Part 20

Breakfast.--Tea made of a mixture of dried birch and strawberry leaves, and sixty grams (about two ounces) of bread.

Midday.--Soup made of turnips, or potatoes boiled and served in the water they are boiled in, (no salt or fat,) and another sixty grams of bread.

Evening.--Same as breakfast. At some places the same vessels are used for washing the floors and for boiling the soup.

Estergom in Hungary was at the beginning a much dreaded place. It is surrounded on three sides by the Danube and barbed wire on the fourth. At the beginning there were over 30,000 prisoners--men, women, and children--there, but not sufficient accommodation, so many spent the nights out of doors in the rain and endless mud. Some lived in tents. Of course striking a match in the dark was strictly forbidden, and when once some one did strike one, the guards rushed in, striking about them blindly with their fixed bayonets. Once one unfortunate Scotchman was attacked very badly with dysentery in the middle of the night, and came out to ask the guard to take him to a doctor. The guard simply ordered him to go back to the tent and be quiet. When the sick man begged again, the guard knocked him down with the butt end of his rifle.

One camp, which was even lately mentioned as a disgrace in the Austrian Parliament, is Thalerhof, near Graz, the capital of Styria. Here they kept principally their own refugees from Galicia.

The London Telegraph correspondent writes of Thalerhof:

"One Polish lady who had been there for eight months is now in Raabs. She was taken away from her own house in Galicia in the clothes she stood in, allowed to take nothing with her. Eventually she reached Thalerhof. Through her sufferings there the poor woman is so broken down that it is almost impossible to get her to speak of what she has been through. A little she told me. When they--she and other ladies, priests, peasants, men of all classes--were brought to Thalerhof, the ladies (not the peasant women) were told they must come and bathe. It was many degrees below freezing point, but they were taken to a shed, open all round, down the middle of which a long row of troughs half filled with dirty water was arranged. The water had already been used by soldiers for washing their clothes. Then they were ordered to undress.

"The soldiers with fixed bayonets surrounded these ladies, while they completely undressed in the open, and forced them to bathe in the troughs, threatening them with fixed bayonets all the time and torturing them with coarse jokes. The low-class women were left quiet, not forced to bathe like this. After the bath was over they were shut up in a room crowded with people full of vermin. The ladies were always chosen for the dirty work--never the peasant women, just as the priests were set to clear up the 'sanitary arrangements,' which there consisted of a long open ditch with a board along one side of it."

CIVILIANS KIDNAPPED

"At the beginning they had a cruel way of arresting people. They would march them off as they stood, not letting them communicate with wives or friends or relatives. I know of one lady who for about two months did not know where her husband was, while he knew just as little about her. Two Serbian ladies, mother and daughter, who had also been at Salzerbad, had been staying at a little watering place in Dalmatia, where they had gone for many years. One evening, when they were only dressed in cotton dressing gowns, they were asked by an official to come down to a steamer lying at the wharf. Only for a few minutes, he said; there were just a few questions to be asked. So they went just as they were, and went on the boat with several others; some one began to ask them questions, when, to their horror, they noticed the ship was moving. They were taken right away, as they were. At every port they stopped and brought in others in the same way.

"In Fiume they landed, were handcuffed two and two, and marched through the streets to the prison. There the daughter and her 65-year-old mother, who had been also handcuffed, spent the night in a cell, with only two upright chairs in it. Next day they and all the other prisoners collected up to then were packed into third-class carriages, packed as close as they would go, and in each compartment two soldiers, fully accoutred, with fixed bayonets, and smoking like chimneys. Although it was hot Summer, all the windows were kept shut. In this way they were brought to Marburg--a journey of some four or five hours in ordinary time--but they took two days for it. All this time they had nothing to eat. People came to the train selling things; but, as all their money had been taken away from them on the boat, they could get nothing. In Marburg they were put in the prison, and kept there for eight months."

Abuses in German Prison Camps

Examples of Heartless Treatment

Quartermaster Sergeant T. Duggan of the First Coldstream Guards, who was at the prison camp at Schneidemühl (Posen) from 1914 to March, 1918, described the horrors at that camp as follows:

Prisoners of all nationalities, Russians, French, British, and Belgians, were kept there, the majority being Russians. At the beginning they lived in holes in the ground without any covering whatever. Quartermaster Sergeant Duggan showed me a photograph illustrating this condition of things, which lasted for some time, it being a month before the prisoners had any covering over their heads. The food was so bad that the British could never eat it.

