unloading freight cars a few days pre- 
 vious, which enabled us to go and take a chum along. 
 An orchestra composed of French musicians furnished 
 the musical program and a French interpreter trans- 
 lated the words of the movies, which were German, as 
 the picture progressed. Fortunatelj^ for us one of the 
 Americans with our party spoke French fluently; so he 
 
20 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 translated the French interpreter's words. The most 
 interesting feature of the evening to the Americans was 
 a fihn depicting the Germanic conception of America 
 as revealed in a wild and woolly scene. We cheered 
 frantically until the German guards rushed in, silencing 
 the racket by threats of annihilation. The American 
 spirit was hard to break, and the Germans realized that 
 they had an entirely different set of human beings to 
 deal with when the Yanks were around. After the 
 cinema was concluded we returned to our barracks, 
 thinking less harshly of our captors, for we were grate- 
 ful for the evening's entertainment. 
 
 During a Catholic holiday, the Germans announced 
 that the Americans who were of that faith would not be 
 obliged to work, but the Protestants would have to work 
 as usual. When the time came for the Catholics to fall 
 out of ranks, a little Jew joined them. The German or 
 "Jerry" sergeant, as the English called him, knew this 
 soldier was a Jew, for he was one of the American inter- 
 preters. The sergeant said, "Why don't you go to 
 work? You are not a Catholic." The American 
 replied, "I am a Catholic Jew." At this answer, the 
 sergeant laughed and allowed him to stay with his 
 adopted brethren. 
 
 TfS Tf» vfS ^ 
 
 On Friday, the 31st of May, fifty of us, including ten 
 non-commissioned offcers, were selected to go to Lim- 
 burg, the English prison camp, on the following day. 
 We were given a bath and de-cooterized, and our hair 
 was clipped off close to our heads. Early the next 
 morning, we were marched, heavily guarded, to the 
 depot to entrain for Limburg. While hiking to the 
 station we passed some German soldiers, working with 
 pick and shovel alongside of the road. One of them, 
 upon seeing us, straightened up from his work, and 
 pointed the shovel at us as if it were a gun. Immediately 
 
INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT DARMSTADT 21 
 
 the sergeant in charge of our guards called a halt, 
 walked over to the offender, and took his name, rank, 
 and number, concluding the incident by remarking, 
 "You will hear from this later." This illustrates the 
 iron discipline of the German army. 
 
 Entraining in third-class coaches, we rode until two 
 o'clock in the afternoon, when we detrained and 
 marched from the depot up a long grade to the Lim- 
 burg camp, located on high ground overlooking the 
 town of the same name. As usual we were the cynosure 
 of many hostile eyes, but by this time we were becoming 
 accustomed to being scrutinized like side-show exhibits 
 and stared back defiantly at the inhabitants. 
 
 Upon our arrival at the "Camp of Mystery," so 
 called by reason of its many unaccounted for deaths, we 
 were ordered to break ranks and await the soup which 
 would be served to us. Before soup our name, rank, 
 occupation, and religion were ascertained, after which 
 the commander of the camp inquired the number of 
 Red Cross or first-aid men among us. There was one 
 other beside myself. We stepped to the front, showed 
 the identification disks, and gave our numbers stamped 
 on our Red Cross brassards, which we wore on our left 
 arms. After our records were taken we were marched 
 to the sleeping barracks, which were located in that 
 section of the camp known as "prison quarters," for 
 there were quartered men who committed some infrac- 
 tion of camp rules, thereby making themselves "pris- 
 oners among prisoners." It was customary to place 
 new arrivals in this area, where they remained until 
 definitely disposed of. 
 
 We slept that night on the usual bed-sack and two 
 blankets, awaking next morning to black bread a little 
 blacker than that issued at Darmstadt, and a bowl of 
 "acorn- water." At noon, we had some cabbage soup, 
 but after dinner to our delight the English committee 
 sent over to the Americans a special package of food 
 
22 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 for each one of us. It consisted of a piece of chocolate, 
 EngHsh biscuits, canned soup, canned meat, rice, maca- 
 roni, tea, jam, butter, and a minute portion of soap. 
 Every man received practically the same assortment, 
 and, believe me, we made a huge hole in that package 
 right away. 
 
 Only a few details were arranged for us, such as 
 shoveling coal and breaking ground for planting in the 
 vicinity of the camp. 
 
 Affairs ran along this way until June 10, upon which 
 date we were given a warm shower bath, two pieces of 
 cloth about a foot square for socks, a pair of wooden 
 shoes, a black overcoat having a yellow band around 
 the left sleeve stamped "Kriegsgefangener," or "pris- 
 oner of war," underclothing, Russian trousers, and coat 
 if needed, bearing the same markings. 
 
 The non-commissioned officers were held in camp to 
 attend to the distribution of the American Red Cross 
 packages, which were expected to arrive soon; but the 
 rest of us were shipped to various towns to work in the 
 mines, on the farms, or in the factories. 
 
 On June 11, an American corporal, who, according 
 to the French rating by which the Germans judged us, 
 was not considered a non-commissioned officer, and 
 another private and myself, were marched to the Lim- 
 burg depot, under guard, to entrain for Duisdorf . This 
 town of Duisdorf was only a few kilometers from Co- 
 logne, and we could see the mighty spires of the famous 
 Cologne Cathedral ; but unfortunately for us, not being 
 Cook's tourists, this completed our acquaintance with 
 the mighty edifice. After riding four hours on the train 
 we reached our destination, and marched a short dis- 
 tance to a "Leder-Fabrik," or in the vernacular, "leather 
 factory," directly controlled by the German government. 
 
 Our feelings may easily be imagined when the guard 
 informed us that we would now be making shoes to 
 
INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT DARMSTADT 23 
 
 equip the German soldiers who were marching to the 
 front. We resolved to do as little work as was possible. 
 The guard who escorted us from the camp to the fac- 
 tory was employed previous to the war as a foreman in 
 this very place; so he had charge of our work here. 
 
 We were taken to a room, fifteen by fifty, containing 
 sleeping bunks for ten men, a plain wooden table, two 
 benches, a shelf with bowls, spoons, and cups upon it, 
 and a set of hooks which were used to hang towels on. 
 
 The room adjoining our quarters housed the guard, 
 and contained a bed, table, desk, two chairs, wash-bowl, 
 and clothes-press. 
 
 At eight o'clock seven Russian prisoners who worked 
 at the factory entered the room. Fortunately for us, 
 our corporal was of Polish parentage, and of the seven 
 Russians one could speak Polish, which allowed a very 
 enlightening conversation to take place. Most of the 
 Russians had been prisoners for over three years, and 
 had tried to escape many times, but had never succeeded. 
 
 The first question they asked us was, "Have you a 
 compass?" and they were greatly disappointed when we 
 replied in the negative. Outside our room was a corri- 
 dor where we washed and hung our clothes for the night, 
 so as to make escape practically impossible, for we had 
 to pass through the guard's room to reach the corridor 
 and the doors of both were securely locked each night 
 at nine o'clock. That night our soup was quite palat- 
 able and we soon went to sleep, dreaming of making 
 our way out of Germany with the aid of the most 
 daring of our new Russian friends. 
 
