Enemies in the Empire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War 0198850158, 9780198850151

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Enemies in the Empire

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Enemies in the Empire Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War ST E FA N M A N Z A N D PA N I KO S PA NAY I

1

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1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Stefan Manz & Panikos Panayi 2020 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2020 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2020930981 ISBN 978–0–19–885015–1 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198850151.001.0001 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

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Preface This book has origins in the PhD theses we wrote and published between 1985 and 2003, focusing on the German community in Britain during the Great War and the experience of the Germans in Glasgow from the late nineteenth century until the end of the First World War, especially, in this case, interment within the Stobs camp. Since that time, we have continued to work on the issue of internment and have published both books and articles on this theme. Over the past decade we came to realize that any national or local perspective presents too narrow a picture. Those who carried out internment from London thought globally. We see this volume as part of the ‘imperial turn’ which has recently taken place in the study of the First World War, meaning something of a move away from death on the western front, even though this theme continues to dominate popular con­ sciousness, certainly in Britain. The imperial nature of incarceration became obvious to us in two ways; first, through reading the numerous narratives of internment published both during and shortly after the end of the war. While most internees simply faced in­car­cer­ ation in the country in which they lived, many of the stories that appeared told tales of arrest in one part of the Empire and then transportation to another. Second, the main archival material which has survived in the form of German and British foreign office documents (particularly R901 and FO383, respectively) operated on an imperial level. When the German Foreign Office wrote of England, it really meant Britain and its imperial possessions. However, we did not simply rely on material we found in Berlin and London but also made research trips to Pretoria, New Delhi, and elsewhere in order to focus on two imperial case studies in the form of South Africa and India. In order to fully understand the nature of British internment during the First World War, we decided to examine it on three levels, which has determined the structure of the book. In the first place we needed to take a historical and global perspective, placing internment in the British Empire in the context of similar policies implemented by all manner of regimes from the later nineteenth century onwards. Part I also outlines the German diaspora in the British Empire and points to the fact that internment constituted part of a three-pronged state attack against Germans in the Empire which also included property confiscation and deportation, backed by a Germanophobic public opinion. The first Part concludes with two key chapters demonstrating the way in which British internment operated globally, especially through the use of the historically rooted policy of im­per­ial transportation. Part II examines the way in which internment operated on the

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vi Preface (proto-)national level by using the three case studies of Great Britain, South Africa, and India. Britain had the most advanced incarceration system in terms of camp and prisoner numbers. South Africa offers an example of the way in which a dominion operated, while India constitutes a territory under more direct control. The main focus of this Part consists of examining the evolution of internment policy and systems at the territorial level, demonstrating the fact that prisoners came both from the respective territory and beyond. Part III of the book examines in detail life within the key camps in the metropole and territories in the form of Knockaloe on the Isle of Man, the lynchpin of the whole imperial internment system, Fort Napier in South Africa, and Ahmednagar in India. These chapters make much use of ego-documents. The conclusion examines the nature of British internment, briefly tackles return (which also receives attention elsewhere), and deals with the way in which posterity has remembered the internees. We have gathered material for this project over decades and, while we have used some of it for previous writing, we have produced a completely new book based on numerous new sources found in a variety of archives in Europe, South Africa, and India to demonstrate the imperial nature of First World War intern­ ment policy, especially the relationship between the metropole and territories, which we could only understand if we re-examined internment in the metropole. We hope that the volume will make a significant contribution to the growing literature on global history, the growing appreciation of the importance of imperialism in the way in which the world functioned from the early modern period until the middle of the twentieth century, and particularly the realiza­ tion that the First World War gained its name because it became global in all senses of the term.

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Acknowledgements We would like to thank the various funding bodies which have made the research for this project possible. Most importantly, a grant from the Gerda Henkel Foundation on the theme of ‘Interning German “Enemy Aliens” in the British Empire during World War I: Global, National and Local Perspectives’ allowed us to make archival trips to Berlin, Freiburg, London, New Delhi, Pretoria, and Pietermaritzburg. We are especially grateful to Irene Hofeditz of the Gerda Henkel Foundation for her assistance with various aspects of the grant. At the same time, Panayi also received support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which allowed him to carry out much of the groundwork on the position of the Germans in India, which included visits to the Leipzig Mission Archive in Halle and the Basel Mission Archive. The project partly evolved from a Higher Education Innovation Fund grant via De Montfort University under the title of ‘Internment during the First World War: Remembering, Forgetting and Experiencing on a Local, National and Global Scale’, which allowed Panayi to make trips to London to use the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies and the British Library. We also received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council on three different occasions. The first, on the theme of ‘Knockaloe in Local, National and Global Context’, allowed Panayi to carry out further research trips to the British Library and the National Archives in London, travel to the European Social Science History Conference in Valencia in 2016 to present a paper on Ahmednagar, and supported the development of the Centre for World War One Internment in Knockaloe, to which Panayi has acted as academic advisor. Stefan Manz received two grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, both specifically geared towards the dissemination of findings and public engagement. The first of these was entitled ‘The Stobs Internment Camp and the Borders Region during World War I: Local Memories, Global Contexts’. It enabled him to organize a study weekend for the general public in Hawick in 2016, as well as present at the Fort Douglas Military Museum in Salt Lake City. The second grant was entitled ‘The German Diaspora during World War I: Remembering Internment Camps in Britain and the Commonwealth’. It facilitated theatre plays, an exhibition, large-scale digitized translations of German sources into English, cooperation with South African partners, and the establishment of the Internment Research Centre based in Hawick. Manz also gave academic papers on the topic at Utah State University, the University of Madison, Wisconsin, the University of South Africa, Regensburg University, Freie Universität Berlin, and a number of

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viii Acknowledgements universities and institutions in Britain, including the Royal United Services Institute and the British Library. All these activities have gone beyond purely aca­ demic audiences and testify to the fact that the theme of internment encounters a growing general interest. We are very grateful to Cathryn Steele of Oxford University Press for steering us through the publication process, as well as the anonymous readers who reviewed our original proposal and the full typescript. They offered important advice, with which we fully engaged when drafting the final typescript, leading to a much stronger piece of work. Other colleagues who gave valuable advice and support at various stages of the project include, in alphabetical order, Arnd Bauerkämper, Tilman Dedering, Graham Dominy, Tim Grady, Jochen Oltmer, Heidi MacPherson, Tammy Proctor, Anne Schwan, Daniel Steinbach, Matthew Stibbe and Isabella von Treskow. We would like to thank the following copyright holders for allowing us to reproduce material used in the text: Manx National Heritage, Alamy, the National Archives of Australia, German Federal Archives, the National Archives (London), and the National Military History Museum of South Africa. Efforts have been made to trace all other copyright holders. All original quotes in German have been translated by us into English.

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Contents List of Figures List of Tables Abbreviations Used in References Map of Main Deportation Routes Map of Major Internment Camps

xi xiii xv xvii xix

I .   I N T E R N M E N T I N H I S T O R IC A L A N D  G L O BA L  P E R SP E C T I V E 1. Introduction

3

2. Historical and Global Perspectives

24

3. The German Diaspora in the Empire

50

4. Global Germanophobia during Wartime: Public and State Responses

74

5. British Imperial Internment

97

6. The Extent and Nature of the Camp System

123

II.  METROPOLE AND TERRITORIES 7. Great Britain

161

8. South Africa

184

9. India

205 III.  LIFE IN THE CAMPS

10. Knockaloe

227

11. Fort Napier

250

12. Ahmednagar

276

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x Contents

I V.   C O N C LU SIO N 13. The Nature and Legacy of British Imperial Internment

303

Appendix: Main Civilian Internment Camps in the British Empire

315

Bibliography Index

319 347

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List of Figures 4.1. Anti-German riots in Chrisp Street, East End of London, May 1915

82

4.2. Anti-German riots in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, May 1915

82

5.1. Gunther Plüschow

102

5.2. Paul Cohen-Portheim

119

6.1. Holsworthy Camp, New South Wales, Australia

129

6.2. Kapuskasing Camp, Northern Ontario, Canada 

130

6.3. Prisoners’ drawing of Kapuskasing Camp, Northern Ontario, Canada 

130

6.4. Football in Handforth Camp, Cheshire, UK

134

6.5. Band on Rottnest Island, Australia

135

6.6. Theatre group in Amherst, Canada

135

6.7. Up Park Camp, Kingston, Jamaica

155

6.8. Plan of Ports Island, Bermuda

156

7.1. Alexandra Palace

172

7.2. Jewish internees in Douglas

177

8.1. Fort Napier: hut where deportee women from German Southwest Africa were allowed to meet their husbands

200

10.1. Aerial view of Knockaloe

234

1 0.2. Knockaloe gardeners

242

11.1. Lunch in Fort Napier

252

1 1.2. Camp newspaper Der Hunne in Fort Napier

260

11.3. Painting and gardening in Fort Napier

261

11.4. Christmas 1914 in Fort Napier

261

11.5. Theatre in Holsworthy Camp, Australia

266

1 2.1. Ahmednagar internees

282

12.2. Plan of Ahmednagar Camp

286

12.3. Small business adverts in Ahmednagar

293

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List of Tables 3.1. Birthplaces of persons living in the British Empire, 1901: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey

53

5.1. Main deportation and transportation routes

101

6.1. Internees in overseas territories (excluding India) in February 1918

125

6.2. Camp School Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada, February 1918

139

7.1. Number of civilian internees in Britain, 1914–19

169

8.1. Female deportees and children from Lüderitzbucht, German Southwest Africa, interned in Pietermaritzburg, October 1914 to 5 March 1915

201

10.1. Place of arrest of Knockaloe internees sent to Holland in September 1917

233

11.1. Prisoner numbers in Fort Napier, August 1916

254

11.2. Prisoners’ occupations in Fort Napier, December 1916

255

11.3. Sports and pastimes in Fort Napier

257

12.1. Total number of internees in Ahmednagar

280

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Abbreviations Used in References AA Auswärtiges Amt (German Foreign Office) AFST Archiv der Frankeschen Stiftung BA Bundesarchiv BHSTA Bayerisches Haupstaatsarchiv BL British Library BMA Basel Mission Archives CES Commissioner for Enemy Subjects (South Africa) CO Colonial Office DRK Deutsches Rotes Kreuz EZA Evangelisches Zentralarchiv FO Foreign Office GG Governor-General of South Africa HO Home Office IOR India Office Records IWM Imperial War Museum LBWHS Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Haupstaatsarchiv Stuttgart LMA London Metropolitan Archives LMW Leipziger Missionswerk MA Militärarchiv Freiburg MEPO Metropolitan Police MInn Ministerium des Inneren (Bavaria) MNH Manx National Heritage NA National Archives, London NAI National Archives of India NASA National Archives of South Africa NMHMSA National Military History Museum of South Africa PMB Pietermaritzburg Archive RM Reichsmarineamt (German Navy Ministry) SAP South African Police WO War Office

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0

0

2500

5000 km

2500

Canada

5000 miles

East Africa

South Africa

Southwest Africa

West Africa

Egypt

Map of Main Deportation Routes

Caribbean and Atlantic Islands

Atlantic

Great Britain

Siam Ceylon Singapore

India

Australia

New Zealand

German Pacific

Hong Kong

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0

0

2500

2500

5000 miles

Kingston

Malta Belgaum

Ahmednagar

Fort Napier

Maadi

Sidi Bishr

Map of Major Internment Camps

Barbados Trinidad

Douglas, Knockaloe Kapuskasing Banff Oldcastle Spirit Lake Lethbridge Handforth Petawawa Fernie Amherst Alexandra Palace Fort Halifax Henry Gibraltar Bermuda

5000 km

Vernon

Stobs

Berrima

Holsworthy Trial Bay Torrens Island

Rottnest Island

Diyatalawa

Sholapur

Somes Island

Motuihi Island

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PART I

IN T E R N ME N T IN H I STOR ICA L AND GLOBA L PE R SPE C T I V E

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1

Introduction Since the nineteenth century the policy of locking away civilian or military ­population groups has become a truly global phenomenon. Sophisticated camp infrastructures have isolated those who pose an alleged security threat or do not fit into constructions of an ethno-religious or ideological body politic. From independence wars in Cuba (1868–98) and Algeria (1950s) to Nazi concentration camps and the Cambodian Killing Fields (1975–79), and from the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s to current incarnations such as Guantánamo Bay or China’s mass detention of its Muslim Uighur minority, camps have proved flexible tools of suppression. Refusal to memorialize can taint international relations up until today. Ottoman death camps against Armenians during the First World War and Japanese camps in mainland China before and during the Second World War are just two examples. In a recent chilling intervention the conservative Austrian interior minister, Herbert Kickl, suggested that asylum seekers should be held ‘concentrated (konzentriert) in one place’.1 The issue is here to stay, and historical scholarship is all the more necessary to understand its importance and complexity. During the First World War, Britain was the epicentre of global mass internment and deportation operations. Germans, Austro-Hungarians, Turks, and Bulgarians who had settled in Britain and its overseas territories were deemed to be a potential danger to the realm through their ties with the Central Powers and classified as ‘enemy aliens’. A complex set of wartime legislation imposed limitations on their freedom of movement, expression, and property possession. Approximately 50,000 men and some women experienced the most drastic step of enemy alien control, namely internment behind barbed wire, in many cases for the whole duration of the war. This study is the first to analyse British internment operations against civilian ‘enemies in the Empire’ during the First World War from an imperial perspective. It argues that the British Empire played a key role in developing civilian internment as a central element of warfare and national security on a global scale. The approach constitutes a methodological step-change from existing scholarship which is largely locked in (proto-)national units of analysis, concentrating on internment operations in a given country or territory.2 These historiographies 1  ‘Neue Härte’, Die Zeit, 25 January 2018. 2  See, for example, Gerhard Fischer, Enemy Aliens: Internment and the Homefront Experience in Australia, 1914–1920 (St Lucia, 1989); Andrew Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must be Anti-German’: Enemies in the Empire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War. Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi, Oxford University Press (2020). © Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198850151.001.0001

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4  Enemies in the Empire have logically followed remembrance patterns: the Great War is still remembered in white Commonwealth countries as a period where the forces of nation-building were intensely at work. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa had all been granted dominion status before 1914. The nation as a largely self-contained unit has been seen as an apt framework for analysing internment in specific countries.3 Historians have therefore been understandably concerned with the question of where internment sat within processes of nation-building. A common denominator of this critical historiography is that ‘enemy aliens’ were convenient targets for ‘othering’. They embodied—and were constructed as—the perfect link between an external aggressor and an internal enemy in the midst. Both elements are typical in nation-building, and much of the xenophobic responses analysed in this study can be explained on this purely theoretical level. Adopting a broader Empire perspective does not make these national historiographies redundant. Global and national history should be seen as symbiotic rather than exclusionary. As Kris Manjapra puts it for the German case: ‘The impact of nationalism is far too important to be decentred in our histories of modern Germany, but it can be understood through a different lens . . . The aim is not to wish away the history of the nation state’.4 Our Empire perspective revisits existing national scholarship by adding a layer of analysis which does more just­ ice to the actual globality of warfare. First World War scholarship is increasingly moving away from the traditional focus on European battle fronts and, instead, stresses the truly global repercussions of the conflict, leading to significant social, cultural, political, and economic transformations in virtually all world regions.5 The wider focus has also been applied to the political units entering into conflict. These did not necessarily consist of nation states but of empires. In August 1914 it was not ‘Britain’ declaring war. Rather, it was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the associated dominions and colonies of the British Empire.6 The same is true for the French, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires. This means that any notion of the First World War as purely a New Zealand, Enemy Aliens and the Great War Experience, 1914–1919 (Oxford, 2012); Bohdan S. Kordan, No Free Man: Canada, the Great War, and the Enemy Alien Experience (Montreal, 2016); Panikos Panayi, Prisoners of Britain: German Civilian and Combatant Internees during the First World War (Manchester, 2012). 3 For a critique of nation-centred narratives see Sebastian Conrad, What Is Global History? (Princeton, NJ, 2016). 4  Forum ‘Asia, Germany and the Transnational Turn’, German History, vol. 28 (2010), pp. 515–36 (529). 5  Jay Winter, ed., The Cambridge History of the First World War, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 2014); Ute Daniel et al., eds, 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War (Berlin, 2014ff.); Hew Strachan, The First World War (London, 2005); John Horne, ed., A Companion to World War I (Malden, MA, 2010); Daniel Marc Segesser, Der Erste Weltkrieg in globaler Perspektive (Wiesbaden, 2010); Santanu Das, project Cultural Exchange in a Time of Global Conflict: Colonials, Neutrals and Belligerents during the First World War, http://www.cegcproject.eu (accessed 27 July 2017). 6  Adrian Gregory, ‘Britain and Ireland’, in Horne, Companion, pp. 403–17 (here p. 403).

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Introduction  5 clash of European nation states is too narrow. A convincing framework speaking of ‘Empires at War’ has been suggested by scholars such as Robert Gerwarth and Erez Manela. The authors show that these multi-ethnic and polymorphous empires mobilized millions of imperial subjects, mainly combatants but also non-combatant labourers, turning the conflict into a truly global war in multiple locations.7 Extra-European theatres of war were not eccentric ‘sideshows’ but  crucial to understanding the myriad textures of war and their long-term implications for the twentieth-century political, economic, and social order.8 Investigating internment under an imperial lens thus points to the globally integrated nature of the policy. The perspective adds significant value to those studies that are confined to specific dominions. What connected colonial possessions with each other and, in turn, with the metropole? To understand the pace with which the policy of internment radiated across the world after August 1914, one has to identify established imperial structures as efficient transmission belts. These include the administration, military, chains of command, transport, and communication structures. Aidan Forth’s study of nineteenth-century British camps in India and South Africa provides a backdrop in terms of methodology and historical continuities. He presents the ‘Indian Ocean World’ as one integrated space which was densely connected through trade, transport, communication, and the movement of ­people, all accelerated by the globalizing dynamics of British rule. By 1900 around 10 million Indian paupers, criminals, and insurgents had experienced some form of internment, born out of a combination of Empire stabilization and humanitarian endeavour. After the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War in 1899, British troops were moved from India to South Africa, carrying the plague across the Indian Ocean. This, in turn, necessitated an imperial response in the form of travelling medical and internment officers to isolate infected individuals from the general population. In South Africa, this was in addition to those camps that mushroomed as a direct consequence of warfare against Boers.9 Thousands of Boers were also transported to camps in Ceylon, St Helena, India, and Bermuda,10 and some of these camps were, in fact, ‘recycled’ only fifteen years later. Rudolf Wettenger, for example, ended up in the Diyatalawa camp in Ceylon,

7  Robert Gerwarth and Erez Manela, eds, Empires at War, 1911–1923 (Oxford, 2014). 8  Michelle Moyd, ‘Extra-European Theatres of War’, International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/extra-european_theatres_of_war (accessed 6 June 2018). 9 Aidan Forth, Barbed-Wire Imperialism: Britain’s Empire of Camps, 1876–1903 (Berkeley, CA,  2017). Also see Harald Fischer-Tiné, ‘Englands interne Zivilisierungsmission: Arbeitshäuser für  Europäer im kolonialen Indien (ca. 1860–1914)’, in Boris Barth and Jürgen Osterhammel, eds, Zivilisierungsmissionen: Imperiale Weltverbesserung seit dem 18. Jahrhundert (Konstanz, 2005), pp. 169–99. 10  Isabel Hofmeyr, ‘South Africa’s Indian Ocean. Boer Prisoners of War in India’, Social Dynamics, vol. 38 (2012), pp. 363–80.

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6  Enemies in the Empire ‘an old concentration camp from the Boer War where the deported wives and non-­combatant civilians, plagued by hunger and epidemics, had to prevent their men and heroes from being victorious’.11 Camp commandants and guards were also moved within the imperial sphere, perpetuating operational know-how. Lieutenant Colonel Francis William Panzera, for example, had had a distinguished military career in southern Africa, including command of the artillery defences during the Siege of Mafeking (1899–1900), before taking over as commandant of Knockaloe Camp during 1916 and 1917. His predecessor, Lieutenant Colonel John Maxwell Carpendale, had served in the Indian army before 1909.12 The nature of the sources used for the present study, however, does not allow for a comprehensive cohort analysis of camp personnel in terms of career background and postings. Guards and commandants only appear ephemerally in the sources when singled out for praise or, more often, complaints by prisoners. The operational lessons learned from imperial disaster and insurgency management were clearly picked up during the First World War. Mahon Murphy’s recent study focuses on those Germans who found themselves trapped in the German Empire’s overseas possessions. When British (in tandem with French and Belgian) forces captured these African and Asian territories, they went about confining civilian ‘enemy aliens’ and military prisoners of war. Again, they made full use of global empire structures, transporting and interning prisoners across continents and oceans. Mass deportation from former German colonial territories played into British strategic goals of Empire enlargement.13 In addition to efficient camp management, the British learning curve since the Boer War included an awareness that internal morale and external reputation were best served by aiming for humane conditions. The long-term international reputational damage of the Boer camps was immense, and Britain was keen to prevent a second ‘public relations disaster’ fifteen years later. The Geneva Convention, which had been ratified in the meantime, also contributed to the fact that those camps discussed in the present study were better and more humanely organized than those of the Boer War. The British case defies the notion of continuous brutalization of twentieth-century camp systems. Each framework needs to be discussed in its own right without the looming endpoint of Auschwitz. As Alan Kramer argues, notions of continuity can be misleading. More productive questions relate to internal and transnational knowledge transfers, institutional memory, and the

11 Hans Weiland and Leopold Kern, eds, In Feindeshand: Die Gefangenschaft im Weltkriege in Einzeldarstellungen, Volume 2 (Vienna, 1931), p. 109. 12  Graham Mark, Prisoners of War in British Hands during WW1: A Study of Their History, the Camps and Their Mails (Exeter, 2007), p. 121; Francis William Panzera (1851–1917), Colonel, Knockaloe Virtual Museum and Archive, http://www.knockaloe.org.uk/colonel-panzera, accessed 5 March 2019. 13  Mahon Murphy, Colonial Captivity during the First World War: Internment and the Fall of the German Empire, 1914–1919 (Cambridge, 2017).

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Introduction  7 logic of dynamics.14 These parameters will guide much of our empirical and ­analytical approach. For example, the decision to refrain from interning women and children was clearly influenced by previous negative experiences. An Indian civil servant activated institutional memory when he wrote: ‘We had Concentration Camps in South Africa for Boer women and children. Were we to send these ­people to Ahmednagar we can be certain that atrocity mongers would, sooner or later, make out that we had made them prisoners of war and sent them to a  Concentration Camp’.15 The evolution of the British imperial camp system between 1914 and 1920 was one of constant adaptation, depending on policy decisions and the course of warfare. Temporary camps in the initial period were soon replaced by large-scale permanent facilities. Despite an element of trial and error, early teething problems, and ongoing regional variations, consolidation set in from the end of 1914, facilitating the implementation of relatively humane conditions. A potential pitfall of imperial and global approaches is that they can neglect the actual war experience ‘on the ground’. Global historians of the First World War are aware of these pitfalls and consistently endeavour to connect global processes with (proto-)national, local, and individual case histories. For example, Adrian Gregory’s attempt at ‘Globalising and Localising the Great War’ pursues an inherently local thread to depict the global impact of war on the four distant localities of Oxford, Halifax (Nova Scotia), Jerusalem, and Verdun. Santanu Das’ interpretation of artefacts belonging to war participants manages to encapsulate all levels of analysis from the individual to the global.16 The present study pursues a similar multi-level approach to elicit localized and personal repercussions of internment. The policy did not descend as a homogenous experience upon all ‘enemies in the Empire’ but rather reflected its complex, polymorphous, and porous nature. Why was Friedrich Bitzer deported from the Gold Coast to the Isle of Man while his compatriots in South Africa remained behind the wire in their adopted country?17 Why were the majority of internees in Canada AustroHungarian, and why did this lead to their use as forced labourers? Why was there a camp in India for women and children from Siam? To what extent did individual camp commandants have a bearing on the treatment of the internees they controlled? 14  Alan Kramer, ‘Einleitung’, in Bettina Greiner and Alan Kramer, eds, Die Welt der Lager: Zur ‘Erfolgsgeschichte’ einer Institution (Hamburg, 2013), pp. 16, 22. See also Christoph Jahr and Jens Thiel, eds, Lager vor Auschwitz: Gewalt und Integration im 20. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 2013). Continuities for the German case of gradual brutalization are asserted by Jürgen Zimmerer, Von Windhuk nach Auschwitz? Beiträge zum Verhältnis von Kolonialismus und Holocaust (Berlin, 2011). 15  NAI/Home/PoliticalA/September1914/394–397, Grant of allowance to the wives and children of prisoners of war interned at Ahmednagar. 16 Adrian Gregory, ‘Globalising and Localising the Great War’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. 27 (2017), pp. 233–51; Santanu Das, Indian Troops in Europe 1914–1918 (Ahmedabad, 2015). 17  MNH, Friedrich Bitzer papers, no file classification.

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8  Enemies in the Empire These are questions that highlight the need for a multi-level analysis from the imperial via the (proto-)national and down to specific camps and individuals. The multi-level approach is reflected in the range of primary sources. The study is  based on records from British, German, Swiss, Indian, and South African archives. This widens not only the empirical source base but also the interpretive scope of existing scholarship whose radius is limited to one or two countries. Whereas British sources assert good conditions and humane treatment, German sources tend to stress infringement of rights, suffering, and a more negative interpretation of camp conditions. The respective bias was part of the larger propaganda battle where each side claimed the moral hegemony of fighting a bellum iustum. The treatment of prisoners, and especially civilian ones, was seen as an indicator of a morally justified cause. Relevant documents such as protest notes from the German government, media reports, and pertinent refutations from Britain therefore have to be read critically. They were not necessarily a reflection of camp conditions but served a wider political purpose and therefore need tri­ angu­la­tion with a range of other sources. These include ego-documents which reflect the internment experience through prisoners’ eyes. Existing scholarship often operates with texts about, and not by, internees. In the case of Canada, this has even led to the conclusion that ‘none of them appears to have left even a written impression of the experience of captivity in Canada’.18 Our findings prove otherwise. A range of records from five different countries give vivid insights into how prisoners themselves experienced their internment. Clearly, a critical, contextualized reading is necessary to give due attention to the subjectivity of ego-documents.19 Censored letters tended to focus upon positive and uncontroversial matters, whilst uncensored ones, smuggled out or written in invisible ink, were more open. Reports and memoirs written after release tend to stress hardship and isolation. Personal accounts of real or alleged mistreatment were collected by the German military authorities as part of the propaganda battle. Inspection reports were written by representatives of neutral states. Up until 1917 these were usually US Consuls in respective regions, and then Swiss representatives after the US entry into war. These inspection reports give valuable insights into camp conditions, but their details were frequently contested by all parties involved. On Barbados, for example, the Governor and the camp commandant became visibly irritated with the American Consul who, in their opinion, spent too much time listening to prisoners and ‘encourages them to report and magnify trivialities’. They found the Consul to be ‘a sick man . . . who has 18  Desmond Morton, ‘Sir William Otter and Internment Operations in Canada during the First World War’, Canadian Historical Review, vol. 55 (1974), pp. 32–58 (58). The latest substantial volume on the topic, Kordan, No Free Man, is indicative, working only with Canadian English-language sources. 19 Mary Fulbrook and Ulinka Rublack, ‘In Relation: The “Social Self ” and Ego-Documents’, German History, vol. 28 (2010), pp. 263–72.

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Introduction  9 shown a lack of discretion’.20 In the Canadian Amherst and Halifax camps, in contrast, prisoners were annoyed that the local US Consul was too friendly with the camp commandant and showed no interest in their grievances.21 It does not come as a surprise that the source about Barbados was archived in London, and the source about Amherst and Halifax in Berlin. These few examples of text types give insight into a chorus of different voices  which has to be heard to construct a multidimensional narrative of internment. Cutting through their differing agendas, two threads can safely be drawn  from the sources. First, conditions in the camps were relatively good. There was no systematic physical mistreatment, food rations were sufficient in line with those for British military personnel in peacetime, and the prisoners were allowed to pursue cultural activities within the confines of censorship. Second, despite these conditions, the personal consequences of internment were wide-ranging with destructive effects on ethnic communities, individual lives, and families. Britain did not only intern German, but also Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Ottoman nationals who found themselves in the Empire during the war. The present study focuses mainly on German internees for two reasons. First, they constituted the vast majority in the camps and were the main target of British operations. Second, the source material and scope of the study would have become unmanageable had we aspired to include material from other national archives, especially as it would require high-level command of several languages. In that sense the study opens up pathways for further research. Our sources hint at issues such as the enforced closeness between different ethno-national groups,22 the problem of finding places of worship for Muslims,23 and the question of how to deal with ethnic groups that were hostile to German and Austro-Hungarian rule. The London Czech Committee, for example, asked for the release of their co-nationals in South Africa because ‘the struggle of the Czechs against German influence and aggression runs through the whole history of Bohemia’.24 Within Britain, 4,000 people gained exemption from internment because of the discrepancy between political disposition and ‘enemy alien’ status. These included mainly Czechs, Poles, Alsatians, Italians from Trentino, South Slavs, and Armenians,

20  NA/CO28/291, Governor’s despatches, 26 January 1917 and 31 January 1917. 21 BA/R67/1163, anonymous letter in chemical ink, Halifax, 20 August 1915; BA/R901/83909, Reich marine secretary to war ministry and foreign ministry, 26 October 1915. 22  For example, Fritz Gerke referred to his co-prisoners in Amherst, Nova Scotia, as ‘Germans, Austrians, Galicians, Half-Russians etc.’, in BA/R901/83088, Fritz Gerke (father) to Reichstag-member Georg Schulenburg, 27 May 1915. 23 NASA/GG631/9/64, correspondence between Swedish Consulate General and GovernorGeneral of the Union of South Africa, 30 October 1917, 12 April 1918. The Governor-General declined a request to visit a mosque outside the Fort Napier camp. 24 NASA/GG9/64/95, London Czech Committee to High Commissioner for South Africa, 25 August 1916.

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10  Enemies in the Empire although some slipped through the net and were still interned.25 Future studies could dig deeper and develop more differentiated insights into the social dynamics and ethno-religious interactions in the camps. The only case where it will be important to elaborate on Austro-Hungarian Slavic speakers, especially Ukrainians, will be for Canada, where the line between internal security and socio-economic utilitarianism was deliberately blurred. Ukrainians were locked away in labour camps in the Canadian West where they had to carry out hard work on infrastructure and national parks projects.26 The rich source material allows for a narrative which contributes to a number of wider theoretical questions and arguments. First, it touches on his­torio­graph­ ic­al debates on the totalization of war, and in particular the question whether this was a ‘soldiers’ war’ or a ‘civilians’ war’. Recent scholarship argues for a stronger emphasis on the civilian element. Remembrance of civilian suffering and victimhood in all nations was long overshadowed by soldiers’ narratives. It was now time for scholarship to redress this imbalance. The war had a devastating effect on many civilian communities, leaving deep traumas and resentment which would eventually lead to further military conflict during the twentieth century.27 Our argument follows the same direction, but expands it into the colonial and diasporic sphere through hitherto unexplored sources. The study propounds the wider argument that no civilian ‘enemy alien’ throughout the British Empire was unaffected by wartime occurrences, whether through official government measures such as internment, deportation, or expropriation; or through informal hostility, dismissal, rioting, and suppression of ethnic life. Criteria for what constitutes a ‘total war’ are disputed, but if we apply that of geographical breadth of civilian internment operations, the notion of totality emerges more strongly.28 Daniel Segesser has argued that some elements of Australian wartime society point to totalization. These include centralized decision-making, tighter control of social norms—and the internment of enemy aliens.29 More recently, Arnd Bauerkämper has broadened this argument, looking at civilian internment operations in a number of locations worldwide.30 The present study opens up the 25 Panikos Panayi, The Enemy in Our Midst: Germans in Britain During the First World War (Oxford, 1991), p. 81. 26 Kordan, No Free Man. 27  Tammy Proctor, Civilians in a World at War, 1914–1918 (New York, 2010); Heather Jones, ‘The Great War: How 1914–18 Changed the Relationship between War and Civilians’, Royal United Services Institute Journal, vol. 159 (2014), pp. 84–91; Alan Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War (Oxford, 2007); Alexander Watson, Ring of Steel: Germany and AustriaHungary at War, 1911–1923 (London, 2014). 28 See, for example, Arthur Marwick, Clive Emsley, and Wendy Simpson, eds, Total War and Historical Change: Europe 1914–1955 (Buckingham, 2001); Roger Chickering and Stig Förster, eds, Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front 1914–1918 (Cambridge, 2006). 29  Daniel Marc Segesser, Empire und totaler Krieg: Australien 1905–1918 (Paderborn, 2002). 30 Arnd Bauerkämper, ‘National Security and Humanity: The Internment of Civilian “Enemy Aliens” during the First World War’, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute London, vol. 40 (2018), pp. 61–85.

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Introduction  11 theme for similar discussions across the British Empire. Even if actual internment ­figures in dominions and colonies appear small on the surface, ancillary measures such as registration, deportation, and expropriation point to comprehensive state responses in tackling the perceived enemy alien danger. For Britain itself, some historians have questioned the notion of totality on the grounds that centralization in economic, military, and political terms was not as focused as often assumed.31 The question of enemy alien detention has not been included in these considerations and would support a tendency towards totalization. Britain did not only manage a relatively well-organized internment system within its shores in addition to the manifold other challenges of warfare. It also coordinated global operations. This, in turn, supports recent arguments that war totalization grew not only in intensity during the First World War but also in geographical scope by becoming a more global phenomenon.32 The question of totalization is inextricably linked to the contested dif­fer­en­ti­ ation between civilians and soldiers. In the pre-war years the two spheres became increasingly blurred. Indeed, scholars such as Jean-Yves Guiomar identify this blurring as an important element of ‘total war’.33 In Germany and AustriaHungary, conscription added to the pool of reservists who would be obliged to rush back to the colours once war was declared. In August 1914, German and Austro-Hungarian consulates across the world experienced long queues of young men registering and enquiring about the fastest route back. This was soon stopped by the authorities in host countries, and many of the young men were subsequently detained. They could thus neither join their armies in the metropole nor return to their families in the diaspora to carry on working as clerks, teachers, hairdressers, waiters, craftsmen, and other occupations that were popular among emigrants. Were these men soldiers or were they civilians? What about nonreservists? Many had emigrated exactly because they wanted to avoid military service and were now interned. And what about those septuagenarians behind the wire who were long past military age? These questions were contested throughout the war since they had repercussions on treatment. The most clear-cut answer was given by Canada: all internees were prisoners of war and were to be treated as such, legitimizing forced labour in non-war-related industries under international law. The Canadian approach was much to the chagrin of Britain as it provided propaganda fodder for the Central Powers. In Amherst captured naval prisoners and non-combatants found themselves interned together. The same was true for

31  See, for example, Keith Grieves, ‘Total War? The Quest for a British Manpower Policy, 1917–1918’, Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 9 (1986), pp. 79–95; Niall Ferguson, ‘How (Not) to Pay for War: Traditional Finance and Total War’, in Chickering and Förster, Great War, pp. 409–34; Hew Strachan, ‘From Cabinet War to Total War: The Perspective of Military Doctrine, 1861–1918’, in Idem, pp. 19–33. 32 Segesser, Empire, pp. 522–33. 33  Jean-Yves Guiomar, L’invention de la guerre totale, XVIIIe–XXe siècle (Paris, 2004), pp. 13–14.

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12  Enemies in the Empire Ahmednagar, where troops from the East African Schutztruppe were detained together with local civilians. Camps within Britain, in contrast, upheld a strict separation between captured combatants and non-combatants, including reservists, after the initial chaos following the introduction of internment in the early stages of the war. The international legal framework did little to clarify the position of civilians in wartime captivity. The Geneva Conventions (1864 and 1906) and the Hague Conventions on Land Warfare (1899 and 1907) were almost exclusively concerned with the plight of combatant prisoners of war. A vague preamble to the 1907 Hague Convention simply stated that in other cases the ‘principles of the law of nations’ should be applied ‘as they result from the usages established among civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and the dictates of the public conscience’.34 The implementation of international norms, however, remained in the hands of sovereign national governments who had rejected binding restrictions at The Hague. The international framework which had developed by 1914 was thus neither inclusive nor robust enough to guarantee protection of civilians in captivity. Signatory states as well as private organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) clearly had not foreseen the totalization of war which was to leave millions of civilians in a vulnerable pos­ition. The ICRC kept arguing throughout the war that civilian detainees should receive special consideration, but governments hardly listened. A Civilian Prisoners’ Bureau was established within the ICRC to improve conditions in camps, facilitating communication between prisoners and their families, forwarding relief packages, and undertaking visits to camps. The bulk of these inspection visits were, however, undertaken by neutral powers: Switzerland, Netherlands, Spain, and the USA until its entry into war in April 1917.35 The blurred legal position meant that the German Foreign Office and savvy internees complained constantly and vociferously that, as civilians, they should never have been interned and that they were protected under international law from such measures. The First World War did, indeed, change legal and public perceptions of war victims with internationally codified rights.36 Whether internment was justified under wartime legislation or whether it broke inter­ nation­al law remains a contested question. Isabel Hull rightly argues that ‘Imperial Germany might be called a structural violator of international law during the war’. The fact that it was not the only violator did not make all states equally

34  Quoted in Matthew Stibbe, ‘The Internment of Civilians by Belligerent States during the First World War and the Response of the International Committee of the Red Cross’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 41/1 (2006), pp. 5–19. 35  Ibid.; Bauerkämper, ‘National Security’, pp. 65–7. 36  Bruno Cabanes, The Great War and the Origins of Humanitarianism, 1918–1924 (Cambridge, 2014).

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Introduction  13 guilty.37 Hull’s assessment that ‘Allied violations took place largely under the rubrics of reciprocity . . . and reprisal’,38 however, cannot be upheld for the issue at stake in this study. While the incarceration of enemy nationals predates the First World War and became increasingly common in the pre-war decades, and while all of the major belligerent powers imprisoned enemy aliens during the Great War, the British Empire gave the key impetus. As Matthew Stibbe has demonstrated, Germany only incarcerated Britons as an act of retaliation against the imprisonment of German nationals in Britain.39 Another contested issue is the question to what extent internees were subjected to violence. This depends on definition and perspective. Violence is not a given entity but rather exists on a shifting spectrum of cultural construction and legal codification. In the pre-war decades, the discourse on the treatment of prisoners of war had evolved. The Geneva Conventions stipulated that combatants who fell into enemy hands were entitled to medical treatment. The Hague Conventions asked for ‘humane treatment’ of captured soldiers to prevent abuse. This was a historic shift from earlier practices which were based on vague concepts of gallantry and military honour. At least in normative terms, the Conventions created a standardized framework across different cultural and legal contexts. In her comparative study on violence in British, French, and German military camps, Heather Jones uses a deliberately broad definition for her analytical framework which includes ‘the use or threat of physical force, both discriminate and indiscriminate, against a prisoner of war, by an enemy subject’.40 The violence described by Jones included shooting during the act of capture, corporal punishment, forced labour companies in hazardous front-line environments, and similar transgressions which can be classified as atrocities. On the spectrum of intensity, the German and Russian armies were particularly prone to violent acts against both soldiers and civilians. For Germany this has been conceptualized as a ‘dynamic of destruction’ which had been culturally and institutionally engrained in the pre-war decades and was unleashed in war conditions.41 Acts of violence were negotiated in public and political discourse within a broader symbolic framework. Killings of Belgian and French civilians were explained by the 37  Isabel Hull, A Scrap of Paper: Breaking and Making International Law during the Great War (Ithaca, NY, 2014). 38 Ibid. 39  Matthew Stibbe, ‘A Question of Retaliation? The Internment of British Civilians in Germany in November 1914’, Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 23 (2005), pp. 1–29. 40  Heather Jones, Violence against Prisoners of War in the First World War: Britain, France, and Germany, 1914–1920 (Cambridge, 2011), p. 4. 41 Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction; Isabel Hull, Absolute Destruction, Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (Ithaca, NY, 2005); Alexander Watson, ‘ “Unheard-of Brutality”: Russian Atrocities against Civilians in East Prussia, 1914–1915’, Journal of Modern History vol. 86 (2014), pp. 780–825; Eric Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire: The Campaign against Enemy Aliens during World War I (Cambridge, MA, 2003); Alon Rachamimov, POWs and the Great War: Captivity on the Eastern Front (Oxford, 2002).

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14  Enemies in the Empire German authorities as justified suppression of resistance from franc tireurs, whilst the Allied discourse presented them as proof of German barbarity. Each side tended to justify violence against prisoners of war through a tit-for-tat mech­an­ ism of reprisals.42 Some of these broad patterns of military confinement also applied to the civilian camps described in the present study but, importantly, physical violence occurred at a significantly lower end of the spectrum. To be sure, there were a number of fatal shootings arising from tense camp conditions, physical abuse of Ukrainians from multi-ethnic Austria-Hungary was ripe in Canadian labour camps, and discipline enforcement against captured escapees and insurgents could be harsh. There was, however, no systematic physical violence against German civilians in British captivity. This does not mean that the experience was not perceived as such by the internees and their governments. The mere act of being confined was interpreted as an act of violation, infringing on the basic right of freedom. Complaints and petitions were usually framed within the parameters of destruction and violence. Inmates in Fort Napier, for example, asked in a petition why the South African government should ‘step between husbands and wives, between fathers and children, ruining the former mentally and physically and the latter morally? This will be one of the greatest crimes ever known in history . . . It is against the laws of humanity . . . which even savages respect, that we are interned’.43 The organist and choirmaster of Cork Catholic Cathedral, Aloys Fleischmann, who was interned in the Oldcastle Camp in Ireland, wrote to his young son: ‘It is of no significance whether an individual is healthy or ill, dies a natural death, opens his veins or hangs himself where thousands are oppressed and worn down by their fate, robbed of their livelihoods, torn from their families in all corners of the globe, all vegetating like packs of different animals behind barbed wire’. Fleischmann reported the fatal stabbing of thirty-one-year-old Franz Xaver Seemaier with a bayonet, although the official version was that Seemaier died of internal bleeding after a footballing accident.44 In Ahmednagar there were several fatal shootings where prisoners did not respect the five-yard exclusion zone inside the barbed-wire enclosure.45 Although death rates were relatively low, suicides were sometimes a consequence of internment. One was that of the German American medical doctor, Walter Gellhorn, who was captured on an Atlantic steamer and interned in the Scottish Stobs camp. By the time he wrote his farewell letter, he had already taken morphine and was beyond rescue. The letter explained that ‘under the circumstances I have been treated decently, but I complain that I have been interned at 42  John Horne and Alan Kramer, German Atrocities 1914: A History of Denial (London, 2001). 43  BA/R901/83134, Internees to Prime Minister Botha, 20 July 1917. 44  Quoted in Declan O’Connor, ‘Das Kriegsgefangenenlager/The Prisoner of War Camp Oldcastle, Co. Meath, 1914–1818’, Die Harfe, vol. 33 (2015), pp. 38–41 (quote 39). 45  See Chapter 12.

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Introduction  15 all. The sudden change from an active practice into a life without adequate ­occupation and this awful time for brooding is too much’.46 In some camps constant insults from commandants and guards would aggravate the sense of isolation, humiliation, and suffering. The St James camp on Trinidad, for example, drew a protest note verbale from the German government about its Commandant Captain Fraser ‘who treats the prisoners with lack of consideration and with harshness; he often permits himself to indulge in personal abuse and insult’.47 In Roberts’ Heights Camp, Pretoria, the fifty-seven-year-old pastor G. Wagener was shouted at and harshly pushed by a guard, cracking a rib. During transport to the next camp, Fort Napier, ‘the crowds threw stones, water and dirt at us. We passed through several stations where we were scoffed and jibed at’. In Fort Napier, Wagener reported constant cursing and verbal abuse by the guards.48 These sample occurrences fell way below the radar of international conventions but, in the long run of isolation, could have devastating effects on the psyche of internees and can be classified as psychological violence. Non-physical violence also has to be considered within the framework of race. In Africa and elsewhere, a shared understanding of white European supremacy, coupled with notions of a joint ‘civilizing mission’, had developed between colonial elites from different countries. Upholding the colonial order in the face of majority non-white populations was seen as a task which was reconcilable with the concept of ‘friendly competition and collaboration’ between the colonizers. The global repercussions of war presented a challenge to these established racial hierarchies. Being apprehended by black soldiers watched by the crowds, and later being guarded in prison cells and camps by black colonials, was experienced as deeply humiliating. It upset self-perceptions of superiority and was seen as a violation of honour and deliberate infliction of shame. The idea of symbolic violence is useful to conceptualize these acts which went against the grain of established racial codes. Those who were affected also saw the wider implication that white–white rivalry would open the floodgates of black insubordination and destabilize colonial rule.49 When Wilhelm Kröpke was thrown into Lagos prison on 9 August 1914, he was shocked beyond comprehension that England ‘dared in cold blood to humiliate the white race in front of the uncultivated natives’. He found this a serious strategic mistake. ‘Through the debasement of the Germans the English have also lost in reputation 46  NA/FO383/293, Walter Gellhorn to Captain C. B. Dobell, 11 July 1916. 47 NA/FO383/347, note verbale, 1 March 1917. 48 G.  W.  Wagener, Bericht über meine Gefangenschaft in Süd-Afrika und England (Berlin, 1916), quote p. 11. 49 Daniel Steinbach, ‘Challenging European Colonial Supremacy: The Internment of “Enemy Aliens” in British and German East Africa during the First World War’, in Alisa Millier, ed., Other Combatants, Other Fronts: Competing Histories of the First World War (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 153–75; Mahon, Colonial Captivity. For wider considerations see Richard Fogarty, Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914–1918 (Baltimore, MD, 2008).

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16  Enemies in the Empire in the eyes of the blacks!’50 In Trinidad prisoners complained that they were treated by ‘coloured’ doctors.51 The study will show that similar situations recurred in a number of colonial contact zones. Within a framework of symbolic violence and racial codification the internment of enemy aliens in the British Empire assumes a significance which goes far beyond the mere act of detention. It throws up questions of colonial rule, the nature of imperial elites, social and cultural disruptions of the First World War, and long-term implications for processes of decolonization. Internment also has to be discussed within the paradigm of class. The very topography of camps reflected the European class cleavages of the nineteenth century. First-class prisoners were segregated from second-class prisoners, either in separate camps or in separate compounds. This was a civilian application of the military framework set out for prisoners of war in the Hague Convention: officer prisoners were to be separated from those of other ranks and provided with better living conditions. Translated into the civilian sphere, this meant that individuals of ‘social standing’, i.e. those with wealth, middle-class occupations, or academic backgrounds, were accommodated separately from working-class prisoners, craftsmen, and artisans.52 Although the Hague Convention aimed at global standardization, its application on the ground could differ from one location to another. Whilst music teacher Christian Nothnagel was interned in the first-class camp in Trinidad, the academic Dr Herbert Müller had to accept the second-class compound in Ahmednagar, India, separated from ‘the so-called better class of people, namely rich businessmen and naval officers’.53 Where they existed at all, criteria only gave a rough framework. On the prison island Motuihi in Auckland harbour, those who had been ‘in positions of importance’ and drawing a minimum annual salary of £500 were granted first-class status.54 Inmates in the first-class camps had more space, better diet, and could also pay for services such as tidying, laundry making, and waiting. For these services they often recruited inmates from the second-class compounds. There was another stipulation in the Hague Convention which had an impact on the civilian sphere: lower ranks could be asked to work; officers could not. This would be particularly relevant in the case of Canada where Ukrainians of Austro-Hungarian background undertook heavy forced labour.

50  Wilhelm Kröpke, Meine Flucht aus englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft 1916: Von Afrika über England nach Deutschland zur Flandern-Front (Flensburg, 1937), pp. 8–9. 51 BA/R67/821, protest note prisoners, 20 July 1916; NA/FO383/247, protest note Imperial German Embassy Washington, 8 January 1917, and reply American Consulate Trinidad, 26 February 1917. 52 Mahon, Colonial Captivity, pp. 104–10. 53  Anthony de Verteuil, The Germans in Trinidad (Port of Spain, 1994), p. 57; BA/R901/83964, Herbert Müller, ‘Im Gefangenen-Lager Ahmednagar’, pp. 2–3. 54  Andrew Francis, ‘From “Proven Worthy Settlers” to “Lawless Hunnish Brutes”: Germans in New Zealand during the Great War’, in Panikos Panayi, ed., Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, 2014), pp. 289–310 (303).

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Introduction  17 Other Empire locations pursued a policy of voluntary work outside the camps in agriculture and infrastructure-building. Class separation offered some space for negotiation, but usually not in a systemic way. When prisoners complained that they were allocated to a second-class camp, they did not question the approach as a whole. They rather maintained that their individual background entitled them to first-class treatment and that selection criteria were rather random. Some went to great lengths in order to prove their class credentials. Georg Krause on Trinidad asked for transfer to the ‘gentlemen’s camp’ and summed up his pedigree of social connections: ‘Regarding my social standing I beg to mention only that I have recommendations from first class business firms and that many of my relatives and friends are officers in the German Army’.55 In general, though, inmates acquiesced to their social place in the camps. On a global scale and set against other issues, complaints of this kind were relatively small in number. When the theme of prison camp societies will be picked up in the following chapters, class divisions were an important factor determining social interaction and dynamics. Camps offer telling glimpses into nineteenth-century class structures—but they also offer glimpses that the Great War was a period of transition into the twentieth century. Leon Trotsky was removed from a passenger liner sailing from New York to St Petersburg and interned in Amherst, Nova Scotia for several weeks in April 1917. This points to the wider function of Canadian camps whose inmates also included deserters and political activists as the Red Scare started to trouble Western governments. Trotsky incited unrest among the prisoners in his fluent German and the camp authorities were relieved when they received orders to let him continue his revolutionary journey to Russia.56 Pastor Georg Wagener was a proponent of nationalist sentiment, organizing the Kaiser’s birthday celebrations and similar festivities in Fort Napier Camp, South Africa. When he ended up in Alexandra Palace Camp in London during the repatriation process, he was appalled to see ‘Herr Rocker [give] socialist lectures. I witnessed with astonishment that hundreds of inmates enthusiastically cheered on his subversive words’.57 Internment camps were a prism of the societal changes from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. They could also trigger these changes. In Eastern and Southeastern Europe, people from various ethnic backgrounds were detained together and developed a sense of ‘national’ cohesive identity in the camps.58 Likewise, the long-term concentration of otherwise dispersed Germans abroad

55  NA/FO383/239, Letter of complaint by Mr Krause, Trinidad, 20 June 1916. 56 Kordan, No Free Man, p. 364. 57 Wagener, Bericht, p. 31. See also the autobiography Rudolf Rocker, The London Years (1956; Nottingham, 2005). 58 Rachamimov, POWs; Yucel Yanikdag, Healing the Nation: Prisoners of War, Medicine and Nationalism in Turkey, 1914–1939 (Edinburgh, 2013).

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18  Enemies in the Empire led to a re-awakening of national (and nationalist) sentiments.59 How else would a group of East African colonizers have come into contact with their compatriots in India, had it not been for deportation and joint concentration in the Ahmednagar camp? The present study has uncovered ample material to support these views, presenting camps both as prisms and motors of societal changes triggered by the Great War. The war was also a transition period when it came to gender roles. The first wave of feminism had started to challenge male dominance before 1914. During the war, many women were drawn into the world of work for the first time, taking up roles on home fronts that had hitherto been the reserve of men. In this period of shifting gender relations, the craft of warfare was all the more demarcated as an exclusively male space. The militarization of masculinity can be interpreted as a consequence of pre-war gender anxieties. The ultimate expression of manhood was either death on the battlefield or final victory.60 Those who were captured on the battlefield were denied both. The impact of captivity on German military prisoners in Britain has been framed by Brian Feltman as the ‘stigma of surrender’. At home, they faced accusations of cowardice and treason as they failed in their responsibility to defend the fatherland. This also played out after their re­pat­ri­ ation. They had simply not lived up to cultural constructions of manhood. In addition, they were isolated from their primary two socialization groups, namely their comrades on the front and their families at home. All this conflated into a deep sense of emasculation of those military prisoners who found themselves behind barbed wire.61 Wartime emotions such as honour, shame, and sacrifice have experienced novel conceptualizations, both in international relations and in socio-cultural approaches.62 The state of captivity offers a thematic platform which feeds into these

59  Daniel Rouven Steinbach, ‘Defending the Heimat: The Germans in South-West Africa and East Africa during the First World War’, in Heather Jones, Jennifer O’Brien, and Christoph SchmidtSupprian, eds, Untold War: New Perspectives in First World War Studies (Leiden, 2008); Murphy, Colonial Captivity, pp. 95–104. 60 George L. Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (Oxford, 1996); Sonja Levsen, ‘Masculinities’, International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.19141918-online.net/article/masculinities (accessed 6 June 2018). 61  Brian Feltman, The Stigma of Surrender: German Prisoners, British Captors, and Manhood in the Great War and Beyond (Chapel Hill, NC, 2015). For a similar approach towards British prisoners in German captivity see Oliver Wilkinson, British Prisoners of War in First World War Germany (Cambridge, 2017). See also: Matthew Stibbe, ‘Gendered Experiences of Civilian Internment during the First World War: A Forgotten Dimension of Wartime Violence’, in Ana Carden-Coyne, ed., Gender and Conflict since 1914: Historical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Basingstoke, 2012), pp. 14–28; and Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker, 14–18: Understanding the Great War (New York, 2002), pp. 80–3. 62 Maéva Clément and Eric Sangar, eds, Researching Emotions in International Relations: Methodological Perspectives on the Emotional Turn (Basingstoke, 2018); Ute Frevert, ‘Wartime Emotions: Honour, Shame, and the Ecstasy of Sacrifice’, International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https:// encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/wartime_emotions_honour_shame_and_the_ecstasy_of_ sacrifice (accessed 6 June 2018).

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Introduction  19 conceptualizations, but this has so far been done primarily from a metropolitan and military point of view. What about those diasporic civilians who found themselves interned on enemy territory through the mere fact of having emigrated before 1914? What were the constituent elements of emotional reconfiguration experienced during and after the long years of internment? We know that home front enthusiasm was not equally shared by all sectors of European societies, and it would be a similarly undue generalization to assume a uniform emotional response to civilian captivity. Nevertheless, the following chapters will highlight a number of thematic threads. One is a sense of diasporic nationalism which had strengthened before 1914. Germans abroad increasingly expressed their notion of belonging as being part of a ‘Greater German Empire’. This went hand in hand with a degree of militarization of language and agency. Many had completed their military service and were now reservists. Some ethnic communities in port cities urged the German navy to send more warships abroad because ‘each German warship abroad is a travelling exhibition of German industrial endeavour and success’.63 Protestant pastors preached that both metropolitan and diasporic Germans ‘renew their sacred vow to present to the altar of the common fatherland the gratefulness it deserves through dutiful and self-sacrificing work’.64 Even after the outbreak of war, Pastor Olschewski in Cairo held a service to ‘pray for the victory of German arms’.65 Only weeks later many of his male listeners would find themselves in the nearby Maadi camp. Once interned, the purported self-sacrifice was impossible to fulfil, leading to a sense of double emasculation: internees could neither uphold their position as family breadwinner, nor could they support their fatherland, either through civilian activity such as trade or through joining their home regiments. Albert Radeke in the Fort Napier civilian camp expressed this in poetic terms, giving a paradigmatic insight into culturally engendered frustrations: It has been three years. The war trumpet sounds shrill, Enthusiasm at home blazes in bright flames, The fight is against a world of enemies. And out there our grief wrings our hearts: Although your call resounds over here And gives our chest a sacred shuddering, We cannot serve you, fatherland. Undignified fate! We have perished behind walls!66 63  BA/MA/RM3/9923–1, Association of German Navy Clubs in Spain, Annual Report 1910–1911; Stefan Manz, Constructing a German Diaspora: The ‘Greater German Empire’, 1871–1914 (New York, 2014). 64  Reinhard Münchmeyer, In der Fremde: Einige Zeugnisse aus der Auslandsarbeit (Marburg, 1905), p. 105. 65  AA/PA/R15316, report Pfarrer Olschewski, March 1915. 66  NMHMSA/920, collection Michael Bentz, Fort Napier Camp newspaper Der Hunne, August 1917.

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20  Enemies in the Empire These lines are pervaded by expressions of honour and shame, which returns us to the issue of civilian versus military spheres. Military encroachment into diasporic civilian communities led to similar patterns of wartime emotions when it came to captivity. Through defiant patriotic utterances and festivities many prisoners reaffirmed their spiritual belonging to a ‘Greater German Empire’ despite physical confinement. Repatriation did not heal these wounds as former internees were excluded from the glorified community of former Frontkämpfer (front fighters). Interest groups such as the Volksbund zum Schutze der deutschen Kriegs- und Zivilgefangenen (Peoples’ Federation for the Protection of German Military and Civilian Prisoners of War), founded in 1919, pointed to suffering behind the wire in order to argue for the restitution of honour and lost possessions.67 Masculinity was also challenged because internees were not able to pursue their social function of family breadwinner, causing destitution for many wives and children. Written testimonies express frustration at the state of helplessness and sorrow for loved ones. The fact that internment itself was almost exclusively a male affair meant that women were long overlooked by scholarship and remembrance. They were simply ‘forgotten victims’68 of wartime xenophobia and internment. A wide-ranging study has now opened up this theme for Britain, highlighting destitution, xenophobia, and suffering for women and children, many of whom were deported while their husbands were interned.69 The theme has hardly been tackled for the colonial sphere, and the following chapters highlight that an Empire perspective is necessary to do justice to the globality of ­gendered suffering. Some sources even show an inverted picture. The American Consul in Durban noted that ‘it is not prisoners who are in need of attention and relief as are the unfortunate women and children . . . of those who are interned’.70 In Trinidad, music teacher Christian Nothnagel was well fed in St James Barrack’s camp whilst his wife and children came close to starvation, growing vegetables and raising chickens in their garden.71 In some parts of the world women did, in fact, experience internment. In India or isolated parts of Africa women simply did not have the infrastructure and social networks to support themselves on their own, leading to some women-only and mixed camps. Women from German Southwest Africa were temporarily deported and detained in facilities in the 67  Reinhard Nachtigal, ‘The Repatriation and Reception of Returning Prisoners of War, 1918–1922’, Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 26 (2008), pp. 157–84; Jones, Violence, pp. 340–1. A collection of Austrian and German reminiscences is Weiland and Kern, In Feindeshand. 68  Stibbe, ‘Gendered Experiences’. 69  Zoë Denness, ‘ “A Question Which Affects Our Prestige as a Nation”: The History of British Civilian Internment, 1899–1945’ (unpublished University of Birmingham PhD thesis, 2013); Idem, ‘Gender and Germanophobia: The Forgotten Experiences of German Women in Britain, 1914–1919’, in Panikos Panayi, ed., Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, 2014), pp. 71–98. 70  BA/R901/83133, W.  W.  Masterson, American Consul Durban, Report on Civil Camps, 28/29 May 1915. 71 Verteuil, Germans in Trinidad, p. 57.

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Introduction  21 Union of South Africa. Across the Empire there were requests for internment from women who feared for their lives because of Germanophobic attacks. Others just wanted to be with their husbands. These requests were granted only in a very few cases. The following chapters contain a complex set of life courses of both sexes, all of whom were affected by internment, deportation, and global Germanophobia in one way or another. Only a gendered global perspective which looks beyond the barbed wire will encapsulate the full impact of government policies. The present study thus reconsiders and broadens the paradigms of violence, totality, race, class, gender, and suffering with specific empirical reference to the First World War. The chronology, however, transcends the time frame between August 1914 and Armistice Day. The period is firmly embedded into earlier and later instances of localized operations and shows that the First World War led to a global explosion of civilian internment, with Britain conducting the most wideranging operation in geographical terms. After the termination of war, camps existed up until 1920, which meant that for many of the internees the actual war experience went beyond Armistice Day. In Trinidad, prisoners complained in July 1919 that they had been ‘sorely neglected’ months after the end of war.72 Fort Napier closed its gates in August 1919 and Knockaloe in October 1919. In the same month, India still detained 2,500, many of whom were only deported at the end of 1920, mainly because they came at the end of the queue of those experiencing repatriation at the conclusion of war. In Canada the last camps closed in 1920. On many levels, therefore, the study feeds into recent reconceptualization of the ‘Great War’ as a ‘Greater War’.73 The levels comprise space, going beyond the focus on European frontlines; time, going beyond 1918; and totality, going beyond military prisoners of war and focusing on civilians. The book is structured in a way which moves gradually from the imperial and global levels (Part I) to those of the metropole and selected overseas territories (Part II), and lastly to individual camps (Part III). Part I continues with Chapter 2, adopting a wide chronological and geographical lens to elicit where Great War internment sits within a longue durée. Throughout the modern period up until today a wide range of empires and states have pursued episodes of civilian internment where targeted social groups were locked away on the grounds of ethnic, political, and socio-economic factors. Britain has been deeply implicated in these global systems of forced transportation and incarceration. Chapter  3 sets the scene for the group which was to be targeted during the Great War. After a century of mass emigration, Germans had settled in Britain and all corners of its  Empire in sizeable numbers. Already before 1914, Anglo-German colonial

72  NA/CO295/522, internees to Consul for Spain, and protest of Norbert Horta to Government of Trinidad, 25 July 1919. 73  Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917–1923 (London, 2017).

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22  Enemies in the Empire rivalries had triggered those interethnic tensions which were to erupt during the war. These eruptions are analysed in Chapter  4. Throughout the Empire, as  well as in other parts of the world, the minority experienced outbursts of Germanophobia, leading to social marginalization, rioting, and a vitriolic media discourse. Internment was just one of a range of state responses, which also included infringement of individual liberties, expropriation, internal resettlement, and deportation. Chapter 5 concentrates on the evolution of Empire-wide internment policies, including global transportation and a clearer definition of who was to be interned, generating a social profile of the target group. Chapter 6 covers the extent and nature of the camp system. Themes discussed in this chapter include internee numbers, a typology of camps, life and community behind the wire, and conditions. This is followed by a closer look at Canada and Atlantic island locations to help geographical differentiation and a better understanding of transport structures. Passages on Australia and New Zealand as important internment hubs appear throughout the narrative and give insights into operations in these two dominions. Part II zooms in on a different level of analysis, namely that of Britain as the metropole, as well as two selected colonial settings. The Union of South Africa had been granted dominion status in 1910 and therefore wide control over local affairs. In matters of warfare, however, it was still linked to the metropole. India was ruled via the India Office, over which the British state exercised direct control, although the sophisticated Indian Civil Service had developed considerable administrative autonomy. These two overseas territories therefore found themselves in different stages of proto-national development. On a sample basis they allow for a differentiated discussion of local factors when it came to executing internment policies. Chapter 7 shows that Britain was by far the most important global internment hub, not only incarcerating local German communities but also sucking in enemy aliens from across the Empire. Apart from the central camp at Knockaloe, a network of medium-sized and smaller facilities evolved on the mainland. The Union Government of South Africa (Chapter 8) was in a nowin situation. On the one hand, it had to follow Britain’s lead; on the other, it had to be particularly sensitive because of the problematic of Boer internment only fifteen years earlier. Captives included deported women and children from German Southwest Africa during late 1914 and 1915. In India (Chapter 9), the small German-speaking community which had been hardly noticed before 1914 found itself at the centre of Germanophobic attacks and exclusion from public life. Apart from resident Germans, India also held deportees from German East Africa and neutral Siam. Part III moves to the micro-level of individual camps by focusing on the main internment facilities in the three selected (proto-)national contexts. This allows for a more detailed discussion on issues such as social interactions, cultural life, and conditions within the camps. It also allows for a discussion of the spatial turn

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Introduction  23 in historiographical methodologies, considering the immediate impact on communities and surroundings of respective camps. Knockaloe on the Isle of Man (Chapter 10) developed from small beginnings to a huge facility with a peak population of 23,000 with four sub-camps further divided into compounds. It can be seen as the very epicentre of Empire-wide operations and has come to dom­in­ ate memorialization. Chapter 11 concentrates on Fort Napier in Pietermaritzburg as the main camp in the Union of South Africa. With an inmate population of 2,500, it was considerably smaller than Knockaloe but developed similar internal structures. The wider theoretical questions discussed through relevant primary sources include identity, spatiality, gender, race, protest, and violence. Some of these themes are also picked up in Chapter  12, which tackles the central camp in India, Ahmednagar. Although this was still smaller at a maximum of 1,700, it developed the sophisticated cultural life which characterized larger camps. In keeping with the concluding nature of this chapter, its final section will concentrate on the long-drawn process of release, deportation to Britain, and subsequent repatriation to Germany. For these last deportees the Great War essentially only ended at the end of 1920. Both in terms of geographical and chronological scope, ‘enemies in the Empire’ did, indeed, experience a ‘Greater War’. Chapter 13, in addition to summarizing the main findings of the study, tackles the themes of return, legacy, and memorialization. Repatriation was a long-drawn-out and traumatic process. Many had been alienated from their ‘homeland’ after decades of living abroad, and some foreign-born wives had, indeed, never been to Germany before. Destitution was widespread and there was no form of official memorialization for former internees. This has only recently started to change in the wider context of centenary commemorations. Heritage organizations and local communities have started to develop a keen interest in preserving the memory of those who were interned at their doorsteps. Although the present study is academic in nature, it also intends to speak to the general public across Britain, Commonwealth countries, and Germany. Through its imperial lens it is the first to explain where individual, local, and national experiences of civilian internment sit within the global context of Empire and the First World War. Internment is by no means an exclusive hallmark of authoritarian regimes. It can just as well indicate the limits of liberal societies in times of real or perceived crises. During the First World War, Britain and its Empire played a leading role in making civilian internment an integral part of internal security and warfare on a global scale.

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2

Historical and Global Perspectives The Beginning of Internment In August 1914 the British authorities introduced a series of measures against perceived enemy populations living within their territories throughout the globe. Restrictions upon movement and confiscation of property became one of the most important steps taken not simply within the British Empire but also by other states at war with the Central Powers.1 Just as importantly, the First World War became a turning point in the history of civilian incarceration, changing in nature from a limited policy driven by local military circumstances to one that became an internationally accepted and legitimized procedure used by governments to incarcerate enemy aliens, internal enemies, and ethnic outsiders. Those interned by the British imperial authorities would fall into the legal category of enemy aliens, i.e. citizens of countries with whom Britain was at war. They had either settled in the Empire in the pre-war decades or were forcibly deported from other areas, including captured German colonies. In the case of Australia, this was a logical extension of earlier practices of deportation.2 The difference now was that London developed an imperial web of camps to ensnare mainly Germans whether they lived in British territories or not. While the First World War became a turning point in the history of civilian incarceration in terms of the numbers of people involved and the fact that all belligerents implemented some type of internment, this conflict did not signify the beginning of such policies. In recent decades an almost standardized history of the concentration camp has emerged revolving around Germany and sum­mar­ ized in the title of Jürgen Zimmerer’s volume Von Windhuk nach Auschwitz?3 It asserts that a direct line can be drawn from the genocide against the Herero and Nama in colonial German Southwest Africa to the Holocaust. This Germanocentric 1  See, for example: Jörg Nagler, Nationale Minoritäten im Krieg: ‘Feindliche Ausländer’ und die amerikanische Heimatfront während des Ersten Weltkriegs (Hamburg, 2000); Daniela L. Caglioti, ‘Why and How Italy Invented an Enemy Aliens Problem in the First World War’, War in History, vol. 21 (2014), pp. 142–69; Eric Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire: The Campaign against Enemy Aliens during World War I (Cambridge, MA, 2003). 2  See chapter  7 of Gerhard Fischer, Enemy Aliens: Internment and the Homefront Experience in Australia, 1914–1920 (St Lucia, 1989), entitled ‘Botany Bay Revisited: The Transportation of Prisoners of War and Civilian Internees to Australia’. 3  Jürgen Zimmerer, Von Windhuk nach Auschwitz? Beiträge zum Verhältnis von Kolonialismus und Holocaust (Münster, 2011). Enemies in the Empire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War. Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi, Oxford University Press (2020). © Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198850151.001.0001

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Historical and Global Perspectives  25 interpretation of the concentration camp does not necessarily help in the ­understanding of the internment of Germans in the British Empire during the First World War. It does not encapsulate the transnational connections between countries and empires to explain the global proliferation of the phe­nom­enon. As the pages that follow will demonstrate, the British generally played by the rules when it came to the treatment of enemy aliens between 1914 and 1920, meaning few instances of mistreatment, despite the regular complaints of Germans about the conditions in which they found themselves. The idea of the German imperial origins of the concentration camp lies partly with Hannah Arendt, who made the connection between the evolution of racial thinking in Africa during the nineteenth century and the evolution of exclusionary and genocidal racism, although her now classic analysis of the origins of totalitarianism considered a whole range of domestic and imperial factors. While she did not focus simply on German racism in Africa, she identified a series of unique peculiarities in the German case, and although she did not deal overtly with concentration camps, she did focus upon the murder of tens of millions of Africans by Europeans.4 Other scholars have developed the link between Africa and Auschwitz, above all Zimmerer, together with Enzo Traverso, who again cited Arendt and also pursued similar ideas, such as the fact that European imperialism as a whole carried out genocidal acts in Africa, including the German Empire in Southwest Africa.5 Zimmerer’s analysis displays the clearest and best-known analysis of the path from Namibia to the Nazis, as revealed in the title of his main work on this subject. Zimmerer views the actions of the German Empire here as genocide and examines the similarities in the methods of the Second and Third Reichs. At the same time, he also believes that no German special path evolved, writing of a globalization of violence by the Second World War, with a variety of geographical roots.6 Benjamin Madley has provided another systematic analysis of the road from German policies in Southwest Africa to Second World War genocide by focusing upon a series of continuities in the form of: ‘plunder and murder in colonial Africa’; ‘Lebensraum’; the dehumanization of Africans; the legal institutionalization of racism; the development of genocidal rhetoric; a war of annihilation; 4  Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2nd edn (Cleveland, OH, 1958), especially chapters 6 and 7. See the analysis of Arendt’s ideas by: Thomas Kühne, ‘Colonialism and the Holocaust: Continuities, Causations, and Complexities’, Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 15 (2013), p. 340, who describes her as the ‘ “godmother” of the colonial paradigm in Holocaust and genocide studies’; and the less accusatory Benjamin Madley, ‘From Africa to Auschwitz: How German South West Africa Incubated Ideas and Methods Adopted and Developed by the Nazis in Eastern Europe’, European History Quarterly, vol. 35 (2005), p. 429. 5  Enzo Traverso, The Origins of Nazi Violence (London, 2003), pp. 47–68. See also Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (Ithaca, NY, 2004) who, as the subtitle of her book suggests, links German imperialism in Africa with military actions during the First World War but does not look forward to the Second World War. 6 Zimmerer, Von Windhuk nach Auschwitz?

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26  Enemies in the Empire direct personal connections between the Germans involved in the persecution of Africans and those carrying out genocide in Eastern Europe forty years later; and the use of concentration camps.7 In essence, the arguments of scholars from Arendt to Zimmerer revolve partly around the idea of Africa as an incubator of subsequent German policy during the Second World War but also inherently contain the idea of German imperialism, whether in Africa or Eastern Europe, having genocidal intent at its core. While genocide may have characterized some British imperial policy during the nineteenth century,8 the Empire’s use of the concentration camp actually becomes increasingly humane during the First and Second World Wars, although British actions in Cyprus, Kenya, Malaya, and elsewhere during decolonization9 suggest another paradigm. Those scholars who focus upon German genocide in Africa have devoted attention to the role of concentration camps. If the climax of German racial extermination arrived with Auschwitz and the Nazi camp system more generally,10 it seems to have a birthplace of Southwest Africa in the murder of the Herero ­people carried out under the leadership of General Lothar von Trotha, partly motivated, in the immediate term, by fear of an insurrection, although clearly taking place against the background of the racial ideology which accompanied European imperial rule. Von Trotha supported the murder of men, women, and children, resulting in 60,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama deaths. While many of these fa­tal­ ities took place as a result of military action, the German forces carried out massacres and drove the Africans into the Omaheke Desert without a supply of water.11 At the same time, the Germans also established concentration camps which had held 17,000 people by March 1907, of whom 7,682 had died.12 In another echo of what would follow four decades later, the camps acted both as places of concentration, separating those interned within them from Herero fighters, and supplies of labour, despite the fact that the captives did not receive enough food to carry out any type of useful work. Some firms even established

7  Madley, ‘From Africa to Auschwitz’, pp. 429–64. 8  See, for example: Mark Levene, ‘Empires, Native Peoples, and Genocide’, in Dirk A. Moses, ed., Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History (Oxford, 2010), pp. 183–204; and Raymond Evans, Kay Saunders, and Kathryn Cronin, Race Relations in Colonial Queensland: A History of Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination (London, 1975). 9 Caroline Elkins, Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya (London, 2005); David French, The British Way in Counter-Insurgency, 1945–1967 (Oxford, 2011). 10 See, most recently, Nikolaus Wachsman, KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps (London, 2015). For a more general and even more recent account of the development of the concentration camp see Dan Stone, Concentration Camps: A Short History (Oxford, 2017). 11 Dominik  J.  Schaller, ‘The Genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South-West Africa,  1904–1907’, in William  S.  Parsons and Samuel Totten, eds, Centuries of Genocide: Essays and Eyewitness Accounts, 3rd edn (Abingdon, 2013), pp. 89–92; David Olusoga and Casper Erichsen, The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism (London, 2011). 12  Schaller, Idem, p. 95.