About December, 1914, a typhus epidemic began. It continued for four or five months. Schneidemühl has one camp divided into three inclosures, the whole camp containing about 40,000 prisoners. The daily average of deaths was certainly not under thirty. Another photograph was shown to me depicting a long procession of coffins during the epidemic. A gigantic German carrying a rifle headed the procession, which was mainly composed of unfortunate Russian prisoners. Anything more pathetic cannot be imagined. Photographs were also shown me of the actual funeral service and place of interment. These photographs showed many being buried at one time in one long trench. After the interment, where the bodies were deposited four deep, one above another, the Germans made mounds surmounted by crosses, intimating that only two persons were buried beneath each mound.

It is impossible to estimate now how many were buried altogether, but many thousands died from this typhus epidemic. When the epidemic broke out a terrible condition of affairs quickly ensued, and it was not until it had been raging for a fortnight that Russian doctors arrived on the scene. Some of the patients were then first sent to hospital. The camp's condition, even after the doctors' arrival, was perfectly awful.

A British merchant Captain, who was released in May from internment in a German camp, asserted under oath that after his ship was torpedoed he was locked up for twenty-four hours in the U-boat for refusing to answer questions. On the following day he was searched, and for still refusing to answer was sentenced to be shot on reaching port, or before if he should cause any annoyance. One of the principal officers called him a liar and an English swine.

Some days later the submarine put into Heligoland, and the Captain was transferred to an underground cell ashore. Later, after scanty and bad food had made him ill, he was marched with other prisoners from merchant ships to a camp. Kept naked in intense cold for three hours while his clothes were being searched, German officers stood about laughing. His garments were returned to him wet, and he was put in barracks, where his only covering was verminous blankets.

In another compound the conditions were better, but the food uneatable. The prisoners were skeletons in rags. If they fell down from weakness they were kicked and clubbed, beaten with the flat of swords, and kept standing at attention in freezing weather. They had to fight like wild beasts for food that a dog would refuse. Funerals were a daily occurrence.

Transferred to Brandenburg, where he lived five and a half months, the fare was such that, by the time his own parcels of food arrived, he had lost twenty-eight pounds in weight. Twenty degrees of frost have been registered on the inside wall of the barrack in the mornings, and in Summer the heat was intolerable and the flies and mosquitos very trying. Sanitation was almost nil; 850 Russians died at that camp earlier in the war, and several were burned to death there shortly before the Captain arrived.

Rebuilding Disabled Soldiers

Wonderful Work That Italy Is Doing to Render Maimed Men Self-Supporting

By PROFESSOR RICCARDO GALEAZZI

[Lieutenant Colonel Italian Royal Medical Corps]

_Professor Galeazzi is at the head of the Milan Institute for the After-Care of Disabled Soldiers. The article herewith presented is published by_ CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE _by arrangement with The London Chronicle._

Our idea is that the future prospects of a disabled soldier must not be built upon his assurance of obtaining a pension, but upon the rebuilding of him physically, and the retraining of him technically, to take up a self-supporting position in life.

Therefore, there must be no scrapping of the broken soldier. When we bring him from the battlefield, and find that a limb or limbs have to be amputated, the soldier thus wounded is placed in a special category, and we cannot discharge him from the army until every care has been taken to rebuild him physically, morally, and professionally. Then, having given him his limbs and his re-education gratuitously, we also give him gratuitously whatever implements or machinery may be necessary for him to practice his new trade. Not until then do we put him on his new road of life.

The organization for the different stages of this treatment is interesting. In Italy each army corps has its special province or district. And each of those geographical sections has a complete organization for the care of the disabled. There is the surgical hospital, the orthopedic institute, and the school for retraining the soldier in whatever trade he may be capable of following.

When the amputation wound is sufficiently healed in the surgical hospital, we give the soldier a month's leave, fitting him with a temporary limb for use during that time. When the month is out--that is, before he has had time to get into lazy habits at home or suffer from the effects of misdirected sympathy--he must enter the school for the re-education disabled. To this school is also attached the orthopedic institution. Here he has his definite set of limbs fitted. A plaster cast is taken and each limb is made with particular individual care; and during the first weeks of its use the soldier is under the constant supervision of the doctors, so that they can alter the artificial limbs according as any defects become manifest.

I may also say, for it is an important point, that the limbs made for the common soldier are the same as those made for the Colonel, and the one gets them gratis just as the other does. Not only that, but we have a National Institute whose duty is to take care of these limbs, renew them and alter them free of cost, as long as the soldier lives.

What are the limbs like? Well, for instance, even where a man has lost both hands, we have fitted artificial ones which enable him to write with pen or pencil, to use knife and fork, to button his clothes, and to shave with a safety razor. Thus we get rid of the constant depression from which a soldier would otherwise suffer were he to feel dependent upon some friend for every hand's turn in his daily life.

