Meeting the Enemy

by Richard van Emden

  Proposed exchanges frequently floundered owing to mutual suspicion, and it was indicative of the Foreign Office’s attitude to Fuchs, and indifference to his standing, that the Prussian request was refused, albeit with an amusing note attached to the Foreign Office file: ‘Dauthendey is in Java aged 58. He is accused of being a poet but may be innocent.’

  Nellie Fuchs pressed her case, revealing that her husband, like so many men parted from their families, was in poor mental health, but the official dealing with Fuchs’s proposed return had no sympathy for the plight of either man.

  ‘I think we can leave Mrs Fuchs to deluge the Home Office with the names of any responsible persons who may be prepared to vouch for her husband’ was another sarcastic note attached to the file. ‘We should not have Fuchs back now. Apart from objections to him, there is no demand for his return and his job is filled by an Englishman . . . If the Fuchs case is ever raised again we must decline to discuss it further. Enough paper time has now been wasted on this Hun.’ ‘I agree,’ wrote another official. ‘The agitation for Fuchs’ passport is evidently being run by Manchester Radicals of pro German proclivities, and the longer he is kept away the better!’

  Fuchs’s job had indeed been taken, by a man named Hatton, and in a report submitted to the Foreign Office by the Manchester Police, Inspector Fisher confirmed that the public in the city would ‘hardly tolerate’ Fuchs’s reinstatement at the ‘expense of a British born subject’.

  In December 1915, a memo was sent by the then Home Secretary and former barrister Sir John Simon to Sir Edward Grey at the Foreign Office. It stated that preference would be given in cases of proposed repatriation to ‘natural-born’ British subjects. Now, over a year later, a decision had been made, seemingly on the hoof, to deny the rights of British citizenship to naturalised subjects of enemy birth, despite cast-iron rights being granted on naturalisation. Fuchs’s own certificate, issued in 1899 and quoted by Nellie to the Foreign Office, made matters crystal-clear: ‘. . . upon taking the Oath of Allegiance, he [Fuchs] shall in the United Kingdom be entitled to all political and other rights, powers and privileges, and be subject to all obligations, to which a natural-born British subject is entitled or subject . . .’

  Irrespective of the evidence, the Foreign Office wrote to Nellie Fuchs that the government had determined that ‘persons of enemy origin residing in the country of their origin who have previously obtained citizenship through naturalisation [would] not receive British passports’, sealing Fuchs’s immediate fate. Nellie Fuchs replied, rejecting the idea that her husband was ‘residing’ in Germany other than at the enforced behest of the Kaiser’s government, but her protests were pointless. She was trapped in an impossible predicament. If she, and other women in a similar quandary, did not apply pressure on the government, then nothing whatsoever would happen and their husbands would languish in captivity. But the more they protested, the more they appeared to annoy officials in the Foreign Office who resisted their entreaties.

  In Britain, internees were overwhelmingly German subjects, but not exclusively so. Even those who were naturalised British and of German origin could be interned if deemed a risk under the Defence of the Realm Act. Just as the British government was inclined to play hard and fast with the law as it related to ‘British’ men like Fuchs, so it also justified interning women who were British by marriage but German by birth. Hildegard Burnyeat was interned in 1915 after a U-boat (U24) ‘bombarded’ the Cumbrian town of Whitehaven in the early hours of 16 August 1915. The attack, which caused precious little damage, reportedly slammed a few shells into a railway embankment and killed a dog.

  Hildegard’s husband was a local barrister and former Liberal MP, William Dalzell Burnyeat, a member of a long-established Whitehaven family. William and Hildegard married in Germany in 1908 but lived in Cumbria in the village of Moresby about a mile from the sea and close to a ‘Top Secret’ chemical plant at Parton, near Whitehaven. It was the Burnyeats’ proximity to these works that was the primary reason for her arrest. It was true that Hildegard was the daughter of a Prussian army officer (one who was, by 1915, at least in his mid-sixties), but that was the extent of her proven ‘guilt’. Local sentiment alleged that she was pro-German while claims that her home was spared by the submarine were self-evidently preposterous, as were, in all likelihood, the assertions that ‘peculiar lights’ were observed near her home at the time of the raid. The Germans were proving to the British that they could mount an attack on the west as well as the east coast, while also searching for the chemical works. They did not require the help of Hildegard Burnyeat to execute their plans, because it was a German company, Koppers, which had constructed the installation before the war. Even with this detailed knowledge, the submarine failed to hit the intended target.