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Historical and Global Perspectives  27 their own camps.13 The most notorious camps included those on Shark Island14 and Swakopmund, described by Joachim Zeller as ‘devastating for those who were incarcerated’ with as many as 1,500 prisoners ‘penned up there shut in by barbed wire, suffering especially during the winter’.15 If we move away from this Germanocentric interpretation of the evolution of incarceration, we find another narrative which uses a broader yet still colonialbased analysis, in which camps, or the more general concentration of civilians, emerge in a series of imperialist wars involving not simply Germany but also the USA, Spain, and Great Britain. Sybille Scheipers identifies ‘the four most prom­in­ ent examples of the use of camps’ in her analysis of this phenomenon at the beginning of the twentieth century as: ‘the Cuban War of Independence (1895), the Philippine War (1899–1902), the Boer War (1899–1902) and the Herero and Nama Revolt in German Southwest Africa (1904–07)’.16 Iain  R.  Smith and Andreas Stucki trace the origins of the concentration camp back slightly earlier, focusing on the actual use of the term ‘concentration’ which emerged during the Ten Years’ War involving the Spanish on Cuban soil between 1868 and 1878, although they also point out that the phrase ‘concentration camp’ emerged during the Boer War.17 The concept became accepted during the conflict even in British official circles, as evidenced by the most important government paper on the subject.18 Scheipers, together with Jonathan Hyslop,19 Tilman Dedering,20 and Jonas Kreienbaum,21 focus their attention on the series of colonial wars which occurred between 1896 and 1907. Klaus Mühlhahn confidently asserts that the ‘first concentration camp or, more precisely, the first case of a policy of “reconcentración”— dates back to the Spanish occupation of Cuba. In February 1896, a Spanish 13  Jürgen Zimmerer, ‘War, Concentration Camps and Genocide in South-West Africa’, in Joachim Zeller and Jürgen Zimmerer, eds, Genocide in South-West Africa: The Colonial War of 1904–8 and Its Aftermath (Monmouth, 2008), pp. 41–63; Jonas Kreienbaum, ‘Guerrilla Wars and Colonial Concentration Camps: The Exceptional Case of German South West Africa, (1904–1908)’, Journal of Namibian Studies, vol. 11 (2012), pp. 83–101. 14  Casper Wulff Erichsen, ‘Forced Labour in the Concentration Camp on Shark Island,’ in Zeller and Zimmerer, Idem, pp. 84–99. 15  Joachim Zeller, ‘ “Ombepera I koza—The Cold Is Killing Me”: Notes Towards a History of the Concentration Camp at Swakopmund’, in Zeller and Zimmerer, Idem, p. 66. 16  Sybille Scheipers, ‘The Use of Concentration Camps in Colonial Warfare’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol. 43 (2015), p. 679. 17 Iain  R.  Smith and Andreas Stucki, ‘The Colonial Development of Concentration Camps (1868–1902)’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol. 39 (2011), p. 417. 18  Concentration Camps Commission, Report on the Concentration Camps in South Africa, by the Committee of Ladies Appointed by the Secretary of State for War: Containing Reports on the Camps in Natal, the Orange River Colony, and the Transvaal (London, 1902). 19  Jonathan Hyslop, ‘The Invention of the Concentration Camp: Cuba, Southern Africa and the Philippines, 1896–1907’, Southern African Historical Journal, vol. 63 (2011), pp. 251–76. 20 Tilman Dedering, ‘Compounds, Camps, Colonialism’, Journal of Namibian Studies, vol. 12 (2012), pp. 29–46. 21  Jonas Kreienbaum, ‘Deadly Learning? Concentration Camps in Colonial Wars Around 1900’, in Volker Barth, ed., Imperial Co-Operation and Transfer, 1870–1930: Empires and Encounters (London, 2015), pp. 219–37.

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28  Enemies in the Empire general by the name Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau ordered the use of a policy of “reconcentrating” (reconcentrado) civilians to control Cuban insurgents. The ­policy forced the civilian population to move to central locations under Spanish military jurisdiction as the entire island was placed under martial law’.22 Mühlhahn actually uses the chronology first adopted by Andrzej  J.  Kaminski, whose earlier history of the concentration camp also began in 1896. Despite the fact that Kaminski takes an approach moving away from a focus purely upon Germany, his narrative paves the way for some of the more purely Germanocentric approaches, as the path to the Nazi concentration camps (via the GULAG) forms the main focus of his book.23 Smith and Stucki actually go back to the 1870s not simply because of nomenclature but also because of the actions of Spanish forces on Cuba. While the latter may not have used camps as such, they concentrated civilians in the poorer eastern half of the island,24 therefore providing a precedent for actions on the island later in the nineteenth century, although there is general agreement that the policy ‘was never implemented systematically’.25 Before examining the reasons for the emergence of concentration and the camps associated with this policy at the end of the nineteenth century, a brief narrative on the other episodes of incarceration helps with the explanation for their evolution. John Lawrence Tone has provided one of the clearest descriptions of the policy of concentration and re-concentration ‘used interchangeably’26 in Cuba between 1895 and 1898 as part of what he sees as an act of genocide, building upon the precedent of the 1870s. In fact, the Spanish army on this occasion had more success in confining civilians in the eastern half of the island, usually around towns and cities rather than within camps, cut off from any reliable food supply, as many of them consisted of peasant farmers, meaning that starvation became rife. About half a million people were assembled in eighty concentration points. Tone has analysed differing death rates and concludes that as many as 170,000 people may have perished, or about 10 per cent of the civilian population.27 The next example of concentration in the narrative which has emerged in recent years occurred during the US war in the Philippines from 1899–1902 after the USA had acquired control of the islands from Spain in December 1898. There followed a rebellion in February 1899, suppressed by July 1902. However, during the conflict, largely as a reaction against guerrilla warfare, the American forces 22  Klaus Mühlhahn, ‘The Concentration Camp in Global Historical Perspective’, History Compass, vol. 8 (2010), p. 545. 23 Andrzej  J.  Kaminski, Konzentrationslager 1896 bis heute: Geschichte, Funktion, Typologie (Munich, 1990). 24  Smith and Stucki, ‘Colonial Development of Concentration Camps’, p. 420. 25  John Lawrence Tone, War and Genocide in Cuba, 1895–1898 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2006), p. 196. 26  Ibid., p. 195. 27 Ibid., pp. 196–224; Smith and Stucki, ‘Colonial Development of Concentration Camps’, pp. 420–3.

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Historical and Global Perspectives  29 had deported sympathizers of the insurgents to camps established on the islands of Mindanao and Marinduque, where conditions led to public outrage in the USA led by Mark Twain.28 This takes us to the camps established during the South African War of 1899–1902, leading to the Concentration Camps Commission which investigated life within the camps established by the British army from the end of 1900, focusing upon ‘22 points of inquiry’ ranging from water supply and sanitation to food, fuel, work, and religious provision.29 At the same time, the camps established to hold white South Africans also became an important episode in the history of persecution and consequent nationalism of this group which developed during the course of the twentieth century.30 The South African camps certainly developed on a significant scale in terms of the numbers which existed, as the recent project by Elizabeth van Heyningen on this subject has confirmed. The website which has emerged lists a total of one hundred places of incarceration.31 B.  E.  Mongalo and Kobus du Pisani have asserted that 116,000 whites faced internment together with 115,700 black ­people.32 In fact, concentration did not simply take place in South Africa, as some people found themselves deported to India, St Helena, Ceylon, and Bermuda. As many as 9,000 may have made their way to India, living in seventeen camps initially in the Punjab, Bengal, Madras, and Bombay commands.33 Only fifteen years later, some camps such as Ports Island in Bermuda and Diyatalawa in Ceylon would be ‘recycled’ for enemy aliens, pointing to clear continuities with the present study. Those scholars who have recently studied the evolution of the South African camps have focused upon a series of issues. Elizabeth van Heyningen has devoted particular attention to their ‘mythology’, pointing to their use in Afrikaner nationalism but also to the fact that, until recently, a limited amount of serious scholarship had developed about them, meaning, for example, that the negative 28  Smith and Stucki, Idem, pp. 423–5; Scheipers, ‘The Use of Concentration Camps in Colonial Warfare’, pp. 681–2; Mühlhahn, ‘Concentration Camp in Global Historical Perspective’, p. 545. 29  Concentration Camps Commission, Report on the Concentration Camps in South Africa, p. 1. 30  See: Elizabeth van Heyningen, ‘The Concentration Camps of the South African (Anglo-Boer) War, 1900–1902’, History Compass, vol. 7 (2009), pp. 22–43; and Fransjohan Pretorius, ‘The White Concentration Camps of the Anglo-Boer War: A Debate Without End’, Historia, vol. 55 (2010), pp. 34–49. 31 http://www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/Camps/1, British Concentration Camps of the South African War, 1900–1902, accessed 24 March 2016. 32  B. E. Mongalo and Kobus du Pisani, ‘Victims of a White Man’s War: Blacks in Concentration Camps during the South African War (1899–1902)’, Historia, 44 (1999), p. 149. 33 NAI/Public Works/Civil WorksA/April1902/29–31, Letter from the Government of India, Military Department, 18 March 1901 to the Adjutant General in India; NAI/Revenue and Agriculture/ Archaeology and EpigraphyA/February 1903/23/27/1903, Allegations made by Dr Vogel, Archaeological Survey Punjab Circle, regarding the treatment of Boer prisoners of War in India; Isabel Hofmeyr, ‘South Africa’s Indian Ocean: Boer Prisoners of War in India’, Social Dynamics, vol. 38 (2012), pp. 363–80; Floris Van der Meuwe, Sport in die Boere-krygsgevangekampe tydens die Anglo-Boereoorlog, 1899–1902 (Stellenbosch, 2013), pp. 121–46.

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30  Enemies in the Empire experiences of white women tended to dominate to the exclusion of men and black people.34 The function of the camps has also received much attention. On the one hand, they fit into the narrative constructed about Cuba, the Philippines, and Southwest Africa in the sense that they evolved for the purpose of separating a hostile army by an imperial power from the civilian population from which it emerged, the perspective put forward especially in the collection of essays edited by Fransjohan Pretorius.35 Nevertheless, van Heyningen and Aidan Forth have now come to see the places of concentration established by the British partly as refugee camps. These, however, emerged to house those who had fled largely from the consequences of the scorched-earth policy which British forces pursued. Both scholars also write of a predominantly rural and poor population moving away from the land, initially towards cities, in what Forth sees as a type of forced urbanization, and towards camps.36 Much attention has focused upon conditions within the camps, especially ­disease, nutrition, and death rates. Death became an everyday reality, which the British authorities tried to blame upon the hygienic habits of the Boers, although the confinement of large numbers of people in small spaces helped illness to spread. At the same time, images of starving children which emerged during the conflict point to the fact that malnutrition became prevalent.37 Over 28,000 Boer women, children, and older women perished.38 Black people also experienced incarceration during the conflict. They faced concentration for the same reasons as the white population, becoming refugees fleeing the scorched-earth policy but also viewed as enemies who could assist Boer forces. Nevertheless, interned black men also provided labour supplies for the British army, while women and children found employment in domestic ­service. Conditions in the black camps resembled those which held Boers, with disease surfacing especially in those suffering from overcrowding.39 Despite the poor conditions which existed in some of the camps, a semblance of normality also emerged, pointing to the type of humanitarianism which would characterize those places of incarceration which emerged in the British Empire 34  Elizabeth van Heyningen, The Concentration Camps of the Anglo-Boer War: A Social History (Auckland Park, 2013), pp. 1–22. See also Pretorius, ‘White Concentration Camps’. 35  See, for example, Fransjohan Pretorius, ‘The Fate of Boer Women and Children’, in Fransjohan Pretorius, ed., Scorched Earth (Cape Town, 2001), pp. 41–50. 36 Heyningen, Concentration Camps, pp. 46–72; Aidan Forth, Barbed-Wire Imperialism: Britain’s Empire of Camps, 1876–1903 (Oakland, CA, 2017), pp. 129–58. 37  Heyningen, Idem, pp. 123–49; Zoë Denness, ‘ “A Question Which Affects Our Prestige as a Nation”: The History of British Civilian Internment, 1899–1945’ (Unpublished University of Birmingham PhD thesis, 2013), pp. 70–88; Concentration Camps Commission, Report on the Concentration Camps in South Africa. 38  Stowell V. Kessler, ‘The Black Concentration Camps of the Anglo-Boer War 1899–1902: Shifting the Paradigm from Sole Martyrdom to Mutual Suffering’, Historia, vol. 44 (1999), p. 112. 39  Ibid., pp. 118–45; Mongalo and Pisani, ‘Victims of a White Man’s War’, pp. 148–69.

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Historical and Global Perspectives  31 during the First World War. On the one hand this normality came from British attempts to anglicize the Boers, with education playing a large role in this process. A variety of sporting activities also developed in the camps both in South Africa and further afield, and might have some role in the inculcation of British values. These efforts went together with humanitarian attempts to improve conditions within the camps in response to the pressure of public opinion, which meant that by the end of the war death rates had significantly decreased.40 Once the conflict came to an end in May 1902, the camps emptied fairly quickly so that by the beginning of the following year virtually all the internees who had survived the experience of incarceration returned to normal life, notwithstanding the trauma which inmates endured, partly caused by the experience of confinement, the loss of relatives, and consequent economic and social re­adjust­ment at liberty.41 It seems evident that concentration of civilians had developed during colonial wars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries largely as part of a counterinsurgency policy in an age when the distinction between civilians and soldiers as actors in wartime became increasingly blurred.42 This lack of distinction became more apparent during the First World War and would reach its apothe­osis during the Second. While Hannah Arendt and those who have followed her lead have tended to  make the connection between Africa and Auschwitz, another important ­geographical focus for the rise in persecution of civilians before 1914 consists of the Balkans and, more specifically, the collapsing Ottoman Empire. As a series of scholars have demonstrated, the decline of this entity during the nineteenth century and, more especially, in the years immediately preceding the First World War meant the forced removal of people because of the emergence of new nation states and the consequent redrawing of boundaries. However, those who have written on this subject have devoted little attention to the question of the use of camps in the process of ethnic cleansing which characterized the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.43 Unlike the colonial wars, the removal of populations formed part of the long-term state-building projects of emerging Balkan countries rather than the ‘needs’ of military strategy. 40 Denness, ‘ “A Question Which Affects Our Prestige as a Nation” ’, pp. 88–94; Heyningen, Concentration Camps, pp. 256–83; Forth, Barbed-Wire Imperialism, pp. 144–73; Van der Meuwe, Sport in die Boere-krygsgevangekampe; Eliza Riedi, ‘Teaching Empire: British and Dominion Women Teachers in the South African War Concentration Camps’, English Historical Review, vol. 120 (2005), pp. 1316–47. 41 Heyningen, Idem, pp. 287–323; Mongalo and Pisani, ‘Victims of a White Man’s War’, pp. 169–76. 42 Alexander B. Downes, Targeting Civilians in War (London, 2008). 43  See, for example, Benjamin Liebermann, Ethnic Cleansing and the Making of Modern Europe (Chicago, IL, 2006), pp. 3–79; Cathie Carmichael, Genocide before the Holocaust (London, 2009), pp. 10–26; Justin McCarthy, Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821–1922 (Princeton, NJ, 1996).

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32  Enemies in the Empire

The Impact of the First World War Despite the intolerance of the years and decades leading up to the First World War, this global conflict had a profound impact upon the liberalism and relative peace and tolerance which had characterized much of the nineteenth century, at least in Western Europe. As Eric Hobsbawm pointed out, from 1914 human beings learnt to live ‘under the most brutalized and theoretically intolerable conditions’, returning ‘to what our nineteenth century ancestors would have called the standards of barbarism’.44 Alan Kramer and John Horne have demonstrated that the First World War meant that the boundaries between civilians and soldiers as participants, and therefore victims, of war became even more blurred than had become apparent in the imperial sphere, with German atrocities in Belgium providing the most salient example.45 Alexander Downes, meanwhile, in a volume which examines the plight of civilians in wartime more generally, has demonstrated that civilian victims and deaths reached a peak during the two world wars.46 This targeting of civilians in wartime receives further understanding from the fact that the First World War became what Arthur Marwick pi­on­ eered as the concept of total war,47 which, as Tammy Proctor has demonstrated more recently in her study of civilians during the First World War, brought the population of the belligerent states into the conflict not simply as victims but also as active participants, whether as munitions workers, nurses, or experts.48 Much research has also focused upon the role of the state in twentieth-century violence, including that which took place against outsider populations. The First World War also proved a turning point in minority persecution.49 The mistreatment of ethnic outsiders, which had characterized imperial adventures in Africa and elsewhere before 1914, now became heavily focused upon Europe. While racial ideas drove the actions of the British, German, and American Empires, nationalism became the determining ideology in this process during the First World War, which therefore links the events of this conflict more 44  Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: A Short History of the Twentieth Century (London, 1994), p. 13. 45 Alan Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War (Oxford, 2007); John Horne and Alan Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial (London, 2001). 46 Downes, Targeting Civilians, pp. 43–7. 47  Arthur Marwick: The Deluge: British Society and the First World War (London, 1965); War and Social Change in the Twentieth Century (London, 1974). 48  Tammy Proctor, Civilians in a World at War, 1914–1918 (London, 2010). 49  Panikos Panayi, ‘Dominant Societies and Minorities in the Two World Wars’, in Panayi, ed., Minorities in Wartime: National and Racial Groupings in Europe, North America and Australia ­during the Two World Wars (Oxford, 1993), pp. 3–23; Mark Mazower, ‘Violence and the State in the Twentieth Century’, American Historical Review, vol. 107 (2002), pp. 1158–78; Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker, 14–18: Understanding the Great War (New York, 2002), pp. 70–93; Hannah Ewence and Tim Grady, eds, Minorities in the First World War: From War to Peace (Basingstoke, 2017).

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Historical and Global Perspectives  33 closely with the rise of Balkan nationalism.50 Mark Levene began his essay on nation-state formation and the destruction of imperial people within Europe in 1912, continuing until 1948.51 The year 1912 symbolizes the era of the Balkan Wars when ‘ethnic cleansing’ began to gain legitimacy, continuing into the Great War. While this happened in several parts of Europe, the Ottoman Empire became the crucible for legitimization, as two episodes in particular illustrate: first, the Armenian genocide, which resulted in the murder or displacement of perhaps 1.5 million people, and second, the ‘population exchange’ which took place between Greece and Turkey in the early 1920s, which again resulted in the displacement of over a million people.52 In his monumental study of the Armenian genocide, Raymond Kévorkian has demonstrated how the process of deportation towards the Syrian desert involved the use of transit and concentration camps with high death rates.53 This use of camps by the Ottomans54 indicates the fact that the First World War resulted in ‘the first great camp system of the twentieth century’,55 meaning ‘the transfer of techniques of colonial warfare . . . back to Europe where they have originally been devised’,56 although the camp did not simply spread to Europe but to much of the world. We argue that the incarceration of Germans throughout the British Empire was a pivotal step towards the globalization of internment. Ultimately, most of those interned during the First World War consisted of captured soldiers. Niall Ferguson suggests a global total of 8,730,073,57 whose period of captivity ranged from days to years. While the type of treatment which prisoners of war encountered varied from one state to another and while mistreatment became reality,58 the mere fact of capture and incarceration of members of enemy forces suggests a departure from previous eras when armies did not consider holding members of enemy forces as an option. Arnold Krammer’s outline of the history of prisoner of war captivity dating back to antiquity stresses 50  Matthew Frank, Making Minorities History: Population Transfer in Twentieth-Century Europe (Oxford, 2017), pp. 11–48. 51  Mark Levene, ‘The Tragedy of the Rimlands: Nation-State Formation and the Destruction of Imperial Peoples, 1912–1948’, in Panikos Panayi and Pippa Virdee, eds, Refugees and the End of Empire: Imperial Collapse and Forced Migration during the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke, 2011), pp. 51–78. 52 Introductory histories to these two episodes include: Vahakn Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide (Oxford, 1995); and Renée Hirschon, ed., Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange Between Greece and Turkey (Oxford, 2003). 53  Raymond Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History (London, 2011), pp. 647–72. 54  Khatchig Mouradian, ‘Internment and Destruction: Concentration Camps during the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1916’, in Stefan Manz, Panikos Panayi, and Matthew Stibbe, eds, Internment during the First World War: A Mass Global Phenomenon (Abingdon, 2018), pp. 145–61. 55  Uta Hinz, Gefangen im Großen Krieg: Kriegsgefangenschaft in Deutschland, 1914–1921 (Essen, 2006), p. 9. 56  Mühlhahn, ‘The Concentration Camp in Global Historical Perspective’, p. 547. 57  Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (London, 1998), p. 369. 58  Heather Jones, Violence against Prisoners of War in the First World War: Britain, France and Germany, 1914–1920 (Cambridge, 2011).

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34  Enemies in the Empire cruelty. Krammer also devotes attention to ‘The Search for Legal Protection’, focusing upon the role of the Enlightenment and the foundation of the Red Cross and The Hague and Geneva Conventions.59 The sheer scale of the Great War armies would explain the millions of prisoners captured, who, according to Ferguson, account for 25 per cent of all ‘casualties’.60 In light of these figures, the plight of civilian internees has generally been neglected, both in public memory and historiography. As the experience of the Armenians demonstrates, those perceived as ethnic outsiders, especially enemies, would find themselves marginalized and, in their case, murdered. Long-term animosity between Turks and Armenians and the perception of the latter as allies of the Russians, especially as some of them fought for the victorious Russian forces in the Battle of Sarikamiş at the beginning of 1915, helped to seal their fate.61 Internment during this conflict may demonstrate an example of intolerance. However, mistreatment of captives in pre-twentieth-century conflicts reflected the nature of the regime implementing incarceration, varying from the autocratic and dying Ottoman Empire to the liberal British Empire. The nature of the internment also played a role in the fate of the prisoners. While the vast majority of those facing imprisonment during the war consisted of soldiers, Matthew Stibbe has identified three types of civilian internees. First, there were enemy aliens, who lived in the nation state at war with the country of their nationality. Germans endured this fate on a global scale, while, partly in retaliation to the plight of their nationals abroad, the German Empire interned a smaller number of Britons living within its central European borders in 1914, above all in the camp at the Berlin suburb of Ruhleben.62 Stibbe has also identified camps established for deportees from war zones and occupied territories, which included French and Belgian civilians forcibly moved to Germany, and Ruthenians, Serbs, Italians, and Rumanians incarcerated in Habsburg territories. Stibbe asserts that those who experienced such a fate faced worse conditions than enemy aliens.63 Finally, Stibbe has identified camps for refugees from war zones, who the United Nations High Commission for Refugees would now describe as ‘internally displaced

59  Arnold Krammer, Prisoners of War: A Reference Handbook (London, 2008), pp. 2–14, 17–23. 60 Ferguson, Pity, p. 369. 61  Vahakn Dadrian, Warrant for Genocide: Key Elements in the Turko-Armenian Conflict (London, 1999), pp. 113–20. 62  Matthew Stibbe, ‘Civilian Internment and Civilian Internees in Europe, 1914–20’, Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 26 (2008), pp. 57–61; Matthew Stibbe, British Civilian Internees in Germany: The Ruhleben Camp, 1914–18 (Manchester, 2008); Matthew Stibbe, ‘A Question of Retaliation? The Internment of British Civilians in Germany in November 1914’, Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 23 (2005), pp. 1–29; John Davidson Ketchum, Ruhleben: A Prison Camp Society (Toronto, 1965); Lewis Foreman, ‘In Ruhleben Camp’, First World War Studies, vol. 2 (2011), pp. 27–40; Panikos Panayi, ed., Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, 2014). 63 Stibbe, ‘Civilian Internment’, pp. 61–4; Jens Thiel and Christian Westerhoff, ‘Deutsche Zwangsarbeiterlager im Ersten Weltkrieg’, in Christoph Jahr and Jens Thiel, eds, Lager vor Auschwitz: Gewalt und Integration im 20. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 2013), pp. 117–39.

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Historical and Global Perspectives  35 people’, who fled the consequences of war but remained in their own land, including, for example, ethnic Germans in Russia deported to Siberia.64 Stibbe’s categorization has focused upon civilian internment in Europe and offers just one perspective on the varying types of First World War incarceration. Other scholars such as Annette Becker have devised different ways of identifying camps.65 Susanne Kuß examined the work camps which held Chinese labourers established by the British in France from 1917–19 which she has described as ‘colonialism en miniature’.66 Jochen Oltmer has pointed to the camps used for returning prisoners of war and German expellees from redrawn European boundaries in the early Weimar Republic as a means of controlling the migratory consequences of the First World War.67 Incarceration during the First World War did not simply take place in Europe but became a worldwide phenomenon.68 Returning to raw figures, the British Empire held a peak global total of 507,215 prisoners of war in January 1919, including 343,512 Germans, 119,159 Turks, 7,072 Bulgarians, and 22,106 from other nationalities. The captives found themselves incarcerated in the United Kingdom, France, India, Egypt, and Mesopotamia.69 In fact, this statistical snapshot underestimates the global nature of the internment of both military and civilian prisoners which the British Empire had practised during the course of the war. A German Red Cross account from 1917 lists 101 internment camps within the British Empire covering the entire globe, together with another eighty-five in Great Britain and seven in France.70 By the end of the war approximately 600 camps existed in Britain alone.71 The German publication from 1917 also listed 129 camps under the heading of Italy, located not simply on the Italian mainland but also in, for example, Egypt, fourteen under the heading of Japan and twenty-one in ‘neutral countries’ including Denmark, Spain, Greece, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil.72 64  Stibbe, Idem, pp. 64–6; Peter Gatrell, ‘Refugees and Forced Migrants during the First World War’, Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 26 (2008), pp. 82–110; Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire, pp. 121–73; United Nations High Commission for Refugees, ‘Internally Displaced People’, http://www. unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c146.html, accessed 8 April 2016. 65  Annette Becker has taken a broader perspective which has included the death camps established for Armenians in ‘Captive Civilians’, in Jay Winter, ed., The Cambridge History of the First World War, Vol. III, Civil Society (Cambridge, 2014), pp. 257–81. 66  Susanne Kuß, ‘Chinesische Arbeitslager des britischen Militärs in Frankreich 1917 bis 1919: Kolonialismus en miniature’, in Jahr and Thiel, Lager vor Auschwitz, pp. 140–57. 67  Jochen Oltmer, ‘Heimkehrlager in der frühen Weimarer Republik: Instrumente zur Steuerung migratorischer Kriegsfolgen’, in Jahr and Thiel, Idem, pp. 197–214. 68  Matthew Stibbe, ‘Ein globales Phänomen: Zivilinternierung im Ersten Weltkrieg in transnationaler und internationaler Dimension’, in Jahr and Thiel, Idem, pp. 158–76. 69  NA/WO394/20, Statistical Information Regarding the Armies at Home and Abroad, 1914–1920. 70  J. Köhler, ed., Karte von Grossbritannien, Italien u. den überseeischen Ländern, in denen Kriegsund Zivilgefangene sich befinden (Hamburg, 1917). 71  Panikos Panayi, Prisoners of Britain: German Civilian and Combatant Internees during the First World War (Manchester, 2012), p. 83. 72 Köhler, Karte. For a further indication of the global nature of internment see: Rainer Pöppinghege, Im Lager unbesiegt: Deutsche, englische und französische Kriegsgefangenen-Zeitungen im Ersten Weltkrieg (Essen, 2006); Proctor, Civilians in a World at War, pp. 203–38; Mahon Murphy,

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36  Enemies in the Empire As well as incarceration in the British Empire, other states which engaged in this practice include France on a significant scale within its own borders,73 Japan,74 and the United States, which needed to adopt a highly se­lect­ive policy of internment in view of the 8 million people of German ancestry living in the country, reaching decisions about who to incarcerate based on surveillance and the apparent threat to the war effort.75 The First World War transformed incarceration into a mass global phe­nom­ enon which impacted upon millions of people. While the overwhelming majority of internees may have consisted of male captured soldiers, their diverse nature meant that they also included women and children, whether in the case of Armenians,76 those deported from war zones, or refugees.77 Enemy aliens, especially Germans held within the British Empire, tended to consist of males, although women also faced incarceration on a more limited scale, often because they wished to stay with their husbands.78 The thousands of camps which came into existence throughout the world varied greatly not only because of the type of prisoners they held but also because of their durability. Some would last for almost the entire duration of the war, which meant that those within them would develop a new sense of normality accepting separation from families, as the examples of Knockaloe on the Isle of Man and Ruhleben would indicate.79 These camps, together with others which emerged in the British Empire, differ from those where mistreatment became almost the norm, or where the function consisted of dispensing with an enemy or displaced population whether through relocation or extermination.80 Much research has focused upon the mistreatment of those incarcerated but, equally, partly as a result of humanitarian efforts and partly because of the adherence of some of the belligerent states to the principles of the Hague and Geneva Conventions,81 this became a characteristic of some but not all camps. Colonial Captivity during the First World War: Internment and the Fall of the German Empire, 1914–1919 (Cambridge, 2018); and Andrew Tait Jarboe, ‘The Prisoner Dilemma: Britain, Germany, and the Repatriation of Indian Prisoners of War’, in Ashley Jackson, ed., The British Empire and the First World War (Abingdon, 2015), pp. 369–78. 73 Jean-Claude Farcy, Les Camp de Concentration Français de la Première Guerre Mondiale (1914–1920) (Paris, 1995). 74 Mahon Murphy, ‘Brücken, Beethoven und Baumkuchen: German and Austro-Hungarian Prisoners of War and the Japanese Home Front’, in Joachim Bürgschwentner, Matthias Egger, and Gunda Barth-Scalmani, eds, Other Fronts, Other Wars? First World War Studies on the Eve of the Centennial (Leiden, 2014). 75 Nagler, Nationale Minoritäten im Krieg, pp. 427–68. 76 Kévorkian, Armenian Genocide, pp. 647–72. 77  Stibbe, ‘Civilian Internment’, pp. 61–6. 78 Proctor, Civilians in a World at War, pp. 203–38. 79  Panikos Panayi, ‘ “Barbed Wire Disease” or a “Prison Camp Society”: The Everyday Lives of German Internees on the Isle of Man, 1914–1919’, in Panayi, Germans as Minorities, pp. 99–121; Stibbe, British Civilian Internees in Germany; Ketchum, Ruhleben; Foreman, ‘In Ruhleben Camp’. 80  Becker, ‘Captive Civilians’. 81  Matthew Stibbe, ‘The Internment of Civilians by Belligerent States during the First World War and the Response of the International Committee of the Red Cross’, Journal of Contemporary History,

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Historical and Global Perspectives  37 In terms of the architecture of the places of internment, if a standard pattern had emerged by the First World War, it involved, in the case of the British Empire, the use of huts similar to those utilized by the British army, from the Isle of Man to Holsworthy near Sydney.82 Reviel Netz has stressed the use of barbed wire from the early days of internment. It became even more prevalent during the First World War,83 as emphasized by the development of barbed-wire disease identified by Adolf Lukas Vischer, one of the Swiss Embassy employees who inspected the camps established to intern Germans in Britain during the First World War on behalf of the German government.84 The explanation for the name of this psych­osis caused by internment lay in the fact that barbed wire became a symbol of confinement and unhappiness for the internee. ‘More than anything else, the barbed wire winds like a thread through his mental processes. With hypnotic gaze his mind’s eye is fixed on this obstacle’.85 While many internees in Europe and beyond may have found themselves surrounded by barbed wire during the First World War and while something resembling a standard camp may have emerged, other internees would not have seen it. Several governments confined civilians to areas away from major population centres where they essentially roamed free. Examples included French enemy aliens concentrated on Corsica,86 or the Germans and Austrians in India sent to Kataphar near Darjeeling where they could take walks in the surrounding countryside as far as they wished.87 In Italy civilians removed from their homes had to reside either ‘in an area designated by the police or the army, if dependent on state financial support, or in a place of “choice” if the internee had sufficient means to provide for his or her personal needs and those of his or her family’.88

Internment After the First World War By 1919 incarceration had become an accepted aspect of conflict throughout the globe practised by virtually all of the belligerent states. Although the vast majority of those captured and incarcerated consisted of soldiers, scholars such as Stibbe and Becker have demonstrated the range of functions of the camps which

vol. 41 (2006), pp. 5–19; Richard B. Speed III, Prisoners, Diplomats, and the Great War: A Study in the Diplomacy of Captivity (London, 1990). 82  Panayi, ‘ “Barbed Wire Disease” ’, pp. 101–2; Fischer, Enemy Aliens, pp. 199–228. 83  Reviel Neiz, Barbed Wire: An Ecology of Modernity (Hanover, NH, 2004), pp. 151–60. 84 A. L. Vischer, Barbed Wire Disease: A Psychological Study of the Prisoner of War (London, 1919). 85  Ibid., p. 31. 86 Simon Giuseppi, L’internement à Corbara en Corse des civils Austro-allemands 1914–1920 (Ajaccio, 2014). 87  See Chapter 9. 88  Caglioti, ‘Why and How Italy Invented an Enemy Aliens Problem’, p. 164.

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38  Enemies in the Empire emerged, while, in some cases, confinement did not even take place behind barbed wire. The Great War camp system set the precedent for the larger concentration of people which took place during the Second World War, epitomized by the actions of the Nazis and the Soviets. However, their policies provide the most extreme form of the use of camps, which, once again, all belligerent states utilized during the Second World War for a variety of purposes. The concentration camp evolved further throughout the interwar years, not simply in Germany and Europe but also in other parts of the world. Incarceration remained important in the immediate aftermath of the First World War when it had at least three functions. In the first place, while nationals of the victorious Allied powers returned home quickly, some German military and civilian internees had to wait until the early 1920s for repatriation, especially in the case of those held by France and the Soviet Union.89 Secondly, the Great War resulted in an intensification of the type of ethnic cleansing which had characterized the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, especially as a result of the Armenian genocide and the ‘exchange of population’ between Greece and Turkey, meaning that refugee camps came to characterize early post-war Europe, especially in Greece and Turkey.90 The early post-war years also witnessed the development of what would become one of the main functions of camps in the interwar years and into the Second World War in the form of the exclusion and punishment of political opponents, which the Bolsheviks began to develop during the course of 1918. By the end of 1919 a total of twenty-one ‘special camps’ had emerged, and by the following year the number had reached 107.91 These figures would probably ­double if they included camps which existed for prisoners of war, forced labourers, and ‘minors with moral defects’.92 By January 1938 Soviet camps held about 1.8 million people.93 The GULAG has become emblematic of the tyranny of the regime which gave birth to it, especially under Stalin’s rule during the 1930s and 1940s.94 Kaminski has described the GULAG as having two functions in the form

89  Reinhard Nachtigal, ‘Die Repatriierung der Mittelmächte-Kriegsgefangenen aus dem revolutionären Russland: Heimkehr zwischen Agitation, Bürgerkrieg und Intervention 1918–1922’, in Jochen Oltmer, ed., Kriegsgefangene im Europa des Ersten Weltkrieges (Paderborn, 2005), pp. 239–66; Rainer Pöppinghege, ‘ “Kriegsteilnehmer zweiter Klasse”: Die Reichsvereinigung ehemaliger Kriegsgefangener 1919–1933’, Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift, vol. 64 (2005), pp. 391–423; Georg Wurzer, Die Kriegsgefangenen der Mittelmächte in Russland im Ersten Weltkrieg (Göttingen, 2005), pp. 505–27. 90 Michael R. Marrus, The Unwanted: European Refugees in the Twentieth Century (Oxford, 1985), pp. 52–121; Peter Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee (Oxford, 2015), pp. 52–72. 91  Anne Applebaum, GULAG: A History (London, 2003), pp. 27–32. 92  Wladislaw Hedeler, ‘Zur Vorgeschichte des sowjetischen Gulag-Systems: Die Kaderschmiede Solowki’, in Jahr and Thiel, Lager vor Auschwitz, p. 221. 93 Applebaum, GULAG, p. 123. 94 Steven A. Barnes, Death and Redemption: The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society (Princeton, NJ, 2011).

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Historical and Global Perspectives  39 of terror and the provision of slave labour, therefore linking it both with camps that came before it and those that existed simultaneously.95 The most significant of these formed part of the system established by the Nazis from 1933 which aimed not simply at imprisoning Jews, who would have spent a short, but still dehumanizing, period of time in incarceration before the Second World War.96 The main initial victims consisted of the political opponents of the Nazis, rounded up immediately after the seizure of power, although ‘social outsiders’ such as the workshy and habitual criminals also experienced in­car­cer­ ation. The camps became sites for forced labour. But while the prototypes for the European-wide system which would follow during the Second World War had emerged in places such as Dachau and Sachsenhausen before 1939, the pre-war Nazi system remained limited in terms of the numbers of establishments which had emerged and the victim count in comparison with the Soviet Union.97 Other totalitarian states also began using camps for the purpose of punishment and forced labour during the course of the 1930s. They emerged in Spain during the Civil War, especially as used by General Franco and his supporters during and after their military campaign, with help from German advisors as a type of knowledge transfer took place. By 1939 a total of 277,103 men came under the control of the Concentration Camps Commission, including 90,000 carrying out forced labour.98 Paul Preston views them as a key component of Franco’s rule, playing a role in the extermination he describes.99 Meanwhile, camps had come into existence in Austria even before the Anschluss for the purpose of creating ideal, disciplined, and militarized youths in the fight against communism.100 Camps also made an appearance in the Far East during the course of the 1930s including during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, largely for the purpose of carrying out medical experiments.101 At the same time the Chinese Nationalist Government began establishing camps from 1938, again with the help of German advisors.102 The interwar years therefore witnessed the increasing use of concentration camps for the purpose of isolating and punishing political opponents by totalitarian regimes, as well as sources of cheap or slave labour. Apart from the Soviet 95 Kaminski, Konzentrationslager, pp. 70–187. 96  Kim Wünschmann, Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Pre-War Concentration Camps (Cambridge, MA, 2015). 97  Nikolaus Wachsmann, KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps (London, 2015). 98  Javier Rodrigo, ‘Der Faschismus und die Lager in Spanien und Italien’, in Bettina Greiner and  Alan Kramer, eds, Welt der Lager: Zur ‘Erfolgsgeschichte’ einer Institution (Hamburg, 2013), pp. 226–36. 99  Paul Preston, The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth Century Spain (London, 2012). 100  Tamara Ehs, ‘Neue Österreicher: Die austrofaschistischen Hochschullager der Jahre 1936 und 1937’, in Jahr und Thiel, Lager vor Auschwitz, pp. 250–67. 101  Mühlhahn, ‘The Concentration Camp in Global Historical Perspective’, p. 550. 102  Ibid., p. 551.

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40  Enemies in the Empire system, however, their use took place on a fairly limited scale even though the techniques they practised in many states had become advanced, sophisticated, and cruel. If the Great War had resulted in the first great camp system of the twentieth century, the Second World War witnessed its culmination. This conflict meant not only the rebirth of the types of incarceration which had evolved between 1914 and 1920 but also the use of camps for the purposes which had developed during the course of the 1920s and 1930s. Furthermore, while the GULAG and the Nazi concentration camp might dominate academic research, regimes throughout the world, including liberal democracies, utilized camps for a variety of purposes, as they had done between 1914 and 1918. Consequently, not only did far more ­people experience life behind barbed wire during the Second World War, camps also became more widespread throughout the world, serving a wide range of purposes. As in the First World War, the greatest numbers of prisoners consisted of ­soldiers captured by enemy forces. If 9 million combatants had faced capture between 1914 and 1918, the total for the Second World War may have reached 35 million or almost one in two of the 80 million men who donned uniforms, although the period of captivity could vary from days to years.103 In a global ­conflict military incarceration occurred throughout the world. Clearly, the main belligerents held the largest numbers of prisoners, including Great Britain which did not simply imprison people within its own shores,104 but, as during the First World War, throughout the British Empire.105 Meanwhile, as many as 372,000 Germans captured by American forces experienced incarceration in the USA.106 Some of the German soldiers captured as prisoners of war after the defeat by the Soviet Union would not return home until the middle of the 1950s.107 While those who endured incarceration at the hands of the Axis powers may have remained behind barbed wire for a shorter period of time, they experienced some of the most brutal treatment in systems dominated by German and Japanese racism. The Nazis therefore targeted the Eastern European and Soviet soldiers

103 Bob Moore and Kent Fedorowich, ‘Prisoners of War in the Second World War’, in Bob Moore and Kent Fedorowich, eds, Prisoners of War and Their Captors in World War II (Oxford, 1996), pp. 1–17. 104  Barry Sullivan, Thresholds of Peace: Four Hundred Thousand German Prisoners and the People of Britain, 1944–1948 (London, 1979); Lucio Sponza, Divided Loyalties: Italians in Britain during the Second World War (Frankfurt, 2000), pp. 183–317; Renate Held, Kriegsgefangenschaft in Groβbritannien: Deutsche Soldaten des Zweiten Weltkrieges in britischem Gewahrsam (Munich, 2008). 105  Bob Moore and Kent Fedorowich, eds, The British Empire and Its Italian Prisoners of War 1940–1947 (London, 2002). 106 Judith  M.  Gansberg, Stalag USA: The Remarkable Story of German POWs in America (New York, 1977). 107  Albrecht Lehmann, Gefangenschaft und Heimkehr: Deutsche Kriegsgefangene in der Sowjetunion (Munich, 1986); Andrea Hilger, Deutsche Kriegsgefangene in der Sowjetunion, 1941–1956: Kriegsgefangenenpolitik, Lageralltag und Erinnerung (Essen, 2000).

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Historical and Global Perspectives  41 they captured and used them in the slave labour system they established. Camps emerged throughout Nazi-occupied Europe stretching from the Dutch border, where, for example, a medium-sized town such as Osnabrück developed a ­network of establishments which housed not simply Eastern European but also French and Dutch internees,108 reflected in even smaller towns,109 to the vast industrial complex of camps in conquered territories, which housed all manner of racial undesirables including prisoners of war, often worked to death if not exterminated.110 Those prisoners of the Nazis who originated from Western Europe, on the other hand, did not suffer the same type of mistreatment as those from the East of the continent because of their higher place in the Nazi racial hierarchy, although they still experienced violence.111 Meanwhile, race played a role in Japanese camps in the Far East with Indian captives enduring even worse treatment112 than Europeans and Americans.113 The Second World War also resulted in the increasing persecution of civilians. The GULAG really came into its own during the conflict, exploiting as many as 20 million labourers according to some estimates. The majority consisted of Soviet citizens, especially Russians,114 but the war also led to the displacement of those nationalities perceived as treacherous by Stalin, especially Germans and Tatars.115 Similarly, the Nazi Empire established an equally sophisticated camp system which, while it aimed at the extermination of the Jews of Europe, also utilized the labour power of other ‘racial inferiors’ in the same way as it used prisoners of war.116 The system may have had its most brutal form in the Polish death camps, but relocation, epitomized by the establishment of Jewish ghettoes,117 serves as a reminder of the origins of internment in Cuba, as much as the 108  Panikos Panayi, ‘Exploitation, Criminality, Resistance: The Everyday Life of Foreign Workers and Prisoners of War in the German Town of Osnabrück, 1939–49’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 40 (2005), pp. 483–502. 109  See, for example, Jens-Christian Wagner, Ellrich 1944/45: Konzentrationslager und Zwangsarbeit in einer deutschen Kleinstadt (Göttingen, 2009). 110  See, for example, Marc Buggeln, Slave Labour in Nazi Concentration Camps (Oxford, 2014); Ulrich Herbert, Hitler’s Foreign Workers: Enforced Labour in Germany under the Third Reich (Cambridge, 1997); Gerhard Hirschfeld, ed., The Policies of Genocide: Jews and Soviet Prisoners of War in Nazi Germany (London, 1986). 111  See, for example, Arieh  J.  Kochavi, Confronting Captivity: Britain and the United States and Their POWs in Nazi Germany (Chapel Hill, NC, 2005). 112  G.  J.  Douds, ‘Indian POWs in the Pacific’, in Kevin Blackburn and Karl Hack, eds, Forgotten Captives in Japanese-Occupied Asia (London, 2008), pp. 73–93. 113 Bob Havers, Reassessing the Japanese Prisoner of War Experience (London, 2003); Brian MacArhtur, Surviving the Sword: Prisoners of the Japanese 1942–45 (London, 2005); Philip Towle, Margaret Kosuge, and Yoichi Kibata, eds, Japanese Prisoners of War (London, 2003). 114  Edwin Bacon, The GULAG at War (Basingstoke, 1994). 115  Ingeborg Fleischhauer, ‘ “Operation Barbarossa” and the Deportation’, in Ingeborg Fleischhauer and Benjamin Pinkus, eds, The Soviet Germans: Past and Present (London, 1986), pp. 66–91; A. M. Nekrich, The Punished Peoples: The Deportation and Fate of Soviet Minorities at the End of the Second World War (New York, 1978). 116  The best account of the Nazi camps in wartime is now Wachsmann, KL, pp. 190–594. 117  Gustavo Corni, Hitler’s Ghettos (London, 2003).

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42  Enemies in the Empire connection between Windhoek and Auschwitz. Similarly, Japanese internment camps also emerged for those civilians living in the areas invaded during the Japanese advance through the Pacific in 1941 and 1942, with captives enduring a level of brutality similar to military victims.118 This type of relocation of civilians also took place in liberal democracies, especially against those regarded as enemy aliens, one of the most direct links between the events of the First and Second World Wars. Just as in the Great War, those of German origin in Britain found themselves behind wire,119 a process, once again, repeated throughout the British Empire, partly as a result of deportations from the UK but also because of local initiatives.120 The USA, meanwhile, instituted a policy of ‘relocation’ of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans during the summer of 1942, including whole families made up not just of immigrants but also of those born in America, some of whom would remain incarcerated until 1946.121 Both in the camps established by liberal democracies and those opened by totalitarian regimes a creativity identified by writers such as John Davidson Ketchum in his study of the male Ruhleben internees during the First World War122 developed during the Second. The greater likelihood of the presence of women in camps changed the nature of creativity, rather than making it more prevalent.123 In the work and death camps established by the Nazis this proved difficult, if not impossible, although some camps even had their own orchestras.124 The end of the Second World War did not mean the disappearance of concentration camps as they remained a characteristic of the early post-war world, carrying out the types of functions already established from the end of the nineteenth century. While death camps reached their height in Nazi-controlled Europe and while they may have come to an end with the collapse of the Third Reich, at least in terms of their function as labour, terror, and extermination centres, 118 See, for example, Joseph Kennedy, British Civilians and the Japanese War in Malaya and Singapore, 1941–45 (London, 1987); Christina Twomey, Australia’s Forgotten Prisoners: Civilians Interned by the Japanese in World War Two (Cambridge, 2007). 119  See, for example, François Lafitte, The Internment of Aliens (originally 1940; London, 1980); Peter and Leni Gillman, ‘Collar the Lot!’ How Britain Interned and Expelled Its Wartime Refugees (London, 1980); Miriam Kochan, Britain’s Internees in the Second World War (London, 1983); Wendy Ugolini, Experiencing the War as the ‘Enemy Other’: Italian Scottish Experiences in World War II (Manchester, 2011), pp. 90–143; Sponza, Divided Loyalties, pp. 95–151. 120 Maxine Schwartz Seller, We Built Up Our Lives: Education and Community among Jewish Refugees Interned by Britain in World War II (London, 2001); Terri Colpi, ‘The Impact of the Second World War on the British Italian Community’, in David Cesarani and Tony Kushner, eds, The Internment of Aliens in Twentieth Century Britain (London, 1993), pp. 167–87; Kay Saunders, ‘ “Inspired by Patriotic Hysteria?”: Internment Policy towards Enemy Aliens in Australia during the Second World War’, in Panayi, Minorities in Wartime, pp. 287–315. 121  See, for example, Roger Daniels, Prisoners without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II (New York, 1993); Ansel Adams, Manzanar (London, 1989). 122 Ketchum, Ruhleben. 123  See the range of contributions to Gilly Carr and Harold Mytum, eds, Cultural Heritage and Prisoners of War (New York, 2012). 124  Shirli Gilbert, Music in the Holocaust: Confronting Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps (Oxford, 2005).

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Historical and Global Perspectives  43 in­car­cer­ation as punishment would continue as a key component of camps after 1945. The GULAG may have reached its zenith during the war, but it survived as a feature of Soviet life until the 1980s.125 At the same time, the USSR also used camps for incarcerating political enemies in the nation states it came to control at the end of the war.126 Similarly, communist China established an expansive system of incarceration.127 Liberal democracies also used camps after 1945. Guantánamo Bay may have become the most famous symbol of incarceration in the ‘free world’ in recent years,128 but it continues an American tradition of bringing in enemies which began earlier in the twentieth century when the USA transported Nazis from Latin America during the Second World War.129 Similarly, Britain also practised a policy of internment in Northern Ireland during the 1970s in the war against the IRA.130 In fact, incarceration in Northern Ireland resembles the policies of counterinsurgency which had emerged at the end of the nineteenth century, if not in the level of mistreatment, then certainly with regard to its purpose of dealing with hostile populations. This becomes more obvious during the collapse of Empire, when both the British and French brought back to life the types of concentration camps born in Africa. The British used them and the more general policy of re­loca­tion in Malaya, Kenya, and Cyprus, while the French utilized a similar policy in Algeria. Although they may not have resorted to quite the levels of brutality seen in Namibia or South Africa at the start of the twentieth century, the denial of prisoner of war status to those who endured resettlement or incarceration meant that abuse and torture became normal in Kenya while, in the case of Malaya, tens of thousands of deaths occurred.131 The final function of camps in the post-war world became perhaps their most important. While they housed refugees in the era of the Great War, this role became central in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War when even 125 Applebaum, Gulag, pp. 428–501. 126  See, for example, Bettina Greiner, ‘Die Speziallager des NKVD in Deutschland, 1945–1950: Annäherungen an ein vermintes Terrain’, in Greiner and Kramer, Welt der Lager, pp. 276–301. 127  Philip F. Williams and and Yenna Wu, The Great Wall of Confinement: The Chinese Prison Camp Through Contemporary Fiction and Reportage (London, 2004). 128  Jess Bravin, The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantánamo Bay (London, 2014). 129 Max Paul Friedman, Nazis and Good Neighbors: The United States Campaign Against the Germans of Latin America in World War II (Cambridge, 2003). 130  See, for example, R.  J.  Spjut, ‘Internment and Detention without Trial in Northern Ireland, 1971–1975: Ministerial Policy and Practice’, Modern Law Review, vol. 49 (1986), pp. 712–39; and Martin J. McCleery, ‘Debunking the Myths of Operation Demetrius: The Introduction of Internment in Northern Ireland in 1971’, Irish Political Studies, vol. 27 (2012), pp. 411–30. 131 Elkins, Britain’s Gulag; French, British Way in Counter-Insurgency; Scheipers, ‘The Use of Concentration Camps in Colonial Warfare’, pp. 685–90; David M. Anderson, ‘British Abuse and Torture in Kenya’s Counter-Insurgency, 1952–1960’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, vol. 23 (2012), pp. 700–19; Teng-Phee Tan, ‘ “Like a Concentration Camp, lah”: Chinese Grassroots Experience of the Emergency and New Villages in British Colonial Malaya’, Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, vol. 3 (2009), pp. 216–28.

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44  Enemies in the Empire former German concentration camps accommodated some of the millions of stateless exiles, especially those Germans who fled westward following their expulsion from their historic homeland in Eastern Europe because of fear of advancing Soviet forces, the movement of the Soviet and Polish borders westward, and the Germanophobia of newly established regimes.132 Meanwhile, those foreign workers employed by the Nazis who refused to return home to the Soviet Union became ‘Displaced Persons’ living in camps established for them, especially in the Allied occupation zones of West Germany.133 Refugee camps did not simply characterize Europe at the end of the Second World War. While the largest refugee crisis may have developed in Europe at this time, counting as many as 25 million people between 1945 and 1947,134 the partition of India also led to the establishment of camps as perhaps 20 million people fled between India and Pakistan to live in makeshift accommodation established by the states which recognized them as citizens.135 Perhaps the area which has become most closely associated with refugee camps since the end of the Second World War consists of the Middle East, where some Palestinians have lived in camps for decades to the extent that some have virtually become permanent homes,136 although they have remained a global phenomenon in view of the tens of millions of refugees at any one time. The largest and most notorious example in the twenty-first century include the Dadaab camp in northern Kenya, which has housed half a million refugees. Although the largest camps may exist in areas next to war zones which refugees seek to escape,137 they have also become a feature of Western Europe, holding people on a temporary basis, in a type of no-man’s land, before allowing permanent entry.138 One of the most notorious examples of such a holding camp exists on the Pacific island of Nauru, where the Australian government ‘processes’ refugees seeking asylum. Some people remain here for years in inhumane conditions.139 132 Henrik Bispinck and Katharina Hochmuth, eds, Flüchtlingslager im Nachkriegsdeutschland: Migration, Politik, Erinnerung (Berlin, 2014). 133  Wolfgang Jacobmeyer, Vom Zwangsarbeiter zum heimatlosen Ausländer: Die Displaced Persons in Westdeutschland 1945–1951 (Göttingen, 1985). 134  Eugene Kulischer, Europe on the Move: War and Population Changes, 1917–1947 (New York, 1948), p. 305. 135  See Vazira Fazila Zamindar, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories (Cambridge, 2010). 136  See, for example, Luigi Achilli, Palestinian Refugees and Identity: Nationalism, Politics and the Everyday (London, 2015). 137  See the annual United Nations High Commission for Refugees publication, The State of the World’s Refugees, available at http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/search?page=search&query=The +State+of+the+World%27s+Refugees+&x=14&y=13, accessed 15 April 2016. For Dadaab see Ben Rawlence, City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp (New York, 2016). 138  For the use of refugee camps in twentieth-century Britain see Tony Kushner and Katherine Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide: Global, National and Local Perspectives During the Twentieth Century (London, 1999). For Germany since the Second World War see, for example, Klaus J. Bade and Jochen Oltmer, eds, Fremde im Land: Zuwanderung und Integration in Niedersachsen seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Osnabrück, 2002). 139  Nauru has received much attention in several newspapers including the Guardian in a series entitled ‘The Nauru Files’, for which see https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/nauru-files,

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Historical and Global Perspectives  45 While it may seem unwise to make connections between the Boer War, Auschwitz, and refugee camps, there are some clear continuities in the history of incarceration since the end of the nineteenth century. Andreas Gestrich has pointed to the pre-modern origins of camps, focusing upon the treatment of prisoners of war, the use of workhouses for ‘internal enemies’, the quarantining of plague victims, and even the placing of Palatine refugees in England in 1710 in reception camps.140 With origins in the early modern period if not before, in­car­ cer­ation has therefore had four main purposes in the twentieth century: first, the separation of enemies, whether they consist of captured soldiers or the isolation of the enemy within, which meant that camps reached their high point during the Second World War, but that the turning point, when it became a mass global phe­nom­enon, arrived between 1914 and 1919. Those marginalized during twentieth-century wars have not simply consisted of people connected with the enemy but also those excluded on ethnic and racial grounds. Armenians in the Ottoman Empire or Jews and other racial undesirables in Nazi Germany even faced extermination. This leads to the second function of the concentration camp during the twentieth century which consists of punishment, whether of ethnic or political un­desir­ables, a process which really took off with the Armenian genocide and the Russian revolution. Once again, wartime sees the height of such institutions because conflict intensifies the mistreatment of outsiders,141 whatever reason may exist for their exclusion from mainstream society. The third function of the concentration camp has consisted of supplying labour, which Kaminski viewed as slavery.142 The best-known examples of such places of incarceration lay in the early Soviet Union and Nazi-controlled Europe, whose economies became dependent upon unfree labour. However, military prisoners of war also played a central function in war economies during the twentieth century, not only in Nazi Germany but also in the case of millions of others captured by states who recognized the Hague Convention and who therefore had some respect for their captives.143 Finally, camps have gone hand in hand with the creation of refugees during the twentieth century from the consequences of the collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires during the First World War, through to the even bigger crises following the defeat of the Nazis. The ubiquity of refugees after the Second World accessed 3 April 2018. Ironically, Germans faced deportation from this island to the Holsworthy camp near Sydney during the First World War, as discussed in Chapter 5. 140  Andreas Gestrich, ‘Konzentrationslager: Voraussetzungen und Vorläufer vor der Moderne’, in Greiner and Kramer, Welt der Lager, pp. 43–61. 141  Panayi, ‘Dominant Societies and Minorities in the Two World Wars’. 142 Kaminski, Konzentrationslager, pp. 114–87. 143  Gerald H. Davis, ‘Prisoners of War in Twentieth Century Economies’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 12 (1977), pp. 623–34.

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46  Enemies in the Empire War has meant that they have come to characterize the modern world. While, on the one hand, camps may offer shelter, through a Foucauldian lens, refugees, together with the other groups outlined above, form one group of outsiders in modern society, and therefore need marginalization and imprisonment,144 at least on a temporary basis, after which the body politic may allow them entry. Since the development of systems of mass incarceration during the First World War, all types of regimes have utilized camps. Relatively tolerant traditions in ­liberal democracies have ensured that, while states such as the USA and Britain may have used them, mistreatment never descended to the levels practised by states which had few liberal traditions.

Britain and the History of Internment While Great Britain may not have descended to the levels of totalitarian states, it has remained at the centre of the evolution of policies of incarceration even before the late nineteenth century. Many of the examples given by Gestrich come from Britain. At the same time both Britain and its Empire have utilized internment camps from the period many scholars regard as their genesis in the imperial sphere at the end of the nineteenth century. It is important to recognize that Great Britain had its own traditions of in­car­cer­ation and the complementary practice of relocation. Prisoners of war, for example, lived in Britain as a result of regular sparring with continental neighbours between 1756 and 1815.145 Just as importantly, the British Empire had perfected the process of transporting people throughout the world during its rise to a global supremacy from the early modern period.146 While the main victims of policies of global displacement may appear to consist of criminals transported from Britain to North America and then Australia, these represent the routes which counted the largest numbers as other convicts faced transportation from one part of the Empire to another. Hundreds of thousands of people became victims of such policies.147 In fact, as Gwenda Morgan and Peter Rushton have recognized, convicts may form the tip of the iceberg during the early modern period as they constituted one aspect of a policy of forced migration which also included those who participated in rebellion in England, Scotland, and Ireland, as well as 144  Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (London, 1977). 145  The classic study is Francis Abell, Prisoners of War in Britain, 1756 to 1815: A Record of Their Lives, Their Romance and Their Sufferings (Oxford, 1914). 146 Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, ‘Convict Transportation from Britain and Ireland, 1615–1870’, History Compass, vol. 8 (2010), pp. 1221–4. 147  Ibid., pp. 1224–6; Bruce Kercher, ‘Perish or Prosper: The Law and Convict Transportation in the British Empire, 1700–1850’, Law and History Review, vol. 21 (2003), pp. 527–84; Alan Frost, Convicts and Empire: A Naval Question (Oxford, 1980), p. xi; A.  Roger Ekirch, Bound for America: The Transportation of British Convicts to the Colonies (Oxford, 1987).

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Historical and Global Perspectives  47 slaves.148 Including the last of these groups places forced migration at the centre of British imperial expansion, leading James Walvin to write of Britain’s ‘slave empire’.149 Walvin estimates that ‘British (and British colonial) ships carried about 3.5 million Africans across the Atlantic. By the height of the trade, some 40,000 Africans a year were transported on their enslaved fates on British ships’.150 Even after the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807, unfree migration remained a characteristic of imperialism not simply because convict transportation continued until the second half of the nineteenth century.151 Marjory Harper and Stephen Constantine have estimated that ‘1,474,740 indentured workers were recruited and sent overseas to other British Empire destinations between 1834 and 1920’, with India providing the ‘largest share’ of ‘1,258,861, or 85 per cent’.152 Harper and Constantine have also focused upon over a hundred thousand ‘British child and juvenile migrants dispatched to empire destinations between 1618 and 1967’.153 By 1914 the British Empire therefore had a tradition of global transportation. The Germans who were moved from one part of the globe to another during the Great War form one aspect of this history of forced migration. At the same time as continuities exist in the history of transportation, several scholars have pointed to the clear connections in the history of internment. The pioneers here were Peter and Leni Gillman, and David Cesarani and Tony Kushner.154 Richard Dove has more recently addressed these continuities in an edited book which brought together a series of scholars working on internment.155 This research focused upon internment in the British mainland during the two world wars. The most obvious continuity consists of the location of the major camps on the Isle of Man, although not on the same sites. Policy also remained similar at the start of both wars. While some incarceration occurred at the beginning of both conflicts according to fixed criteria (especially in 1939), wholesale internment only occurred after a moment of nationalistic hysteria. In 1915 this followed the sinking of the Lusitania, resulting in nationwide anti-German riots. In June 1940 it came after the rapid victory of Nazi forces in Western Europe and Mussolini’s declaration of war on Britain which led to riots against Italians.156

148  Gwenda Morgan and Peter Rushton, Banishment in the Early Atlantic World: Convicts, Rebels and Slaves (London, 2013). 149  James Walvin, Britain’s Slave Empire (Stroud, 2007). 150  Ibid., p. 7. 151  Maxwell-Stewart, ‘Convict Transportation’; Kercher, ‘Perish or Prosper’. 152  Marjory Harper and Stephen Constantine, Migration and Empire (Oxford, 2014), p. 150. For personal histories of some of those affected see Clare Anderson, Subaltern Lives: Biographies of Colonialism in the Indian Ocean World, 1790–1920 (Cambridge, 2012). 153  Harper and Constantine, Idem, p. 248. 154 Gillman, ‘Collar the Lot!’, pp. 7–30; Cesarani and Kushner, The Internment of Aliens. 155  Richard Dove, ed., ‘Totally un-English?’ Britain’s Internment of ‘Enemy Aliens’ in Two World Wars (Amsterdam, 2005). 156 Panayi, Prisoners of Britain, pp. 45–54; Lucio Sponza, ‘The Anti-Italian Riots, June 1940’, in Panikos Panayi, ed., Racial Violence in Britain, 1840–1950 (Leicester, 1993), pp. 130–49; Gillman, ‘Collar the Lot!’, pp. 147–58; Lafitte, The Internment of Aliens, pp. 161–91.

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48  Enemies in the Empire However, it then proves more difficult to find continuities. The main difference lies in the fact that Second World War internees generally only spent about a year behind barbed wire, helped by a campaign to release them which pointed to the fact that many of them had fled the Nazis as refugees.157 In contrast, incarceration during the Great War could last for up to five years, followed by deportation at the end of the conflict to a defeated Germany which internees may not have seen for decades.158 There are also clear continuities in the history of internment as part of a policy of counterinsurgency, and it seems relatively straightforward to link the treatment of late nineteenth-century rebels in the South African War to that meted out to post-war nationalist groups in Kenya, Malaya, or Cyprus, as, for example, Sybille Scheipers has done.159 The main difference between the pre-First World War policy and that after 1945 lies in the fact that the victims of the latter did not face quite the same level of mistreatment as the Boers, even though, as Caroline Elkins has demonstrated, brutality did occur in Kenya.160 While the British domestic and imperial contexts may differ, scholars have recently made the connection between the two. Zoë Denness in particular has drawn a direct connection between the conflict in South Africa and the First and Second World Wars, focusing especially upon the discourse which viewed internment as a blemish on Britain’s self-perception as a liberal state as well as examining the varying consequences of such a policy upon women in the three conflicts. Denness actually opens her thesis with the cases of nine individuals detained without trial at Belmarsh Prison as suspected terrorists who, in 2004, took their cases to the House of Lords.161 Aidan Forth, meanwhile, has moved both backwards and forwards from the Boer War. He utilizes a broad interpretation of incarceration which includes nineteenth-century workhouses and work camps established by bodies such as the Salvation Army. He also points to the displacement of native peoples inevitable in imperialism, as well as focusing upon the concentration of outgroups such as criminal tribes in India. He further examines the establishment of plague camps in late nineteenth-century India partly as humanitarian efforts, anticipating refugee camps, although they also segregated sick from healthy people.162 It therefore seems clear that the separation of populations has characterized the history of Britain and its Empire since the early modern period. Indeed, the forced movement of people from one part of the world to another went hand in hand with the evolution of British imperialism, whether those concerned consisted of criminals, rebels, slaves, the sick, or those with the wrong ethnic 157  Lafitte, Idem; Gillman, Idem. 158 Panayi, Prisoners of Britain. 159  Scheipers, ‘The Use of Concentration Camps in Colonial Warfare’. 160 Elkins, Britain’s Gulag. 161  Denness, ‘ “A Question Which Affects Our Prestige as a Nation” ’, p. 1. 162  Aidan Forth, ‘Britain’s Archipelago of Camps’, Kritika, vol. 16 (2015), pp. 652–69.

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Historical and Global Perspectives  49 credentials. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Britain played a central role in the genesis of the types of camps which would come to characterize the rest of the twentieth century, again utilizing them for a variety of purposes in both the domestic and the imperial sphere. While, as Forth argues, Britain already had an ‘empire of camps’ before 1914, the transportation and incarceration of Germans on an imperial scale during the First World War serves as a key staging post in the history of British internment, reflecting the impact of the conflict in the globalization of incarceration and its acceptance by all types of regimes as legitimate policy, paving the way for the even larger camp systems which would evolve during the Second World War. While Britain proved a humane player in this conflict, it has utilized incarceration for as long as any other state.

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3

The German Diaspora in the Empire Emigration Patterns After two centuries of mass emigration, German-speakers had settled in all world regions by 1914. Russia hosted 1.8 million, mostly the descendants of those who had arrived in the decades after 1764 when Tsarina Catherine the Great had invited Germans to cultivate vast areas in Southern Russia. From the 1830s onwards, the balance tipped towards transatlantic migration. The expanding US economy was the main magnet, absorbing around 90 per cent of all German emigrants. More than 8 million first- and second-generation Germans were counted in the US census of 1910. They formed ethnic enclaves in growing conurbations such as New York, Baltimore, and Chicago, as well as compact settlement areas in the Upper Midwest from Missouri to Wisconsin. Latin America was the second most popular destination at 400,000. Cities such as Blumenau and Pomerode in Southern Brazil still have a distinct Germanic appearance today. Closer to home, urban centres in Western Europe such as Paris, London, Utrecht, and Milan offered opportunities in industry and trade and hosted sizeable ‘Little Germanies’. When the Reich started to acquire colonies from 1884, hopes that emigration streams could be redirected into new overseas possessions did not materialize. Among its protectorates in Africa and the Pacific, only German Southwest Africa (Namibia) attracted a small settler population of 11,140. Those moving into other possessions were mostly elites in colonial administration, military, trade, and plantation management.1 Nineteenth-century German emigration peaks occurred in the periods 1846 to 1857, 1864 to 1873 (each just over a million), and 1880 to 1893 (1.8 million). The key push-factor was the transition from predominantly agrarian to industrial societal structures, causing rifts in the labour market which could not absorb a population which rose rapidly from 24,831,000 in 1816 to 64,568,000 by 1910.2 While the German southwest continued to be an important source, from mid-century onwards northwestern and northeastern regions started to send sizeable numbers. Protoindustrial production systems, especially in textile production, were threatened by 1  Jochen Oltmer, Migration vom 19. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 2016); Klaus  J.  Bade, ed., Deutsche im Ausland—Fremde in Deutschland: Migration in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Munich, 1992); Klaus J. Bade, Migration in European History (Oxford, 2003). 2 John E. Knodel, The Decline of Fertility in Germany, 1871–1939 (Princeton, NJ, 1974), p. 32.

Enemies in the Empire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War. Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi, Oxford University Press (2020). © Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198850151.001.0001

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The German Diaspora in the Empire  51 modernized mass-production in Britain and, indeed, other German regions. In East Elbian Prussia, agricultural production became increasingly industrialized. Labourers were employed on a seasonal basis, triggering internal and transnational migrations. Globalization processes in imperial Germany also led to elite migrations of merchants, industrialists, engineers, and other specialists. In numerical terms, religious and political emigration played a minor role and was mainly triggered by the failed 1848 revolutions and, after 1871, Bismarck’s repressive policies against Catholics and Socialists, although trickles of missionaries migrated throughout the nineteenth century. Declining overall figures from the 1890s were a consequence of deteriorating economic conditions in the United States in combination with a maturing industrial landscape and an expanding labour market within Germany.3 This global framework helps us to locate German migration to Britain and its Empire in terms of numbers and significance. It is useful to follow John Belich’s model of geographical reconfiguration. Australia and New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa lie geographically apart but should be seen as the ‘British West’ which, together with the American West, sucked in millions of European settlers, contributing to the rise of the ‘Angloworld’. Although Britain and the United States separated politically in 1783, they remained symbiotic pillars of a globally expanding Angloworld, bound by a common language, cultural foundations, and economic liberalism.4 We can therefore view German migration into the Empire as smaller streams of a much larger flow into the Angloworld. Migrants were attracted by the Empire’s global trading opportunities, developing industry, expansive land resources, and employment opportunities in both urban and rural settings. Another factor which should not be underestimated was racism. Anglo-Saxon kinship with Germanic tribes was mythologized into a common set of qualities such as work ethic, belief in law and institutions, and progressive thinking. The dynastic link between Hanover and Britain between 1714 and 1837 added further to a sense of togetherness. Germans—and also Scandinavians— were considered a perfect fit for white America, Britain, and the ‘British West’. Most of the time they were received with open arms, targeted by emigration agents and favourably discussed in public discourse. Other groups, in contrast, received a less welcoming reception between scepticism and downright racism: East European Jews, Southern Europeans, Chinese, and even the Irish who were 3 Oltmer, Migration, pp. 12–17; Toni Pierenkemper and Richard Tilly, The German Economy during the Nineteenth Century (New York, 2004), pp. 94–101; Peter Marschalck, Deutsche Überseewanderung im 19. Jahrhundert: Ein Beitrag zur soziologischen Theorie der Bevölkerung (Stuttgart, 1973); Markus  A.  Denzel, ed., Deutsche Eliten in Übersee (16. bis frühes 20. Jahrhundert) (St Katharinen, 2006); Panikos Panayi, The Germans in India: Elite European Migrants in the British Empire (Manchester, 2017), pp. 40–72. 4 James Belich, Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Angloworld (Oxford, 2009), pp. 68–70.

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52  Enemies in the Empire British yet Catholic.5 Already in the pre-war years, however, German-speakers started to be seen with increasing suspicion. This chapter pursues two aims: first, to give an overview of migration and settlement patterns of Germanspeakers in the British Empire before 1914. Second, to identify the dynamics of majority–minority interaction and perception which gradually turned ‘proven worthy ­settlers’6 into harbingers of colonial rivalry throughout the Empire. This diasporic aspect has, so far, not been considered in the literature on the growing Anglo-German antagonism.7 The last pre-war census which allows for some, if not a comprehensive, degree of correlation between territories was the Census of the British Empire 1901. More specific figures for 1914 will be given in the remainder of this study. For completeness figures for Turkish-born persons are added because they were technically enemy aliens during wartime and faced internment. The total of all those living in the Empire and originating from countries that would later form the Central Powers came to approximately 200,000 in 1901 (Table 3.1).

Germans in Britain What was the extent and social make-up of the German-speaking element in Britain and the Empire on the eve of war? During the nineteenth century we can  separate three different movements determined by geographical location. Although these overlap through circular and stage migration, they help us to develop a typological understanding of those who were interned after 4 August 1914: first, largely urban migration to Britain; second, both urban and rural migration to the settler colonies Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, all of which received dominion status before 1914; third, small elite migration into virtually all ‘non-white’ British overseas possessions. We will now discuss the three different types in turn. First Britain or, in John Belich’s terms, ‘Old Britain’ as opposed to the ‘British West’. For most of the nineteenth century, German-speaking migrants constituted the largest ethnic minority group apart from the Irish. The 1911 census counted 53,324, although

5  Ibid., pp. 63–5; Roger Daniels, Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life (New York, 2002); Marjory Harper and Stephen Constantine, Migration and Empire (Oxford, 2010); Robert Winder, Bloody Foreigners. The Story of Immigration to Britain (London, 2004); Kathrin Levitan, ‘“Sprung from Ourselves”: British Interpretations of Mid-Nineteenth Century Racial Demographics’, in Kent Fedorowich and Andrew S. Thompson, eds, Empire, Migration and Identity in the British World (Manchester, 2013), pp. 60–81. 6  Andrew Francis, ‘From “Proven Worthy Settlers” to “Lawless Hunnish Brutes”: Germans in New Zealand during the Great War’, in Panikos Panayi, ed., Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, 2014), pp. 289–310. 7 Paul  M.  Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914 (London, 1980); Jan Rüger, The Great Naval Game: Britain and Germany in the Age of Empire (Cambridge, 2007).