 The next morning we arose, had our "coffee," but this 
 time bread with honey on it, and sugar in our coflFee. 
 We were so surprised at this unusual "breakfast" that 
 we wondered if we were being fattened for the 
 slaughter. At seven o'clock, in company with the Rus- 
 sians, we went to work at our various jobs. This fac- 
 tory, being very small, employed only twenty men all 
 
24 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 told, ten prisoners and ten German civilians who were 
 too old or physically inelegible for active military service 
 in the trenches. 
 
 The leather was manufactured from the bark of 
 evergreen trees, which came into the factory tied in 
 bundles of from fifteen to twenty trees. The bark was 
 thrown into a grinding machine which pulverized it, and 
 was then soaked in vats containing toughening and ad- 
 hesive solutions with a small percentage of real pow- 
 dered leather. These vats were kept under terrific heat, 
 and a lump of the ingredients upon being removed was 
 kneaded and pounded like a piece of dough, till it 
 eventually resembled a strip of leather, about three feet 
 square. 
 
 My task was to carry the bundles of bark from the 
 storehouse to the grinding machines at both of which 
 worked German civilians, feeding the bark into the 
 machines. If I got behind in my work I would slip the 
 belt from the wheel connected with the power when the 
 Hun wasn't looking, thereby having a few minutes' time 
 to catch up, while the old Boche fussed around putting 
 the belt on the wheel again. 
 
 We worked from seven a.m. until nine a.m. when 
 we went back to our quarters for twenty minutes' rest 
 and a bowl of soup. At nine-twenty we returned to 
 work, and at twelve o'clock an hour was given us for 
 soup containing a few pieces of bacon for flavor, which 
 proved to be the best since our sojourn in Germany. 
 At one o'clock we returned to work until four, when a 
 half hour in which to eat our honeyed bread and sweet- 
 ened coffee broke the monotony of the afternoon. Five 
 days a week we worked until seven o'clock, and on Sat- 
 urdays until eight o'clock. Following our work on 
 Saturday came a bath, with German soap (ninety per 
 cent sand), and clean clothes. Quite an improvement 
 all around over our previous life since being forcibly 
 obliged to dwell among the Huns. 
 
INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT DARMSTADT 25 
 
 On Sunday, it being a good, clear sunshiny day, we 
 were allowed to take a walk, naturally accompanied by 
 our guard. We walked to a near-by hill, where a fine 
 view of Cologne could be had through the naked ej^e. 
 Thousands of factory chimneys belching forth smoke 
 and flame gave evidence of the mighty efforts Germany 
 was making to win the war. One of the Russians who 
 could speak German told me that he worked one winter 
 in Cologne and it was very hard disagreeable work, with 
 very little food. I never dreamed that two months 
 later I would be working in one of the worst "sweat- 
 shops" at Cologne. It was a case of "where ignorance 
 is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." 
 
 Upon returning to the factory, we were given a 
 pound of sugar, half a pound of civilian bread, and a 
 pound of "blut-wurst" (bologna). Civilian bread was 
 a little lighter than prisoner's bread, but it had the same 
 sawdust taste. This ration was our monthly stipend 
 which happened to be due on this day. Nine marks a 
 week was our pay and with it we could buy cigarettes 
 and beer, both articles delivered to our room. The 
 guard would also buy candy, tooth-paste, tooth-brushes, 
 if wanted, and deduct the cost from our week's salary. 
 
 One morning, arising early as it was my turn to 
 sweep the quarters, the guard called me and said I was 
 to leave at six-thirty to work on a farm. Naturally I 
 was surprised, but the guard explained to me that be- 
 cause I was a Red Cross man a farm was selected for 
 me, so that I could have better food. This explanation 
 was satisfactory to me, and I left the factory without 
 any regrets whatsoever. The guard who took me to 
 the train was very considerate, and permitted me, while 
 we were traveling to our destination, to eat the bread 
 and sugar which I had stowed away in my pockets. 
 TSHien we reached Wahn, on the outskirts of which was 
 located the farm, I was marched to a small village, 
 where the prison barracks had been established. 
 
26 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 French, English, Italians, Russians, and Siberians pre- 
 sented a motley spectacle assembled before the barracks 
 for roll-call, as it was noontime. When they learned 
 that I was an American the English asked me all sorts 
 of questions about the war — How long would it con- 
 tinue? How many Americans were there in France? 
 Was England starving? (as they had been told by 
 their German captors). I replied as best I could and 
 they were very much heartened, as my answers were all 
 good news for them, as the majority of these English 
 and French had been prisoners of war for more than 
 three years. 
 
 I had a meal with the French and English, consisting 
 of tea, biscuits, rice, chocolate, and cheese, all of which 
 they had received from their respective governments 
 through the International Red Cross in Switzerland; 
 one package weighing fifteen pounds was the average 
 weekly portion. After eating, the Germans gave me a 
 pair of high leather boots and a pair of wooden shoes, 
 which I took with me to the farm, about fifteen minutes' 
 walk from the village. The guard who escorted me 
 from the prison-lager to the farmhouse wore the Iron 
 Cross. While at school I had learned a smattering of 
 German and was able to understand aided by the sign 
 language. I asked the Hun in what manner he had 
 acquired the decoration. He told me while on a raid 
 he became separated from his comrades and took refuge 
 in a shell hole until daybreak. At dawn, looking over 
 the edge of the shell hole he espied two "Tommies" who 
 had evidently suffered the same fate. He shot both of 
 them before they were aware of his presence and carried 
 back to his own lines papers of value which he took from 
 the dead bodies. Usually after a soldier had been 
 awarded the Iron Cross and wounded he was sent to the 
 rear to perform guard duty for a certain period of time, 
 before again being put in the front-line trenches. 
 
 Arriving at the farmhouse where I was to begin my 
 
INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT DARMSTADT 27 
 
 rural labors, the guard turned me over to the farmer, 
 who already employed four Russian prisoners, and for 
 the first time since my capture I was without a military 
 guard. My first inclination was to plan for an escape 
 that night but on second thought I decided to wait a few 
 days until I could acquire a compass and a pair of shoes 
 with which I would be able to walk a long distance in a 
 short space of time, my present boots being several sizes 
 too large for me and better fitted for a Goliath. 
 
 The farmer's family consisted of himself, his wife, 
 and one girl of fifteen years. The farmhouse was a 
 one-story building, constructed so as to form a huge 
 letter L. Everything was scrupulously neat and clean. 
 The dairy, which proved to be the scene of my labors, 
 was above reproach from a sanitary standpoint and con- 
 tained thirty head of fine cattle. 
 
