T
hese are the first mass labour camps of western
Europe in the twentieth century.
{ Dr Heather Jones}
Heather Jones was 13 years old when she first read Testament of
Jones was drawn to the plight of First World War prisoners by a
Youth, the classic memoir of Vera Brittain, a young Englishwoman who
combination of perseverance and luck. On the completion of a degree
abandoned a life of privilege to tend to the sick and the wounded during
in English and History at Trinity College and an M. Phil. thesis at
the First World War. ‘It was the most interesting thing I had ever read’,
Cambridge on the work of novelist Edith Wharton and the Great
the Dubliner recalls of an early literary encounter that left a lasting
War, she set about investigating potential Ph.D. topics. One day, when
impression. The book sparked an interest in a subject that would, over
curiosity led her to follow up a footnote reference in the National
time, develop into passion and then a career. The teenager who had her
Archives in London, she stumbled across a rare historical treasure – a
imagination lit by Brittain’s first-hand account of life during wartime
file of letters and postcards from British prisoners held behind German
is now the historian focused upon uncovering the experiences of many
lines. ‘They were asking for help from people at home, former comrades
others heretofore excluded from traditional narratives of that Great
and the like’, Jones recalls. The evidence in the letters was supported by
War. Up to 9 million prisoners were held across Europe throughout the
further accounts found in files of interviews with former prisoners which
conflict, yet, until relatively recently, remarkably little was known or
had only recently been released by the British government. These sources
written about their experience of captivity; forgotten since the interwar
spoke of an experience Jones knew nothing about at the time. She
years, it was only in the 1990s that professional historians first began to
resolved to find out more about these prisoners and those of their French
direct their attention to the subject. Why the silence? Lack of access to
and German counterparts also held captive. Jones was keen to know
documents was one reason, says Jones, now a lecturer in International
who they were, where they were kept and how they were treated. Armed
History at the London School of Economics. Another reason was that
with an IRCHSS scholarship, she returned to Trinity in 2001, to study
the focus lay elsewhere. The experience of combatants in the trenches
for a history Ph.D. investigating 1914-1918 prisoner of war treatment in
was such ‘a major trauma for the states and the populations involved’
Britain, France and Germany, with leading First World War experts, Alan
that the historical attention inevitably centred on that.
Kramer and John Horne. The search for answers took her from London
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51
‘They {the prisoner of war camps} are an overlooked aspect of the war and the men
who are held in them, particularly the men held by the German army, return home
at the end of 1918 when they are liberated by the Armistice, in very weak condition.
Many were malnourished and in some cases unable to work again.’
to Paris to Berlin and what emerged was a groundbreaking study, which
front camps co-existed alongside front line working units. From 1916
elicited immediate recognition as a major contribution to the cultural
onwards, all three countries were retaining hundreds of thousands of
history of modern war and earned Jones an inaugural IRCHSS Eda
prisoners in the latter, men who spent the rest of their wartime captivity
Sagarra Gold Medal. A book contract with Cambridge University Press
working for their captor’s army – moving shells, building communication
rapidly followed, with Jones’s book due to be published in 2011, entitled
trenches, unloading trains. ‘These are the first mass labour camps in
Violence against prisoners of war: Britain, France and Germany,
western Europe in the twentieth century’ according to Jones. ‘They are
1914-1920.
an overlooked aspect of the war and the men who are held in them,
particularly the men held by the German army, return home at the end of
There is little doubting what it was that distinguished Jones’s work from
1918 when they are liberated by the Armistice, in very weak condition.
that of much of her peers – it was the sheer breadth of its ambition.
Many were malnourished and in some cases unable to work again.’
By focussing on the plight of prisoners in three countries and both
sides of the conflict, she was able to analyse and compare the different
Perhaps the most fascinating of Jones’ insights concerns the extent to
perspectives that were brought to bear on the treatment of prisoners.
which issues of class and ethnicity influenced prisoner treatment. It
A fluency in three languages rendered accessible archival material that
appears that pre-war social hierarchies were preserved within the camp
would remain beyond the reach of most other historians. As far as
systems. Officers, for instance, were spared the deprivations of the
Jones is concerned, it is impossible to exaggerate the importance of such
working units and housed in the relative luxury of specially designated
language skills: it makes possible the kind of comparative approach
home front officer camps. ‘One of the biggest protections you could have
which she believes is ‘fundamental to finding out new things about the
as a prisoner of war in the First World War was to be an officer’, Jones
war’. As if to illustrate the point, she points to one of the key features
points out. ‘An officer by dint of his status and rank goes into a special
of her work – uncovering the development of a dual camp system for
camp, has ordinary prisoners as his servants, they have use of table linen
prisoners in Britain, France and Germany. For much of the war, home
and knives and forks. They have a middle class standard of living.’
right: A photograph by Pvt. J.M. Liles shows wounded German prisoners receiving medical attention at the first-aid station of 103rd and 104th Ambulance Companies.
German second-line trench, 12 September 1918 (www.defenseimagery.mil)
52
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‘In some ways it turns soldiers into ciphers,
takes away their real motivations and real
lives. They just become homogenous soldiers
who died for a cause’
Where class offered protection to some, nationality and religion came
to the rescue of others. Muslim prisoners found themselves placed in
a special camp by the Germans in an effort to appease their allies in
Ottoman Turkey. And in stark contrast to what would happen later in
the century, eastern European Jewish prisoners also fared relatively well,
though German benevolence in this instance was primarily a measure of
the value placed on Jewish prisoner translators.
The working units offered few of the comforts of the home front camp
alternative. And yet, for all the suffering endured by prisoners and the
repeated violations of a threadbare international law, Jones believes that
the story of captivity in the Great War might in some way be construed
as one of success. ‘You have certain forms of humanitarianism that
survive the war and are even expanded through it’, she says, pointing
to the development of protecting powers – ‘neutral states who would
send inspectors into prison camps on the home front’ – and to the
development of exchange systems whereby the badly wounded were
returned to their home countries.
top left: Prisoners taken captive by Canadian soldiers are marched through an unidentified
small town during World War 1 (Trustees of the National Library of Scotland)
bottom left: German prisoners, pictured in a French prisoner camp during World War 1
If Jones’s work emphasises anything, it is the complexity of historical
experience. However, it is complexity that is often lost in the
commemoration of conflict and with the centenary of the First World
War approaching, she expresses a concern as to how the occasion will
be marked. Her main reservation centres on the tendency of military
commemoration to strip events of their context in the hope that past
glories might somehow reflect on current adventures. ‘In some ways it
turns soldiers into ciphers, takes away their real motivations and real
lives. They just become homogenous soldiers who died for a cause’,
she states. It doesn’t have to be this way. Jones points approvingly to
how commemoration has been handled at European level, as part of a
multinational history. While acknowledging that this approach is often
linked to the European project, she claims it has allowed the past to be
understood in new ways, enabling historians and the public to discuss
the war in a more measured, academic manner. It’s an approach that
preserves the context of the event and eschews simplistic analysis. It’s
easy to understand why Jones welcomes it. As she says herself. ‘I like
stories that have plural voices in them and I suppose that’s always been
my view of history.’
Dr Heather Jones, IRCHSS Postgraduate scholarship 2001
right: Prisoners of War build a new railway on the British western front in France, 1917
(Trustees of the National Library of Scotland)