  Hildegard Burnyeat was interned at Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. ‘She is one of a nice little lot which we call “14 Bs”, which, being interpreted, means persons interned in the interests of the realm under Defence of the Realm Regulation 14 B,’ wrote an official to Sir Horace Rumbold at the Foreign Office, in response to German enquiries about Hildegard’s whereabouts. Six months later, in May 1916, Hildegard’s husband died and she was released from internment and allowed to live with an English family in Harrogate, causing some antagonism in the Yorkshire town. What happened to her subsequently is not clear. She had no children and, after the death of her husband, she may have chosen to be exchanged and returned to Germany; she had precious little reason to stay in Great Britain, irrespective of whether she was pro-German or not.

  Regular exchanges of both interned civilians and prisoners of war unfit for further combat continued throughout 1916, with specially selected ships such as the St Denis ploughing their way across the sea to Holland. Around 10,000 people, primarily males not of military age, women and children, were repatriated in the twelve months to June 1916, many voluntarily going home. The only group forcibly repatriated was women of less than five years’ residency.

  There was another spike in anti-German feeling in mid-1916, when Lord Kitchener was drowned on his way to Russia aboard the armoured cruiser HMS Hampshire. Casualty lists from the Battle of the Somme hardly tempered feelings and at public meetings during the summer there were again calls to remove from Britain or intern all enemy aliens at liberty, both naturalised and unnaturalised.

  Of those Germans repatriated from Britain, the government was eager to rid the country of mentally or physically sick internees, as they posed a particular financial burden on the state. On 8 December 1916, for example, a party of 125 invalid civilians was sent across the North Sea to Holland. Accompanying them was Colonel W. R. Clark, a medical officer appointed to oversee repatriation. The policy was to return these people ‘without undue delays, hardships or undesirable incidents’ in the interests of Britons making the journey in the other direction. This was not always achieved. A memorandum written by Colonel Clark highlighted how he met with innumerable inefficiencies, ‘difficulties and obstructions’ in carrying out his task. Furthermore, he had been taken aback in particular by public hostility as the detachment left Stratford for the coast. ‘A crowd of hooting and jeering women and children crowded Carpenter’s Road and not only shouted and jeered and hissed at the German interned civilians as they emerged from the camp, but also greeted them as they climbed on the tops of the buses with pieces of rotten oranges, cabbage leaves and such like.’

  Colonel Clark could ‘scarcely believe’ what he had seen. ‘I am sorry to have to record it. The police ought in future to have strict orders not to allow any gathering of people whatsoever in Carpenter’s Road, when the German prisoners are to be repatriated and to repress most strictly any such demonstrations.’ The police, if ordered, could control the baying crowds, but, as many internees were discovering, it was officials charged with expediting their removal from Britain who often proved the most refractory.

  Diplomatic negotiations between Great Britain and Germany invariably took place with a third pa
rty acting as intermediary. Each combatant looked to see if an advantage, however inadvertent, might be handed to the other, closely scrutinising proposals such as exchanges over which joint agreement was required. An offer made by one side alone was normally rejected, at least in the short term, for suspicion lingered that there must be an ulterior motive in play.

  There were issues on which consensus was more readily reached, such as the day-to-day welfare of prisoners and the return of property. It seems extraordinary that while war raged on the Western Front, formal but courteous diplomatic transmissions were exchanged, often about matters of a relatively minor nature but which, to the individuals concerned, were no doubt of considerable importance.