Females     16   441 31     105     2,764 1,124 172 1     16   29 8 6 2,288 2,812

Germany

Males     17 1 1,255 60  

  340 1   4,696 1,917 496 20         58 29 4 6,344 5,282

 

Place of residence England and Wales, Scotland Ireland Malta Cyprus India Ceylon Singapore/ Straits Settlements Federated Malay States Hong Kong Gambia Sierra Leone Cape of Good Hope Natal Orange River Colony Mauritius Seychelles Canada Bermudas St Lucia Trinidad and Tobago British Honduras Falkland Islands New South Wales Victoria

 

  5 87 37 10 8,632 7,594

21 445 1 64 7,460 3,041 668 21 7 27,300

69,222 1,057 33 1 1,696 91 350

Total

  10     1,007 18 102 1         4     594 337

Males     12 7 426 10     16     154 4 13                 73 66

Females     26 6 105 2  

Austria-Hungary

  4 1,161 22 115 1   28,407 4   4     667 403

2 26

  12,649 81 38 13 531 12 66

Total

Table 3.1  Birthplaces of persons living in the British Empire, 1901: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey

  2     259               59     39 38

Males     116 712 578 14  

Turkey

        119               39     17 6

Females     103 381 244 6  

Continued

    378       1 367     98     56 44

1 2

  1,589   219 1,093 822 20 38

Total

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7,668 3,958 1,255 482 2,726    

Queensland South Australia Western Australia Tasmania New Zealand Fiji TOTAL

5,495 2,696 267 291 1,454    

13,163 6,654 1,522 773 4,180 62 149,140

Total 186 133 390 21 1,713    

43 29 28 2 161    

Austria-Hungary 229 162 418 23 1,874 1 46,599

Total 75 130 39 40 17    

Turkey

   

28 60 10 19 10

  5,156

103 190 49 59 27

Total

Notes: The Empire census only gives a summary ‘European’ figure for Scotland. The UK figure of 69,222 is composed of 65,990 from the Empire census and 3,232 from the 1901 Census for Scotland. These and other inherent inconsistencies in the Empire census mean that the grand total given there has to be seen as an approximate figure. The categorization for Hong Kong is ‘according to race’. South Africa does not include Transvaal which became part of the Union of South Africa in 1910. Source: Census of the British Empire, 1901; Census for England and Wales, 1901.

Germany

 

Table 3.1  Continued

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The German Diaspora in the Empire  55 contemporaneous estimates and recent microhistorical findings arrive at higher figures of around 100,000, which would include the second and subsequent generations. Ethnic neighbourhoods sprang up in London (which hosted half the total), Manchester, Bradford, Liverpool, Glasgow, and other urban industrial ­centres. The most numerous professional groups consisted of merchants and foreign correspondence clerks, mainly trading with their mother country. They filled a skills gap in foreign languages and improved their own proficiency in English. Many of them later re-migrated or moved on to other destinations. This was also true for waiters who were a ubiquitous sight in British cafés and restaurants. The ‘German waiter’ was a familiar stereotype, similar to the ‘Polish plumber’ in early twenty-first-century Britain or the ‘Mexican gardener’ in the United States. Examples of network migration included pork butchers from the southwest German Hohenlohe region moving to Liverpool, and sugar bakers from the Hanover region to east London. The presence of German musicians reflected the high regard for German music in Britain. Teachers and lecturers reflected the growing reception of German science and language. Other widely represented occupations were bakers, confectioners, and hairdressers.8 The occupational overview confirms Thomas Sowell’s global observation that the nineteenth-century German diaspora was a comparatively skilled group occupying qualified and elite positions in a wide variety of host societies.9 Nationalists and the general public on both sides took notice. As Germany developed into Britain’s economic and military competitor around 1900, the immigrant group started to be viewed with increasing scepticism. For example, in his book Music and Nationalism (1911), the English composer and music critic Cecil Forsyth likened the dominance of German music to the navy race. For him, every German opera played on a British stage was comparable to a German battleship lying in the dry docks of Portsmouth. Forsyth suggested that German musicians should be completely extradited to make room for British musicians. Widely read spy novels such as The Invasion of 1910 by William Le Queux depicted Germans in Britain as spies of the Kaiser who would be ready to strike and support the German army after invasion.10 Nationalists in Germany also took notice. They pressed for settler colonies where emigrants’ skills would play into the Fatherland’s aspirations rather than being lost as ‘fertilizer’ for other nations (‘Völkerdünger’).11 8  Panikos Panayi, German Immigrants in Britain during the Nineteenth Century, 1815–1914 (Oxford, 1995); Stefan Manz, Migranten und Internierte: Deutsche in Glasgow, 1864–1918 (Stuttgart, 2003). 9  Thomas Sowell, Migrations and Cultures: A World View (New York, 1996), pp. 50–104. 10  Sven Oliver Müller, ‘ “A Musical Clash of Civilisations?” Musical Transfers and Rivalries around 1900’, in Dominik Geppert and Robert Gerwarth, eds, Wilhelmine Germany and Edwardian Britain: Essays on Cultural Affinity (Oxford, 2008), pp. 305–29; Nicholas Hiley, ‘Decoding German Spies: British Spy Fiction, 1908–1918’, in Wesley K. Wark, ed., Spy Fiction, Spy Films and Real Intelligence (London, 1991), pp. 55–79. 11  Sebastian Conrad, Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 275–333.

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56  Enemies in the Empire Already before 1914, Germans in Britain found themselves between the frontlines of a nationalist popular discourse which contributed to their fragile status. The ground was prepared for this discourse to erupt after 1914 when public speakers pronounced that ‘the fabric of our industrial, commercial and social life has been honeycombed by the influence of Germans who contribute nothing to our national prosperity, nothing to the promulgation of those ideals of honour and truth on which our glorious Empire rests’.12 Migrants themselves were not passive bystanders in nationalist exchanges. Although the majority tried to integrate and keep away from potential friction themes, key ethnic leaders spread the nationalist gospel. A substantial com­pil­ ation published by ethnic community leaders in London in 1913, for example, gave an overview of German life in Britain. Its panegyric preface was dedicated to Wilhelm II whose achievements were likened to those of ‘an Alexander, a Cesar, a Napoleon’.13 Some associations introduced in the compilation include a London branch of the radical Gesellschaft für deutsche Kolonisation (German Colonization Society). The branch had 200 members and was inspired by the notorious colonialist and ‘adventurous psychopath’14 Carl Peters. Another association was the Central League for German Navy Clubs Abroad which had branches in London and Glasgow, as well as 165 more across the world. Its aims were, first, to collect remittances from emigrants for the German battle fleet and, second, ‘to foster the national spirit of Germans living abroad and to tie them closely to the fatherland’.15 This was at a time when the German battle fleet was the epitome of Anglo-German tensions.16 Some religious leaders did not stand aloof. Most of the pastors heading the twenty-seven German Protestant congregations in Britain had been ordained in Germany in an atmosphere of ‘Pastorennationalismus’ and reproduced this outlook abroad. The Kaiser’s birthday on 27 January, for example, was celebrated in special services and generated, in the words of one pastor, ‘a flood of patriotic enthusiasm on the birthday of our beloved Kaiser’.17 Most of the individuals and communities discussed in this overview did not consider themselves to be representatives of the Reich’s global interests, whether economic, political, or cultural. They migrated for professional or personal reasons and led those transnational lives that have been a hallmark of global modernity.18 12  Strathclyde Regional Archives Glasgow PA11/II/4, Enemy Alien Danger, Safety of the Realm, 13 June 1916. 13  Anglo-German Publishing Company, ed., Die Deutsche Kolonie in England (London, 2013), p. 5. 14  Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, Vol. III (Munich, 1995), p. 984. 15  BA/MA/RM3/9921–1, Central League for German Navy Clubs Abroad, Annual Report 1900; Stefan Manz, Constructing a German Diaspora: The ‘Greater German Empire’, 1871–1914 (New York, 2014), pp. 98–132. 16 Rüger, Great Naval Game. 17  Reinhard Münchmeyer, In der Fremde: Einige Zeugnisse aus der Auslandsarbeit (Marburg, 1905), p. 63; Manz, Idem, pp. 176–226. 18  Desley Deacon et al., eds, Transnational Lives: Biographies of Global Modernity, 1700–Present (Basingstoke, 2010).

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The German Diaspora in the Empire  57 ‘The’ German abroad did not exist. What did exist were extremely heterogeneous groups of individuals of different geographical regions, political convictions, religious beliefs, and social backgrounds, all moving into, and within, very different contact zones.19 Nevertheless, ideas of a Greater German Empire composed of a closely knit and Reich-oriented diaspora started to radiate from the metropole and were propounded by ethnic leaders abroad. Unification in 1871 created a national focal point for these discursive endeavours, and the process gained further momentum from the 1890s onwards as the Reich demanded its ‘place in the sun’ on the global stage. In public discourse, emigrants were now reconfigured as constituent elements of a Greater German Empire. They were thus inevitably drawn—and also drew themselves—into the competing forces which ultimately led to the global conflagration of the First World War. In a range of host societies, utterances by ethnic leaders exacerbated colonial sensitivities, adding to a sense of global threat emanating from the Reich. This thematic thread will be followed through in the following paragraphs. The chapter thus develops two key arguments. First, wartime Germanophobia did not descend out of nowhere on an apolitical victim group. Examining German diasporic configurations and their interaction with British colonial settings generates a more differentiated and dynamic picture which bore the potential for friction long before 1914. The second argument is of a historiographical nature. Current reconceptualizations of the ‘British World’ appreciate the centrality of diaspora, networks, and transnationalism in connecting and defining the Empire. They rightly recommend that this framework should also inform the research agenda, and maintain that migrants as mediators of intercultural transfer have been underrepresented in these histories. This scholarship, however, is itself largely focused on emigration from the British Isles. In key research on ‘Migration and Empire’, non-British Europeans are virtually non-existent, whether as ‘normal’ migrants before 1914 or as enemy aliens during both world wars.20 This approach neglects integral elements of the imperial world. We just need to ‘listen in’. A methodologically innovative study on soundscapes and ethnicity in the border-straddling Great Lakes region helps us to do so. The eavesdropping listener around 1900 would have heard mostly German in large parts of the region, whether spoken in private, exclaimed in public with nationalistic fervour, or sung during festivities.21 This is just one example where studying German-speaking immigrants can lead to new perspectives in Empire scholarship. What are the grey zones between whiteness, nationality, and Britishness? What do British 19  H. Glenn Penny and Stefan Rinke, eds, Rethinking Germans Abroad, Special Issue of Geschichte und Gesellschaft, vol. 41 (Göttingen, 2015); Krista O’Donnell et al., eds, The Heimat Abroad: The Boundaries of Germanness (Ann Arbor, MI, 2005); Mathias Schulze et al., eds, German Diasporic Experiences: Identity, Migration, and Loss (Waterloo, 2008). 20 Harper, Migration and Empire; Fedorowich, Empire. 21 Barbara Lorenzowski, Sounds of Ethnicity: Listening to German North America, 1850–1914 (Winnipeg, 2010).

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58  Enemies in the Empire responses to German immigration tell us about imperial anxieties? Can narratives of racialist white openness be upheld in the light of the virulent Germanophobia during the First World War? There is currently no comprehensive monograph on German migration to the British Empire, and this chapter can only touch upon a number of aspects which are constitutive to understanding the subsequent chapters.

Germans in Settler Colonies The second type of movement was that into ‘white’ settler colonies. Any typology, though, is fraught with inconsistencies at the edges, and this one is no exception. A closer look at migration patterns shows that a clear demarcation between ‘Old Britain’ and the overseas Empire cannot be drawn. For many German migrants Britain merely acted as a stepping stone. Transmigrants flocked through British ports on their way to overseas destinations. Until mid-century there was no direct passenger connection between mainland Europe and British colonial territories. The main route went from Hamburg to Hull, then by train to Liverpool, and then overseas. By the 1880s most of the overseas migration from Bremen was direct, but over 50 per cent of those leaving from Hamburg still first went through Britain, not least because, at 35 Marks, fares were almost a third cheaper than those for direct transport.22 Other groups stayed longer before moving on. Many of the above-mentioned sugar bakers from Hanover, for example, first worked in London for a while before either re-migrating or migrating on to Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.23 In the absence of a substantial overseas Empire, two groups in particular were making use of British Empire structures to reach the farthest corners of the globe with their gospel and goods. These were missionaries and merchants. Around mid-century, there was close cooperation between continental and British missionary societies. Those from the Berlin and the Basel societies who were destined for Africa and India were first sent to London. Here they received training from the Church Missionary Society and the London Missionary Society, who would then send them abroad. As the German Empire developed global infrastructures in the latter part of the century, this form of step migration would lessen in importance. Missionaries were increasingly sent abroad directly, and after the outbreak of war would experience internment just like other professional groups.24 22  Ulrike Kirchberger, Aspekte deutsch-britischer Expansion: Die Überseeinteressen der deutschen Migranten in Großbritannien in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1999), p. 30. 23  Horst Rössler, ‘Sugarbakers, Farmers, Goldminers: From Hanover via London to New Zealand’, in Stefan Manz, Margrit Schulte Beehrbühl, and John R. Davis, eds, Transnational Networks: German Migrants in the British Empire, 1670–1914 (Leiden, 2012), pp. 101–16. 24 Kirchberger, Aspekte, pp. 247–8; Panayi, Germans in India, pp. 11–21.

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The German Diaspora in the Empire  59 International German merchant houses also pursued a kind of staged movement into the Empire, following a pattern which had existed at least since the eighteenth century. Continental houses wishing to trade with British colonies first sent one or more representatives (who would often be family members) to London. Here these representatives would seek naturalization, which then afforded them all legal rights to make full use of London’s imperial trading routes for continental goods. Other representatives would be sent to strategic places in the Empire. Merchants felt particular pressure to become naturalized. Before the 1870 Naturalisation Act, foreigners were not allowed to own land or British ships. Even after 1870 they were not entitled ‘to any right or privilege as a British subject’. Although they were now entitled to purchase land within Britain, they still could neither obtain British ships or land outside the UK nor run for public office.25 Ironically, this pressure would later turn out to be a blessing since, as British citizens, they would be exempt from internment except in some instances in Australia and New Zealand. It is equally ironic that before 1914 many of these wealthy merchants had been propounding pro-German allegiance as ethnic leaders.26 Cosmopolitanism continued to exist in transnational trading communities around the world, but it started to suffer cracks caused by nationalist pretensions radiating from European countries of origin.27 Merchants, missionaries, and sugar bakers were part of a larger movement of Germans into British ‘white’ settler colonies. Let us start the following overview with Australia. The main period was between 1840 and 1890 when around 70,000 German-speakers arrived. Most of them were Lutheran, easing integration into the majority culture. Many settled in rural areas and small towns, although the occupational composition was just as diversified as that in the Americas. Agriculture dominated in rural areas, with viticulture being an area which has been particularly influenced by the influx of German skills. In the cities, Germans worked as artisans, labourers, traders, businessmen, and industrialists. One of them was the founder of one of Australia’s largest breweries, Edmund Resch. Despite naturalization, he would later be interned. Numbers peaked in the 1850s and 1860s when the gold rush attracted adventurous young men not only to California and Alaska, but also to Australia. At the same time, Queensland recruited 11,000 farmers and farm labourers from various German regions, receiving support from the British 25 Mervyn  J.  Jones, British Nationality Law and Practice (Oxford, 1947), appendix  1.2 (quote); Andreas Fahrmeir, Citizens and Aliens. Foreigners and the Law in Britain and the German States, 1789–1870 (New York, 2000), pp. 47–52, 69–75; Stephen Conway, Britannia’s Auxiliaries: Continental Europeans and the British Empire, 1740–1800 (Oxford, 2017); Margrit Schulte Beerbühl, The Forgotten Majority: German Merchants in London, Naturalization, and Global Trade 1660–1815 (New York, 2015). 26 Stefan Manz, ‘ “Wir stehen fest zusammen/Zu Kaiser und zu Reich!” Nationalism among Germans in Britain, 1871–1918’, German Life and Letters, vol. 55 (2002), pp. 398–415. 27  Andreas Gestrich and Margrit Schulte Beerbühl, eds, Cosmopolitan Networks in Commerce and Society, 1660–1914 (London, 2011); Charles A. Jones, International Business in the Nineteenth Century: The Rise and Fall of a Cosmopolitan Bourgeoisie (Brighton, 1987).

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60  Enemies in the Empire government. This was organized by Johann Christian Heussler, a German merchant living in Brisbane who was appointed Emigration Agent for the Continent of Europe. Noteworthy are the explorers and natural scientists who contributed to mapping the geographical, zoological, and botanical environment of the continent. These included Ludwig Leichhardt, who was the first to lead an expedition through Australia’s northwest; Wilhelm Blandowski, the Government Zoologist of Victoria; and Johann Krefft, the cur­ator of the Australian Museum in Sydney. By 1890, 6 per cent of the Australian population were first- or second-generation German-speakers. Queensland and South Australia had a higher concentration at 10–12 per cent. Numbers declined by 1914, but since the proportion of women and birth rates was comparatively high, the ethnic minority numbered well over 100,000 on the eve of war.28 Attempts by metropolitan as well as diasporic discourse leaders to construct and mobilize ‘bonds of loyalty’29 with the homeland were obvious in Australia just like anywhere else in the world. Even before unification in 1871, Germans living abroad were represented as models of desired national unity. The periodical Globus, for example, contended in 1862 that in Australia ‘the German stands up for that which he is, as a German, and recognizes only one legitimate flag, that of the schwarz-rot-gold’.30 After unification this call was not ignored abroad. The German-Australian Nationalfest was held annually on 18 January to celebrate the foundation of the German Empire on that day in 1871. In the years before 1914, the Nationalfest regularly drew 3,000 German Australians, carrying banner slogans such as ‘With God for Kaiser and Fatherland’ and listening to speeches about monarchy, fatherland, and ‘the awe-inspiring German Navy’.31 Some clearly tested the limits of majority culture sensitivities. The radical expansionist Pan-German League (Alldeutscher Verband) had been able to recruit a few hundred members in Australia by 1897. Most of them, however, quickly withdrew after the Australian press had been informed and they were fearing for their societal position. The General Consul in Australia and New Zealand observed that Germans tried to avoid everything that would offend the feelings of their Australian fellow citizens.32 But some were already walking on thin ice. Language preservation was deemed important to convey the true spirit of Lutheranism to the next generation. As the century progressed, it was also 28 Jürgen Tampke, The Germans in Australia (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 72–106; Gerhard Fischer, ‘Fighting the War at Home: The Campaign against Enemy Aliens in Australia during the First World War’, in Panikos Panayi, ed., Minorities in Wartime: National and Racial Groupings in Europe, North America and Australia during the Two World Wars (Oxford, 1993), pp. 263–86; Belich, Replenishing, p. 62. 29 Frederick C. Luebke, Bonds of Loyalty: German-Americans and World War I (De Kalb, IL, 1974). 30  Quoted in Bradley D. Naranch, ‘Inventing the Auslandsdeutsche: Emigration, Colonial Fantasy, and German National Identity, 1848–1871’, in Eric Ames et al., eds, Germany’s Colonial Pasts (Lincoln, NE, 2005), pp. 21–40 (31). 31 Tampke, Germans, p. 112. 32 Amandus Wulff, Die Rolle der Flottenbewegung bei der Durchsetzung einer imperialistischen Politik in Deutschland 1897 bis 1900 (Rostock, 1966), pp. 114–15.

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The German Diaspora in the Empire  61 considered an important marker on the metaphorical battlefield of competing nationalities. Melbourne can serve as a case history. In 1899, resident Germans founded the Deutscher Schulverein von Viktoria (Victoria School Association), establishing a Saturday school attended by eighty children. The relatively modest levels of language preservation generated a whole arsenal of nation-related rhet­ oric at both ends of the globe. The conservative National Zeitung applauded that ‘our countrymen in Victoria are leading a brave fight for the preservation of the German mother-tongue’. This, according to the newspaper, had generally led to an invigoration of German Geist on distant shores. The Vossische Zeitung praised the ‘healthy national attitude’ of the school association which came to the fore not just through ‘noisy hurrah-patriotism’ but mainly through a serious display of Germany’s cultural achievements.33 The association had 916 members in 1903 which, at the same time, joined the Germany-based Association for Germandom Abroad (Verein für das Deutschtum im Auslande; VDA). The 1905 annual report of the Victoria School Association explained its ideological foundations: It is often deplored that no other Volk on earth is as susceptible to alien folkways, and that no nation commands as little assertiveness as the German one . . . Thank God, since the power of the German Empire extends across the globe and its strong arm protects the German folk-comrades (Volksgenossen) against arbitrary injustice, this situation has been much improved. He is not the servant of other people (Völkerknecht) anymore . . . The powerful stream of our invigorated Volkstum has reached . . . even the remotest body-parts and members of the German Volk-body.34

The German General Consul in Sydney urged the Reich to allocate financial support to the school since preservation of their national bonds would have economic and political advantages. In the first place, if migrants purchased German goods, this had the potential to spill into the host society and create a sizeable market; secondly, the hard-working attitude of the migrant group created a positive image of Germany; and thirdly, although Australia was British, political upheavals were always a possibility, and in case parts of Australia were to become German, it could be beneficial to have a good number of Reich-loyal Germans there. It was therefore worthwhile for the Reich to grant support for schools as major outposts of Germandom in Australia.35 Migrants were clearly pulled into competing colonial interests. Although these aspects are important for understanding the complex facets of wartime Germanophobia, it is crucial to note that, for the most part, 33  National Zeitung, 16 July 1903; Vossische Zeitung, 22 December 1905. 34  BA/R901/39006, Annual Report Deutscher Schulverein von Viktoria 1905. 35  BA/R901/39006, Imperial German General Consulate Sydney to German Foreign Office, 18 June 1903.

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62  Enemies in the Empire German-speakers were a welcome immigrant group in Australia. This was even true immediately after 1 August 1914. As Gerhard Fischer explains: ‘It is not surprising that the first reactions of Australians after the outbreak of the war were characterized by expressions of good will, friendship and a recognition of a past history of trouble-free relations’. However, Fischer also adds that there had been ‘very real if latent tensions and differences’,36 and these forcefully erupted, first after news of German atrocities in Belgium were reported in the Australian press in the autumn of 1914, and then from April 1915 when Anzacs fighting in Gallipoli made the war concrete for the Australian public. In New Zealand, patterns of immigration and reception were similar to Australia. European settlement in the colony started from the 1840s, and German-speakers were part of this stream throughout the century. On the Southern Island they founded settlements such as Ranzau and Sarau, established churches, schools, and clubs, and mainly worked as farmers and skilled craftsmen. In the North Island there were settlements in the Auckland and Wellington regions. By 1914 around 10,000 New Zealanders were German, either by birth or by descent, thus constituting the largest immigrant community from continental Europe. Whilst Chinese immigrants were met with stiff discrimination, German—and also Scandinavian—settlers were welcomed as ‘proven worthy settlers’.37 Yet here as well the potential for tensions never ceased to simmer beneath the surface. Symbolic ties with a fatherland which had achieved uni­ fication through ‘blood and soil’ persisted. The Protestant congregation in Christchurch petitioned Bismarck personally to receive the metal of captured guns from the Franco-Prussian War for casting their church bells.38 Later in the century, Germany’s power-political expansion into the South Pacific caused some disquiet. New Zealanders felt vulnerable and not sufficiently protected by Britain. The press reiterated reports about Germany’s threat to the stability of the Empire. In combination with the above-mentioned spy novels, the ground was prepared for wartime Germanophobia.39 A deterministic view would be misleading, though. Considering the whole period of immigration, Germans integrated well and, just as elsewhere, were a minority in decline in the immediate pre-war years. The German General Consul to Australia visited New Zealand in 1909 and commented about his visit to the erstwhile flourishing German Lutheran congregation in Christchurch: ‘In the church hang those bells that were cast from the metal of seized French cannons and which were donated by the then Reich-government; but the church has been in English possession for several years now . . . [It is] 36  Fischer, ‘Fighting’, p. 266. 37 Johannes Voigt, ‘Deutsche in Australien und Neuseeland’, in Bade, Deutsche im Ausland, pp. 215–30; Francis, ‘Proven Worthy Settlers’, pp. 290–4; Tanja Bueltmann, ‘Ethnizität und Organisierte Geselligkeit: Das Assoziationswesen deutscher Migranten in Neuseeland im mittleren und späten 19. Jahrhundert’, Historische Zeitschrift, vol. 295 (2012), pp. 660–89. 38  The Star (Christchurch), 14 May 1873. 39  Francis, ‘Proven Worthy Settlers’, pp. 290–4.

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The German Diaspora in the Empire  63 saddening to go past the visible gravestones of withering Germandom’.40 The ruptures of the First World War hit a minority culture which had already been in decline. In South Africa, the generic Dutch label ‘Boers’ for the first white settlers obscures the fact that a large proportion of these were in fact German. They had been an integral part of white settlement from the mid-seventeenth century as farmers, craftsmen, merchants, teachers, missionaries, scientists, and many other occupations. Considerable numbers were employed as soldiers by the Dutch East India Company to defend the Cape. Others came as viticulturists and gave impulses to the local wine industry—which produced the favourite tipple of Frederick the Great as well as exiled Napoleon in nearby St Helena. By the time Dutch rule came to an end in 1806, around 27 per cent of the Afrikaner population had a German background. More came during Germany’s emigration wave in the 1850s, settling especially in the Eastern Cape Province and founding settlements such as Berlin, Potsdam, Wiesbaden, and Braunschweig. The Berlin and Hermannsburg missionary societies played an important role in sending not only missionaries but also colonists. When diamond and gold mining led to sprawling conurbations such as Johannesburg and Kimberley in South Africa’s interior, entrepreneurs and engineers were attracted.41 South Africa allows us to observe cultural appropriation, political instrumentalization, and the resulting wedge between ethnicities before 1914. For Pan-German ideologues who strove to unite Deutschtum (Germandom) in Europe and beyond, the cultural closeness between Boers and Germans was reason enough to see these as one entity. The malleable nature of ethnic belonging could easily be twisted in a Pan-German sense. This observation is also relevant for diasporic communities in other world regions. Attempts to define ethno-national characteristics for the purpose of inclusion and ‘othering’ do not do justice to the multi-layered nature of identity. Rather, they pursue a specific, mostly political agenda. The fact that these attempts proved destructive for German communities in Brazil42 and elsewhere can also be observed in South Africa. For the main organ of the Pan-Germans, the Alldeutsche Blätter, there was one ‘German-Boer Volk-community’, and the Boers were ‘Germans by blood and descent, by language, by national character, as well as everything else that concerns their Volkstum’. The constructed likeness  was  instrumentalized for power-political ends. There were firm hopes that, as one force, Afrikaners and Germans would withstand British imperialist encroachment in South Africa and thus create new living space for the Germanic 40  Quoted in ‘Voigt’, Deutsche, p. 221. 41 Belich, Replenishing, p. 63; Lize Kriel, ‘Heimat in the Veld? German Afrikaners of Missionary Descent and Their Imaginings of Women and Home’, in Penny, Rethinking, pp. 228–56; Tilman Dedering, ‘ “Avenge the Lusitania”: The Anti-German Riots in South Africa in 1915’, in Panayi, Germans as Minorities, pp. 235–63 (237). 42 Frederik Schulze, Auswanderung als nationalistisches Projekt: ‘Deutschtum’ und Kolonialdiskurse im  südlichen Brasilien, 1824–1941 (Cologne, 2016); Frederick  C.  Luebke, Germans in Brazil: A Comparative History of Cultural Conflict During World War I (Baton Rouge, LA, 1987).

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64  Enemies in the Empire race—foreshadowing later conceptions of Nazi-Lebensraum. Nationalists demanded that local newspapers had the duty to ‘incessantly remind the hard-working low German Volk-tribe of the voice of their blood, to point out to him daily and hourly his destined position within the entire Deutschtum which he has to occupy if he does not wish to be washed away by the high tide of the English world economy!’43 In this conception, Afrikaans was simply a Low German dialect, and this was reflected in demographic interpretations. In 1906, cartographer Paul Langhans counted ‘German’ populations around the world and came to the conclusion that in British South Africa these accounted for 565,000, and that of these 530,000 spoke Low German.44 Stripped of their ideological pretensions, these figures can nevertheless be useful to gauge the scope of the German immigrant community. Although Langhans’ interpretations are questionable, his actual figures were generally accurate. Taking away the Low German contingent leaves 35,000 German-speakers. The South African census counted 12,798 German-born in 1911. Adding second-generation and longer-standing German communities, 35,000 appears realistic. The rise of the Angloworld was a reality, and diasporic communities were mobilized to create a momentum of push-back. This was particularly explosive for Anglo-German colonial rivalries before and during the Second South African War. It would be misleading to represent the Pan-German position as being aloof from political practice and public opinion. As David Blackbourn puts it, ‘these views were not confined to a lunatic fringe’.45 It is only against the backdrop of a constructed Boer–German affinity that the roots of Wilhelm II’s Krüger Depesche can be understood. On 3 October 1896, he wrote a telegram to the president of Transvaal, Ohm Krüger, congratulating him on a military success in the Jameson Raid against British forces. The telegram was interpreted by Britain as an interference with internal British affairs, adding to diplomatic Anglo-German tensions. Within Germany, however, it was a reflection of widespread sympathy with the fate of the Boers in their struggle against English hegemony. The outbreak of war in 1899 generated a flood of anti-British and pro-Boer proclamations. When the Boer States finally surrendered in May 1902, the reaction of prominent news­ paper editor and Pan-Germanist, Theodor Reismann-Grone, was representative: ‘Now Africa is also lost for Deutschtum. In Africa Deutschtum will also be nothing more than the fertilizer of other peoples (Völkerdünger)’.46 Navy agitation in South Africa existed, with local branches of the Navy League in Cape Town, Worcester, Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, and Pretoria. At the 43  Fritz Bley, Südafrika niederdeutsch! (Munich, 1898), p. 68. 44  Paul Langhans, ‘Die Volkszahl der Deutschen: Verteilung der Deutschen über die Erde’, in Alfred Geiser, Deutsches Reich und Volk: Ein nationales Handbuch (Munich, 1906), pp. 215–17. 45 David Blackbourn, History of Germany, 1780–1918: The Long Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 2003), p. 334. 46  Quoted in Harald Rosenbach, Das Deutsche Reich, Großbritannien und der Transvaal, 1896–1902: Anfänge deutsch-britischer Entfremdung (Göttingen, 1993), p. 305.

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The German Diaspora in the Empire  65 height of war in 1900, the British military authorities ordered the club in Bloemfontein to close down, and other clubs had to suspend their activities temporarily. By 1905, however, all activities had been resumed and the Bloemfontein club was re-established. The two colonial spheres also came in contact during the visit of the SMS Vineta to Cape Town in November 1904. The navy club expressed its gratitude to the Kaiser ‘that he had sent such a magnificent warship’ (‘prächtiges Kriegsfahrzeug’) and organized a banquet for the ship’s officer. The speeches included one for the Kaiser and one for the King of England.47 The situation was detrimental not only to international but also to interethnic relations. Pan-German ideas were communicated to emigrant communities through publications, performances, churches, and schools. Ethnic theatre productions were turned into patriotic displays praising the Kaiser and Germany’s glorious past and future.48 Close to forty German Lutheran congregations were established in South Africa between the 1850s and 1914 in all provinces. The majority of them were affiliated with the Prussian or Hanoverian state churches, the latter connection being a legacy of the erstwhile personal union with Britain. There were also seventeen German schools. Underpinned by notions of cultural imperialism, German government support for these institutions abroad was increased significantly in the latter part of the century. This included sending out pastors and teachers who had been socialized in the nationalistic atmosphere of Wilhelminian Germany. An article in the South African periodical for German congregations criticized Germans who anglicized their names as unmanly traitors to their national heritage. According to the author, the main pillars in the ‘fight for the preservation of national characteristics (Volkstum)’ were faith and language. He created the picture of a beleaguered German minority in danger of cultural assimilation: ‘Church and school, religion and language: this is the battle cry of a race whenever it goes to war for its Volkstum’.49 Constant frictions with the British authorities simmered in connection with the St Martini church and affiliated school in Cape Town. During the 1880s, the city hosted around 1,000 Germans, most of whom had taken on British nationality. When Germany started to establish its protectorate in neighbouring Southwest Africa, the school gained, in the eyes of the Foreign Office, a new strategic significance as a German institutional presence in the region and possible schooling facility for expected colonial immigrants.50 The school was decorated with pictures of the German Emperor and Empress. In the wake of the Boer War and 47 Manz, Constructing, pp. 122, 271. Quote from BA/MA/RM 3/9922–7, Navy Club Cape Town to Central League for German Navy Clubs Abroad, 16 November 1904. 48 Christiane Rahner, ‘Vom Kriegerverein zur Kirchenhalle: Das deutschsprachige Theater in Südafrika’, in Laurence Kitching, ed., Die Geschichte des deutschsprachigen Theaters im Ausland: Von Afrika bis Wisconsin: Anfänge und Entwicklungen (Frankfurt, 2000), pp. 179–91. 49 Manz, Constructing, pp. 176–226; Deutscher Evangelischer Volksbote für Südafrika, 6 January 1912. 50  BA/R901/39023, Foreign Office to Kaiser, 21 February 1889.

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66  Enemies in the Empire Anglo-German frictions, it was asked to introduce English as the language of instruction—a decision that was interpreted by the Hamburger Nachrichten as an act of British ‘imperial chauvinism’. Irrespective of the sensitive situation, it then decided to become independent from the British education authority, thereby losing its local funding but being able to carry on instruction in German. The metropolitan press found this a potential ‘cultural act of highest significance’, and the Foreign Office increased funding to guarantee independence.51 The situation developed into an open row after comments made by the General Consul in Cape Town, Von Humboldt-Dachröden. In a speech to the Deutscher Klub on the Kaiser’s birthday he explained that German Southwest Africa was now ‘covered with German blood [through] heroic fighting against a wild enemy and nature, and thus has to occupy a special place in our German hearts’. He reminded his compatriots that they now had the duty to create a ‘centre of Germanism’ in South Africa in the form of the St Martini School. This would be very much in the interest of the Kaiser.52 Local reactions were understandably touchy, with the Cape Times stressing that this was a British and not a German colony. Oral explanatory remarks by the Consul were then printed in faulty English the next day, aggravating the situation even further. In his report to the German Foreign Office, Von Humboldt-Dachröden described his words as harmless and the hosts’ reaction as ‘exaggerated colonial sensitivity’. The newspaper Windhuker Nachrichten condemned the Consul’s actions as damaging for the standing of the minority. This was sharply refuted by the German newspaper in South Africa, the Deutsche Nachrichten, as well as by a mass gathering in the Deutsches Haus in Cape Town which expressed praise and full trust in Humboldt-Dachröden’s support for the school.53 This episode leads to two conclusions. First, although it would be erroneous to assume that emigrants were imbued in toto with Pan-German attitudes, these ideas nevertheless made inroads into interethnic discourses on the eve of war. Second, the instrumentalization of religion and schooling had turned ethnic contact zones into colonial friction zones. The ground was prepared for the Germanophobic violence which was to break out after August 1914 not only in South Africa but also in other parts of the world. Already during the Anglo-Boer War, Germans suspected of pro-Boer sympathies had experienced internment. Many of them had a déjà-vu experience when they were interned for a second time only fifteen years later.54 The discussion of German movement into white settler colonies concludes with Canada. The pre-war census of 1911 counted 393,320 persons of German 51  Hamburger Nachrichten, 24 February 1905; Leipziger Tageblatt, 5 October 1903; Tägliche Rundschau, 3 October 1903. 52  Berliner Neueste Nachrichten, 11 March 1907. 53  BA/R901/39023, Consulate Cape Town to Foreign Office, 5 February 1907; Cape Times, 30 and 31 January 1907; Windhuker Nachrichten, 10 January 1907; Schlesische Zeitung, 19 March 1907. 54  For examples see G. W. Wagener, Bericht über meine Gefangenschaft in Süd-Afrika und England (Berlin, 1916).

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The German Diaspora in the Empire  67 origin. This figure is considerably higher than that in Table  3.1 which only counted birthplaces. For the internment context it is important also to point to the substantial contingent of immigration from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, totalling 18,178 in 1901 and rising to 110,925 in 1911. Many of these did not speak German but rather Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Ukrainian, and other languages from multi-ethnic Austria-Hungary. After August 1914 they were ‘enemy aliens’ just like German-speakers and experienced internment. Targeted registration in September 1914 showed that since 1911 an additional 15,868 Germans and 66,911 Austro-Hungarians had arrived. Together with the 1,861 Turks (1911), the number of foreigners in Canada with close connections to enemy countries therefore stood at just under 600,000.55 As Alexander Freund rightly points out, the migrant group was heterogeneous to the extent that it is almost nonsensical to apply the label ‘German’. It included the descendants of those who had migrated to Eastern Europe since the Middle Ages and later moved on to Canada, maintaining language, religion (e.g., Lutherans, Catholics, Mennonites, Moravians), and group identities (e.g., Sudeten Germans, Danube Swabians, Transylvanian Saxons).56 Those who arrived directly from Germany from mid-century moved into a diverse range of rural and urban occupations. These later arrivals tended to have more attachment to the nascent and, after 1871, consolidated nation state. Berlin in Ontario, which had a substantial German-speaking community and was renamed Kitchener in 1916, can be taken as an example. The Franco-Prussian War and German unification in 1870–1 triggered enthusiastic celebrations. The Berliner Journal derided the ‘outrageous boisterousness’ of France and rejoiced when it was lying ‘nearly defenceless at Germany’s feet’. More than 10,000 flocked into Berlin from across Ontario for celebrations and listening to speeches. Banners were hung with pictures of William I, Otto von Bismarck, and Helmuth von Moltke. Slogans such as ‘Long live a united Germany’ adorned the streets. Although enthusiasm somewhat subsided in subsequent decades in light of the Reich’s authoritarian development, ‘1871’ had long-lasting effects as German Canadians were now perceived as one national group.57 Barbara Lorenzowski convincingly argues that the peace jubilees of 1871, ‘with their joint celebration of nation and ethnicity, added a new layer of identity to both the self-image and the public image of German migrants in North America. This is not to argue that the language of nationalism became the central or even 55  Census of Canada 1911, volume II, table xiii (Ottawa 1913); Bohdan S. Kordan, No Free Man: Canada, the Great War, and the Enemy Alien Experience (Montreal, 2016), p. 19; Earle  H.  Waugh, Baha Abu-Laban, and Regula B. Qureshi, eds, The Muslim Community in North America (Edmonton, 1983), p. 89. 56  Alexander Freund, ‘Introduction’, in Freund, ed., Beyond the Nation? Immigrants’ Local Lives in Transnational Cultures (Toronto, 2012), pp. 3–20 (4). 57 Anne Löchte, ‘ “We don’t want Kiser to rool in Ontario”: Franco-Prussian War, German Unification, and World War I as Reflected in the Canadian Berliner Journal (1859–1918)’, in Schulze, German Diasporic Experiences, pp. 107–16.

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68  Enemies in the Empire the sole idiom in which immigrants expressed their identity . . . Rather, this is to suggest that immigrants became increasingly well versed in the language of nationalism and that the festive spark provided by the peace jubilees could ignite  an ethnic tradition of remarkable longevity’.58 Observers writing for the Association for Germandom Abroad (VDA) remarked with some satisfaction that a younger generation of German-speakers in Canada were keen to protect their language for national reasons. Young merchants were the strongest pro­moters of German language and culture.59 The ground was prepared for German Canadians (and indeed non-German Austro-Hungarians) to be perceived as a single block of ‘enemy aliens’ after 1914, being exposed to both hostile public reactions and repressive state measures. Patterns of German immigration, othering, and diasporic construction were remarkably similar in the British settler colonies.

Germans in Other Territories The third category are those colonies in the British Empire which would not develop into settlement territories and dominions. Here, Germans were mostly part of small multi-ethnic elites in trade and skilled professions. The example of Hong Kong shows the extent to which they were part of the fabric of British imperial structures, using these to further their own business interests. In the Crown Colony there was almost an equilibrium in the number of British and German enterprises. By 1897, there were twenty-one German international merchant houses, five ship-brokers, and eighty shops in Hong Kong, with a total of about 180 German staff. Germans were also strongly represented on the board of  the local Chamber of Commerce, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), and other similar corporations. Bert Becker has aptly characterized the German presence in Hong Kong as ‘participatory colonialism’.60 Sceptic voices speaking of German infiltration grew in volume in the pre-war years, and then found expression in the founding of the Anti-German Union in 1915, soon renamed the British Empire Union. This organization aimed at ‘the Extirpation—Root and Branch and Seed—of German Control and Influence from the British Empire’. Although its base was in Great Britain, it had several branches in Canada, as well as in Hong Kong and Shanghai.61 Government 58  Barbara Lorenzowski, ‘Germania in Canada: Nation and Ethnicity at the German Peace Jubilees of 1871’, in Freund, Beyond the Nation?, pp. 107–36 (128–9). 59  Grant W. Grams, ‘Der Verein für das Deutschtum im Ausland and Its Observations of Canada Prior to World War One’, Canadian Ethnic Studies, vol. 33 (2001), pp. 117–27. 60  Bert Becker, ‘Das deutsche Hongkong: Imperialismus und partizipierender Kolonialismus vor 1914’, in Denzel, Deutsche Eliten, pp. 361–76. For German business interests in the region also see John A. Moses and Paul M. Kennedy, eds, Germany in the Pacific and Far East 1870–1914 (St Lucia, 1977). 61  IWM, British Empire Union Leaflet, No. 23; Panikos Panayi, The Enemy in our Midst. Germans in Britain during the First World War (New York, 1991), pp. 202–7.

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The German Diaspora in the Empire  69 pol­icies of internment and repatriation of the Hong Kong German community would, indeed, play into the hands of this pressure group. In East Africa, the closeness of German East Africa meant that there was virtually no German presence in Kenya. The only other British protectorate in Africa, apart from South Africa, with a sizeable German-speaking community was Egypt. The majority were, in fact, Austrian. The Handbook for Germandom Abroad gave a population table from 1897 by nationality with 1,281 Germans, 7,115 Austrians, and 473 Swiss, making a total of 8,869. Around 7,000 of these lived in Cairo and Alexandria. Occupations mentioned in the Handbook include embassy officials, doctors and pharmacists, numerous shopkeepers, merchants, teachers, publicans, hotel staff predominantly in the winter months, book and art dealers, and an increasing number of travellers. Both cities had a substantial ethnic life with Protestant and Catholic churches, schools, and associations. In Alexandria this also included branches of the German Colonial Society and of the Navy League.62 The Protestant congregation in Cairo, which had 2,200 members in 1904, can be taken as an example of how national thinking started to become a factor in congregational life. According to its pastor, Trautvetter, clergymen in the diaspora ‘fulfil not only a religious but also a national task’,63 and this pretension had to be reconciled with the multi-ethnic congregation which comprised Swiss, Dutch, and other German-speaking Protestants. When a conflict about voting rights on the vestry board arose, German congregation members opposed giving these rights to non-German nationals. They asserted that ‘only if we do not become internationalised . . . will we be able to effectively keep up Protestant belief abroad through the German nature and to defend the German church and school in the Orient as a central fortress of German Protestant confession . . . We have le­git­im­ ate fears that sooner or later the German Protestant church will be flooded with foreign elements’.64 The tension between cosmopolitanism and national symbolism also came to the fore during the Emperor’s birthday celebrations on 27 January 1906: ‘Children from most diverse national backgrounds recited German patriotic and other poems’.65 The same tension was apparent during the celebrations on 27 January 1914. Church organist Karl Plato described the festivities as a ‘magnificent spectacle’. Diplomatic representatives were brought to the German church in festively decorated carriages. In the church there was ‘a glorious ­hotchpotch of people from all different nations . . . In the patriotic and enthused atmosphere my organ playing sounded all the more mighty’. After the service, the party moved on to a reception in the German Embassy. One of the guests was Lord Kitchener as 62  Allgemeiner Deutscher Schulverein zur Erhaltung des Deutschtums im Auslande, ed., Handbuch des Deutschtums im Auslande (Berlin, 1904), pp. 101–2. 63  EZA/5/309/276, Pastor Trautvetter, Cairo, to Evangelischer Oberkirchenrat Berlin, 12 January 1876. 64  AA/PA/R901/39638/134–140, no date. 65  AA/PA/R901/39638/129, Consul to Foreign Office, 1 June 1906.

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70  Enemies in the Empire British Consul-General in Egypt.66 Only one year later many of those present would be behind barbed wire in the El Maadi Camp just outside Cairo. Lord Kitchener, who had pushed scorched-earth and internment practice during the Anglo-Boer War, would be appointed Secretary of State for War. In this capacity he would yet again be involved in internment operations until his death by a German sea mine in June 1916. The choreography of diasporic fes­tiv­ities on 27 January 1914 brought together a microcosm of actors who would clash on a global stage only months later. A closer look at India will now prepare the ground for the case study in Chapters 8 and 11. The German minority in India was small in numbers but had a large footprint because of its occupational composition. It consisted mainly of missionaries, scholars and scientists, travellers, and merchants and businessmen. The Census of India 1911 mentions 1,860 German-born, roughly on a par with French, but dwarfed by 122,919 UK-born. The European population totalled 131,968 which was, again, dwarfed by a total population of over 300 million. The largest and most visible group consisted of missionaries. While they may not have counted more than a few hundred individuals at any one time, their concentration in particular locations in southern India, especially as members of the Basel and Leipzig Mission, meant that they played a role in the spread of Protestantism in the sub-continent. Although the Basel and Leipzig Missions in the South, and the Breklum, Hermannsburg, and Gossner Missions further north, had a limited impact on religious practice in India, they developed a sophisticated network of activity including schools and other philanthropic work which impacted upon hundreds of thousands of people.67 German business representation started from mid-century when Hanover, Bremen, and Saxony established consulates in India. German unification resulted in the opening of imperial consulates, above all in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. The introduction of free trade in India in 1882 aided the growth of business with Germany. Firms such as Krupp, Siemens, and Thyssen all had representatives. For example, German engineers from Siemens played a role in the construction of the Tata Steelworks in Jamshedpur, and other firms helped in the construction of railways. In 1896, the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank was the first German bank to open a branch in Calcutta.68 Another major group were scholars and scientists. As in Australia, natural scientists were involved in exploring, mapping, and managing the natural environment. Examples include: the three Schlagintweit brothers, who conducted a magnetic survey of India; Hugo Warth as an expert in the saline industry; and three successive Inspectors General of Forests to the Government of India who directed the organization between 1864 and 1900 and who had all  been born and trained in Germany. Other scholars arrived on the back of 66  EZA/98/31, Karl Plato to fiancée, 27 January 1914. 67 Panayi, Germans in India, pp. 27, 11–23. 68  Ibid., pp. 24–5.

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The German Diaspora in the Empire  71 Germany’s leading position in Indology and Sanskrit studies. Here again, Empire structures and staged migration through Britain are relevant. Hans Roer made a start. After studying Sanskrit in Berlin, he moved to Calcutta in the service of the East India Company, becoming the librarian of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1841 and establishing a tradition of Germans in the development of research libraries in India, especially in Bombay. Academics taking up Chairs include Rudolf Hoernle and Gottlieb Leitner who successively became vice-chancellors of Lahore University. Another example is Heidelberg-born Georg Thibaut. He first went to Oxford in 1871 to work with the leading Sanskrit-scholar, Max Müller, before moving to a Chair in Anglo-Sanskrit in Benares Hindu College in 1875 and eventually becoming Principal of Muir Central College in Allahabad in 1895.69 These specialists were too small in numbers to generate a differentiated ­ethnic life. No German congregations and schools existed. The Handbook for Germandom Abroad estimated in 1904 that there were 200 German-speakers in Bombay and Calcutta, respectively, including Austrians and Swiss. The latter ­represented one third of the German Club in Bombay. The fifteen Germans in Madras entertained a club house. The Handbook did not include the dispersed missionaries in its overview of ethnic life but mentioned university professors, electrical engineers ‘employed by indigenous sovereigns’, as well as clock makers, bakers, and publicans in smaller towns.70 Despite their small numbers, the significance of specialists for processes of globalization and connectivity between Germany, Britain, and Asia was considerable. They created hubs and networks which spanned continents and interacted with indigenous and other colonial networks.71 However, to see Germans in India as a fully integrated part of a British-dominated but Pan-European community would mean to disregard the virulence of diasporic nationalism. Fault lines cracked open in August 1914, but these had already existed under the surface before 1914. A glimpse is given in a report by the professor of economics at Kiel University, Bernhard Harms. In 1910 he undertook a research trip through East and Southeast Asia in order to collect economic data, and he was also a proponent of the Central League for German Navy Clubs Abroad. In this function, he aimed to raise awareness within expatriate communities of the German battle fleet, instigate the foundation of local branches, and ask for remittances to support navy projects. British Empire locations of his visit included Colombo, Madras, Bombay, Calcutta, Rangoon, Singapore, Penang, and Hong Kong. His lectures were always fully attended. In Colombo he encountered thirty-five German employees of the Freudenberg company. They were all members of the German Club and also of the local Navy League and would ‘stick 69  Ibid., pp. 21–3; John R. Davis, ‘Friedrich Max Müller and the Migration of German Academics to Britain in the Nineteenth Century’, in Stefan Manz, ed., Migration and Transfer from Germany to Britain, 1660–1914 (Munich, 2007), pp. 93–106. 70  Allgemeiner Deutscher Schulverein, Handbuch, p. 97. 71  Forum, ‘The German Colonial Imagination’, German History, vol. 26 (2008), pp. 251–71.

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72  Enemies in the Empire faithfully to the German flag’. In Calcutta, nineteen members spontaneously registered for the Navy League after his lecture. This could arouse suspicion. In Rangoon, for example, a Navy League could not be started on the evening of Harms’ talk ‘because several Englishmen were present. In this situation one has to be especially careful and operate tactfully. In India we are dealing with contested territory’.72 By 1913, branches of the Navy League existed in Rangoon, Calcutta, Colombo, and Penang.73 Harms also visited Singapore where he found it ‘impossible to establish an official Navy League since this would render the position of the Germans there untenable. The English are extremely nervous in this exposed place’.74 Anglo-German rivalry in the region had, indeed, intensified from around 1900 when Germany had shown interest in the northern Malay states. These were sensitive areas of the British position in Southeast Asia. Britain took over the four states of Kelantan, Trengganu, Kedah, and Perlis in the Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909, not least as a reaction to German efforts to gain concessions in the region. A report from 1906 by the German Consul-General in Singapore, Kiliani, stressed that Anglo-German rivalry in Southeast Asia was intensifying and beyond repair. The German merchants who had settled in the area were therefore confronted with the question whether their investments were secure in light of this rivalry, or whether they should relocate their interests to the Dutch East Indies. The largest commercial firm of German origin in Southeast Asia was Behn, Meyer & Co., which had started operating in Singapore in 1840. In 1913 it asked the German government to pursue an economic policy that fostered large capital investments in the area. An investment trust under the name of Straits-und-Sunda-Syndikat was founded in 1911 and was joined by a number of commercial firms and banks in Hamburg and Antwerp. Germans moved to Singapore on the back of these and other business interests. The Teutonia Klub was founded in 1856. In 1900 it was able to build a representative clubhouse fashioned after a Rhine castle. Five hundred guests, including the Chief Justice and other British colonial representatives, were invited to an extravagant opening. After internment and repatriation of the German community in Singapore, the club house was converted and has been a high-end hotel ever since.75 Sources about Germans in other empire locations and zones of influence are patchy but nevertheless give an indication of some presence. It is only because these dispersed individuals triggered warnings and were interned during the war 72  Quotes in Bernhard Harms to Hauptverband Deutscher Flottenvereine im Auslande, 2 May 1910 in BA/MA/RM 3/9922–6. 73 Manz, Constructing, pp. 270–1. 74 BA/MA/RM 3/9922–6, Bernhard Harms to Hauptverband Deutscher Flottenvereine im Auslande, 2 May 1910. 75 Günther Meyer, ‘German Interests and Policy in the Netherlands East Indies and Malaya, 1870–1914’, in Moses and Kennedy, Germany in the Pacific and Far East, pp. 40–58 (48); Joshua  Y.  J.  Chia, ‘Behn, Meyer & Co’, National Library Singapore, https://www.behnmeyer.com/ about-us/history, accessed 6 September 2019.

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The German Diaspora in the Empire  73 that it is worthwhile concluding our overview with them. The Handbook estimated a combined total of fewer than 1,000 Germans in Aden and Muscat on the southern rim of the Arabian Peninsula as well as in Afghanistan.76 Local navy clubs existed in the Nigerian locations of Warri, Coko, and Lagos.77 In the South Pacific, shipping interests of companies such as Ruge, Hedemann & Co and Fred Hennings brought Germans into British island territories, including Fiji. There were also a number of German planters and shopkeepers. On the Fijian island of Vanua Levu, the Colonial Sugar Refining Company employed mainly German chemists, including the head chemist. The travelling metropolitan observer noted with indignation that these were for the most part ‘verengländert’, which is a pe­jora­tive expression for ‘anglicized’.78

Conclusion Expressions of diasporic nationalism before 1914 suggest that it would be misleading to see those who would later be interned purely as passive apolitical v­ ictims of xenophobic outbursts. This interpretation was first advanced by contemporaneous German observers who, with nationalistic indignation, highlighted migrants’ economic and cultural contributions to respective host countries in order to then expose the ‘ungratefulness’ of these countries during the war.79 It was, ironically, reiterated more recently by critical historians of these countries in order to underline continuities of xenophobia and question national master-narratives of unbroken tolerance towards minorities.80 We argue for differentiation which takes into account diaspora nationalism before and during the First World War. In doing so, we do not intend to start a blame game of guilt and revision. Rather, it is helpful to establish that migrants could be politically active subjects whose real or imagined links with their country of origin had a specific impact on their interaction with host societies.81 We argue that ethnic leaders in particular could be active players in exacerbating friction zones. Ethnic communities were (not always unwilling) instruments in the pawns of nationalist discourse leaders, thereby contributing to their own fragility in a conflict-prone environment. 76  Allgemeiner Deutscher Schulverein, Handbuch, p. 97. 77 Manz, Constructing, p. 271. 78  Emil Jung, Das Deutschtum in Australien und Ozeanien (Munich, 1902), pp. 78–80; Stewart G. Firth, ‘German Firms in the Pacific Islands 1857–1914’, in Moses and Kennedy, Germany in the Pacific and Far East, pp. 3–25 (4–8). See also Bradley D. Naranch, ‘Between Cosmopolitanism and German Colonialism: Nineteenth-Century Hanseatic Networks in Emerging Tropical Markets’, in Gestrich and Schulte Beerbühl, Cosmopolitan Networks, pp. 99–132. 79  E.g. Hugo Grothe, Die Deutschen in Übersee (Berlin, 1932); C. R. Hennings, Deutsche in England (Stuttgart, 1923). 80 E.g. Colin Holmes, John Bull’s Island. Immigration and British Society, 1871–1971 (London, 1988); Kordan, No Free Man; Kay Saunders and Roger Daniels, Alien Justice: Wartime Internment in Australia and North America (St Lucia, 2000). 81  Dirk Hoerder, ‘The German-Language Diasporas: A Survey, Critique, and Interpretation’, Diaspora, vol. 11 (2002), pp. 7–44 (31); Sowell, Migrations, pp. 50–104.

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4

Global Germanophobia during Wartime Public and State Responses

The First World War marked a major turning point in the relationship between minorities and majorities throughout the world, legitimizing persecution of those seen to have connections with the enemy in particular. A combination of public opinion and government actions dehumanized, isolated, expropriated, physically attacked, and expelled these populations. While persecution during the Great War impacted upon a variety of groups in nation states throughout the globe, the  minority that faced the most violent actions consisted of the Armenians in the dying Ottoman Empire, which most specialists on this subject describe as genocide.1 The internment of Germans in the British Empire during the First World War formed one aspect of the marginalization of this community not simply within Britain and its imperial possessions, but wherever Germans resided. While in­car­cer­ation played a central role in state restrictions, it went together with controls upon movement, property confiscation, and deportation. Such actions received support from public opinion in the nationalist hysteria of the First World War which resulted in the demonization of the enemy within, which evolved into: anti-German hysteria; the victimization of individual Germans; the development of anti-German organizations; and rioting. In fact, clear patterns emerge in the treatment of Germans both in the British Empire and elsewhere during the Great War, not just in terms of the restrictions and hostility they faced, but also in the timing of these developments, which seemed to occur at similar times on a global scale. While Germans became one of many outsider groups to face exclusion and persecution during the Great War,2 the uniqueness of their experience lies in its global and simultaneous nature, from Porto Alegre in Brazil to New York, through to London, Moscow, and Wellington.

1  The most important volumes on the Armenian genocide include: Vahakn Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide (Oxford, 1995); Richard G. Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian Genocide: History, Policy, Ethics (London, 1992); Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (Oxford, 2005); and Raymond Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History (London, 2011). 2  Panikos Panayi, ‘Minorities’, in Jay Winter, ed., The Cambridge History of the First World War, Vol. III, Civil Society (Cambridge, 2014), pp. 221–30. Enemies in the Empire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War. Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi, Oxford University Press (2020). © Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198850151.001.0001

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Global Germanophobia during Wartime  75

The Imperial Dimension The British Empire was a vast political entity which operated as a unit when it came to the treatment of enemy populations. Actions taken in London found reflection throughout British territories. An understanding of the activities of the Empire and the public opinion which drove them on needs contextualization against the background of the unified way in which the Empire operated both before and during the Great War. The imperial Anglocentric identity nurtured in the homeland3 also developed in those locations within the Empire where emigrants from the United Kingdom settled.4 This was most obvious in those colonies where Britons formed the ruling elite where such identities merged into the fundamental belief in racial hier­arch­ies underlined by the methods of interaction which had taken place.5 But such identification with Britain remained strong in the White Dominions, despite the emergence of national consciousness in these areas which had led to the extension of dominion status in 1907.6 The emergence of an imperial press system at the end of the nineteenth century helped to maintain allegiance to the imperial homeland.7 This allegiance became clear at the outbreak of the First World War when public opinion throughout the Empire demonstrated the same level of enthusiasm for the conflict as the homeland, partly manifesting itself through hatred of the German enemy both at home and abroad. Even before the British declaration of  war on 4 August, the British-born Australian Prime Minister Joseph Cooke declared that: ‘Whatever happens, Australia is part of the Empire to the full. When the Empire is at war so is Australia at war. All our resources are in the Empire and the preservation and security of the Empire’. Such protestations of political loyalty found reflection in, for example, Canada, New Zealand, and even from the Irish Nationalist leader John Redmond in the House of Commons, despite the inevitability of Home Rule by this time.8 In New Zealand, dominated

3  John M. Mackenzie, ‘Introduction’, in John M. Mackenzie, ed., Imperialism and Popular Culture (Manchester, 1986), pp. 1–16. 4 Catherine McGlynn, Andrew Mycock, and James  W.  McAuley, eds, Britishness, Identity and Citizenship: The View from Abroad (Oxford, 2011); Tanja Bueltmann, David T. Gleeson, and Donald MacRaild, eds, Locating the English Diaspora, 1500–2010 (Liverpool, 2012). 5 See, for example, Satoshi Mizutani, The Meaning of White: Race, Class, and the ‘Domiciled Community’ in British India 1858–1930 (Oxford, 2011); Barbara Bush, Imperialism, Race, and Resistance: Africa and Britain, 1919–1945 (London, 1999). 6  Stephen Constantine, ‘Britain and the Empire’, in Stephen Constantine, Maurice W. Kirby, and Mary B. Rose, eds, The First World War in British History (London, 1995), p. 256. 7 Simon J. Potter, News and the British World: The Emergence of an Imperial Press System 1876–1922 (Oxford, 2003). 8  Clarke  E.  Carrington, ‘The Empire at War, 1914–1918’, in E.  A.  Benians, Sir James Butler, and Charles  E.  Carrington, eds, The Cambridge History of the British Empire, Vol. 3, The EmpireCommonwealth, 1870–1919 (Cambridge, 1959), pp. 605–6; Ernest Scott, ‘Australia in the World War: (II) Political’, in J. H. Rose, A. P. Newton, and E. A. Benians, eds, The Cambridge History of the British Empire, Vol. 7. Part 1 (Cambridge, 1933), p. 568.

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76  Enemies in the Empire by a British settler population, public support for entry into the war became wholehearted, as measured especially by the reaction of the press.9 Just as Britain relied upon volunteers during the first two years of the war, which was the clearest sign of support for the conflict amongst society as a whole, other parts of the Empire only introduced conscription later.10 Such enthusiasm went hand in hand with demonization of Germans.11 Indeed, Gerhard Fischer has even gone as far as  to suggest that hatred of central European immigrants represented a way of fighting the war at home.12 Any symbols of Germany within the Empire came under threat, including classical music.13 Imperial unity manifested itself in the collective war effort which operated on a global scale, despite the rise of nationalism in various parts of the Empire which threatened imperial unity.14 Ironically, those nations where some of the most developed ideas of independence emerged, such as Ireland and India, provided some of the most significant contingents of troops,15 while even an apparently ‘inconsequential possession’ such as Cyprus16 had the highest rate of combatant participation anywhere in the Empire.17 The White Dominions and India also provided significant voluntary manpower, epitomized by their role in Gallipoli.18 In New Zealand the Military Service Act came into operation in 1916 which re­gis­tered every male between the ages of twenty and forty-six, although participation would take place dependent upon a ballot.19 In the immediate aftermath of the conflict the extent to which the disparate British possessions had pulled together became obvious in the war memorials which appeared throughout the globe,20 pointing to the multi-ethnic and 9  Andrew Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’: New Zealand, Enemy Aliens and the Great War Experience, 1914–1919 (Oxford, 2012), pp. 47–62. 10  R.  J.  Q.  Adams and Philip  P.  Poirier, The Conscription Controversy in Great Britain, 1900–18 (Basingstoke, 1987), pp. 49–70; R. J. W. Selleck, ‘ “The Trouble with My Looking Glass” ’: A Study of the Attitude of Australians to Germans during the Great War’, Journal of Australian Studies, vol. 6 (1980), p. 2. 11 Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’, p. 4. 12  Gerhard Fischer, ‘Fighting the War at Home: The Campaign against Enemy Aliens in Australia during the First World War’, in Panikos Panayi, ed., Minorities in Wartime: National and Racial Groupings in Europe, North America and Australia during the Two World Wars (Oxford, 1993), pp. 263–86. 13  See, for example, Ernest Scott, Australia during the War (Sydney, 1941), p. 149. 14  Constantine, ‘Britain and the Empire’, pp. 264–70. 15  David Fitzpatrick, ‘The Logic of Collective Sacrifice: Ireland and the British Army, 1914–1918’, Historical Journal, vol. 38 (1995), pp. 1017–30; George Morton-Jack, The Indian Army on the Western Front: India’s Expeditionary Force to France and Belgium in the First World War (Cambridge, 2014). 16  According to Andrekos Varnava, British Imperialism in Cyprus, 1878–1915: The Inconsequential Possession (Manchester, 2009). 17 Andrekos Varnava, Serving the Empire in the Great War: The Cypriot Mule Corps, Imperial Identity and Memory (Manchester, 2017). 18  Jenny Macleod, Gallipoli: Great Battles (Oxford, 2015). 19  Sir James Allen, ‘New Zealand in the World War’, in J. H. Rose, A. P. Newton, and E. A. Benians, eds, The Cambridge History of the British Empire, Vol. 7, Part 2 (Cambridge University Press, 1933), pp. 225–6. 20  Ashley Jackson and James E. Kitchen, ‘Introduction’, in Ashley Jackson, ed., The British Empire and the First World War (Abingdon, 2015), pp. 2–3.

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Global Germanophobia during Wartime  77 inter­nation­al nature of the British imperial forces. This was emphasized in the multi-volume official history of the role of the Empire in the conflict, brought together by Sir Charles Lucas, the former colonial office civil servant and historian of All Souls College, Oxford.21 Lucas concluded in the first of the five volumes he edited that: ‘It was not the United Kingdom, with an overseas tail attached to it, that went to war; it was the whole great world-wide unit, the British Empire, acting as one, with very rare exceptions feeling and thinking as one’.22 Apart from the feeling of imperial patriotism, the unity which Lucas stressed manifested itself in three other main ways: first, in terms of inter-governmental cooperation, the Committee of Imperial Defence had already established this principle decades before the outbreak of the First World War,23 involving regular conferences at the beginning of the twentieth century.24 During the course of the war the leaders of the dominions visited London in March 1917 and would meet on fifteen occasions, joining the Imperial War Cabinet, although they returned home with the exception of the South African General Smuts who remained and played a role in a range of initiatives.25 Imperial unity also demonstrated itself in terms of the mixture of forces which participated in the different fronts throughout the globe. For example, troops from Australia and New Zealand played the leading role in ending the German Empire in the Pacific shortly after the outbreak of war.26 Imperial forces worked together in a variety of other fronts including Togo and the Cameroons in Africa, German Southwest Africa, Uganda, Turkey, Mesopotamia, France, and Belgium.27 Much attention has focused upon the scale of the resources which the different parts of the Empire contributed, especially manpower. Sir Charles Carrington calculated that 101 divisions participated in combat, of which seventy-one ori­gin­ ated in Britain, twelve in the dominions, and sixteen in India.28 Robert Holland has more recently suggested the following figures for troops sent abroad and those who were killed or died, or missing, respectively: the British Isles, 5 million and 705,000; Canada, 458,000 and 57,000; Australia, 332,000 and 59,000; and South Africa (‘whites only’), 136,000 and 7,000.29 These figures do not include

21 Ashley Jackson, ‘Sir Charles Lucas and the Empire at War’, Round Table, vol. 103 (2014), pp. 166–7; Sir Charles Lucas, ed., The Empire at War, Five Volumes (Oxford, 1921–6). 22  Sir Charles Lucas, ed., The Empire at War, Vol. 1 (Oxford, 1921), p. 298. 23  Franklyn Arthur Johnson, Defence by Committee: The British Committee of Imperial Defence, 1885–1959 (Oxford, 1960). 24 Lucas, The Empire at War, Vol. 1, pp. 137–55, 176–239. 25  Carrington, ‘Empire at War, 1914–1918’, pp. 631–3. 26  As an introduction see Hermann Joseph Hiery, The Neglected War: The German South Pacific and the Influence of World War I (Honolulu, HI, 1995). 27  Constantine, ‘Britain and the Empire’, pp. 259–60; Robert Holland, ‘The British Empire and the Great War’, in Judith Brown and Wm Roger Louis, eds, The Oxford History of the British Empire, Volume 4, The Twentieth Century (Oxford, 1990), pp. 115–22; Carrington, ‘Empire at War, 1914–1918’, pp. 609–40. 28  Carrington, Idem, p. 641. 29  Holland, ‘The British Empire and the Great War’, p. 117.

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78  Enemies in the Empire those who fought for the Empire with origins in smaller colonies such as Cyprus, Malta, Middle Eastern and Far Eastern Territories, and the West Indies.30 The ‘total number of men recruited into British land forces from Britain and the empire numbered a staggering 8,654,467’, according to Ashley Jackson.31 In add­ ition to pure manpower, the British dominions also made significant financial contributions to the war effort.32 Despite the apparent imperial unity suggested by the above narrative and ­figures, each locality developed its own individual policies, as Lucas recognized in a volume he published in the immediate aftermath of the war focusing upon a series of issues including militarism and conscription.33 While the dominions may have followed the lead of London in this sense, as in many others, they developed their own independent policies.34 Clearly, it was not only the British Empire which operated as a global unit during the 1914–18 conflict, which precisely became a World War. This has been recently re-emphasized by a series of scholars, leading to an ‘imperial turn’ in the study of this period. The colonial global Empires of Britain, France, and, to a lesser extent, Germany fought against and with the central and Eastern European and Middle and Far Eastern Empires of the Austro-Hungarians, Ottomans, and Russians. The 1914–18 war involved multi-ethnic Empires trying to maintain and assert global hegemony but containing populations looking towards autonomy, whether Armenians, Indians, or Czechs. Those imperial units which experienced defeat faced catastrophe, as their rule over their previous domains ended. Much of the new research has laid stress on the multi-ethnic nature of the imperial armies, especially the Indians and Africans who fought for the British and French in Europe. Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Croats, and others served in the Austro-Hungarian army, and Poles in the German forces, while a series of nationalities came under the Ottoman flag, most ironically of all the Armenians. While most of the historiography of the fighting itself, dominated by British, American, German, and French historians, has focused upon the western front, combat took place throughout the world, whether in the Balkans, the Caucasus, Africa, the Middle East, or the South Pacific. Defeat and political upheaval meant imperial collapse and the end of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Russian, and German Empires, which, in the first three cases, had evolved since the early modern period. While the new states 30  For Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt and Palestine, Aden, Ceylon, and Malaya see Sir Charles Lucas, ed., The Empire at War, Vol. 5 (Oxford, 1926). For Cyprus see Varnava, Serving the Empire. For the West Indies see Richard Smith, Jamaican Volunteers in the First World War: Race, Masculinity and the Development of National Consciousness (Manchester, 2004). 31  Ashley Jackson, ‘The Empire at War’, BBC History Magazine, vol. 9 (March 2008), p. 53. 32  Carrington, ‘Empire at War, 1914–1918’, pp. 642–3. For India see Government of India, India’s Contribution to the Great War (Calcutta, 1923). 33  Sir Charles Lucas, The War and the Empire: Some Facts and Deductions (London, 1919), pp. 14–21. 34  See, for example, Allen, ‘New Zealand in the World War’, pp. 226–7; Scott, ‘Australia in the World War’, pp. 575–85; Varnava, Serving the Empire.

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Global Germanophobia during Wartime  79 that emerged in the aftermath of the war may have viewed imperial collapse as their moment of glory against the background of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, the end of empire had devastating consequences for the populations which did not form part of the ethnic majority in the new nation states. Idealized demographic homogeneity led to the first great refugee crisis of the twentieth century as ethnic cleansing became an accepted solution in international diplomacy.35

The Enemy in Our Midst The British Empire was not the only political entity where Germanophobia was at work. In Russia, nationalistic voices and parties including the Union of Russian Peoples, the Right Russian Monarchist Union, and the Russian Nationalist Party perpetuated a discourse of excluding outsiders, in this case not only Germans but also Poles, Jews, and other minorities who did not fit into the constructed core identity of Russian Orthodoxism.36 In the second half of May 1915 serious antiGerman violence broke out in Moscow, which lasted until 5 June, during which time rioters killed at least eight civilians and burned down 300 firms and dozens of homes.37 In Brazil, riots occurred even before the country entered the war in  October 1917, against a rising tide of Germanophobia which wanted to see Brazil join the Allies. They reached a peak in April 1917, following the US entry into the war and the sinking of the Brazilian freighter Paraná off the coast of northern France on 5 April, carrying 93,000 sacks of coffee. A second wave of riots would follow in October 1917 after the Brazilian declaration of war on Germany.38 Smaller-scale attacks took place against German property on a global scale, including, for example, in Italy (again in May 1915).39 In the USA, with long 35  See the following works on the ‘imperial turn’ in the study of the Great War: Robert Gerwarth and Erez Manela, eds, Empires at War: 1911–1923 (Oxford, 2014); Andrew Jarboe and Richard Fogarty, eds, Empires in World War I: Shifting Frontiers and Imperial Dynamics in a Global Conflict (London, 2014); Heike Liebau, Katrin Bromber, Katharina Lange, Dyala Hamzah, and Ravi Ahuja, eds, The World in World Wars: Experiences, Perceptions and Perspectives from Africa and Asia (Leiden, 2010); John H. Morrow, ‘The Imperial Framework’, in Jay Winter, ed., The Cambridge History of the First World War, Volume 1, Global War (Cambridge, 2014), pp. 405–32; Anna Maguire, ‘Colonial Encounters during the First World War: The Experience of Troops from New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies’ (unpublished King’s College London PhD thesis, 2017). For the post-First World War refugee crisis see parts I and II of Panikos Panayi and Pippa Virdee, eds, Refugees and the End of Empire: Imperial Collapse and Forced Migration in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke, 2011). 36  Eric Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire: The Campaign against Enemy Aliens during World War I (Cambridge, MA, 2003), pp. 24–6. 37  Ibid., pp. 31–54; Victor Dönninghaus, Die Deutschen in der Moskauer Gesellschaft: Symbiose und Konflikte (1494–1941) (Munich, 2002), pp. 373–469, 490–506. 38 Frederick C. Luebke, Germans in Brazil: A Comparative History of Cultural Conflict during World War I (Baton Rouge, LA, 1987), pp. 119–46, 162–74, 170–1. 39  Daniela L. Caglioti, ‘Why and How Italy Invented an Enemy Aliens Problem in the First World War’, War in History, vol. 21 (2014), p. 158.

