WORLD WAR ONE NORTHAMPTON INDEPENDENT SOLDIER NEWSPAPER ARTICLES   

     CORPL. BUTLER of the Border Regiment, Aug 1918

                            After being in the hands of the Germans nearly four years, Corpl. J. Butler has just returned to his

                        home on a two months’ furlough.  He is a sturdy determined looking soldier.  He was in a front line trench

                        during the early stages of the war, when he was blown up by a shell and half buried by earth with an iron

                        girder across his legs.  Two Saxon soldiers rescued him and conveyed him to a German dug out where they

                        gave him a drop of Schnapps and a smoke.  Their treatment was in striking contrast to the sufferings he had

                        to undergo later on.  Afterwards he was taken before a German officer in a dug-out thirty feet deep, comfortably

                        furnished, and subjected to a lot of questions.

                            “I soon realised”, he said, “that the officer was very vexed that they had captured only four wounded men,

                        for they had expected to get a big working party.  Out fate hung in the balance while he paused to decide whether

                        it worth while troubling to send us to the rear or finish us off.  Eventually we were taken to St. Quentin and flung

                        into a prison cell where I was left shivering with cold, famishing for food, and my wounds unattended to.  After a

                        few days my chums helped to carry me to the station.  On the way Belgian civilians tried to give us smokes but the

                        Uhlans brutally drove their horses into the crowd, and even tried to trample women underfoot.”

                            “We were taken to Giessen Camp where the conditions were indescribably shocking.  We were herded with Russians,

                        Belgians, blacks, Italians and French into huts which were swarming with vermin and terribly cold and damp.  Our food

                        consisted of black bread and some filthy soup, which was really potato or cabbage water.”

                            “The worst horrors in that camp were the cold blooded murders of Italian prisoners, who were divided from the British

                        by a partition.  The poor Italians did not get parcels from home like we did, so we used to give our prison fare to them,

                        and also some of the contents of the parcels.  The poor famished creatures used to frantically climb over the partitions to

                        get to us, and as they did many of them were shot dead by the guards either as they were coming or returning over the

                        fence.”

                            In reply to my question as to how they treated prisoners now, the Corporal said,

                            “Just lately, since the Germans began to realise that they are not going to win there has been a marked improvement in

                        their attitude towards the British – in fact when I came away some of the officers crowded round me and wanted to shake my

                        hands.  One of them said to me he was sick of Germany and would go back to England after the war.  I am not surprised at

                        the Germans getting fed up for the country is, I feel convinced, on the verge of starvation.  Even the guards get food like the

                        prison fare, and you should see the way we tortured them by the sigh and smell of the good things sent in our parcels.”