 I had a dinner of milk, soup, ham, black bread, and 
 potatoes, which was served to me and one of the Rus- 
 sians at the kitchen table. Of course the "Rusky" 
 couldn't speak a word of English, though as he had been 
 a prisoner for three years he had acquired a little knowl- 
 edge of German; so our conversation didn't prove very 
 interesting. However, he made me understand his 
 main points with the aid of the sign language thrown in 
 for good measure. When we had finished our meal the 
 Russian, who was called "Alec" by the farmer, told me 
 that we were to take the milk that had been acquired 
 that noon and put it through the separator. This was 
 quickly done and we adjourned to the dairy, where we 
 fed the cattle, and cleaned out the place. At four 
 o'clock we returned to the house for "Kaffee-trinken." 
 Every day at nine in the morning and at four in the 
 afternoon the Germans stopped work for twenty min- 
 utes to drink their imitation coffee and eat their equally 
 imitation bread. This custom was continued through- 
 out the entire period of the war, although the enjoj^^ment 
 was greatly lessened on account of the quality and quan- 
 
28 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 tity of both bread and coffee. The Germans imported 
 huge quantities of coffee, copper, and rubber, from 
 Brazil, previous to the declaration of war, and as long 
 after as the British blockade permitted. But her supply- 
 diminished rapidly, and at the time of my imprisonment, 
 all of these imports were practically non-existent. 
 However, we had milk in our "acorn-water" and honey 
 on our bread; as the latter item was very plentiful, our 
 repast might have been considerably less palatable. 
 
 At the conclusion of "Kaffee-trinken," Alec and I once 
 more fed the cattle. At six o'clock we milked, the Rus- 
 sian starting at one end and I at the other of the long 
 row of cows. Needless to say Alec milked about twenty- 
 five out of the entire thirty cows, as I had never milked 
 before in my life, and was a very awkward amateur. 
 The milking finished, we had a good supper of barley 
 soup made with milk, potatoes, pork, and sweet pastry, 
 similar to pie crust, spread with sugar. After supper 
 we fed the cattle again and our work for the day was 
 finished. 
 
 The other three Russians who worked in the fields 
 under the supervision of the German completed their 
 daily toil at eight o'clock every evening, but as we didn't 
 milk until six it was usually ten before we went to bed 
 and sometimes eleven. The Russians and myself slept 
 in a little room on the second floor of the barn which 
 had one window heavily barred, a table, and three beds. 
 I slept "like a top" that night, for I was very tired, and 
 when we were awakened at five o'clock I was extremely 
 loath to rise, but prisoners cannot be choosers; so I 
 hustled into my wooden shoes, big enough for Charlie 
 Chaplin himself, and clumped noisily down the stairs. 
 We fed the cows, collected the milk cans, donned our 
 big hats, worn to keep the cow's tails out of our eyes, 
 and went to work at the morning milking. This morn- 
 ing I met with a mishap. One especially refractory 
 "critter" kicked over the milk pail at a moment when I 
 
INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT DARMSTADT 29 
 
 had relaxed my vigilance, but fortunately the pail had 
 only about a quart of milk in it; so Alec promised not 
 to tell the farmer. Milking was finished at eight-thirty 
 and we had a breakfast of fried potatoes, bread, and 
 coffee. At noon we milked again and at night repeated 
 the performance (making three times a day). By the 
 third day I had become an expert dairyman, but my 
 fingers had lost practically all sense of feeling, the 
 muscles not being used to such exercise. 
 
 Four days after reaching the farm an Englishman 
 who happened to hear that an American had arrived at 
 the village came over to see me. While we were talking 
 about the usual topics, the length of the war, conditions 
 in Germany, and so forth, the farmer's daughter passed 
 by. When "Tommy" had taken his departure, the girl 
 asked if I could speak English as well as American. 
 Upon my telling her that the two languages were one 
 and the same she was very much astonished and ran to 
 tell her father and mother the wonderful fact. This 
 incident gives one an example of the common ignorance 
 prevalent throughout Germany, especially among the 
 rural laborers and industrial classes. 
 
 In this village there were about twenty-five prisoners 
 working, two Englishmen, twenty-two Russians, and 
 one Yankee, myself. On Sunday morning, six days 
 after my arrival at the farm, we all marched under 
 guard into the farm which contained the prison-lager 
 mentioned previously. Here roll-call was held and 
 mail, packages, and money for the weekly labor were 
 distributed. The average pay was one mark and eighty 
 pfennigs or about forty-five cents in American money.' 
 There was a canteen in the village where writing paper, 
 German soap, tooth-paste, tooth-brushes, shoe-strings 
 (not very necessary with wooden shoes), mirrors, 
 pocket-books, and lemonade could be purchased by the 
 prisoners. A bottle of lemonade, or sweetened water, 
 cost twenty-five pfennigs, or six and a quarter cents. 
 
30 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 Lemonade was the only cheap thing purchasable at 
 the canteen. All the other articles I have mentioned 
 cost at least three marks, and the most of them four and 
 five marks; so a prisoner was not apt to have a super- 
 fluity of "luxuries." 
 
 Roll-call ended, we marched back to our village 
 guarded by what the Germans called "posterns," or 
 post-men, as they delivered the mail throughout their 
 particular districts. 
 
 One evening, while we were milking, a guard entered 
 the dairy and ordered me to accompany him to a neigh- 
 boring town, where I was to be put to work in a restau- 
 rant. As a matter of fact, I had been expecting a 
 change of work for three days, because my fingers had 
 become nearly void of the sense of touch, through milk- 
 ing. The work finished, I had supper, changed my 
 wooden shoes for the German boots, and started on 
 my journey to the restaurant. After a walk of thirty 
 minutes we arrived at the restaurant, which was oper- 
 ated by a German officer as a beer-restaurant, catering 
 to German soldiers exclusively. The officer was an 
 Alsatian who had married a German girl, and his wife, 
 two children, mother, and sister made up the family. 
 Several waitresses augmented the number of people 
 living in the restaurant, and the large kitchen was con- 
 tinually in an uproar, being used for cooking, eating, 
 and living-room. 
 
 A Russian prisoner who had been an interpreter in a 
 prison factory previous to his arrival here took me to 
 his room, which we were to share in common. Upon 
 learning my nationality he immediately told me in 
 broken English that he had been in New York two 
 years, and asked me if I knew Rockefeller, the capital- 
 ist. Of course I told him that "John D." and I were 
 great friends; so he was properly impressed. When I 
 returned to the kitchen again, I met the officer and his 
 family. It seems that they had been given their choice 
 
INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT DARMSTADT 31 
 
 of an American or a Russian, and as they had all lived 
 in England for eight years before the war, they natu- 
 rally chose an American. I was overjoyed to learn that 
 they couH speak English fluently, particularly the 
 officer and his sister, who was sixteen years old. The 
 latter had been born in France, went to England at 
 eight years of age and in 1914, when the family left 
 England for Germany, was obhged to study German at 
 school before being able to speak her native language. 
 
 All of the time I was at this place the family treated 
 me as a guest, except for the fact of my work, which was 
 demanded by government regulations. First, they 
 asked me if I had eaten supper, and when I rephed in 
 the affirmative they insisted that I eat again, so nothing 
 loath I sat down to a meal of good soup, sausage meat, 
 potatoes, and bread spread with honey. After supper 
 I helped wash the dishes, breaking not a few, for my 
 fingers were rather numb, and it was fully two weeks 
 before my hands became perfectly normal again. 
 
 The next morning the Russian and I brought some 
 empty casks up from the wine cellar and rolled down 
 some full ones. We cleaned up the garden, which was 
 used on pleasant evenings for entertainments provided 
 for the amusement of the soldiers who came to drink 
 there. 
 