  In September 1917, the German military authorities allowed the Berlin-based Free Association for the Protection of the Interest of Orthodox Jewry to furnish ritual Passover bread (Mazzoth) to British POWs of the Jewish faith. The German government wanted to know whether German soldiers of the Jewish faith enjoyed similar privileges in British and French prisoner-of-war camps.

  On 5 October, a reply was issued through the Prisoner of War Department. The Army Council had received the German memorandum and, in connection with the Jewish celebration of Passover, the army authorities were empowered to ‘authorise the issue of a money allowance in lieu of rations for days of observance . . . in order that as far as possible the requirements of the men’s religion as to food may be met’.

  While British and German armies were engaged at Ypres in one of the most ferocious battles on the Western Front, a note was sent from Berlin to the Swiss for transmission to London. In Germany, British prisoners of war were ‘provided with rupture trusses gratis. Excepting in the case of officers, they are also supplied free of charge with spectacles, in so far as they had to wear them before being captured, or if the nature of their work requires them to wear such.’ Did the British adopt a similar policy with German prisoners? ‘Yes’ came the answer a few weeks later from Mr Cubitt of the War Office. ‘The regulations regarding these matters would appear therefore, to be practically similar to those obtaining in Germany.’ An agreement over the supply of free artificial eyes, false teeth and artificial limbs had been concluded earlier in the war while the issue of inadequate supplies of toilet paper for British prisoners of war was discussed in 1917.

  Some diplomatic traffic could be of such minor consequence that it is a wonder communication was countenanced at all. In 1915, the American ambassador in Berlin, James Gerard, contacted his American counterpart in London, Walter Page, about a case of undelivered prismatic field glasses. The essence of the communication was that a Canadian Trade Commissioner, Mr Just, was due to receive a pair of such glasses from Oberleutnant Borcher prior to his leaving Germany for Britain. However, as the British government confiscated all similar glasses from Germans who had been recently exchanged, so Oberleutnant Borcher felt unable to pass on Mr Just’s glasses until repatriated Germans received theirs. Could Mr Hines ‘kindly bring this matter to the attention of the British Foreign Office?’

  Further examples included those of Hermann Waetjen, Professor of History at the University of Heidelberg, detained, though not interned, in England, who asked whether literary notes required for a book he was writing on the seventeenth-century Dutch colonisation of Pernambuco in Brazil could be sent from Germany; a request from a Mrs Gordon for permission to send the commandant of Blankenburg POW camp, Berlin, an inscribed gold pencil as a mark of appreciation for his kindness to her imprisoned husband, Colonel William Gordon VC; and an enquiry as to whether a dog (a Dachshund) belonging to a prisoner due for exchange, and both held at Lofthouse Park camp, could be repatriated with its master to Holland. Apparently the dog was refused permission to travel on a Red Cross boat and arrangements to have it forwarded by the British Commercial Transport company on a steamer were under way. The request was sent to the Swiss Legation in London dealing with German affairs and presented to the Foreign Office. An official felt that this was one for the Home Office, passing it on with a note: ‘What reply?’ he asked, perhaps in mild exasperation.

  In among this diplomatic traffic was one document of great interest to the family of Henry Hadley, the middle-aged language teacher mortally wounded by a Prussian officer. Henry was attempting to leave Germany on the eve of war with his housekeeper, Mrs Pratley, who was arrested after the shooting and detained for interrogation.

  For nearly two years there had been silence as to what had happened to Henry’s property and indeed, as far as his family was concerned, what had happened to his body. Miss Henrietta Hadley, his sister, knew only that he had been buried in Gelsenkirchen and that his property, including two trunks and other smaller bags, was missing. Suddenly, at the beginning of 1917, the Germans sparked into life. But the news was not good, as a German note dated 22 January 1917 explained.

