Captivity and Escape

I had been transferred in April from a camp 150 kilometres from the frontier to another much nearer to it. I had scarcely arrived at my new abode when the idea of escaping took...

I was hit, I was conscious of being hit, and yet had not heard the bursting of the shell that caused my wound. I had an impression of my feet being violently swept from the grou...

At this time the N.C.O.’s were not forced to do fatigue work (it appears that is changed now), and as it is human nature never to be satisfied with the lot that falls to one, th...

It is scarcely five o’clock, but the night has almost come. The camp is invisible in the darkness, the silence becomes absolute. In certain parts nothing reveals the existence t...

It is a wet winter morning at about 6.30. The huts are deserted. The men, led by the sergeants of their companies, have gone to the kitchens and await the distribution of their...

Morning dawns at last; its pale rays dim the blinding brightness of the electric lights. It brings with it a breeze which raises the dust on the platforms and blows about the st...

Certainly Bitter, the head of the 11th Company, could not be counted among those who cherished cordial feelings for the French. The authority who had put into his hands the fate...

Slowly but with terrible certainty the work of encircling us went on day by day. A month ago we had seen experts wandering round the barbed-wire fence which enclosed us. Then th...

It was the middle of winter. The glorious dark blue sky glittering with stars shed a soft light, such as one can see on frosty evenings even when the moon is hidden. Not a breat...

The sound of the axes has ceased. The prisoners throw their coats over their shoulders, and taking their tools--that they must place at the feet of the sentinels--their knapsack...

Night spreads over the camp, not a star is to be seen in the sky; gloomy, lugubrious, heavy darkness envelops it, rendered still more dismal by the rain, which, fine as a mist,...

He had been wounded at the beginning of the campaign, at the time when nothing could stop the invading hordes, and much too soon for his liking. Powerless to escape from the fie...

The men, guarded by sentinels, were at that time herded together on some waste land surrounded by barbed wire; shelter there was none. We dug ourselves holes in the sand as best...