What was so special about being British?

[centurion]

Came across the following interesting stats. In Nov 1918 Germany held some 2.8 million POWs of these 59% were Russian , 22% French and 8% British (including the Dominions, India and the rest of the Empire) - the remainder was made up of Belgians, Serbs, Romanians, Italians, Portuguese, Japanese, Americans, Montenegrins, Greeks, Brazilians, and Panamanians.

Letters and reports from a number of exchanged British POWs strongly suggest that the worst treated were the Russians and Italians (with significant numbers starving to death), with the Belgians and French better treated but 'British' POWs on average being the best treated (even though there was some horrific miss treatment of a significant minority).

I have two questions to pose

1 Why the disparity in numbers between French and British POWs? It seems higher than the numbers of men in the field would account for.

2 Why do British prisoners seem to have come off better than the rest?

[Terry_Reeves]

Could you state the source and date of these statistics please?

TR

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Centurion,

Question 1 is partly answered by the numbers taken in 1914 before the British really got involved. By March 1915 there were 3748 French officers and 230 503 French men PoWs and only 506 British officers and 20 031 men. By June 1917 the French prisoners were not quite double the march 1915 figures but the Brits had slightly more than doubled. However the numbers are obviously significantly different. Oddy, the numbers of Brits and French taken between June 1917 and May 1918 were the the other way round with only some 35 000 French and some 65 000 Brits. One of the interesting stats is that there were 1 911 British officer prisoners in June 1917. 6 372 in May 1918 but by Oct 1918 there were only 4 456, presumably the rest having been exchanged. Belgian prisoners in March 1915 numbered around 40 000 and this had only increased to 46 000 by Oct 1918. All figures from Doegens.

I don't think the British got off much better than the rest. In the early days, up to the middle of 1915 nearly all the Brits received some pretty harsh treatment but by the end of 1915 things had got a lot better. This is for those in the camps, those behind the lines still went through hell and this did not change throughout the war. The big difference seems to be food. Brits got good parcels, however, the Russians after the Oct revolution basically got nowt. As this co-incided with a severe food shortage in Germany and the refusal of the allies to sanction food from neutral countries for the Russians (on the grounds that it would give Germany a fit work force), the Russians existed on the meagre German rations and what they could get from the Brits and French, which was basically very little. However, as always, conditions varied greatly and those on farms could sometimes fare a lot better than those at the camps.

The death rates amongst prisoners gives Russians at 5.06% and Brits at 2.98%. The worst figues are skewed a bit by the small numbers involved eg 75% of all Serbian officers died (3 out of 4) and 25% of all greek men died (1 out of 4). However the Rumanians appear to have suffered the worst at 28.9% of all men and officers dying, 12 512 out of 43 297! Italians suffered badly but not excessivley so, their death rate being 5.68% which is not greatly more than the Russians.

Doug

[centurion]

Could you state the source and date of these statistics please?

TR

Included in - The American YMCA and Prisoner of War Diplomacy among the Central Power Nations

during World War I, 1914-1923.

They are a summary of these figures POW figs which as you can see are based on 1921 German figures.

[Terry_Reeves]

Thank you.

TR