HOW FOE TORTURES CAPTIVES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14635, 19 June 1918, Page 6

HOW FOE TORTURES CAPTIVES

TOLI> BY AN EXCHANGED POILU. MARSEILLES, May 8. France and Germany at a recent conference held m Switzerland _ signed an agreement for the repatriation of its prisoners who have been m captivity since 1914. Some of these captives, mostly old- Territorials, have just arrived here, where they feel they are m a new world. The first batch to be exohanged comprise artillerymen captured m the fall of Fortress Maubeuge m August, 1914. • The abominable cruelties inflicted on the French prisoners of war have been told many times, yet one of these old poilus gave a description, of a new form of tortiue inflicted on him and his fellow •. prisoners. At, the commencement of his captivity it needed only a. slight offence to bring upon him the worst kind of punishment. : . \ In the middle prison camp wns a big platform m the centre of which was a. i wooden post. The prisoner was put on the platform, his hands were tied to the post and by leather bands his head was held up towards the sun. For ten hours he remained m this position, his face blistering under the heat of the sun. Then, his eyes almost burned out of his head, he was takendown. Another form of punishment consisted m placing a man with chest bared m the open to face the sun. or, when there was no sun, m a. small room m which was a red-hot stove. When the perspiration was steaming down his body, the Germans who had gathered' were invited to throw buckets-full of icy water on his overheated body. The length of this punishment varied from six to twelve hours according to his offense. These prisoners came back to France by way of Switzerland, where they received a hearty welcome and where every care and attention was given them by French doctors and nurses.. It was m Geneva, for the . first time m three years, they heard the strains of the Marseillaise, and many of them wept bitterly as they listened. '