  ‘The administrator appointed by the court has sold the property by auction and out of the proceeds of the sale, paid part of the sum owing to the doctor who treated Hadley up to the time of his death.’ Among his personal belongings listed were a violin case and violin, one silk hat, one opera hat, fourteen collars and five small pipes. The total raised was just over twenty-seven marks. The British protested that as Henry Hadley had been mortally wounded for no justifiable reason, the idea that he should pay for his own medical treatment was outrageous. In a letter to the Foreign Office, Henrietta Hadley gave details of items of value her brother carried but which had never been returned, including a new greatcoat. In addition, ‘the housekeeper [Mrs Pratley] states that before she left Gelsenkirchen a packet of papers was given her of my brother’s and that they were taken from her by the police at Münster and not returned when she left’.

  Months later, some ‘effects’ were found in the hands of the Berlin Railway and returned through The Hague, including two trunks of clothes and possibly the missing papers. Property of value reported to have been with Hadley when he was shot was untraceable.

  As to what had happened to Henry Hadley himself, Henrietta was ‘unofficially told’ that his body was buried in a pauper’s grave in Gelsenkirchen; a location of ‘Zone 11, Division 9’ was given, though this meant nothing to her, and she asked the Foreign Office to pursue the matter so that she could find out exactly where he lay. ‘What we all feel as a family,’ she wrote to the Foreign Office, ‘is that Captain Nicolay who shot my brother should be brought to justice.’ While Henry Hadley was the first British man killed in the Great War, this dubious distinction would not put him first in the justice queue when the Allies half-heartedly pursued war crimes trials after victory in 1918. Even if Captain Nicolay were still alive, there would be far bigger fish than him who would ultimately remain free and distinctly unfried.

  6

  Up Close and Personal

  For the Allies to win the war, the German army would have to be defeated in the field. In short, and at its most simplistic, this could not be achieved other than by leaving the safety of one’s own trenches, crossing no-man’s-land, and ejecting the enemy from his.

  The trenches were sanctuaries, places of relative safety, temporary homes in which men lived if not cheek by jowl with the enemy, then in close proximity. Was it any wonder that on both sides of the line men could become seduced into maintaining the peace? Most did not champ at the bit to ‘get at the Hun’. Trench raids and sniping were useful in breaking up cosy arrangements and gingering up opponents, but nevertheless a sense of stalemate was bound to develop while the men held fast, a situation that would remain until decisive action was taken. If Allied soldiers were going to get to grips with the enemy, it had to be up close and personal.

  The net result of fighting thus far had been to establish a war of attrition. The Germans, who had held the initiative in 1914 and 1915, would slowly see the pendulum of ascendancy swing in the Allies’ favour as the Battle of the Somme, and later Arras and Third Ypres, eroded the enemy’s fighting capabilities and in the end broke his will to resist coherently. The Germans b
ecame aware that the tide of war was flowing against them as British, Empire and eventually American forces were committed in ever greater numbers, deploying escalating resources as the Germans’ own decayed and diminished. It would take time for the Allies to combine the knowledge learnt, utilise new technology, enjoy the predominance of arms and win the war. In 1916, that knowledge was still over a year away and its decisive deployment closer to two.

  Prior to an offensive, the strategic aims were set out by the Commander in Chief. Strategy centred at this time on the idea of the breakout, punching through enemy lines to the green fields beyond, and it was up to his army commanders to plan in detail how this would take place. In turn, it was the junior officers’ role to implement tactics on the ground and then to lead their men forward. The other ranks had no idea of strategy or a sense of the bigger picture. They simply had to do as they were ordered.

  The significance of the proposed attack would be impressed upon the men. A major breakthrough was expected; by the troops’ own actions and example, the war itself might be shortened. There was hyperbole: the imperilled freedom of the world was in their hands; the eyes of the world were on them at this critical moment. This was not a time for failing in one’s duty, or for threatening the honour of the regiment. Everyone would be expected to perform to their utmost.

  The pep talk went on. The enemy deserved little sympathy; prisoners required feeding and every mouthful of food a prisoner ate would mean one less for the soldiers’ families back home. If prisoners were taken, they could not be allowed to hinder the attack in any way. On all sides, troops ready to go into action took their senior officers’ nudges and winks as a licence to kill the enemy with little hesitation.