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80  Enemies in the Empire traditions of violence against minority groups, thousands of people faced the wrath of patriotic mobs throughout the country. This could result in tarring and fea­ther­ing and, in the case of Robert Prager in Collinsville, Illinois, lynching.40 Within Britain and its Empire, the First World War allowed nationalistic and xenophobic parties, focusing especially upon Germans, but also Jews, to seize the initiative and move public opinion further to the right. In Great Britain members of the most extreme wing of the Conservative Party came together with newly elected MPs from parties which emerged during the course of the conflict including the Vigilantes and the National Party. The Radical Right, with origins in pre-war Britain, played a significant role in spreading wartime Germanophobia.41 This was supported by newspapers creating stereotypes and homing in upon Germans. An Empire-wide press system helped to spread these stereotypes around the globe.42 In the first place, spy-fever, which had begun to emerge from the end of  the nineteenth century, became widespread in the early years of the war, in the sense that nationalistic newspapers in particular (although few press organs remained immune) could only view Germans in their midst as spies working in the service of the fatherland.43 As the war progressed this spy-fever would eventually develop into a conspiracy theory about a ‘Hidden Hand’ of Germans which controlled Britain and prevented victory, an idea that reached its peak circulation in the summer of 1918 as fear of defeat, war weariness, and desperation for victory gripped Britain.44 As well as focusing upon the abstract, newspapers instituted witch hunts of individuals viewed as having any connection with Germany. In Britain, Edgar Speyer became one of the most famous victims. Born in New York and a member of the Speyer banking house with branches in New York, London, and Frankfurt, he had moved to Britain in 1887, financed several major projects, including the expansion of the London Underground, and become a naturalized British subject. Great War Germanophobia could not accept anyone with any suspicion of dual nationality and Speyer essentially found himself hounded out of Britain in May 1915.45 Similarly, in New Zealand George von Zedlitz lost his position as Professor of Modern Languages at Wellington’s Victoria College following a campaign against him.46 This victimization of German academics found reflection

40 Jörg Nagler, Nationale Minoritäten im Krieg: “Feindliche Ausländer” und die amerikanische Heimatfront während des Ersten Weltkriegs (Hamburg, 2000), pp. 126–35, 219–27, 340–403; Frederick C. Luebke, Bonds of Loyalty: German Americans and World War I (De Kalb, IL, 1974), pp. 3–24. 41 Panikos Panayi, The Enemy in Our Midst: Germans in Britain during the First World War (Oxford, 1991). 42 Potter, News and the British World, pp. 186–210. 43 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 153–62.    44  Ibid., pp. 163–81. 45 Antony Lentin, Banker, Traitor, Scapegoat, Spy? The Troublesome Case of Sir Edgar Speyer (London, 2013). 46 Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We must Be Anti-German’, pp. 153–80.

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Global Germanophobia during Wartime  81 in Australia and Great Britain.47 In addition, the press often led campaigns for harsher treatment of enemy aliens, especially for the introduction of wholesale internment. In Great Britain, newspapers, in league with several conservative MPs, constantly demanded an increase in the number of Germans behind barbed wire.48 In New Zealand the campaign against Von Zedlitz actually led to the passage of the Alien Enemy Teachers’ Act because no other measure could force him from office.49 Sporadic incidents of anti-German rioting occurred in Britain in the months following the outbreak of the First World War, peaking in October 1914 as the German Army steamrollered through Belgium, raising the spectre of German power nearing British shores. Isolated incidents also occurred elsewhere in the Empire, including New Zealand.50 The sinking of the Lusitania on 7 May 1915 transformed the nature of the disturbances which occurred both on the British mainland and the whole of the British Empire as a global Germanophobic pogrom spread like wildfire, beginning in Liverpool, the home port of the Lusitania, and then affecting the whole of Great Britain, meaning that virtually every German-owned business in towns and cities throughout the country faced attack. This violence then spread to the British Empire, and especially South Africa. As in the case of the riots against Germans in Brazil in April 1917, the sinking of the Lusitania set fire to a tinderbox of anti-German resentment in the spring of 1915, caused by the growing British perception of Germans as a ‘race’ prepared to go to any means to secure victory, including using poison against both soldiers in France and civilians in South Africa.51 In addition to these global incidents, riots could also be triggered by local occurrences. In Canada, for ex­ample, these included a fire that destroyed part of the Parliament building in February 1916, and the explosion in Halifax on 6 December 1917 which destroyed part of the city and killed over a thousand people. Both incidents were blamed on enemy saboteurs52 (Figures 4.1 and 4.2). Canada also requires differentiation with regard to other themes. Although ‘Germanophobia’ is certainly an appropriate term to understand globally

47  Selleck, ‘ “The Trouble with My Looking Glass” ’, pp. 4–7; Christopher  T.  Husbands, ‘German Academics in British Universities during the First World War: The Case of Karl Wichmann’, German Life and Letters, vol. 60 (2007), pp. 493–517. 48  Panikos Panayi, Prisoners of Britain: German Civilian and Combatant Internees during the First World War (Manchester, 2012), pp. 235–8. 49 Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’, pp. 153–80. 50  Ibid., pp. 77–8, 94–5; Panayi, Enemy, pp. 224–9. 51  Panayi, Idem, pp. 229–53; Dedering, ‘ “Avenge the Lusitania” ’. 52  Nicholas Moogk, ‘Uncovering the Enemy Within: British Columbians and the German Menace, BC Studies. The British Columbian Quarterly, vol. 162 (2014), pp. 45–72; Donald H. Avery, Internment (Canada), in 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https:// encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/internment_canada, accessed 31 July 2018; Adrian Gregory, ‘Globalising and Localising the Great War’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. 27 (2017), pp. 233–51.

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82  Enemies in the Empire

Figure 4.1  Anti-German riots in Chrisp Street, East End of London, May 1915.

Figure 4.2  Anti-German riots in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, May 1915.

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Global Germanophobia during Wartime  83 dom­in­at­ing patterns, the targeted group in Canada, and to a lesser extent elsewhere, did not exclusively consist of Germans. The pre-war years had witnessed a disproportionally steep rise in immigration from Austria-Hungary, from 18,178 in 1901 to around 180,000 in September 1914. Many of the newcomers were low-skilled Ukrainians ending up in the heavy industries, construction, or as farmhands. Their standing within Canadian society was not helped by the fact that the leader of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Canada, Bishop Nykyta Budka, issued a pastoral letter on 27 July 1914 as the clouds of war in Europe darkened. He urged his countrymen who were military reservists to honour their allegiance to their homeland and rush back to the colours should war occur. This was attacked by the Anglo-Canadian press, and Budka retracted his request and commanded absolute loyalty to the British Empire, but the damage was done. In public discourse and perception, Austro-Hungarians were sucked into the category of ‘enemy alien’ just as much as Germans and other groups originating from Central Powers territories.53 Reasons for public marginalization, however, included not only security but also socio-economic concerns as Ukrainians were perceived to contribute to urban deprivation and depressed wages. The threat profile was ­complemented by fears that many of these workers had radical affiliations with revolutionary trade unions such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Mining communities petitioned for mass internment. For example, in Fernie, British Columbia, local miners went on strike until the local coal company agreed to dismiss all its alien employees. The authorities noted that the real reason for the strike was competition for available work: ‘If they can get 300 of these [enemy aliens] out of the way it will mean another day’s work each for those left’.54 There is a clear link between public opinion, economic self-interest, and internment. A nearby abandoned mining village, Morissey, was fenced off with barbed wire and turned into a camp. Prisoners had to perform heavy labour such as land clearing and road building under strict military discipline.55 Fernie was an example of how anti-alienism and safety considerations were clearly mixed up with economic self-interest and could ultimately lead to internment. The outbreak of war ripped through multi-national communities all over the  Empire. Researching these ‘side shows’ of the Great War broadens our

53 William  D.  Otter, Internment Operations, 1914–20 (Ottawa, 1920), pp. 2, 6, 12; Avery, ‘Internment (Canada)’; Bodan S. Kordan, No Free Man: Canada, the Great War, and the Enemy Alien Experience (Kingston, Ontario, 2016); Desmond Morton, The Canadian General Sir William Otter (Toronto, 1974). 54  Quoted in Kordan, Idem, p. 99. Also see BA/R67/1163, reports US Consul at Fernie, B.C., 6 May 1915 and 10 November 1915. 55  Lubomyr Luciuk, A Time for Atonement: Canada’s First National Internment Operations and the Ukrainian Canadians, 1914–1920 (Kingston, Ontario, 1988); David J. Carter, POW—Behind Canadian Barbed Wire: Alien, Refugee and Prisoner of War Camps in Canada 1914–1946 (Alberta, 1998); Bohdan  S.  Kordan, Enemy Aliens, Prisoners of War: Internment in Canada during the Great War (Toronto, 2002).

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84  Enemies in the Empire understanding of the globality not only of warfare,56 but also of its impact on in­di­vid­uals far removed from military frontlines. Recent fictional representations highlight the seismic shockwaves of August 1914 in settings far removed. In Alex Capus’s novel A Matter of Time, three engineers from Germany are busy assembling a passenger boat on Lake Tanganyika when war breaks out, tearing apart isolated communities and destroying individuals. In Burkhard Spinnen’s novel Zacharias Katz a young German-American witnesses sudden cleavages between international passengers on a Caribbean liner: ‘It was on 5 August 1914, in the morning, when I experienced how the war gripped the people. Each of them, without regard of their background and standing’.57 In this spirit, Trinidad can serve as an example at a micro-level of patterns that can be identified around the world. These remote locations are usually neglected by scholarship. We can start in the small Mount St Benedict monastery on Trinidad. Through a process of micro-chain migration, the monastery had several German and Dutch priests. When war broke out, the abbot replaced Sebastian Weber with a Dutchman as liaison priest in civil matters since the island governor would hardly deal with a German. Abbott Mayeul remembers: ‘When I communicated this necessary measure to the community chapter, it caused an outburst of rage, such as I had never previously experienced, on the part of three Germans. They rose in their seats, and with fury, raised their fists towards me. This was an  unheard of scandal, and for me, a true, but sad revelation’.58 Initially all Benedictine monks of enemy nationality on the island were recalled to the monastery and placed under the abbot’s personal supervision. On 10 August three priests, Johannes Dobbert and Joseph and Johann Fromberg, were collected from the monastery gates for internment. They were followed the next day by three novice lay brothers, Joseph Schuler, Joseph Sellmann, and Joseph Eckert. By then two further monks had been expelled from the island.59 The war upset the balance not only in St Benedict, but also in the wider island community. In 1911 there were eighty-two German-born persons in Trinidad and an estimated 120 German creoles out of a total white population of 4,000. Most were part of a wealthy merchant community which socialized in the Germania Club. They were particularly active in the cocoa trade, with one sixth

56  Michelle Moyd, ‘Extra-European Theatres of War’, 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/extra-european_theatres_ of_war, accessed 31 July 2018. 57  Alex Capus, A Matter of Time (London, 2011), German original Eine Frage der Zeit (Munich, 2007); Burkhard Spinnen, Zacharias Katz (Munich, 2014), quote on back cover. 58  Quoted in Mark Tierney and Filip Vandenbussche, Longing to Belong: The Life of Dom Mayeul de Caigny (1862–1939) (Mount St Benedict, 2012), p. 213; Anthony de Verteuil, The Germans in Trinidad (Port of Spain, 1994), pp. 27–32. 59  NA/CO295/497, Memorandum on the measures taken by the Government of Trinidad on the outbreak of war, 11 January 1915; NA/CO295/499, Deputy Governor to Colonial Office, 27 August 1915; Tierney and Vandenbussche, Idem, p. 220.

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Global Germanophobia during Wartime  85 of the sixty licensed cocoa dealers in Trinidad being German firms. The community completely disintegrated during the war.60 The commercial presence was now interpreted as being detrimental to British interests. The Trinidadian Inspector of Schools found that ‘the peaceful penetration by Germany had begun, cocoa properties as well as businesses and Insurance Offices were in alien hands . . . A quarter of a million sterling had been devoted to gaining a footing for further exploitation in this comparatively insignificant corner of the Empire’. In October 1914 a Liquidation Committee was appointed to wind up enemy businesses and deal with other properties.61 Enemy aliens were required to register with the police, reside and stay put in Port of Spain, or leave the colony when they were over forty-five. By December 1914 this included sixteen persons, most of whom left for Venezuela. Those who stayed faced hostility in everyday life. Music teacher Christian Nothnagel, for example, was greeted by his pupils with shouts of ‘Kraut’. Together with his remaining countrymen, he was interned on 7 November 1914. His wife and children, meanwhile, came close to starvation, digging up their garden to grow vegetables and raising chickens.62 Ironically, Mrs Nothnagel’s husband Christian fared much better behind barbed wire, if not in terms of ­liberty, then in terms of diet. Internment was a gendered affair, with each family member suffering in different ways. Although women were for the most part not interned, they faced hostility and destitution outside the confines of the barbed wire. Where they were interned, this often happened in order to protect them against both of these woes.

Measures Against ‘Enemy Aliens’ In the same way in which public hostility towards Germans and other ‘enemy alien’ minorities revealed patterns throughout the Empire and in the world more generally, so did the actions of governments. We have already seen that in­car­cer­ ation, mainly of combatants but also of civilians, became a mass global phe­nom­enon during the First World War.63 Internment constituted one element of a four-part process of excluding Germans which also included legislative marginalization, measures against German businesses, and mass deportation. As with the Lusitania riots, it proves tempting to view the actions taken by governments in Britain and its Empire, as well as beyond, as part of a global process emanating from London.

60  De Verteuil, Germans, pp. 36–8, 56–9. 61  NA/CO295/493, Government House to Colonial Office, 23 November 1914; NA/CO295/518, H. H. Hancock, sketch The Empire at War, 8 November 1918. 62  De Verteuil, Germans, p. 57; BA/R901/83829, List of German Subjects Interned at St James Barracks, 17 July 1915; NA/CO295/493, report governor, 9 November 1914; NA/FO383/105, report governor, 22 December 1914. 63  See Chapter 2.

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86  Enemies in the Empire But while government departments in Whitehall certainly took the lead, local ­initiatives also played a role. Governments throughout the Empire certainly ­communicated with each other but a direct paper trail sometimes proves difficult to discover. The main piece of legislation which the British government passed consisted of  the Aliens Restriction Act which went through Parliament on 5 August, the day after the declaration of war upon Germany. This measure allowed the Home Secretary to introduce subsequent Orders in Council without resorting to Parliament, meaning he could control all aspects of the lives of enemy aliens. Initially these included limitations upon movement and a necessity for registration as well as the establishment of restricted areas where Germans could not live, particularly on the east coast, which meant the relocation of those who lived there. A subsequent Order in Council closed down all German clubs in Britain, which had a devastating impact upon the German community in the country.64 In her article comparing measures against enemy aliens in Britain and Australia during the two World Wars, Kay Saunders has stressed the fact that the ‘War Precautions Act, passed . . . on 29 October 1914, was based substantially on the British Defence of the Realm Act of 1914’.65 As the titles of these two pieces of legislation suggest, their concern did not simply focus upon enemy aliens but on security issues more generally.66 Saunders also asserts that the Australian ‘Aliens Restriction Orders were likewise modelled upon the British precedent’,67 while Andrew Francis has taken this argument further and asserted that restrictions for enemy aliens ‘were essentially the same’ throughout the White Dominions, taking their lead from Britain.68 In fact, the Government of India also introduced similar measures in the early months of the war.69 Once again we can broaden this discussion to point to the fact that the actions of Britain and its Empire find reflection in other parts of the globe, whether the USA or Italy.70 While much early anti-German legislation focused upon controlling movement and residence, attention also turned to the use of native language, especially in states which had developed an advanced German schooling system such as Brazil, where the government prohibited any German-language publications,

64 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 45–61; J. C. Bird, Control of Enemy Alien Civilians in Great Britain, 1914–1918 (London, 1986), pp. 200–34. 65  Kay Saunders, ‘ “The Stranger in Our Gates”: Internment Policies in the United Kingdom and Australia during the Two World Wars, 1914–39’, Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 22 (2003), p. 24. See also Daniel Marc Segesser, Empire und Totaler Krieg: Australien, 1905–1918 (Paderborn, 2002), pp. 403–12. 66  For the War Precautions Act see Segesser, Ibid. For the Defence of the Realm Act see Panayi, Enemy, p. 46. 67  Saunders, ‘ “Stranger in Our Gates” ’, p. 24. 68 Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’, p. 224. 69  See Chapter 9. 70 Nagler, Nationale Minoritäten, pp. 182, 339, 509–18; Caglioti, ‘Why and How Italy Invented an Enemy Aliens Problem’, pp. 159–62.

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Global Germanophobia during Wartime  87 closed German-language schools, and forbade the use of German in public. This impacted upon church services, while German clubs also faced closure.71 In Britain Orders in Council under the Aliens Restriction Act achieved the same objectives.72 In Australia German place names were changed, especially in South Australia, where many Germans had established communities during the course of the nineteenth century and named their new homes after places or individuals in their homeland. An Act of Parliament passed on 8 November 1917 established a ‘Nomenclature Committee’ for the purpose of advising on the change of names that should take place, which meant that, for example, Bismarck became Weeropa, Blumberg Birdwood, Ehrenbreitstein Mount Yerila, and Grunthal Verdun. Meanwhile, those schools run by the Lutheran Church, again heavily focused upon South Australia, could only teach in English from 1917. By this time the Süd-Australische Zeitung, established in 1850 and running continuously since that time, had closed under a regulation of the War Precautions Act.73 Citizenship and naturalization also became a key issue for public opinion ­during the Great War, which resulted in the passage of legislation. The British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act, progressing through Parliament when the war broke out, faced scrutiny during the course of the conflict, leading to a new measure with the same name in 1918 which gave the Home Secretary wide-ranging powers to revoke naturalization certificates, as well as preventing any enemy alien from receiving such a certificate for a period of ten years after the end of the war. The issue of nationality and naturalization actually came under con­sid­er­ation in April 1917 at the Imperial War Conference in London, which meant that other parts of the Empire introduced similar legislation.74 As well as the legislation focusing upon individuals and their liberty, governments throughout the Empire and beyond set their sights on German business interests, emerging from the hostility that had greeted the rise of German economic power at the end of the nineteenth century.75 Within the Empire this ­hostility intensified during the war, driven forward by the idea that German companies had too much control and needed elimination. This happened through legislation, especially Trading with the Enemy Acts, which initially dealt with commercial transactions with firms in Germany but then turned their attention towards eliminating German firms within the Empire and confiscating 71 Luebke, Germans in Brazil, pp. 176–93. 72 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 52–3. 73 Scott, Australia during the War, pp. 150–5; Selleck, ‘ “The Trouble with My Looking Glass” ’; Jürgen Tampke, The Germans in Australia (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 72–126; ‘Germans’, in J. Jupp, The Australian People: An Encyclopedia of the Nation, Its People and Their Origins (Cambridge, 2001), p. 350. 74 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 61–6; Bird, Control of Enemy Alien Civilians, pp. 235–62; Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’, pp. 72–89, 106–9; NA/FO383/471, The Parliament of Australia, Enemy Aliens: Statement of Action Taken by the Departments of Defence and Home and Territories and the Attorney-General’s Department, 1917. 75 Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise of Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914 (London, 1980), pp. 291–360.

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88  Enemies in the Empire their property without compensation.76 One of the British colonies which took some of the most immediate and direct action against German businesses, under instruction from London, consisted of Hong Kong, which had interned and deported its German residents by the beginning of November 1914. This went together with the liquidation of the businesses they ran which constituted ‘about 70% of the total trade of Hongkong [sic]’ and threw ‘the entire trade not only of this port but of all this part of the world into confusion’.77 The liquidation of the Hong Kong German firms signalled the plight of alien companies, no matter how small or large, throughout the Empire. For example, Betha and Willi Steinle lost the patisserie they owned in Quetta in British India.78 At the other extreme, branches of major German companies, including the Deutsche and Dresdner banks in London, faced closure.79 Once again, the actions of the British Empire found replication elsewhere,80 including Italy and Russia. In the latter, where long-standing residents of German origin lived in the countryside, confiscation affected not simply industrial and commercial resources but also land.81 The measures against German interests within the Empire did not simply focus upon land and business but also missionary activity, as German religious groups had become active in British possessions from the eighteenth century, including the Gold Coast, South Africa, British East Africa, Egypt and Sudan, India, Hong Kong, British Borneo, Australia, the West Indies, and Canada. At the start of the war a total of fifteen different German missionary bodies employed 593 people in these areas with responsibility for 419,070 parishioners.82 German proselytizers also worked in the German Empire in areas which came under British control by the end of 1914, including Southwest Africa, German East Africa, Cameroon, Togo, Kiao Chow, and the Pacific.83 A total of 1,417 German Protestant missionaries worked around the world in 1914, making up 6.7 per cent of all Protestant evangelists originating in Europe and North America,84 to which we would 76 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 132–49; Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’, pp. 181–213; Fischer, Enemy Aliens, pp. 39–57; H. Campbell, The Law of Trading with the Enemy in British India (Calcutta, 1916). 77  AA/R140871, Memorandum as to German and Austro-Hungarian Affairs in Hong Kong for the  First Three Months of the Administration of Such Affairs by the American Consulate General, 15 November 1914. 78  BA/R901/84058, statement given by Betha Steinle in Kreuzingen, 9 October 1916. 79 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 132–49. 80  R. F. Roxburgh, ‘German Property in the War and the Peace’, Law Quarterly Review, vol. 37 (1921). 81  Daniela L. Caglioti, ‘Germanophobia and Economic Nationalism: Government Policies against Enemy Aliens in Italy during the First World War’, in Panayi, Germans as Minorities, pp. 147–70; Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire, pp. 55–120. 82  ‘Britische Kolonien’, in Evangelisches Missions Magazin, February 1915, pp. 65–6. 83  Ulrich van der Heyden, ‘Christian Missionary Societies in the German Colonies, 1884/5–1914/15’, in Volker Langbehn and Mohammad Salama, eds, German Colonialism: Race, the Holocaust and Postwar Germany (New York, 2001), pp. 215–35. 84 Richard Pierard, ‘World War I, the Western Allies and German Protestant Missions’, in Ulrich van der Heyden and Heike Liebau, eds, Missionsgeschichte, Kirchengeschichte, Weltgeschichte: Christliche Missionen im Kontext nationaler Entwicklungen in Afrika, Asien und Ozeanien (Stuttgart, 1996), p. 361.

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Global Germanophobia during Wartime  89 also need to add their Roman Catholic brethren, although it sometimes proves difficult to distinguish Germans working for this denomination from those of other nationalities in view of the international nature of this belief. In German Melanesia Catholics dominated, with 122 staff,85 while in India, a territory in which both Protestant Roman Catholic missionaries from all over the world had operated for much of the nineteenth century,86 the German Catholics focused their activities in specific areas including Gujurat and Poona, just outside Bombay, where they counted one archbishop, one bishop, ninety-two fathers, sixteen scholars, twenty-three brothers of the Society of Jesus, and 123 nuns.87 Before the war a rise in ecumenism had meant that differing missionary organizations, at least those of the Protestant faith with different national origins, worked together.88 Despite the efforts of missionaries to continue this movement after 1914, the forces of war and nationalism could not prevent the expulsion and internment of German missionaries and the confiscation of their property. Internment and deportation usually occurred in the early stages of the war, although those in the Gold Coast remained until 1917. As a result of such actions Christians of other missionary organizations, or other nationalities in the case of Roman Catholicism, took over the running of the religious, social, and educational activities of the German organizations. Although the imperial authorities did not confiscate Church property, which tended to fall into the hands of other mission groups, at least temporarily,89 the most famous exception to this rule consists of the Basel Mission Industrial Company, which had evolved during the course of the nineteenth century to provide employment as a means of spiritual development, but which the British government essentially regarded as enemy alien property in the Gold Coast and India and therefore confiscated it in the same way as other economic assets through the Basel Mission Trading Act in 1920.90 The sequestration of commercial and industrial property therefore constituted a key element of the policies of both the British Empire and its allies in dealing 85  Peter Hempenstall, ‘The Neglected Empire: The Superstructure of the Colonial State in German Melanesia’, in Arthur  J.  Knoll and Lewis  H.  Gann, eds, Germans in the Tropics: Essays in German Colonial History (London, 1987), p. 107, provides this figure without giving an indication of the national origins of those who worked for the Roman Catholic missionary organizations here. 86  See, for example, Robert Eric Frykenberg, Christianity in India: From Beginnings to the Present (Oxford, 2008), pp. 243–67, 344–79; and Panayi, Germans in India. 87 Ernest  R.  Hull, The German Jesuit Fathers of Bombay: By an Englishman who Knows Them (Bombay, 1915), pp. 8–31; Alfons Väth, Die deutschen Jesuiten in Indien: Geschichte der Mission von Bombay-Puna (Regensburg, 1920), pp. 68–228; James H. Gense, The Church at the Gateway of India, 1720–1960 (Bombay, 1960), pp. 276–300; P.  Beda Kleinschmidt, Auslandsdeutschtum und Kirche, Volume 2, Die Auslandsdeutschen in Übersee (Münster, 1930), pp. 231–6. 88  Pierard, ‘World War I, the Western Allies and German Protestant Missions’, pp. 362–3. 89  Ibid., pp. 363–71; Immanuel Kammerer, Die deutsche Mission im Weltkrieg (Stuttgart, 1916); Die katholischen Missionen, 1914–15, pp. 157–60, 241–4, 198–205, 1915–16, pp. 14–18; Wilhelm Schlatter and Hermann Witschi, Geschichte der Basler Mission, Vol. 4, 1914–1919 (Basel, 1965). 90  BL/IOR/L/AG/50/15, Statement of the Claim of the Basel Trading Company Against the United Kingdom Government, 1950; Gustave Adolf Wanner, Die Basler Handels Gesellschaft A.G., 1859–1959 (Basel, 1959), pp. 377–9.

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90  Enemies in the Empire with the German presence in their territories. The treatment of German possessions points to what became the ultimate aim of British imperial policy towards Germans during and immediately after the war, which consisted of elimination. In many ways the introduction of internment and the use of legislation to control the movement of Germans represented an early holding position. As attitudes hardened during the course of the war, indicated by the passage of legislation to deal with the issue of naturalized Germans and German names, the focus became elimination of all traces of German influence. The most obvious way of achieving this aim consisted of deportation. Internment implicitly necessitates a process of forced migration and the two operate simultaneously.91 This certainly happened within the British Empire during the First World War as not only did Germans find themselves interned in camps in the countries in which they had previously lived, they also often experienced transportation from one part of the Empire to another as part of the process of establishing a global incarceration system.92 Deportation directly to Germany, however, also formed part of the process of dealing with enemy aliens throughout the conflict, a process which reached its height at its conclusion. The examples of Britain and India help to illustrate the use of deportation during the course of the war. While women faced incarceration in some parts of the Empire, this did not happen in Great Britain, except in a handful of cases regarded as hostile or having carried out espionage.93 Instead, women in Great Britain faced repatriation, initially voluntarily as part of more general exchange schemes. This was a policy used for women on temporary visits to Britain in August 1914, which meant that between 6,000 and 7,000 had left by January 1915. After the sinking of the Lusitania, repatriation for women became compulsory, together with that of men above military age, which meant that 10,000 people left between May 1915 and June 1916.94 Meanwhile, internment had taken place in India during the early stages of the war, again intensified by the sinking of the Lusitania, but the government here decided to repatriate ‘all German and Austrian women and children and men of non-military age who are not interned’95 in August 1915, which resulted in the deportation of almost 1,000 people, including a majority of the missionaries of military age upon the Golconda, which made two sailings from India to Britain in early 1916.96 Throughout the war the British and German governments had also made efforts to exchange prisoners using a series of schemes which applied to particular

91  See Chapter 2. 92  See Chapter 5. 93 Panayi, Enemy, p. 112; Tammy Proctor, Female Intelligence: Women and Espionage in the First World War (London, 2003), pp. 33, 47–50. 94  Panayi, Idem, pp. 75, 80, 84. 95  BL/IOR/L/PJ/6/1399/3517, Communiqué, 13 August 1915. 96 See especially Albrecht Oepke, Ahmednagar und Golconda: Ein Beitrag zur Erörterung der Missionsprobleme des Weltkrieges (Leipzig, 1918).

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Global Germanophobia during Wartime  91 groups of people, whether women, children, men beyond military age, or those considered invalids. As the statistics of those deported from Britain suggest, this certainly worked effectively in the mainland. At the end of 1916 the British and German governments reached an exchange agreement to allow those over forty-five years to return home,97 a decision communicated to ‘all overseas governments’ during December 1916.98 Those held in Australia, who would have to pay for their own fare, would travel to Germany on a ship initially bound for either the United Kingdom or the USA.99 In December 1916 a group of thirteen priests who had worked in Ceylon but experienced internment in Australia sailed upon the SS Ventura to San Francisco.100 Another group of three Germans and one Austrian sailed from Sydney to San Francisco on the SS Sierra on 17 January 1917.101 Meanwhile, a Herr Tecklenburg, interned in Motuihi Island in New Zealand where he had ‘passed his 45th year’ and whose wife ‘who was originally interned with him’ but then found herself ‘in the Government Asylum at Auckland’ and had a ‘condition’ which ‘gave rise to the greatest anxiety unless she  can be transported to Europe immediately’,102 received permission to sail to France via the UK at the end of 1917 so that Mrs Tecklenburg ‘may join her parents’, although Mr Tecklenburg could ‘be interned or otherwise in accordance with wishes of the Government of France’.103 Once in France the Tecklenburgs wished to proceed to Germany via Switzerland.104 However, repatriation remained patchy. In September 1917 those civilians interned in Malta wrote to the Swiss Ambassador in London complaining about the fact that they remained captives despite the December 1916 agreement between the German and British governments, specifically stating that ‘Germans over 45 interned in the British Possessions in the Mediterranean will he sent home at the same time as those interned in Great Britain’. It appears that those of this age held in Egypt left the country on 15 March 1917, whereas those in Malta had readied themselves for departure at the end of February 1917 to the extent that ‘our passports were displayed and our suitcases were searched and taken into custody’ but ‘at the last minute, that is in the first days of March’, they ‘were informed that our departure would be temporarily suspended’.105 97  Further Correspondence Respecting the proposed Release of Germans Interned in the British and German Empires (London, 1917). 98  NA/FO383/145, S. Grindle to Secretary, Prisoners of War Department, 2 December 1916. 99  BA/R901/83955, Concentration Camps Australia, Prisoner of War Letter, Notice, Repatriation of German Civilians over 45 Years of Age, stamped 5 August 1917. 100  NA/FO383/279: Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 8 January 1917; Governor General to the Governor of Ceylon, 19 October 1916. 101  NA/FO383/279, R. M. Ferguson to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 1 February 1917. 102 NA/FO383/305, note verbale, 4 September 1917. 103 NA/FO383/305, The Governor of New Zealand to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 8 October 1917. 104 NA/FO383/433, note verbale, 4 September 1918. 105  Further Correspondence Respecting the Proposed Release of Germans Interned in the British and German Empires, p. 6; BA/R901/83956, Letter from those over 45 interned in Malta to the Swiss Ambassador in London, 30 September 1917.

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92  Enemies in the Empire The reason for the suspension lay in the fact that the German government ­ roclaimed a war zone around British waters, although they agreed to guarantee p the passage of the ships carrying prisoners on specific conditions, which the British rejected. Only 350 Germans therefore returned home.106 But in June 1917 a conference on repatriation and the treatment of prisoners took place in The Hague, chaired by a Dutch diplomat and attended by British and German ­representatives. The two sides reached an agreement on 2 July, which resumed repatriation under the auspices of the Dutch government, which would provide the steamships ne­ces­sary for the journey as hospital transports. This agreement essentially applied to those suffering from illness including military prisoners. Sailings resumed in October 1917 and from that date until the armistice a total of 3,662 civilians returned to the continent.107 However, the 2 July agreement does not seem to have applied to Germans in British possessions108 partly because of the reluctance of shipping companies to undertake the long journeys required,109 although the issue of repatriation from the colonies, which the German authorities had always insisted should form part of a general exchange of internees, had proved a long-term stumbling block to such a process because the number of Germans held by the British far outnumbered those interned in Germany, which would have meant that no real reciprocity existed. Although the two sides eventually reached an agreement on general exchange on 14 July 1918, it was never ratified.110 At the conclusion of peace 24,522 civilians remained interned in Great Britain,111 together with another 18,000 incarcerated in Africa, Asia, and Australasia in February 1919,112 while others found themselves in the Belgian and French colonies, leading to official demands for the quick return of the ‘colonial Germans’.113 Many of these had no desire to return to a Germany they may not have seen for decades, although others had no wish to remain in countries that may have interned them for the entire duration of the war. By 1918 deportation from the British Empire had become inevitable because of the strength of public hostility which demanded this. The role of internment of Germans as a holding position with the ultimate aim of deportation resembled processes elsewhere such as the Russian and Ottoman Empires against German and Armenian populations, 106 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 86–8; NA/FO383/278, ‘Exchange with Germany of Civilian Prisoners over 45 Years of Age’. 107  Panayi, Idem, pp. 87–8; An Agreement between the British and German Governments Concerning Combatant and Civilian Prisoners of War (London, 1917). 108  An Agreement between the British and German Governments Concerning Combatant and Civilian Prisoners of War (London, 1917). 109  NA/FO383/286, Downing Street to Prisoners of War Department, 29 November 1917. 110 Panayi, Enemy, p. 89; Panayi, Prisoners of Britain, p. 276; Matthew Stibbe, ‘The German Empire’s Response: From Retaliation to the Painful Realities of Defeat’, in Panayi, Germans as Minorities, pp. 50–4. 111 Panayi, Prisoners of Britain, p. 44. 112  Stibbe, ‘The German Empire’s Response’, p. 63. 113  Nachrichtenblatt der Reichszentralstelle für Kriegs- und Zivilgefangene, February 1919, pp. 1–3.

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Global Germanophobia during Wartime  93 respectively.114 Shipping became available slowly because German enemy aliens stood at the end of the queue of those wishing to return home at the cessation of hostilities.115 This process could take until 1920, despite complaints by the German representatives at Versailles who believed that the Great Powers had agreed as early as 10 May 1919 to repatriation ‘with the greatest possible rapidity’.116 Many prisoners remained in limbo for much of 1919, not knowing their exact release date, which led to fears of violence breaking out in the Holsworthy Camp near Sydney.117 While the mechanics of deportation may have operated on a local level, the British delegates at Versailles negotiated on an imperial scale.118 The individual governments within the Empire took their lead from London when it came to the details of who should face repatriation and whether internees could leave if they paid for their own fare,119 while the details of deportations went from the individual parts of the Empire to London.120 Deportation proceeded during the course of 1919 involving ships whose names must have become etched upon the minds of those sailing upon them from different parts of the Empire towards Europe, including: the Willochra, which left New Zealand on 14 May with 303 Germans on board;121 the Main, which left Bombay on 30 December 1919 but had to drop off 689 prisoners in a camp in Port Said because of a Spanish influenza outbreak on board, meaning that 976 arrived in Rotterdam on 6 February while the remainder did not reach Hamburg until April upon the Christian Rede;122 and the Kursk, which carried over 1,000 prisoners from Australia to Europe in the summer of 1919, of whom sixteen died of Spanish influenza.123 As a result of the deportations which had taken place during the course of the war, the German diaspora looked quite different in 1920 from what it had done in 1914. Germans almost completely disappeared from some countries. This happened, for instance, in India from where over 3,200 Germans faced repatriation,

114 Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire, pp. 121–65; Kévorkian, Armenian Genocide, pp. 647–72. Deportation in the Russian case consisted of internal displacement. 115  NA/FO383/541, Report of the Commission of Prisoners of War on the Commission and Sub-Commission for the Repatriation of Prisoners of War under the Treaties of Peace, 7 June 1919. 116  NA/FO608/167, Brockdorff-Rantzau to M. Clemencau, 10 May 1919. 117  NA/FO383/536, Telegram, Swedish Minister, London, 3 March 1919. 118  NA/FO383/547, British Empire Delegation, Prisoners of War, Copy of reply approved by Council of Principal and Associated Powers to letter from Herr Brockdorff-Rantzau dated 10 May 1919. 119  See correspondence in NA/FO383/538 including: Prisoners of War Department to Colonial Office, 17 January 1919; Downing Street to Prisoners of War Department, 12 February 1919. 120  See the two letters in BA/R1001/2632 sent from Lord Curzon to the Swiss Charge d’Affaires, dated 30 September 1919 and 3 January 1920, relating to the deportation of Germans from Samoa to New Zealand and the repatriation of Germans in Borneo, respectively. 121  BA/R1001/2632, Curzon to the Swiss Charge d’Affaires, 24 May 1919. 122 AA/PA/R48340; N.  O.  Tera, Meine 800: Heimkehr aus Ahmednagar: ‘Der Käpt’n erzählt’ (Hanover, 1934). 123  NA/FO383/542, Chief Magistrate’s Office, Durban to Governor General Durban, 25 June 1919.

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94  Enemies in the Empire leaving just sixty-two in March 1920,124 although forty-two of these returned to Europe on the sailing of the SS Patricia in the autumn of 1920.125 Larger communities did not experience wipe out in quite the same way, although they witnessed a significant decrease. Thus the German community of Britain declined from 57,500 in 1914 to 22,254 in 1919,126 while Gerhard Fischer has pointed to the 6,150 people deported from Australia at the end of the war127 and has therefore spoken of the ‘destruction’ of the German Australian community.128 Similarly, Germans virtually disappeared from several countries in Africa,129 as well as from islands in the Pacific previously controlled by Germany.130 In many cases removal did not take place at the end of the war but during it because the imperial authorities moved people from one part of the Empire to another in order to concentrate them in the web of camps they had established,131 so that, for example, those Germans living in the South Pacific faced removal to Australia and New Zealand, with the former also housing the Germans from Ceylon.132 Those transported to New Zealand included the Governor of Samoa who initially faced removal to the Fiji Islands and then to the camp in Motuihi Island.133 Ahmednagar in India, meanwhile, housed Germans from East Africa, a few from the Middle East, as well as the Germans from Siam when this country joined the war in the summer of 1917.134 At the conclusion of the war many of those deported from India and Australia to Europe therefore had not even lived in the countries from which they faced expulsion, and their only experience of life within them lay in a concentration camp. During the course of the war a type of non-violent ethnic cleansing therefore took place from the British colonies and dominions, although, in some cases, such as Australia and Great Britain, thousands of people successfully appealed against their expulsion.135 The vindictive Germanophobic atmosphere at the end of the First World War136 not only facilitated expulsion, as outlined in article 220 of

124 BL/IOR/L/PJ/6/1660/1746, Memorandum on ‘Repatriation of Germans Interned in India’, March 1920. 125 NAI/Home/PoliceB/February1921/106–107, List of Germans repatriated in the SS Patricia; AA/R48341, Society of Friends of Foreigners in Distress to E. Schroetter, 2 October 1920. 126 Panayi, Enemy, p. 97. 127 Fischer, Enemy Aliens, p. 32.    128  Ibid., pp. 303–14. 129  Daniel Steinbach, ‘Defending the Heimat: The Germans in South-West Africa and East Africa during the First World War’, in H. Jones, J. O’Brien, and C. Schmidt-Supprian, eds, Untold War: New Perspectives in First World War Studies (Leiden, 2008), pp. 179–208. 130 Hiery, Neglected War, pp. 40–1, 115; BA/R1001/2633, Territory of Western Samoa, Order for Deportation, 14 June 1920. 131  This issue receives detailed consideration in Chapter 5. 132 Fischer, Enemy Aliens, pp. 138–54. 133 NA/FO383/31, note verbale, 31 July 1915. 134  See Chapter 12 for full details. 135 Fischer, Enemy Aliens, p. 302; Panayi, Prisoners, p. 279. 136 Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (New York, 2003), pp. 157–92.

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Global Germanophobia during Wartime  95 the Treaty of Versailles,137 but also led to measures to prevent the entry of Germans into the British Empire after the conclusion of war. The Secretary of State for the Colonies drew up a memorandum in July 1919 on the issue of permanent exclusion of Germans from the Empire for consideration by the Cabinet, leaving it for the individual territories to decide for themselves, although tem­por­ary prohibition became the norm.138 The former German colonies incorporated into the Empire introduced such measures, including the Cameroons, Nauru, New Guinea, South West Africa, Tanganyika, and Togoland.139 In Samoa, where 119 Germans and Austrians had remained for the duration of the war, the Samoa Immigration Order of 1920 ordered their deportation together with that of their children.140 The Canadian government introduced legislation in June 1919 prohibiting the landing of enemy aliens.141 The Government of India forbade the entry of Germans for a period of up to five years after the conclusion of peace.142 By 1921 a general imperial policy had come into operation ‘that any former enemy alien seeking admission to a British colony or Protectorate must be in possession of a permit signed by the Colonial Secretary or other corresponding Officer of the Colony or Protectorate which he wishes to enter before he can be granted admission’.143

British Internment in Context Internment in the Empire formed one part of a four-pronged strategy to control Germans during the course of the war in which the ultimate aim consisted of expulsion of all traces of perceived German influence by the end of the conflict. The initial legislation aimed at controlling the German populations of the individual territories but, as the war progressed and Germanophobic resentment increased, the aim increasingly became elimination, whether this consisted of preventing the use of German language, confiscating German property, or deporting Germans and their families, although the latter two policies did begin to evolve in the early stages of the conflict.

137  The full text of the Treaty of Versailles can be found at the Library of Congress Website, https://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000002-0043.pdf, accessed 4 September 2019. See p. 135 for Article 220. 138 NA/CAB/24/84, War Cabinet, Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies on Exclusion of Germans from Colonies and Protectorates, 14 July 1919. 139  NA/CO323/867/1, Statement Respecting Legislation Restricting Immigration of Former Enemy Aliens into Ex-German Colonies, 13 October 1921. 140  BA/R1001/2633, Territory of Western Samoa, June 1920. 141  NA/CO323/867/1, At the Government House of Ottawa, Monday 9 June 1919, His Excellency the Governor General in Council. 142  BL/IOR/L/PJ/6/1569/1126, Government of India Press Communiqués, ‘Exclusion of former Enemy Nationality from India for a Period of Five Years from the Conclusion of the War’, 1919–20. 143  BA/R901/25558, Letter from J. E. J. Adam, Foreign Office, dated 24 March 1921.

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96  Enemies in the Empire The above narrative has pointed to the fact that the Germanophobic policies of  the Empire operated precisely upon an imperial level, mirroring the way in which this global power functioned more generally during the war. The global sense of Britishness which facilitated the volunteering of men from Australia and New Zealand in particular to fight in Europe and elsewhere went hand in hand with the Germanophobia which existed in the different parts of the Empire with virtually the same manifestations throughout, peaking with the anti-German riots in Britain and South Africa in May 1915. Standardized Germanophobia also revealed itself in the government actions within the Empire. No guiding hand existed in London which dictated that each individual possession should follow the lead of the metropole, especially in view of the level of autonomy which the dominions in particular had developed. Yet different parts of the Empire, whether dominions or otherwise, did follow the lead of London so that the policies pursued in the imperial territories reveal remarkable conformity with some degree of autonomy. The Germanophobic policies of the British Empire mirror those of other parts of the world during the Great War. This becomes clear in the treatment of Germans but also in the fate of other minorities. Internment, deportation, and property confiscation became central to the way in which governments treated their ethnic minority populations during the conflict, especially in those cases where they had any perceived connection with the enemy. While the British state did not practise the type of genocidal violence which emerged in the dying Ottoman Empire, acts of mistreatment took place in particular camps.144 At the same time, both the Ottoman and British Empires had the same aim of eliminating the enemy population, even if the former used more brutal methods than the latter. The more appropriate comparison may consist of the treatment of Germans outside the Empire, which reveals that similar hatreds and methods of persecution emerged in states from Italy to Brazil. Russia, an autocracy like the Ottoman Empire, pursued brutal methods and experienced some of the worst riots.145 Minority persecution, like the introduction of internment, therefore became the norm during the First World War. While variations of persecution of Germans may have emerged, the similarity of the policies of exclusion within the Empire remains striking. Internment therefore needs consideration as one of the key forms of isolating Germans in the British Empire during the First World War, mirroring developments against both Germans and other outsiders throughout the globe.

144  See Chapter 6 and the discussion in Mahon Murphy, Colonial Captivity during the First World War: Internment and the Fall of the German Empire, 1914–1919 (Cambridge, 2018), pp. 69–92. 145 Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire.

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5

British Imperial Internment The range of measures introduced to control German and other enemy alien populations within the British Empire included the key component of internment. In the early stages of the war this policy played the role of a short-term holding position to facilitate control and segregation. As the war continued, an increasingly radical Germanophobia demanded the wholesale removal of the enemy within. Internment served as the key policy demonstrating to Anglocentric public opinion the control individual overseas territories had over the danger posed by German civilians, reflecting the policies which all combatant states had implemented. London played a leading role in the control of Germans within the Empire, demonstrated by the replication of policies introduced in the imperial capital not simply within the White Dominions but also other areas under more direct control. While the British imperial internment system operated on an international scale and while individual Germans may have experienced transportation thousands of miles to their final place of incarceration, the majority of those interned spent time in camps in the country in which they resided at the start of the war. Their fate was mostly decided by the respective administration in situ, especially in territories which counted a significant German population.

The Evolution of Internment Policy The argument that the evolution of internment policy was centred on London is supported by the way in which both the British and German national archives have organized their relevant material. In the case of Britain, category FO383 from the Prisoners of War and Aliens Department constitutes an essentially chronological collection of documents concerned with all civilian and military prisoners held by the British Empire and those Britons interned by the Central Powers. The documents make no distinction between different parts of the Empire. Similarly, the surviving papers in the German national archives work on an imperial basis, and while they distinguish between camps in different parts of the Empire, the use of the term ‘England’ also means the British Empire.1 1 The key sets of documents in the German Federal Archive in Berlin are: R67, Archiv des Ausschusses für deutsche Kriegsgefangene des Frankfurter Vereins vom Roten Kreuz/Archiv für Kriegsgefangenenforschung, Frankfurt am Main; and R901, Auswärtiges Amt, which includes information on internment. Enemies in the Empire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War. Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi, Oxford University Press (2020). © Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198850151.001.0001

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98  Enemies in the Empire This system of organization points to the fact that the official mind in both Germany and Britain operated on an imperial level. Our first concern consists of establishing the extent to which policy developed in Britain impacted upon decisions to intern in other parts of the Empire and the extent to which local factors played a role in those imperial territories which had significant autonomy, especially the White Dominions and India. The British government did not have a consistent policy in the early stages of the war and did not initially decide upon wholesale internment for males of military age. It changed its mind on several occasions depending on the perceived threat posed by enemy aliens and the pressure from press opinion and Unionist voices in both houses of Parliament. The turning point was the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915 which was followed by a rise in Germanophobia and attacks on German property. This left the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith with no option but to announce the introduction of wholesale internment because of the perceived military threat from enemy aliens, but also to protect Germans in view of the violence on the streets. Internment of males of military age continued until the end of the war.2 Incarceration evolved in a similar way in other parts of the Empire, partly under instructions from the imperial capital in the early stages of the conflict. For example, on 7 August 1914 ‘notification came from London that enemy reservists should be detained’ in Australia, leading to their immediate arrest. Ernest Scott indicated the way in which evolving internment policy in the autumn of 1914 almost directly mirrored its development in London.3 At the beginning of the war New Zealand internment camps fell under the control of the Colonial Secretary, and the country followed the same policy as Australia, Britain, and Canada.4 Internment policies in India and South Africa also evolved in a similar way, with limited incarceration in the autumn of 1914 followed by an intensification in the following year.5 This early cautious approach focusing upon those perceived as a threat, followed by more comprehensive internment, proved the pattern in parts of the Empire which housed significant enemy alien populations, again with the sinking of the Lusitania proving a turning point. Local-scale decisions meant that some variations existed in the evolution of internment policy and the percentage of those interned, although the focus remained upon males of military age with women rarely facing incarceration. This only happened occasionally out of a desire to keep families together.6 Canada allows us to study the interplay between imperial centre and periphery, with the dominion status and local circumstances leading to a degree of de­vi­ation. 2  See Chapter 7. 3  Ernest Scott, Australia during the War (Sydney, 1941), p. 114. 4  See: Andrew Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’: New Zealand, Enemy Aliens and the Great War Experience, 1914–1919 (Oxford, 2012), pp. 114–15. Bohdan Kordan, Enemy Aliens, Prisoners of War: Internment in Canada during the Great War (Montreal, 2003), pays little attention to instructions from London. 5  See Chapters 8 and 9. 6  See later in this chapter.

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British Imperial Internment  99 From 4 August 1914, British experts associated with the Committee of Imperial Defence were involved in developing a set of national security guidelines, which also included the question of enemy alien containment. This cul­min­ated in the passing of the War Measures Act (WMA) on 22 August, which was largely modelled on the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) and the Aliens Restriction Act in Britain. Crucially, measures to guarantee internal security were not regulated through parliamentary discussion but through council-in-order. This gave wartime governments the legislative framework to deal with enemy aliens as they saw fit to secure the Canadian home front. It included press and communications censorship as well as travel restrictions. Controversially, the Wartime Elections Act of September 1917 deprived those aliens who had been naturalized after 1902 from the franchise. Cross-border exiting caused some friction between Whitehall and Ottawa. The Canadian government would have been happy to let reservists cross the border into the United States as this would have relieved the authorities from this potential threat. London, however, wanted the reservists to be apprehended so they could not join the fighting in Europe. In the end, Ottawa reluctantly followed the imperial decree.7 The details of order-in-council P.C.  2721, issued on 28 October 1914, are ­crucial to understanding the specificities of Canadian internment operations. It allowed the authorities to apprehend not only those who presented a potential danger, but also those who did not have sufficient means to support themselves. Their status was determined as military prisoners and not civilians, which meant that they fell under the regulations of the Hague Convention. This stipulated for  two points that are important in our context. First, a distinction was to be made between first- and second-class prisoners, broadly following the distinction between officers and lower ranks. Second, the convention determined that second-class prisoners would work for their own maintenance.8 Bolstered by the legal framework, motives for incarceration went beyond pure internal safety. Ironically, although Germans were perceived to pose a greater threat, they were interned in smaller numbers. The total of 8,579 included 5,954 Austro-Hungarians, 2,009 Germans, 205 Turks, ninety-nine Bulgarians, and 312 classified as ‘miscellaneous’. Twenty-four camps emerged across the dominion. Sir  William Otter, the head of internment operations, found that ‘most of the Austrians are working men, and though they might cause trouble if not kept under observation, it is the German commercial agents and men in similar positions, who are most likely to prove dangerous. They do not mix with the working men—they are educated, pushful, and intelligent, and many of them have 7 Donald  H.  Avery, Internment (Canada), in 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/internment_canada, accessed 1 August 2018; Desmond Morton, The Canadian General Sir William Otter (Toronto, 1974). 8 Avery, Idem; Bodan  S.  Kordan, No Free Man: Canada, the Great War, and the Enemy Alien Experience (Kingston, Ontario, 2016), pp. 132–6.

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100  Enemies in the Empire seen  service with the German forces’.9 The disproportionally large number of Austro-Hungarians can therefore mainly be explained through socio-economic reasons: they were perceived to contribute to urban deprivation and depressed wages. Confining and putting them to work would take off some pressure and, it was hoped, would make them settle long-term in rural areas rather than overcrowded cities.10 Although Canada was thus firmly integrated into imperial operations, two aspects made the dominion different from other Empire locations: first, the majority of internees were not German but Austro-Hungarian and, second, these had to undertake forced labour. Both aspects are connected and can be explained through a combination of local demographic, legal, and socio-economic factors.

Transportation While the majority of internees may have spent the entire war behind barbed wire in the country in which they lived in 1914, thousands experienced periods of  ­captivity following seizure at sea or because the ship they had boarded had docked at a British port. At the same time, some internees spent the early part of the war in short-term camps in Africa, Asia, or the West Indies, and the latter stages of the conflict in Britain, Australia, or Canada, respectively, as smaller camps disappeared in favour of larger establishments as part of a process of ­consolidation. This system of transportation provides the best indication of the imperial nature of internment. While Gerhard Fischer has spoken of the reimplementation of the principle of Botany Bay in the case of Australia,11 this became normal in a variety of spheres. The globalization of internment therefore reveals itself not simply in the replication of policy implemented in London throughout the Empire, with local variations, but in three other ways: the arrest of German reservists in ports; the removal of Germans from ships at sea; and the transportation of Germans from one part of the globe to another, which could take place either because of the defeat of German forces, as an act of consolidation, or even the outsourcing of internment by another state (Table 5.1). While instructions may have emanated from London about the arrest of Germans found on ships docked in ports throughout the Empire at the beginning of the war, the policy was reiterated in February 1915 when the Colonial Secretary, Lewis Harcourt, sent out a circular stating that ‘any enemy subjects, whether crew

9  Montreal Star, 19 November 1914 (quoted in Morton, Sir William Otter, p. 43). 10 William D. Otter, Internment Operations, 1914–20 (Ottawa, 1920), pp. 2, 6, 12; Donald H. Avery, Internment (Canada), in 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https:// encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/internment_canada, accessed 31 July 2018; Kordan, No Free Man; Morton, Sir William Otter. 11  Gerhard Fischer, Enemy Aliens: Internment and the Homefront Experience in Australia, 1914–1920 (St Lucia, 1989), pp. 138–54.

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British Imperial Internment  101 Table 5.1  Main deportation and transportation routes Britain, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India, Caribbean, and Bermuda Mediterranean West Africa East Africa Pacific, South East Asia Atlantic 1918/19: repatriation

➔ ➔ ➔ ➔ ➔ ➔

Camps within territory  Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt ➔ Britain Britain India, Egypt Australia, New Zealand Britain, Canada, Caribbean, Bermuda

Also see the map on p. xvii.

or passengers, on board neutral vessels entering’ forty-seven specified ports from  Otago to St John’s would ‘be liable to removal and detention’.12 Earlier in  November 1914 a similar circular stated that ‘enemy reservists . . . should be removed on the high seas as well as in British territorial waters’.13 These two processes of arrest in British ports and capture on the high seas had begun from the summer of 1914, as revealed in a range of personal accounts. Those captured in British ports included Karl Wrischek, a fourteen-year-old cabin boy working on the Derfflinger docked in Port Said on 2 August 1914 which received an order from ‘an English higher officer’ not to proceed further. All the passengers proceeded to a collection camp in Malta. Wrischek remained here until March 1916, returning home to Germany via the Stratford camp in East London.14 The camp established in Gibraltar, meanwhile, took in 882 German, Austrian, and Turkish nationals ‘landed here’ immediately after the war broke out.15 Gunther Plüschow, one of the most celebrated First World War German internees who travelled home to Germany from Kiao Chow via the USA, faced capture when he docked in Gibraltar on a journey across the Atlantic. This proved a temporary stop as Plüschow subsequently experienced transportation to England where he spent time in several places of internment, including the officers’ camp at Donington Hall,16 from where he escaped and became one of only three prisoners, all military, to return to Germany from Britain in this way during the war.17 Numerous Germans actually faced arrest in Gibraltar. On 24 August 1914 when the Italian steam ship Re Vittorio docked here ‘about 500 Germans, among

12  NA/FO383/239, L. Harcourt, Circular Confidential, 5 February 1915. 13  NA/FO383/239, L. Harcourt, Circular Confidential, 30 November 1914. 14  BA/MA/RM3/5386, report Wrischek, 27 July 1916. 15 BA/MA/RM3/5373, Behandlung der auf Gibraltar (Spanien) internierten Kriegsgefangenen, 21 March 1915. 16  Gunther Plüschow, My Escape from Donington Hall (London, 1922), pp. 136–83. 17  Panikos Panayi, Prisoners of Britain: German Civilian and Combatant Internees during the First World War (Manchester, 2012), pp. 264–71.

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102  Enemies in the Empire

Figure 5.1  Gunther Plüschow.

them 42 officers, were held back as prisoners of war’.18 Two captives faced the same experience as Plüschow. Edwin Mieg sailed on an Italian ship, the America, back to Europe from New York where he worked on the outbreak of war. After initial internment in Gibraltar he was transferred to Alexandra Palace and then Knockaloe.19 Similarly, Lieutenant Klapproth, travelling back to Europe from a training exercise in New York at the outbreak of war aboard the President Grant, spent time in the internment camp in Gibraltar from 24 August until 24 December 1914. He was then transported to England and spent time in Holyport, Plymouth, Southampton, Donington Hall, and Wakefield.20 On 4 January 1915 eight German passengers, including one doctor, three architects, one painter, and one mechanic, on the Italian steamship Principe de Udine ‘were captured by the English in Gibraltar and brought to land’21 (Figure 5.1). The Royal Navy seized numerous ships on the high seas sailing in all directions, taking the passengers arrested to the nearest port and internment camp, in 18  BA/MA/RM3/5371, letter from Hassermann, 1 December 1914. 19  MNH/MS11034, transcripted correspondence of Edwin Mieg. 20  BA/MA/RM3/5382, pp. 324–6. 21  BA/MA/RM3, Kaiserlich Deutsches Generalkonsulat, Genua, 22 January 1915.

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British Imperial Internment  103 some cases hundreds or thousands of miles away. Transatlantic passengers have left some of the most detailed accounts, especially those on the Dutch steamer Potsdam, which left New York for Germany with about 450 German passengers on 15 August. On 24 August the English cruiser Diana approached the Potsdam near Falmouth and forced it to dock there. As many as 394 passengers faced internment, overwhelmingly Germans but with a few Austro-Hungarians. Initially taken to the early British camp at Dorchester, many of the prisoners would remain interned into the following year, by which time they had been moved to other locations including the Isle of Man.22 In August 1917 a total of 323 internees from camp 4 in Knockaloe sent a letter to the German Foreign Office in Berlin stating that they ‘were taken from neutral ships by representatives of the English regime while we found ourselves on a journey from one neutral land to another’, believing that sailing under a neutral flag offered them protection. The signatories all provided details of their Atlantic crossings in either direction, involving a vast variety of ports. Botho Lilienthal, for example, sailing on the Swedish Alida from Rosario to Copenhagen, faced arrest in Ramsgate on 6 August 1915, while nine others travelling on the Belgian Zeeland from New York to Amsterdam experienced the same fate in Liverpool on 10 August 1914. Other intercepted and incomplete journeys included, for example, Las Palmas to Rotterdam, Buenos Aries to Malmo, and Mississippi to Stockholm.23 The Dutch steamer Hollandia, on its way from Buenos Aires to Amsterdam in August 1914, was stopped by the  British cruiser Cornwall which resulted in the arrest of fifty-eight German prisoners, many of whom resided in South America. The Cornwall escorted the Hollandia to the Cape Verde Islands to join eight other ships held there. The Germans from the Hollandia then faced transportation to Freetown in Sierra Leone and then to a camp on shore on 22 September where they remained until 18 January, when they travelled to England.24 A similar sequence of events was experienced by the passengers of the Professor Woermann sailing from Tenerife to Las Palmas but ending up in Freetown and then sailing to Britain.25 The seizure of Germans during transatlantic passages found reflection in other parts of the world. At the outbreak of war Dr Friedrich Hacker sailed on the Austrian steamship Koerber from Hong Kong to Trieste. ‘At the end of October all the Germans and Austrians—perhaps 1000 persons—were carried to Port Said on the transport steamer “Osmanieh” and transferred to Malta’. Meanwhile, on 12  August 1914 ‘the Cargo boat “Walkure” was seized by the Gunboat “Zelee” ’ 22 Hans Erich Benedix, In England interniert (Gotha, 1916), pp. 1–2; Berliner Tageblatt, 11 September 1914; NA FO383/22, letter from Dr Werner Kieschke, 9 February [1915]. 23 BA/R901/83967, Gesuch der von neutralen Schiffen genommen Gefangenen des Lagers IV, Knockaloe to Auswaertiges Amt, Abteilung Kriegsgefangene Berlin, 16 August 1917. 24 BA/MA/RM3/5369, ‘Liste der von der “Hollandia” auf der Fahrt von Buenos Aires nach Amsterdam durch den Englischen Kreuzer “Cornwall” kriegsgefangen gemachten deutschen Fahrgäste’; NA/FO383/81, intercepted letter from E. G. Müller, Prisoner of War at Wakefield, no date. 25  BA/MA/RM3/5372, letter from P. W. Brünger, 7 February 1915.

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104  Enemies in the Empire and taken to Papeete in Tahiti, where the captives experienced short-term internment.26 Paul Helbig, a baker who boarded the steamship Lothringen bound for Australia on 24 June 1914, became a prisoner of war when his vessel approached Melbourne on 15 August and was greeted by a British warship. ‘On our arrival in Melbourne there were already anchored several other German steamships’.27 Australia, together with New Zealand, became the destination for most of the Germans captured by the British in South East Asia, not only at sea but also in both German and British colonies throughout the area. This situation reflected developments elsewhere in the world so that, for example, many Germans seized in the Mediterranean and Middle East would end up in the camps in Gibraltar, Malta, and Egypt. Two Germans claimed that they faced arrest in Greece. Richard Kuenzer, who served as Vice Konsul in Zanzibar at the outbreak of war, ‘returned home on a safe conduct issued by the British. In April 1916 I was kidnapped by British Troops while exercising my official functions in the Southern and Neutral kingdom of Greece’, where he acted as German Consul in Drama and then faced transfer to the Ras el-Tin camp in Alexandria.28 The British also arrested the German commercial attaché in Athens in 1916, claiming that ‘he was the chief of the enemy Secret Service at Athens’.29 The Germans in Egypt experienced internment in both Malta and Ras el-Tin including, according to one report, those over military age in the case of Ras el-Tin.30 Those Germans in Egypt included the artist Adolf Stein, born in East Prussia in 1846 and living in a suburb of Cairo on the outbreak of war. ‘On the 10th of December 1914 I received an invitation from the police . . . I was then transported with three others to Alexandria and housed in the jail in Hadra. My companions were an Israelite Galician called Pflaum, a musician Wofram and another musician’. On 17 December a total of 120 men boarded the Cunard ship Medic bound for the St Clements camp in Malta where Stein remained until 27 August 1915.31 In 1918, following the British advance in Palestine, as many as 450 Germans in Jaffa faced deportation to Egypt, together with those in Jerusalem.32 26 BA/MA/RM3/5371, American Consulate, Tahiti, Society Islands to Secretary of State, Washington, 15 December 1914. This episode appears to have involved the British operating in a French possession. 27  BA/MA/MSG200/1211, Martin Heinrich, ‘Ein Internierter. Tagebuchblätter von Paul Helbig, 1914–1919’, p. 3. 28 NA/F0383/286, Dr Richard Kuenzer to the consul of the United States of America, Malta, 20 December 1916. 29  NA/FO383/85, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to United States ambassador, 13 January 1917; NA/FO383/162, Gerichtliche Vernehmung des Arztes Dr Friedrich Hacker, Goch, 29 October 1915. For more on the Germans in Greece see Malte Fuhrmann, ‘Spies, Victims, Collaborators and Humanitarian Interventionists: The Germans on the Hellenic and Ottoman Shore of the Aegean’, in Panikos Panayi, ed., Germans as Minorities During the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, 2014), pp. 193–9. 30 BA/R901/83018, Bericht über Vernehmung einer deutschen Reisenden aus Alexandrien in Lindau, 8 July 1916. 31  NA/FO383/162, Gerichtliche Vernehmung des Kunstmalers Adolf Stein, Goch, 29 October 1915. 32  NA/FO383/439, Secret Operations, from G.O.C. in C., Egypt to War Office, 10 May 1918.

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British Imperial Internment  105 Germans in Africa need consideration in three geographical areas: first, those who lived in West Africa, especially in the German colonies of Togo and Cameroon,33 although some long-term German residents in British colonies also faced deportation, including Wilhelm Kröpke who had lived in Nigeria from 1913 but was arrested on 9 August 1914. He initially spent time in a cell in Lagos before transportation to a camp in Ibaddan and subsequently to Britain.34 Those captured in Togo included German missionaries initially taken to Accra and subsequently sailing to Plymouth.35 The turning point in the conquest of Cameroon was the fall of Duala on 27 September, after which the resident Germans faced arrest. Heinrich Norden wrote of a journey with 150–200 people taken to a camp for two days and then upon the Bathurst to Nigeria and subsequently Accra, where he remained until the end of December when he sailed to Liverpool for a short spell of detention in Britain. Other ships carried German internees to Britain in November.36 Germans living in British East Africa, meanwhile, like their counterparts on the other side of the continent, initially spent time in temporary camps near their place of residence, especially in Nairobi and Mombasa before, in this case, facing transportation to Ahmednagar in India by the end of 1914.37 Other Germans in East Africa were transported to Malta and to the Sidi Bishr camp in Alexandria,38 while others remained in camps in Tanga, Dar Es Salaam, and Wilhelmstal until the end of the war.39 Finally, Germans in South and Southwest Africa would spend time in camps in both of these areas, building upon traditions established during the Boer and Herero Wars. The main places of concentration here included Fort Napier in Pietermaritzburg in South Africa, and Aus, Okanjande, and Swakopmund in Southwest Africa.40 The location of the camps in which Germans in Africa faced internment therefore depended on the part of the continent where they lived. Those in the west travelled towards Britain,

33  Mahon Murphy, Colonial Captivity during the First World War: Internment and the Fall of the German Empire, 1914–1919 (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 43–7. 34  Wilhelm Kröpke, Meine Flucht aus englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft 1916: Von Afrika über England nach Deutschland zur Flandern-Front (Flensburg, 1937), pp. 7–20. 35  Otto Schimming, 13 Monate hinter dem Stacheldraht: Alexandra Palace, Knocakaloe, Isle of Man, Stratford (Stuttgart, 1919), pp. 1–7. 36 Heinrich Norden, In englischer Gefangenschaft (Kassel, 1915). See also: Gotthilf Vöhringer, Meine Erlebnisse während des Krieges in Kamerun und in englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft (Hamburg, 1915); BA/R901/84678, ‘Bericht des Kapitänleutnants d. Res. Bötefur über die Erlebnisse während seiner Gefangenschaft’, 31 March 1916; BA/MA/RM3/5371, testimony of Dr Beyer, no date. 37  Daniel Steinbach, ‘Power Majorities and Local Minorities: German and British Colonials in East Africa during the First World War’, in Panayi, Germans as Minorities, pp. 270–80. See also Chapters 7 and 12. 38 Murphy, Colonial Capitivy, p. 53. 39 Deutscher Bundestag, ed., Das Werk des Untersuchungsausschusses der verfassungsgebenden Deutschen Nationalversammlung und des Deutschen Reichstages, 1919–1928, Reihe 3: Völkerrecht im Weltkrieg. Bd. III/2: Gutachten des Sachverständigen Geh. Rates Prof. Dr. Meurer (Berlin, 1927), p. 820. 40  Ibid., pp. 48–51; J. Köhler, ed., Karte von Grossbritannien, Italien u. den überseeischen Ländern, in denen Kriegs- und Zivilgefangene sich befinden (Hamburg, 1917).

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106  Enemies in the Empire those in the East mostly ended up in Ahmednagar, and those in the south remained in that part of Africa. Australia and New Zealand became another major area of concentration, absorbing the Germans who had lived in the Pacific on the outbreak of war. Following the pattern established in Africa and elsewhere, some communities initially spent time in camps in their immediate locality before transportation to places of incarceration which would last for most of the war. The Germans moved to Australia and New Zealand divide into a series of groups. The first and best documented lived in the Pacific colonies. The Germans in New Guinea, which fell to Australian forces by the middle of September 1914, initially remained on parole,41 but some convicted of breaking the terms of their parole faced de­port­ ation to the Holsworthy Camp.42 By the summer of 1915 over ninety lived behind barbed wire in the New Guinea administrative capital of Rabaul,43 although another 168 had experienced deportation to Australia, mostly to the internment camp in Holsworthy.44 As the rest of the German Pacific Islands fell to the forces of Australia and New Zealand,45 deportations took place towards these countries from a variety of locations, including the small island of Nauru.46 When New Zealand forces took over Samoa and Fiji, most of the Germans who lived here went to the camp in Motuihi Island which also housed the governor of German New Guinea, Erich Schultz, who initially faced transportation to the Fiji Islands, and Chief Justice Tecklenburg from Samoa, who originally spent time under guard in a hotel in Suva in Fiji.47 Some Germans in Samoa, however, remained in a camp in Sogi in Apia for most of the war.48 As well as taking internees from the German colonies in the South Pacific, the Australian camps accepted new inmates from elsewhere in South East Asia and even further afield. On 24 February 1915 the Secretary of State for the Colonies sent a cablegram to the Governor-General of Australia, transmitting a request from the Governor of the Straits Settlement that Australia take the Germans

41  BA/R901/83015, Terms of Capitulation of German New Guinea; Seaforth Simpson Mackenzie, The Australians at Rabaul: The Capture and Administration of the German Possessions in the Southern Pacific (Sydney, 1927), pp. 36–104, 324–8. 42  NA/FO383/185: German Concentration Camp, Liverpool to Staatssekretär des Reichskolonialamts, 12 September 1915; Records of Germans who signed letter of complaint dated Liverpool, 12 September, 1915. 43  NA/FO383/434, List of Germans interned in Rabaul. 44  NA/FO383/434, List of Persons sent from New Guinea to Australia. 45  Correspondence Respecting Operations against German Possessions in the Western Pacific (London, 1915); Hermann Joseph Hiery, The Neglected War: The German South Pacific and the Influence of World War I (Honolulu, HI, 1995). 46  NA/FO383/434, Report on Deportations at Nauru. 47 NA/FO383/31, note verbale, 31 July 1915; Kölnische Zeitung, 15 August 1916; BA/R901/83006, Geheimer Regierungsrat Tecklenburg to Frau Milton-Eisner, 26 November 1914; S.  J.  Smith, ‘The Seizure and Occupation of Samoa’, in H. T. B. Drew, ed., The War Effort in New Zealand (Auckland, 1923), pp. 23–41. 48  NA/FO383/434, List of Prisoners of War interned in Camp Sogi, Apia, Samoa.

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British Imperial Internment  107 interned in Singapore, to which the Governor-General of Australia reacted favourably.49 Internment in Singapore had actually taken place immediately after the outbreak of war when, on 15 August 1914, ‘practically all male German subjects were arrested and taken for internment on St John’s Island’, although because of ‘congested’ conditions transfer of males took place to the Tanglin Barracks, while German and Austrian women and children went to Kuala Lumpur.50 As elsewhere, some of the males in Singapore had faced capture on the high seas, including those on board the Norwegian steamer Hellas sailing between Bangkok and Tsingtau when the war broke out.51 Some Singapore internees had faced arrest in Penang on 24 October 1914 and experienced imprisonment in the billiard room of the former Penang Club and nearby Fort Cornwallis.52 The main part of the journey to Australia actually took place on 31 March 1915 aboard the SS Montoro which sailed for Sydney with 171 males, twenty-four women, twentyone children, and forty-nine seamen from the Emden, reaching their destination on 26 April, followed by another set of fifty-eight prisoners who left Singapore on board the steamship Fremantle on 12 April. A final transport took place in the following year when twenty-one prisoners sailed on the SS Ophir, meaning the transportation of 296 people in total from Singapore to Australia.53 The year 1916 also witnessed the removal of Germans interned in Hong Kong to Australia. Some had actually left the colony after the declaration of war, but internment had begun on 28 October 1914. Men faced incarceration in a camp in Kowloon, while fourteen of their wives, together with their children, experienced confinement nearby. At the beginning of 1916 the government of Australia agreed to take the internees in Hong Kong, which meant that 337 prisoners arrived in Sydney on four different transports.54 Gerhard Fischer identified two final pieces in the jigsaw of the concentration of the Pacific Germans in Australia. In August and September 1915, four ships took a total of 338 people from Colombo to Sydney, while in November 1917 a smaller group from Borneo and Fiji, mostly naturalized British citizens, arrived in Australia.55 Mahon Murphy, in his study of prisoners captured by the British in German colonies, has suggested that the fourth ‘hub’ of the ‘camp network’, after Britain, 49 Fischer, Enemy Aliens, p. 139. 50  BA/R901/83829, American Consulate General, Singapore, to Secretary of State, 7 April 1915. 51  BA/R901/83009, Caspar L. Drier to United States Consul, Singapore, 19 March 1915. 52  BA/R901/83006, Mitteilungen eines Oesterreichers an das Kaiserlich Deutsche Generalkonsulat in Batavia, 27 February 1915. 53  BA/R67/1331, prisoners in Holsworthy to local authority Stuttgart, 9 July 1915; NA/FO383/66, Government House, Singapore to Lewis Harcourt, 8 April 1915; NA/FO383/66, letter from Government House, Singapore, 22 April 1915; Fischer, Enemy Aliens, p. 139. 54  Fischer, Idem, pp. 139–40; AA/R140781, Memorandum as to German and Austro-Hungarian Affairs in Hong Kong for the First Three Months of the Administration of Such Affairs by the American Consulate General, 15 November 1914; Hansard, fifth series, LXXVII, 1078, 6 January 1916. 55 Fischer, Idem, pp. 139, 140; BA/R901/83019, Überführung der in Ceylon internierten Zivilgefangenen nach Australien, 8 August 1916.

