The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1918-07-04
PRISONERS NOR
DEAD THAN ALIVE
GERMANS BROUGHT IN PRISON.
ERS ARE A SORRY LOOKING
LOT OF MEN
AS SEEN IN CAMP IN FRANCE BY EVANS
Vast Difference Between Morale OF
The Allied Peoples And Those OF
The Central Powers
BY II. c. EVANS
Copyright 1879

to our camp today several thousand
German prisoners fresh from the bat
tleield, brought here by Tommies. |
have never seer a sorrier lot Of fell
lows. They were made up OF all sorts
and conditions of men. Many of them
We're not more than seventeen years
old, while others were above fifty.
Evidently the new class called this
spring in Germany has been fused
with the veterans, and are not fighting
in units by themselves.
Each prisoner carried sufficient mu-
nitionG and provisions to last several
days. When new ground is taken
there is great difficulty in moving up
provisions and munitions. The cap
tured ground is ~gridironed with
trenches, making it impossible for
trucks. automobiles, or railway trucks,
until the ground has been leveled. And
the process of leveling the ground, or,
to use a military phrase, of "consol-
idating the new position" must be
done under shell fire. So it is neces-
sary, when it is expected that new po-
sitions will be taken and held, that the
soldiers take with them ample food
stuff and munitions.
The boche's clothes were made of
the coarsest stuff imaginable, and
practically all of the older mems uni
forms were patched. Nor were their
garbs uniform as to cloth or style.
Evidently Germany is hard up for ma
terial TO clothe her soldiers.
It's a ulmcult thing to read a Ger
man prisoner by his looks, his actions
or his demeanor. He is about as dem
onstrative as an oyster. | refer to
the large number of prisoners ! have
seer daily for the past two or three
months, who were captured in the
early months Of the war. The express
sion on their faces spells nothing.
Their eyes are as expressionless as
the eyes of a stone man. They are
sordid, stole, silent.
But there was a something differ
ent about these fellows just out Of the
hell-hre of battle. They were unable
to conceal their thoughts or their feel
ings. Just as plain as though they
had gone into detail by word of mouth
we understood their detection, their
exhaustion, their loss of hope, their
despair.
They were nearer dead than any
group of live men | have ever seen. l
do not mean physically. Rather they
appeared to be mere shells of men, out
of which had zone the things we call
life, and hope, and spirit, and desire,
and passion, and emotion.
Their condition was not due to the
fact that they had become prisoners,
for that is one of the least Of the
tragedies of war. Nor was it due to
fear of punishment by their captors,
for the German is not a coward "A
part of the boche's creed is that there
is nothing in the world worth being
afraid of. He is not even afraid to
rape a virgin, or drop a bomb on a
church filled with women and chill
dren. When a people reach that state
of "kultur'' where they are not afraid
of sin, then indeed he's the kingdom
of hell come to earth. No, it was
neither fear nor exhaustion-it was
just that no longer was life worth
while.
Ordinarily, a soldier who loves his
cause and his country will at least
stand erect he will hold his head up
in defiance of his captors and the ex-
ultation of the crowds that stare at
him. MOI so with these fellows. They
slouched along with their eyes on the
ground, o ever keeping step, their
backs bent under their loads-loads ap-
~parently heavier than those hat OPP
pressed Sir John Bunyan's Pilgrim in
his utter-most despair.
1t was as if they had reached the
end. Nearly four years Of bloody war
fare-and for what? How much bet
ter would their simple, peasant lives
be yonder in Germany even if their
master, the kaiser, gained his end?I
There would be conquered peoples
who must be kept in subsection, and
that means more wars The ultimate
aim of their lives must forever be to
LOo-4iA.al ON Dauo -Goliinn o. |