One of the great sources of success in applying these limbs is the special Italian system, the theory of which was laid down by Vanghetti, of making the amputation so that the muscles from the living part of the arm can be attached in such a way to the artificial limb as to get an organic muscular connection. Thus the natural muscles of the living arm actually can be got to work the artificial fingers or leg, as the case may be. I have made several of these connections full success. And the system is now becoming almost the rule all over the country. It is a special Italian invention, though some of the German professors want to claim the credit for it.

The most important feature, however, of our Italian system is the insistence on retraining. If the soldier's disablement does not allow him to follow his ordinary calling in life, and if he be not of independent means, he is absolutely bound to spend at least a month or six weeks in the training school. There he is asked to choose a trade or calling in keeping with his physical ability. We keep him for at least about six weeks, and show him the whole system in working order. Of course, if he cannot be persuaded, we must allow him to go home, for, after all, we are a free country. But when he remains he is put through a thorough course of training.

During these first weeks in the school the new limbs are fitted, for the school works in connection with the orthopedic institute. In the school we teach the illiterate peasants to read and write. We teach all sorts of designing and drawing, all commercial subjects, all the artisan trades, and also technical farming. Generally we give preference to these trades that can be practiced at home; and we do not encourage largely such trades as would call for work in large factories. In the case of farmers or farm laborers, who are too seriously injured to undertake the heavy work in the fields, we teach them the finer technique of vine culture, wine making, cheese making, &c.

And it generally happens that these disabled men return to life better fitted for their work than they were before the war.

Sneezing Powder in Gas Attacks

A report from a correspondent on the Picardy front, dated May 6, 1918, described how the Germans launched a heavy gas attack against the Americans, sending over within a short period 15,000 shells, containing chiefly mustard gas. This attack was notable for a new German device, which is described as follows:

The Germans introduced gas warfare, forcing modern soldiers to wear gas masks. Now after the use of masks has proved an effective weapon against gas they are using a new weapon to force the allied soldiers to take off masks that they may be easily killed by lethal phosgine and diphosgine gases.

The weapon is nothing more or less than sneezing powder fired in high explosive shells. This powder percolates through mask respirators and brings on sneezing spells which lead the men to take off their masks and to receive the full effect of lethal gases. It has been used against the Americans. The method in use is to fire a number of sneezing powder shells just before a gas attack or to scatter them along among lethal gas shells.

The German now uses his gases in four methods: First, clouds, which depend on a favorable wind; second, projectors, also depending on the wind; third, long-range artillery gas shells, and, fourth, hand grenades. Deadly gases, such as phosgine and diphosgine, are used in short-range guns, while neutralization gas, intended only to prevent activities of allied soldiers far back of the lines, is used at long range. Mustard gas is much used in this way. The latest perfection in the use of lethal gases is to fire twelve or more mortars shooting large-calibre shells at the same time by an electrical arrangement, thus producing great concentration.

Russia Under Many Masters

A Month's Events Amid the Chaos Produced by Bolshevist Misrule and German Invasion

The State Department at Washington on May 16, 1918, published the text of a protest to Germany made by the Russian Government on April 26. The document opened with the following statement: "The Russian Government has taken every measure possible strictly to fulfill the Brest- Litovsk treaty from the Russian side, and in this way to secure for our people the chief aim of this treaty--a state of peace. But in reality no such state of peace exists." The message then enumerated the grievances of the Russians. It pointed out that by advancing upon Kursk and Voronezh the German and Ukrainian troops infringed the Russo-Ukrainian frontier line, "which was one-sidedly established by the Ukrainian Rada itself, and officially made known to us by the German Government." At the same time, the protest said, Russian military property in Finland was being seized by the White Guards, operating in agreement with German detachments and under instruction from the German staff.

The document also called attention to the fact that, although the Soviet authorities had declared their readiness to open peace negotiations with the Ukrainian Central Rada, neither the Ukrainian Government, "which is now directed by Germany," nor the Berlin Government itself, had given any answer to the Russian offer. "Owing to such circumstances," the message declared, "the Soviet Government considers itself compelled to mobilize all necessary forces in order to secure the freedom and independence of the Russian Republic, which is now menaced beyond the limits established by the Brest-Litovsk treaty." The document concluded by reiterating the complete readiness of the Russian people to fulfill the conditions of the Brest-Litovsk pact, and by demanding the German Government should formulate the new demands, "in the name of which it directs Ukrainian, Finnish, and German troops against the Russian Soviet Government."

