The Telegraph Book of Readers' Letters from the Great War (17 page)
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Authors: Gavin Fuller
Faithfully yours,
H.G.
Carshalton
SIR â For a long time I have been waiting to see if any German living in England would come forward to protest against the ill-treatment of Britishers in Germany, and I am glad to read Scrutator's letter, which invites Germans to do so.
As I have been in camp at Newbury and on board a transport at Portsmouth altogether for seven weeks, I am in a position to speak from experience, and I must say that we were well treated. There was never a case of ill treatment of any sort. The food was sufficient and of good quality, and so much bread at Newbury (five large loaves per day for ten men) that we were able to give daily to the young sturdy seamen, who, of course, can eat a good deal more than men who are used to a life in a city.
It is impossible to forget the kindness shown to all prisoners at Newbury by the commandant, Colonel Haines, and I shall always remember the day the first lot of prisoners left Newbury for Portsmouth. The men were singing âDeutschland Ãber Alles' when Colonel Haines was watching them marching off, and a man standing near me said, âCan you imagine a lot of British prisoners in Germany singing “Rule Britannia” in front of a German colonel?' My remark was, âNo; they very likely would all be shot.'
Where is there a country that gives everybody such liberty as England does? Where is the country that allows us to earn our living even in wartime, with the only restrictions that are absolutely necessary?
Let the world therefore know â and I hope it will reach Germany â that we are treated as human beings, and in accordance with British justice, and let Germany take an example and treat British prisoners, and especially gallant officers and soldiers, who have risked their lives for their country, the same way as Germans are treated here. Then, perhaps, we need not be ashamed of the country that once had a great name.
I am, dear Sir, yours truly,
Pro-British Alien
SIR â We must, of course, support the Government, who are supposed to be putting forth their best efforts to save us from the degradation that the
Kultur
of Germany means.
When the infernal German war was imposed on the European world, we, in common with all the other loyal inhabitants of the British Empire, flung our whole weight in to break the Prussian tyranny. We encouraged our sons to fight; we emptied our pockets to help the poor down-trodden Belgians; we drew on our reserves to provide comforts and necessities to our own troops; we suffered the loss of profitable trade with equanimity in the glorious cause; and we assisted our own friends who were punished (even more severely than we were) by the misfortunes of war.
The casualty lists brought to us the same horror as they brought to everybody. Our dead are lying in France, Belgium, Suez and in the seas. We do not complain. We are British, and we want the flag of freedom to fly in every land. Now we, who have been pursuing honourably and lawfully our vocation of supplying stimulants to those who want them â (we impose our wares on no one) â are asked to suffer ruin because a limited number abuse the goods that we sell. Is this reasonable? If it is, we must suffer in the great cause; but is it reasonable or necessary?
We do not contemplate without dismay turning adrift many reliable and trusted servants who are too old to take up new vocations.
Yours faithfully,
William Williamson, Managing Director, Haig & Haig (Ltd)
SIR â This wild experiment in teetotal legislation, posing as an attempt to improve the output of munitions of war, will, if carried into law, most seriously affect our business and that of all other distillers. We shall have to reduce our expenditure in purchases of material of every sort, and in many other directions. In a word, we shall have to do very much less than we have hitherto done to keep the business of the country going.
We have no wish to shirk our share of the cost of the war in any shape or form, but we do not think it fair to make use of the present political truce to force on to the country an ill-considered scheme, which under ordinary circumstances would be strenuously opposed in every possible manner, both in Parliament and in the country.
Yours faithfully,
Dunville & Co. (Ltd)
7 May 1915
Reply to Criticisms
SIR â Our attention has been called to correspondence which has appealed in the Press with regard to the selection of members of the Public Schools Brigade for commissions in the Army, and, in view of the erroneous statements which have been made, we think that the true position of affairs should be made known.
In September last the War Office authorised the raising of a brigade to consist in all of 5,400 public school and university men.
Recruiting was energetically carried on, and we reached a total of very little short of that number. The need for officers for the new Army then began to make itself apparent, and, as was natural, in a brigade composed practically entirely of public school and university men, large numbers began to be taken from our ranks to receive commissions in other regiments.
This went on without any check until early in the year, when the brigadier-general and officers of the brigade said the men under them began to fear that the brigade had practically been turned into an Officers Training Corps, and approached our committee with a view to ascertaining the exact position.
We therefore made inquiries from those in authority at the War Office, and received assurances that the brigade was intended to continue to exist as a unit, and not as an Officers Training Corps.
Further, we were assured that there was no intention of drawing upon the brigade for more officers except in special cases of which there would only be a small number.
At that time 1,700 men had already been recommended for commissions. Since then further need for officers has arisen. We, realising this, agreed to more men being taken, and when this new demand on us has been satisfied a total of not less than 3,083 men will have been taken altogether out of our brigade.
We think it is only fair to the brigade itself to ourselves as a committee to make public these facts and figures, which speak for themselves, and surely afford a conclusive answer to the criticisms that have appeared to the effect that the brigadier-general and his officers, and we as a committee, have put obstacles in the way of men obtaining commissions.
All the men who are fit for and desirous of commissions have now been recommended for appointment.
Arthur Stanley, Chairman
Lurgan, Vice-Chairman
H.J. Boon
J.W. Orde
(Committee of the Public Schools Brigade, Royal Fusiliers)
Committee Room 65, 83 Pall Mall, S.W.
12 May 1915
Insufficient Pensions Sir F. Milner's Appeal
SIR â Is there no member of Parliament who will take up the case of our wounded heroes and insist on their receiving more generous treatment? I spent twenty years of hard labour in Parliament, but would gladly begin again if anybody
will offer me a seat, so that I may devote myself to the cause of these splendid men. Since the opening of the war I have visited many thousands in our hospitals, and it has convinced me as nothing else could have done both as to their sufferings and their needs.
I have kept in touch with many of the more serious cases that I have visited, and I assert that the pensions that are being awarded to the men discharged as unfit for further service are not sufficient to keep life in them. On 23 November 1914, a paper was issued â Circular NRF, dealing with allowances and pensions authorised by His Majesty's Government in respect of seamen, marines and soldiers. In the case of the lowest grades, pensions amounting to 23s per week as a maximum were authorised, according to the discretion of the authorities, with proportionate increase for the higher grades. Your readers may be surprised to hear that authority has not yet been received by the Commissioners to award this increased rate, and the maximum rate which the Commissioners are authorised to grant to a man totally disabled is 17s 6d per week.
Already well over 2,000 men have been discharged as unfit for further service, not counting the thousands of men still in hospital. Many of these men to my knowledge were earning 45s per week at the time war broke out; many of them had formed comfortable little homes for themselves and their families. They have uncomplainingly gone through sufferings and hardships almost unparalleled in the history of warfare;
they have sacrificed what many of them value more than life itself; they have helped to save our hearths and homes from irreparable disaster, and a grateful country awards these pitifully maimed heroes a miserable pittance of 17s 6d a week as a maximum, and my experience has shown me that very few of them get as much as this.