 One day, a German soldier spoke to me in English 
 and said he was an American citizen who, in August, 
 1914, had gone to Holland for the purpose of visiting 
 his parents. The German consul had forced him to 
 go into Germany and enlist in the army, which illus- 
 trated the breadth and scope of the German militaristic 
 power. This soldier also told me that two American 
 aeroplanes had been shot down only the day before. 
 This last news elated me in one way, for I knew then 
 that the Americans were really bombing the interior 
 German towns, but of course I was very sorry to learn 
 of their misfortune. 
 
32 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 The days and evenings passed along aU too quickly; 
 music played at night in the restaurant or outside in the 
 garden made me homesick, but "C'est la guerre." 
 
 The German officer operated beside the restaurant 
 a large dining hall for high military personages, and the 
 Kaiser himself dined with his staff at this "Speisesalle" 
 occasionally, but unfortunately for me I never saw the 
 Kaiser as ten days was the limit of my stay at this place. 
 
 One day I went to the school-house where the bread 
 was distributed to draw the ration of bread for the 
 restaurant. Twice a week the fifteen people who con- 
 stituted the personnel of the restaurant were allowed 
 two pounds of bread each. No guard accompanied me 
 on this trip, and I could easily have escaped if I had had 
 a compass and some shoes. Herr Drion, the German, 
 had promised me a pair of leather shoes; so I thought 
 that I would bide my time. This delay proved fatal to 
 my chances for escape, as three days later I was sent 
 to a prison factory at Cologne and heavily guarded until 
 the war ended. 
 
 To resume my account of the life at the restaurant: 
 the day following my arrival the Russian and I went 
 together under guard to bring potatoes for the restau- 
 rant. This supply of potatoes was really the August 
 ration, but the German was obliged to draw his ration 
 in July, for he had no food to take the place of potatoes, 
 and his July allowance had been consumed by the 
 twelfth. Food conditions were extremely critical at 
 this time. One example of the scarcity of food may be 
 obtained from the following incident. A young girl, 
 fourteen years old, whose sister was a waitress in the 
 restaurant, came into the kitchen weeping bitterly. Her 
 sister asked her why she was crying. The little girl told 
 her that she had had nothing to eat for three days, as 
 she had been ill and so could not work in the dynamite 
 factory, where she was employed, and therefore had no 
 money to buy food tickets. If one didn't work, one 
 

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INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT DARMSTADT 33 
 
 didn't eat in Germany. The German woman who was 
 cooking in the kitchen at the time heard the girl's pitiful 
 story, and told her to sit down at the table. The cook 
 then gave her bread, potatoes, and bean soup; so the 
 little girl had a good meal, which made her very happy. 
 When she had finished her supper the German officer 
 gave her ten marks and sent her on her way rejoicing. 
 Of course the rest of us had a little less to eat that night 
 but we did not mind, for the little girl needed it so much 
 more than we did. Many young children of both sexes 
 worked in the dynamite factories in Wahn, and their 
 faces, hands, and hair were all colored a ghastly yellow, 
 which made them look like people from another world. 
 
 The next day the German gave me a pair of shoes, 
 and I decided to try to escape that evening without the 
 aid of compass, for I could carry enough food with me 
 to last two weeks. I knew where the bread and canned 
 sausage meat were stored, and I planned to get away as 
 soon as it was dark. But this was yet another instance 
 of "Man proposes but God disposes"; for that same 
 afternoon a guard came from Cologne with an order to 
 take me to a wire factory at once. It seems that fate 
 was against me ; so with a heart of lead I ate my supper 
 before leaving for Cologne. The guard would not per- 
 mit me to wear or even carry the leather shoes the Ger- 
 man officer had given me ; so I had to put on my heavy 
 military boots again, and I was very down-hearted when 
 I said good-bye to the inmates of the restaurant, and 
 started forth on another hike to the train which was to 
 carry me into Cologne and a living death. 
 
 We reached Cologne at nine o'clock, and rode by 
 trolley car to the wire factory. During the trolley ride 
 my guard became involved in an argument with the 
 woman conductor as to whether or not he should pay a 
 fare for me, and the guard lost, thereupon becoming 
 very "grouchy." 
 
 To my surprise and gratification ten Americans 
 
34 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 greeted me from their bunks in the barracks to which I 
 was assigned. These Americans had all been captured 
 at the Battle of Seicheprey, and had been sent direct 
 from the Limburg prison camp to Cologne. They told 
 me that the work was very hard, the hours long, and the 
 soup poor, but I little realised even then the extent of 
 my ill luck in being sentenced to this factory. 
 
 Besides the ten Americans there were four hundred 
 Russians, including Cossacks and Siberians, eighty 
 Italians, and six Roumanians. The majority of the 
 Russians had been working in Cologne for three years 
 and some for four years, while the Italians had only 
 been there since January, 1918, having been captured 
 in October, 1917, in the terrific fighting along the 
 Piave River. 
 
 At the time of my arrival in this factory the prisoners 
 were living in two barracks, with the majority of the 
 Russians occupying one barracks, and the remainder, 
 together with the Italians and the Americans, sleeping 
 in the other barracks. The bunks were made of iron, 
 having two tiers, and the sleeping equipment consisted 
 of the usual thin mattress composed of paper, rags, and 
 thread, two blankets, a light and a heavy one, and a 
 pillow, containing the same "insides" as the mattress. 
 
 The eating barracks was located about three hundred 
 yards from the two sleeping barracks, and contained 
 long tables lined with wooden benches, a soup-bowl for 
 each one and a canteen. - I might add that a gun-rack 
 adorned the side of the building, in which the guards 
 placed their guns while we were eating, retaining their 
 side-arms only. But, needless to say, there was always 
 quite a distance interspersed by Prussians between the 
 prisoners and the guns. 
 
 For bathing facilities we had running water in all 
 the barracks, and once a week hot shower baths at the 
 different sections where we worked in the factory. In 
 this respect we fared much better than our comrades at 
 
INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT DARMSTADT 35 
 
 the front, but there was not one of us who would not 
 have given ten years from his hfe to have been back in 
 the trenches with the American army. 
 
 The soup served us had as a basis cow-turnips but 
 occasionally a potato or a bean would find its way into 
 the composition. On Tuesday and Friday noons we had 
 fish in the soup, and on Sunday evenings a sweetened 
 barley soup usually served for our supper, with once in 
 a great while some prunes or figs added to this latter 
 combination. This factory employed twenty-five thou- 
 sand people in contrast to eight thousand before the 
 war, and covered forty acres of ground, having ten 
 gigantic smoke-stacks towering skyward. I was 
 assigned to the night shift, which worked from seven at 
 night until seven in the morning. Four of the ten 
 Americans were working nights then, and the other six 
 days, although two were in the factory hospital with a 
 high fever at this particular time. 
 
 Generally speaking the work in the factory was 
 divided as follows : shoveling coal or salts, turning down 
 wire coils on a machine, pushing trucks running on 
 narrow-gauge rails loaded with wire to different sec- 
 tions of the factory, electrical labor, motor mechanics, 
 pouring zinc, copper, or aluminum, unloading same 
 from freight cars, firing furnaces, dipping hot wire, and 
 working in the prisoners' kitchen. 
 
