At the end of the First World War it was
estimated that 674,000 servicemen had died in the
conflict. Some 160,000 British soldiers were
captured and held prisoner in Germany. But an
estimated 20,000 British troops who succumbed
during the Great War died not from bullets or
shrapnel, but from starvation and disease in
prisoner of war camps. Their living conditions
were hard. They were subject to attacks of vermin
and exposed to diseases, especially in the camps
where prisoners from different armies were
grouped together. They were also required to work
in order to recover part of the expense of their
detention and to replace men sent to the front.
Few records exist revealing the conditions and
numbers who were confined in camps. John Chapman
has been seeking information on POWs from the
Royal Berkshire Regiment. His list of about 1000
POWs from the Regiment can be found at <www.purley.demon.co.uk/1-RBR/G1500Apows.htm>.
Both sides took prisoners during the First
World War. Many died in captivity and many
suffered appalling brutality. The principal
sources of information are contemporary
newspapers and surviving letters. To date no
detailed official records have been Found. The
Red Cross in Geneva are the only known source and
they are unco-operative to say the least in
releasing information. It was not until January
1916 that the first lists of POWs began to appear
in British newspapers. Many of the men had been
reported missing and a good number as killed so
the news of their captivity came as a great
relief to their relatives.1 The worst
cases of brutality which involved men from
Berkshire arose from the fall of Kut and the
capture of men from the Ox and Bucks Light
Infantry by the Turks on 29 April 1916. An
example was Pte Robert James Nash of Purley who
died in captivity on 25 September after forced
marches and appalling treatment.2
A street collection organised to provide
comforts for British POWs, held in Reading on New
Year’s Day 1915, was organised by Mrs L D
Fullerton of Purley Park. The enormous sum of £550
was raised.3 A Committee was founded
called the ‘Royal Berks Regiment Prisoners
of War Care Committee’. It was chaired by
William Mount MP. The Committee organised the
collection of money and built a network of
contributors who assembled the parcels to be sent
to the men. These parcels were then brought to a
depot where an army of volunteers addressed them
and looked after the administration and records.
Over the years it cared for over 1400 POWs but
extended its scope beyond the Royal Berkshire
Regiment to any man who was (or had been) a
resident of Berkshire. Naturally they could send
parcels only to those men with a known address in
Germany. Usually this would be the name of the
camp in which they were interned; however, the
Germans maintained a set of ‘Registration
Camps’ such as Gustrow, Stendal, Limburg,
Friedrichsfeld and Parchim. They were used as the
designated addresses of men who had been sent to
work in mines and factories and on farms. To
assist communication and exchange information a
number of ladies looked after the different Royal
Berkshire Battalions. Mrs Mount of Wasing took on
the 1st, 2nd, 5th and 8th, Mrs Hedges of
Wallingford took on the 4th and 7th and Mrs
Dowell of Colchester looked after the 6th. People
whose relatives were missing or POWs were asked
to make contact with the appropriate lady.4
Every 28 days six parcels were sent to each
man, each worth initially 10s and later 15s plus
three kilos of bread which usually came from a
nearby neutral country such as Switzerland. Each
prisoner was sent a special pack containing a
complete change of clothing as soon as his
address was received and this was renewed every
six months. Each parcel contained a card which
the recipient was asked to sign and return, but
many often enclosed letters of thanks.
The number of prisoners from Berkshire
increased dramatically as a result of the Spring
Offensive of 1918. At the end of 1917 there were
only some 200 on the books but by Armistice Day
this had swelled to 1400 with 42 reported as
having died. As a result the frequency of
despatch and the amount of bread had to be
drastically reduced. At the end of the war there
was £3401.11s.1d left in the fund which was
distributed to ex-POWs and disabled men from
Berkshire or from the Royal Berkshire Regiment.
<image to be inserted here>
King George V’s
personal message to all those who returned to
Blighty after being released as prisoners of war
An agreement negotiated through the Red Cross
enabled seriously wounded prisoners to be
exchanged. The first batch came home via Holland
in December 1915 but it was not until July 1916
that the second batch returned via Switzerland.
They brought back tales of appalling treatment:
brutality, starvation and unsanitary conditions.
As a result of strong representations made
through the Red Cross things did improve although
tales continued to leak back of terrible
treatment, especially in the first few weeks of
captivity when they were in the hands of the
German forces in the battle zones.
<image to be inserted here>
Postcard sent back
to Pte J. Gore’s home informing his family
that he was a POW at Giessen in Germany
The Reading Mercury of the 12
December 1918 recorded the return home of
officers who had been taken prisoner. Lt Norman
Langston, 8th Royal Berkshire, and other officers
of the same battalion, including Capt Gentry-Birch,
MC, reached home from Germany where they had been
prisoners of war since the first day of the great
German offensive on 21 March 1918.
