100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/prisoners-at-ruhleben-kvmpbsg2q

May 23, 1918

Prisoners at Ruhleben

We have been informed by a British journalist who suffered internment in Ruhleben for two-and-a-half years that, owing to the fact that the prisoners receive no vegetables at all and no fats — practically living only on tinned stuff — the condition into which the prisoners have fallen is appalling. In his own case the entire absence of these necessary food constituents caused prolapsus of the stomach, the body commencing to feed on its own tissues and muscles. Ruptures were frequent. If the prisoners requested a belt they were given one, but the German “doctors” never inquired into the cause.
A wealthy man can — as some did — by giving a big commission to the camp commandant, get clothes, bedding, and a little furniture. These fortunate ones would pay to get their horse stall or shed cleaned out, and then install their heavily paid-for bits of furniture. These were the places shown to the American Ambassador on his visits, and on which his earlier reports as to the condition of British prisoners were founded. He was carefully piloted to that part of the camp where the prisoners had been allowed to make the best of their plight and was guided away from places it was undesirable he should see. The Germans always knew beforehand of these visits, and made preparations. But one day Mr Jackson, of the United States Embassy in Berlin, after being carefully engineered through the “show part,” evinced a desire to see another part of the camp. In spite of the efforts of the German Staff to prevent him, he walked to that part of the camp which had heretofore been avoided. He was greeted with cries of “Bravo, Jackson!” by the unlucky men imprisoned there, who shouted, “See Barrack No 6! See Barrack No 5!” as the officials again tried to get him away. The report Mr Jackson made of this part of the camp brought an immediate visit from the Ambassador, who was most indignant, and there and then (in our correspondent’s words) “went for” the Germans. Our informant, in spite of the fact that he has now been back for nearly a year, is still in a deplorable physical state. He has four ruptures, his body and arms are covered with sores, and he is semi-blind. All the deaths that occurred, including those due to neglect and ill-treatment, were put down to typhus by the Germans.



https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/hospitals-bombed-deliberately-0lbl3z2hl

may 24, 1918

Hospitals bombed deliberately

During the recent fine weather our airmen have made every use of the good visibility to attack and harass points of military importance. At the same time, German airmen have been making use of the favourable conditions by bombing hospitals.
There is one place in France, far from the battle area, where we have a large group of hospitals. The Germans are well aware it, and selected it as the object of a bombing raid last year. An airman blind and drunk could let bombs fall from any height in any wind and weather, and they must land somewhere among the tents where nursing sisters move among the rows of cots with their helpless occupants. On Sunday night the Germans attacked the place with all the ferocity of which they are capable. To my mind the thing is one of the most horrible episodes of the war, rivalling the sinking of hospital ships or the Lusitania.

The raids lasted from soon after 10 till after midnight. Over a score of machines dropped bombs, many of the largest size, making craters 15 and 20 feet across. The scenes inside the tents were piteous, and the total casualties to patients, sisters, medical officers, and attendants must have far exceeded those of any London air raid. The redeeming feature of the horrible affair was the magnificent behaviour of the hospital staffs, including the nursing sisters.
There were shelters to which the sisters and others could have gone for refuge, but the cots were filled with helpless wounded who could not be moved, and the attendants refused to leave their patients. Too many paid the price of their heroism. Some of the enemy machines used machine-guns, raking the hospital tents with fire from low altitudes.
Anti-aircraft guns brought down one of the raiders, a Gotha with three occupants, two of whom were wounded and one uninjured. The captain is being cared for in the hospital he bombed. He tried at first to excuse himself by saying that he saw no Red Cross. When challenged, he endeavoured to plead that hospitals should not be placed near railways, or, if they are, must take the consequences.

It is impossible not to wonder when the Germans will awake to the extent to which they are crystallizing the world’s contempt and hatred, so that their name will be a name of loathing for generations.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-05-18/register/end-of-the-baltic-submarines-khxqb2t8c

may 18, 1918

End of the Baltic submarines

Yesterday evening the Russian public passing along the Neva quay in front of the British Embassy were much attracted by the sight of a party of British sailors preparing to escort several cartloads of baggage and naval stores to the Nicholas railway station. These were bluejackets, about 30 in number, who had been obliged to destroy their submarines last week at Helsingfors in order to save them from the Germans. They were homeward bound by way of the Murmansk railway, and were taking with them provisions for a month or more. They had loaded rifles slung across their shoulders or laid on their knees as they sat upon cases of Australian “bully” beef and biscuits, ready against any hooligan attempt at expropriation. There was a free and easy manner about them, even a jaunty air, which seemed to defy the squalor of the Russian surroundings. They had made good use of the 24 hours spent in the Embassy mansion to wash and rig themselves out, and they turned out spick and span as if on parade. The spotless blue of their dress, and the shine of their shoes, the only polished footgear seen here on soldier or sailor for many a day, presented a glaring contrast with the grey untidiness of the soldiers and sailors of the Russian Republic, who stopped to look on with gaping astonishment. The half-starved natives cast longing eyes at the abundance of toothsome rations which these Jack Tars were guarding so jealously, and well it was they took this precaution, for sudden hunger raids by marauders are now of almost daily occurrence.