 The first night I worked shoveling salts about fifteen 
 feet from a huge blast furnace. My task was to fill four 
 iron cars, three by five by two, running on a narrow- 
 gauge track, with salts from a pile, requiring a pick and 
 shovel to dislodge the mass. As soon as a car was filled, 
 one of the prisoners who was working in the adjoining 
 room at the dipping vats helped me push the loaded car 
 into the dipping room, where an electric crane operated 
 by a German civilian lifted the load of salts and dumped 
 it into one of the vats. The coils of wire were immersed 
 
36 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 in these vats, thereby softening the wire, which was later 
 turned down to size on machines. 
 
 We worked from seven o'clock until eight o'clock, 
 when we were allowed fifteen minutes for "Kaffee- 
 trinken." After returning to work our labors con- 
 tinued until midnight, at which time soup was served in 
 huge kettles and an hour's rest was granted. At one 
 o'clock we started work again and stopped for fifteen 
 minutes at four o'clock, ending the night's work at 
 fifteen minutes to seven o'clock. The guards called 
 "Austreten" and we were checked off, marched to the 
 dining hall where our morning soup was served, and 
 then cleaned the mess hall before departing to the 
 sleeping barracks. (While working nights in the fac- 
 tory we were issued a piece of "blut-wurst" twice a 
 week, which constituted our entire meat ration during 
 two weeks, for no meat was issued to the day shifts. A 
 German civilian was permitted to purchase a quarter 
 of a pound of meat per week.) Before being allowed 
 to sleep we were obliged to clean the barracks, so it was 
 usually nine o'clock when we finally turned in. At 
 eleven o'clock the sentries awakened us and we fell in 
 for mess, after which we cleaned sleeping barracks and 
 mess hall, and returned to sleep for three hours, until six 
 o'clock, when soup was given us and a ration of bread to 
 go to work all night. We Americans ate our bread the 
 second it was issued, for while working some thieving 
 Russian would steal the bread at the slightest oppor- 
 tunity, for there seemed to be no honor among the Rus- 
 sians and a great many of them were "stool pigeons" for 
 the Germans. The Russians even went so far as to 
 betray their own comrades if they thought that they 
 themselves would be benefited. 
 
 I worked at the salts-pile for a week, when I was 
 transferred to the wire section. My work was to push 
 trucks loaded with wire taken from the ovens to differ- 
 ent parts of the factory. One night while working in 
 
INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT DARMSTADT 37 
 
 this section the pieces of sacking which I used for an 
 apron and hand-cloths to protect my hands from the 
 hot wire were stolen. I reported the matter to the 
 guard, who ordered me to work without them. I refused 
 and the guard drew his bayonet, lunging at me, but I 
 evaded the thrust and ran from the office with the Boche 
 in hot pursuit. Dodging under some wire I escaped 
 his notice and saved my own life. Later, upon return- 
 ing to the office, sacks were given to me and I resumed 
 work. Although the Prussianism in the guard had 
 passed away I expected to be sumimoned to the main 
 office for dungeon duty, but to my surprise and gratifi- 
 cation no further report was made of the matter. After 
 a week at this section the foreman said to me, "If you do 
 not turn out more work I shall have you transferred to a 
 worse place." I thought to myself that there could not 
 be any "worse place," so continued to do as little work 
 as possible until one night the sentry ordered me to go 
 to the copper-shop. A copper block when completed 
 resembled in size and shape an American railroad tie. 
 Copper, being very much in demand and not available, 
 the Germans solved the problem by requisitioning all 
 the skillets, frying pans, and all other household utensils 
 to melt them in the "fiery furnace." Statues of the 
 Kaiser, Von Hindenburg, and many other Germanic 
 heroes, in fact everything containing any copper was 
 melted up for war purposes. When I first saw the 
 Kaiser statues being broken to pieces I could not believe 
 my eyes, but it was true and showed the beginning of 
 internal discord and lack of unity. 
 
 About this time, the first week in August, the soup 
 became much worse than usual and we all thought that 
 we would soon be too weak to work, but on the 6th of 
 August, a never to be forgotten date, food from the 
 American Red Cross reached us, practically saving our 
 lives. As American interpreter at this factory it was 
 my duty to see that the boxes were distributed, signed 
 
38 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 for, and checked off by the German authorities at the 
 factory. The packages contained corned beef, roast 
 beef, salmon, peas, corn, hard-bread, coffee, sugar, milk, 
 jam, prunes, rice, cigarettes or tobacco, and soap. 
 
 Occasionally some of the articles had been appro- 
 priated by the Germans who handled the packages en 
 route to the factory, but usually the contents remained 
 intact. These packages came to us two or three times 
 a month, and we never ceased to bless the work of the 
 American Red Cross. 
 
 AIR RAIDS 
 
 Two or three times a week, after it had become dark, 
 the Allied aeroplanes would fly over Cologne, dropping 
 bombs with great accuracy and doing terrible damage. 
 Usually the raiders would arrive between ten and eleven 
 o'clock. When the aeroplanes were discovered by the 
 German sentries in the anti-aircraft lookout posts, the 
 factory whistles shrieked a warning, all lights were ex- 
 tinguished, and we all hurried to the bomb-proof cellars 
 where we awaited the termination of the bombing. 
 Generally, the raids were from one to two hours' dura- 
 tion. The anti-aircraft guns on the factory always 
 opened up on the aeroplanes and huge searchlights 
 swept the heavens in an effort to locate the planes. 
 From German civilians I learned that on one raid the 
 Allied aeroplanes had dropped bombs on a dynamite 
 factory, killing many of the night workers and totally 
 destroying the factory. Another time a bomb exploded 
 on the roof of a trolley car, causing many casualties. 
 We were always glad to have the aeroplanes come over, 
 for it gave us definite assurance that the Allies would 
 soon demoralize the already wavering spirit of the Ger- 
 man people, and we did not have to work during the 
 bombing. The attitudes of the civilians who worked in 
 the factory, and the inhabitants of the houses in the 
 
SUNDAYS 39 
 
 immediate vicinity of the factory, who sought protection 
 during the air raids in the factory bomb-proof cellar, 
 were varied. But in most cases they took a cynical and 
 fataHstic view of the raids, saying that as long as they 
 themselves were not killed it did not matter how often 
 the raiders appeared. By that time the Germans were 
 so "fed up" with the war that they did not care who won, 
 America or Germany, so long as the strife ended. No 
 doubt the Boche would have been willing to let the 
 "M. P.'s" win the war. One morning a German boy 
 told me that they had brought down six American 
 planes the night before, but I knew he was mistaken, for 
 no German newspaper reported the incident, which was 
 positive proof that the boy had been intentionally mis- 
 informed. 
 
