TORTURED AUSTRALIANS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17033, 18 June 1917, Page 6

TORTURED AUSTRALIANS

INDIGNATION IN ENGLAND.

FURTHER REPORTS OF GERMAN BRUTALITY.

Tho London press gives great prominence to Captain Bean's story of the tortured Australian prisoners (stated the London representative of the Sydney Sun in a cable message to that journal). Leading organs regard it as the best possible answer to the latest German peace overtures by the German catspaw Karl at his opening of the Austrian Reichsrath.' The Radical Star advises Mr' Ramsay Mac Donald to tell this story to the Russians at Petrograd and the German Socialists at Stockholm, at the same time explaining that we have treated the German prisoners with generous humanity, despite Zeppelin, submarme, and aeroplane savagery, and the murders of Nurse Cavell and Captain Fryatt. Germany wants peace, but we "will not have peace with horror. The story_ of the tortured Australians and the Kaiser's recent orders regarding 'the treatment of British prisoners have naturally resulted in much indignation in Britain. This has been intensified by further stories of escaped prisoners, which, if less appalling than that of the Australians, are sufficiently shocking to merit the most drastic official action to protect war prisoners. It is now authoritatively stated that Austria is approximating to the brutal German methods, acting with _ particular cruelty towards penniless civilian British prisoners, of -y?hom several hundreds are herded m insanitary wooden barracks surrounded by barbed wire, and not allowed liberty,. They are covered with vermin, with wretched and insufficient food, principally wurzels, beans, lentils, and vermicelli. They are only able to prolong their existence by parcels from England. They have suffered greatly during the last winter, being kept for weeks at a time without fires or lights. The older prisoners are suffering terribly. Eleven British soldiers and three French officers, who escaped from different German prisons in the last fortnight, landed at an English port on Friday. They agree that British and Australian prisoners axe treated worse than others. One prisoner said that it was " Gott strafe England" every day. The Germans never tired of saying that the British were their chief enemy. Another stated that Australians were equally hated, probably because Bullecourt was a bitter memory. At one camp the Germans set ferocious dogs on to Serbians, who were horribly bitten and mauled. Tho food conditions were bad, Britishers subsisting on homo parcels, which badly affected the gaolers and civilians, making them realise for the first time tho untruthfulness of the press reports that the submarines had absolutely cut off England. Two prisoners escaped from a place where 260 men were oompelled to sleep in a room 250 yds by 10yds, , in hammocks crawling with vermin.

A Gordon Highlander, who escaped from tho Wester bolt coal mines, where he had been working since tho battle of Mons, in 1914, said that ho had not seen a proper' piece of meat for two years _ and a-half. Recently a fresh batch of British prisoners refused to work in the mines, and tho gaolers flogged some of them with rubber hose pipe The escapees included a Canadian sergeant. He and five others, after escaping, hid in the bush ior three days, _ travelling by night. They swam fivo rivers and canals. Once a ion try challenged them, but the men' remained motionless and escaped. The story of tho tortured Anzacs, as told by Captain Bean, was that two Western Australians, captured by the Germans, managed to escape to the Australian lines. They were captured on April 11. From the first they were starved, while the Germans worked them _ mercilessly. Others" left behind were so ill that even tho Germans saw that they could not work any longer. Thoy had no_ blankets, lying- on straw through the coldest nights. Their ration oonsistcd of one loaf of bread between seven men with stewed turnips and two cups of coffee daily. One woman caught giving them food was knocked over the head by a German and taken away. They were sent into the range of the British fire in working gangs. They were informed that this treatment was punishment bccausc the English employed German prisoners under fire.