Lt Langston and his brother officers and the
medical officer, Capt Byrne, of the Royal Army
Medical Corps, who did excellent work afterwards
in Germany, making it much better for his fellow
prisoners, were taken just behind the lines where
for thirty six hours they had no food. Their
eventual destination was Rastatt in Baden. Here,
said Mr Langston:
'we had three months starvation. Our daily
fare was two plates of thin soup and one
fifth of a loaf of bread a day. It was rather
a pathetic sight at the baths to see your
brother officers getting so appreciably
thinner. At Rastatt they treated us like dogs.
Capt Gentry-Birch was for a time in hospital
with his wounds.’
‘When the soldiers’ councils took
control we used to be allowed into the town and
to visit the cafes and we had a good time. The
people invited us to their houses. On being
released we left Cologne and came down the Rhine
on a 9,000 ton vessel which carried 160 officers
and 1690 men. They did us very well on the boat
and at Rotterdam everything that a man could want
— change of uniform, razors, parcels etc.—
was provided by the British Government. We could
not have been treated better. As we sailed up the
Humber to Hull the sirens were sounded and a very
cordial welcome was accorded us and there was
much enthusiasm at Scarborough.’
Another unidentified POW, believed to be a
major, had managed to write home and his
experiences were recounted in the Reading Mercury
of 1 Jan 1916. He had been overun by the Germans
and thrown from his horse onto a pile of dead. He
was saved from being bayoneted by a German
officer who intervened. As they were marched away
they got a very bad reception from the civilians.
They were punched, kicked, robbed and had all
their buttons and badges cut from their uniforms.
They were marched for three days to a train with
800 others and then moved to a barracks for two
weeks. He wrote:
‘It would make you cry to see the
state of the civilians, even though they are
our enemy. Conditions are very bad. The women
will do anything for a piece of bread. Meat
is 3s a pound and can be sold only on certain
days. We are receiving parcels from home and
the German soldiers are begging to buy food
from the prisoners, they are offering 20
pfennigs, about 2d, for a single slice of
bread.’
Initially he only had straw to sleep on
although it was very cold. Eventually he was
given a blanket. Food improved when a new
commandant took over. However, it was still only
fit for pigs to eat. They were moved around from
camp to camp and at one place the traitor Roger
Casement appeared and tried to tempt men with
money to join the Casement Brigade. He got a very
bad reception and did not return.
Frank Bates of Reading was luckier. He was put
to work on a farm in Germany and was treated well.
Most prisoners however were held in prisoner of
war camps in Germany or Austria. The Germans went
to extraordinary lengths to use them to counter
the tales of mistreatment that were abounding.
Men were made to smarten themselves and then had
their photograph taken looking well and contented
either singly or in groups. These photos were
then made into postcards which were mailed back
to families in England. Many of these were
published in the Reading newspapers and collected
together after the war in Berkshire and the
War.
German POWs in England
The possibility of the need to accommodate
German prisoners in this country was realised
from the beginning of the war. By 29 August 1914
preparations were well underway to transform
Newbury Racecourse into a POW camp. By the 19
September no fewer than 1500 prisoners were
guarded there by the Newbury Battalion of the
Berkshire National Guard. Initially the prisoners
interned were aliens. These were all removed at
the end of 1914 to prison ships — liners
anchored offshore. A number of allegations were
made about ill-treatment and these were used as
the justification for the brutal treatment meted
out to British POWs in Germany. However, the
allegations of British ill-treatment proved to be
false.5
One of the camps for German officers was at
Philberds, a large house near Maidenhead. This
housed over 100 officers and 40 other ranks who
acted as their servants. The camp was guarded by
Territorials from the Devon Regiment. Early in
1915 the prisoners took to gardening and
eventually the adjutant, Captain Armstrong,
became suspicious and called in workmen to lay
some unneeded drainpipes. While they were digging
their picks struck a tunnel eight to twelve yards
long and two feet square. It was cased with wood
and had pads for elbows to rest on. The Germans
had cut through the concrete foundations of a
high wall and would probably have escaped had it
not been for the adjutant.6
References
1 Reading Mercury 29/8/14, 19/9/14
and 26/9/14
2 Neville, History of the 43rd/52nd Light
Infantry in the Great War. 1935
3 Reading Mercury 8/1/16
4 Reading Mercury 8/7/16
5 Berkshire and the War (Reading Standard)
page 44
6 Reading Mercury 10/4/15
with any queries