 SUNDAYS 
 
 Sunday was a day to look forward to with mingled 
 feelings of relief and dread. Relief, for we knew that 
 the awful drudgery of the work would cease for a brief 
 period. But dread, as the awful monotony of a day 
 with practically no means at all for occupying one's 
 mind haunted us throughout the entire week. For 
 breakfast we had a sweetened coffee in place of the cow- 
 turnip soup. About ten o'clock all the prisoners formed 
 ranks and marched to an open square at one end of the 
 factory grounds. On these occasions we were joined by 
 three Frenchmen who worked in a near-by factory. 
 These French prisoners imparted to us a little news of 
 the war as given in the Swiss newspapers smuggled over 
 the German border and secured by the French from 
 pro- Ally sympathizers. Upon reaching the formation 
 place we formed in a hollow square with the German 
 officers in the center. The names of the men who were 
 to work at night for the next week were called off, and 
 any other notices relative to turning in of clothing were 
 issued at this time. Of course the majority of the 
 
40 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 prisoners did not understand a word of German, so in- 
 terpreters were needed. We stood before the officer, 
 who was a sergeant-major, a rank which in the German 
 army has much authority, while he talked, and then re- 
 turning to our respective units, American, French, 
 Italian, or Russian, we imparted our information for 
 their benefit. However, the prisoners' numbers were 
 usually called off in German for assignment to work, 
 and everyone soon learned his own number. There were 
 a few Russians who never could seem to "verstehen" 
 their numbers in German; so they were continually 
 being reprimanded by the German officer, and in some 
 instances confined in a dungeon, as the Russians were 
 given scant consideration throughout the entire period 
 of their imprisonment. 
 
 After the notices, the pay books were given out to 
 each prisoner, and the weekly "salary" averaged five 
 marks (about a dollar and a quarter), although some of 
 the Russians received as high as a hundred marks for 
 working as expert machinists and electricians. Need- 
 less to add these Russians were traitors to their country, 
 for by their labor they helped the enemy. The pay con- 
 sisted of paper stamps of different colors pasted in a 
 little paper notebook, yellow for one mark, blue for 
 twenty pfennigs (one-fifth of a mark), and red for ten 
 pfennigs. 
 
 One particular Sunday before the "money" had been 
 distributed the German, officer had an idea that he 
 wanted the prisoners' hair clipped off short; so he 
 ordered one of the sergeants to procure a pair of hair- 
 clippers for this purpose. The sergeant commenced his 
 task on a big, tall Russian whom he made go out into 
 the center of the square and kneel while the ceremony 
 was being performed. It surely was comical to see the 
 sergeant, who happened to be the shortest one of the 
 German officers, hacking away at the Russian's hair 
 with the dull clippers, perspiring freely at the job, for 
 
A LUCKY ACCIDENT 41 
 
 the Russian's hair was very wiry, and resented being so 
 ruthlessly treated. The prisoner was making all sorts 
 of grimaces and trying to maintain his dignity, which of 
 course was rather difficult under the existing circum- 
 stances. When the job was finally completed, the ser- 
 geant continued the hair-cutting farce, taking the men 
 in rotation. But as there were six hundred prisoners, 
 he soon became tired and contented himself with 
 running the clippers through the middle of his victim's 
 hair. By the time the Boche came to the Americans, 
 who were near the end of the formation, he satisfied 
 himself with barbering only three of the eleven Yanks. 
 
 Following this formation we were marched to the 
 mess hall and partook of an especially "nice" soup, 
 whose "niceness" consisted of an extra bean or piece of 
 cow-turnip being added to its basis of cow-turnips. 
 
 After dinner we sat around the mess hall or went to 
 the barracks until five o'clock, when soup was again 
 served and our Red Cross packages, if any had arrived, 
 were distributed. At this time the canteen was open 
 and occasionally wine was sold, and as a result the 
 Russians ended the day by two or three hand-to-hand 
 fights, landing themselves in the dungeon if the German 
 authorities happened to be in the humor for it. There 
 was one Cossack who, as soon as he became intoxicated, 
 started to dance, and his comrades who had violin, banjo, 
 or jew's-harp, would play for him. I had never seen 
 any clog dancing to equal it before this time and do not 
 expect to in the future. The majority of the Russians 
 viewed his performance with indifference, but some 
 applauded heartily. 
 
 A LUCKY ACCIDENT 
 
 On the 29th of August, while loading zinc blocks on 
 a truck, I broke the little finger on my right hand, and 
 reported the accident to the sergeant, who happened to 
 be in the office of the section in which I was working at 
 
42 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 the time. He grabbed the finger, manipulating it 
 several different ways, and finally declared that it was 
 not broken and told me to spit on it and it would be all 
 right. I told him I was going to the infirmary. Just 
 then a sentry came along, and the sergeant, seeing that 
 I was not to be bullied, ordered the sentry to take me to 
 the infirmary. Arriving there I had my finger put into 
 splints, but needless to say I did not return to work. 
 
 The next day a guard took me outside of the factory 
 into the town where there was an X-ray hospital. 
 While walking to this hospital we passed the great city 
 kitchen where potatoes, cow- turnips, bread, and cabbage 
 were daily distributed to the inhabitants of that district 
 in meager portions. Some of the faces of the people I 
 saw hurrying to the kitchen I shall never forget. The 
 look of despondency and desperation on their starved 
 features gave one an idea of the terrible price the people 
 of Germany were paying in order to carry on the war. 
 Little children, thin and emaciated, trudged along hold- 
 ing their mother's hand, eyeing every passer-by with a 
 wistful, hungry look that made a feeling of pity and 
 commiseration enter my heart even though they were 
 the hated Boche. 
 
 As we walked along I noticed one window in which 
 was displayed a basket of eggs marked twenty-nine 
 marks a dozen, or about fifty cents apiece. In the 
 grocery stores a few cabbages and cow-turnips would 
 be displayed, while the remainder of the window con- 
 tained scrub-brushes, brooms, wooden shoes, and other 
 non-eatables. The butcher shops were entirely devoid 
 of meat, and many of them were closed. No doubt in 
 Berlin and the larger cities of Germany farther in the 
 interior food was obtainable if one had the money. But 
 in the great majority of the smaller sections of the coun- 
 try it was not so much a question of money as the ability 
 to produce tickets valued at so many ounces of cabbage, 
 bread, or cow-turnips. 
 
FRENCH FROM ST. QUENTIN 43 
 
 The following daj?- the guard took me to the city hos- 
 pital where a German doctor who had received the 
 X-ray taken the day before manipulated my finger for 
 a few minutes, bound it with paper, and ordered me to 
 be returned to the factory. This procedure was re- 
 peated for two weeks, after which time the doctor pro- 
 nounced me able to resume work. But I could not and 
 would not work with my finger so poorly set; so the 
 officer in command of the factory ordered me to go to 
 the infirmary every day to assist the Russian interpreter 
 in his duties of taking care of the sick prisoners. The 
 sick list was so small that the Russian could manage it 
 easily without any assistance; so time dragged inter- 
 minably day after day until the third week in Septem- 
 ber, when a hundred French prisoners who had been 
 captured at St. Quentin in August arrived at the fac- 
 tory for work. 
 
 FRENCH FROM ST. QUENTIN 
 
 Among these prisoners was a French corporal-major, 
 who because of his rank did not work. He went to the 
 infirmary every morning as I did. He could speak 
 English quite well, and we soon became fast friends. 
 He told me news of the fighting at the front, which en- 
 couraged us all greatly, and he estimated that the war 
 would be over by Christmas. Later events proved his 
 reckoning to be a month too long. 
 
 Two weeks after the arrival of the French one poor 
 fellow was killed by being accidentally electrocuted 
 during his labors in one of the engine rooms. All the 
 interpreters were ordered to go to the funeral. Money 
 was solicited from the prisoners with which to purchase 
 wreaths. On the following day two of us were taken to 
 a flower shop in order to bring the wreaths to the fac- 
 tory. After procuring the flowers, we started on our 
 return, but as soon as we had stepped out from the 
 
44 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 florist's a crowd gathered and followed us to the fac- 
 tory. The casket was brought forth and the march to 
 the cemetery commenced, but the crowd soon dispersed 
 when they found that the cemetery was located five kilo- 
 meters outside the city. 
 