GERMAN PROMISES

In response to this protest, Berlin, on May 13, advised the Soviet Government through the Russian Ambassador in Berlin, that Germany would stop the invasion of Russian territory, and that it would observe the Brest-Litovsk treaty and restore the rights of Russians residing in Germany. In spite of this assurance, however, the advance of the German Army in Great Russia did not cease. According to a Moscow dispatch, dated May 25, the Germans occupied the district town of Valuyki, in the Government of Voronezh, which is Great Russian territory, and made further advances. The occupation was preceded by a battle which lasted four days. The Teutons also continued their operations in the Don region, where a battle occurred near Bataisk, and in the Caucasus. They mined the Strait of Kerch, or Yenikal, known to the ancients as the Cymmerian Bosporus, which is the only passage from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov. German airships appeared over Novorossysk, on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, and their submarines entered its port. This was done apparently to intimidate the Transcaucasian Government, which refused to cede Novorossysk to Turkey. About the same time Bolshevist detachments crossed the Caspian, attacked the Turks and recaptured the port of Baku. Another battle was won by the Russians over the Turco-German troops in the Kars district of Transcaucasia on May 24. The enemy retreated along the Ardahan road, massacring the population as they went.

Early in June the Germans made a further advance in the south, namely, in the Roslav region and in the district of Rylsk, Government of Kursk. They advanced from the Rostov Railway toward Voronezh and captured Roventki. They also made an attempt to cut the Tsaratsyk Railway near the Kumyigar River. On June 10 the Germans started a new movement eastward along a front sixty miles wide, between Valyiki, captured previously, and Zhukovo.

BLACK SEA FLEET

A large part of the Russian Black Sea fleet fell into the hands of the Germans when they captured Sebastopol, but two large ships and two destroyers escaped. A telegram to the Berliner Tageblatt, dated May 12, said that the majority of the captured vessels had been so neglected that only two battleships were in good condition. One dreadnought and four cruisers had previously been captured at Odessa. On June 6, the Moscow Government offered to surrender the Black Sea fleet to Germany on the following conditions: 1. The ships to be restored after the war is over. 2. Germany to refrain from using the vessels. 3. Invasion of Russia to stop.

According to a memorandum sent on May 21 by Foreign Minister Tchitcherin to the Bolshevist Ambassador Joffe in Berlin, Russian merchantmen and even a hospital ship were attacked by the Germans in the Black Sea, and the menace of German attack constituted a serious obstacle to navigation in the Baltic and Arctic.

On June 6, Germany delivered an ultimatum to the Soviet Government, demanding the return of the remainder of the Russian Black Sea Fleet from Novorossysk to Sebastopol, as a condition for the cessation of hostilities on the part of the Central Powers. The Commissary for Foreign Affairs expressed himself in favor of acceding to the demand, and Lenine ordered the surrender of the ships.

The Soviet Government had no illusions as to the stability of the Brest-Litovsk peace, but in its opinion the time for a new clash with the Central Powers was not yet ripe. Consequently, in the of German aggression, it pursued a policy of preserving this "bad peace" by all manner of concessions and compromises.

The tasks which the Soviet Government were facing were outlined by Nikolai Lenine in several speeches made before the Central Executive Committee of the Councils, in the middle of May. His words were to the effect that war was threatening the Soviet Republic from many quarters. Either of the belligerent groups of imperialistic powers might, in his opinion, at any moment attack Russia. The ambitions of Skoropadsky and of the new Caucasian Government, which was under the influence of German militarism, was regarded as another source of danger. "We shall do the little we can," said Lenine, "all that diplomacy can do to put off the moment of attack. * * * We shall not defend the secret agreements which we have published to the world; we shall not defend a 'Great Power,' for there is nothing of Russia left but Great Russia, and no national interests, because for us the interests of the world's socialism stand higher than national interests. We stand for the defense of the socialistic fatherland."

Lenine professed belief that this defense was facilitated by the profound schism which divided the capitalistic Governments, by the fact that "the German bandits" were pitted against "the English bandits," and that there were economic rivalries between the American bourgeoisie and the Japanese bourgeoisie. "The situation is," said Lenine, "that the stormy waves of imperialistic reaction, which seem ready any moment to drown the little island of the Soviet Socialist Republic, are broken one against another." It was his intention to take full advantage of this situation, and to keep Russia out of the war for as long a time as possible, with a view to curing her economic wounds and building up her military power for the coming clash with world capitalism. Economic recuperation, in the largest sense of the word, was thus declared to be the immediate problem of the revolution. The expropriation of capital became a matter of secondary importance in comparison with the task of consolidating the gains of the proletariat and putting them to good use. "We have accomplished two tasks," said Lenine in concluding his speech before the Central Executive Committee on May 16. "We have seized the power, and we have divided it among all Russia. We point to the realization of the third and most difficult task, namely, the disciplining of the proletariat to such a degree that every corner of Russia shall be permeated thereby."

NO PEACE WITH UKRAINE