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108  Enemies in the Empire Australia, and South Africa, lay in Canada,56 although this would ignore the ­long-term importance of Ahmednagar as a fifth ‘hub’, as well as the fact that New Zealand held Germans from the South Pacific, while Malta also proved im­port­ ant. As in the case of Australia, Great Britain, and South Africa, those camps opened in Canada, as well as holding the local enemy population, also took prisoners from the ‘immediate’ locality, in this case from the Atlantic islands of Bermuda, Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as those captured at sea in the western hemisphere.57 The logistics of intercolonial prisoner transport can be highlighted by joining up Caribbean islands, Bermuda, and Canada. Operations on Jamaica were closely connected to warfare in the Atlantic and intercolonial prisoner management between Nova Scotia and the West Indies. Before the crew of the auxiliary cruiser Kaiser Wilhelm der Große was transferred to Amherst in May 1915, it had spent almost nine months in the Up Park Camp in Kingston, Jamaica. The ship was sunk near the West Coast of Africa on 26 August 1914 by HMS Highflyer. After an adventurous journey from Spanish Sahara to Las Palmas, 350 of its crew wanted to reach the neutral United States on the German ship Bethania, which was seized by HMS Essex and taken into Kingston Harbour at the beginning of September 1914.58 It appears that the local authorities were not prepared for this sudden intake which made the camp population swell to 700. Accommodation was in tents that offered no suitable protection against rain and the scorching sun. The local US Consul reported to his colleague in Ottawa that the majority of prisoners in Kingston wished to be transferred to Nova Scotia, ‘on the suggestion of the General Officer Commanding to the War Office, London, deeming the climate of Jamaica unsuitable, on account of the heat, for keeping so many prisoners confined . . . It was suggested that they should be transferred to some cooler climate’. The opening of the Amherst Camp in April 1915 presented an opportunity to solve these capacity issues. On 15 May 1915, 708 prisoners were transferred to Nova Scotia, the majority to Amherst and the first-class minority to Halifax.59 In Barbados the authorities had recognized by the summer of 1918 that the local prison was not suitable for holding its enemy aliens for an even longer period. The island government and the Colonial Office asked the Governor-General of Canada whether the dominion could take in these prisoners and offered to pay the current costs of £3,500 per annum. On 9 September 1918, the fifty-five internees were transported to Amherst on board the S.S. Caraquet. The epilogue to this

56 Murphy, Colonial Captivity, p. 65. 57 Ibid. 58  Eberhard Mertens, ed., Die Lloyd-Schnelldampfer: Kaiser Wilhelm der Große, Kronprinz Wilhelm, Kaiser Wilhelm II., Kronprinzessin Cecilie (Hildesheim, 1975), p. 71. 59 BA/R901/83089, US Consulate Kingston, Jamaica, to US Consulate Ottawa, 17 June 1915; Morton, Sir William Otter, p. 48; Vorwärts (Berlin), 11 September 1915; BA/R67/1598, internal reports 9 March 1915, 26 April 1915, 11 September 1915; Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten, ‘Die schmachvolle Behandlung deutscher Gefangener durch die Engländer’, 27 March 1915.

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British Imperial Internment  109 episode highlights the difficulties of coordinating consistent transport policies across the Empire. The Colonial Office and the Prisoners of War Department in  London were not amused, finding it ‘very undesirable’ that the Colonial Government of Barbados had conducted the transfer without their final consent. On 26 November 1918 the Prisoners of War Department wrote to Barbados: ‘If  the Armistice had not since taken place complications might have arisen through the absence of any communication to this Department . . . and it is probable that  the German Government, as soon as the transfer became known to them, would have taken action in the nature of reprisals on our civilian prisoners of war in their hands’.60 Intercolonial transport reacting to capacity and suitability can also be shown for Bermuda. Apart from the main camp on tiny Ports Island, a second camp on the main island was temporarily established in December 1916. The Fort Arthur Barracks, St George, took in thirty-eight civilians from the Up Park camp in Jamaica which had experienced capacity issues. Prisoners found it ‘ten times better here’ than at Kingston. The main reasons for the transfer were health related, with ten suffering from malaria.61 In January 1917 the internees were all moved on to Amherst.62 In spring 1918, the Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda recommended to the War Office that Ports Island should be dissolved and prisoners transferred to Canada as this would be more cost effective.63 Whether this transfer took place cannot be traced from the sources, but the correspondence shows yet again to what extent the Canadian and Atlantic internment systems were ­integrated, constituting one of several sub-systems within the British Empire. Discussing the two Empire regions of Canada and Atlantic islands in combination has constituted a methodological shift away from existing scholarship, which is locked within national parameters. By only looking at Canada, this has hitherto been largely presented as a closed system within an emerging nation state. By tagging on the unresearched West Indies and Bermuda, we rather suggest the existence of two integrated systems. Very broadly speaking these consisted of work camps for Austro-Hungarians in the Canadian west on the one hand, and a  fluctuating system in the east comprising Nova Scotia and Atlantic island ­locations on the other. The system of transportation therefore developed a series of routes and ­operated as a global web. The most substantial enemy communities in the largest col­onies simply faced incarceration in the countries in which they lived, whether 60 NA/FO383/405, correspondence related to transfer of prisoners, quote in Prisoners of War Department, 26 November 1918. 61 BA/R901/83031, report US Consul, 24 January 1917; NA FO383/277, report US Consul, 1 February 1917. 62 NA/FO383/277: note verbale German Foreign Office, 17 April 1917; report US Consul, 22 January 1917. 63  NA/CO37/262, correspondence War Office, Colonial Office, Commander-in-Chief Bermuda, 8 March 1918.

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110  Enemies in the Empire Great Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, or India. The ports in these states became traps which captured any Germans on ships either upon the outbreak of war or in its early stages. But the reach of the British Empire did not limit itself to the White Dominions and India. Germans could also face seiz­ ure in any port within British territories, whether Colombo, Hong Kong, Penang, Gibraltar, or Kingston, Jamaica. If these ports became traps, the entire global sea became a spider’s web which ensnared Germans on boats in the early stages of the war. The British Navy intercepted ships throughout the world, dragged Germans from their vessels, and took them to the nearest port and internment camp. This pattern of capture therefore used a series of routes which revolved around the existence of major centres of internment as follows: first, Great Britain, which essentially took in those in the country, whether short- or long-term residents, together with Germans captured in the North Atlantic and others sent from West Africa. Second, Canada, which incarcerated its own enemy aliens together with those who arrived from the western hemisphere. Third, the Mediterranean, especially Malta and, to a lesser extent, the temporary Gibraltar camp. While the latter incarcerated people captured at sea, whether in the mid-Atlantic or the Mediterranean, Malta also took in Germans and Austrians from North Africa and the Middle East. Africa proves slightly more complicated but represents the fourth hub. South and Southwest Africa became the major internment site for Germans living in the southern half of the continent, but those in West Africa faced deportation to Britain while those in the East went to India. At the same time the camps in Alexandria took in people from the Middle East and North Africa, mostly Ottomans. The fifth centre consists of India which not only interned Germans living here at the outbreak of war but also those transported from East Africa and the Germans in Siam in 1918.64 Finally, the camps in Australia and New Zealand need consideration together, housing not only their own German residents but also those found anywhere in the South Pacific as far away as Ceylon, whether captured on land or at sea. While some individuals may have had different experiences, these remained the key routes.

The Internees Clearly, the imperial authorities, whether operating on a global, regional, national, or local level, had every ‘enemy alien’ in their sights but not all individuals endured the same fate because internment depended upon factors such as age and gender. Several ways therefore present themselves to examine those who faced incarceration in the Empire during the Great War, including location at the

64  See Chapter 9.

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British Imperial Internment  111 time of capture, age, gender, race, nationality, class, and occupation. The evolution of the global transportation system, based upon the strength of the Royal Navy and centuries of British experience of moving numerous groups throughout the world from slaves to convicts, meant, as we have seen, that people arrested in one part of the world could experience incarceration in a camp which lay hundreds or thousands of miles away from where they lived. In the short-term, however, most of those who experienced incarceration did so near the place where they were arrested. This helps to explain the evolution of temporary camps in, for example, Ceylon, Singapore, and Hong Kong, whose internees would subsequently experience transportation to Australia. The major hubs of Australia and New Zealand, Great Britain, Canada, India, and South Africa clearly counted internees who came from all over the world, especially in the case of the chief camps in all of these states in the form of Holsworthy, So5.2mes, and Motuihi Islands, Knockaloe, Amherst, Ahmednagar, and Fort Napier, respectively. However, the majority of internees in all of these states would have lived within them before 1914. Using a series of archival sources, Gerhard Fischer confidently asserted that a ‘total of 6,890 persons were interned in Australia during the First World War’, of whom about 4,500 had resided in the country before 1914.65 This proportion of two thirds of Australian internees consisting of those living in the country when the war broke out is broadly corroborated by figures from South Africa. A ‘mini-census’ conducted by prisoners in Fort Napier included data on length of stay in the country of 2,203 persons. Of these, 733 had resided or travelled in South Africa only temporarily, 350 had resided more than five years, 677 more than ten years, and 443 more than twenty years.66 The proportions were somewhat reversed in the smaller hubs in the Caribbean where those who had been taken from ships as crew or passengers outweighed those who had resided on the islands. In Trinidad, for example, fifteen out of the sixty-five inmates had been long-term residents on  the island in July 1915. A further sixteen had been expelled right after the outbreak of war.67 Bringing together these figures from existing scholarship and primary sources, a global estimate is realistic which postulates that around two thirds of the internees in the Empire were held in those countries where they had been resident on a long- or short-term basis, and that the remaining one third were transported to other Empire locations. Long-term residents in Britain who experienced incarceration included Richard Noschke, who lost his job with the London firm which employed him for twenty years in December 1914 and then experienced spells in the camps at Stratford and Alexandra Palace.68 Other examples were the hairdresser Friedrich 65 Fischer, Enemy Aliens, p. 77. 66  BA/R901/83828, Consular Secretary Bruchhagen, general report, 26 April 1915. 67 NA/FO383/105, Governor of Trinidad to Colonial Secretary, 22 December 1914; BA/ R901/83829, American Consulate, report on Trinidad, 17 July 1915. 68  IWM, Richard Noschke, ‘First World War Diaries’.

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112  Enemies in the Empire Wiegand who had set up a barber’s shop in Glasgow in 1899;69 and the educated London anarchist agitator Rudolf Rocker who was arrested in December 1914 and experienced spells of internment in Olympia, the Royal Edward, moored off Southend, and Alexandra Palace.70 In contrast to these long-term residents, ­others were just travelling and found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. They included people spending the summer in England such as the artist Paul Cohen-Portheim, who travelled to Devon at the end of June 1914 to paint ‘red cliffs, seas, and sailing boats’71 but subsequently experienced four years of incarceration in Stratford, Knockaloe, and Wakefield.72 Frederick Lewis DunbarKalckreuth, with Scottish origins but holding a German passport, was studying English in St Leonards-on-Sea at the outbreak of war but became an enemy alien. Unable to return home, he spent most of the war in the internment camp in Douglas on the Isle of Man.73 These individual stories together with the statistics and measures outlined above point to the rigour of imperial attempts to restrict the movement of ‘enemy aliens’. In other ways the internment process remained far more selective, as age and gender determined who spent time behind barbed wire. The central issue consisted of the perceived military threat, which meant that the overwhelming majority of internees were males of military age. From a British government point of view this included all men between seventeen and fifty-five years of age.74 No serious discussion arose about a wholesale internment of German women anywhere in the Empire at any time during the war, at least from the point of view of their military threat. It also seemed an unchivalrous and unethical action to much parliamentary opinion, as Zoe Denness has demonstrated in the case of Britain.75 This was partly a reaction against the mistreatment which women had experienced during the Boer War.76 The British imperial position reflected international views.77 Another explanation for differential treatment lies in the fact that in most countries women gained the nationality of their husbands, which would have meant the incarceration of British-born women, who, however, still faced public hostility outside the wire.78 While internment of women may not have become policy within the Empire, this discussion on gender needs qualification in several ways. Moving beyond the 69  Frederick McKay papers, private. 70  Rudolf Rocker, The London Years (originally 1956; Nottingham, 2005), pp. 144–225. 71  Paul Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still: My Internment in England (London, 1931), p. 7. 72 Ibid., passim. 73  Frederick Lewis Dunbar-Kalckreuth, Die Männerinsel (Leipzig, 1940). 74 Panayi, Prisoners of Britain, p. 273. 75  Zoe Denness, ‘Gender and Germanophobia: The Forgotten Experiences of German Women in Britain, 1914–1919’, in Panayi, Germans as Minorities, pp. 73–5. 76  See Chapter 9. 77  Matthew Stibbe, ‘Gendered Experiences of Civilian Internment during the First World War: A Forgotten Dimension of Wartime Violence’, in Ana Carden-Coyne, ed., Gender and Conflict Since 1914 (Basingstoke, 2012), pp. 14–28. 78  Denness, ‘Gender and Germanophobia’, pp. 86–9.

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British Imperial Internment  113 British imperial sphere, women certainly did experience incarceration in other locations, whether in Romania, Armenia,79 or the Austro-Hungarian Empire.80 At the same time, within the British Empire, while women may not have faced wholesale internment, they remained suspect as indicated by the fact that they became subject to the host of other measures introduced to control enemy alien populations. Above all, in the British case, repatriation acted as an alternative to  internment, beginning from the early stages of the war and eliminating any se­cur­ity threat in an even more effective way than incarceration, although the overwhelming majority of those appealing against deportation won their cases.81 Those who remained faced the full wrath of Germanophobic hatred which impacted upon enemy aliens, which included discrimination in employment and which meant that, in the absence of the breadwinner, many German women and their children had to survive with the support of a variety of charitable handouts, whether from the local or German governments or from private organizations. Others such as the British-born wife of the above-mentioned barber, Friedrich Wiegand, moved back in with their families.82 Some women did face imprisonment, including those singled out as carrying a specific security threat within Britain.83 Just as importantly, other women and their children decided to spend time behind barbed wire with their husbands and fathers rather than experiencing freedom curtailed by Germanophobia and dependent on charity, above all in the British mainland where the availability of charitable support allowed the wives of internees to survive. The areas where the incarceration of women became most common consisted of Africa, India, and the Pacific region. One post-war German official account covering the years 1916–18 suggests the internment of twenty-one men, 258 women, and 443 children in the camps in Tanga, Dar Es Salaam, and Wilhelmstal in German East Africa, together with fifty-four women and eighty children in Tempe in South Africa. It also indicates that between 1917 and 1919, 1,030 men, sixty-four women, and sixty-two children experienced internment in India, although this account excludes Sholapur, which held women deported from Siam.84 These figures also exclude the early

79 See Khatchig Mouradian, ‘Internment and Destruction: Concentration Camps during the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1916’ and Andrei Şiperco, ‘Internment in Neutral and Belligerent Romania (1914–1919),’ in Stefan Manz, Panikos Panayi and Matthew Stibbe, eds, Internment during the First World War: A Mass Global Phenomenon (Abingdon, 2018), pp. 145–61, 227–51. 80  Julie Thorpe, ‘Displacing Empire: Refugee Welfare, National Activism and State Legitimacy in Austria-Hungary in World War One,’ in Panikos Panayi and Pippa Virdee, eds, Refugees and the End of Empire: Imperial Collapse and Forced Migration during the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke, 2011), pp. 102–26. 81  Denness, ‘Gender and Germanophobia’, pp. 75–7; Panayi, Enemy, pp. 75, 80, 82. 82  Ibid., pp. 77–83, 89–92; Panayi, Enemy, pp. 259–79; Stibbe, ‘Gendered Experiences of Civilian Internment’; Frederick McKay papers. 83  See Chapter 7. 84 Deutscher Bundestag, Das Werk des Untersuchungsausschusses, p. 820. See Chapter  9 for Sholapur.

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114  Enemies in the Empire camps in Asia and the Pacific. In Hong Kong, for instance, ‘women and children allowed to remain in the colony either as dependents of men detained as prisoners of war or because they were unable to leave the colony for health r­ easons or other reasons were interned in buildings used as quarters for married soldiers and noncommissioned officers of the British army located on Gun Hill’. The total consisted of fourteen women together with sixteen children.85 Following the introduction of incarceration in Ceylon on 26 October 1914, German women could leave the country and return to Europe but none took this opportunity, in many cases because they could not afford to pay for the journey.86 Similarly, the wives and children of internees in Singapore, gathered from throughout Malaysia, eventually lived with their husbands and fathers in the Tanglin Barracks, which, by April 1915, held twenty men, twenty-six women, and nineteen children.87 In India, a series of camps held both genders and children, especially in the earlier days of internment when temporary camps came into existence to deal with missionaries, but some men held for long periods in Ahmednagar became depressed and bitter about the fact that they remained separated from their wives. On the other hand, some families lived together in the Belgaum camp in India into the latter stages of the war. Meanwhile, a special women’s camp came into existence in Sholapur to house the women and children which the British government had agreed to imprison on behalf of the Siamese government in 1918.88 This points to the fact that women and children became subject to the same system of transportation as their husbands and fathers, especially following the dissolution of the early camps which had evolved in Ceylon, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Pacific. This led to the evolution of the family camp at Bourke in Australia, which remained a relaxed environment without barbed wire in which families lived in cottages, although conditions here remained hot and some of the internees fell victim to dysentery. A similar establishment also came into existence in Molonglo which in September 1918 held fifty-eight men, sixty-five women, and seventy-six children. Those interned here included Daisy Schoeffel, who had lost her Australian citizenship when she married Alfred Schoeffel in Fiji. Although they remained here until 1917, they faced deportation to Bourke in 1917 for their own protection when hostility towards naturalized Germans developed in Fiji.89 Not all German women and children deported from the Pacific spent time in camps. 85 AA/R140781, Memorandum on the German and Austro-Hungarian Affairs in Hong Kong for the First Three Months of the Administration of Such Affairs by the American Consulate General, 15 November 1914. 86  BA/R901/83019, Bericht über die Ceylonlager Ragama und Diyatalawa, 2 August 1916. 87  BA/R901/83829, American Consulate General, Singapore, to Secretary of State, Washington, 7 April 1915. 88  See Chapters 9 and 12. 89  Tammy Proctor, Civilians in a World at War, 1914–1918 (London, 2010), pp. 206–7; Fischer, Enemy Aliens, pp. 267–79.

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British Imperial Internment  115 While the men who arrived from the island of Nauru at the start of 1915 went to Holsworthy, ‘the women and children were allowed to remain at liberty. Most of them were taken in by the German families of Sydney’. Although they received a small allowance from the Australian government, this remained insufficient to meet their daily needs, which meant that they became dependent on the charity of the German community in Australia.90 German women therefore had a variety of experiences in the British Empire during the Great War, essentially dependent upon the location in which they lived in August 1914, but, unlike males, they did not become subject to universal internment. This did not make their lives more comfortable or easy than that of German males as they could experience hostility and poverty beyond the wire, as well as the pain of separation from husbands. Where women lived close enough to the camps they could visit during set times. In some cases prisoners could temporarily leave their place of incarceration to visit their families.91 As well as gender, nationality played a central role in determining who would face internment during the Great War. Although Germans constituted the overwhelming majority of civilian internees, the Empire incarcerated subjects from all the states with which it battled. The 507,215 predominantly military prisoners held throughout British territories in January 1919 included not just 343,512 Germans but also 15,366 Austrians, 119,159 Turks, 7,072 Bulgarians, and 22,106 from other nationalities. This would have included citizens of the successor states of Austria-Hungary.92 In the civilian domain, Table 6.1 suggests a proportion of roughly three to one between Germans and other nationalities, although countryspecific estimates arrive at a higher share for Germans. In Australia ‘the overwhelming majority (90 per cent) of the 5,688 people interned’ were subjects of imperial Germany.93 In late 1917 the 333 people held in the major New Zealand Camps of Somes and Motuihi Islands included 322 born in Germany.94 In February 1919 the 19,831 civilian prisoners held in Britain included 16,442 Germans.95 A report on the camps in Malta from December 1914 gave a total of 1,451 (civilian and military) consisting of 1,027 Germans, 303 Austrians, and 121 Turks.96 The main explanation for the predominance of Germans lies in the size and ubiquity of the diaspora which had developed during the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which meant the presence of this group throughout the world in contrast with Ottomans and Austro-Hungarians, who 90 Hamburgischer Landesverein vom Roten Kreuz, Ausschuss für deutsche Kriegsgefangene, England, Interner Wochenbericht No. 23, 10 May 1915. 91  Ibid.; Panayi, Prisoners, pp. 150–2. 92  NA/WO394/20, Statistical Information Regarding the Armies at Home and Abroad, 1914–1920. 93  Jürgen Tampke, The Germans in Australia (Cambridge, 2006), p. 121. 94 Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’, p. 117. 95 Panayi, Enemy, p. 96. 96 BA/MA/RM3/5402, ‘Bericht des amerikanischen Konsuls Wilbur Keblinger über die Besichtigung des Gefangenlagers auf Malta’, 19 December 1914.

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116  Enemies in the Empire did not have the same tradition of migration and, in the case of the latter, counted a much smaller population.97 Great Britain only interned people who held enemy nationality and not those who had become naturalized. A barrage of public criticism demanding tougher action eventually resulted in a change in nationality legislation but not internment policy. Those who did not hold enemy alien nationality could only be interned under article 14B of the Defence of the Realm Act, covering people ­perceived as posing a threat to security.98 Most of the Empire followed this lead, despite similar campaigns opposing the liberty of those who had become nat­ur­al­ized.99 Australia, however, acted differently, partly because of the German Delbrück Law of 1913 which allowed Germans who had become naturalized in other states to retain their German citizenship. Australia incarcerated ‘700 nat­ur­ al­ized British subjects and 70 natural-born Britons of enemy heritage’.100 The overwhelming majority of those interned within the British Empire consisted of white Europeans, although Turks would certainly have constituted outsiders in the racial and orientalist hierarchies which emerged at the height of imperialism.101 No obvious differences emerged in the treatment they faced ­compared with continental Europeans. Paul Cohen-Portheim mentioned ‘an extremely black negro’ in Knockaloe who ‘knew Arabic’ and ‘had been arrested on board a ship’. He appears to have held British citizenship as an Egyptian, even though he thought he owed allegiance to the Sultan of Turkey.102 It is possible that this was the same person mentioned by J. T. Baily, the Quaker who looked after the well-being of internees in Knockaloe. He refers to a Mohammed who had been interned as a Turk but could prove his Egyptian nationality and was thus released. According to Baily, Mohammed was known as Snowball, ‘very dark skinned with jet black curly hair, he seemed to be always smiling and was a favourite with everybody in the camp’.103 Few other black internees appear to have experienced internment in Britain. This contrasts with the situation in Germany which incarcerated ‘colonial soldiers of African, Tatar, Georgian or South Asian origin, who fought for the French, Russian and British Armies’ captured mostly on the western front in France and held mostly in the Zossen and Wünsdorf camps.104 Some colonial soldiers also experienced internment in the

97 See Chapter 3.   98 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 61–6, 81. 99  See, for example, Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’, pp. 134–5. 100  Kay Saunders, ‘ “The Stranger in Our Gates”: Internment Policies in the United Kingdom and Australia during the Two World Wars, 1914–39’, Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 22 (2003), p. 30. 101  Victor Kiernan, The Lords of Human Kind: European Attitudes to Other Cultures in the Imperial Age (Harmondsworth, 1972). 102 Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still, p. 48. 103  MNH/MS10417, papers of J. T. Baily, notes pp. 553–5. 104  Franziska Roy, Heike Liebau, and Ravi Ahuja, ‘Introduction’, in Roy, Liebau, and Ahuja, eds, When the War Began We Heard of Several Kings: South Asian Prisoners in World War I Germany (New Delhi, 2011), p. 1.

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British Imperial Internment  117 Ottoman Empire, facing contrasting experiences of racialization,105 which impacted upon those in Germany in a variety of ways whether in the form of public hostility106 or as subjects for anthropological research,107 although Indian prisoners managed to develop the type of community characteristic of Germans in British camps, as evidenced by the existence of a South Asian camp newspaper, Hindoostan, even though the German authorities played a role in its establishment.108 More interesting for us because it held civilian internees, Ruhleben became home to black and Arab prisoners, mostly sailors, who lived in their own barracks and remained separate from the white British prisoners,109 therefore fa­cing both German and British racism. While few black civilian internees experienced incarceration in Britain, a small number of black soldiers, Askari, who fought on the side of the Germans in the initial skirmishes in Africa following the outbreak of war, faced incarceration in a camp in Aus in captured Southwest Africa in particular, although others may have spent time in other camps. These African captives could experience mistreatment. A small number of black civilians also experienced incarceration.110 What does this investigation of nationality, ethnicity, and race tell us about the nature of British imperial internees during the Great War? Most importantly, the overwhelming majority of civilians consisted of Germans, far outnumbering Austro-Hungarians and Ottomans. They had varying experiences according to the part of the Empire in which they lived. While colonial troops of colour may have become a feature of internment in Germany, black people count as hardly any of those interned by the British, especially civilians, reflecting the racial make-up of German society.111 The German group which did maintain a separate identity in British internment camps, again reflecting the situation in Germany, consisted of Jews who, for instance, could receive kosher food in the Douglas camp on the Isle of Man and Alexandra Palace in London, as well as practising 105  Heather Jones, ‘Imperial Captivities: Colonial Prisoners of War in Germany and the Ottoman Empire, 1914–1918’, in Santanu Das, ed., Race, Empire and First World War Writing (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 175–93. 106  Christian Koller, ‘German Perceptions of Enemy Colonial Troops’, in Roy, Liebau, and Ahuja, When the War Began, pp. 130–48. 107 Britta Lange, ‘South Asian Soldiers and German Academics: Anthropological, Linguistic and Musicological Field Studies in Prison Camps’, in Roy, Liebau, and Ahuja, When the War Began, pp. 149–84. 108  Heike Liebau, ‘Hindoostan: A Camp Newspaper for South-Asian Prisoners of World War One in Germany’, in Roy, Liebau, and Ahuja, Idem, pp. 231–49. 109 Matthew Stibbe, British Civilian Internees in Germany: The Ruhleben Camp, 1914–1918 (Manchester, 2008), pp. 2, 98–9. 110 Murphy, Colonial Captivity, pp. 114–20; Michelle Moyd, ‘“We Don’t Want to Die for Nothing”: Askari at War in German East Africa, 1914–1918’, in Das, Race, Empire and First World War Writing, pp. 70–89. 111  Robbie Aitken and Eve Rosenhaft, Black Germany: The Making and Unmaking of a Diaspora Community, 1884–1960 (Cambridge, 2013), point out that: ‘No reliable figures exist as to the exact size of the German African population of these years’ but quote one source which claims that ‘3,000 ­people from Germany’s former African territories’ may have lived in Germany in 1919.

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118  Enemies in the Empire their own religion, as did Roman Catholic and Lutheran internees.112 But little evidence survives to suggest significant antisemitism in the camps, certainly not on the scale which existed in the German army and society during the war.113 Some regional German identities also survived in the camps as revealed in the celebration of the birthday of King William II of Württemberg on 27 February 1915 by forty-seven Württembergers interned in Malta, who had lived mostly in  Egypt before the war.114 Generally, though, the celebration of the Kaiser’s birthday emphasizing national identity became normal, continuing the pre-war trad­ition of commemorating this day amongst the German diaspora.115 Despite the virtual absence of black internees, some scholars have seen the internment of white Germans, which was sometimes carried out by black or Asian guards in the colonies, as a turning point in the history of race relations between colonials and colonizers. Ideas of white rule across national boundaries fell apart as power relations shifted and Europeans appeared divided in the eyes of colonials.116 In the camps, many Germans developed a stronger sense of national identity, separating themselves even further from concept of a common white rule. The examination of gender, nationality, and race therefore reveals that the overwhelming majority of civilian internees consisted of German white males of military age, incarcerated because the British viewed them as a potential security threat. The key factor which distinguished them from each other was social class. This became visibly apparent in the camps through the establishment of first- and second-class compounds and reflected the fault lines of class distinction in early twentieth-century Europe, as well as the Hague Convention which stipulated separation of officers from other rank soldiers. Documentary evidence often emphasizes the experience of the elites who spent time behind barbed wire because they published accounts of their adventures, which could involve capture in Africa or Asia, a short spell of incarceration in a local camp, followed by transportation to a larger place of incarceration either in the same part of the world or to the place where they ultimately faced transportation to experience much of the war, and a description of the return to Germany. Missionaries and other religious functionaries produced some of the most gripping accounts, helped by the fact that the organizations for which they worked ran their own publishing houses,117 112  See Chapter 7. 113  See Tim Grady, A Deadly Legacy: German Jews and the Great War (London, 2017), who points to both integration and the rise of antisemitism. 114  BA/R67/1803, Festordnung zur Geburtstagsfeier S. M. König Wilhelm II. von Württemberg, 25. Februar 1915. 115  See Chapter 3. 116  See, especially, Daniel Steinbach, ‘Challenging European Colonial Supremacy: The Internment of “Enemy Aliens” in British and German East Africa during the First World War, in James E. Kitchen, Alisa Miller, and Laura Rowe, eds, Other Combatants, Other Fronts: Competing Histories of the First World War (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2011), pp. 153–75. 117  See, for example, Georg Wilhelm Wagener, Meine Gefangenschaft in Südafrika und England vom 15. Sept. 1914 bis 18. Juni 1916 (Brunswick, NJ, 1917); Vöhringer, Meine Erlebnisse; Hans Georg

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British Imperial Internment  119

Figure 5.2  Paul Cohen-Portheim.

but other educated internees also left some rich accounts, including the artist Paul Cohen-Portheim (Figure 5.2) and two deportees from Africa.118 The published narrative of colonial internment is thus dominated by educated elites, and we need to broaden the source base in order to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the social composition in camps. A list of the 350 ­people interned in the early Diyatalawa camp in Ceylon is a reflection of colonial society and includes: the German and Austrian consuls and their families; the employees of the German firms in Colombo; the German and Austrian planters of Ceylon; the owners and employees of the big hotels, mostly Germans; eighteen ‘Catholic brothers’; one Austrian and seven German Buddhist monks; ‘a few Turks from Ceylon’; ‘many Germans and Austrians with an obligation for military service who wanted to travel home from Sumatra and Java’; the injured from the cruiser Emden; Probst, Unter indischer Sonne: 19 Monate englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft in Ahmednagar (Herborn, 1917); J.  Maue, In Feindes Land: Achtzehn Monate in englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft in Indien und England (Stuttgart, 1918). 118 Kröpke, Meine Flucht; Anonymous, Südafrikas Deutsche in englischer Gewalt (Dresden, 1916); Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still.

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120  Enemies in the Empire and the passengers and crew of seven captured ships.119 The list suggests quite a range of social groups and not simply elites. A similar com­pil­ation of 266 people transported from New Guinea to Australia contains few working-class occupations with engineers, planters, architects, and ‘policemasters’ featuring prominently.120 Similarly, the twenty-six Germans and Austrians captured on board the Italian ship Ancona in August 1914 and taken to Gibraltar included seven businessmen, three engineers, and two bank employees.121 Meanwhile, the twenty-five people taken from Nauru to Australia included the governor, the harbour master, six overseers, two clerks, one manager, one chemist, one storekeeper, one doctor, one steward, one police master, four fitters, and five stevedores,122 suggesting a mixture of classes but a preponderance of those higher up on the social scale. The situation changes when we turn to the larger internment camps with a preponderance of prisoners who lived in the country in which they are located. While Knockaloe may have acted as the lynchpin of the whole imperial incarceration system and therefore housed people transported here from all over the world, the majority of internees came from the socially diverse German community in Britain. A list of 239 prisoners awaiting re­pat­ri­ation to Holland in September 1917 includes many from the main occupations of the Germans in Britain before 1914 such as restaurant and hotel employees, barbers and clerks, as well as some merchants.123 Similarly, a report in the New Zealand Herald on Somes Island speaks of the diversity of  prisoners in terms of age and appearance, ‘but the bulk of the men are manual workers’.124 In class terms, therefore, all groups faced incarceration as the British Empire and its individual possessions did not discriminate. The imprisonment of senior German colonial officials indicates this most clearly, as well as demonstrating the collapse of the concept of a white ruling elite across national boundaries. It seems that many of those captured at sea as passengers constituted elites, as did a majority of Germans who lived in British and German imperial possessions and faced transportation. On the other hand, those internees from the larger German communities such as Britain counted more working-class people amongst the internees. Class operated in the places of internment, most obviously in the construction of privilege camps, where wealthier internees could pay for superior accommodation and conditions, although the account produced by Paul Cohen-Portheim about Wakefield still remained scathing. While it may have provided superior 119  BA/R67/1329, Weekly Report Nr. 14, Ceylon, n.d. 120  NA/FO383/434, List of Persons Sent from New Guinea to Australia, n.d. 121  BA/MA/RM3/5367, Passagiere an Bord des italienischen Dampfers ‘Ancona’, die in Gibraltar angehalten worden sind. 122  NA/FO383/280, List of German Subjects brought to Australia from Nauru, n.d. 123  NA/FO383/308, Knockaloe List, Knockaloe Camp 5C, an attachment to a letter from Home Office to Prisoners of War Department, 23 September 1917. 124  New Zealand Herald, 7 April 1916.

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British Imperial Internment  121 food and accommodation, it still constituted a prison camp in which privacy remained absent, clearly central in the middle-class lifestyle.125 The other main privilege camp in Britain consisted of Douglas.126 In Australia, Trial Bay and Berrima held ‘a specially selected group’ of ‘superior social standing’ who ‘were given preferential treatment and a number of privileges’, which meant that the conditions ‘were incomparably better than at Holsworthy’. The group included naval officers, academics, priests, and consuls.127 Motuihi Island in Auckland Harbour divided its internees into ‘first-class’ and ‘second-class’. Those in the former category had their own orderlies and lived in better housing than those cat­ egor­ized as second class,128 while the governor of German New Guinea, Erich Schultz, ‘is accommodated with a practically newly built bungalow of some six to eight rooms in a good location on the Island, and some considerable distance from the main buildings of the camp’.129 Interaction across class occurred not simply through the existence of orderlies to service wealthier prisoners but also through the establishment of schools, whereby educated internees helped out the less educated, while many prisoners with pre-war trades such as cooks and barbers always worked because of the demand for their skills. In Trinidad, Camp B was the sought-after first-class facility. The former wireless operator Hermann Eichwald was in Camp A and complained that ‘he was arrested as an officer and should be interned with the gentlemen in Camp B’. He had made an effort to escape, though, and was therefore kept in the more secure Camp A.130 Conditions in Camp B explain why there were regular complaints, not just in Trinidad but all across the Empire, from prisoners maintaining that they were slotted into the wrong social class and hence compound. The eighteen inmates consisted of local merchants, planters, commercial clerks, a chemist, and music teacher Nothnagel. The large civilian villa stood in a park surrounded by barbed wire. There was a tennis court and a ‘very nice garden’ where family and friends sat during visiting times. One of the inmates was an engineer who had a garage where he was allowed to repair motor cars for the public. There was a cook, a butler, a pantry boy, and a maid. No complaints emerged from Camp B.131 In line with the Hague Convention, the daily calorie intake for all enemy alien prisoners throughout the Empire was the same as for British army rations in peacetime. Many of the inspection reports went to great lengths to list and confirm that this 125 Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still. 126  See Chapter 7. 127 Fischer, Enemy Aliens, pp. 248, 250. 128 BA/R901/83123, Report of Military Camp, Motuihi Island, by American Consul General, Auckland, 8 September 1915; BA/R901/83123, Report on Civil Camp, Motuihi Island, by Swiss Consul for New Zealand, 17 June 1917; NA/FO383/239, Second Report on Military Camp, Motuihi Island, by American Consul, 26 April 1916. 129  BA/R901/83123, Report on Civil Camp, Motuihi Island, by Swiss Consul for New Zealand, 17 June 1917. 130  BA/R901/83038, report US Consulate, 29 March 1916. 131  BA/R901/83038, report US Consulate, 5 February 1917.

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122  Enemies in the Empire was adhered to. There was, however, also a class aspect to food. Prisoners in Camp B in Trinidad had a greater variety and choice than those in Camp A.132

British Interment as a Global Experience Internment in the British Empire became a truly global experience during the Great War. No single order emerged from the Colonial or Foreign Office in London calling for the internment of all ‘enemy aliens’ throughout the imperial domains, although their arrest on the high seas and in ports throughout the world points to a co-ordinated policy. The same is true for the move towards camp consolidation which occurred during the course of 1915 and 1916. As the war continued and the numbers of ‘enemy aliens’ facing incarceration increased following the sinking of the Lusitania, the need to create more long-term camps meant that those smaller, temporary establishments disappeared, resulting in the emergence of the hubs in Britain, Canada, South Africa, Australasia, and India. While the experience of internment remained local in the early stages of the war, with ­people held near their place of residence, the consolidation meant the transportation of thousands of people over thousands of miles. But this simply built upon the transportation of people removed from ships in the earlier stages of the war who could find themselves thousands of miles away from their intended destination at a time when Britannia ruled the waves. The imperial authorities paid little attention to social status in the global spider’s web which they had spun. Individuals experienced forced transportation, losing complete control of their lives. As we have seen, not all ‘enemy aliens’ faced incarceration. With the main determining factor consisting of perceived military threat, most women in the British Empire did not spend time behind barbed wire. This did not ease their lives because they became victims of state and popular Germanophobia. While the Empire incarcerated a variety of nationalities, the Germans dominated because of their comparatively large presence abroad after a century of mass emigration. The social composition of camp populations reflected the complex nature of white migrant and colonial communities, from working class to elites. These were visibly separated through different compounds and differential treatment, reflecting wider contemporaneous class divisions.

132 BA/R901/83829, report US Consulate, 17 July 1915. For the situation in Britain see Nadja Durbach, ‘Comforts, Clubs, and the Casino: Food and the Perpetuation of the British Class System in First World War Civilian Internment Camps’, Journal of Social History, vol. 52 (2019).

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6

The Extent and Nature of the Camp System Any attempt to quantify the total number of civilian internees in the British Empire can be no more than a best possible approximation based on the available sources. It is equally difficult to encapsulate the manifold types of holding fa­cil­ ities in a compact typology. This is due to a number of reasons. Many camps, especially in the early stages of the war up to mid-1915, were of a transitory nature. They merely existed to concentrate ‘enemy aliens’ in a given area for later dispatch to permanent camps. Throughout the war, camps were established or abandoned depending on situational needs. The number of inmates in most places of intern­ ment fluctuated constantly, depending on practical and policy decisions such as intensified incarceration after the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915. Archival sources usually only provide synchronic snapshots on a given date. In addition, many inmates were moved around from camp to camp, often over great distances. And whilst in Britain there was a clear distinction between military and civilian camps (or compounds in camps), this distinction was often blurred in overseas territories, not least because reservists were both civilians and potential combat­ ants. The first two sections of this chapter tackle the question of total internee numbers and camp types with these complexities in mind. The chapter then looks at cultural life, community creation, and conditions behind the wire before illus­ trating many of these wider issues through examples from Canada and Atlantic island locations.

Internee Numbers Problems of exact categorization and hence enumeration can be shown through the case history of Wilhelm Kröpke. After completing his compulsory military training in Germany, he moved and worked in British colonies for fifteen years before settling in Nigeria in 1913. After the outbreak of war, Nigeria, as a crown colony, followed direct instructions from Whitehall to round up its small ‘enemy alien’ population. Kröpke was detained in Lagos prison on 9 August 1914 together with a number of his German countrymen. After several weeks, the cohort was transported to the central temporary camp, Ibaddan, about 250 miles inland from Lagos. This was a former banana plantation surrounded by barbed wire where Enemies in the Empire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War. Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi, Oxford University Press (2020). © Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198850151.001.0001

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124  Enemies in the Empire many prisoners contracted malaria. In mid-November, the group was taken back to Lagos and shipped to Britain on board the Accassa, on its way picking up more ‘enemy aliens’ in other West African ports who had spent time in ­similar tem­por­ary camps. After arriving in Liverpool on 22 December in a ‘sick and run-down state’,1 the prisoners were distributed to internment camps throughout Britain. For Kröpke, an odyssey through various facilities included Handforth, Queensferry, Knutsford Prison after a failed escape attempt, Stobs in Scotland, and Alexandra Palace Camp in London in January 1916, from where he managed to escape for good and make his way back to Germany. After a month of recuperation, he was called up as a reservist to join the German Imperial Navy and was sent to defend the Flanders coast in August 1916.2 Kröpke had thus experienced detention in prisons, a temporary camp in a colony, and permanent camps in Britain. He would not be included in any statistics drawn up after summer 1916. His confinement in both Nigeria and Britain blurs the line between metropolitan and colonial internment, and although he was tech­ nically a civilian internee and interned as such, his reservist status blurs the line towards the military sphere. Despite these provisos, his case study has to be seen as part of the broader numerical narrative of civilian internment in the British Empire. In trying to determine the overall number of ‘enemy aliens’ who were at some stage affected by internment, we can start with the metropole. There was a gradual increase in British camps from 10,500 in September 1914 to 20,000 on 1 May 1915. After the Lusitania sinking numbers picked up, with many who had been previously released being re-interned. As a consequence, the peak number was recorded in November 1915 at 32,440. By November 1917 the War Office still counted 29,511,3 and the timing of this report allows us to correlate it with roughly synchronous figures for overseas territories, compiled for the Home Office in February 1918. This report tried to assess the potential extent of repatri­ ation operations by putting together internee numbers for overseas territories. The table therein excludes India with around 2,000, and it differentiates between civilians and combatants. Figures for the latter mainly include crews of battle ships and military troops from former German colonies (Table 6.1). Although the table excludes women and children, its accompanying narrative makes mention of ‘some 3,000, including women and children, [who] are to be transferred from China to Australia. Deportation will begin shortly’. Elaborating on the impact of repatriation, the report highlights that measures against ‘enemy aliens’ had to be seen as a package with effects across gender and age:

1  Wilhelm Kröpke, Meine Flucht aus englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft 1916: Von Afrika über England nach Deutschland zur Flandern-Front (Flensburg, 1937), p. 20. 2 Idem, passim. 3  See Chapter 7.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  125 Table 6.1  Internees in overseas territories (excluding India) in February 1918 Territory

Canada Australia South Africa New Zealand West Indies East Africa Mediterranean Straits Settlements Totals

Germans

Other

Total

Combatants

Civilians

Combatants

Civilians

373 155 14 139 − 173 406 − 1260

1198 4305 2054 181 213 26 923 21 8921

− 5 − 11 − − 1438 − 1454

463 1246 180 52 16 2 821 6 2786

2034 5711 2248 383 229 201 3588 27 14,421

Source: NA/FO383/297, report ‘Repatriation Overseas’, filed 5 June 1918.

To these must be added women and children dependent on civilian prisoners and women and children whose nearest relatives are in enemy countries. Of these no statistics are available . . . There are also the people of occupied territory to be considered. About 1,600, mostly women and children are in German East Africa. It is very desirable to get rid of them. 200 women and children from Nyasaland are at Tempe [Camp] in the Union of South Africa. There is a large number of soldiers, officials and civilians in South West Africa and a few in New Guinea.4

These Home Office figures are corroborated by a report written for the German Reichstag in 1927. Its slightly higher figure of 14,767 civilian internees in Empire locations is due to the fact that it also includes women and children, and that a wider time framework is considered (August 1916 to March 1919). Figures on individual camps in this report are, however, in line with those in other sources, including neutral inspection reports, and therefore not exaggerated.5 Scholarship on specific dominions naturally arrives at higher figures when considering the whole duration of the war, namely 8,579 for Canada and 6,890 for Australia.6 If we add the 29,511 civilian internees in Britain (November 1917) to around 15,000 in the colonies and dominions, and also consider several thousand who, by then, had been interned and often repatriated in earlier stages of the war, a total of at 4  NA/FO383/297, report ‘Repatriation Overseas’, filed 5 June 1918. 5  See ‘Die Zivil- und Kolonialgefangenen’, in Deutscher Reichstag, in Deutscher Bundestag, ed., Das Werk des Untersuchungsausschusses der verfassungsgebenden Deutschen Nationalversammlung und des Deutschen Reichstages, 1919–1928, Reihe 3: Völkerrecht im Weltkrieg. Bd. III/2: Gutachten des Sachverständigen Geh. Rates Prof. Dr. Meurer (Berlin, 1927), pp. 719–855 (here pp. 820–2). 6 Bodan  S.  Kordan, No Free Man: Canada, the Great War, and the Enemy Alien Experience (Kingston, Ontario, 2016), p. 7; Gerhard Fischer, Enemy Aliens: Internment and the Homefront Experience in Australia, 1914–1920 (St Lucia, 1989), p. 77.

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126  Enemies in the Empire least 50,000 civilian internees in Britain and its Empire during the First World War is a realistic approximation.

Camp Typology As camps mushroomed throughout the Empire, their nature could differ substan­ tially with regard to duration, size, and topography. It is, however, not least this complexity which explains why internment facilities have been such a ‘success story’ throughout history:7 they were and are extremely adaptable forms of containing populations that are deemed to present a danger to a given polity. The typology will start with the category of duration. Whilst some camps were shortlived affairs, others existed for most or all of the duration of the war. The transition from provisional to permanent camp structures can be studied throughout the Empire. In the metropole, temporary solutions included facilities such as Newbury race course, the exhibition hall in Olympia (London), Redford Barracks in Edinburgh, and several prison ships, before consolidation took place, especially on the Isle of Man.8 In Gibraltar, 882 prisoners had gone through the camp by March 1915. Most of them, 709, had been shipped to England and the remainder released and allowed to return home. Thereafter it continued to func­ tion as a low-key transit point for around fifteen enemy aliens at a time.9 In South Africa, although the main camp, Fort Napier in Pietermaritzburg, was already established in August 1914, other camps acted as transit stations before feeding into Fort Napier. There was also an element of experimentation because at this stage no one knew how long internment operations would have to be conducted and whether provisional camps might have to develop into permanent ones. In  South Africa provisional facilities included an agricultural show ground (Johannesburg), the Robert Heights military base (Pretoria), and the compound of a diamond mine (Kimberley). By the end of 1915, their inmates had all been concentrated in Fort Napier.10 Elsewhere in Africa, short-term camps existed along the coast of West Africa, designed to hold enemy aliens for transportation on ships to Britain. The above-mentioned banana plantation Ibbaddan, where Wilhelm Kröpke was held, is just one example. The same pattern applied to East Africa. Missionary Hermann Röseler, for instance, was temporarily held in Lindi, a small coastal town in the recently conquered German East Africa. From there he was taken to a temporary camp in Dar Es Salaam which held 400. This was a 7  Bettina Greiner and Alan Kramer, eds, Welt der Lager: Zur ‘Erfolgsgeschichte’ einer Institution (Hamburg, 2013). 8  See Chapter 7. 9  BA/R901/83070, American Consulate Report on ‘Treatment of Prisoners Interned at Gibraltar’, 25 March 1915. 10  See Chapter 8.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  127 palm plantation which had formerly belonged to a German settler and was now surrounded by barbed wire. After several weeks Röseler and his group were taken by steamer and train to the more permanent Maadi camp near Cairo.11 In the Pacific, temporary makeshift camps existed in various places before their inmates were shifted towards Australia. On Ceylon, the Diyatalawa camp survived for less than a year.12 Internment in Hong Kong initially took place on Stonecutter’s Island, but as the number of prisoners and the threat of malaria grew, the internees were moved to Kowloon to an encampment area sometimes used by British troops.13 Another short-term camp in the Pacific was Tenom in North Borneo which, according to a US consular official, consisted of ‘the most commodious house in the district and affords all the comforts and conveniences usually found in tropical residences’. Apart from boredom and the loss of free­ dom, one complaint was that ‘their beer supply had been shut off ’ because three of the six Germans held there had previously ‘got drunk and created a disturbance in the town of Tenom by parading up and down the streets singing German songs’.14 Australia itself also opened camps which only existed during the early stages of the war. Claremont, about six miles from the capital of Tasmania, held sixty Germans and four Austro-Hungarians in August 1915. At the same time, Rottnest Island, just off the coast of Perth, held 214. This was a former prison-turnedtourist-camp which was now used as a facility for enemy aliens. Torrens Island camp was located in the Port River estuary near Adelaide. This held around 400 in the worst conditions in Australia, with prisoners being housed in tents and physical abuse and ill-treatment being reported. All three camps, Claremont, Rottnest Island, and Torrens Island, were closed by the end of 1915 and prisoners transferred to the permanent camp Holsworthy in New South Wales.15 A number of characteristics connected these short-lived camps. The time they existed varied from a few weeks to almost two years, depending on decisions for further concentration. Like the longer-established camps, some of them devel­ oped camp communities with a rich social life. Diyatalawa, Kowloon, Roberts Heights, and some of the other camps which emerged in these early days of the war had a section for women and children, but no long-term facilities were 11 Hans Weiland and Leopold Kern, eds, In Feindeshand: Die Gefangenschaft im Weltkriege in Einzeldarstellungen, Volume 2 (Vienna, 1931), pp. 105–9. 12  BA/R67/255, Interner Bericht, 20 March 1915; BA/R67/1329, ‘Ceylon’; BA/R901/83019, Bericht über die Ceylonlager Ragama und Diyatalawa, 2 August 1916. 13 BA/R67/824, Inspektion des Gefangenenlagers zu Hongkong auf Ansuchen der Englischen Regierung, 15 December 1914; BA/R901/83830, Inspection of Camp for German and Austrian Prisoners at War at Hongkong, 28 August 1915; BA/MA/MSG200/1585, Bericht über das Internierungslager bei Hunghon (Hongkong). 14  NA/FO 383/180, Report on Civil Camp at Tenom, British North Borneo, 25/26 November 1915. 15 BA/R67/1641, Interner Bericht 16, Tasmanien, 20 March 1915; BA/R901/83830, Report by American Consul on Tasmania, 14 September 1915; BA/R67/1367, Interner Bericht 37, Rottnest Island, 25 August 1915; Fischer, Enemy Aliens, pp. 188–94.

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128  Enemies in the Empire established to hold these family members. Permanent mass internment facilities were a male only affair, although some low-scale exceptions existed in India and in South Africa. Apart from the differentiation into short-term and long-term, there are a num­ ber of further criteria working towards a typology of camps. The examples in the remainder of this section all fall under the category ‘permanent’. One type were those facilities that had initially been built for British troops but were turned into internment camps after the outbreak of war. In fact, the biggest camp in India, Ahmednagar, had a long history as a military station and had also been used as an internment facility for Boers during the South African War.16 The central camp in Scotland, Stobs near Hawick, had been used as a military training ground since 1903 but received completely new buildings to house up to 4,500.17 Similarly, the camp in Malta, Fort Verdala, situated above Valetta, opened on a site previously used by British troops. In August 1915 the camp held 1,355 civilians and 141 military POWs. By April 1918 numbers had risen to 1,906, including 1,325 Germans, 320 Austro-Hungarians, 326 Turks, and twenty-seven Bulgarians. The US consu­ lar reports were broadly positive, focusing on the well-developed social activity including celebration of the Kaiser’s birthday on 27 January. The reports also mention friction between the inmates, which was viewed as inevitable because of the amount of time the men spent together.18 A fourth example of a pre-existing military facility was Fort Napier. With British troops gradually withdrawing from the newly established Union of South Africa after 1910, Fort Napier had recently been abandoned as a garrison fort for colonial troops.19 When these camps were converted for civilian internment purposes they kept a key structural feature, namely the separation into first- and second-class compounds. First-class prisoners of ‘social standing’ had better living conditions and more space at their disposal. The separation into officers and other-rank soldiers was stipulated by the Hague Convention on Prisoners of War. It was now transferred to the civilian sphere where it was upheld in all camp types, either through separate compounds or through altogether separate facilities (Figure 6.1). Notwithstanding some minor differences, the topography of military barracks was also representative of another type of camp, namely those that were newly built from August 1914. The prototype of this category was Knockaloe, which started off as one new compound on an open plain on the western coast of the Isle of Man, but was gradually extended to a maximum of 23,000 as demand increased.20 Australia’s largest camp, Holsworthy near Sydney, was also a newly

16  NAI/Home/Police/April1918/180, Swiss Consular Report on Ahmednagar, 23 April 1917. 17  http://www.stobscamp.org (accessed 27 July 2017). 18  BA/R901/83109, Danish Consular Report on Malta, 26 April 1918; BA/R901/83001/a, Bericht über Zivil- und Kriegsgefangenenlager in Verdala, 1 August 1915. 19  See Chapter 11. 20  See Chapter 10.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  129

Figure 6.1  Holsworthy Camp, New South Wales, Australia.

built structure. This camp ‘grew from a collection of tents to a small town of huts complete with theatres, restaurants and cafes, other small businesses, an orchestra and sporting and educational activities’.21 Its population increased from 1,695 in August 1915 to 4,299 by May 1916 (including 3,421 Germans and 811 AustroHungarians) and 4,500 by July 1916, a total that would remain stable until 1919.22 A smaller version of Knockaloe and Holsworthy was Kapuskasing in northern Ontario (Figure  6.2) which held 934 Austro-Hungarians, 135 Turks, and seven Bulgarians in March 1916, reflecting the tendency in Canada to have separate camps for Germans on the one hand, and other nationalities on the other.23 By September 1917, however, a swap towards a majority of German prisoners had taken place. Figure 6.3 is a drawing made by prisoners which gives a good insight into the topography of these newly built camps. The caption reads ‘Bird’s-Eye View of the Civil Prisoner of War Camp Kapuskasing, Canada, North Ontario, September 1917’. The buildings are denoted as: 1–6, living and sleeping houses; 7–8, canteens; 9–10, first-class quarters; 11–12, kitchens; 13, exercise room; 14, canteen and storage room; 15–16, toilets; 17, wash house; 18, consumption hos­ pital; 19, hospital; 20, commandant’s office; 21, detention hut; 22, luggage hut; 23, main guard. 21  Migration Heritage Centre, ‘The Enemy At Home: German Internees in World War 1 Australia’, http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/enemyathome/holsworthy-internment-camp/ index.html (accessed 1 August 2018). 22 BA/R901/83830, American Consular Report on Visit to German Concentration Camp, Liverpool, New South Wales, 13 August 1915; NA/FO383/239, American Consular Report on Visit to German Concentration Camp, Liverpool, New South Wales, 20 May 1916; NA/FO383/240, Camp President and Camp Secretary, German Concentration Camp, Liverpool, N.S.W., to Australian Minister of Defence, 20 July 1916; NA/FO 383/536, Report of Visit to German Concentration Camp, by Swiss and Danish Consuls, 17 February 1919; Fischer, Enemy Aliens, pp. 199–228. 23  NA/FO383/239, Inspection report American Consulate General, Ottawa, 17 March 1916.

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130  Enemies in the Empire

Figure 6.2  Kapuskasing Camp, Northern Ontario, Canada.

Figure 6.3  Prisoners’ drawing of Kapuskasing Camp, Northern Ontario, Canada.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  131 The camp typology also includes a number of former civilian structures which were turned into camps. Oldcastle Camp in County Meath, Ireland had been a former workhouse, signifying clear continuities of social group confinement in the British Empire since the nineteenth century. In October 1914 the military authorities took command of the site and fortified it. Two blocks of stone-built structures contained twenty-six dormitories, housing 435 German and ninetynine Austrian prisoners in June 1915. When prisoners climbed on rooftops to watch anti-conscription and pro-independence demonstrations in the nearby town centre in April 1918, the camp was considered a security risk, evacuated, and its inmates transferred to Knockaloe.24 Former factory sites were another type of civilian buildings. The camp at Handforth in Cheshire came into existence in November 1914 on the site of a former print works. Although it had developed into a camp for military internees by 1916, it initially held a combination of local Germans largely from Manchester, the crews of German trawlers, and people brought from the colonies. Numbers totalled between 2,000 and 2,500. According to inspectors’ reports, by early 1915 it had become fairly well organized and the factory buildings held acceptable accommodation.25 Less favourable reports emerged about the Amherst Camp in Nova Scotia, Canada, which was a former iron foundry housing 800 in cramped and unhygienic conditions. There were also prison islands. By this we do not mean camps like Knockaloe on the Isle of Man, Fort Verdala on Malta, or Up Park Camp on Jamaica that were situated on large populated islands. We rather refer to very small islands with lit­ tle or no population which were turned into places of concentration. In Australia, these included the above-mentioned Rottnest Island off the Perth coast, and Torrens Island near Adelaide. New Zealand had two prison islands, Somes Island in Wellington Harbour and Motuihi Island in Auckland Harbour. Somes Island held 187 people in August 1915, comprising seventy-two military prisoners and 115 civilians. Accommodation was in a former quarantine station. By July 1917 the total number had risen to 271, with 222 being German. Motuihi in Auckland Harbour housed eighty-four prisoners in 1917. It was conceived as a first-class facility in a former psychiatric hospital. Both Motuihi and Somes Island held enemy aliens from New Zealand, as well as around sixty who had been deported from the captured German colony Samoa.26 Another prison island in an entirely different world region was Ports Island in the Bermuda Great Sound, which will receive further attention below.

24  Declan O’Connor, ‘Das Kriegsgefangenenlager/The Prisoner of War Camp Oldcastle, Co. Meath, 1914–1918’, Die Harfe, vol. 33 (2015), pp. 38–41. 25  Panikos Panayi, Prisoners of Britain: German Civilian and Combatant Internees during the First World War (Manchester, 2012), p. 92. 26  Sandra Barkhof, ‘The New Zealand Occupation of German Samoa during the First World War 1914–1918: Enemy Aliens and Internment’, in Stefan Manz, Panikos Panayi and Matthew Stibbe, eds, Internment during the First World War: A Mass Global Phenomenon (Abingdon, 2018), pp. 205–26.

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132  Enemies in the Empire ‘Enemy aliens’ were usually arrested by the police and taken to the nearest police station where they would spend a short spell in a prison cell before removal to a camp. The short period Wilhelm Kröpke spent in Lagos prison is indicative of this pattern. There were, however, also a number of prisons which were con­ verted into long-term internment facilities for ‘enemy aliens’. Berrima and Trial Bay Gaols were both in New South Wales, ‘thus establishing a clear and distinct link with the colony’s penal system’.27 In Trial Bay Gaol, two or three detainees were accommodated in one stone gaol cell, and others in newly built huts outside the main building. A US consular inspection from June 1916 described ‘a spirit of contentment as well as satisfaction’ and asserted that the camp ‘is in excellent condition’.28 The 580 internees held here in June 1917 had developed orchestras, a library of 2,500 books, and a theatre with 240 seats.29 Prisons were especially used in the West Indies with two on Trinidad and one on Barbados, Glendairy Prison. The latter continued to hold ordinary criminals alongside those who were incar­ cerated as enemy aliens. The American Consul, visiting in August 1916, found fifty-eight inmates and described the topography as follows: This camp is situated within the walls of the criminal prison of this Island, but is detached from the balance of the prison buildings, and there is no communica­ tion between the prisoners of war and the criminal prisoners, except that a por­ tion of the camp sanitary work is done by the criminal prisoners. The camp compound is separated from the prison yard by a strong barbed wire barricade, the wall of the prison enclosure from the other three sides of the compound.30

Although the Consul found general conditions to be satisfactory, he also remarked that this setting was not conducive to internees’ mental health: ‘The proximity of the convicts, the prison walls, and the cries of the convicts receiving corporal punishment, according to the testimony of [internees], affects their nerves and makes them restless and irritated’.31 This typological overview has given an insight into the complexity of the internment experience. Knockaloe with its endless rows of wooden huts, built on an open plain, is often seen as the prototype, but in reality there existed a whole series of different camp forms, sizes, and durations. Some camps only existed for weeks; others for the whole duration of the war and, indeed, beyond. Some

27 Fischer, Enemy Aliens, p. 247. 28  NA/FO/383/239, American Consular Report on Trial Bay, 4 June 1916. 29  BA/R67/1646, Report of Visit of Inspection of the German Detention Barracks at Trial Bay, 17 June 1917. 30  NA/FO/383/240, Report American Consul, Barbados, 14 August 1916. 31  NA/CO28/291/48, Governor of Barbados to Walter H. Long, M.P., 28 January 1917; ‘Zur Lage der deutschen Kriegsgefangenen auf Barbados’, Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 12 March 1916.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  133 were  newly built, modelled on the layout of military barracks. Others were accommodated in former military bases. Pragmatic solutions in situ led to further conversions: race courses, exhibition halls, ships, agricultural showgrounds, ­plantations, factories, a diamond mine, a workhouse, hospitals, islands, and ­prisons. Some of them (for instance, Holsworthy and Fort Napier) were in urban locations; others (such as Kapuskasing and Knockaloe) in isolated ones. The term ‘internment camp’ encapsulates very different shapes and locations.

Camp Communities and Cultural Life The notion of ‘prison camp societies’ was first put forward by John Davidson Ketchum, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, writing decades after his First World War confinement in the Berlin civilian camp in Ruhleben. Ketchum described how after a period of accommodation, the British internees took part in a range of activities and formed associations leading to a community structure, which helped them to survive years of confinement.32 Part of the rea­ son for engaging in social activity lay in the fact that civilian prisoners were not forced to work, which meant that they had to kill time, ‘for it was the arch-enemy’.33 Although forced labour in Canada appears unique within the Empire and caused controversy and complaints, voluntary employment for the purpose of ‘killing time’ certainly took place elsewhere. In South Africa, prisoners could even be sent to do agricultural work on the Standerton Government Farm as a reward for good behaviour in Fort Napier34 (Figures 6.4 to 6.6). The sporting, educational, and cultural activities in Ruhleben described by Ketchum also developed in camps run by the British throughout the world, as well as in establishments opened by the other belligerents. Gilly Carr and Harold Mytum have seen internment camps during both world wars as spaces of creativ­ ity. Despite traumas caused by separation from families, ‘the years of internment were coupled with unprecedented leisure time for many which led to a flowering of creativity in numerous forms and across a variety of media’.35 Camp commandants were usually supportive, recognizing that entertainment and good relationships were important for prisoners’ morale. Support also came from organizations beyond the wire such as the Society of Friends, the YMCA, the Markel Committee

32  John Davidson Ketchum, Ruhleben: A Prison Camp Society (Toronto, 1965), pp. 153–4. 33  Paul Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still: My Internment in England (London, 1931), p. 91. 34  Stefan Manz and Tilman Dedering, ‘“Enemy Aliens” in Wartime: Civilian Internment in South Africa during World War I’, South African Historical Journal, vol. 68 (2016), p. 9. 35  Gilly Carr and Harold Mytum, ‘The Importance of Creativity Behind Barbed Wire: Setting a Research Agenda’, in Carr and Mytum, eds, Cultural Heritage and Prisoners of War: Creativity Behind Barbed Wire (Abingdon, 2012), pp. 1–15 (here p. 1).

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134  Enemies in the Empire

Figure 6.4  Football in Handforth Camp, Cheshire, UK.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  135

Figure 6.5  Band on Rottnest Island, Australia.

Figure 6.6  Theatre group in Amherst, Canada.

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136  Enemies in the Empire in Britain, and local philanthropic groups. Prison camp communities emerged in a variety of ways, especially the celebration of major festival days in the German calendar, including those of a religious nature. Christmas proved particularly important for interned Germans as it did for those beyond the wire, even though it caused mixed feelings as internees reflected on their situ­ation and separation from families.36 German nationalism surfaced in the celebration of the Kaiser’s birthday on 27 January, which had become established beyond the wire before the outbreak of the war in many diasporic communities.37 This resulted in festivities such as the one in the Tanglin Barracks in Singapore on 27 January 1915.38 Community also developed through a range of regular activities. Theatre became perhaps the most important of these, bringing together a wide range of people as actors, spectators, and technical staff. Cross-dressing actors helped to keep the image of women alive in camps.39 Humour and entertainment were important to release frustration. Although serious plays were performed as well, the majority of performances were comedies. A total of sixty-nine camp theatres existed in Britain alone, made up of nine for officers, twenty-seven for other ranks, and thirty-three for civilians.40 In Holsworthy near Sydney the 125th new performance took place on 31 August 1918, on this occasion featuring a play by Henrik Ibsen.41 Some of the performances were almost of professional standards. The camp newspaper Stobsiade in Scotland wrote about the satirical drama Der Biberpelz (The Beaver Coat) by Gerhart Hauptmann: All the actors played naturally. The make-up and acting of the two mariners were really excellent. Mr Kriesche, playing as Mrs Wolff made us quite forget he was a man; his imitation of a woman’s manners was complete, and his per­form­ ance was splendid in every respect.42

Camps developed their own orchestras and bands, helped by the fact that many Germans played instruments. An advanced musical life evolved on the Isle of Man with symphony orchestras, choirs and ensembles, music critics, and the use 36 See, for example, BA/R901/83107, ‘Verdala Camp Nachrichten, Weihnachts-Nummer 1915’; interview with Stefan Manz in BBC History Magazine (Christmas Edition, December 2014), pp. 9–10. 37  Stefan Manz, Constructing a German Diaspora. The ‘Greater German Empire’, 1871–1914 (New York, 2014). 38  BA/MSG200/2067, Feier des Geburtstages Sr. Majetät Kaiser Wilhelm II. im Kriegsgefangenen Lager Tanglin Barracks, Singapore, 27 January 1915. 39  Alon Rachamimov, ‘The Disruptive Comforts of Drag: (Trans) Gender Performances among Prisoners of War in Russia, 1914–1920’, American Historical Review, vol. 111 (2006), pp. 362–82; Jennifer Kewley Draskau, ‘Prisoners in Petticoats: Drag Performance and Its Effects in Great War Internment Camps on the Isle of Man’, Proceedings of the Isle of Man Natural History and Antiquarian Society, vol. 12 (April 2007–March 2009), pp. 187–204. 40  Hermann Pörzgen, Theater ohne Frau: Das Bühnenleben der kriegsgefangenen Deutschen 1914–1920 (Königsberg, 1933), p. 166. 41  BA/MA/MSG200/1084, DTL Programm. 42  Stobsiade, civilian edition nr. 11, 8 April 1916.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  137 of music in plays and religious festivities.43 The orchestra in the St. Clement’s Camp in Malta gave a symphony concert on 11 May 1918 featuring Beethoven’s first symphony, a Chopin nocturne, Grieg’s piano concerto, and Wagner’s Entry of the Gods into Valhalla from Das Rheingold.44 In Oldcastle Camp, the former organist and choir master of Cork Catholic Cathedral, Aloys Fleischmann, was the spiritus rector of musical life, conducting a choir and an orchestra.45 Not all music performed was highbrow, however. Others played popular contemporary tunes and folk music. For Christmas 1915, the theatre committee in Stobs staged a Grosse Weihnachtsrevue mit Musik (Chor u. Orchester), Gesang und Tanz (Great Christmas Show with Music [Choir and Orchestra], Song and Dance).46 Generally we have to imagine the soundscape of camps as one of brimming with music. Another major form of popular culture which played a central role in creating community consisted of sport and exercise, which may have involved more ­people than any other type of activity in view of the range of games which the prisoners developed, both competitive and non-competitive and encompassing English and German sports. The Verdala ‘Camp Nachrichten’ from 28 March 1915 pointed to tennis, boxing, football, and fencing here.47 While some Germans played sport as individuals, others participated in team games which would lead to the develop­ ment of football leagues. Sporting festivals allowed prisoners to again develop their sense of community as happened in Holsworthy on Christmas Day 1917 where the games played included football, athletics, and hockey. Such events also allowed those who did not participate in sport to take part as this particular festival also included a concert by the camp brass orchestra.48 On Ports Island in Bermuda regular football games between guards and inmates were organized.49 Community and creativity were also apparent in the ubiquitous newspapers which became a phenomenon amongst German, English, and French internees held in camps throughout the world. At least seventeen emerged in Great Britain during the course of the war, together with many more in overseas camps. These evolved in cooperation with camp censors and necessitated the existence of some form of printing press. Those who ran them invariably came from educated middleclass backgrounds. While these publications initially devoted space to events beyond the barbed wire, they increasingly became focused on the camps 43  Jutta Raab Hansen, ‘Die Bedeutung der Musik für 26000 internierte Zivilisten während des Ersten Weltkrieges auf der Isle of Man’, in Richard Dove, ed., ‘Totally un-English?’ Britain’s Internment of ‘Enemy Aliens’ in Two World Wars (Amsterdam, 2005), pp. 63–81. 44  BA/R67/1803, Sinfonie Konzert des Streichorchesters, Malta. 45 Ruth Fleischmann, ‘Aloys Fleischmann: Bavarian Musician and Civilian Prisoner of War 1916–1919’, in Tom French, ed., Oldcastle Camp 1914–1918: An Illustrated History (Meath, 2018), pp. 125–66. 46  Programme courtesy of John L. Coltman, Hawick. 47  Verdala ‘Camp Nachrichten’, 28 March 1915, in BA/MA/MSG200/2138. 48  BA/MA/MSG200/1084, Programm des Allgemeinen Sportfestes, Weihnachten 1917, Deutsches Kriegsgefangenenlager zu Liverpool. 49  NA/FO/383/239, Inspection report American consul, 8 March 1916.

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138  Enemies in the Empire t­ hemselves. One of their key functions consisted of providing information on social and educational activity within individual camps, although they also allowed prisoners to express their feelings about internment, especially through literary sketches and poems. They had an overarching aim of creating community within specific camps. Many prisoners sent editions, which might have a print run of several thousands, to their relatives, keeping them informed about camp life. These newspapers also helped to create a sense of Heimat (homeland), fuelled by the feeling of alienation which the prisoners felt as a result of their in­car­cer­ ation and encouraged by the exclusively male environment in which they.50 Educational activities were wide-ranging and had the triple purpose of killing time, keeping one’s brain active, and preparing for life after internment (Table 6.2). Many prisoners had some professional background, whether as craftsmen, artists, en­gin­eers, teachers, or academics. They could draw on their own resources when organizing well-structured camp schools and training facilities. Help from out­ side came from the Quakers and the YMCA providing teaching materials and facilities. Resident Germans who were not interned often provided books from their own stock or from local German Clubs which had been disbanded. The library in the Amherst Camp, Nova Scotia, Canada held more than 2,500 books in English, German, and other languages. Each month 340 men attended classes, instructed by thirty-four teachers from within their own ranks.51 Despite the range of occupational and recreational facilities, it would be ­misleading to imagine camp life as joyous. The activities were nothing more than attempts at coming to terms with a difficult situation and trying to avoid insanity in extremely confined circumstances. Ketchum in Ruhleben camp was the exact ­equivalent to Germans in Canadian captivity. We can refer again to his observa­ tions on life in Ruhleben as these can usefully be applied to different national and historical contexts. Ketchum explained that cultural activities behind the wire were attempts to lend some purpose to a long and otherwise meaningless period of internment. The internees pursued clear aims, but of modest dimension, since they had to be realized within the confines of the barbed wire, e.g., a language had to be learned or a competition had to be won. Such activities structured the pris­ oners’ daily routine which otherwise would have lacked any framework. They had a set beginning and an end, and often required preparation and revision. Ketchum explains further: The purposeful activity that followed did more than make camp life interesting, for purpose is the great organizing agent of the personality, establishing 50 Rainer Pöppinghege, Im Lager unbesiegt. Deutsche, englische und französische ­ riegsgefangenen-Zeitungen im Ersten Weltkrieg (Essen, 2006), pp. 183–294 and 318–20; Jennifer K Kewley Draskau, ‘Relocating the Heimat: Great War Internment Literature from the Isle of Man’, German Studies Review, vol. 32 (2009), pp. 83–106. 51  NA/FO383/240, inspection report American Consul, 17 August 1916; NA/FO383/432, inspection report Swiss Consul, 31 January 1918.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  139 Table 6.2  Camp School Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada, February 1918 Languages

Mathematics

Commercial

Sciences

Engineering

English German Turkish Spanish Dutch French

Higher mathematics Algebra Trigonometry Plain-Geometry Solid-Geometry

Stenography Practical Arithmetic Book-keeping

Chemistry Metallurgy Navigation Comparative law Economic History First aid

Motor construction Boiler construction Motor practice Mechanics Engine construction Electrotechnics

Sources: NA/FO383/240, inspection report American Consul, 17 August 1916; NA/FO383/432, inspection report Swiss Consul, 31 January 1918.

pri­or­ities among its motives, giving direction and focus to behaviour, and so unifying and stabilizing the self. An aimless life is a disorganized life, and ­ultimately a demoralized one, for without some goal one way of acting is no better or worse than another. These were of course the chief dangers of a long, mean­ ingless internment, and the series of mental breakdowns showed their reality.

Ketchum also stressed that activities facilitated at least a mental escape from imprisonment: One cannot be consciously a prisoner while playing centre forward on a football team or translating Goethe in class. In so far as the men immersed themselves in the new roles offered them . . . they ceased to feel themselves prisoners.52

Conditions The treatment of internees throughout the Empire was in essence humane. Food rations were adequate, there was little deliberate mistreatment, and with the exception of Canada, there was no forced labour. While the incarceration of tens of thousands of men in the Empire constituted an act of liberty infringement which those affected understandably resented, the British authorities did not want to repeat the mistakes of the Boer War, as revealed in the views of a Government of India civil servant determined to avert the attention of the ‘atrocity mongers’ by not interning women and families in Ahmednagar.53 Since the Boer War the 1907 Hague Convention had also come into operation, and the British 52 Ketchum, Ruhleben, pp. 208–9. 53  NAI/Home/PoliticalA/September1914/394–397, Grant of allowance to the wives and children of prisoners of war interned at Ahmednagar.