This departure of the British naval contingent from the Baltic, which is now completely under German control, marks the end of Great Britain’s active help to defaulting Russia as an ally in the war. The British submarines were blown up in Helsingfors Bay, together with barges containing mines and torpedo warheads. The people of Helsingfors were so alarmed at the noise and vibration that they thought it must be an earthquake. The submarines were piloted out by an ice-breaker some five miles beyond the fortress of Sveaborg, which guards the entrance to Helsingfors harbour. The charges were fitted with time fuses, and the men stood about a mile off on the ice until every vestige of the ill-fated boats had disappeared.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-05-22/register/ready-for-the-blow-l6d33pt89

may 22, 1918

Ready for the blow

We enter the third month of the great offensive in a period of suspense, in which the silence seems to hang so heavy that one can almost hear the strained expectancy of armies waiting for the next move. Day follows day, all golden sunshine and intense heat. The guns thunder and the skies are full of aeroplanes, almost like summer gnats. And it is as if over to eastward, beyond the horizon, one knew that the banked thunderclouds were already full to bursting. Burst, of course, they will, but meanwhile the still, hot sunshine goes on, and the suspense becomes a thing almost tangible and palpable.
It is no time for boasting, rather for prayer, but one may draw encouragement from some of the facts. Whether the Germans are satisfied with what they have won in two months by the using up of over 150 divisions, or three-quarters of their armies, one can only guess; but surely no German would ever have believed that on the main battlefront from Arras southwards their armies would be no farther forward after two months than they were at the end of the first week. Morlancourt, where the Australians have just been recovering ground, was in German hands on March 28, and our line that night was farther back there than it is today. Nowhere on all that main battlefront has the enemy made appreciable progress since the beginning of April. And it has not been for lack of trying, as his failures about Villers-Bretonneux, around Albert, and in the Aveluy Wood-Bouzincourt areas testify. Since then he has made gains in the north with the capture of Kemmel, but even there the French are now gallantly beating him back and gaining for us more elbow room where we stand with our backs to the second tier of heights. Whether the Germans are satisfied one cannot guess, but certainly our Army has lost none of its heart and, while fully aware of the seriousness of what lies ahead, is prepared for it. The operation of the French near Locre was even more successful than I reported yesterday. The ground gained gives us a more comfortable front to hold and they took over 500 prisoners.

The curious rumour that Hindenburg is dead comes up persistently in prisoners’ statements. It is probably quite untrue, but there is no doubt that a large part of the German Army believes it.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-05-21/register/the-whitsun-air-raid-xmmbnphl8

may 21, 1918

The Whitsun air raid

The following communiqué was issued late last night: A considerable number of Gotha aeroplanes appear to have taken part in last night’s raid. It is not possible to give an exact figure, but probably between 20 and 30 machines participated. A group of machines came in up the Thames Estuary about 11pm, and skirted the North Kent Coast on their way to London, being heavily engaged by the AA defences on their way. One of these machines was engaged at about 11.30 by a British airman, who fired at the raiders at close range until the machine disappeared from view in the clouds. Shortly afterwards she burst into flames at a height of about 7,000 feet, and fell a blazing wreck to earth. The other machines passed inland over Kent, dropping bombs without doing material damage. Another group of raiders crossed the Essex Coast and made its way towards London, where one machine was brought down by gunfire. A few dozen bombs were dropped promiscuously, doing no inconsiderable damage to small dwelling-house property. The casualties were, however, by no means heavy or proportionate to the material damage. All the raiders were hotly engaged by AA defences.

Some of the enemy machines attempted to make their way down the Thames Estuary, others proceeded eastwards overland; some may have been severely damaged during their attempt to penetrate the London defences. At least three failed to effect their escape. Two were brought down before they had crossed the coast, one of these being destroyed by a British airman. A fifth machine came down in flames into the sea and a sixth is also reported to have been observed falling into the sea, though this report is not yet confirmed. Further reports make it appear that yet a seventh raider fell burning into the sea. The casualty list now stands at 37 killed and 161 injured. Except for two outbreaks of fire, which were soon got under control, the damage was confined to the wrecking of some small dwelling-houses by explosion as well as to the breakage of much glass.
Disregard of the “take cover” warning appears to have accounted for most of the deaths and injuries. In one place 11 people were killed by one bomb and 10 injured. Three of the dead and all the injured are said to have been loitering in the streets.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-05-19/register/a-swift-and-secret-blow-6fnxprgqc

may 19, 1918

A swift and secret blow

Dublin opened its newspapers yesterday morning with a gasp of astonishment. It was not astonished to learn that the Irish Government had discovered a German plot, but at the firmness with which the Government acted on its discovery. We had ceased to expect these qualities in Irish administration. As a piece of police work the simultaneous arrest of some 60 leaders of the Sinn Fein movement in Dublin and the provinces was admirable. The whole thing was done suddenly, and so quietly that not one in 100,000 of the Irish people knew anything about it until breakfast time. The Viceroy’s proclamation was as complete a surprise for the newspapers as were the arrests for Mr de Valera and his friends. Having recovered from their astonishment, loyal and law-abiding men put down their newspapers with a sigh of profound relief.

For some months the knowledge that a new conspiracy was maturing had weighed upon the country. The tangible evidences were numerous. Private houses had been looted for arms; quantities of high explosives had been stolen from quarries and warehouses; policemen had been attacked and robbed of their rifles; local orators boasted publicly about the coming defeat of the Allied forces and the emergence of an independent Ireland from the ruins of the British Empire. No sane man doubted that some agency was working among an ignorant and credulous people to produce unrest even more intense than before the rebellion of 1916. Nothing illustrates the unbalanced state of the national mind better than the prevalence of absurd stories about phantom pigs and other ghostly apparitions associated with ancient prophecies concerning some mighty upheaval. These portents were discussed gravely in the country newspapers.
All Irish loyalists have long been convinced that Germany is at the bottom of the present troubles. They have long suspected that plans exist for cooperation between rebel Irishmen and a German landing on the western or south-western shores of Ireland. Mr Shortt’s statement that “the Irish Government are determined to take every necessary step to stamp out this German plot” has a ring of firmness welcome to the tens of thousands of Irishmen who have given their sons to the war.