Evening star., 1929-07-02
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL y. COLLINS.

Some one has written book-was 1t
not of poetry?--which he entitled WAR
Is Kind" It Is a silly, sinister, senti-
mental piece of mockery, but the aver
age reader does not always catch the
irony Of IL, for he thinks Of the bat
tie deaths or perhaps of the thousands
Of wounded. To-day sentiment is squan-
dered on the horrors of chemical war
fare, because it is new, therefore stimuli
iating TO the uninformed imagination,
but the cruelest phase of war is not
death upon the field of carnage, nor
even the lingering death upon hospital
beds comforted by nurses and surgeons,
but the excruciating suffering in the
prisons of the belligerents in the atmos-
phere Of hate and cruelty.
Out of the 25S,33s casualties In the
A. Z. r. during the war there were 34,249
killed on the battlefield, and Of those
only 200 were killed by gas. Yet we hear
much talk about the horrors of gas"
There were 126, 1000 American soldiers
who died Of wounds, either on the bat
tlefield or later In military hospitals
not counting the deaths, years later, In
the Veterans Bureau hospitals, etc
but there were $500 reported as miss
ing" and their story has never been
told.
There Is a shrine in honor Of the
Unknown Soldier" symbolizing all who
died in the war, but none for the 'un-
known prisoner" who suffered untold
agonies at the hands Of his captors.
n \
Now, In Geneva, there Is to be held
an International conference for the pur-
pose Of agreeing upon reducing the
cruelties against prisoners Of war. If
the mystery of the new weapon, chemi-
cal warfare, excites the imagination,
what might be expected Of the concep-
tions of the unbridled cruelties Of war
prisons?
Only $500 Americans missing" vet
for each one there might be written a
heartrending tale of suffering. Our
total percentage Of casualties to the
total mobilization was only per cent
the lowest percentage Of any Of the
allies and associated nations except
Japan. Notwithstanding the accusation
that the Americans of the st. Mihiel
were foolhardy, through inexperience.
They simply never did learn how to
retreat.
We reported $500 missing. France,
$1,000; Russia, 2.500,o00; Britain. 191.-
$50; italy, 60O, 1000; Rumania, 80, 900, and
Serbia, $4,000. ''Missing!" Prisoners
Of war or deserters or dead and uniden-
tified. Missing" A total of 4,121 900
missing!-just about equal to all the
mobilization by the United States, or
double the number sent over in the
A. e. r. Can one conceive. of all the
American forces on both sides of the
ocean as missing? Besides, the en-
envy nissing!-perhaps an equal num-
ber missing.
In the July number of Current His
tory, the story is told by DR.. Fridtjof
Nansen of the wholesale tragedy of the
millions OF prisoners of war left
stranded In the various countries Of
Europe after the war had ended, and
left helpless to get back to their homes
or even to communicate with their
families and friends--stranded and
starving and dying or being ruthlessly
slaughtered by the unspeakable Turk II
they cilanced to bc Armenians or other
victims of Turkish fiendishness-the
special friends to whom, at Damascus,
the Kaiser avowed eternal friendli-
ness.
OF all the tragedies of the war, this
situation constituted the most cruel.
DR.. Nansen Is the one person best
qualified to depict 1t, for he has de-
of Nations, aided by the Red Cross
Society of the United States and by
the Government and the Hoover relief
organization, in the work of restoring
what survivors were left out Of the
march Of horror and death.
X X
Writes Or. Nansen; About 100000
prisoners Of war were thus sent back by
our organization TO their homes In about
eighteen months. for less than total
sum, excluding the American contribu-
ton, Of e2,00O.00O. which had been
placed at our disposal"
In the midst of this difhcult work
came the Russian famine of 1921, when
between $4,000. 900 and 10000, 900 RUS