Escaping From Germany

ISBN: 9781332259762 出版年：2016 页码：425 Edward Page Forgotten Books

I have been asked many times, since my return, if the accounts told in the press from time to time regarding the treatment of prisoners of war interned in Germany were really true. I have endeavoured faith fully to answer these questions in these memoirs; I have endeavoured to show that, by their systematic brutality towards us, they succeeded in getting us down upon our knees, but could not finally succeed in throwing us flat upon our backs. Half-starved, ill-clothed (particularly during the winter of 1914 covered with vermin from head to foot, compelled wto live in vile dens of huts like cattle, they could not browbeat us; they could not, try as they might, crush that spirit that has made our race. I take great pride in placing upon record this fact we never for one moment forgot that we were English men — I mean, of course, Britons; and no matter in what circumstances of difficulty or misfortune we found ourselves, we always stood up to them, very often having to suffer ill-usage as the consequence. We could not help it — the old spirit was there and it would force its way to the surface. There are scores of thousands of Germans who will never forget the Englanders who came as prisoners of war amongst them; and our countrymen, whose' business or pleasure takes them to Germany when the war is over, will never be ashamed of anything they may hear concerning our actions while we were interned there.