 The German sergeant was in charge of the little pro- 
 cession, and when we reached the place of burial, the 
 sergeant in his Prussian ignorance gave the crucifix to 
 a Russian who was of the Jewish faith. Nothing could 
 be done to remedy the matter, but no doubt the poor 
 Frenchman would have turned over in his casket if he 
 had known of the incongruity. When the body was 
 being lowered into the grave many sober thoughts 
 passed through my mind ; what a terrible way to die in 
 an enemy country, practically alone, and probably his 
 folks would never hear of his last resting place. I won- 
 dered if such would be my fate or if Providence would 
 have a more happy sequel to my imprisonment in store 
 for me. Following the ceremony we all marched back 
 to the factory unusually sober and uncommunicative. 
 
 One day shortly after this episode, while in the in- 
 firmary, I picked up a German newspaper, and read 
 on the front page an official notice of hand-to-hand 
 fighting in the streets of Laon between German and 
 French troops. My heart gave a great leap, for my 
 division previous to my capture had held the lines 
 together with the French Eleventh Army Corps in the 
 Chemin des Dames sector directly opposite from the 
 town of Laon, which the Germans held at that time. 
 Now I knew that the Allies must have advanced quite 
 a number of kilometers to be engaged in close fighting 
 in Laon itself. The Russian interpreter, who was 
 sitting next to me, noted my exclamation of joy, and 
 asked me the cause of it. When I told him of the fight- 
 ing in Laon he further encouraged me by replying that 
 unless the war ended inside of three months he thought 
 that the Allies would actually be in the city of Cologne, 
 
BEGINNING OF THE END 45 
 
 for from all information in his possession the Allied 
 advance was extremely rapid on all fronts. 
 
 Upon my return to the barracks that night I com- 
 municated the good news to my fellow Americans, and 
 we celebrated by eating an unusually large supper from 
 our Red Cross packages, which happened to have 
 arrived that very evening. One American went on sick 
 call the next day as a result of the "banquet," but he 
 was sent out to work chuclding at the remark of the 
 German doctor, "You Americans, you eat too much, 
 and work too little." 
 
 Indigestion, among the Allied prisoners in Germany, 
 was such a rare illness that the word had almost been 
 dropped from our vocabulary. 
 
 So the days followed their monotonous path one 
 after the other. We received a letter from the Y. M. 
 C. A. in Switzerland inquiring about our needs. I 
 answered it asking for books, but of course the war 
 ended before we could receive them. The only book 
 which we had to read was a dog-eared copj?- of "Huckle- 
 berry Finn," by Mark Twain, given to us by a kind- 
 hearted German civilian who worked in the factory. 
 The German had stolen this book from a library in the 
 city, and we were really grateful for his theft. 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE END 
 
 The latter part of October the German newspapers, 
 in an effort to keep the people united to the last minute, 
 declared in bold headlines that "Germany must and 
 would fight to the last man and the last pfennig to save 
 their honor and their country." However, the people 
 took these exhortations indifferently, remarking that 
 the end was near, as the Socialistic spirit combined with 
 the increasingly powerful desire for a peace, victorious 
 or otherwise, had made them wish for a termination of 
 hostilities at any price. 
 
46 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 An undercurrent of revolution was slowly but in- 
 sidiously gaining strength among the soldiery and civil- 
 ians, although up to this time no violent outburst had 
 occurred. 
 
 A conversation between one of the Americans who 
 was a machine gunner and a German soldier who 
 worked in the factory typifies the feeling at that time. 
 The German asked the American if he operated a 
 machine gun, and when the Yank replied in the affirma- 
 tive, the Boche said, "We expect to revolt soon; will 
 you handle a machine gun for us?" But the Yank, 
 thinking that this was just an attempt to incriminate 
 him and then shoot him, told the Hun to return to his 
 work and forget about it. We always had to be careful 
 what we said or did while in Germany, for one false 
 word or step would make us liable to instant death. 
 For example, a Russian prisoner, thinking that a Ger- 
 man civilian who worked with him in the factory seemed 
 really friendly, asked him to buy a compass for him. 
 The German acquiesced, and two days later brought in 
 a compass for the Russian. However, before giving 
 out the compass the Hun reported the transaction to 
 the officer in charge of the factory. As a result, on the 
 following Sunday the Russian was exposed and sen- 
 tenced to a month in the dungeon on bread and water. 
 Another incident, illustrative of the rigidity of rules 
 governing the prisoners happened to myself shortly 
 after my arrival at the factory. I was working at a 
 retort pouring zinc, and a few feet from me worked a 
 German girl pouring aluminum. On one side of the 
 fire was a huge shield of sheet iron to keep the heat 
 from reaching the cups into which the liquid was poured. 
 This shield fell down, and I walked over to pick it up. 
 While doing so I asked the girl if she had always done 
 this kind of work. She told me that before the war she 
 did not work at all, but that many, many people were 
 forced to work for the "Vaterland" after war was de- 
 
BEGINNING OF THE END 47 
 
 clared. Just then the sentry came along and seeing me 
 talking to the girl motioned for me to go to him, for he 
 knew I was the interpreter and could understand what 
 he would have to say. First, he asked my number, and 
 then inquired if I knew that it was forbidden to talk to 
 the women in the factory. I told him that, as I had only 
 been in the factory a short time, as he very well knew, 
 since he was the guard who had escorted me there, 
 I did not know the rules. This explanation apparently 
 satisfied him, for the officer did not mention the incident 
 on the following Sunday at our customary assembly. 
 
 Events moved rapidly, according to the reports pub- 
 lished in the German newspapers ; Bulgaria's surrender 
 followed by Turkey's capitulation and soon after 
 Austria's downfall was accompanied in the German 
 newspapers by cries of "It is no use to fight longer, our 
 allies have deserted us and the enemy advances rapidly 
 toward our beloved homeland. Let us request an 
 armistice and plead for leniency." Great was my joy 
 upon reading these words, for I knew that my sojourn 
 in the land of the Hun would soon be terminated. 
 
 On November 9, the revolution commenced and all 
 the guards tore off their shoulder straps, thereby sig- 
 nifying that they were no longer soldiers, loyal to the 
 government, and put red bands on their collars and 
 caps, as a symbol of revolt. They even went so far as 
 to tear off the shoulder straps from the officer's uniform 
 and ridicule him openly, showing absolutely no respect 
 for their superior officers wherever they chanced to 
 meet them. 
 
 In the streets outside the factory much rioting took 
 place, and high German officers were halted by the 
 common soldiers, deprived of their boots, physically ill- 
 treated, and even shot if the officer who happened to be 
 the victim tried to take refuge behind his dignity. 
 
 Machine guns had been placed in the factory to pre- 
 vent the prisoners from joining in the fracas, and we 
 
48 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 Americans thought that it would be the height of folly 
 to go out and get killed now when the war was practi- 
 cally over. 
 
