TORTURED AUSTRALIANS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 139, 12 June 1917, Page 5

TORTURED AUSTRALIANS.

STORY FOR SOCIALISTS. TO TELL GERMAN BRETHREN. LOXDOX, June 4. The London Press gives great prominence to Captain Bean's story of the tortured Australian prisoners. 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 Reich-rath. < The lliidieal "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, submarine, 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, is sufficiently shocking to merit the most drastic official action to protect war prisoners. It is now authoritatively stated that Austria ia approximating to the brutal German methods, acting with particular cruelty towards penniless civilian British prisoners, of whom several hundreds are herded in 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 hy 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 threo 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 are treated worse than others. One prisoner 6aid that it was "Got strafe England" every day. The Germans never tired of saying that the British were their chief enemy. Another stated that the Australians were equally hated, probably because Bullecourt was a bitter memory. At one eanip the Germans set ferocious dogs on to Serbians, who were horribly bitten and mauled. • The food conditions were bad, Britishers subsisting on home parcels, which badly affected the gaolers and civilians, making them realise for the first time the untruthfulness of the Press reports that the submarines had absolutely cut off England. Two prisoners escaped from a place where 260 men were compelled to sleep •n a room 250 yards by 10 yards, in hammocks crawling with vermin. A Gordon Highlander, who escaped from the Westerholt coal mines, where he had been working since the battle of Mons, in 1914, said that'he 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 thd mines, and the gaolers flogged some of them with rubber hose-pipe. Escapees included a. Canadian sergeant He and five others, after escaping, hid in the hush for three day*, travelling by night. They swum five rivers and canals. Once a sentry challenged them, but the men remained motionless and escaped. The story of the tortured Anzacs was told by Captain Bean (Australian Press Representative with the A.1.F.) in the "Sydney Sun" of May 2.5. Two Western Australians, captured by the Germans, managed to escape to the Australian lines. They were captured on April 11. From the first day they were starved, while the Germans worked them mercilessly. Others left behind were so ill that even the Germans saw that they could* not work any longer. They had no blankets, lying on straw through the coldest nights. Their ration consisted of one loaf of bread between seven men with stewed turnips and two cups of coffee daily. One woman caught givin" 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 rthat this treatment was punishment because the English employed German prisoners under fire. —— '