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140  Enemies in the Empire now played by the rules of warfare when it came to civilian internees. This included allowing US and then Swiss Embassy officials access to camps where they could meet the prisoners and discuss problems and complaints.54 The British authorities were, furthermore, acutely aware that any mistreatment of ‘enemy aliens’ could have negative reciprocal effects on the treatment of the British in Central Power captivity. And for the morale of the general public and troops it was crucial to be seen to adhere to humane standards to uphold the claim of moral superiority over an inhumane enemy. While some of the prisoners’ protests focused on serious issues, others seem minor as a culture of complaining emerged. These protests, however, reflected a deeper anxiety about the loss of freedom which the internees experienced. This was one element of ‘barbed-wire disease’, the psychosis caused by years of captiv­ ity. The term was coined by Dr  A.  L.  Vischer, a psychiatrist and official at the London Swiss Legations who inspected a range of camps, especially Knockaloe. He found that ‘very few prisoners who have been over six months in the camp are quite free’ from this psychosis.55 His diagnosis included a number of causes also identified by other accounts by internees, including: ‘social standing of the pris­ oners before internment’,56 which meant that middle-class males accustomed to physical space and control of their time became particularly prone to mental illness;57 ‘the general camp conditions and treatment of the prisoners’; lack of con­ tact with the outside world, especially womenfolk; and the uncertainty of the length of captivity.58 Lack of work also played a role. While creativity and community may have emerged, the lack of real employment impacted on many internees. The depressive ‘barbed-wire disease’ provides the best example of the negative consequences of internment in the Empire during the Great War. Referrals to lunatic asylums appear in inspection reports worldwide. When Dr Vischer visited the Oldcastle Camp in Ireland, for example, he noted that by the end of 1916 four prisoners had been transferred to a lunatic asylum.59 Sometimes the depression caused by confinement led to suicide. Those who took their own lives included Karl Kibbert who hung himself in Malta ‘whilst under the influence of alcohol’.60 Another example is the German-American Dr Walter Gellhorn who took an overdose of morphine in the Stobs Camp in Scotland.61 But such extreme cases of depression remained rare, and the relatively small number of internees who 54  Richard  B.  Speed III, Prisoners, Diplomats, and the Great War: A Study in the Diplomacy of Captivity (New York, 1990), pp. 19–25. 55 A. L. Vischer, Barbed Wire Disease: A Psychological Study of the Prisoner of War (London, 1919), p. 53. 56  Rudolf Rocker, ‘Alexandra Palace Internment Camp in the First World War’, British Library typescript, p. 4. 57 Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still, p. 85. 58  Rocker, ‘Alexandra Palace’, p. 4. 59  NA/FO383/277, inspection report Swiss Legation, 7 August 1917. 60  BA/R67/909, Death Certificate of Karl Hibbert. 61  NA/FO/383/293, Suicide farewell letter Walter Gellhorn to Capt. C. B. Dobell, 11 July 1916.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  141 perished behind barbed wire mostly did so as a result of physical rather than mental conditions.62 One prisoner, Arno Friedrich, actually drowned while swimming at the Trial Bay camp.63 In February 1915, E. F. Senftleben was acci­ dentally shot in the Singapore camp by Indian mutineers who attacked the bar­ racks in protest against their pending transfer to the Ottoman Empire, where they would have to fight against fellow Muslims.64 One prisoner drowned in the Nile on his escape route from the Maadi camp in Egypt.65 Some prisoners died at the hands of the camp authorities. The worst incident occurred in the Douglas Camp on the Isle of Man on 19 November 1914, caused by the poor living conditions in a rapidly expanding camp. The guards suppressed a riot using live ammunition, causing the death of five internees.66 Individual ­soldiers also sometimes fired on internees for breaking camp rules as happened, for example, to Max Arndt in Holsworthy who ‘was shot when deliberately run­ ning away to avoid arrest, after being ordered to stand, the sentry having no other means of preventing his escape’.67 August Bockmeyer was shot while trying to escape from Oldcastle Camp in Ireland in September 1916.68 Casualties like these were a sensitive issue in the propaganda war as they could easily be exploited by the Central Powers as proof that the British essentially ran death camps. Where possible, fatal incidents were hushed up. The death of Franz Xavseer Seemeier in Oldcastle Camp was officially reported as being caused by internal bleeding after a footballing accident,69 but a private note by a prisoner records in contrast: [Seemeier] was bayoneted by a guard on 28. 1. 1917 (at 5pm on the western side) as he was looking for something he had lost near the barbed wire fence (inside the wall). (The guard was transferred and promoted to the rank of corporal). War physiology! We had a memorial stone put up. Seemeier was a most lovable, peaceable and helpful comrade.70

62  See, for example, the following Prisoners of War Information Bureau death certificates: Willi Kromm (Holsworthy) and Hans Wagener (Ahmednagar) in BA/R67/909; Heinrich Janzen (Malta) in BA/R67/1039; August Monthy (Holsworthy) in BA/R67/1040; and Paul Garth, Maximilian Wiedemann, Georg Carl Krafft, Henry Naserowsky (all Holsworthy), and Franz Xaver Dietrich (Ahmednagar) in BA/R67/1041. 63  Details of the circumstances of his death can be found in NA/FO/383/440. 64  NA/FO/383/62, Downing Street to Under Secretary of State, Colonial Office, 13 May 1915; BA/ R67/1614, Interner Bericht, Singapore, 12 April 1915; Mahon Murphy, Colonial Captivity during the First World War: Internment and the Fall of the German Empire, 1914–1919 (Cambridge, 2017), p. 80. 65 Hermann Röseler, ‘Bilder aus englischer Gefangenschaft im deutsch-ostafrikanischen Kolonialgebiet, in Ägypten und in England’, in Weiland and Kern, eds., In Feindeshand, vol. 2, pp. 105–9 (here p. 108). 66  Disturbance at the Aliens Detention Camp at Douglas on Thursday 19 November 1914: Inquiry by the Coroner of Inquests on Friday 20 November and Friday 27 November 1914 (Douglas, 1914). 67  NA/FO/383/184, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to United States Ambassador, 3 March 1916. 68  Meath Chronicle, 23 September 1916; Fleischmann, ‘Aloys Fleischmann’, p. 141. 69  Meath Chronicle, 3 February 1917. 70  Image of original note and translation in Fleischmann, ‘Aloys Fleischmann’, pp. 142, 147.

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142  Enemies in the Empire Where hushing up was not possible, fatal incidents were meticulously ­investigated and recorded to avoid any impression that camps were a legal vacuum. The con­ clusion was usually that the shooting was justified as the prisoner broke camp rules, and the relevant guard was acquitted of any wrongdoing.71 The flow of tightly controlled information was part of a propaganda conflict which ran alongside the military operations. Both the German and British authorities tried to influence public opinion and prove that the other side behaved in a less civilized manner towards its enemy citizens.72 The German press was equally implicated, publishing stories about alleged mistreatment. The Tägliche Rundschau, for example, recounted the experiences of Dr Walter Kain who spent ten months in Malta. He gave a negative account of the conditions he and his fel­ low prisoners had experienced, focusing especially on medical facilities.73 Similar stories of the experiences of captured Germans appeared in newspapers through­ out the war.74 The authorities also collected stories of mistreatment by interviewing individual Germans when they arrived home after a period of internment. The information gathered in this way fed the commission established for the purpose of recording violence against German civilians abroad (Reichskommissar zur Erörterung von Gewalttätigkeiten gegen deutsche Zivilpersonen in Feindeshand), which also invited individuals to speak to them. They included Rudolf Krüger who had worked as a clerk in the German Consulate in Alexandria and was interned in the Rasel-Tin camp in the city despite recent hospital treatment for typhus. He was then moved to Malta. While he provided a matter-of-fact account, he also pointed to the prob­ lems he encountered which included, in the Verdala Barracks, living with five other Germans in one room, which still compared favourably with other rooms which ‘were covered with dirt and full of bugs’.75 Walter Kain’s series of articles addressed a range of issues in addition to medical facilities, including the summer heat, the monotony of the diet, and the water supply, although he believed that conditions in Malta were not as bad as those in Russia, the French colonies, or the experiences of ‘our soldiers in the field whose lives were in danger’.76 In the Tanglin camp in Singapore, ‘all members of the Teutonia Club’, an ­educated middle-class group, entered into correspondence with the American Consul, which was fairly representative for camps in the Empire. The complaints in Singapore included: objection to the very fact of internment under 71  See examples for Amherst and Fort Napier below. 72 Matthew Stibbe, British Civilian Internees in Germany: The Ruhleben Camp, 1914–18 (Manchester, 2008), pp. 3–4; Panayi, Prisoners of Britain, pp. 231–3. 73  Tägliche Rundschau, 21, 22, 23 February 1916. 74 See, for example, ‘Wie England einen deutschen Gouverneur behandelt’, Neue Preussische Zeitung, 23 July 1915; ‘Die Behandlung der Samoanischen Deutschen’, Frankfurter Zeitung, 22 August 1916. 75  BA/R901/83012, Königliches Amtsgericht Berlin Mitte, 2 July 1915. 76  Tägliche Rundschau, 21, 22, 23 February 1916.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  143 inter­nation­al law; the unsuitability of the accommodation ‘for gentlemen who have spent so many years in Tropical climate’ as the ‘barracks with about 50 men in each compartment are to say the least overcrowded’; and the food, which, while the same as that ‘provided for British soldiers in this part of the wold . . . [is] abso­ lutely insufficient for anybody living out here’.77 The American Consul had previ­ ously replied to this group of internees in an understanding manner but his reaction to these complaints included a rather barbed comment: It is unfortunate of course, that civilians who have been accustomed to home comforts and luxury as is procurable in this community, should be deprived of same, but considering the misfortunes of war, an internment camp conducted on a basis comparing favourable with the usual military camps is all that can be expected.78

Canada We will now gradually move towards a geographically more focused approach to allow for deeper insights into the extent and nature of the imperial camp system. Whilst it has been important to identify Empire-wide patterns, one should not leave (proto-)national and regional specificities out of sight. The following two sections will fill two lacunae in existing scholarship. With regard to Canada, the bulk of existing scholarship and public engagement is concerned with the dire situation of Ukrainians and other ethnicities from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, culminating in a formal apology from the Canadian government and the Ukrainian Canadian Restitution Act in 2005. This scholarship is entirely based on official documentation.79 German internees have attracted less attention, and in keeping with the theme of the present study the following paragraphs will address this gap. They are mainly based on hitherto unseen sources from German and British archives and, for the first time, give the internees themselves a voice through ego-documentation. The subsequent section on the West Indies and Bermuda is the first to tackle this world region as an integral part of imperial internment operations. Recurring general themes include the fluid categorization between civilian and military prisoners which could differ from colony to colony; segregation into first and second class; integration into imperial structures; ­violence, race, and gender; and conditions in camps.

77  BA/R901/83010, Letter to the American Consul General in charge of the interests of German subjects, Singapore, 27 March 1915. 78  BA/R901/83007, American Vice Consul, Singapore, to W. Woelber, 25 March 1915. 79  Avery, Internment.

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144  Enemies in the Empire In Canada there was a correlation between ethnic origin and social class. Broadly speaking, Austro-Hungarian Slavic speakers tended to be low-skilled working class, and Germans tended to be educated middle-class. The authorities tried to separate the two groups and afford differential treatment. A total of twenty-four camps emerged across the dominion. By the end of 1915, non-working camps for Germans had been set up in the urban locations of Amherst and Halifax (both Nova Scotia), Fort Henry in Kingston (Ontario), and Vernon (British Columbia), while work camps for Austro-Hungarians existed far removed from urban centres in Spirit Lake (Québec), Petawawa (Ontario), Kapuskasing (northern Ontario), and elsewhere. Separation was not always upheld as op­er­ ations went through different phases and capacity was an issue, leading to prison­ ers being moved around camps. By mid-1917, for example, Germans had been moved to the Kapuskasing camp. Dissatisfied with military stricture and moder­ ate labour, they mounted a brief rebellion which was quelled by the guards. Generally, the Germans were a more ‘difficult’ group to contain as they tried more breakouts and persistently pointed to their rights under international conven­ tions. Their main complaint was that, as civilians, they had been invited by the Canadian government as immigrants and were now classified as military prison­ ers. The Canadian government would therefore be in breach of guarantees, depriving them not only of their liberty but also of their rights as citizens. They managed to communicate these grievances to the German government which, in turn, threatened retaliation against Canadians in German custody. The Austrian government remained comparatively passive when it came to protecting the rights of their citizens abroad, which accounts for some of the difference in treat­ ment between Germans and other ethnic groups.80 The German prisoners, despite all their complaints and grievances, were grate­ fully aware of their preferred treatment. Ernst Kutscher in Lethbridge Camp, Alberta managed to get an uncensored letter to his mother: ‘We Germans are being treated relatively well in contrast to Austrians . . . The corporal forces people go to work with bajonet and rifle . . . This work is building roads in the Rocky Mountains. That is heavy, heavy work . . . One Austrian refused to work and as a punishment had to carry an extremely heavy tree. He collapsed and had a frac­ ture. The consequence . . . nothing. No doctor, nothing’.81 Kurt Zöller wrote to his family back in Germany after he had been transferred from Kingston in southern Ontario to Kapuskasing further north: ‘We arrived here after a 36 hour journey. There is still frost here . . . Each hut houses 60–70 men’. He mentions that winters are up to minus 40 degrees and asks to be sent ‘thick stockings, a furry hat with 80 NA/FO383/162, note verbale German Foreign Office, 7 February 1916; Kordan, No Free Man; idem, Enemy Aliens, Prisoners of War: Internment in Canada During the Great War (Montreal and Kingston, ON, 2002), pp. 101–2. 81  BA/R67/1163, letter from Ernst Kutscher to mother, 17 September 1915.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  145 ear flaps, thick gloves, a sweater and woollen underwear’.82 The German g­ overnment made a formal complaint about the severe weather conditions in Kapuskasing and threatened to send the same number of British internees to a camp in occupied Russia. William Otter retorted with information taken from US inspection reports. These found ‘conditions as most satisfactory and that the ­prisoners were being properly cared for’.83 Kutscher’s and Zöller’s fate are certainly deplorable, but they were not coerced into hard labour like their AustroHungarian counterparts. They had families with the means to send winter clothing and other items, and they had a government which was ready to exert diplomatic and retaliatory pressure in order to improve conditions for their countrymen abroad. Two non-working camps for Germans in Nova Scotia, namely Halifax and Amherst, have been hitherto neglected by scholarship and provide closer insights that feed into our broader themes; first of all, class separation. Internment in Nova Scotia started with the Citadel in Halifax in September 1914. Conditions here were comparatively good, and it was gradually turned into a first-class facil­ ity, with nearby Amherst developing as its poorer cousin. In April 1915 all secondclass prisoners were transferred into the newly established camp at Amherst, and first-class prisoners remained in Halifax.84 By August 1915 the population in the Halifax Citadel stood at 121, and in December of that year inmates were joyous that they were allowed guarded walks and football outside the gates, thus getting a glimpse of the world for the first time after fifteen months.85 The facility remained in operation until October 1916, when its ninety-one inmates were transferred 100 miles by train to Amherst.86 For this purpose, a wing of the latter camp was converted into first-class quarters. The US Consul inspecting pre­par­ ations for the transfer put his finger on the visible class fault lines. A wooden partition was inserted, ‘insuring absolute privacy for those who will occupy the newly prepared [first-class] quarters’. The partition was ‘an effective barrier to noise, or possible odours, which might issue from the body of the [second-class] confinees who are housed behind it’. Ten men inhabited one room, sleeping in single (and not bunk) beds. The ninety-one were, in fact, composed of seventy-six men and their fifteen servants, who were accommodated in second class. Outside the premise a separate, barbed-wire enclosed recreation ground was created. ‘There is ample room for at least one full-sized tennis court which could be made 82  BA/R67/1631, Fort Henry, Kurt Zöller to family in Germany, 22 May 1917. For the prisoner transport in May 1917 see Morton, Sir William Otter, p. 51. 83 BA/FO383/309: note verbale German Foreign Office, 7 September 1917; letter William Otter, 11 September 1917; Morton, Sir William Otter, p. 53. 84  BA/R67/213, Interner Bericht Nr. 23 (10 May 1915), 36 (14 August 1915). 85  BA/R67/213, Interner Bericht (internal report) Nr. 48 (23 October 1915), 47 (6 November 1915), 50 (27 November 1915). 86  NA/FO383/240, US Consul General in Halifax to US Secretary of State, 7 October 1916.

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146  Enemies in the Empire without interfering with the general exercise ground’. In short, ‘the party from Halifax, will on arrival be given privacy as it is not enjoyed by the other confinees’.87 Generally, though, conditions in the Amherst Camp were considerably worse than in Halifax. It was an abandoned iron foundry on the outskirts of town that was converted and surrounded by barbed wire in April 1915. On the day of an inspection visit by the local US Consul in August 1916, the 710 inmates were composed of 697 Germans, seven Austro-Hungarians, one Turk, one Bulgarian, and four ‘miscellaneous’.88 The maximum number was 853, which made it the biggest camp in Canada. Civilian and military prisoners were all accommodated together as one single category (prisoners of war), highlighting Canada’s unique legal approach within the Empire. Paul Kemper wrote to his family: ‘We civilian prisoners are locked away here together with the crew of the Kaiser Wilhelm der Große’.89 That ship had been a captured auxiliary cruiser and was the one cohort in Amherst consisting of military personnel that had been engaged in actual fighting. Prisoners were brought to Amherst after a spell in Kingston, Jamaica.90 Prisoners could volunteer to do work outside the camp for forest or farm work. When it comes to conditions, the official US reports on Amherst were gener­ ally written in a laudatory tone,91 although one conceded that ‘originally the building . . . was not in all respects entirely suitable for the uses to which it has been adapted’.92 Some intertextual inconsistencies are revealing. One report found that ‘no odors could be detected’,93 contradicting the quote above. An assessment of conditions needs to take into account a chorus of different voices. Censored letters to relatives in Germany had to be careful with criticism. Paul Kemper had to assure his parents and siblings that he was ‘healthy and cheerful’ before being allowed to add: ‘Here things are not at their best and they become worse every day for us civilian prisoners’.94 Reservist Siegfried Gärtner was cap­ tured in the Atlantic in September 1914 when he tried to return from San Salvador to Germany. His first letters from Halifax spoke of acceptable condi­ tions, but after transfer to Amherst the tone became more critical. His brother forwarded the letters to the German Foreign Office, commenting: ‘Since his tone had to be measured due to the English censorship one can surmise that the provi­ sions for the captives are in reality much worse than they are allowed to report’.95 The Hamburg Red Cross monitored letters home and summed up that many 87  NA/FO383/240, Inspection Report US Consul at Moncton, 27 September 1916. 88  NA/FO383/240, Inspection Report US Consul at Moncton, 17 August 1916. 89  BA/R901/83036, Paul Klemper to family, 15 October 1916. 90  See Chapter 5. 91  BA/R67/1163, report US Consulate Moncton, 24 June 1915; NA/FO383/240, Inspection Report US Consulate Moncton, 17 August 1916. By the time the Swiss consulate had taken over inspection in 1917, conditions had improved, for which see: NA/FO383/432, report Swiss Consulate, 4 February 1918; and NA/FO383/469, reports Swiss Legation London, 16 April 1918. 92  NA/FO383/240, inspection report US Consulate Moncton, 17 August 1916. 93 Ibid. 94  BA/R901/83036, Paul Klemper to family, 15 October 1916. 95  BA/R67/1163, cover letter from brother of Siegfried Gärtner, 30 June 1915.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  147 spoke of good treatment and satisfactory conditions, but that negative aspects were most likely suppressed.96 Apart from censorship, another aspect to keep in mind is that internees often did not want to cause unnecessary worries back home and therefore tended to report on the positive side. The Hamburg Red Cross did, however, also get hold of a number of ­uncensored, more outspoken letters. Hans Boy managed to send letters in invisible ink to his brother in Central America, from whence they were forwarded to his family in Hamburg and the Red Cross. Boy describes extremely confined and un­hygien­ic conditions with 280 men in shaky bunk beds in one room, lacking any privacy. Mattresses were filled with dirty straw, breeding lice and infections. All windows and ventilation had been boarded up, and in their desperation the internees smashed some of the ceiling windows with bricks, causing leaks. The building had not been cleaned and everything was covered with a layer of grease and iron dust which was whirled up by birds finding their way into the building. The water for washing clothes and dishes was close to freezing point, and initially there was no canteen. Two thirds of the courtyard were full of rubble and swamp, making exercise difficult. Detention for failed escape attempts or smaller matters such as smoking in the bedroom was in a small disused and dirty blast furnace without light or air. Boy had been at Halifax before and took issue with the arbitrary ­separation between first and second class. For civilians, this was determined by the officer in charge who, in Boy’s opinion, had no knowledge of the prisoners’ backgrounds. Boy’s letters are mostly written in a matter-of-fact style. He stresses that there is no hyperbole and does not fail to mention positive aspects, creating a balanced picture: ‘Some things are admittedly satisfactory, e. g., the meals . . . toilets, heating and electric light are satisfactory. 2 footballs have been de­livered . . . We were supported in putting together an orchestra. For exercise and handicraft the small hall is at our disposal. Letters now arrive more regularly, but items from packages are still being stolen [by guards and officers]’.97 Incidents of violence have to be differentiated into physical and symbolic. Daniel Steinbach and Mahon Murphy have convincingly applied the concept of symbolic violence to the African colonial context. Germans who were appre­ hended and consciously humiliated in front of black subordinates felt a sense of violation. One such example is the fall of Cameroon when the former colonial masters were first herded together and then marched to the docks of Duala for repatriation, guarded and watched by a group of black people.98 Ernst Kutscher in western Canada expressed similar humiliation, caused by violation of established 96  BA/R901/83088, Hamburg Red Cross to German Foreign Office, 18 June 1915. 97  BA/R901/83088 and 83089, letters Hans Boy, Amherst 7 May 1915, 21 May 1915, 28 May 1915. Similar grievances in letter from marine officer Steuber, R67/1163, no date. Also see New York Herold (Staats-Zeitung), 10 June 1915. 98 Murphy, Colonial Captivity, p. 81; Daniel Steinbach, ‘Defending the Heimat: The Germans in South-West Africa and East Africa During the First World War’, in Heather Jones, Jennifer O’Brien, and Christoph Schmidt-Supprian, eds, Untold War: New Perspectives in First World War Studies (Leiden, 2008), pp. 179–208.

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148  Enemies in the Empire social and racial hierarchies. Kutscher was interned in Lethbridge, Alberta, and managed to smuggle out a letter to his mother through a released prisoner. He reported about his capture in Calgary ‘where I am rather well known, being driven through the city on a muck-cart together with three shackled Indians’. He was then kept for three weeks in a police cell with ‘thieves, murderers etc. and especially Indians, who are incredibly filthy’.99 Symbolic violence can also be observed in Amherst. Uncensored reports men­ tion frequent verbal insults by the guards and officers who were not allowed to apply physical violence. The internees were protected by the Hague Convention, and this would have had serious disciplinary and diplomatic consequences. In contrast, covert psychological violence, only expressed verbally, was impossible to prove or contest formally. Within a hierarchical power relationship it added to a sense of frustration, helplessness, and tension between the sides. To name but a few examples: a doctor who was challenged why no medicine for a rheumatism sufferer was available replied that this was ‘too expensive for these people’.100 When a camp representative mentioned that, under international law, captured medical orderlies should be allowed to treat their countrymen, above-mentioned Captain Ridout replied: ‘Members of a nation that has broken all treaties do not have the right to refer to international law’.101 Marine engineer Steuber found the public visibility of his capture humiliating: ‘Barbed wire around the building, in front of which the gazing crowds assemble, even controlling our bed time’.102 Prisoners’ sense of honour was also insulted by the fact that they were lumped together with Canadian deserters. They complained to the camp authorities that they should not share a camp with these traitors to their country. The officer’s reply was that he had the power to stick into the camp whomever he wanted.103 The claustrophobic and tense atmosphere turned into physical violence on 26 June 1915. Fritz Klause, who had been a stoker on the Kaiser Wilhelm der Große, was shot with a rifle after having struck a police corporal of the camp in the face. Four other prisoners were slightly wounded. Klause died soon after in the camp hospital. The reality of what happened is impossible to discern among the widely differing accounts, ranging from self-defence to open aggression on the guard’s part. After a lengthy investigation and a trial attended by the US Consul, the guard was acquitted.104 Whatever the facts, the prisoners were enraged. For them it was an act of pure aggression by a guard who was known among them as ‘German hater’.105 Hans Boy let the outside world know: ‘One murders us here in 99  BA/R67/1163, letter Ernst Kutscher, 17 September 1915. 100  BA/R901/83090, letter Hans Boy, 25 August 1915. 101  BA/R901/83089, letter Hans Boy, 21 June 1915. 102  BA/R67/1163, letter Steuber, no date. 103  BA/R901/83088, letter Hans Boy, 7 May 1915; R67/1163, report US consulate Moncton, 24 June 1915. 104  BA/R901/83090, report US Consulate Moncton, 2 July 2015. 105  BA/R901/83090, report New York, 10 September 1915, appendix 7.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  149 the most despicable way, one shoots defenceless captives like scabby dogs . . . Is there anything more animalistic than shooting a man lying on the ground, ­wriggling in his own blood?’106 Although it appears that this was the only fatal shooting in Canada, lower-scale violent acts and abuses of power were a regular occurrence in camps.107 Amherst Camp came to modest fame when Leon Trotsky was held there for a brief period from 3 to 29 April 1917. On behest of the Admiralty in London he was intercepted on his way from New York to Russia and promptly incited unrest in the camp. In his fluent German he gave his interpretation of the global situ­ ation to a crowd which had been cut off from affairs for years. The camp au­thor­ ities were glad to receive an order that he should be released to continue his revolutionary journey to Russia.108 The episode highlights that camps were increasingly used to contain social unrest from the left. Confinement now affected primarily those enemy aliens who were affiliated with the IWW and other work­ ers’ organizations, and many of these inmates were later repatriated throughout the twenties. The last camps in Canada closed in 1920, only for the policy to be resumed again during the Second World War.109 Canada was firmly integrated into imperial internment structures. Its wartime legislation was modelled on that emanating from London, the familiar interplay between public Germanophobic pressure and official measures was at work, and intercolonial transport was practised with the West Indies. There were, however, also deviations from the imperial picture. Canada did not pursue a policy of large-scale concentration in central hub facilities as was the case elsewhere in the form of Holsworthy (Australia), Fort Napier (South Africa), or Knockaloe. Rather, the dominion created a relatively wide net of smaller camps holding only several hundred each, with Amherst being the largest in Canada at a maximum of 853. The reason lay in another aspect of deviation where the legal framework played into utilitarian considerations: in classifying all internees, including civil­ ians, as military prisoners of war, the door was open to making them work. Prime targets were those economically vulnerable, low-skilled labourers who could be usefully employed in infrastructure work, most particularly in national park creation in the Rocky Mountains. A look at the distribution of camps reveals that the majority were located in that area. A multitude of smaller camps, rather than one central hub, was more efficient to develop a wider area. Forced labour only ­concerned Austro-Hungarian subjects, who received less diplomatic support from their government than their German counterparts. This had tangible effects on the internment experience, which was immeasurably harsher for 106  BA/R901/83090, letter Hans Boy, 26 June 1915. 107 Mahon, Colonial Captivity, pp. 77–8. 108 Kordan, No Free Man, p. 364; Morton, Sir William Otter, p. 55; Avery, Internment. 109  Ernest Robert Zimmermann, The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior: A History of Canadian Internment Camp R (Edmonton, 2015); Grant W. Grams, ‘The Deportation of German Nationals from Canada, 1919 to 1939’, International Migration and Integration, vol. 11 (2010), pp. 219–37.

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150  Enemies in the Empire Austro-Hungarian subjects. Symbolic and physical violence were apparent, but there was no systemic mistreatment or underfeeding. At least formally, Canada abided by the stipulations of the Hague Convention, which Britain had signed on behalf of its colonies. The global implications of this signature cannot be underestimated.

West Indies and Bermuda Camps on Atlantic island locations will be presented through a process of ‘island hopping’ from south to north, moving from Trinidad to Barbados and Jamaica, and then making a big leap to Bermuda. These were the only permanent facilities in this world region. The two main groups apprehended included, first, German nationals who had settled either on these four islands or were deported from adjacent ones, and, second, civilian crews and passengers taken from ships. The region allows a geographical broadening of a number of themes, including class, race, conditions, diplomacy, impact on communities, and intercolonial intern­ ment management. The small numbers mainly gain significance through their integration into global structures, communications, and processes. Internment in Trinidad involved two locations. Camp A was the second-class camp for captured seamen, holding eighty-eight in March 1916. Camp B was the first-class facility for local residents, holding nineteen. Capacity on Trinidad was constant at around 100. Camp A was originally a military hospital attached to the St James Barracks just outside Port of Spain. After British troops were removed from Trinidad it served briefly as a female prison before being converted into a camp. Prisoners either shared small cells or slept in the corridors of this two-storey building. Rooms in the building included classrooms for nautical lessons and a hall for band practice. Outside there was space for exercise and football. In the enclosure there was also a separate enclosed cottage ‘where 5 men of a better class are located’.110 This included three Benedictine monks from the Mount St Benedict monastery who were allowed to leave the island in March 1916. It also included travelling merchant Georg Krause who vigorously but vainly demanded transfer to Camp B, the first-class camp proper, on account of his social standing. ‘This isolatory confinement for nearly two years now in a hot tropical climate . . . without any society and distraction, has become very injurious to my health, both mentally and physically and as a natural consequence of this stupefying seclusion my mind has become extremely depressed and melancholic’.111

110  NA/CO295/510, report US Consulate, 2 November 1916; BA/R901/83038, report US Consulate, 5 February 1917 (quote). 111  NA/FO383/239, report US Consulate, 29 March 1916, and attachments to report US Consulate, 18 July 1916.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  151 Comparing complaints from prisoners and the German government about various camps in the Empire, it seems that those about Trinidad were relatively unsubstantiated. They were mostly about the quality of food, the hot climate, and the behaviour of the camp commandant and guards.112 A protest note verbale from the German government almost desperately tried to identify ‘certain abuses in that camp’ but could only point to Commandant Captain Fraser ‘who treats the prisoners with lack of consideration and with harshness; he often permits himself to indulge in personal abuse and insult, thereby showing that he is utterly lacking in any feelings of goodwill towards the prisoners’.113 Whilst it is certainly true that the approach taken by individual commandants could either ease or aggravate tensions, it was not taken seriously enough for the local government to remove Fraser from his post, as demanded by Germany. The same was true for racial hierarchies. British use of ‘indigenous soldiers’ in warfare was widely condemned by Germany and taken as proof of its own civili­ zational superiority.114 Camps were a microcosm reflecting these negotiations. They can be seen as enforced contact zones where established racial hierarchies could be turned upside down. Inmates felt all the more disempowered and hu­mili­ated when they had to follow orders from black guards or were in close contact. Georg Krause complained that his guards were mostly ‘negroes’. In July 1916, sixty-six of the eighty-eight inmates in Camp A wrote and signed a lengthy note which, among other grievances, protested that the ‘negro employees’ had better quality beds, better bread, and that ‘in two cases two of us have been struck by negro corporals’. This was reiterated in a protest note from the German ambas­ sador in New York: ‘They are watched by coloured men who often show impu­ dence and impunity’. In order to corroborate his complaint about medical treatment, the ambassador found it opportune to mention that the physician was ‘a coloured man’. The American Consul who had inspected the camp sent a firm retort: ‘It is true that the physician is a coloured man, but I cannot see what bear­ ing this has on his medical qualification . . . He has a very large private practice among white people as well as coloured’. And with regards to the colour of the guards: ‘I fail to see the point in the German ambassador’s criticism of the colour of these soldiers. All the policemen in Port of Spain are coloured’. Their duty was to arrest regardless of colour.115 Some tried to escape. A young boy, Charles Warzes, smuggled in a trowel for his father and took out bags of earth when leaving after visits. His father managed 112  NA/FO383/239, report US Consulate, 18 July 1915. 113 NA/FO383/347, note verbale, 1 March 1917. 114 Timothy  C.  Winegard, Indigenous Peoples of the British Dominions and the First World War (New York, 2011), pp. 189–96; Christian Koller, ‘Von Wilden aller Rassen niedergemetzelt’: Die Diskussion um die Verwendung von Kolonialtruppen in Europa zwischen Rassismus, Kolonial- und Militärpolitik, 1914–1930 (Stuttgart, 2001). 115  BA/R67/821, protest note prisoners, 20 July 1916; NA/FO383/247, protest note Imperial German Embassy Washington, 8 January 1917, and reply American Consulate Trinidad, 26 February 1917.

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152  Enemies in the Empire to dig a tunnel, escaped to Venezuela, and never saw his family again. In August 1916 three prisoners succeeded in reaching the Venezuelan coast. Harry Jeste’s attempt, in contrast, was unsuccessful. He tried to jump the prison wall but was captured and subsequently court martialled. Punishment was usually several days of isolation with bread and water.116 Following the armistice, the Governor of Trinidad cabled the Colonial Office that there was a ‘strong feeling in the Colony that should interned Germans be allowed to remain their presence would be likely to lead to disorder and danger to themselves [sic] . . . Majority of prisoners anxious to leave Trinidad and learning Spanish with a view to establishing themselves in South America’. An attached list had twenty-one persons down for expulsion, some of them married to local wives and with children.117 Their hopes of an imminent release were disappointed, however. In July 1919 they expressed their frustration: ‘It is now nearly five years . . . As peace has been signed, there is and should be no reason to withhold [our undeniable right of liberty] from us . . . Our health, even if the appearance may tend to deny it, is greatly shattered and the strain of the expectation of our release is playing havoc with our nerves, which . . . are completely run down . . . We have been sorely neglected’. Any enquiries for a release date were met with a reply from the island authorities that there were no instructions to do so.118 On 18 September 1919 the American Consul asked whether two of the prisoners could be released to leave for the United States; on 14 November 1919, the German Minister to Bogota on board a Dutch steamship offered passage to Germany to those internees who wished to be repatriated; and on 22 November 1919, more than a year after the armistice, the Governor of Trinidad asked the Colonial Secretary whether there was any objection to three of the prisoners leaving for Venezuela, and two to the United States. These are the last pieces of evidence.119 An Ordinance of 8 September 1919 restricted entry, decreeing that former enemy aliens needed a written permit from the Colonial Secretary should they wish to enter Trinidad. The war had eliminated the small German presence on the island.120 Barbados had one single camp for seamen captured on vessels in the area. They were first accommodated in the converted Boys Industrial School which had ample grounds for exercise and opportunities for doing light agricultural work. However, the captives did not stay within the boundaries of the ground and, ‘in fact, they frequently played truant in a manner which outraged the feelings of

116  BA/R901/83038, report US Consulate, 15 August 1916; Anthony de Verteuil, The Germans in Trinidad (Port of Spain, 1994), pp. 57–8. 117  NA/CO295/518, telegram and list of names, 27 November 1918. 118  NA/CO295/522, internees to Consul for Spain, and protest Norbert Horta to Government of Trinidad, 25 July 1919. 119  NA/CO295/522, telegram 18 September 1919; NA/CO295/523, telegrams 14 November 1919, 24 November 1919. 120  NA/CO295/522, Ordinance 9 September 1919.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  153 residents in the neighbourhood’.121 An internment facility was established within the walls of the island’s prison, Glendairy. The camp compound was separated from the prison yard by a barbed-wire barricade, and the prison walls formed the other three sides of the compound. Special buildings were erected for the intern­ ees. These were conceived for a maximum of sixty prisoners, and any captives in excess were sent to Trinidad.122 All camps triggered a spiral of complaints and refutations, and Glendairy Camp was no exception. The German authorities summed these up as: insuffi­ cient exercise space, medical treatment, and food; the fact that ‘the superintend­ ing sergeant indulges in insults and threats’; and that complaints were not forwarded, and complainants punished through transfer to Trinidad. It would be futile to trail through the substantial files of allegations and counter-allegations to reconstruct a factual basis. What is more important is the fact that these files exist at all. Within the wider propaganda battle, even the smallest hint of mistreatment could have detrimental effects on morale and the justification of war. Authorities on both sides went to great lengths to document extensively even the smallest issues. The island’s Colonial Secretary put his finger on this problem when he concluded his detailed report rebutting allegations: ‘As [the prisoners’] sensa­ tional statements are exaggerated . . . they are capable of being misconstrued as inhumanity on the part of this Government and of reflecting, generally, on the British character’.123 The question of medical treatment was closely related to negotiations of race and shall be taken as an example, continuing the above discussion on Canada and Trinidad. The following quotes are merely relevant for their discursive texture and not so much for their contested content. Internee Bommelmann, staying in the camp hospital, complained that one night there was only a low partition sep­ ar­at­ing him from a dead black prisoner. ‘We have to take medicine from the same cup as the black convicts. Everything used for the black convicts is used for us’. Walter Lohrmann went to the hospital with a sore throat and was examined by the doctor with a wooden spoon which was also ‘used for the “nigger” convicts. He did not wash his hands before putting his fingers into my mouth, though he had been treating the black convicts just before’. Ignatz Klassitsch complained that ‘the black convict who brought my food was serving a term for assault on a girl of ten years. When waiting for the doctor, I had to stand in the corridor with a lot of black convicts, undressed’.124 In his detailed eleven-page refutation, the Colonial Secretary did not hide his frustration at the ‘triviality’ of complaints which, in his opinion, showed that ‘the Prisoners of War (or the Consul) have to 121  NA/CO28/292, Colonial Secretary Barbados to American Consul, 10 October 1916. 122  NA/FO383/240, report US Consulate, 14 August 1916. 123  NA/CO28/291, report Colonial Secretary, 26 January 1917. 124 NA/CO28/291, report Governor, 26 January 1917; special investigation US Consulate, 12 December 1916.

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154  Enemies in the Empire struggle somewhat to find grievances’. With regard to complaints about alleged forced proximity with blacks, he commented: ‘Throughout this Colony, it is quite true that no Medical Officer keeps a separate set of instruments for the black and the white patients! It is the ailment, not the colour which is treated!’125 The sym­ bolic violence inflicted on the internees was, of course, a double one. First, the proximity to an allegedly ‘inferior’ race; second, the notion of sharing premises with convicted criminals, which they were not. The monotony seemed to have been particularly taxing at Barbados with com­ paratively little exercise and cultural activities. By summer 1918 many were des­ perate to do some work outside the camp, ‘but public opinion is much opposed to such a step’.126 On 9 September 1918, the fifty-five internees were transported to Amherst in Canada, thus concluding an episode on Barbados which has, so far, not been con­ sidered by scholarship.127 Up Park Camp in Kingston was the central internment facility in Jamaica (Figure 6.7). In April 1916 it had a total population of forty-three, composed of thirty-eight Germans, three Austro-Hungarians, and two Turks. Civilians under ‘Class A’ included ten residents and two non-residents. ‘Class B’ included thirty-one seamen. The living quarters were barracks formerly used by British troops. For a while prisoners appreciated guarded walks in the countryside, but by April 1916 they did ‘not further care to take these walks on account of the remarks made by the native population’. They pursued hobbies such as painting, wood-carving, writing, and music. Both British and German reports suggest that general ­conditions were good but mention the depressing effects of long-term idleness on prisoners’ minds.128 Barbed-wire disease clearly comes to the fore in a letter from Alfred Jürgensen, formerly a captain on the Hamburg-Amerika Linie. In November 1917 he wrote to his wife: ‘Do you have any idea, my dear darling, what it means to be devoid of any occupation and exercise for over three years? This is a perfect means of making a person ready for the lunatic asylum, and who knows how things will end up with me if I will not be able to concentrate on other things soon’.129 As with Trinidad, it is not clear from the sources when the camp was closed. The last entry is on 14 January 1919, when the local Norwegian Consulate took over diplomatic representation for the camp.130 Just as elsewhere, for the inmates of Kingston Camp the war was not over with the armistice. 125  NA/CO28/291, report Colonial Secretary, 26 January 1917. 126  NA/FO383/405, Government House Barbados to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 11 May 1918. 127 Internment is not mentioned in Hilary Beckles, A History of Barbados: From Amerindian Settlement to Nation-State (Cambridge, 1990). 128  NA/FO383/239, report US Consulate Kingston, 1 April 1916 (quote); BA/R67/1598, internal report 13 November 1915. 129  BA/R901/83080, 21 November 1917, letter forwarded by Hamburg Amerika Linie to German Foreign Office, 10 January 1918. 130  BA/R901/83080, note on diplomatic representation, 14 January 1919.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  155

Figure 6.7  Up Park Camp, Kingston, Jamaica. Note the mosquito nets.

The tiny prison island of Ports Island just off the main Bermuda island c­ oncludes the overview of camps in the Atlantic (Figure 6.8). It had previously been used for that purpose during the South African War when it held ‘a great number of Boer Prisoners of War’.131 It was now ‘recycled’ to host enemy aliens. The first arrests happened on 8 August 1914 when the officers and crew of eight merchant liners were taken off their ships. On 1 December they were joined by several resident Germans, following orders from the War Ministry. Ports Island was described by the US Consul as ‘a small piece of ground about one-half miles in circumference. There are no residents on the island other than the prisoners and a guard varying from twelve to fifteen men’.132 In summer 1916 it held fifty-five Germans and two Austro-Hungarians, all civilians.133 During the week of a Swiss inspection visit on Ports Island in January 1918, there were thirty-five seamen accommodated in the second-class compound, and ten officers and three residents from Bermuda in the first-class compound. Sleeping accommodation was in a combination of huts and tents, with single rooms in first class. Canteens and latrines were also sep­ar­ ate. There were no differences in the quality of food as on Trinidad, though. A typical lunch menu for both classes consisted of rice or pea soup, beef pot-roast,

131  BA/R901/83031, report Swiss Consulate New York, 1 to 8 January 1918. 132  BA/R901/83031, report US Consul Hamilton, Bermuda, 13 July 1916. 133  NA/FO239/383, report US Consul, 9 June 1916; BA/R901/83031, report US Consul, 12 July 1916.

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156  Enemies in the Empire and potatoes with rice. The facilities were surrounded by barbed wire, but during daytime prisoners were allowed to pass freely through the gates and roam the island, which had no natural vegetation other than cedars. Swimming was allowed on two separate first- and second-class beaches. A doctor from the main island town, Hamilton, came for health inspection once a week, and for dental treat­ ment prisoners were escorted to Hamilton.134 How did the prisoners occupy themselves on this tiny island? The low levels of activity compared to larger camps in the Empire is striking. The Swiss Consul reported that ‘among the prisoners there is no trace of organization, and there are neither any committees nor clubs’. There was some vegetable growing in separate plots, and the inspector found it a missed opportunity that the prisoners did not do this on a cooperative basis. Some raised chickens and rabbits, and one even a few pigs. Some money was raised through woodwork production from cedar wood, including walking sticks, writing utensils, and boxes. These were sold through a Prisoner of War Relief Committee in New York, although this income source dried up after the American entry into war. Those willing to work were occasionally picked up by motorboat for farm work. Some played music, and one had rented a piano, but no mention was made of any concert or theatre per­form­ ances as in bigger camps. Occasionally, the prisoners were allowed escorted visits to Hamilton to see films in the cinema (‘Kinematograph’). Some organized mathematical and other classes. Checkers, cards, and other games were popular

Figure 6.8  Plan of Ports Island, Bermuda. 134  BA/R901/83031, report Swiss Consulate New York, 1 to 8 January 1918.

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The Extent and Nature of the Camp System  157 to pass the time. A Presbyterian pastor offered services, but these were soon dis­ continued because of a lack of interest. As on the other Atlantic islands, news came only through the local newspaper, with any war reporting being blackened out. The Swiss inspector stated a general lack of mental stimulation. Families liv­ ing in Bermuda were allowed to visit twice a month, and once a month prisoners were allowed to visit them on the main island in return. It appears that some wives had moved to Bermuda following their husbands’ internment. One officer’s engagement broke up during his captivity. Prisoners received letters and parcels and were allowed to write two letters per week.135 One prisoner tried to escape by swimming but was bitten by a fish and had to return to Ports Island, receiving seven days of detention. There was ‘often consid­ erable dissatisfaction among the prisoners themselves, resulting no doubt from the fact that they . . . have been compelled to associate with each other constantly since they were interned’.136 Generally, though, there were no substantial com­ plaints arising from conditions. Discipline was good compared to other camps. This was not least due to the relatively liberal regime of the commandant, Captain Charles P. Pitt, and his approach to remove troublemakers to Amherst. Previous sections of this chapter have shown to what extent camp staff could aggravate tensions with and within the prisoner population. In contrast, the positive assess­ ment by the American, and later Swiss, inspectors shows how the individual internment experience could be shaped by different camp regimes: The prisoners are treated with goodwill and a spirit of ‘fair play’. This makes their lives easier in as far as this is reconcilable with the nature of war imprison­ ment and internment. This impression was confirmed in many conversations with the prisoners. The good relationship between the camp leadership and the prisoners is to a large extent due to the understanding and tactfulness of the camp commandant whose approach, although strict and adherent to existing rules, is always informed by a spirit of humanity.137

A football game between prisoners and guards provides a snapshot of this spirit. On 8 March 1916, the visiting US Consul was a spectator: The best of feeling was exhibited by all concerned during the progress of the game, which was won by the prisoners by a score of three goals to nothing, and at the end, the captain of the guards’ team proposed three cheers for the prisoners 135  BA/R901/83031, report Swiss Consulate New York, 1 to 8 January 1918; report US Consul, 12 July 1916; NA/FO239/383, report US Consul, 9 June 1916; FO383/240, report US Consul, 13 October 1916. 136  NA/FO383/240, report US Consul, 1 November 1916. Similar tensions are mentioned in BA/ R901/83031, report US Consul, 11 December 1915. 137  BA/R901/83031, report Swiss Consulate New York, 1 to 8 January 1918.

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158  Enemies in the Empire of war, and in response a similar courtesy was extended by the captain of the prisoners’ team.138

When discussing cultural activities behind the wire, scholarship tends to ­concentrate on larger camps, identifying a plethora of cultural activities and ­self-organization and creating a picture of buzzing creative life. This is under­ standable considering the rich source material emanating from these large camps. Refocusing on smaller Atlantic camps has shown that this picture requires differ­ entiation. In addition to lower numbers, the social composition played a role. The professional and personal background was relatively homogenous, with ship crews on the one hand, and local residents mostly in trade and business on the other. The three residents in Ports Island were a merchant, a hotel owner, and an engineer. On Trinidad a number of planters were mentioned. Larger camps in other world regions such as Britain, South Africa, or Australia were fed by more substantial and diverse immigrant communities. Artists, craftsmen, scientists, teachers, and a range of other occupations contributed to an incomparably live­ lier culture in camps like Knockaloe, Fort Napier, and Holsworthy.

138  NA/FO383/239, report US Consul, 8 March 1916.

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PART II

M ET ROP OL E A N D T E R R I TOR I E S

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7

Great Britain At the centre of the imperial internment system lay Great Britain, which led the way in the policies which emerged throughout the Empire, even though it did not directly control the actions of individual colonies and dominions. At the outbreak of the war Great Britain acted as home to the largest community of Germans within any individual part of the Empire but would also incarcerate individuals brought to the country from other parts of the globe, especially in the second phase of internment when the early camps in West Africa and Gibraltar disappeared. Like the rest of the Empire, it imprisoned people on its soil when the war broke out, whether as summer visitors or individuals on a ship in a British port. At the same time, Germans captured at sea also ended up in British camps, whether passengers sailing across the Atlantic or North Sea fishermen. As in the rest of the Empire, by the end of the war the German males living in internment camps on the British mainland therefore came from a wide variety of origins. The implementation of incarceration formed one plank of the London-led range of policies introduced throughout the Empire. The initial aim of marginalizing enemy aliens increasingly turned into a wish to expel them. Beginning with the Aliens Restriction Act, which partly focused upon restricting movement even before the introduction of wholesale internment, such policy also aimed at elim­ in­ at­ ing all traces of German influence from Britain through the closure of German clubs and newspapers. The Trading with the Enemy Acts ensured the disappearance of German businesses from Britain. Such actions received wholehearted support from the Germanophobic public opinion which developed during the course of the war in which the press and the radical right wing of the Conservative and Unionist Party determined attitudes towards the enemy within. While initial hostility towards Germans focused upon the threat of spies, during the second half of the conflict the concept of a ‘hidden hand’, which controlled Britain and prevented victory against Germany, increasingly surfaced. However, the most serious manifestation of Germanophobia consisted of riots, peaking in May 1915 following the sinking of the Lusitania, but also breaking out in the earlier stages of the war. Against such public attitudes, it proved difficult for the government to resist the call for the introduction of wholesale incarceration.1 1 The manifestations and consequences of Germanophobia in Britain receive full consideration in Panikos Panayi, The Enemy in Our Midst: Germans in Britain during the First World War (Oxford, 1991). Enemies in the Empire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War. Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi, Oxford University Press (2020). © Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198850151.001.0001

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162  Enemies in the Empire

The Internment of Germans Resident in Britain As we have seen, the majority of Germans interned in Britain consisted of males from the German community which had evolved during the course of the nineteenth century and which, by the outbreak of the First World War, counted 53,324 people, of whom 63.1 per cent were males.2 The established community was concentrated particularly in London, where about half of Germans lived, although groups had also evolved in northern cities, including Manchester, Bradford, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Sheffield.3 By the outbreak of the First World War the Germans in Britain had become a diverse social group from the destitute through artisans, shopkeepers, teachers, governesses, and merchant bankers.4 Some of them, especially wealthier individuals, acquired British nationality through ­nat­ur­al­iza­tion5 and would escape internment as only non-naturalized males of military age would automatically endure captivity. The majority of the civilian internees arrested in Britain had therefore settled in the country, often for many years.6 But they also included individuals spending time in Britain in the summer of 1914, some of whom would experience long periods behind barbed wire.7 Few women would experience internment but became subject to all of the other measures introduced to control enemy aliens in Britain.8 The policy of interning the German community in Britain went through fits and starts in the early stages of the war with no definite plans on its outbreak. In the first few months of the conflict there emerged a schizophrenic policy influenced by uncertainty, a hostile, intolerant, and demanding Parliament, press-led public opinion transformed by the success of German armies on the continent, and ultimately the fear of imminent invasion this instilled because of perceived links with the enemy within. On 7 August 1914 the General Staff decided to intern all Germans and Austrians between seventeen and forty-two years of age, yet on the following day a conference involving the War Office, Foreign Office, Home Office, and Colonial Office reversed this decision. The number of internees had reached 1,980 on 13 August but had increased to 4,300 by 28 August.9 The early prisoners included reservists in the German and Austrian Armies 2 Panikos Panayi, German Immigrants in Britain during the Nineteenth Century, 1815–1914 (Oxford, 1995), p. 108. 3 Ibid., pp. 89–107; Stefan Manz, Migranten und Internierte: Deutsche in Glasgow, 1864–1918 (Stuttgart, 2003); Gerald Newton, ‘Germans in Sheffield, 1817–1918’, German Life and Letters, vol. 46 (1993), pp. 82–101. 4  Panayi, Idem, pp. 110–44. 5  See the discussion in Manz, Migranten, pp. 30–41. 6  See, for example, IWM, ‘The First World War Diaries of Richard Noschke’, pp. 2–4. 7 See: Paul Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still: My Internment in England (London, 1931); and Frederick Lewis Dunbar-Kalckreuth, Die Männerinsel (Leipzig, 1940). 8  Zoë Denness, ‘Gender and Germanophobia: The Forgotten Experiences of German Women in Britain, 1914–1919’, in Panikos Panayi, ed., Germans as Minorities During the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, 2014), pp. 71–97. 9 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 70–1.

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Great Britain  163 attempting to return home.10 By the end of August 1914 the Home Office and War Office became increasingly concerned about the potential threat posed by reservists still at large, which led to an intensification of arrests from late August until 20 September,11 increasing the number of internees from 4,300 on 28 August to 13,600 by 23 September, although the latter figure included 2,100 military captives and people arrested on ships. However, space had run out by this time and the War Office suggested that only those regarded as an immediate threat should face incarceration.12 The rapid advance of German armies through Belgium during October 1914 led to the first major peak of Germanophobia in wartime Britain, which resulted in riots in Deptford and Crewe in the second half of the month. The Home Office therefore resumed internment partly in the interests of public safety although, once again, a lack of space meant that this policy only lasted for a few days.13 After late October 1914 civilian internment policy reached something of a stasis. Although some growth in the numbers of those incarcerated occurred as a result of people transported to camps from the colonies and from ships on the high seas, the overall number of internees declined, with about 3,000 released between November and early February,14 although during the winter and spring of 1914–15 the Douglas and, more especially, Knockaloe camps on the Isle of Man came into their own, with regular sailings from the mainland to the ports of Peel and Douglas bringing internees from smaller and temporary accommodation in England and demonstrating the policy of consolidation taking place throughout the Empire.15 The policy of general release of enemy aliens had ceased by the end of January 1915, partly because of nervousness in the Home Office, but also because of increasing pressure on the Home Secretary, Reginald McKenna,16 from radical right-wing Parliamentarians such as William Joynson-Hicks17 and Lord Charles Beresford, who wanted ‘them all locked up’.18 Beresford’s wish was granted following the sinking of the Lusitania, which, as we have seen, symbolized the crossing of the Rubicon of First World War civilian internment policy in both Britain and its Empire. The torpedoing of the passenger liner in the Irish Sea on 7 May by a German submarine with the loss of over 10  Daily Express, 8 August 1914. 11  Manchester Guardian, 9 September 1914; Scotsman, 12 September 1914. 12  Panikos Panayi, Prisoners of Britain: German Civilian and Combatant Internees during the First World War (Manchester, 2012), p. 48. 13 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 72–4, 225–9; J.  C.  Bird, Control of Enemy Alien Civilians in Great Britain, 1914–1918 (London, 1986), pp. 63–7. 14  Panayi, Idem, p. 74. 15  MNH/MS06465/1, Douglas Camp Journal, gives the number and dates of arriving prisoners. 16 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 75–6. 17  Hansard, fifth series, LXX, 833–47, 3 March 1915. See further David Cesarani, ‘The Anti-Jewish Career of Sir William Joynson-Hicks, Cabinet Minister’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 24 (1989), pp. 461–82. 18  Hansard, fifth series, LXX, 889, 3 March 1915.

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164  Enemies in the Empire 1,000 lives led to the most widespread riots in twentieth-century Britain, fuelled by a press reaction whose viciousness was summed up by Horatio Bottomley’s John Bull magazine on 15 May declaring that he wanted ‘to exterminate every German-born man (God forgive the term!) in Britain’. In this atmosphere, ­virtually every German shop in Britain had its windows broken during a week of pogroms.19 Demands from both newspapers and radical right-wing MPs accompanied the rioting and the victimization of the Germans in Britain, which linked them with the actions of the German armed forces.20 On 12 May Joynson-Hicks and Beresford presented a petition to the House of Commons ‘signed by a quarter of a million of the women of our Islands’ demanding the internment of ‘all alien en­emies of military age’.21 On the same day the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, declared that the government were ‘carefully considering the practicability of the segregation and internment of alien enemies on a more comprehensive scale’ because of the military dangers but also to protect them from rioters.22 Asquith stated that enemy aliens in Britain divided into those with enemy nationality and those who had become naturalized. The former included 19,000 men already interned, together with 40,000 who remained at large (24,000 men and 16,000 women). All ‘adult males’ of military age (seventeen to fifty-five) should ‘be segregated and interned’ while women, children, and males over fifty-five would face repatriation. A judicial body would look at those seeking exemption from internment. The 8,000 naturalized enemy aliens would only face internment if evidence existed to prove them a threat.23 Arrests began immediately with 3,339 males interned by 5 June and 1,000 ­people per week making their way to camps by the end of July. One Advisory Committee made of MPs and judges considered cases of exemption for England and Wales, while a second dealt with Scotland. They considered 16,000 applications for exemption from internment and granted 7,150. By 22 November the number of civilian internees had reached 32,440, an increase of 12,871 from 13 May.24 Germans and other enemy aliens reacted in a variety of ways to the decision of 13 May and its aftermath. Many people made efforts to maintain their liberty, as indicated by the 16,000 who appealed to the Advisory Committees. However, others, including single males working in the West End catering industry,25 surrendered as they tended to have few family attachments and also reacted to ‘the 19 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 229–53; Nicoletta  F.  Gullace, ‘Friends, Aliens and Enemies: Fictive Communities and the Lusitania Riots of 1915’, Journal of Social History, vol. 39 (2005), pp. 345–67. 20  Daily Sketch, 13 May 1915; The Times, 13 May 1915. 21  Hansard, fifth series, CXXI, 1618, 12 May 1915. 22  Hansard, fifth series, LXXI, 1649, 12 May 1915. 23  Hansard, fifth series, LXXI, 1842, 13 May 1915. 24 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 80–1; Bird, Control, pp. 92–114. 25 Panikos Panayi and Stefan Manz, ‘The Rise and Fall of Germans in the British Hospitality Industry, c1880–1920’, Food and History, vol. 11 (2013), pp. 243–66.

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Great Britain  165 terror created by the riots’.26 Others had lost their employment, partly as a result of anti-German boycotts, which had resulted in the sacking of German employees.27 Although voluntary surrenders appear less usual in the East End of London, where a more settled community including families had developed from the ­middle of the nineteenth century, the police had difficulties in dealing with the increase in numbers.28 Those arrested included Lewis Dunbar-Kalckreuth who received a visit on Ascension Day from ‘two gentlemen from the police’ who told his landlady that he should be ready at 11 the following morning. At the time he saw the prospect of internment, where he would spend time with fellow Germans, as preferable to his current solitary life, away from his friends and family back in Germany.29 Paul Cohen-Portheim similarly received a police visit.30 Arrests continued in a wellordered manner until the autumn.31 While most Germans accepted the in­ev­it­ abil­ity of internment, some took the most extreme of actions to avoid this eventuality, including the tailor, Heinrich Hauck, who drowned himself in the Serpentine in Hyde Park.32 The peak of the process of interning German males occurred between May and September 1915. From 1916, we can identify a series of strands in internment policy. In the first place, about 12,000 enemy alien males remained free, including 4,000 Czechs, Poles, Alsatians, and other ‘friendly’ nationalities; about 1,500 males over seventy; some males who carried out valuable work for the war effort; and up to 6,000 who had resided in Britain for over thirty years and had sons fighting for the British army.33 The number of internees would gradually decrease as the result of a series of repatriation initiatives, until general release which occurred in 1919. However, sections of the press and a series of MPs, including Beresford and Joynson-Hicks, continued to hound the government about the apparent laxity of its internment policy and the campaigns for more rigours internment policy reached a series of peaks, above all in the summer of 1918. For individual civilians, the period which followed their initial internment could either mean years in the same camp or movement from one location to another. Cohen-Portheim, for instance, spent time in Stratford, Knockaloe, and Wakefield, while an unnamed ‘leather specialist’ who surrendered at the police station in Paddington initially went to Stratford before moving to Knockaloe.34 Those wives 26  Manchester Guardian, 15 May 1915. 27 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 197–200. 28  The Times, 17, 18 May 1915; Daily Mirror, 15 May 1915; Panikos Panayi, `The German Poor and Working Classes in Victorian and Edwardian London’, in Geoffrey Alderman and Colin Holmes, eds, Outsiders and Outcasts (London, 1993), pp. 53–79. 29 Dunbar-Kalckreuth, Die Männerinsel, p. 99. 30 Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still, pp. 20–1. 31  See, for example, Hornsey Journal, 10 September 1915. 32  Daily Express, 26 May 1915. 33 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 81–2. 34 Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still, pp. 25–67; BA/MA/MSG200/2277, ‘Schilderungen eines Lederfachmannes’.

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166  Enemies in the Empire left behind largely depended upon handouts from the British and German ­governments and charity, while others faced deportation.35 Separation put much strain on marriages, especially those between Germans and English wives, and some did not survive. In at least one case a German internee obtained a divorce while in Alexandra Palace.36

Transportation Britain, and especially Knockaloe, became the centre of the system of transportation which evolved in the northern hemisphere during the course of the war, meaning the arrest of thousands of people, especially in the first year of the war, to face incarceration in Britain. A series of groups therefore faced transportation to the country simply for the purpose of internment, meaning that Britain essentially became a prison island for them. We can firstly identify North Sea fishermen, whose fate reflected that of their British equivalents who would spend time in the Ruhleben camp in Berlin.37 Trawlermen began arriving in Britain at the start of the war. In late August 1914, of 600 men held in a tented camp in Redford, near Edinburgh, ‘fully eighty per cent are sailormen that work the fishing grounds of the North Sea’, many of whom ‘know well the coastline and harbours of the North Sea’ and ‘would be of great value to the German fleet’.38 The British Navy therefore continued to capture and intern German fishermen who entered British territorial waters into 1915. Those arrested included Mathias Jörgensen, a cook upon the trawler Risle, which sailed from Geestemünde on 5 October 1915 and found itself near Hornsriff two days later where a flotilla of British cruisers captured the ship and escorted it to Hull, while the Aurora took the fishermen to Harwich, from where they went to the internment camp in Stratford. Meanwhile, another cook, Paul Sappelt, who worked upon the trawler Roland, reported that on 17 August 1915, two days after they sailed out to sea, a party of eleven English destroyers intercepted his ship and subsequently sank it. The Maridiane then took them to Sheerness and they then went by tug to a military prison in ‘Champton’ with primitive conditions before eventually going to Handforth in Lancashire and subsequently to Knockaloe. Max Scharff sailed on another trawler, the Elma, on 2 October 1915 and was ‘surprised by a great number of English destroyers’ two days later. A party came on board and took most of the crew to Harwich, where Scharff also claimed they faced insults and missiles without any protection from their guard. Upon arrival 35  Denness, ‘Gender and Germanophobia’. 36  Hornsey Journal, 19 May 1916; Daily Mirror, 12 July 1916. 37 See Matthew Stibbe, British Civilian Internees in Germany: The Ruhleben Camp, 1914–18 (Manchester, 2008). 38  Scotsman, 26 August 1914.

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Great Britain  167 in Stratford they experienced further abuse from women and children. Finally, Heinrich Klockgether sailed on the Herbert on 29 September 1915 and on 7 October fifteen English ships took them initially to Grimsby, where they faced a hostile reception, and then to the camp at Alexandra Palace.39 While the above stories refer to events in the autumn of 1915, trawlers faced capture and even sinking further into the war.40 Together with fishermen, numerous other German males sailing on ships, whether registered as German or not, virtually anywhere in the world, might face transportation to a British internment camp at any stage of the war, especially in the immediate aftermath of the outbreak of the conflict. The numbers of German sailors behind barbed wire in Britain proves difficult to establish, but on 30 January 1916 over eighty ‘captains and nautical and technical ships’ officers of the German and Austro-Hungarian mercantile marines’, overwhelmingly Germans, wrote to the US Embassy in London with a series of complaints about their internment in Knockaloe. These included the fact that ‘those who were formerly in positions of authority are forced to live promiscuously among and in the closest association with their subordinates’, suggesting a far larger number of members of the mercantile marine held here.41 Leading the process taking place in the rest of the Empire, the authorities seized German ships in British ports when the war broke out and interned the men on board. These included the Levensau, George Harper, Lucinda, Altje, Ursus, Hyland, and Friedesware. While all of these were German ships,42 Germans on neutral vessels also went to internment camps, including thirty passengers on board the Dutch steamer Gelria in Falmouth.43 The Germans removed at sea and brought directly to camps in Britain included Captain Johannes Schmidt-Klafleth, sailing on business to New York on 25 August 1914, who actually made it there, despite the fact that his ship faced interception and that he underwent interrogation in Dover. However, he had less luck on the return journey when he ended up in the early camp at Newbury after landing at Plymouth.44 Meanwhile, P. Ernst Goretzki, a resident of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, returning home from a visit to Germany to see his mother on board the SS Bergensfjord, described how English officers from the cruiser Ebro took him off his ship ‘near the North Islands of Scotland’.45 39  They can all be found in BA/MA/RM3/5388. 40  See the two accounts given by Obersteuermannsmaat Haack of the sinking of a trawler and his internment in BA/MA/RM3/5398. 41  NA/FO383/241, Joh. Schute to the US Ambassador in London, 20 January 1916. 42  BA/MA/RM3/5367, Heckscher and Sons to Gertrude Petersen, 16 September 1914; BA/MA/ RM3/5368, American Consular Service, Hull, to Messrs Heckscher and Sons, 22 September 1914. 43  BA/MA/RM3/5368, ‘Verzeichnis derjenigen Deutschen, die als Passagiere auf dem holländischen Dampfer “Gelria” von den englischen Behörden in Falmouth angehalten worden sind’. 44  BA/MA/RM3/5378, ‘Meine Flucht aus England. Von Kapitän Schmidt-Klafleth’. 45  NA/F0383/143, letter from P. Ernst Goretzki, 11 January 1916.

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168  Enemies in the Empire Teenagers also faced capture. For instance, Willi Haas wrote to the American Embassy in London in February 1916 from Knockaloe complaining that he had been ‘taken from the Norwegian sailing vessel’ Zambeese when only fourteen years old.46 Similarly, sixteen-year-old Johannes Buschmann ended up in Knockaloe following a journey to the USA on board the Dutch steamer Rotterdam which left Rotterdam on 20 June 1915. He travelled ‘with the intention to emigrate’ but ‘on the following day the steamer had to stop and I was captured and eventually interned in this camp’.47 In fact, these two cases form the tip of a small iceberg. In August 1915 the camp at Lancaster held 216 Germans under seventeen, of whom 183 consisted ‘of persons whose occupation is on the sea’.48 As we have seen, numerous internees originally spent time behind barbed wire elsewhere in the Empire and would be taken to Britain as the global camp system became more organized and consolidated. Gibraltar became one of the early places of incarceration whose inmates would be taken to Britain after its ­dis­sol­ution. Its residents included Edwin Mieg, who sailed on an Italian ship, the America, back to Europe from New York where he worked upon the outbreak of war. After initial internment in Gibraltar, he faced transfer to Alexandra Palace and then Knockaloe.49 Similarly, lieutenant Klapproth, travelling back to Europe from a training exercise in New York on the outbreak of war aboard the President Grant, spent time in Gibraltar from 24 August until 24 December 1914. He then faced transportation to England and spent time in Holyport, Plymouth, Southampton, Donington Hall (all predominantly military camps), and Wakefield.50 As we have seen, the dissolution of the early West African camps also led to the transportation of internees held there to Britain.51 The Empire still ruled the waves and would flex its muscles when it found Germans sailing on the high seas, whether they offered any realistic threat to the British War effort or not.52 The fishermen taken off trawlers well into the war ­provide the best example of this fact, as do those taken from ships in the Atlantic and transported to Britain.53 As well as demonstrating its global power at sea by taking people from ships, the Royal Navy displayed its international status by transporting Germans from colonies taken over by France and Britain once the war broke out.54 Civilian internees in Britain, as in the rest of the Empire, therefore originated not just from within the country itself but from all over the world. As the above narrative makes clear, the history of captivity in First World War Britain is an 46  NA/F0383/143, Willi Haas to the American Embassy in London, 12 February 1916. 47  NA/F0383/72, Johannes Buschmann to the American Embassy in London, 9 July 1915. 48  NA/F0383/31, M. L. Waller to Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office, 20 August 1915. 49  MNH/MS11034, Transcripted Correspondence of Edwin Mieg. 50  BA/MA/RM3/5382, pp. 324–6. 51  See Chapter 5. 52  The classic work on British sea power in this period is Arthur J. Marder, From Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904–1919, 5 Volumes (Oxford, 1961–70). 53  See Chapter 5. 54  See Chapter 5.

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Great Britain  169 Table 7.1  Number of civilian internees in Britain, 1914–19 Date

Number of internees

22 September 1914 1 May 1915 22 November 1915 20 November 1917 1 November 1918 5 July 1919

10,500 20,000 32,440 29,511 24,522 3,373

Sources: Panikos Panayi, The Enemy in Our Midst: Germans in Britain during the First World War (Oxford, 1991), pp. 80–1; J. C. Bird, The Control of Enemy Alien Civilians in Great Britain, 1914–1918 (London, 1986), pp. 92–114; NA/WO394/20, Statistical Information Regarding the Armies at Home and Abroad, 1914–20; NA/WO394/1, Statistical Abstract, December 1916; NA/ WO394/5, Statistical Abstract, November 1917; NA/ WO394/10, Statistical Abstract, 1 November 1918; NA/ WO394/15, Statistical Abstract, 1 September 1919.

almost entirely male experience with wives and children left to fend for themselves with some help from the Local Government Board and charities. Great Britain held more internees than any other part of the Empire, as official figures in Table 7.1 indicate.

The Camp System As it held the largest number of captives as the centre of the global i­ ncarceration system, Great Britain also established more civilian internment camps than any other part of the Empire. Although, following its opening in the autumn of 1914, Knockaloe may have held more internees than any of the other camps in Britain for most of the war, smaller establishments emerged at the start of the conflict. Some served as emergency holding centres and would only last for a few months. Mirroring the imperial pattern, Knockaloe took in internees from these early establishments as they closed down and incarceration became increasingly consolidated, although some smaller camps survived for several years. The short-lived places of internment which emerged in the chaos which followed the immediate outbreak of the war included Olympia in London which took in prisoners who lived in the capital. The internees here initially slept on the floor upon arrival, although some improvement occurred subsequently. Those held here included the anarchist Rudolf Rocker, who wrote that Olympia ‘was arranged in twelve camps, separated from each other by heavy ropes’, each of

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170  Enemies in the Empire which contained 100–150 men. In total Olympia held between 300 and 1,500 men and had ceased to function by December 1914.55 The civilian internment camps at Frimley (near Aldershot) and Newbury had a similarly fleeting existence. Frimley used bell tents and quarters made from galvanized iron to house internees and may have held as many as 6,000 captives by the middle of November 1914.56 The Germans here lived on the race course, with some using the horse boxes as accommodation with neither heat nor light. The prisoners left by the beginning of 1915.57 Equally fleeting establishments opened in Wales and Scotland at the start of the war. A story in the Daily Mirror painted a positive picture of 217 German seamen held in ‘comfortable quarters at the Engineers’ Drill Hall, at the back of the Post Office’ in Cardiff.58 Meanwhile, 600 Germans, again mostly sailors, spent time in the grounds of the Redford barracks near Edinburgh, living in close proximity to, but separately from, British soldiers. This acted as a transit camp where prisoners remained for between one and four weeks.59 Some of the most notorious short-lived places of internment emerged in December 1914 and January 1915 in the form of ships moored off Gosport, Southend, and Ryde requisitioned by the War Office. Each of these locations acted as home to three vessels. Those at Ryde consisted of the Canada, Tunisian, and Andania, with the last of these holding combatants. The War Office had dispensed with them by March 1915. The Scotian, Ascania, and Lake Manitoba lay off Gosport while the ships next to Southend consisted of the Invernia, Saxonia, and Royal Edward. The individual ships held between 795 and 2,300 internees each, overwhelmingly civilians, and they may have imprisoned close to 9,000 in all at their peak in early 1915. By the end of April 1915 only the Saxonia, Royal Edward, and Uranium, which had replaced the Lake Manitoba, still remained in operation and these seem to have emptied at the end of May. Personal accounts of life on these ships paint varying pictures, but none of them prove particularly positive, with complaints about the accommodation and food, although wealthier prisoners could pay for better provisions and first-class cabins.60

55 Rudolf Rocker, The London Years (originally 1956; Nottingham, 2005), pp. 149–53; Panayi, Enemy, pp. 99–100; Manchester Guardian, 20 August 1914. 56  Panayi, Idem, p. 100; Kölnische Zeitung, 12 November 1914; Tighe Hopkins, Prisoners of War (London, 1914), p. 114. 57  Panayi, Idem, p. 100; Die Eiche, July 1914. 58  Daily Mirror, 22 August 1914. 59  Scotsman, 26 August 1914; Stefan Manz, ‘Civilian Internment in Scotland during the First World War’, in Richard Dove, ed., ‘Totally un-English?’ Britain’s Internment of ‘Enemy Aliens’ in Two World Wars (Amsterdam, 2005), p. 85. 60 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 101–2; Hansard, fifth series, LXXI, 385–6, 22 April 1915; Rocker, London Years, pp. 154–73; NA/FO383/81, Intercepted letter from E. G. Müller, Prisoner of War at Wakefield; Richard B. Speed III, Prisoners, Diplomats, and the Great War: A Study in the Diplomacy of Captivity (London, 1990), pp. 98–9; Karl von Scheidt and Fritz Meyer, Vier Jahre Leben und Leiden der Auslandsdeutschen in den Gefangenenlagern Englands (Hagen, 1919), pp. 27–34.

