New Britain herald., 1917-07-14

emergency passport and $2bo by Ann bassador Willard and so was able to reach American soil again.
 Arrested in 1914.
 Dr. Mars had gone to Luxemburg in March. 1914, he told reporters who sought him out at the Hotel Lafay- cite last night, to settle an estate 1 of about $400,000 which his mother, an American by birth, had left to him. Even when war was declared in 1914. he said. he did not think he would have trouble in getting back to America.
 But suddenly one day in the first week in August" continued the doctor-editor, ""along came the Ger mans into Luxemburg. They had been in the city and all over the grand duchy awaiting the signal. I was immediately arrested. Although l protested that I was an American citizen who had lived in the United States since I was two years old I was not believed. For two months l was detained in the prison camp, and then released on my promise to report every day. After two months of this l was rearrested and placed in the prison camp at Diekirck, where I was kept until I got away last March.
 Gen. Won Gotch, a wounded Ger man officer, was in charge of the camp. All the Germans in charge of us had been injured in some way or other: the healthier men were all on the German fronts. Fully 50 per cent. Of the 5000 men in the camp I found when l arrived were suffering from dysentery caused by bad food badly cooked. Gen von Gotch, upon finding l was physician. directed me to treat the prisoners. Thereafter as camp doctor had better food than the other prisoners, sometimes better food than even the German officers were getting.
 German Splits in Food.
 English prisoners, most or all of whom refused to work for the Ger mans, were treated especially badly. The French fared better. I protested one day when I saw one of the Ger man guards deliberately splitting in the apology for food supplied to English prisoners, but was told by a German officer to shut up and mind my own business
 "The staple food for the war prison CTS was a mixture of potato peelings, grass and some black flour. Rice was used in this during the early days of the war, but the rice supply long ago was stopped. Copies of Le Matin and other French newspapers handed to the prisoners now and then first had been subjected in certain parts of the pages to a chemcal wash, which had bo uyIo Into these washed spaces the Ger mans had inserted news, such as President Poincare Dead, Revolution in France, and similar wild imagin- ings.
 " That's funny kind of French they are writing in Le Matin', said to the German officer who handed me the first of these washed French papers I had Seen. In fact, it's the rottenest French I've ever read And as a news | paperman I could see at a glance the l difference in type where the faked
 news had been inserted.
 "In the talks I had with the Ger
 mans about me in recent months they | freely expressed their belief that Ger 1 many cannot win now"
 | More effective than the German guards, Dr. Mars said, was the swarm | of trained dogs, perhaps 2,000 in all, | which had been taught to attack any one attempting to escape. From the first days of his internment. said the doctor. he had asserted again and again to his captors that eventually he would escape boasts which the Ger man officers had received with hearty laughs.
 One of the three German officers di-
 
 ton of the camp, however, was suf- fering from neuralgia and often asked pr. Mars to give him capsules of veronal to induce sleep. On March
 30 the other two officers celebrated alcoholically at their evening meal, whereupon Dr. Mars, who had been waiting for such a chance, gave the | officers suffering from neuralgia a larger dose of veronal than usual Dr. Mars quickly donned the sleep ing officers uniform over his prison clothes and found 40 marks in a pocket. Twenty thousand francs which he had when arrested had been taken away from him by Ger mans. Dressed now as a German of- ficer Dr. Mars walked out of the camp | and to the nearest railway station, four miles away, the German soldiers saluting him as he passed. He bought first class ticket to Aix-la -Chapelle. receiving more salutes from the train guards. At Aix-la-Chapelle he stripped off the uniform after every one had left the railway carriage and started northward and west toward Holland in his prison clothes. During his night walks in Germany he lived on grasses and leaves some of the time, with occasional lucky finds of better foods. Once he met a Bavarian priest, to whom he made his | confession. The priest feared to house him, but did give him money