 Of course the loyal government troops were dis- 
 patched to the scene of the rioting, and the revolution- 
 ists dispersed after putting up rear-guard fighting, only 
 to form in some other locality and continue their 
 depredations. 
 
 KRIEGS FERTIGS 
 
 Wires were cut and communication with the outside 
 world was very uncertain ; so we did not really know the 
 armistice had commenced until eleven o'clock on No- 
 vember 12, 1918. The day on which all America cele- 
 brated the ending of the war so happily and gloriously, 
 was passed by us very quietly, for although we expected 
 the war to end inside of a month we never dreamed that 
 it actually had ended at that time. 
 
 The German papers printed the armistice terms, and 
 in commenting on them pleaded that the revolution 
 might cease, so that Germany might present a united 
 and determined front at the peace conference in order 
 to save the "Vaterland." 
 
 The press emphasized the fact that Germany would 
 disintegrate entirely if she did not heed the call to unite, 
 in a firm and stable government, pointing out the lesson 
 which Russia had given to her and all the world, being 
 plunged into a "Red" plague. 
 
 At eleven o'clock on Tuesday, November 12, we all 
 stopped work and went to our barracks. 
 
 Immediately following the noonday meal we turned 
 in our blankets, bed-sacks, spoons, soup-bowls, numbers, 
 and working clothes. 
 
 To the great surprise and gratification of the Ameri- 
 cans our American uniforms, sent to us from Switzer- 
 land, arrived in the afternoon, and it surely was great 
 to get back into the good old doughboy togs. The shoes 
 
^ 
 
 o 
 
 3 
 
 .2 
 'P 
 
 
 I 
 
 c3 
 
 3 
 
 <1 
 
KRIEGS FERTIGS 49 
 
 afforded us the greatest satisfaction. To think that we 
 had real leather shoes on our feet after seven months 
 of trying to navigate in wooden shoes ! It felt as if we 
 were walking on air and did not have any feet at all. 
 
 We were assembled in the square as if it were Sun- 
 day, and the owners of the factory, in company with the 
 officer, addressed us through our interpreters, wishing 
 us the best of luck upon our return to our native land. 
 They assured us of Germany's good will toward the 
 world, now that the war was over, and especially toward 
 America. Propaganda still seemed to be one of Ger- 
 many's favorite tricks. 
 
 Following the addresses, our pay for the month was 
 given out with an extra month's pay as a bonus ; imagine 
 the sarcasm in giving a bonus. The German money was 
 like so much paper to us, and we hoped to be out of the 
 country before the week elapsed, so that the marks, 
 varying from twenty-five to thirty-five, plus a month's 
 pay which had been retained, did not create any bursts 
 of enthusiasm from us. 
 
 On the morning of the thirteenth the soup contained 
 plenty of potatoes and beans, and half a loaf of bread 
 was issued to each prisoner (more propaganda). 
 
 We left the factory at seven o'clock via box-cars, for 
 Limburg, arriving there at ten o'clock in the evening. 
 
 The Russians did not go to the prison camp, however, 
 but remained on the train which was to take them to the 
 northern border, as in repatriating the Russians care 
 had been used to avoid sending them into other countries 
 for the simple reason that Germany wished to have 
 more discord and discontent in Russia. 
 
 We hiked out to the camp and there met nine other 
 Americans, including those who had been on the food 
 committee. They told us that we would probably leave 
 the camp the following day, but when we did leave, it 
 was on the fifteenth and we all left together, making a 
 total of eighteen. 
 
50 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 The fourteenth we spent in camp and went to the 
 storehouse for some Red Cross packages to carry along 
 with us on our journey, for we had no idea how long it 
 would take us to reach the American lines after leaving 
 Limburg. 
 
 Our astonishment was unequaled when we saw at the 
 storehouse approximately one thousand Red Cross 
 boxes piled up in the rooms there. Our committee told 
 us that the German authorities had prevented them 
 from sending out the boxes. 
 
 WESTWARD BOUND 
 
 At five o'clock on the afternoon of the fifteenth we 
 left Limburg together with a great number of English, 
 French, and Italians. We boarded a train composed 
 of third-class coaches and commenced our never to be 
 forgotten journey toward France, our comrades who 
 had survived the awful struggle, and eventually home. 
 
 No pen can fittingly describe the feelings of emotion 
 which surged in our breasts as we pictured in our minds 
 the repatriation. Question after question occurred to 
 us: How many of our old friends in the regiment 
 would we meet? Would those with the regiment be 
 changed so that we would not know them? 
 
 The train was just about to start when a straggling 
 mass of Germans hove into sight coming from the direc- 
 tion of the front and bringing with them two American 
 prisoners. We managed to talk to the Americans, who 
 informed us that they had been captured one hour 
 before the war ended. Rather unlucky, they thought, 
 but we told them to cheer up, for in a-few days they 
 would be in France, and we gave them all the food and 
 cigarettes they could carry. We thought somewhat of 
 telling them to jump on the train with us, but on second 
 consideration deemed it better not to, for they might 
 
• WESTWARD BOUND 51 
 
 reach the border and be sent back, for we were all 
 counted as we left Limburg in order that the Germans 
 could make a report on the number of men repatriated 
 daily. If we had only known that there really was not 
 any "border" and that no check was taken of us after 
 leaving Metz we would surely have told the Americans 
 to come along with us. 
 
 Arriving at Metz the following noon we encountered 
 two German regiments hastening to the rear, who in- 
 formed us that the Americans would be in Metz by the 
 next day. The regiments had thrown away all their 
 equipment and carried only a package or two containing 
 food. Red straps and red bands proclaimed that they 
 also had joined the revolution. In fact, from Limburg 
 to Metz, we passed train after train bearing the red 
 flag and filled with cheering, shouting soldiers, crying, 
 "Down with the Kaiser." 
 
 After an hour's wait at Metz we continued on the 
 train until we arrived at a point about fifteen kilometers 
 from Metz. We detrained and commenced our hike to 
 the American lines. 
 
 The first people who greeted us on our journey were 
 the French Alsatians, who directed us on our way with 
 tears in their eyes but cheers on their lips. 
 
 Many of the Allied prisoners died on the waj^side 
 from exhaustion, but no Americans were lost from our 
 little band of eighteen, which again gives the American 
 Red Cross the everlasting thanks of those of us who 
 returned to France. 
 
 At eight o'clock we were halted by a sentry as fol- 
 lows: "Where you all goin'?" Believe me, it surely was 
 good to hear the darky's voice, and the officer of the day 
 was soon summoned. We found that we had entered 
 the American lines at a point not many kilometers from 
 Seicheprej^ which had now become a rail-head. The 
 Ninety-second Division, composed of colored troops, 
 held the lines here, and would have played an important 
 
52 A YANKEE PRISONER IN HUNLAND 
 
 part in the contemplated drive on Metz if the war had 
 not ended at this time. 
 
 That night we had some good old army chow, and all 
 of us slept in feather beds, not awakening until noon of 
 the following day, which was the 17th of November, 
 1918. 
 
 Some of us were sent to an evacuation hospital for a 
 few days' rest and from there to Toul. 
 
 On December 1st we rejoined our regiment and sailed 
 for America four months later with a song of prayerful 
 thanksgiving in our hearts that we had been permitted 
 to pass through our experiences and return to our 
 homes and families. 
 
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