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Great Britain  171 Alexandra Palace became the home of many of the internees from these ships and counts as the largest and longest lasting of the four major London camps together with Stratford, Hackney Wick, and Islington. All the London camps actually lasted for most of the war and need consideration as a group. Although most of their prisoners consisted of London residents, they also collectively acted as transit camps for internees from both Great Britain and the rest of the world. The pre-war entertainment and cultural centre in Alexandra Palace held more prisoners than any other camp outside Knockaloe. It took in internees from the beginning of May 1915 after having acted as home to Belgian refugees from September 1914. It held a peak of 3,000 prisoners at any one time, although as many as 17,000 men may have passed through it, often on their way to Knockaloe. The last prisoners did not leave until March 1919. The internees slept in three large halls, a common enough situation in other places, but one which irked middle-class prisoners used to their own space. As elsewhere, the prisoners divided themselves into groups in the form of three battalions and, in turn, companies. Karl von Scheidt and Fritz Meyer, who spent time in several camps in Britain during the war after initial capture on the Potsdam, which was crossing the Atlantic in August 1914, described the rich social life which developed in the long-lasting camp encompassing everything from religion to sport to arts and crafts, although Rudolf Rocker, who also lived here, pointed to the fact that barbed-wire disease developed61 (Figure 7.1). Another significant London camp opened in Stratford in the east of the capital at the end of 1914. This camp utilized an old factory building, which meant that conditions within it remained poor, as many internees indicated, focusing upon issues such as heating and damp. One prisoner described it as ‘a horrible hole in the manufacturing quarter of London. It consists of the machinery hall of an old jute spinning works. It is dirty, cold and draughty’. Few people spent any length of time here as it acted either as a starting point for prisoners on their way to larger camps or an end point for those awaiting repatriation. It closed during 1917 and appears to have reached a peak population of 740 in May 1915. Stratford offers an example of the visibility of the guards and the commandants. Paul CohenPortheim commented on the arrogant attitude of the guards. Richard Noschke described the first commandant, the Marquis ‘De Burr’, as ‘a great German hater’ and claimed that he threatened the internees with two machine guns. Noschke viewed his successor, Lieutenant-Colonel  F.  A.  Heygate Lambert, even more nega­tive­ly. Two prisoners from the colonies who spent a short spell in Stratford, ‘namely Herr Brill formerly Acting-Consul at Madras and Herr Böteführ Director

61  Panayi, Idem, pp. 106–7; BL, Rudolf Rocker, ‘Alexandra Palace Internment Camp in the First World War’; Janet Harris, Alexandra Palace: A Hidden History (Stroud, 2005), pp. 63–118; Otto Schimming, 13 Monate hinter dem Stacheldraht: Alexandra Palace, Knockaloe, Isle of Man, Stratford (Stuttgart, 1919), pp. 7–17; Scheidt and Meyer, Idem, pp. 32–73.

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172  Enemies in the Empire

Figure 7.1  Alexandra Palace.

of Customs in the Cameroons’, interned here during Lambert’s tenure, claimed that ‘the Commandant was said to be in the habit of punishing anyone who came to him with a complaint during his rounds or otherwise came into contact with him by having them handcuffed and placed in solitary confinement’. The same statement also claimed that ‘during the daily inspection’ armed guards carried handcuffs ‘as though an armed guard consisting of a lieutenant, a corporal and six men were not sufficient to protect the Colonel in command’. However, Noschke claimed that Lambert’s successor, Colonel Haimes, was ‘a perfect gentleman’.62 The other significant London establishment, the former workhouse in Cornwallis Road in Islington, like Alexandra Palace, held London Germans, many of whom had British-born wives. They included traders, hotel managers, waiters, commercial agents, shopkeepers, tailors, barbers, and craftsmen, reflecting the major occupations of the pre-war London German community. The camp opened at the end of June 1915 and an elected committee controlled it. The internees produced a variety of goods, which they managed to sell. The number of prisoners stood at between 600 and 700. The camp closed in 1919.63

62  Panayi, Idem, pp. 103–4; IWM, ‘The First World War Diaries of Richard Noschke’; CohenPortheim, Time Stood Still, pp. 25–7. A series of files in NA/FO383/163 contains complaints about Stratford, as well as their refutation by the camp authorities. 63  Panayi, Idem, p. 111; NA/MEPO2/1633; The Times, 28 September 1915.

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Great Britain  173 The camp in Hackney Wick lay on the site of a former ‘casual ward’, where people had spent the night in return for carrying out some work. The small ­number of prisoners held here, which hovered at around one hundred, again came mainly from the London German community. Some of them were skilled mechanics working for Vickers.64 Outside London, several civilian camps emerged in northwest England during the early stages of the war, reflecting the pre-war settlement of Germans in Manchester and Liverpool. An establishment in Lancaster used an old wagon works, although this does not seem to have survived beyond 1915. Its population of 2,000 in early 1915 included 200 boys taken from ships who remained there well into 1915.65 Nearby Queensferry camp emerged on the site of an ‘industrial village’ in Flintshire in the ‘buildings of an old foundry, which have been un­occu­ pied for several years’.66 A German report from 1915 commented on the poor conditions.67 It did not survive beyond 1915. The camp at Handforth came into existence in November 1914 on the sight of a former print works. Although it had developed into a military camp from 1916, it initially held a combination of local Germans largely from Manchester, the crews of German trawlers, and people brought from the colonies. Numbers totalled between 2,000 and 2,500. External visitors to the camp wrote quite favourably about it because by early 1915 it had become fairly well organized and the factory buildings contained acceptable accommodation.68 Rather like Alexandra Palace, the camp at Lofthouse Park utilized the site of a former entertainment centre for the West Riding Tramway Company near Wakefield, opened in 1908, but actually no longer in operation in 1913 and taken over by the War Office when the war broke out. The first prisoners arrived here in October 1914, mainly from northern towns, although the camp incarcerated ­people from a variety of locations, including Hermann J. Held, a student studying law at Cambridge, and Paul Cohen-Portheim, transferred there from the camp in Stratford, together with more humble migrants including German pork butchers. It reached a peak of around 2,400 prisoners, averaging out at around 1,500 for most of the conflict, overwhelmingly Germans, but also including some Austrians 64  NA/FO383/164, US Embassy visit of 20 October 1916; BA/R901/83106, Swiss Embassy visits of 13 March and 10 July 1917. 65 Panayi, Enemy, p. 102; NA/F0383/31, M. L. Waller to Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office, 20 August 1915. 66  Manchester Guardian, 21 August 1914. 67 BA/R67/779, Der Reichkommisar zur Erörterung von Gewaltätigkeiten gegen deutsche Zivilipersonen in Feindesland, ‘Vergleich der Berichte des Genfer Roten Kreuzes über die englischen und französischen Sammellager mit den Feststellungen des Reichskommissars’, pp. 3–4. 68 F. E. Heusel, Handforth through the Ages (Chester, 1982), p. 43; Wilhelm Kröpke, Mein Flucht aus englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft 1916: Von Afrika über England nach Deutschland zur FlandernFront (Flensburg, 1937), p. 21; National Zeitung, 4 July 1915; NA/FO383/107, translated extract from Zürcher Zeitung, 30 December 1914; The Handforth Internment and Prisoner of War Camp, 1914–1919, https://handforthpowcamp.com (accessed 2 August 2018).

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174  Enemies in the Empire and a handful of Turks. The camp actually divided into three compounds, ­including one for privileged prisoners who paid for extra comforts. Together with Alexandra Palace, because of their durability, Lofthouse Park developed one of the richest social lives of the mainland camps which encompassed a camp ­newspaper in the form of the Lager-Bote, musical and theatrical entertainment, religious activity, and even a university, which some prisoners took seriously although others, such as Cohen-Portheim, did not, regarding it as an attempt to pass time. One of the problems with this university lay in the constant re­pat­ri­ ations taking place which depleted the staff and courses.69 However, Wakefield and its compounds offer an excellent example of a prison camp society. The most important Scottish camp by the end of 1914 consisted of Stobs, near Hawick, on the side of a sloping hill, initially opened in 1903 for the training of Scottish regiments and still in use for that purpose when the war broke out. Taking prisoners from November 1914, it held both military and civilian internees until June 1916 when the civilians were transferred to Knockaloe. Although the captives initially lived in bell tents, they subsequently moved to standard huts of 120 feet by 20 holding thirty-three men each. Stobs divided into four compounds. In February 1916, compounds A and B housed 2,283 civilians while compounds C and D housed 2,333 military and naval prisoners. When Wilhelm Kröpke ended up in Stobs from Nigeria, having passed through various camps by then, he found that he had it nowhere as good as in Stobs. He praised the commandant, Major Bowman, who took a keen interest in prisoners’ cultural ac­tiv­ ities, such as attending the weekly concerts. ‘He was generally accepted and appreciated, a Scotsman by nationality. We were grateful to him for many agree­ able things’. This is corroborated by a camp inspector who observed ‘how cordial and pleasant are the relations between the prisoners in this camp, civilian, m ­ ilitary and naval, with the Camp authorities’. Comparing comments on camps across the Empire, it appears that Stobs was one of the better-run facilities with relatively few complaints by inmates.70 69  Wakefield Express, 26 September, 24 October 1914; NA/FO383/163, US Embassy reports on Wakefield, 25 March, 12 June 1916; NA/FO383/423, Swiss Embassy reports on Wakefield, 9 March, 24 September 1918; Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still, pp. 104–9; Peter Wood, ‘The Zivilinternierungslager at Lofthouse Park’, in Kate Taylor, ed., Aspects of Wakefield 3: Discovering Local History (Barnsley, 2001), pp. 97–9; Henning Ibs, Hermann J. Held (1890–1963): Ein Kieler Gelehrtenleben in den Fängen der Zeitläufe (Frankfurt, 2000), pp. 38–40; NA/FO383/505, Report on the Transfer of those at Lofthouse Park Camp near Wakefield Yorkshire to the Isle of Man; Albrecht Hermann Brugger, Meine Flucht aus dem Kriegsgefangenen-Lager Lofthouse-Park (Berlin, 1937), pp. 9–11; Claudia Sternberg and David Stowe, eds, Pleasure, Privilege, Privations: Lofthouse Park near Wakefield, 1908–1922 (Leeds, 2018). 70  Wilhelm Kröpke, Meine Flucht aus englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft 1916: Von Afrika über England nach Deutschland zur Flandern-Front (Flensburg, 1937), pp. 36–41; Panayi, Enemy, p. 104; Scotsman, 2 November 1914; Judith Murray, ‘Stobs Camp, 1903–1959’, Transactions of the Hawick Archaeological Society (1988), pp. 12–25; NA/FO383/162/11, report American Embassy, German Division, 17 February 1916; Stefan Manz, ‘Enemy Aliens in Scotland in a Global Context, 1914–1919: Germanophobia, Internment, Forgetting’, in Hannah Ewence and Tim Grady, eds, Minorities and the First World War (London 2017), pp. 117–42.

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Great Britain  175 The other significant, long-lasting, and moderately sized British camp lay in Douglas on the Isle of Man and predated the larger establishment at Knockaloe. It emerged from readymade accommodation in the form of Cunningham’s holiday camp, which had come into existence during the 1890s and, in the years leading up to the outbreak of war, housed male campers in bell tens. When the war broke out, 2,800 men holidayed here, 2,000 of whom joined the army almost immediately, together with 153 from the 200 employees.71 Following the visit of the Destitute Aliens Committee, the Camp ‘was transformed almost overnight. A double row of barbed wire fencing was put up around the grounds and lamps were installed to light the compounds at night’.72 The first batch of 203 prisoners arrived on 22 September 1914, followed by a second group two days later. The initial consignment ‘comprised men of all classes of society, from apparently prosperous merchants to sailors and waiters’.73 Further boatloads of internees followed from a variety of locations over the following weeks, above all Liverpool, although they originated from temporary camps such as those at Frimley and Edinburgh, so that by the beginning of 1915 around 3,000 men lived here.74 The camp survived until the end of the war and the number of internees averaged out at between about 2,200 and 2,800. As late as 16 February 1919 a total of 1,354 men still lived here, awaiting repatriation. Some may have spent almost five years in Douglas, but the population appears to have changed quite regularly because prisoners moved in and out to other places of internment, especially between Douglas and Knockaloe, mirroring the picture in many of the mainland camps. Reflecting the make-up of the enemy alien population in Britain at the ­outbreak of war, the majority of the internees in Douglas consisted of Germans, with some Austrians and a handful of Turks. Thus, in May 1917 the 2,604 ­prisoners consisted of 1,914 Germans, 709 Austrians, ten Turks, and seven ‘other nationalities’.75 Deportees from the colonies included the commercial clerk, Friedrich Bitzer. After finishing high school and commercial training in his native Württemberg, he joined the trading arm of the Basel Mission society in 1909 and was sent to the British Gold Coast as a clerk. In Accra he married Swiss-born Emma Blumle and worked his way up to branch manager. The outbreak of war in August had a disruptive effect on his professional and personal life. As a German national he was arrested as an ‘enemy alien’ and deported to Britain where he spent the war years in the Douglas camp. After five years of separation he was repatriated to Germany and reunited with his wife in 1919, but she died soon thereafter.76

71  Jill Drower, Good Clean Fun: The Story of Britain’s First Holiday Camp (London, 1982), pp. 7–41. 72  Ibid., p. 41. 73  Isle of Man Weekly Times, 26 September 1914. 74  MNH/MS06465/1, Douglas Camp Journal. 75  NA/FO383/276, Swiss Embassy Report on Douglas, 29 May 1917; MNH/MS06465, Douglas Camp Journal. 76  MNH, Friedrich Bitzer papers, no file classification.

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176  Enemies in the Empire The internees initially lived in the bell tents used to house pre-war ­ oliday-makers, but standardized huts replaced these fairly quickly even though h some of the prisoners appear to have preferred living in tents into 1917. Douglas divided into two separate compounds by early 1915 consisting of the ‘ordinary’ camp and the privilege camp. Most prisoners lived in the first of these in huts holding between 110 and 120 men each.77 About ‘400 or 500 are privilege prisoners’ who by ‘paying 10s a week . . . two or three may secure a small, separate hut between them, and by paying £1 a week one may have his own tent or hut’. Other privileges included servants ‘and about a hundred other prisoners, who, of course, make their own bargain, are employed in this capacity. They may have two bottles of beer or one bottle of light wine each day’. In this privilege camp ‘you may be shampooed by barbers who learnt their business in Paris and Berlin’, buy a tweed suit made by somebody actually trained in Bond Street, or even sit for a portrait.78 The availability of such services reflects the pre-war professions of some of the internees, as well as the fact that they had developed sophisticated artistic and cultural activities. Despite the apparent idleness and luxury suggested by this ­picture, up to 85 per cent of those held at Douglas may have carried out paid employment by 1916. At the same time, the prisoners played a significant role in camp administration, even establishing a police force at one stage.79 In addition to the ordinary and privilege camp at Douglas, Jewish internees had access to special ‘facilities accorded to them by the camp authorities for the observance of their religion’, referring especially to cooking,80 assisted by a Committee for the Supply of Kosher Food to Interned Jews, which also serviced Alexandra Palace.81 By 1916 the kosher kitchen, originally established in 1914, had ‘been greatly extended, is very well managed and is under the supervision of a Rabbi and a special Shomer (supervisor): 4 cooks are employed and supply daily meals to over 500 people’82 (Figure 7.2). A variety of establishments therefore emerged during the course of 1914 and 1915 for the purpose of housing civilians. Some of the most rushed and un­suit­ able, such as Redford and the ships moored off south coast ports, did not last long, while others simply became transformed into camps for combatants. A few, not­ably Alexandra Palace and Wakefield, survived most of the conflict. If any ­patterns emerge, they consist of the use of old factories, amusement parks, and 77  NA/FO383/276, Swiss Embassy Report on Douglas, 29 May 1917. 78  ‘British Treatment of Enemy Prisoners: Journalists Visit Manx Camps’, Manx Quarterly, vol. 17 (October 1916), pp. 73–4. See also Manchester Guardian, 19 July 1916. 79  Reports of Visits of Inspection, pp. 17–18; NA/FO383/432, Swiss Embassy Report on Knockaloe and Douglas, 11 September 1918; Margery West, Island at War: The Remarkable Role Played by the Small Manx Nation in the Great War 1914–1918 (Laxey, 1986), p. 90. 80  NA/FO383/432, Swiss Embassy Visit to Knockaloe and Douglas, 11 September 1918. 81  LMA/Acc 2805/4/4/7, ‘Committee for the Supply of Kosher Food to Interned Jews: Prècis of Present Position’, 20 September 1915. 82  LMA Acc 2805/4/4/19, James John Wolf to E. S. Montefiore, 5 May 1916.

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Great Britain  177

Figure 7.2  Jewish internees in Douglas.

standardized tents and huts. The utilization of these factories tended to characterize the earlier phase of internment, while the amusement parks at Wakefield and Alexandra Palace survived as camps for the duration of the war. Tents also served as short-term solutions while huts became the standard form of accommodation. These developments reflect the picture elsewhere in the Empire with the militarystyle huts becoming the norm, if any norm emerged. The closing down of early camps reflected the consolidation process which took place on an imperial scale during the course of 1915, as the realization that the war would ‘be over by Christmas’ had become a distant myth, leading to the development of solutions for a long-term conflict. Each establishment holding civilians may have had its own characteristics, but they follow similar patterns of housing internees from either Britain or from ships and the colonies. In addition, a series of ‘special’ camps came into operation to house distinct groups of prisoners consisting of: criminals and those regarded as a high security threat; women; and the residents of Libury Hall industrial and farm colony. Some internees spent time in prisons, notably Brixton and Reading. At the start of the war about one hundred alien men either awaiting deportation or regarded as a security threat lived in the latter. Although mostly German, they also included other nationalities. Inmates from Brixton, together with others

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178  Enemies in the Empire from Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Wakefield, Stafford, and Manchester ­prisons, faced transfer to Reading between December 1915 and January 1916, replacing the ordinary prisoners held here. After complaining about their ­conditions in 1917, about fifty German spies and criminals faced transfer to Knockaloe, where they remained separate from the rest of the internees. A ­handful of Germans awaiting deportation actually remained in Brixton after the end of 1915.83 Although German women in Britain did not face incarceration en masse ­during the Great War, a small number regarded as hostile or having carried out espionage spent time in one of the blocks of the Aylesbury Inebriate Reformatory.84 They included Milly Rocker, arrested in the summer of 1916 because of her an­arch­ist political beliefs and initially taken to Holloway prison. She faced a type of trial under the Defence of the Realm Act in which the questioning focused upon issues such as whether she knew (her husband) Rudolf Rocker, whether she belonged to an anarchist group, and the extent to which she became involved in public speaking and political writing, indicating that the British government cared as much for political activity as nationality in some decisions to intern.85 Hildegard Burnyeat, the German-born widow of the former MP for Whitehaven, also spent time in Aylesbury on suspicion that she helped the enemy by flashing lights out to sea based on the fact that she was the daughter of a German colonel, but the Home Secretary released her for the sake of her sanity.86 One of the most unusual and unique camps consisted of the German Industrial and Farm Colony at Libury Hall near Ware in Hertfordshire, originally established in September 1900 as a home for German males escaping economic hardship in England. By 1914 it had assisted 5,073 Germans, with 150 living here at the outbreak of war.87 In many ways Libury Hall constituted a readymade place of concentration which did not have the early teething problems faced by other localities such as unsuitable accommodation. It seems to have become an internment camp in early 1915. It actually housed a significant percentage of residents beyond military age who did not wish to return to Germany and people who had lived in Britain before the war, some of whom still resided here with their families after 1914. The internees totalled between 150 and 200, although this figure excludes about ten pensioners and ten colonists, as well as a staff of around twelve.88 83 NA/HO45/10948/267603; Peter Southerton, Reading Gaol (Stroud, 2003), pp. 87–8; NA/ FO383/177, US Embassy report on Brixton, 31 November 1916. 84 Panayi, Enemy, p. 112; Tammy Proctor, Female Intelligence: Women and Espionage in the First World War (London, 2003), pp. 33, 47–50. 85 Rocker, London Years, pp. 197–9. 86  Daily Express, 31 July, 18 August 1916. 87 Panayi, German Immigrants, p. 174. 88 NA/HO45/11006/264762; Reports of Visits of Inspection Made by Officials of the United States Embassy to Various Internment Camps in the United Kingdom (London, 1916), pp. 17–18; NA/ FO383/163, US Embassy Report on Libury Hall, 20 June 1916; NA/FO383/276, Swiss Embassy Report on Libury Hall, 11 May 1917.

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Great Britain  179

The End of Internment At the signing of the armistice 24,000 (20,500 German) civilian internees still remained in Britain, including 15,974 at Knockaloe. The latter figure only declined gradually during the course of 1919, actually increasing to 15,983 at the beginning of January 1919 but falling by 4,000 during the course of that month. By 1 March the total had declined to 8,472 and by 1 April to 1,493, although the camp did not finally empty until 1 October.89 In fact, some repatriation had taken place during the course of the war, especially of women, but also of a range of males including invalids and ministers of religion. However, internment con­ tinued into 1919 as the British and German governments could not come to an agreement during the conflict about an exchange of prisoners, largely because Britain held more internees than Germany and because Germany wanted a global agreement.90 Some camps became clearing stations for repatriation at the end of the war, including one in Spalding. Those who passed through here included Frederick Lewis Dunbar-Kalckreuth in early 1918. Alexandra Palace played a similar role as parties of interned civilians went directly from here to Harwich on their way to Rotterdam. Some long-term residents may have lived in the camp from 1915.91 Repatriation took place against the vindictive atmosphere which gripped Britain during 1918 and 1919 as the Coalition government adopted deportation as one of its key policies in the ‘Coupon’ election campaign, which lasted from 14 November to 14 December 1918.92 Despite this, the Aliens Advisory Committee came into existence under Justice John Sankey in order to consider those Germans with British families who did not wish to return home, who could apply to have their cases considered. The Committee had to confront highly complicated issues including whether to simply deport the husbands and fathers or to also send to Germany wives and families who had never seen the country. The Committee considered 4,300 applications for exemption from deportation and granted the overwhelming majority of 3,890, consisting of people with friendly origins, family ties, or long residence. Nevertheless, 84 per cent of those alien enemies interned at the armistice had been repatriated by October 1919. Reflecting the situation throughout the Empire, deportation, which built upon internment, rioting, and confiscation of property, helped to decimate the pre-war German community in Britain, whose numbers fell from 57,500 in 1914 to 22,254 89 NA/HO45/10833/327753, Home Office Memorandum, 18 November 1918; MNH/MS09310, Isle of Man Constabulary Archive, Box 5, Daily Return of Prisoners Interned. 90 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 75, 80, 82, 85–9; Matthew Stibbe, ‘The German Empire’s Response: From Retaliation to the Painful Realities of Defeat’, in Panayi, Germans as Minorities, pp. 47–68. 91 Dunbar-Kalckreuth, Männerinsel, pp. 330–5; BA/MA/MSG200/2277, ‘Schilderungen eines Lederfachmannes’. 92 Panayi, Enemy, p. 221.

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180  Enemies in the Empire in 1919. The number of males had actually declined from 37,500 to 8,476, indicating the thoroughness of the deportation process. Close to two thirds of the women actually consisted of British-born wives who had automatically gained German nationality upon marriage, pointing to the number of broken families caused by the deportation process.93 The destruction of families became one of the grim realities caused by the end of internment. The pastry cook Karl Gräβle had moved to Manchester in 1889 where he married Sofie Wunzdorf from Hanover, with whom he had six children, now aged between three and twenty-one. He had to return to Germany in 1918 to live with his brother without his wife and children who remained in Manchester.94 Max Gottshalt had moved to Britain at the start of the twentieth century and married his wife Thekla, with whom he had five children. Interned in Knockaloe for much of the war, he regularly kept in touch with his wife and children. But after arriving in Holland in February 1918, his communications became increasingly infrequent. By October 1920 he appears to have lived with his sister ‘who will not assist me any more’. During the course of 1921 he claimed he could not return to London because of his debts and because he would have to leave after three months because of new nationality regulations. Max sent his final letter in March 1922 and does not appear to have seen his wife and children again because of economic woes in Germany and the fact that neither Max nor Thekla ul­tim­ ate­ly appeared willing to move to the residence of their spouse.95 The Germans who remained in Britain included Heinrich Henkel, released from Knockaloe to a camp in Frith Hill and then to the German Hospital in East London. Although he experienced family reunification, he probably fell victim to another post-war phenomenon in the form of flu, as he died of pneumonia in October 1919. His children spent time in the German Orphanage during the 1920s because their mother also experienced illness.96 Not all internment stories ended so negatively. In 1920 the Quaker James Baily travelled to Germany, where he met some former Manx internees. This partly occurred through an organization called the Bund der Auslandsdeutschen, which developed an English sub-group in various parts of the country including Hanover. Baily addressed a meeting there consisting of 350 former internees and their wives and friends in February 1920. Although ostensibly on a humanitarian mission, Baily went out of his way to make contact with former Manx prisoners but also bumped into some unexpectedly. Baily commented: ‘One of the most

93  Panayi, Idem, pp. 96–7; Daily Mirror, 18 December 1918; Manchester Guardian, 18 December 1918, 1 November 1919; Report of Committee Appointed to Consider Applications for Exemption from Compulsory Repatriation by Interned Enemy Aliens (London, 1919). 94  LBWHS/M77/1/930, Militärpolizeistelle Friedrichshafen to Stellv. Generalkommando III.A.K, Stuttgart, 11 May 1918. 95  MNH/MS08562, Letters from Max to Thekla Gottshalt, 1915–22. 96  Roy Bernard, My German Family in England (Maidenhead, 1993), pp. 26–7.

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Great Britain  181 repeated impressions forced upon me during my three months tour of Germany was the sad plight of the English born wives and children of repatriated Germans living in Germany. Strangers in a strange land’, they had little knowledge of the language and also had to face the same privations as the rest of the German ­population, again demonstrating that while women may not have experienced internment within Britain, they became victims of its consequences, even after the war ended.97 Before reaching Germany the internees and their families often underwent a traumatic journey across the North Sea, during which they experienced overcrowding and poor nutrition. Five people actually died on one sailing of the Manitou.98 At the same time, some British guards pilfered the possessions of deportees and those who complained about such actions often experienced ­violence, while some women had to undergo examination while naked before leaving England.99 Under the terms of the agreements signed between Britain and Germany, some released prisoners spent time in Holland. They included Karl von Scheidt and Fritz Meyer who lived in a camp between Hattem and Wapenveld.100 CohenPortheim found that when he arrived in Holland the camp in which he should have spent time was not yet ready, which meant he had to find private accommodation. He remained in Holland until November 1918, having arrived in February of that year. In May he moved to a hotel in Noordwijk, which he described as ‘an ideal place’, and travelled throughout Holland.101 Ultimate arrival in Germany, whether internees travelled straight through Holland or remained there during 1918, proved a happy occasion for many of them. One anonymous account recalled the joy of being ‘a free man again’, intensified when, upon returning home, his ‘dear wife’ opened the door to him and his children surrounded him.102 Similarly, J. Machner remembered his first night in Wilhelmshaven and then his return to the house of his parents, where he saw his mother after many years of separation.103 One evangelical pastor pointed out that: ‘Strong men cry like children upon their return’.104

97  Leslie Baily, Craftsman and Quaker: The Story of James T. Baily, 1876–1957 (London, 1959), pp. 111–12; MNH/MS50417, J. T. Baily, ‘Germany 1920, FEC&FWVRS’, pp. 1–2, 164, 195. 98 NA/FO383/500, note verbale, 24 February 1919; NA/FO383/502, note verbale, 30 May 1919. 99  NA/FO383/501: Letter from Ruoff, Sec. Reception Committee, Rotterdam, 5 February 1919; note verbale, 5 April 1919. 100  Scheidt and Meyer, Vier Jahre, pp. 135–6. 101 Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still, pp. 207–30. 102  BA/MA/MSG200/2277, ‘Schilderungen eines Lederfachmannes’. 103 J.  Machner, Gefangen in England: Erlebnisse and Beobachtungen (Hildesheim, 1920), pp. 388–90. 104  G.  Schenk, ‘Wie helfen wir als Seelsorger zur rechten Begrüßung und Fürsorge für die ­heimkehrenden Kriegsgefangenen?’, in Oskar Goehling, ed., Frei und Daheim! Eine Handreichung für Heimkehrfeiern in Kirche und Gemeinde (Berlin, 1919), p. 33.

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182  Enemies in the Empire The end of internment in Britain therefore proved a mixed experience. While it meant the destruction of families in some cases, especially for those who had lived in the country for decades, for others it meant the opposite of family reunification. Just as Germans in Britain had lost control of their lives as a result of incarceration during the war, this lack of control continued into peacetime.

The Centrality of Britain Great Britain lay at the centre of the global incarceration system. While other parts of the Empire may have had considerable autonomy in the implementation of internment policy, as well as in more general policy towards enemy aliens, Great Britain led the way for several reasons: first, because the political and administrative centre of the Empire lay in Whitehall which meant that, despite the autonomy that existed, the far-flung British possessions did not initiate any policies which diverged to any significant extent from those pursued by London. The only significant exception to this rule appears to consist of the forced labour implemented in Canada which, however, as we have seen, impacted upon Slavic rather than German internees.105 While the thousands of military internees held in Britain moved to the country from the western front precisely for the purpose of employment, civilians worked voluntarily usually to relieve the boredom they faced and to give some meaning to their lives.106 Great Britain did not simply lie at the centre of the global internment system because it pioneered policy but also because of the fact that it held the largest number of internees. This primarily finds explanation in the fact that the most numerous German community in the Empire lived within British shores. This meant that it contained the largest camp of all in the form of Knockaloe, although it also held several other places of internment which lasted for a significant part of the war including Alexandra Palace, Douglas, and Wakefield. While most of the civilians held in Great Britain may have come from the German community in the country, a significant proportion originated elsewhere, mirroring the picture in the rest of the British world. They were either captured in the Atlantic while sailing across it in both directions, or in the North Sea while fishing, or arrested because they set foot on British soil in August 1914 either as summer sojourners or on ships. Others spent short spells of time in British camps after initially facing incarceration in other parts of the world including West Africa and India, often as part of the repatriation process which involved travelling through Britain. The camps in Great Britain, especially Knockaloe, played the same role in the northern hemisphere as Australia did in the south, gathering up Germans from as far 105  See Chapter 6.

106 Panayi, Prisoners, pp. 200–30.

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Great Britain  183 away as Gibraltar and West Africa. Similarly, camps such as Wakefield, Knockaloe, Douglas, and Alexandra Palace acted as the places of consolidation after the early camps closed down, not simply for those held in Great Britain but also for people in West Africa and Gibraltar. These unfortunate Germans in the wrong place at the wrong time in the summer of 1914 would endure years of internment, experiencing the same type of barbed-wire disease as their fellow nationals throughout the world. However, while events in other parts of the Empire may have mirrored those in Great Britain, we need to conclude this chapter by stressing the fact that Britain took the lead in terms of numbers held and development of policy. It lay at the centre of the entire system of incarceration, so that the Royal Navy transported Germans here from throughout the world to spend a period of time which could vary from weeks to months to years, followed by repatriation to Germany, which many people had not seen for years or decades.

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8

South Africa Context The founding of the Union of South Africa in 1910 had not resolved the internal tensions of this new dominion which consisted of the former Cape Colony and Natal, as well as those two republics that had been subjugated during the second South African War (1899–-1902), Transvaal and Orange Free State. Among the white Afrikaner population, hopes for regaining independence from Britain were not buried, embodied by those bittereinders who had fought to the ‘bitter end’. They saw the outbreak of war in 1914 as a welcome opportunity to revive their separatist agenda. The Union government, led by Prime Minister Louis Botha, pulled in a different direction. Botha was a former Boer general who now thought that Union interests would best be served within the British Empire. The spoils of war would be territorial expansion into German Southwest Africa. In doing so, Botha adhered to the general framework of dominion status which was also relevant for Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, and New Zealand. Although dominions were self-governing entities with autonomy over internal affairs, Britain retained control over their foreign affairs. Once Britain had declared war in August 1914, a state of war also existed for the dominions, although their autonomy allowed them to negotiate to what extent they would mobilize their forces to support the imperial war effort.1 Joining the British war effort meant adopting similar strategies of ‘enemy alien’ control. Two short case histories open up the theme and lead to some historiographical observations. The trade and services business Peters, Flamman & Co had been operating in East London and Umtata since 1904. After the South African entry into war it was in trouble since both partners and most of its staff were German. F. Flamman was interned straight away, and R. Peters joined him and a further 2,500 men in June 1915 in the Fort Napier Camp, Pietermaritzburg. The company ceased operations, was handed over to the state, and faced compulsory liquidation in May 1917. The owners’ private assets were sequestrated. 1  André Wessels, ‘Afrikaner (Boer) Rebellion (Union of South Africa)’, International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/afrikaner_boer_rebellion_ union_of_south_africa (accessed 8 June 2018); Timothy  J.  Stapleton, ‘Union of South Africa’, International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/ afrikaner_boer_rebellion_union_of_south_africa (accessed 8 June 2018); Bill Nasson, Springboks on the Somme: South Africa in the Great War 1914–1918 (Johannesburg, 2007). Enemies in the Empire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War. Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi, Oxford University Press (2020). © Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198850151.001.0001

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South Africa  185 R. Peters and F. Flamman were only released in mid-1919 after more than four years in captivity.2 Marie Salis, in contrast, did not survive internment. She had spent the pre-war years in the Belgian Congo with her husband Wilhelm who worked as a missionary for the Berlin Missionary Society. In October 1916 she was deported with her child to the women’s internment camp in Tempe near Bloemfontein. After giving birth to her second child in the camp, she contracted tuberculosis. Her husband Wilhelm, meanwhile, was interned in Cairo. On her deathbed she was allowed to notify him of the birth of their child and her condition via telegram. In his telegraphic reply he assured her that ‘the children will always occupy the highest place in my thoughts’ and hoped that ‘we shall meet in a better land’.3 These case histories refer to a period of civilian minority confinement in South Africa which has received no comprehensive and little interpretive treatment. The existing scholarship is more concerned with general home-front Germanophobia leading to discrimination and physical violence, especially during the Lusitania riots in Cape Town, Johannesburg, and other cities. This literature mentions the last and most drastic step of enemy alien control, namely internment, only in passing.4 Two publications concentrating on Fort Napier either encapsulate a wider chronological and thematic framework or focus specifically on artefact production by internees.5 Some recent work on Sub-Saharan Africa concentrates on Germans removed from pre-war German colonies and subsequently interned in British territories, including South Africa.6 The scarcity of scholarship stands in stark contrast to that on other dominions.7 This chapter will not only fill this 2 BA/R901/83133, internee Schmalz to Edgar Herfurth, editor Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten, uncensored letter forwarded to German Foreign Office, 23 October 1917; AA/PA56, Kapstadt, Fort Napier list of internees, March 1919; Dale Hutchison et al., The Law of Contract in South Africa (Oxford, 2010), p. 382. 3  NASA/GG631/9/64/513, Commissioner for Enemy Subjects to Governor-General, 10 October 1917, telegrams between Governor-General in Pretoria and High Commissioner in Cairo, 10 October 1917 and 13 October 1917. 4  See, for example, Bill Nasson, World War One and the People of South Africa (Cape Town, 2014), p. 138; Tilman Dedering, ‘“Avenge the Lusitania”: The Anti-German Riots in South Africa in 1915’, in Panikos Panayi, ed., Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, 2014), pp. 235–62; P. S. Thompson, ‘The Natal Home Front in the Great War 1914–1918’, Historia, vol. 56 (2011), pp. 101–37. 5  Graham Dominy, Last Outpost on the Zulu Frontiers: Fort Napier and the British Imperial Garrison (Champaign, IL, 2016); Graham Dominy and Dieter Reusch, ‘Handicrafts, Philanthropy and SelfHelp: The Fort Napier Kamp-Industrie during World War I’, Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, vol. 5 (1993), pp. 207–24. 6  Mahon Murphy, Colonial Captivity during the First World War: Internment and the Fall of the German Empire, 1914–1919 (Cambridge, 2017); Daniel Rouven Steinbach, ‘Defending the Heimat: The Germans in South-West Africa and East Africa during the First World War’, in Heather Jones, Jennifer O’Brien, and Christoph Schmidt-Supprian, eds, Untold War: New Perspectives in First World War Studies (Leiden, 2008), pp. 179–208. 7  Gerhard Fischer, Enemy Aliens: Internment and the Homefront Experience in Australia, 1914–1920 (St Lucia, 1989); Andrew Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’: New Zealand, Enemy Aliens and the Great War Experience, 1914–1919 (Oxford, 2012); Bohdan Kohdan, Canada, the Great War, and the Enemy Alien Experience (Montreal, 2016).

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186  Enemies in the Empire gap in the literature, but will also add some novel methodological aspects. These include wider integration into Empire structures, following on chronologically from Aidan Forth’s imperial perspective on nineteenth-century British camps.8 They also include some voices from internees themselves which blur our notion of a clear dichotomy between perpetrators and victims. Public displays of proGerman attitudes had the capacity to stoke the flammable home-front situation. Inside the camps, prisoners could exercise passive resistance and provocations which aggravated tensions with camp authorities and guards. This is not to say that the entire enemy alien experience should be viewed through this lens, or that any conclusions towards the rather more complex issue of ethnic identity ­construction should be drawn. It does, however, suggest a more interactive ­relationship between captors and captives which modifies existing notions of ­unidirectional exertion of state power onto a suppressed minority group. Questions of gender, finally, are highlighted by the case of Marie Salis. The fact that the majority of internees were men has led to a blind spot in scholarship with regard to direct or indirect consequences for women. Zooming in on the female experience of deportation, deprivation, and internment in Sub-Saharan colonial zones will generate a more balanced picture of internment. A balanced assessment also needs to take into consideration the question of prisoner treatment and suffering. The reference point can be the South African War when the British military had interned at least 150,000 civilians, both white and black, including the mass detention of women and children. Conditions in the camps contravened humane principles, and tens of thousands perished. Recent scholarship, however, has revised the notion that these camps were purely punitive and instead stresses humanitarian aspects necessitated by the British scorched-earth policy. Fransjohan Pretorious rightly talks about a ‘debate without end’.9 Whatever the stakes in the current debate, at the time the operation was a global ‘public relations disaster’ for Britain. Not least in the German Empire, it was upheld as proof of English hypocrisy and hubris towards a white ‘brother race’.10 We argue that the precedent of the South African War and its consequences had a profound effect on the way not just the Union of South Africa, but also Britain and its dominions as a whole treated its enemy aliens fifteen years later. Conditions in British First World War camps were better than those in the Boer camps. Established reasons for these relatively good conditions were the framework of international conventions on prisoner of war treatment which had 8  Aidan Forth, Barbed Wire Imperialism: Britain’s Empire of Camps, 1876–1903 (Berkeley, CA, 2017). 9  Fransjohan Pretorius, ‘The White Concentration Camps of the Anglo-Boer War: A Debate without End’, Historia, vol. 55 (2010), pp. 34–49; Forth, Barbed-Wire Imperialism, pp. 129–58. For African prison camps see Peter Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899–1902 (Cambridge, 1983). 10 Steffen Bender, Der Burenkrieg und die deutschsprachige Presse: Wahrnehmung und Deutung zwischen Bureneuphorie und Anglophobie, 1899–1902 (Paderborn, 2009).

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South Africa  187 developed in the pre-war years;11 the fear of retaliation against British prisoners in German captivity;12 and the claim of moral hegemony over the Central Powers, not least to support the case for conscription.13 Lessons learnt from the South African War can be legitimately added to this list. The linkage is summed up exemplarily in a letter by the mayor of Stellenbosch, Paul Cluver, to the Minister of Defence (and later Prime Minister), Jan Christiaan Smuts, in September 1914. Cluver wrote that Afrikaner internees and their children ‘have been bitter en­emies of everything British ever since’, and if Germans died now, 1914, in captivity, ‘the Government would be blamed for many years to come’.14 Suffering was therefore related to isolation, deportation, and disruption of individual life trajectories. It was not related to deliberate neglect as during the Boer War, or indeed mistreatment as in the camps set up by the German colonizers to suppress the Herero and Nama uprisings in German Southwest Africa (1904–7). The complex set of historical continuities, internal tensions, and power political aspirations is crucial to understanding the dynamics of internment in South Africa, which, in turn, constitutes a subsystem of imperial internment operations.

Public Marginalization and Violence Germans living in South Africa were embroiled in the simmering tensions between the two white majority groups. Their pro-Boer sympathies during the South African War made them suspicious among the Anglo-population. These suspicions seemed to be confirmed by the fact that German forces in Southwest Africa cooperated with those of an intense but short-lived Afrikaner rebellion, adding to a sense of instability in the early phase of the war. The rebellion was led by the former Boer general Koos de la Rey with the aim of overthrowing British rule in the region, but it was suppressed by the Union Defence Force in January 1915.15 When discussing attitudes towards German containment in South Africa we are therefore dealing with two different sets of public opinion: a more sceptical one in line with other Angloworld locations which perceived Germans as the ‘enemy in our midst’ and propagated internment; and, on the other hand, the white Afrikaner population which was more inclined towards Germany, not least because of the expressions of goodwill (if not concrete support) it had received from the Kaiser and public opinion in the Reich. As Ian van der Waag puts it,

11  Richard  B.  Speed III, Prisoners, Diplomats, and the Great War: A Study in the Diplomacy of Captivity (London, 1990). 12  Matthew Stibbe, ‘A Question of Retaliation? The Internment of British Civilians in Germany in November 1914’, Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 23 (2005), pp. 1–29. 13 Fischer, Enemy Aliens. 14  NASA/BNS1006/D170/9199, Paul Cluver to General Smuts, 28 September 1914. 15  Wessels, ‘Afrikaner’; Stapleton, ‘Union’.

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188  Enemies in the Empire ‘there was an almost natural gravitation’ of nationalist Afrikaners towards the Germans in Southern Africa.16 The specific population mix had both an aggravating and defusing effect upon the position of Germans in South African society during the First World War. Prime Minister Louis Botha himself embodied these tensions. He had received some German education at the Hermannsburg Mission School in Natal, fought against British rule during the South African War and with Britain in the First World War, and hence followed Britain’s lead in interning ‘enemy aliens’. At the same time, he personally conducted an inspection visit in Fort Napier, conversing with internees partly in German and listening to their grievances.17 Anti-German agitation emanated from the British portion of South African society. The initial focus was on the elimination of economic influence. So-called ‘vigilance committees’ sprang up in the major urban centres, taking a lead from the Johannesburg-based ‘British Patriotic Traders and Consumers Alliance’. Shop owners were harassed, meetings were organized, and anti-German resolutions were submitted to the Union government. The committees also reached out to the South African Labour Party to press for the dismissal of non-naturalized German residents. Miners threatened to withdraw their donations to patriotic funds if their alien co-workers were not fired. The sinking of the Lusitania on 7 May 1915 turned the scenario into physical violence, sparked by reports about the Lusitania riots in England. In the following days, angry crowds moved through the streets of Johannesburg, smashing windows of shops with German names and demolishing their interiors. This was accompanied by singing patriotic songs and burning the German flag. The climax was the night of 12 May when several buildings were set on fire in the Johannesburg business district and looting was widespread. The police generally tried to restrain the crowds but did not have the capacity to maintain order. At times policemen were complicit by not intervening and even agreeing with the crowds. In Johannesburg alone, the cost of rioting and looting was estimated at £750,000. Ironically, the undifferentiated nature of targeting any shops with German-sounding names meant that British and allied businesses suffered more damage than German property.18 Public committees and the press demanded tougher action from the government to eliminate the alien danger, most explicitly wholesale internment and deportation. Some rioters received light fines. The Afrikaner press was incensed, demanding heavy punishment of the rioters in line with that doled out to the Afrikaner rebels of 1914 and 1915.

16  Ian van der Waag, ‘South African Defence in the Age of Total War, 1900–1940’, Historia, vol. 60 (2015), p. 132. 17  BA/R901/83134, prisoners’ petition to PM Botha, 20 July 1917; NA/FO383/469, report and correspondence on visit, 22 January 1918; NASA/GG631/9/64, Visit of General Botha to Pietermaritzburg Camp, 14 November 1917. 18  Dedering, ‘Avenge’; Nasson, World War One, 138.

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South Africa  189 Similar scenes unfolded in the other urban centres of Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Bloemfontein, and Kimberley, and also in smaller towns across the country. In Cape Town, between forty and fifty properties were destroyed, including the German Club which had been closed anyway since August 1914. The Cape Times reported that ‘the outside of the German Club was wrecked in a few ­minutes’. Some climbed into the building and ‘threw the effects on to the street— piano, pictures, a German flag, a bust of the Kaiser, chairs, etc. These were all burned’. The mob made its way in this fashion through the streets of Cape Town, and ‘at nine o’clock the entire central area of the town was brilliantly illuminated by fires in different quarters’.19 As for the social composition of the rioters, the press, police reports, as well as German victims found it particularly noteworthy that these were not the usual mob crowds but well-respected citizens: ‘It was not the hooligan who was at work. It was the well-dressed man, the man of good social position and business standing, who was determined to wipe something off the slate’.20 And the rioters were not all male. The Cape Times found that ‘the most remarkable feature of the affair was the prominent part played by women—not of the hooligan class, but respectably-dressed members of the community. “Take that, you baby-killers,” shouted a woman, as she aimed a large stone through the window of Spilhaus and Co., in Strand-street’.21 For the second night of rioting the German church was put on the list of targets. Its fifty-seven-year-old pastor, G. Wagener, had by then been interned and wrote after his repatriation in 1916 that rioters carried a flag with the inscription: ‘Tonight it’s the turn of the German church’. His wife reported this to the police, who were not responsive. The bushes and trees around the vicarage were set on fire with petroleum, but neighbours were able to extinguish them. Only then did the police arrive. Wagener’s wife and daughters spent three sleepless nights in the vicarage, fearing for their lives.22 The church in Durban suffered more damage. A former member, Lindemann, reported that most of its property was burned, including ‘pulpit, altar, harmonium, hymn books, gowns, etc. Pastor Schüler just about managed to save the communion chalice, as well as the Bible which had been donated by the Kaiser’.23 There were, however, also symbolic and verbal provocations by German ­residents. Existing scholarship mentions these only in passing without following them up analytically. We argue that these have to be factored into explain marginalization and violence. The war brought ethnic demarcations to the fore and

19  Cape Times, 13 May 1915. 20  The Star (Johannesburg), 13 May 1915, quoted in Dedering, ‘Avenge’, p. 248. 21  Cape Times, 14 May 1915. Also see G. W. Wagener, Bericht über meine Gefangenschaft in SüdAfrika und England (Berlin, 1916), p. 20; and NA/FO383/33, High Commissioner report with news clippings, 15 May 1915. 22 Wagener, Bericht, p. 20. 23  BA/R901/84058, Lindemann to Konsul Schrötter, 24 March 1916.

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190  Enemies in the Empire demanded clear demonstrations of allegiance to the British cause. When these did not come forward, an interplay of allegations and suspicion was set in motion which contributed to the Germanophobic atmosphere. Riots in Johannesburg, for example, were sparked by a German customer of the Anglo-Austrian café who refused to take off his hat when the British national anthem was played.24 The windows of the Bechuanaland Trading Association in Cape Town were smashed after the manager, Mr Rosenthal, ‘had incurred considerable unpopularity by some indiscreet utterances which he is said to have made’.25 Police enquiries into pertinent occurrences give a relatively differentiated picture. On one occasion a Mrs Quin in Pretoria complained about a gathering in the house of a naturalized German neighbour, Mr Kohly, where German patriotic tunes were sung. Several neighbours were interviewed. Two of them claimed that there was ‘a jollification taking place at Mr. Kohly’s house’ and that they heard ‘the German National Anthem being played and sung in German’, but since this is set to an English tune, they might as well have sung this English hymn in German. Another neighbour listened in more carefully. He heard a piano inside the house and ‘the people on the veranda were singing German patriotic songs, including the “Fatherland”, also the “Austrian National Anthem”, and I heard them calling for Lager Beer and I heard the words “Hoch den Kaiser” on several occasions . . . The uproar increased in violence until about eleven o’clock when it gradually subsided. The whole proceedings were conducted in the German language and in an uproarious manner, in fact they were creating a disturbance of the peace’. No action was taken as a consequence.26 The authorities were keen to dismantle an ethnic infrastructure spreading ideas which were detrimental to the British cause. In addition to clubs and churches, this also affected schools. The German school in East London was closed on 30 October 1914 by order of the police and the teachers Weisbach and Korn interned. Parents petitioned the local magistrate and promised not to accept any subsidy from the German government in future, but the magistrate insisted that the school ‘could only exist for the purpose of undermining the influence of British ideals . . . I do not consider it advisable to allow this school to re-open’.27 Meanwhile, the school in Johannesburg was not yet formally closed but started to disintegrate. It received funds from the German government which also sent teachers abroad. These teachers were selected on the basis of their affirmative attitude towards Kaiser and Reich, and generally came from an occupational group which has been termed a nationalist ‘conformist class’ (‘angepaßter Stand’).28 24  Dedering, ‘Avenge’, p. 247. 25  NA/FO383/33, Governor-General Buxton to Colonial Office, 5 June 1915. 26  NASA/SAP30/436, police files ‘Mr Kohly’, 20 and 22 November 1917. 27  NASA/CES117/ES70/2377/14, letter to Resident Magistrate East London, 3 November 1914, and letter of magistrate to Secretary for Defence Pretoria, 13 November 1914. 28  Stefan Manz, Constructing a German Diaspora: The ‘Greater German Empire’, 1871–1914 (New York, 2014), p. 239.

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South Africa  191 Headmaster Dr Friedrich Upmeyer set the tone in Johannesburg, and this was picked up by the investigating police commissioner. His assessment of some of the teachers was: Dr. Upmeyer is a very clever man and of very Anti-British propensities . . . should not be at large, but should be interned forthwith. Dr. Bornebusch, a naturalised British subject, but all his sympathies are with Germany though he is discreet enough not to publish them in the form of seditious utterances. Mr. Hendrik Muller, a Hollander, naturalised British subject, with strong German sympathies. Mr. Heinrich Muller, a German Reserve Officer . . . He is naturally a strong German supporter and I do not consider should be at large, but should be interned. Mr. H. Schroer . . . Is the most talkative of the lot and is very bitter. He mocks and rails at Botha and the Union Government, and I am satisfied that should not be allowed at large and recommend his internment forthwith . . . Miss Bickel. This lady too is decidedly and talkatively Anti-British.29

The investigating officer also reported that ‘inuendo has been directed against [the only English teacher] Mr. Bloomfield and some of the English pupils at the School’. Children were forbidden to wear badges for various war relief funds. ‘These have been taken from the children and destroyed by the masters’. The officer concluded that ‘it is not in the best interests of the Government that it should continue open as at present with a staff composed almost entirely of persons whose sympathies are with very few exceptions, directed against the British Empire and the Union of South Africa’.30 Before his internment Dr Upmeyer had applied in vain to the Commissioner for Enemy Subjects for exemption on parole, arguing that he had never served in the German army because physically unfit, had never taken part in politics, and that he had a wife and two children to support.31 In contrast to other German schools in the Union, the one in Johannesburg was allowed to remain open for some time, triggering vociferous anti-German comments in the local press. Readers warned of a ‘Teutonic menace in our midst’ and asked why ‘we allow a Government School to become a seminary for the spread of German kultur? Shall we allow positions which should be filled by British teachers to be given to aliens? Surely not. Are we going to allow German land-grabbing and trading associations to continue to exploit our native population under the cloak of missionary ­enterprise? . . . The arrogant Teuton must be made to understand that his day of dom­in­eer­ing is past’. Another reader calling himself ‘A British Parent’ found that ‘if the Principal is allowed to return to the school after the war it will be a scandal’. Yet another reader took offence that the German anthem ‘Deutschland über alles’ 29 NASA/CES82/ES70/1543/14, Deputy Commissioner South African Police, Johannesburg, ‘German School—Johannesburg’. 30 Ibid. 31  Ibid., Dr Upmeyer to Commissioner for Enemy Subjects, 18 December 1914.

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192  Enemies in the Empire was sung in classes, that some children had trampled a British flag in front of the school, and that one of the masters ridiculed General Botha.32 Although allegations of this kind are impossible to prove, their recurrent nature from across the country, taken from a range of sources, corroborates the picture of a minority in denial of its fragile status. It would be misleading to generalize pertinent attitudes and activity for the immigrant group as a whole. What is more important in our context is that British South Africans did generalize. For them, any symbolic or verbal attachment to the Reich was proof that the minority as a whole presented a danger which had to be eliminated.

The Mechanics of Internment On 6 August 1914, the British Governor-General in the Union, Earl Buxton, was alerted by newspaper advertisements which requested German and Austrian reservists to report for military duty in Europe. The next day a government dir­ ect­ive ordered all German officers and reservists between the ages of eighteen and fifty-six to be arrested. Austrian reservists were initially exempted from these regulations, but on 13 August the same principles were applied to them as well, including the request to register the names of all enemy aliens at sea ports and to confiscate their firearms and ammunition. The Government Gazette of 26 September 1914 codified the existing practice, as well as setting out broad criteria for internment: (i) Alien enemies who are reasonably suspected of being in any way dangerous to the safety of the realm will be arrested by the police and handed over to the military authorities. Such persons will be interned as prisoners of war, and every consideration compatible with safety should be shown to them as to other prisoners of war. (ii) Alien enemies whose known character precludes suspicion or who are personally vouched for by British residents of standing should not be arrested or interned.33 The instructions made it clear that they followed the imperial lead but that the dominion had its local say in their execution: they were ‘relative to the internment and treatment of enemy subjects in and throughout the British Dominions, adapted so far as is necessary to meet the conditions and circumstances obtaining

32  NASA/CES82/ES70/1543/14, press clippings, no newspaper titles. 33 NASA/BNS1006/D170/9199, Union of South Africa Government Gazette Extraordinary, 26 September 1914, No. 1607.

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South Africa  193 in the Union of South Africa’.34 The position of Commissioner for Enemy Subjects was established in order to oversee local procedures. Arrests took place all over the Union. On 20 August 1914, German and some Austrian naval and army reservists assembled on Caldon Square in Cape Town with instructions to register for their transfer to Johannesburg. Only those who could provide documentary proof that they were naturalized British citizens or had been discharged from reserve duty were exempted. From 18 August the first non-reservists were also detained. Many were apprehended by the police in their homes and first spent some days in prison cells before being handed over to the military authorities.35 The Union government set up the office of Commissioner for Enemy Subjects in Pretoria to centralize the administration of the process. Those caught up in the early internment wave to mid-September were concentrated in the Agricultural Show Grounds in Johannesburg. The first one hundred prisoners arrived on 21 August. This was only a temporary camp, and by the time it was closed on 11 September 1914 it had accommodated 1,055 enemy aliens.36 The prisoners were now taken to the military base Roberts Heights in Pretoria. As internment operations continued across the Union and numbers rose, new accommodation had to be sought, and on 25 October 1914 around 2,000 men were transported en masse to their final detention place, Fort Napier in Pietermaritzburg. At the same time there were around 750 German and 350 Austro-Hungarians at liberty under surveillance within the Union. They were required to report to local authorities at fixed periods, and if they wished to move residence, they had to seek approval from the Commissioner for Enemy Subjects.37 In a systemic sense, South African operations were different from those in other dominions and, indeed, the metropole, where internees were held in a range of permanent and temporary locations. South Africa, in contrast, pursued a policy of concentration into one central camp, Fort Napier. Other camps were set up for specific purposes and only existed for shorter periods of time. The development of operations can be broadly divided into two phases. The first phase between August and mid-October 1914 was one of trial and error. It was as yet unclear which categories of persons would be affected by internment, in which form they should be detained, and what numbers were to be expected. Official categories of what constituted ‘dangerous’ aliens had to be applied and interpreted by local police and magistrates. When the Chief Magistrate of Pietermaritzburg, for example, enquired about criteria with the Department of Justice he received a recommendation which left some room for interpretation with regard to status and health: ‘Even without martial law, enemy subjects, even if not reservists, are

34 Ibid. 35  Star, 20 August 1914. 36  NASA/CES179/ES70/4231/14, Camp Commandant Fort Napier to Commissioner for Enemy Subjects, 7 March 1917. 37  BA/R901/83829, Governor-General to US Consulate Cape Town, 11 October 1915.

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194  Enemies in the Empire only allowed liberty on sufferance, and should their conduct be questionable they could be recommended for internment . . . The Minister’s general advice to Magistrates is not to let themselves be swayed by the passions of the moment but to conserve a calm and steadfast course of even justice’.38 The military campaign against German Southwest Africa was in full swing in the early phase, requiring further capacities. Camps for combatant troops were set up in conquered territory in the remote locations of Kanus, Aus, Albrechts Camp, Okanjande, and Grootfontein. Civilians from Lüderitzbucht were tem­por­ ar­ily deported into Union territory, including women and children.39 This also applied to deportees from Rhodesia and Belgian Congo. Despite forced removal, the official term used by the authorities for this cohort was ‘refugees’. There was also a temporary camp for reserve officers in Durban. This was the Lords cricket ground which was surrounded by barbed wire and served this purpose from November 1914 to March 1915. The camp system during this first phase should thus be best understood as fluid and adaptable depending on circumstances. The second, main phase, from mid-October 1914 until August 1919, was one of concentration and consolidation, although the Lusitania fallout triggered a spike in May 1915 which led to additional temporary capacity being set up in Kimberley. The latter camp was also used for around 200 troops and civilians from German Southwest Africa before their deportation.40 Male detainees were concentrated from 24 October 1914 in Fort Napier, which functioned as the central camp. Its size was strikingly constant throughout the war at around 2,500 internees. The early phase of multiple camps allows us to explore a few general themes. One is the perception of internment from a gendered perspective. Just as women had led some of the Lusitania riots, in Durban they now led a protest against prisoners on parole. Officers in the Lords Ground camp were initially allowed to visit the city and its beaches for three hours a day. The Natal Mercury reported that ‘they behaved towards some British ladies in the bathing enclosure in a very unseemly manner, and their remarks were most offensive. It is also mentioned that some of the prisoners performed an act at the Beach, details of which it is impossible to publish. Girls in tea rooms, and in bars also had to submit to insulting innuendos’. Some remarks by prisoners to a barmaid left her ‘in a state of excitement bordering on hysteria’. She had to ‘restrain herself from throwing a bottle at them, and her great regret at the moment was that she was not a man’. The correspondent praised the women of Durban for ‘proving themselves the stronger sex’ and petitioning the government to withdraw the right to parole from prisoners. Parole, they argued, ‘menaced the safety of the public,

38 PMB1/PMB/3/1/1/2/9, Department of Justice to Chief Magistrate Pietermaritzburg, 23 September 1914. 39 Murphy, Colonial Captivity, pp. 48–51. 40  BA/R901/83830, Governor-General to US Consul Cape Town, 11 October 1915.

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South Africa  195 particularly that of our women’. The petition was signed by 700 women and ­forwarded to Pretoria.41 The officers refuted all allegations. Another allegation from a reader’s letter that the officers orchestrated a ‘riotous national demonstration’ in a local hotel was contradicted in the same issue: the officers had in fact not been out on parole on the night in question.42 The incidents were thoroughly investigated and found to be without substance. The American Consul assured the Governor-General that the officers were wrongfully accused of misbehaviour with the exception of one who had acted under the influence of alcohol. He was reported by the other of­fi­ cers to the Commandant for punishment. The Commissioner for Enemy Subjects assured the officers that his decision to stop the parole was not a knee-jerk reaction to some newspaper reports but arose from ‘the inflamed state of mind . . . toward enemy subjects generally. On the contrary, the Minister [of Defence] is perfectly satisfied that the conduct of Officer Prisoners of War has almost without exception been entirely correct and proper’.43 Several sources give insights into life in these early camps. The first prisoners arrived in the Johannesburg Agricultural Show Grounds camp on 21 August 1914. According to the local English-language press, the mood was sombre but composed, and some Germans even thanked the government for the civil treatment they received.44 Prisoners themselves did not agree with positive representations of this kind and were, in fact, often incensed by them. Their own reports read very differently. Some were written shortly after repatriation in 1916; others were smuggled out of the camps or written to authorities. These are all subjective accounts and have to be read with caution. Facts and occurrences are represented with a sense of frustration and strong antagonism against the captors. It is, ­however, exactly this subjectivity which allows us to see camp life through the eyes of captives. One anonymous author had his report published after repatriation, assuring the reader that this was a true account without whingeing. He was aware that captives in Russia, France, and French possessions in Africa faced worse conditions.45 His account reads like one string of pranks where upright patriotic Germans ­constantly outwit and ridicule their unfair British captors. Symbolic appropriation of space was one way of doing so. In the Johannesburg Agricultural Show Ground camp, three prisoners shared a small horse box, of which there were around a 41  Natal Mercury, ‘Prisoners of War’, 10 December 1914. Reports appeared in newspapers across the Union. 42  Natal Mercury, ‘Prisoners of War’, 30 November 1914. 43  NASA/CES96/ES70/1828/14, Commissioner for Enemy Subjects, 31 December 1914, also includes protest by officers, 17 December 1914; NA/FO383/247, reports US Consul, 22 December 1914 and 28 December 1914; AA/PA/R140615, Anon., Bericht über die Zeit meiner Kriegsgefangenschaft in Südafrika, 27 July 1916. 44  The Star, 21 August 1914. 45 Anonymous, Südafrikas Deutsche in englischer Gewalt (Dresden, 1916).

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196  Enemies in the Empire hundred. ‘Street names’ were painted on the huts and included Kaiser Straße, Kaiser Franz Joseph Straße, Bismarck Straße, and Unter den Linden. Other prisoners slept in large cow stables with names such as Kaiserburg. Extra-large letters were a conscious provocation directed at the camp authorities: ‘The best name was “Hotel Emperor of Europe”. Since the Commandant frequently went past it he ordered the name to be removed, which adorned the stable in such big and clear letters’.46 An elderly guard who was often drunk was constantly mocked, for example by writing the German words ‘Englands letzte Hoffnung’ (England’s last hope) on a plank of his pedestal.47 There was also acoustic appropriation of space in the form of military parading accompanied by patriotic singing.48 Nationalistic accounts of this kind do not mention whether all prisoners joined in or, indeed, agreed with this behaviour. The local press reported that the Germans in the Johannesburg Agricultural Show Grounds ‘have divided t­hemselves into two factions. One side supports the Kaiser and the other side says Gotterdam der Kaiser. Feeling has been running high between the two ­parties, and the other day there was a faction fight and the opposing sections got into conflict’.49 The Agricultural Show Grounds had all the signs of a provisional camp with lower standards than elsewhere. Stables and horse boxes were arranged as prisoners continued to trickle in, sleeping on uneven clay ground with bug-infested blankets. The boxes smelled of animals and offered no protection against the dust which was constantly swirling around in this dry Transvaal area. There were no tables or chairs, so prisoners wandered around in the camp and mostly sat on the ground for mealtimes. Sanitary arrangements were not suitable for the purpose of holding over 1,000 men. Temperatures went up to 40 degrees Celsius during the day and close to freezing point during the night.50 The camp only existed for three weeks, and the prisoners were summarily moved by train to their next des­tin­ ation, Roberts Heights Camp in Pretoria.51 One of the prisoners reported that ‘the journey was quite entertaining. We sang with enthusiasm and held a big German flag out of the window which floated in the wind. Much to the annoyance of the English’.52 As a military base, Roberts Heights was better suited for its purpose. Contrasting statements by internees about different camps are important to get a  sense of conditions. Consular secretary Bruchhausen was interned in Pietermaritzburg from 3 January to 20 March 1915 and during this time collected 46  Ibid., pp. 4–5. 47  Ibid., p. 44. 48  Ibid., pp. 4, 9. 49 NASA/CES48/ES70/840/14, newspaper clipping taken from censored letter, no title, 22 September 1914. 50  BA/R901/83828, Report of consular secretary Bruchhagen, 24 April 1915, p. 10; BA/R901/83133, Hans Ette to friend ‘Oscar’, 9 January 1916; Anonymous, Südafrikas Deutsche, pp. 4–9; Wagener, Bericht, p. 4. 51  NASA/CES179/ES70/4231/14, Camp Commandant Fort Napier to Commissioner for Enemy Subjects, 7 March 1917. 52 Anonymous, Südafrikas Deutsche, p. 41.

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South Africa  197 information. After his repatriation he reported that all his interviewees ­complained about conditions in Johannesburg but found their treatment in Pretoria ‘generally favourable’.53 One of them was farm-owner Hans Ette from Natal who wrote to a friend in an uncensored letter that conditions in Roberts Heights were ‘good, water better than Johbg, plenty of space, only the food was awful and wholly insufficient’.54 Another internee was Fritz Schultze who had fought with the Boers during the South African War, lost a leg, and then been interned in Seapoint Camp. He was one of a cohort of former Boer-sympathizers who now found themselves in British captivity for a second time.55 Another inmate in Roberts Heights was Georg Wagener, the pastor of the German Protestant congregation in Cape Town who was interned together with his son Wolfram. Behind the wire he continued his ethnic leadership in both religious and nationalistic terms. He held services and gave speeches on a daily basis in which he admonished his compatriots to follow camp orders and not try to escape, but at the same time behave as upright German men. His speeches con­ ail-acclamations to the German and Austrian emperors and to the cluded with h fatherland. Generally, Wagener praised the spirit in the camp: ‘People were busy doing drilling exercises on the large parade ground. Every night they sang German folk songs and many a cheering acclamation hailing Kaiser and fatherland was heard’.56 The camp authorities found Wagener to be a troublemaker inciting disobedience. Here and later in Fort Napier he constantly found himself in the detention cell, claiming on one occasion that he was rough-handled with a punch in his side which he felt for months afterwards.57 Inmates in Pretoria Heights knew that the Afrikaner rebellion led by General de la Rey presented a challenge to the government which was simultaneously invading German Southwest Africa. Opinion-makers such as Pastor Wagener were particularly important in a situation where many men had little to do and constantly interacted in a confined space. During the South African War, Wagener had supported the cause of the Boers through extensive collections in Germany and Africa, as well as pastoral visits to camps. At the conclusion of the war he was the only non-Afrikaner who had been invited to the festive banquet in Cape Town in honour of generals de la Rey, de Wet, and Botha. Wagener now felt a deep sense of betrayal that Louis Botha not only cooperated with his former British oppressors but also fought a war against his erstwhile German sup­ porters.58 This context comes out in many of the internees’ utterances and added to a sense of frustration that they were the victims of betrayal. The villains in this set-up were Prime Minister Louis Botha and Defence Minister Jan Smuts. The

53  BA/R901/83828, Report consular secretary Bruchhagen, 24 April 1915, p. 10. 54  BA/R901/83133, Hans Ette to friend ‘Oscar’, 9 January 1916. 55 Wagener, Bericht, p. 5. 56  Ibid., p. 6. 57  Ibid., pp. 7–10. 58  Ibid., p. 13; Wessels, ‘Afrikaner’.

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198  Enemies in the Empire upright characters were James Hertzog, the leader of the National Party, and the rebels under de la Rey. The political situation found reflection in camp rumours, leading to resistance. Internees had learned about the rebellion from smuggled newspapers and hoped they would be freed by de la Rey’s troops. Many spent expectant sleepless nights, listening out for the sounds of approaching liberators. When the camp com­mand­ant gave instructions for transferral to Fort Napier, some thought this was a trick and they would be transported to Ceylon and St Helena just like the Boers fifteen years earlier. One internee mentions that Boer boys had smuggled in a message, asking the prisoners to hold on as long as possible to wait for the arrival of the rebellious troops.59 Indeed, this is what the prisoners did. Two accounts independently speak of ‘passive resistance’. Prisoners sabotaged the electrical system and caused a blackout. They pretended they were worried that their train would be blown up by angry mobs and refused to get prepared. Packing was very slow, and prisoners refused to leave their barracks. In the end the camp com­mand­ant had to deploy more troops. They used their bayonets to get the 1,200 prisoners out of Robert Heights Camp and marched them to the train station for transport to Pietermaritzburg.60 This concluded an episode of male internment in Roberts Heights which lasted from 11 September to 25 October 1914. In March 1915 the camp would be used again for deported ­families from German Southwest Africa.

Women and Children In contrast to the South African War, women and children living within the Union were exempt from internment. Those deported from other Sub-Saharan territories, however, were not. As German colonial rule began to crumble, women and children from all across the region were taken together with men to South Africa and experienced some form of internment. The biggest group were around 800 deportees from Lüderitzbucht in German Southwest Africa, just over 500 of whom were women and children. They were captured after South African forces had taken the town in September 1914 without any resistance. When the men were marched into Roberts Heights Camp, ‘there was utter silence. There was an immediate opposition between the Lüderitz and the South African Germans. The latter could not understand that so many young and strong men had themselves been captured without trying to get away from Lüderitzbucht and join the

59  BA/R901/83133, Hans Ette to friend ‘Oscar’, 9 January 1916. 60 Anonymous, Südafrikas Deutsche, p. 45; BA/R901/83133, Hans Ette to friend ‘Oscar’, 9 January 1916; Wagener, Bericht, p. 14.

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South Africa  199 German troops’.61 In summer 1915 the Union allowed them and their families to return to their former homes. This was in line with the broad policy towards the newly conquered territory. The Union government tried to keep as many white settlers in Southwest Africa in order to avoid upsetting the racial and therefore power balance in the colony. It was forewarned by the uprising of the Nama and Herero 1904 to 1907 which had challenged German colonial rule and was brutally suppressed. There was therefore no policy of comprehensive ‘ethnic cleansing’ as in German East Africa and other Empire locations. By 1916 all but twenty-three of the deportees had returned to Southwest Africa. A commission was set up to receive funds from Germany for destitute returnees. This was led by Theodor Seitz, the former Governor who had been allowed to stay in the territory. After the armistice close to half of the 12,000 Germans in Southwest Africa were repatriated to Germany, although many returned at a later stage. The war had, indeed, set in motion complex patterns of forced migration among the enemy alien population in Southern Africa.62 Helga Brodersen Manns was one of the women deported. She had arrived in Lüderitzbucht in February 1914 to take up a position as legal secretary with a solicitor. After the fall of the town on 18 September, she was part of the last cohort of 300 who were deported on 3 October on the cattle ship Armadale Castle. She provides an intelligent account of her captivity which is well balanced between praise and criticism towards her captors. In Armadale Castle, the bug-ridden mattresses were dirty beyond description . . . instead of water a thick, disgusting liquid came from the taps, [and] the food was consumed at greasy tables . . . There were breast-feeding women and crying children, and a deafening noise filled the room which was heavy with all kinds of stench.63

After two days in Armadale Castle Brodersen Manns arrived in Cape Town. The deportees were escorted to train compartments which carried the sign ‘Prisoners of War from Lüderitz’ and attracted crowds of local bystanders who were kept away by armed soldiers. Families were separated, with men and women put into different compartments. Men were locked up in carriages with barred windows, whilst women travelled in relatively normal fashion. Brodersen Manns found ‘the food on the train definitely better than on the ship. For the main meals clean tables were laid in the dining hall, and there were a variety of good things to eat’. After a day and a half the men’s compartments were uncoupled and directed towards Roberts Heights Camp in Pretoria—where the men experienced the

61  Wagener, Idem, p. 6. 62 Murphy, Colonial Captivity, pp. 48–51; Anne Samson, World War I in Africa: The Forgotten Conflict among the European Powers (London, 2013), pp. 74–81. 63  Helga Brodersen Manns, Wie alles anders kam in Afrika (Windhoek, edited 1991), p. 17.

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200  Enemies in the Empire

Figure 8.1  Fort Napier: hut where deportee women from German Southwest Africa were allowed to meet their husbands.

harsh reception mentioned above. Women carried on for another day and a half to Pietermaritzburg and rejoined those from Lüderitzbucht who had been deported in earlier waves. They were subsequently joined by deportees from the Belgian Congo64 (Figure 8.1). In Pietermaritzburg, the women and children were accommodated in two separate compounds dubbed, for no obvious reason, the ‘Red Camp’ and the ‘Green Camp’. These lay adjacent to the main Fort Napier camp for male prisoners. Up to five women lived in one room in accommodation which had formerly been occupied by the families of those British troops that had just left the gar­ rison. Guard and supervision was provided by ‘nurses’ and a head ‘matron’, but relative freedom of movement was granted. Women were allowed to go into Pietermaritzburg every two weeks, accompanied by their female guards. They also had the choice to find accommodation in families throughout the Union. Some took up employment as housemaids or governesses; others were taken in by relatives or other families. They kept being attached to the Fort Napier camp through registration and regular reporting. This information allows us to read the breakdown of numbers in Table 8.1.

64  Ibid., p. 24; The Star, 22 September 1914.

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South Africa  201 Table 8.1  Female deportees and children from Lüderitzbucht, German Southwest Africa, interned in Pietermaritzburg, October 1914 to 5 March 1915 Women Green Camp 135 Red Camp 133 Private 42 Total 310

Girls

Boys

Babies and toddlers

12

26

17

64

59

27

5

5

4

81

90

48

Grand total: 529 Source: Extracted from name list in Helga Brodersen Manns, Wie alles anders kam in Afrika (Windhoek, edited 1991), pp. 69–76.

Contact between compounds was tightly controlled. Women whose husbands were interned in the male camp were allowed visits during set times, and unmarried women could visit male patients in the hospital ward. When music ensembles were occasionally allowed to perform in the women’s camp, the musicians were served coffee and cake after the performance. ‘At least that is what the matron thought. Most of the coffee cups, however, contained beer, which we had smuggled in’.65 An engaged couple became married. After the church ceremony conducted by an interned clergyman, Pater Hetzenecker, the couple were sep­ar­ated, and each continued to celebrate with their own sex in respective compounds.66 Women and children in the Green and Red Camps were removed on 5 March 1915, together with their husbands from the main camp. The camp commandant, Cowley, was ‘a really nice and humane Englishman’, and conditions were generally satisfactory. One compound was reserved for families, and the other one for single women. The former was dubbed ‘Camp of Good Hope’ by inmates and, indeed, in December 1915, after release and re-deportation, an unusually high number of children were born in Lüderitzbucht. Other children were born in the camp itself. Two inmates in the compound for single women were former prostitutes in Lüderitzbucht’s brothel, Km 1. One of them did not want to go back as she found employment as governess with a butcher in Transvaal and never returned to Southwest Africa.67 Germans from Lüderitzbucht were then re-deported from July 1915 onwards. These included 408 from Roberts Heights (fifty-three men, 181 women, 174 children), 181 from Fort Napier (forty-three officers, 138 ­civilians), 65  Brodersen Manns, Idem, p. 33. 67  Ibid., pp. 54, 63 (quote), p. 68.

66  Ibid., pp. 41–2.

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202  Enemies in the Empire and 171 scattered over the Union (eighty-two women, six men, eighty-three children).68 Back in Southwest Africa, they could move into their former homes, but remained under curfew for the remainder of the war. Brodersen Manns’s unique account allows us to explore issues of gender, everyday life, and interpersonal relations from an inmate’s perspective. To what extent it is representative, however, is debatable. Deportees from British and in particular Belgium-owned territories generally suffered more hardship. Brodersen Manns herself mentions that those arriving from Belgian Congo in Pietermaritzburg had been ‘treated very badly during capture and transport’.69 On 2 September 1914, the Vice Governor-General of the Katanga territory (Congo) asked the British High Commissioner in Pretoria for permission to deport its German subjects to the Union at the cost of the Belgian government: Their present incarceration at Elizabethville causes the greatest difficulties and does not guarantee their safety on account of the great excitement of the Belgian population . . . Their presence here is a constant and serious danger.70

Fifty-three Germans were despatched from Elizabethville on guarded trains, amongst them five women and four children, for internment in Pietermaritzburg.71 Those who were married were finally reunited in the Roberts Height camp in March 1915.72 After closure of the Roberts Heights Camp in May 1915, new facilities for families had to be set up in 1917. This was as a consequence of British military advances in German East Africa and subsequent deportation. Those from occupied New Langenburg—mostly residents of farms, as well as the Berlin and Moravian Missions—were first interned in Blantyre (Nyasaland). In October 1916 the c. 150 men were separated, first taken to Mombasa and then dispersed to camps throughout the Empire. The fifty-four women and eighty children were deported four months later to South Africa and were first housed in makeshift accommodation in the Princess Park exhibition ground in Pretoria. One inmate wrote that ‘after all our troubles and experiences etc. the state of our nerves is fairly upset’. They feared for their husbands’ health in disease-ridden Mombasa and were unsure about their own future.73 In May 1917 they were taken to more 68 NASA/CES126/ES70/2592/14, Commissioner for Enemy Subjects to Quartermaster General, Union Defence Force, 22 July 1915. 69  Brodersen Manns, Wie alles anders kam, 24. 70  NASA/CES55/ES70/965/14, Vice Governor-General in Katanga to British High Commissioner in Pretoria, 2 September 1914; BNS1006/D170/9199 (includes list of names), 19 September 1914. 71  NASA/CES55/ES70/965/14, Vice Governor-General in Katanga to British High Commissioner in Pretoria, September 1914. 72  NA/FO383/33, US Consulate General Cape Town to Governor-General, 17 April 1915. 73 NASA/CES126/ES70/2592/14: Maria Tauer to Elisabeth Wagner, 11 March 1917 (quote); Governor in Zomba to Governor-General in Pretoria, 20 January 1917; note Provost Marshal, 5 February 1917; Deutscher Hilfsverein Pretoria to Commissioner for Enemy Subjects, 7 February 1917; Internees Princess Park to PM Louis Botha, 25 April 1917.

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South Africa  203 suitable accommodation in a military station in Tempe near Bloemfontein. Commandant Cowley, who had previously run the operation in Roberts Heights, was put in charge of the new refugee camp. He reassured the Commissioner for Enemy Subjects that the health of the inmates was ‘excellent . . . there are no complaints, and all are satisfied’.74 This is not necessarily backed up by other sources. The women had no information about their husbands and were exhausted from deportation. Two examples were the wives of missionaries from the Berlin Missionary Society, Martha Heese and Marie Salis. Mrs Heese had three children to look after, was ‘in very poor health’, and asked whether one of her children could be looked after by a sister-in-law in Riversdale, Cape Colony.75 Marie Salis, whose fate was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, had her second child in the camp and died soon thereafter of tuberculosis. If at all, internment in South Africa has only been described as a male experience by existing scholarship. The fact that enemy alien women from within the Union were exempt from internment has led to this blind spot. This section has shown that this is an undue omission. In addition to just over 3,000 men, the Union interned or tightly controlled the movements of a minimum of 663 ‘refugee’ women and children from other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa: 520 from Lüderitzbucht, nine from Belgian Congo, 134 from German East Africa, and also a sprinkling from other territories such as Rhodesia, Bechuanaland, and Lesotho whose exact numbers do not appear in the sources. But even those women who were not interned from within the Union suffered hardship through loss of income of the main breadwinner, as well as discrimination in daily life. As the American Consul in Durban noted after an inspection visit to Fort Napier: It is not prisoners who are in need of attention and relief as are the unfortunate women and children, the wives and children of those who are interned, they are the ones that most particularly need attention and relief.

The government allowance of one shilling a day for women and six-pence for children only covered food and lodging, but no clothing, medicines, or other ne­ces­sary expenses.76 Graham Dominy notes for Pietermaritzburg that: a pathetic group of near-destitute wives and children crept into the city seeking lodgings and charity so that they could be near their husbands and fathers confined in the Fort. These unfortunate victims of a conflict not of their making

74  NASA/CES126/ES70/2592/15, Commandant Cowley to Commissioner for Enemy Subjects, 24 July 1917. 75 NASA/CES126/ES70/2592/14, Deutscher Hilfsverein Pretoria to Commissioner for Enemy Subjects, 18 April 1917. 76  BA/R901/83133, W. W. Masterton, US Consul Durban, Report on Civil Camps, 28/29 May 1915.

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204  Enemies in the Empire were snubbed, ignored or patronized by the whites of the city according to ­temperament or affiliation.77

One of these destitute wives was Mrs Ette, the wife of a farm-owner in Natal, Hans Ette. He was interned in Fort Napier and had to leave behind his wife, who had a heart condition, and a young son. His farm was leased out to a Scotsman who sold all the cattle and disappeared. His wife and children found a rented room in Pietermaritzburg, but their landlord was informed by the local ‘Vigilance Committee’ that they would burn down his premises if he did not evict Mrs Ette. She was refused accommodation in hotels and had to sleep outside, ‘with horror waiting for the arrival of the rioters’.78 In Durban, many women and children hid in the sand dunes while their premises were destroyed. Mrs Ette had stored the family’s personal effects in the Sea Breeze Hotel in Durban, but this was burned down and the family lost everything. She suffered a heart attack and was not allowed a short parole visit by her husband.79 Matthew Stibbe rightly comes to the conclusion that women have been ‘forgotten victims of internment’. In the same vein, Zoe Denness uncovers the ‘forgotten experiences of German women in Britain, 1914–1919’.80 This section has filled the relevant gap for South Africa. The Lusitania riots demonstrate that women could also act as aggressors, firing up and exerting violence against German-owned property. Women and children suffered outside the camps in which their breadwinner was incarcerated. It is important to look beyond the gender divide, as well as the barbed wire, in order to understand the full impact of xenophobia and internment operations on enemy minorities. With regards to general patterns of internment in South Africa we have seen that the Union government pursued a policy of concentration in one single camp, although other camps existed as well. The Agricultural Show Grounds in Johannesburg and Roberts Heights in Pretoria were used as provisional camps in the early phase of the war, and other facilities were used for women and children. Because of the central role of Fort Napier, scholarship has so far neglected these smaller camps. The chapter has shown that they are crucial to understanding the mechanics of internment in the Union. They also offer inside views of life behind barbed wire, feeding into some of the general themes of this study. These will be picked up again in Chapter 11 on Fort Napier.

77 Graham Dominy, ‘Pietermaritzburg’s Imperial Postscript: Fort Napier from 1910 to 1925’, Natalia, vol. 19 (1989), pp. 30–42 (36). 78  BA/R901/83133, Hans Ette to friend ‘Oscar’, uncensored, 9 January 1916. 79 BA/R901/83133, Hans Ette to friend ‘Oscar’, uncensored, 9 January 1916; BA/R901/84058, Lindemann to Konsul Schrötter, 24 March 1916. 80  Matthew Stibbe, ‘Civilian Internment and Civilian Internees in Europe, 1914–1920’, Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 26 (2008), pp. 49–81; Zoë Denness, ‘Gender and Germanophobia: The Forgotten Experiences of German Women in Britain, 1914–1919’, in Panayi, Germans as Minorities, pp. 71–98.

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9

India By the outbreak of the First World War the ‘jewel in the crown’ had developed considerable autonomy in decision-making, at least in administrative terms, through the evolution of the Indian Civil Service which had a bureaucratic structure as sophisticated as that which existed in London, involving individual departments and employing significant numbers of people. Direct control from London operated through the India Office run by the Secretary of State for India, although he worked together with the multi-layered Government of India based in New Delhi and Simla. Below the centralized system lay a series of regional authorities, which had some autonomy, although, from the point of view of internment policy, they responded to instructions from New Delhi and Simla which, in turn, would follow procedure in London in enemy alien control.1 Like other parts of the Empire, India therefore followed the lead of London’s aliens’ policy during the First World War, although the legislation passed to ­control ‘enemy aliens’ generally evolved within Indian government departments rather than following any direct orders from the imperial capital. As in the rest of the Empire, internment in India formed one of a series of policies to control enemy aliens despite the tiny numbers of ‘enemy aliens’ who lived in the country when the war broke out. At the same time, India did not simply incarcerate ‘enemy aliens’ who lived within its borders but also acted as one of the consolidation centres which housed ‘enemy aliens’ brought there from other parts of the world. India’s role in the global internment system needs contextualization against the background of its part in the Great War more generally, as the country made a major contribution to the defeat of the Central Powers. Most significantly, it sent 943,344 people (552,311 combatants and 391,033 non-combatants) to a series of fronts throughout the world.2 As Judith Brown has pointed out: ‘The Indian Empire successfully met the challenge of war. It defended itself and sent massive supplies overseas to meet the physical demands made on it by the metropolitan country’. Despite the nervousness which led to the Montagu Declaration of 1917 and its promise of elements of home rule, ‘the colonial relationship appeared to

1 Clive Dewey, Anglo-Indian Attitudes: The Mind of the Indian Civil Service (London, 1993), pp.  1–16; B.  B.  Misra, The Bureaucracy in India: An Historical Analysis of Development up to 1947 (Delhi, 1977), pp. 91–210. 2  Government of India, India’s Contribution to the Great War (Calcutta, 1923), pp. 96–7. Enemies in the Empire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War. Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi, Oxford University Press (2020). © Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198850151.001.0001

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206  Enemies in the Empire hold firm’,3 although the sacrifices made by Indian soldiers worked on the assumption that greater political autonomy would follow.4 Indians played a var­ iety of roles during the war effort, especially as labour suppliers, not simply on the western front, but also in other parts of the world.5

Anglo-Indian Opinion and the Germans Policy against Germans in India received support from a hostile Anglo-Indian opinion which had hardly noticed the existence of Germans before 1914.6 The evolution of this hostile opinion provides a perfect indication of the breakdown of concepts of racial hierarchy because, while these continued to exist, national belonging became just as important as race. An article in the Madras Mail from 17 July 1915 claimed that for ‘many days past we have been receiving letters from our readers’ regarding ‘the subject of alien enemies still at large in India’, which indicated that ‘the public is deeply stirred by this matter’. The article tackled the views of British missionaries who had expressed concern about the treatment of their German brethren, ‘but we ventured to say that some of our correspondents are disquieting themselves unnecessarily. The piety of this or that German Missionary are irrelevant. We have to deal with German Missionaries as Germans, and not as Missionaries’.7 Even newspapers with an overtly Christian background turned against the Germans in India to the extent of constructing them as a racial group. Thus the Christian Patriot of 11 September 1915 described the Germans as African in origin. ‘They came to Europe as a people of barbaric conquerors and destroyed a higher civilization’.8 Another indication of emerging cleavages along national lines consists of the Germanophobia preached by the European Association. This body had come into existence in the early 1880s in order ‘to watch over and protect the interests of Europeans in India and others associated with them by community of sympathies and interests’.9 By the outbreak of war in 1914 it counted eleven branches and 3  Judith Brown, ‘War and the Colonial Relationship: Britain, India, and the War of 1914–1918’, in M. R. D. Foot, ed., War and Society (London, 1973), p. 106. 4  Santanu Das, ‘Imperialism, Nationalism and the First World War in India’, in Michael S. Nieberg and Judith D. Keene, eds, Finding Common Ground: New Directions in the First World War (Leiden, 2011), pp. 67–85; Lionel Knight, Britain in India, 1858–1947 (London, 2012), pp. 89–109. The volume by Heike Liebau, Katrin Bromber, Katharina Lange, Dyala Hamzah, and Ravi Ahuja, eds, The World in World Wars: Experiences, Perceptions and Perspectives from Africa and Asia (Leiden, 2010) contains several essays on Indian soldiers. 5  See, for example, Radhika Singha, ‘Finding Labour from India for the War in Iraq: The Jail Porter and Labor Corps, 1916–1920’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 49 (2007), pp. 412–45. 6  Panikos Panayi, The Germans in India: Elite European Migrants in the British Empire (Manchester, 2017), pp. 167–79. 7  Madras Mail, 17 July 1915. 8  Reported in Evangelisches Missions Magazin, December 1915, pp. 543–4. 9  European Association, Thirty-First Annual Report (Calcutta, 1915), p. 7.

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India  207 2,931 members, which increased to 3,308 shortly afterwards. If it ever had any German or other non-British European supporters before 1914, these quickly disappeared. The sixty-two council members listed in its 1915 annual report have obviously British names with the exception of E. A. Wernicke of the Darjeeling branch.10 Its main concern following the outbreak of war consisted of ‘the question of the abuse of privileges accorded to Germans residing in Calcutta and the leniency with which they were being treated by the Government, also the danger of such persons being at large’.11 The group sent letters to the Government of India complaining about what it viewed as the leniency of the authorities towards Germans, whether in terms of failure to implement wholesale internment or the fact that some German businesses remained open despite the passage of enemy trading legislation. The European Association also focused upon missionaries, repeating the assertions put forward in the Madras Mail article.12 A long letter dated 12 June 1915 to ‘The Secretary to Government of India, Home Department’ stressed the potential of Germans as spies and saboteurs if they remained at lib­ erty.13 The organization also focused upon individuals which it viewed as threatening or in any sense disloyal, including ‘Herr Büchner as His Excellency the Viceroy’s Bandmaster’ whose ‘continued employment . . . has aroused’ the ‘indignation’ of ‘His Majesty’s Loyal Subjects in India’,14 an issue which reached the House of Commons.15 Individuals also preached the type of Germanophobia put forward by both the press and the European Association. Colonel Harry Ross of the Indian Army complained about the reluctance of the government to introduce internment despite the fact, for example, that ‘German missionaries of the Basel Mission had in several cases shown themselves anti-British if not in some cases preaching sedition’.16 German missionaries also reported on the hostility they faced in India.17 Only religious organizations offered any resistance to these views. The recently formed National Christian Council gathered funding and defended German ­missionaries against accusations of treachery and anti-British and pro-German sentiments,18 while the South India District Committee of the London Missionary Society19 and the Standing Committee of the Conference of British Missionary

10  Ibid., pp. 2–3, 8. 11  Ibid., p. 12. 12  European Association, Thirty-Second Annual Report (Calcutta, 1916), pp. 35–47. 13  European Association Gazette, August 1915. 14  BL/IOR/L/MIL/7/12399, the Secretary, The European Association to the Secretary of State for India, 20 March 1916. 15  Hansard, Commons, fifth series: LXXIII, 9–10, 5 July 1915; LXXXII, 449, 9 May 1916. 16  BL/IOR/Mss Eur B235/3, Memoirs of Colonel Harry Ross, Indian Army, 1914–19. 17 J.  Maue, In Feindes Land: Achtzehn Monate in englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft in Indien und England (Stuttgart, 1918), pp. 6–8. 18 K. Baago, A History of the National Christian Council of India, 1914–1964 (Nagpur, 1965), p. 24. 19  BMA/C/5/5/3a, To the German Missionaries of South India, 31 August 1914.

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208  Enemies in the Empire Societies also offered moral support.20 The Madras Representative Council of Missions tried to persuade the government to modify its internment policy, although it ultimately accepted it.21 These type of expressions of brotherly love without open criticisms of the actions of the Government of India found reflection in the pages of the religious publication Harvest Field.22

The Legal and Economic Exclusion of Germans Anglo-Indian opinion reflected the actions of the Government of India. The first manifestation of persecution in India consisted of the labelling and legal exclusion of ‘enemy aliens’ as a result of the introduction of a series of measures. From 8 August, Germans had to register with the police and also came under surveillance.23 Meanwhile, on 12 August, ‘the exemption enjoyed by Germans and Austrians under the Arms Act was cancelled and their disarmament was ordered’,24 meaning that they had to surrender any items held under licence.25 From 20 August the Foreigners Ordinance allowed the Governor-General to control, ‘prohibit, or regulate and restrict in such manner as he thinks fit, the entry of foreigners into British India and their departure from British India’ and also ‘regu­late and restrict in such manner as he thinks fit the liberty of foreigners residing in British India’.26 On 22 August these powers were delegated to the ­military authorities with reference to Germans and Austrians of military age, which provided the legislative basis for the introduction of internment.27 The Ordinance also controlled the routes and ports which foreigners could use to enter or leave India,28 which, by the end of August, consisted of Calcutta, Madras, and Rangoon.29 The Ingress into India Ordinance 1914, which followed on 5 September, could prohibit the entry of foreigners,30 so that adult males ‘should be 20  BMA/C/5/5/3a, Conference of Missionary Societies in Great Britain and Ireland, letter of 27 August 1914. 21  AFST/LMW/II.31.8.62, Madras Representative Council of Missions to the German Missionaries in India, 25 December 1914; AFST/LMW/II.31.8.62, Madras Representative Council of Missions to the German Missionaries in India, 25 December 1914; BMA/C/3/14, Madras Representative Council of Missions to the German Missionaries in South India, 8 September 1915; Harvest Field, 1915, p. 28. 22  See, for example: ‘The Treatment of Our Enemies’, Harvest Field, May 1915, pp. 169–70; Bernard Lucas, ‘The Position of the German Missionaries’, Harvest Field, August 1915, pp. 293–8. 23  IOR/L/PJ/6/1399/3517, Communiqué, 13 August 1915. 24 Ibid. 25  NAI/Foreign and Political/Secret War/September1914/16-25-W, Cancellation of all licenses held by Germans and Austrians under the Arms Act Rules. 26  NA/FO383/36, Legislative Department, Notification, Simla, 20 August 1914, An Ordinance to provide for the exercise of more effective control over foreigners in British India, Ordnance No. III of 1914. 27  IOR/L/PJ/6/1399/3517, Communiqué, 13 August 1915. 28  NA/FO383/36, Legislative Department, Ordnance No. III, Simla, 20 August 1914. 29  BMA/C/5/5/3a, Notice No. 6583 of 1914, 28 August 1914. 30  NA/FO383/36, Government of India, Legislative Department. Notification. Simla, 5 September 1914, An ordinance to provide for the control of persons entering British India, whether by sea or land, in order to protect the State from danger of anything prejudicial to its safety, interests or ­tranquillity, Ordinance No. V. of 1914.

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India  209 taken off the vessels and detained and dealt with in the same manner as other Germans and Austrians already in India’.31 In September 1915 the Government of  India decided that British women married to Germans would retain their ­foreigner status while unnaturalized German women married to Britons would remain foreigners.32 Those who felt the consequences of the legislation included Else Gaebler, married to the Leipzig missionary, Gustav Gaebler, who lived in Madras at the beginning of August 1914. ‘Everywhere, amongst browns and whites, great excitement ruled’ and Germans soon attracted the label of enemies. ‘Until now we had never had anything to do with the police, but now policemen were our daily guests’.33 On 5 August news reached the Gossner missionaries about the British declaration of war on Germany, which made them enemies overnight. Although they initially continued with their work, the introduction of the Foreigners Ordinance meant that they had to register with the police. Indian policemen also watched them, which some resented, largely because the Indians carried their jobs out thoroughly. This meant looking through windows and examinations of papers, ­pointing to the breakdown of racial hierarchies and the feeling that natives had got the upper hand.34 Although missionaries tended to maintain their freedom longer than other Germans,35 liberty remained limited as restrictions came into op­er­ation which necessitated a licence for travel.36 Those missionaries not facing internment remained under parole, which meant that they signed an agreement ‘not to undertake anything against the English government and not to influence the natives’.37 As well as dealing with individuals, the Government of India introduced ­measures to tackle the presence of German organizations in the country, encompassing both businesses and missionary bodies, supported, in the case of the ­former, by groups such as the European Association (whose members would have

31  NAI/LegislativeB/Legislative/September1914/305, Copy of a Telegram from the Secretary to the Government of India, Marine Department to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Madras, 24 September 1914. 32 NAI/Home/PoliticalA/September1915/440–445, Enquiry from the Government of Bombay whether a British born woman married to an alien enemy is a foreigner for the purposes of the Foreigners Act 1864 and the Foreigners Ordinance 1914 in the case of Mrs Geeta M. Drill, Letter from S. R. Hignell, 15 September 1915. 33  http://gaebler.info/ahnen/gaebler/else.htm#0, Else Gaebler, ‘Unsere Kriegserlebnisse’, Braunschweiger Volkskalender, 1918, accessed 4 December 2015. 34 Karl Foertsch, Unter Kriegs-Wettern: Kriegserlebnisse der Gossnerschen Missionare in Indien (Berlin, 1916), pp. 2–9; AA/R140765, Hans to Ewald [no surnames given], 16 October 1914. 35 NAI/Home/PoliticalA/September1914/244–57, Treatment of Germans and Austrians of ­combatant ages. 36  AFST/LMW/II.31.7.21, Ernst Brutzer, ‘Persönliche Erlebnisse in Indien 1914–1919’, p. 8; NAI/ Home/PoliticalA/September1914/244–57, Treatment of Germans and Austrians of combatant ages. 37  Otto Waack et al., Indische Kirche und Indien-Mission, Vol. 2, Die Geschichte der Jeypore-Kirche und der Breklumer Mission (1914–1939) (Erlangen, 1996), p. 22.

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210  Enemies in the Empire included British businessmen)38 and the Indian Tea Association.39 The Foreigners Ordinances and the Trading with the Enemy laws dealt with German firms in India. While the former focused primarily upon individuals, the latter tackled companies, although the two sets of measures interlinked and supported each other. The Foreigners Ordinance of 14 October 1914 stated that ‘foreigners residing or being in British India, shall be prohibited from carrying on trade or business or from dealing with any property’, while the Hostile Foreigners (Trading) Order of 14 November 1914 forbade foreigners from economic activity in British India except under licence, meaning that those companies refused permission would face liquidation while their assets would fall into the hands of the Custodian of Enemy Property in India, confirmed by subsequent legislation including the Enemy Trading (Winding Up) Order of July 1916.40 By the end of the war the Custodian of Enemy Property in India appears to have sold all German possessions except those which repatriated prisoners of war could carry with them.41 As the war progressed, increasing suspicion fell on missionary organizations, especially following the sinking of the Lusitania, leading to the decision to dismantle them.42 The Government of India, following the lead of London, focused especially upon the Basel Trading Company, which carried out industrial activity in both India and the Gold Coast, and eventually passed the 1920 Basel Mission Trading Act.43 The Government of India also took an increasingly hard line towards the non-commercial property of the German missions as the war progressed: on 1 June 1918 it became subject to the Trading with the Enemy Act,44 meaning its sale if this could happen ‘without impairing seriously the educational or other charitable work’.45 The solution to the issue of missionary property came 38  BA/R901/85518, Government of India, Department of Commerce and Industry to All Local Governments and Administrations, 30 August 1915. 39  NA/CO323/717, B. C. Allen, Chief Secretary to the Chief Commissioner of Assam to Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Commerce and Industry, 18 October 1915. 40  NAI/Commerce and Industry/Commerce and TradeA/December1914/43–49, Hostile Foreigners Trading in India; NAI/Commerce and Industry/Commerce and TradeA/August1916/67–69, The Enemy Trading (winding up) Order; BA/R901/85513, Memorandum on the Treatment accorded to Enemy Interests in British India, October 1915; NA/CO323/717, Memorandum No. 3, on Foreigners in India, December 1916; H.  Campbell, The Law of Trading with the Enemy in British India (Calcutta, 1916), pp. 401–22. 41 NAI/Home/WarB/April1920/21–22, Authorisation of the Custodian of Enemy Property to exempt from sale personal effects of repatriated Germans and Austrians up to the value of Rs100 in each case. 42  NAI/Home/PoliticalA/June1915/406–422, Letter from Secretary to the Government of India, Home Department, 15 June 1915, pp. 65–6; NA/CO/323/717, Memorandum on Foreign Missionaries in India, 8 December 1916; NA/CO323/681, Government of India, Home Department to Austen Chamberlain, 13 August 1915. 43  BL/IOR/L/AG/50/15, Statement of the Claim of the Basel Trading Company Against the United Kingdom Government, 1950; NA/CO/323/717, Extract from a letter from Mr. Adolf . . . Manager of the Brick Work Factory at Cadacel, 5 April 1916; Gustave Adolf Wanner, Die Basler Handels Gesellschaft A.G., 1859–1959 (Basel, 1959), pp. 377–9. 44  NA/CO323/778/71, From Viceroy, Home Department, 30 July 1918. 45  NA/CO323/778/71, J. H. Oldham to Under Secretary of State, India Office, 30 August 1918.

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India  211 at the end of the war when the Enemy Missions Act of 1921 transferred German religious property to the Missions Trust of Southern India and the Missions Trust of Northern India.46

The Internees The measures against individuals and business interests formed part of the process of marginalizing the Germans in India, in which internment and subsequent deportation played a key role. The Germans imprisoned in India during the war came from a variety of sources. The Indian camps played the role of hubs similar to Great Britain and Australia, with the areas they served stretching from the Persian Gulf to East Africa to Siam, even though the last of these did not even constitute part of the British Empire. With the Empire and the Royal Navy exercising their authority throughout the globe, at the beginning of 1915 seven men arrested in Basra and Bahrain faced transportation to the largest Indian camp in Ahmednagar.47 They included G.  Harling, seized in the office of his employer Robert Douckbans & Co. in Bahrain on 28 October 1914, who complained that this event had taken place in ‘an independent country’,48 an indication that British power ignored such details when it came to its global incarceration policies. Indian camps also housed Germans residing in both British and German ­col­onies in East Africa before the outbreak of the Great War who included plantation owners, traders, and missionaries. The majority initially experienced in­car­ cer­ ation in Nairobi but faced transportation to the major Indian camps of Ahmednagar and Belgaum from November 1914 once shipping became avail­ able.49 For example, ‘John Booth, born in the year 1863, owner of a plantation upon the isle of Mafia, German East Africa, was taken prisoner there by the British about the beginning of January 1915. He was taken to Nairobi, British East Africa, and from that place to Ahmednagar in British India’.50 In addition, German troops stationed and captured in East Africa also faced transportation to Ahmednagar, including Albert Achilles.51 Meanwhile, a Herr von Busse, living in

46  NA/CO323/868, Enemy Missions Act, 1921; Harvest Field, 1919, p. 259. 47  NA/FO383/46, A. W. Chitty to Secretary, Military, Department, India Office, 25 February. 48 NA/FO383/46, American Consulate, Bombay to Deputy Secretary to the Government of Bombay, Political Department, 12 May 1915. 49  Daniel Steinbach, ‘Power Majorities and Local Minorities: German and British Colonials in East Africa during the First World War’, in Panikos Panayi, ed., Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, 2014), pp. 263–80. 50  NA/FO383/144, American Consulate General London to Prisoners of War Office, 8 May 1916. 51 Albert Achilles, Erinnerungen aus meiner Kriegsgefangenschaft im Mixed-Transit-Camp Ahmednagar und Erholungslager Ramandrog in Indien während des ersten Weltkrieges 1914–1920 (Berlin, 1977), p. 7.

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212  Enemies in the Empire Lamu in the Sultanate of Zanzibar at the outbreak of war, became a prisoner of war on 6 August and then faced imprisonment in Lamu after the Battle of Tanga when British forces captured German soldiers. Busse was then transported upon a ship to Mombassa on 4 December and subsequently to Bombay on another ship together with eighty-nine Germans and Austrians. On 27 December a train took them to Ahmednagar. Although Busse returned to Germany during the course of the war,52 over 200 internees brought from East Africa still resided in Ahmednagar at the beginning of 1918, by which time they constantly complained about their incarceration and their desire to return to East Africa, where many had lived for decades.53 In February 1918 the SS Pinsamud and the SS Dinsamud transported 251 Germans and thirty-five Austrians from Siam for incarceration in India.54 This process proves particularly interesting because of the fact that Siam remained an independent state which did not constitute part of the British Empire, rather like Bahrain. While in both cases there exists an element of the two territories falling within the British sphere of influence and while, in the case of Bahrain, the British seem to have muscled in to arrest the local Germans, this did not happen in Siam. The Siamese government had already asked the British government to send its entire enemy alien population to Australia even before it declared war on Germany on 22 July 1917, leading to a decision to send the internees to India and the eventual establishment of the Sholapur camp for the women and children involved. Those arrested included not simply Germans resident in Siam on 22 July but also those seized upon German ships docked here. This middle-class group included merchants, engineers, and sailors. While the Siamese authorities may have initiated this process, the British government and the government of India acted instantly, suggesting that previous conversations about this process are not recorded in the surviving archival documents.55 As well as those transported to India for internment from the Middle and Far East, others faced capture when their ships docked in an Indian port. This pro­ ced­ure applied to males of military age; other Germans landing in India could not disembark.56 As early as 2 August the steamer Braunfels had to remain in Karachi, 52  BA/MA/RM3/5375, p. 169; Steinbach, ‘Power Majorities’, p. 282. 53  NAI/Foreign and Political/WarB/March1918/551, Request of Certain German Prisoners of War Captured in East Africa and Interned in Ahmednagar to Return Home, Refused; NA/FO38/436, Enclosures to para 28 of General dispatch No 45, dated 24 May 1918. 54  NAI/Foreign and Political/ExternalB/September1921/353–424, List of Prisoners of War Who Were Transferred from Siam to India. 55  Two sets of papers help to trace the entire process from July 1917 until the following spring, in the form of: BL/IOR/L/MIL/7/18580, Internment in India of Enemy (German, Austrian) Aliens Deported from Siam; and NAI/Home/PoliticalA/March1918/194–246, Establishment of the Civil Camp of Sholapur for the Accommodation of Enemy Aliens from Siam. 56 NAI/LegislativeB/Legislative/September1914/305, Treatment of Adult male Germans and Austrians entering British Indian ports in neutral vessels; NAI/LegislativeB/Legislative/March1915/136, Revised instructions regarding the treatment of adult male Germans and Austrians entering British Indian ports in neutral vessels

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India  213 according to one report. While the Indian camps do not appear to have held ­significant numbers of Germans taken off ships while sailing across the ocean, arrests of this nature did take place. The steamer Adjutant had to stop in Portuguese territorial waters off Mozambique in October 1914 with the Germans on board taken to Nairobi, from where they went to India.57 Most of those interned in Indian camps came from the German community in the country. Reservists tried to leave immediately after the declaration of war. They included twenty men who booked a passage home on the steamer Franz Ferdinand on 3 August 1914.58 L. Tesch experienced internment early in the Great War, having attempted to travel to Calcutta as a reservist with the intention of sailing either to the German colony in Kiao Chow or the Persian Gulf. He claimed that he became a ‘prisoner of war’ on 6 August in Sakchi, 285 kilometres west of Calcutta, and was taken to Ahmednagar in October.59 Other internees had already arrived at Ahmednagar even before Tesch.60 The internment of missionaries took place in a rather haphazard manner. Despite the regulations introduced against all Germans at the beginning of the war, most proselytizers ‘were at the first allowed a considerable amount of liberty and were permitted to continue their work’.61 However, arrest and incarceration took place from the early stages of the conflict in some instances. In October 1914 the Leipzig Mission employees Otto Handmann and Johannes Ruckdäschel had to travel to Fort St George in Madras for internment in Ahmednagar, where their wives also wanted to join them.62 Meanwhile, a small number of Gossner missionaries were arrested and incarcerated in Ahmednagar in the following month.63 Some intensification of internment appears to have taken place at the end of January 1915.64 Those affected included Georg Hammitzsch of the Leipzig Mission. ‘On 27 January I completely unexpectedly became a prisoner of war. At midnight I was taken from my house. The separation from my dear wife and both of my children was very hard. A slice of luck, indeed an act of providence, was the fact that Mrs Handmann, who we had taken into our house after the internment of her husband, comforted my wife’. Hammitzsch subsequently went to Fort St George, where he remained by himself in the fortress for two and a half days, but then proceeded 700 miles north to Ahmednagar.65

57 BA/MA/RM3/5375, Abschrift von einem im Februar 1915 von Leunant d. Res. v. Husse in Ahmednagar gegebenen Schriftstücke. 58 Ibid. 59  BA/R901/83007, letter from L. Tesch, 1 February 1915. 60  AA/R48283, Verhandelt zu Ahmednagar (Indien), 21 October 1914. 61  Harvest Field, 1915, p. 346. 62  AFST/LMW/II.31.11.23, ‘Das indische Missionsgebiet (Fortsetzung vom 8.12.14)’. 63 Foertsch, Unter Kriegs-Wettern, pp. 10–11. 64  Albrecht Oepke, Ahmednagar und Golconda: Ein Beitrag zur Erörterung der Missionsprobleme des Weltkrieges (Leipzig, 1918), p. 12. 65  AFST/LMW/II.31.11.10.I, letter from Georg Hammitzsch, 12 April 1915.

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214  Enemies in the Empire Albrecht Oepke pointed to the fact that the experiences of missionaries in the first few months of the war depended upon the organization for which they worked. During the first year of the conflict only the three aforementioned Leipzig missionaries (from a total of twenty-one) experienced incarceration. The Hermannsburg Mission lost twelve men at the end of November. At the beginning of December, the Breklum missionaries and their wives and children were taken about 250 kilometres south of their Jeypur station to a former convalescent home in Waltair. The sixteen males of military age faced transportation to Fort St George and then to Ahmednagar.66 Partly because of their larger numbers, the Basel employees became the most significant missionary internees by the beginning of 1915, following arrests during November and December. A total of 107 left their stations, with fifty-eight men, twenty women, and twenty-two children undergoing internment. Men went to Ahmednagar while the women and c­ hildren went to Bellary.67 Although hundreds of Germans, both missionaries and others, had experienced internment by the spring of 1915, the Government of India hoped that further arrests would not take place. Nevertheless, the sinking of the Lusitania led to an intensification of anti-German feeling amongst Anglo-Indian opinion with demands for increasing measures, which would include internment.68 On 23 May the Government of India further restricted the movement of ‘all foreigners’ in the country, which not only led to wholesale internment but also prevented in­di­vid­ uals from leaving their homes.69 On 13 August the Government of India ­confirmed the internment of all men of military age (seventeen to forty-five) in Ahmednagar, as well as the deportation of women and children and those beyond military age in a press communiqué.70 Internment therefore continued during the summer of 1915, as the experience of the Gossner missionaries in Ranchi reveals. On the morning of 30 June ‘police and native soldiers’ surrounded the mission building and informed those who had military obligations as reservists that ‘they must start for Ahmednagar by railway at 4 o’clock in the afternoon’. On 17 July the remaining missionaries and their families received information that they should vacate the station71 and by the beginning of August all had been interned. While those of

66 Waack, Indische Kirche, p. 23; Oepke, Ahmednagar und Golconda, pp. 13–14; E. Pohl, Schiff in Not: Die Breklumer Mission in Indien in und nach dem Kriege (Breklum, 1929), p. 11; Otty Jessen, Vertrieben (Breklum, 1917), pp. 17–35. 67 Oepke, Idem, pp. 14–15; BMA/C3/13, letter to His Excellency the Governor of Madras Presidency, 3 March 1915; Johann Jakob Jaus, Als Kriegsgefangener: Von Indien nach Deutschland (Stuttgart, 1916), p. 15. 68 AFST/LMW/II.31.7.21, Ernst Brutzer, ‘Persönliche Erlebnisse in Indien 1914–1919’; NA/ FO383/241, Supplement to the Allgemeine Misisons-Zeitschrift, April 1916, pp. 6–8. 69 Oepke, Ahmednagar und Golconda, pp. 32–3. 70  IOR/L/PJ/6/1399/3517, Communiqué, 13 August 1915. 71  NA/FO383/241, Supplement to the Allgemeine Misisons-Zeitschrift, April 1916, pp. 8–10.

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India  215 military age went to Ahmednagar, others, including women and children, ­proceeded to the Dinapur camp.72 It proves difficult to establish the total number of Germans interned in India because counting generally took place at a regional or even at a camp level. At the beginning of July 1915 ‘442 enemy alien missionaries, mostly German, are at lib­ erty, at their posts, on parole, on condition of good behaviour, and 70 are compulsorily residing in specified places, and only 115 are interned’.73 Three years later a telegram from the Viceroy stated that, since August 1914, 1,682 Germans and Austro-Hungarians ‘are confined as prisoners of war and 523 are subject to detention and other restrictions in selected areas. Number exempted from detention is approximately 80 men, 220 women and 36 children who were settled all over India. Of the 220 women 184 are wives. A large majority of men are well over military service’. The telegram also pointed to the 898 repatriated people.74 It seems likely that India held over 2,000 people, mostly in Ahmednagar.

The Internment Camps More accurate figures emerge when examining the individual camps, especially through the reports of the US and Swiss consulates. While the key internment camp consisted of Ahmednagar,75 a series of other places of incarceration also emerged. Some opened in the early months of the war as emergency short-lived places of incarceration, while Belgaum survived most of the conflict. Some emerged in the latter stages of the war, especially Sholapur for the purpose of holding women and children from Siam. Mirroring the imperial situation, several short-lived emergency camps opened in the early stages of the war in India, in this case to house specific groups of missionaries. Waltair, a former convalescent home, took in the Breklum missionaries and their wives and children at the beginning of December 1914, about seventy people in total, who worked about 250 kilometres north in Jeypur. The sixteen males of military age faced transportation to Fort St George and then Ahmednagar.76 Four men guarded the camp, which utilized a variety of accommodation including the main building and rented houses nearby. Despite the boredom of incarceration77 experienced in internment camps throughout the world, conditions in 72  NA/FO383/241, Supplement to the Allgemeine Misisons-Zeitschrift, April 1916, pp. 8–10; BA/ R67/1627, German Red Cross report on Dinapur, 29 January 1916; Foertsch, Unter Kriegs-Wettern, pp. 38–44. 73  Hansard, Lords, fifth series, XIX, 200, 1 July 1915. 74  BL/IOR/L/PJ/6/1539, File 2960, Telegram from Viceroy, 15 August 1918. 75  See Chapter 12. 76 Waack, Indische Kirche, Vol. 2, p. 23; Oepke, Ahmednagar und Golconda, pp. 13–14; Pohl, Schiff in Not, p. 11. 77 Jessen, Vertrieben, pp. 18–22.

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216  Enemies in the Empire this sanatorium remained healthy, while no examples of bad treatment appear to have emerged. There was racial resentment at the presence of ‘brown guards’ who positioned themselves ‘chewing, spitting and smoking on the Veranda’, but the sentries kept their distance and did not interfere in the lives of the missionaries.78 The internees made efforts to keep the lives of their children as normal as possible, receiving toys at Christmas from ‘Mrs Lazarus, a brown believer’79 while teaching both kindergarten and older-level children. The internees could also continue to ‘lead their own household’ and ‘keep their own people’.80 Although they could not visit the town of Waltair, they could travel to the nearby beach about 25 minutes away by horse and cart where they ‘sat in the soft, white sand and looked outwards’ towards the sea, while fishermen carried out their work nearby, returning in the evening to sit on their veranda.81 The Breklum missionaries appear to have left Waltair during the course of 1915 and would sail back to Europe on board the Golconda.82 While they keenly felt the departure from the Jeypur station in which they had worked for many years, as well as the separation from the men of ­military age, Waltair seems almost an idyllic example of internment, if such an adjective could apply to any form of confinement. The camp at Dinapur had a similar function to Waltair in the sense that it took in one particular set of missionaries, in this case those plying their trade for the Berlin-based Gossner organization in Ranchi in northern India.83 This group actually remained in their station until 17 July 1915 when they found out that they would have to leave. Males of military age went to Ahmednagar, while those who did not fit into this category, about ninety-nine people, travelled to Dinapur, although in reality most of the men actually went with their wives and families to the latter. The missionaries arrived in these barracks on 1 August. Some families lived in the quarters built for non-commissioned officers consisting of two rooms and a bathroom, although other families could not stay together because of a lack of space. The internees developed a routine which began at 5 a.m. because of the heat between July and October, with lights out at 9.30 p.m. The prisoners received a daily fixed ration of meat, potatoes, bread, tea, butter, and sugar, with three families sharing a cook. The internees could supplement their rations by purchasing eggs, vegetables, and other foodstuffs, for which they received a grant. They could walk along a 3-mile road, although the summer heat meant this could only happen early in the day. The heat became a major problem here, unlike most of the other Indian camps, which lay near the coast or at altitude. An outbreak of dengue fever infected virtually everyone in the camp, resulting in the death of one of the missionaries. On 2 October 1915 nine missionaries of military age were

78 Pohl, Schiff in Not, p. 12. 79 Jessen, Vertrieben, p. 23. 80 Pohl, Schiff in Not, p. 12. 81 Jessen, Vertrieben, pp. 27–32. 82  Ibid., pp. 36–119; Pohl, Schiff in Not, pp. 14–26. 83  Hans Lokies, Die Gossner-Kirche in Indien: Durch Wachstumskrisen zur Mündigkeit (Berlin, 1969).

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India  217 moved to Ahmednagar. While this caused trauma for their wives and children, it also signalled the end of the Dinapur camp because both those transferred to Ahmednagar and those who remained here travelled to Europe on the Golconda during November.84 Bellary opened in December 1914 to accommodate Basel missionaries employed in South West India.85 They included Johann Jakob Jaus who described the distress which separation caused for families: On 10 December 1914 the first group of ten women and ten children were taken away. They came from various mission stations and congregated at the railway . . . Two women were led away with their children from their husbands. At the departure little Manfred did not want to leave his father and cried with all his might: ‘Father, father please come with us, I do not want to leave you’. He had to be forcibly carried away. His brother Karl was completely desolate.

Four further groups of missionary families followed.86 Jaus himself left Calicut on 28 December 1914. ‘The dear old home, the church—to which I was entrusted 33 years previously and had preached so often—and the mission station, disappeared from our view’.87 Bellary lay 400 kilometres north of Calicut and utilized large barracks.88 The missionary families lived in buildings which had previously housed soldiers and their families with two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and furniture. They received a government allowance which enabled them to buy food from a shop. The treatment by the guards ‘was generally correct and good’. However, the climate was ‘very dry’ and, between March and early June, ‘frightfully hot’, reaching 43 Celsius. In fact, during the hottest time of the year the internees spent time in a sanatorium for soldiers and officers in Ramandroog (which also served as a place of recuperation for Ahmednagar internees) about 70 kilometres away and 1,000 metres above sea level, although the accommodation here proved less comfortable. The leisure activities in Bellary included walking and listening to  gramophone records.89 The adults kept up the spirits of the children by continuing with schooling and celebrating birthdays. When they returned from Ramandroog in August the captives fell victim to dengue fever which almost killed some of the women and children, although by this time the missionaries had received notice that they would sail home on the Golconda and left the camp 84  NA/FO383/241, Supplement to the Allgemeine Misisons-Zeitschrift, April 1916, pp. 8–10; BA/ R67/1627, German Red Cross report on Dinapur, 29 January 1916; Foertsch, Unter Kriegs-Wettern, pp. 44–64. 85  NA/FO383/75, Copy of a letter No. 1367, dated 22 September 1915, from the Chief Secretary to the Government of Madras, to the Secretary to the Government of India, Home Department. 86  Johann Jakob Jaus, Kriegsgefangene Missionskinder (Stuttgart, 1916), pp. 6–7. 87 Jaus, Als Kriegsgefangener, p. 15. 88 Jaus, Kriegsgefangene Missionskinder, pp. 8–9. 89 Jaus, Als Kriegsgefangener, pp. 18–24.

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218  Enemies in the Empire on 22 November.90 Jaus does not make clear how many Basel missionaries spent time in Bellary but it seems unlikely to have reached more than a hundred, therefore resembling Waltair and Dinapur in size. The departure of the missionaries did not mean that Bellary ceased to function. When Lucien Memminger, the American Consul in Madras, visited on 5 February 1916 he found eleven people still held here, six of them Germans and five Austro-Hungarians, consisting of a mixture of men, women, and children. Two of the men were ‘on leave from Ahmednagar camp to attend their wives’, amongst them Reverend Durr, although all awaited repatriation91 on the second sailing of the Golconda in April.92 The camp continued to operate, however, housing a new set of inhabitants in the form of 137 Turkish prisoners of war in March 1917.93 Together with Waltair, Dinapur, and Bellary, other small, short-lived camps also emerged, although not in the immediate panic of trying to find space. Yercawd (or Yercaud) began operating in September 1917 when it took in two batches of prisoners totalling 114 people. ‘Yercaud is well known in the Madras Presidency as a health resort. It lies at an altitude of about 4,500 feet . . . has a moderate climate, and is inhabited by a number of retired Europeans and a fairly large planting community’. The prisoners lived in furnished bungalows rented by the government from their owners. In December 1917 the guard consisted of ‘one European sergeant and 10 reserve police constables’ with roll call taken twice daily. The camp administration consisted of an ‘Assistant Collector and one clerk’ together with a camp superintendent. By the following summer the prisoners, ‘who are all on parole, enjoy full freedom of motion and can go for long and pleasant walks in the surroundings of the station’. They ‘unanimously expressed their appreciation of the kind and considerate treatment they receive’ when a Swiss Consular official visited in July and August 1918. Apart from the walks, the YMCA provided social activity which included a library and ‘cinema shows’. Both the quantity and quality of food remained good, with Indians assisting in its preparation. One fatality appears to have occurred in the case of ‘an elderly man, having already arrived from Siam in a bad state of health’, who died from heart failure.94 The other short-lived Indian camp, Sholapur, emerged for the specific purpose of housing women and children deported from Siam. The Government of India accepted them before securing accommodation and during the summer and 90 Jaus, Kriegsgefangene Missionskinder, pp. 8–16. 91  BA/R901/83082, American Consular report on Bellary, 5 February 1916. 92  ‘Die letzte Fahrt der Golconda’, Evangelische Lutherische Freikirche, 2 July 1916. 93  Emanuel Schoch, F. Thormeyer, and F. Blanchod, eds, Reports on British Prison Camps in India and Burma Visited by the International Red Cross Committee in February, March and April 1917 (London, 1917), p. 40. 94  NAI/Home/PoliticalA/December1917/370–83, Transfer of German Civilians to Civil Camp at Yercawd; NAI/Home/WarB/June1920/2, Swiss Consul Report on Yercaud, 31 July to 1 August 1918.

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India  219 autumn of 1917 contacted the regional administrations in India in an attempt to find somewhere for them to live, during which time it considered a variety of options including the camps at Yercawd and Belgaum, before finally settling on Sholapur.95 The 286 people which the Government of India agreed to take from Siam consisted of 195 men, forty-three women, twenty-one boys, and thirty-seven girls.96 The German community resembled that in India in the sense that it consisted of middle-class elites but few missionaries. Merchants and engineers predominated amongst the males with virtually no working-class occupations.97 One of the merchants, Eberhard Brande from Linden in Hanover, had moved to Bangkok in 1893 and now faced internment in Yercaud.98 The regional origins of the Germans deported from Siam varied, but some of them had been born in Bangkok. The national origins of the wives reveal great diversity including not simply women born in Germany and Siam but also others from a variety of cities in the Far East and beyond.99 Relatively little information has survived on Sholapur as the Swiss Consul only appears to have made two visits. The first occurred on 3 April 1918 when K. Ringger claimed that about one hundred people, mostly women and children, lived here, although this figure changed over the next eighteen months because of requests for family reunification. The accommodation consisted of newly constructed hospital buildings. ‘The ward-rooms have been subdivided by masonry walls into convenient compartments which are both airy and bright and in which the interned families appear quite comfortable’. In addition, isolation blocks also held families. Ringger described the ‘kitchen arrangements’ as ‘very good’ while the inmates ‘all agreed that the food was good, clean, and plenty’.100 In fact, the daily menu had already emerged in October 1917 consisting of a combination of European staples such as porridge or mutton cutlets, together with Anglo-Indian dishes including curry and rice.101 Shortly after the camp took in prisoners the only recreational activity consisted of ‘long walks in an area of about 12 square miles’. The children did not, however, have a proper play area.102 When Ringger visited the camp in August 1918, he reported that little had changed.103 95  NAI/Home/PoliticalA/March1918/194–246, Establishment of the Civil Camp of Sholapur for the Accommodation of Enemy Aliens from Siam. 96  BL/IOR/L/MIL/7/18580, His Britannic Majesty’s Chargé d’Affaires, Bangkok to Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign and Political Department, Simla, 20 September 1917. 97  See the list in BL/IOR/L/MIL/7/18580. 98  BL/IOR/L/MIL/7/18580, E. Brande to the Foreign Office, Berlin, 25 January 1918. 99  NAI/Home/WarB/March1920/234, Changes in the Civil Camp at Sholapur during the quarter ending 31 December 1919. 100  BA/R901/83084, Report on Sholapur Camp, 3 April 1918. 101  NAI/Home/PoliticalA/March1918/194–246, Menu, List B, 19 October 1917. 102  BA/R901/83084, Report on Sholapur Camp, 3 April 1918. 103  NAI/Home/WarB/June1920/2, Report on Ahmednagar, Ramandroog, Belgaum and Sholapur by the Consul for Switzerland at Bombay, 19 October 1918.

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220  Enemies in the Empire He concentrated, however, as he had done in his earlier report, on one of the two main complaints of the internees: the desire for reunification with husbands. The other grievance consisted of the fact that the prisoners ‘arrived practically destitute in camp as according to their statement all their money and other property was confiscated or sequestered by the Siamese government’,104 as confirmed by Eberhard Brande, who also pointed out that on ‘our arrival in Madras we were divided among three different camps’,105 in the form of Sholapur, Yercaud, and Ahmednagar. The 103 persons in Sholapur on 16 March 1918 included twelve adult males together with forty-one married women and fifty children.106 The separated wives therefore constantly complained about their desire for family reunification. On 4 March 1918 twelve women wrote a communication to the superintendent of the camp in which they ‘beg to petition to be interned together with our husbands’, pointing to the fact that they had already faced confinement in Bangkok from 22 July 1917 ‘in the building of the German Club and in some houses next to it’ and ‘were only allowed to visit our husbands twice a week’ for fifteen minutes, during which time one ‘lady has lost her child of three years old’.107 Other women wrote their own letters of complaint, including Mary Tauncich who had four children between three and eight years of age who ‘give me a lot of trouble and my husband would be a great help to me in tending the children, the youngest of which is suffering with a skin disease and requires a great deal of attention’.108 Similarly, Erna Link pointed to the fact that the Siamese government ‘allowed my husband to be interned together with me at the hospital in Bangkok for the whole period of our internment’ but that they were now sep­ar­ ated in India and she now had to look after two children of two and seven years of age even though ‘very weak’.109 At the same time, males from Siam interned in Ahmednagar wrote letters of complaint. Dr Otto Schaefer pointed out that his wife had broken down without him in Sholapur following their separation and the death of one of their children in Bangkok. His letter to the Swiss Consul on 10 August 1918 concluded: ‘For the sake of humanity, Sir, I implore you to help us and to save our family from perishing’.110 Despite the desperation of this letter, the Government of India civil servants, who appear to have had the ultimate say in the issue of prisoner transfer, maintained a stiff upper lip and did not grant this 104  BA/R901/83084, Report on Sholapur Camp, 3 April 1918. 105  BL/IOR/L/MIL/7/18580, E. Brande to the Foreign Office, Berlin, 25 January 1918. 106  NAI/Home/PoliceB/April1918/31, List of prisoners of war from Siam interned in the civil camp at Sholapur, 16 March 1918. 107 NAI/Home/Police/January1919/142–57, Letter from F.  Linders, P.  Hausing, A.  G.  Gaitte, G. Staingle, C. Britoni, L. Tehneider, M. Meyer, T. Kahler, M. Ichalper, M. Anderson, Otty GrovoeLohmame and H. Struve to Lieutenant-Colonel J. R. Hill, 4 March 1918. 108  NAI/Home/Police/January1919/142–57, Letter from Mary Tuancich to the Superintendent of the Civil Internment Camp, 1 March 1918. 109  NAI/Home/Police/January1919/142–57, Erna Link to Lieutenant-Colonel J. R. Hill, 4 March 1918. 110  NAI/Home/Police/January1919/142–57, letter from Prisoner of War No. 2244, B. Camp to the Consul-General for Switzerland, 10 August 1918.

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India  221 internee his wish for reunification with his wife.111 Others had more fortune. Schaefer pointed to the fact that ‘the Drs. Schneider & Van Wesel have proceeded to-day to Sholapur to join their families, and that Pastor Mensching has also received definite reply to proceed there as soon as his wife has arrived from Africa’.112 Similarly, Albert Luders obtained permission to move to Sholapur from Ahmednagar in April 1919 on a temporary basis because ‘Mrs Luders child, aged 2 years, was in a bad state of health from inflammation of the bowels, and . . . it was considered necessary that Mr. Luders should be near his child’.113 The fact that 150 people lived in Sholapur at the beginning of October 1919114 suggests that further transfers had taken place during the previous nineteen months. While men were mostly interned in Ahmednagar, women and children faced internment in a variety of other establishments. The most important of these, and the only other camp apart from Ahmednagar which lasted for the bulk of the war, consisted of Belgaum. It became operational during the summer of 1915115 and still held prisoners at the end of 1919.116 The administrative structure of the camp provides an indication of the way in which Indian institutions functioned as it came ‘under the jurisdiction of the Bombay government and the District Commissioner’ and ‘is under the direct charge of colonel Hilliard, a retired military officer’.117 It lay about 250 miles southeast of Bombay, 1,700 feet above sea level, meaning that this military station, which also acted as a sanatorium, had a climate suitable for Europeans.118 The internees held in Belgaum originated both in India and from further afield. Originally described as a ‘hostile aliens’ women’s camp’ in the autumn of 1915,119 it was known as a ‘family camp’ by 1917 as husbands joined wives and children.120 In the summer of 1915, twenty-five women and twenty-six children held in Belgaum came from British and German East Africa, Zanzibar, and French Somaliland. After an initial spell of incarceration in Nairobi they were taken to India and separated from their husbands who went to Ahmednagar. A group of 111  As the correspondence in NAI/Home/Police/January1919/142–57 indicates. 112 NAI/Home/Police/January1919/142–57, O.  Schaefer to Commandant of Prisoners of War Camp, Ahmednagar, 19 June 1918. 113  NAI/Home/WarB/February1920/232–233, Petition from Mrs  F.  Luders, interned in the civil camp at Sholapur, praying that she may be repatriated at the earliest opportunity with her husband who is interned in the Ahmednagar Camp. 114  BMA/C3/13, Consulate General for Switzerland, Bombay to General-Direktion, Norddeutsche Versicherungsgesellschaft, 2 October 1919. 115  BL/IOR/L/PJ/6/1452/3479, letter from internees at the Civil Camp, Belgaum, to His Excellency the Viceroy and Governor of India, 19 August 1915. 116  NAI/Home/WarB/February1920/53–55, Secretary to the Government of Bombay to Secretary to the Government of India, 22 December 1919. 117  NA/FO383/237, US Consular Report on the Civil Concentration Camp at Belgaum, 6 October 1915. 118  NA/FO383/237, US Consular Report on the Civil Concentration Camp at Belgaum, 6 October 1915; Schoch, Thormeyer, and Blanchod, Reports on British Prison Camps in India, p. 35. 119  BL/IOR/L/PJ/6/1398/3470, Telegram from Viceroy, 2 October 1915. 120  Schoch, Thormeyer, and Blanchod, Reports on British Prison Camps in India, p. 35.

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222  Enemies in the Empire women wrote a letter to the Viceroy in the summer of 1915 pleading to remain in the same country as their husbands ‘till the end of the War. Some of us have a number of children and not being strong could not stand upon such a long (and under present circumstances very difficult) journey. It would be most foreign to us to travel without our husbands, as we have never done so before’. As they had ‘lived for many years in the tropics . . . we naturally dread exposing our children and ourselves (most of whom are delicate) straight to the rigours of a German winter’.121 Most of the forty-three signatories of this petition sill lived in Belgaum in early March of the following year, with the exception of one woman who appears to have sailed home on the Golconda and Mrs Rinne, ‘an Australian by birth’ with ‘all her relatives in Australia’ who ‘was permitted to proceed to that country in October’ 1915.122 The second sailing of the Golconda included about a hundred women and children from Belgaum.123 By July 1916, 124 people lived in Belgaum made up of twenty-nine men, fifty-five women, and forty children, as some males had received permission to move here from Ahmednagar.124 By the end of 1916 the number of people held in Belgaum had increased to 194, made up of fifty-two men, sixty-three women, and eighty-two children, predominantly Germans but also including Austrians and Hungarians. The internees consisted of a mixture of Germans from East Africa together with the majority who had lived in India and a few from Burma.125 By 1917 the total had increased to 214126 and still stood at 250 in October 1919.127 Neutral visitors to Belgaum painted a positive picture of life within it. ‘As far as accommodation is concerned, the folk interned at Belgaum may be said to fare as well as in a good hotel’.128 The internees here lived in barrack buildings previously utilized by married non-commissioned officers. They were divided by partitions into apartments, which consisted of two or three rooms and a bathroom. However, some of the partitions ‘are only ten feet high, whereas the height of the walls of the barracks to the tie beam may be 20 feet or more’, meaning that ‘noise can be heard from one end of the barrack to the other, and that there is consequently little privacy to speak of ’.129 The internees could eat good-quality food

121  BL/IOR/L/PJ/6/1452/3479, letter from internees at the Civil Camp, Belgaum, to His Excellency the Viceroy and Governor of India, 19 August 1915. 122  NA/FO383/163, Government of India, Home Department (Political), to Sir T. W. Holderness, His Majesty’s Under Secretary of State for India, 3 March 1916. 123  Schoch, Thormeyer, and Blanchod, Reports on British Prison Camps in India, p. 35. 124  BA/R67/822, US Consular Report on the Civil Concentration Camp at Belgaum, 11 July 1916. 125  NAI/Home/PoliticalB/December1916/53, Revised List of Hostile Aliens interned in the Civil Camp in Belgaum, December 1916. 126  Schoch, Thormeyer, and Blanchod, Reports on British Prison Camps in India, p. 35. 127  BMA/C3/13, Consulate General for Switzerland, Bombay to General-Direktion, Norddeutsche Versicherungsgesellschaft, 2 October 1919. 128  Schoch, Thormeyer, and Blanchod, Reports on British Prison Camps in India, p. 36. 129  NA/FO383/469, Swiss Consular Report on Indian internment camps, 11 January 1918.

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India  223 either in the canteen or prepared by servants paid for by the government.130 Leisure opportunities included long walks in the surrounding countryside ‘whenever and wherever they like’ as the camp had no fence around it, although the internees had to return by 10 p.m. A roll call of men took place in the morning and in the evening. Both Lutheran and Roman Catholic internees had services provided for them. Music played a role in Belgaum, especially as some of the prisoners owned violins or hired pianos. They also played tennis, badminton, and card games.131 Despite the almost luxurious picture painted by some of those who visited Belgaum, most of the internees had to rely on government allowances by 1918.132 One of the biggest problems in the camp consisted of providing education for the children interned here for years. Although the Government of India transferred a ‘professional German schoolmaster’ from Ahmednagar, ‘it can, however, hardly be expected that the education of the children in Belgaum will be on a level with the education of those who have been able to attend regular schools in Germany’.133 Despite this, the provision of schooling indicates the extent to which life in Belgaum became almost a mirror of elite German diaspora communities outside Europe before 1914, evidenced even more clearly by at least three births and one death here.134

Internment Policy and Its Consequences in India Despite this picture of apparent normality and even luxury in the smaller Indian internment camps, those affected had experienced a forced migration which had removed them from their previous homes. These included mission stations where they may have worked for decades. Others faced even greater upheaval in the form of transportation from Siam or East Africa. In this sense they fell into the global web of internment spun by the British Empire. The Government of India passed its own laws to control enemy aliens and administered its own camps, devolving power to regional governments and to the individual camp com­mand­ ants. But the hand of London remained clear both in aliens’ legislation and internment policy. The measures passed to control German movement and to

130  Schoch, Thormeyer, and Blanchod, Reports on British Prison Camps in India, p. 37; BL/IOR/L/ PJ/6/1398/3470, Telegram from Viceroy, 2 October 1915; NA/FO383/237, US Consular Report on the Civil Concentration Camp at Belgaum, 6 October 1915. 131  Schoch, Thormeyer, and Blanchod, Reports on British Prison Camps in India, pp. 37–8. 132  NA/FO383/469, Swiss Consular Report on Indian internment camps, 11 January 1918. 133  NAI/Home/WarB/June1920/2, Report on Ahmednagar, Ramandroog, Belgaum, and Sholapur by the Consul for Switzerland at Bombay, 19 October 1918. 134  NAI/Home/War/B/February 1920/File 414, Report of the birth on the 27th January 1920 of a girl to Mrs Luders in the Belgaum civil camp; NAI/Home/War/B/March1920/File 81, Report of the birth of daughters to Mrs Mensching and Mrs Linde in Belgaum; NA/FO383/203, Foreign Office to US Ambassador, 18 October 1916.

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224  Enemies in the Empire confiscate property simply reflected laws implemented in other parts of the Empire. The Government of India differed from that in Britain in the sense that it had a legislative basis for confinement, but the decision on whom and when to intern followed the lead of London. India does, however, have some unusual, if not unique, aspects. Belgaum and other smaller camps held families. While some of the short-lived establishments in the Pacific may have kept wives close to their husbands, the confinement of families together, even leading to procreation in a few cases, appears unique. Indeed, the most significant complaint by those interned in India, as evidenced in both Belgaum and Sholapur, concerned the separation of wives and children from husbands. The overwhelmingly middle-class nature of those confined resembles those initially held in other locations in the Pacific, whether Hong Kong or Singapore, before transfer to Australia. The presence of servants in virtually all of the Indian camps meant that the middle-class lifestyle survived during captivity. The incarceration of males with their wives and children in these smaller Indian camps meant that they do not appear to have developed the barbed-wire disease characteristic of those men who lived for years in Knockaloe. The absence of barbed wire itself may have helped in this process. The freedom of internees to walk as far as they wished, as long as they returned, in the case of males, for evening roll call, undermines the whole concept of an internment camp and calls into question the need to intern people at all in the Indian environment thousands of miles away from any of the fronts, but points to the way in which India fell into the imperial internment web. However humane the experience of internment in these smaller Indian camps, some of the narratives quoted above point to the distress caused by the break-up of families, whether in the case of women in Belgaum, husbands desiring family reunification with their wives in Sholapur, or children separated from fathers working for the Basel Mission. The comfort the internees experienced in these smaller camps which, on the part of the Government of India, appeared to have the aim of maintaining the European lifestyle to which the Germans had become accustomed before 1914 and even may have had the wish to maintain racial su­per­ior­ity, evidenced by the presence of Indian servants, counted for nothing for those captives forcibly separated from their spouses and children. The maintenance of family, more than comfort, brought the greatest feeling of se­cur­ity for the ‘enemy aliens’ interned in these smaller India camps.

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PART III

L IF E IN T HE CA M P S

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10

Knockaloe The Importance of Knockaloe At the heart of the imperial internment system lay Knockaloe, by far the largest, longest-lasting, and most diverse camp in the Empire. It held more prisoners than any of the other British places of concentration throughout the world and more Germans, Austrians, Ottomans and Bulgarians passed through it than any other of the British imperial camps. Its size, diversity, and durability make it unique. Because of its size, it could not function as one unit but was divided into four subcamps, broken down further into compounds, making it, in demographic terms, the capital of the Isle of Man for much of the war because it counted more people than Douglas. While most of those who spent time here may have originated from the German community in Britain, it also housed Austro-Hungarians, Bulgarians and Ottomans of various nationalities, as well as others who believed that they lived in the camp because of mistaken national and passport identity. Knockaloe became the lynchpin of the global internment system, precisely because of the number of people who stayed here as well as their diversity. In the northern hemisphere it almost served the role of the camp in which to dump people when no other solution presented itself, in this sense resembling Holsworthy. The latter operated in the southern hemisphere while Knockaloe played the same role in the north, although people from all over the world could spend time here. It further took in thousands of people when the early British camps were dissolved during 1915. We should also stress the longevity of Knockaloe because it lasted for five years from the autumn of 1914 until the end of 1919. While few prisoners may have spent the entire duration of their captivity here, it allowed the development of perhaps the most sophisticated prison camp society anywhere in the world, operating on a sub-camp and compound level. Something resembling a civilization emerged in the confined space which held over 20,000 prisoners at its height.

The Establishment and Administration of Knockaloe The initial planning for Knockaloe did not envisage a place of incarceration on the scale that evolved. The main responsibility for its administration, as with the rest of the UK camps, lay with both the War Office and Home Office. Both of Enemies in the Empire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War. Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi, Oxford University Press (2020). © Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198850151.001.0001

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228  Enemies in the Empire these ministries played a role together with the Destitute Aliens Committee, established following the outbreak of war, and the Local Government Board, as well as the Isle of Man government.1 The Destitute Aliens Committee first suggested sending civilians to the Isle of Man after members of this organization went there in September 1914. This first trip led to the establishment of the Douglas camp.2 On 24 October a deputation visited the island to investigate whether it could support a second place of concentration. They made a tour of prospective sites and agreed to use a farm called Knockaloe Moor, near Peel ­harbour, which had previously acted as a base for 16,000 Territorials.3 Both the island and UK governments originally planned a camp for 5,000 but, following the decision to intern all male alien enemies of military age after the sinking of the Lusitania, the camp would expand to hold over 20,000 people. Knockaloe had a complex administrative structure. At the top lay the War  Office and the Home Office. The former exercised control through the Commander-in-Chief, Western Military Command, General Sir Henry Mckinnon, who held responsibility for the discipline of prisoners of war, the military staff, and guards. Knockaloe had a commandant while the four sub-camps which emerged each had their own sub-commandants. Four people held the position of commandant during the course of the war: first, Lieutenant Colonel John Maxwell Carpendale, who had served in the Indian Army from which he retired in 1909. Second, Lieutenant Colonel Francis William Panzera, who had a distinguished military career in southern Africa in the 1890s and 1900s and who took over in February 1916 but who died on 4 June following year. His deputy, Major Graham Taylor, took temporary charge, while Lieutenant Colonel Bertram Metcalfe-Smith became the permanent incumbent on 21 July 1917.4 While we might see the hand of empire in operation here, the role of the military becomes more obvious. Knockaloe commandants remain relatively invisible in the reporting of the history of camp by US and Swiss military inspectors and internees themselves, pointing to the fact that they ran a humane regime. The Home Office delegated its duties to the Destitute Aliens Committee, which, in turn, passed them on to the Manx government. The island authorities consequently directly controlled the maintenance of the camp buildings and their equipment, the lighting and water supply, the provision of food and clothing, and 1  Panikos Panayi, The Enemy in Our Midst: Germans in Britain During the First World War (Oxford, 1991), p. 107. 2  Ibid., pp. 107–9. 3  NA/HO45/10946/266042/22; B. E. Sargeaunt, The Isle of Man and the Great War (Douglas, 1922), pp. 65–6. 4 NA/HO45/10946/266042/120; NA/HO45/10947/266042/279; Sargeaunt, Idem, p. 60; NA/ WO32/5387. Graham Mark, Prisoners of War in British Hands during WW1: A Study of Their History, the Camps and Their Mails (Exeter, 2007), p. 121; Francis William Panzera (1851–1917), Colonel, Knockaloe Virtual Museum and Archive, http://www.knockaloe.org.uk/colonel-panzera, accessed 5 March 2019.

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Knockaloe  229 the management of the canteens. The Camp Quartermaster, the Works Officer, the Camp Engineer, and the Messing Superintendent carried out these duties with a ‘Blue Staff ’ of about 250 civilians.5 In addition, the prisoners themselves played a role in running their own affairs, which helped to relieve the boredom and the onset of barbed-wire disease through, for example, cooking their own food and establishing complex bureaucratic structures, helped by the amount of free time they had.6

The Scale of Knockaloe Because of its size Knockaloe could only function if broken down further. It operated as four separate camps simply designated by their numbers and subdivided into compounds. At its height in 1916 a total of twenty-three compounds existed, divided in the following way: camp I had seven; camp II had five; camp III had six; camp IV had five. Each compound could take up to a thousand internees.7 The camps and the compounds within them operated as autonomous units with both their own sub-commandants and deputies. One Swiss Embassy report pointed out that: ‘The four camps are entirely divided from one another and their inmates are not allowed to communicate with each other’. Even the compounds within each of the sub-camps remained ‘separated one from the other by barbed wire fences. The inmates of these compounds cannot communicate without special permits, which are usually given’. Each compound had its own kitchen and also developed its own recreational activities.8 Each camp also had a hospital which employed eight doctors together with forty German attendants in May 1916. In addition, there was ‘an Isolation Hospital for contagious diseases, situated at a distance from the camps’.9 The scale of Knockaloe struck both contemporary observers and subsequent commentators. Karl von Scheidt and Fritz Meyer, taken off ships in August 1914 and brought to Knockaloe in June 1916, accurately described the camp as a ‘prisoner town’. The island only had a population of 52,000 and its main city, Douglas, counted 21,000 people, which meant that the camp exceeded the size of the cap­ ital during much of 1916 and 1917.10 Margery West has calculated that the camp covered 22 acres, within which over 23,000 people lived at its height, and had 5  Sargeaunt, Idem, pp. 69–72, 78–9; NA/H045/11025/410118/1. 6  MNH/B115/43q, Camp IV, Knockaloe, I.  O.  M., ‘Final Report and Statistical Record on the Internal Administration of the Prisoners of War Camp No. IV. 1915–1919’. 7  NA/HO45/10947/266042, James Cantlie, Report upon the Conditions of the Internment Camps at Knockaloe, Isle of Man; Manchester Guardian, 19 July 1916. 8  NA/FO383/276, Swiss Embassy Report on Knockaloe, 30 May 1917. 9  NA/FO383/163, US Embassy Report on Knockaloe of 18 May 1916. 10  Karl von Scheidt and Fritz Meyer, Vier Jahre Leben und Leiden der Auslandsdeutschen in den Gefangenenlagern Englands (Hagen, 1919), pp. 70, 73.

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230  Enemies in the Empire 3 miles of internal roads.11 Graham Mark has pointed out that the camp used ‘50 million feet of timber, 1 million bricks and over 700 miles (Lands End to Shetland Isles) of barbed wire. The camp circumference totalled three miles’.12 Although initially intended for 5,000 men, a figure it had reached by the end of May 1915, the total shot up as a result of wholesale internment, reaching a peak of perhaps 24,000, including staff, and remaining at over 20,000 for much of 1915 and 1916. This figure would gradually decline from 1917.13 Knockaloe still held 15,974 of the total of 24,000 (20,500 German) civilian internees who remained in Britain at the signing of the armistice. The former figure only declined gradually during the course of 1919, actually increasing to 15,983 at the beginning of January 1919 but falling by 4,000 during the course of that month. By 1 March the total had declined to 8,472 and by 1 April to 1,493, although the camp did not finally empty until 1 October.14 The prisoners had divided fairly evenly between the different Knockaloe compounds. Thus in May 1917 camp I counted 5,913 internees; camp II, 4,279; camp III, 4,741; and camp IV, 5,481.15 Many prisoners simply passed through Knockaloe during the course of the war. Between 17 November 1914 and 31 December 1917 30,835 men entered the camp while 12,374 left it.16 The sojourners included Paul Cohen-Portheim, who moved to Knockaloe between a short spell at Stratford after the introduction of wholesale internment in May 1915, and a much longer period in Wakefield, where he spent the bulk of the war.17

The Prisoners Cohen-Portheim pointed to the diversity of the prisoners he met in Knockaloe, describing them as ‘a motley crowd’ and ‘quite cosmopolitan’.18 While the majority may have originated from the German community in Britain, a large minority ended up in Knockaloe from locations throughout the world, either taken off ships and trawlers, or brought there from West Africa, although some individuals interned there would not fit into any particular category.

11  Margery West, Island at War: The Remarkable Role Played by the Small Manx Nation in the Great War 1914–1918 (Laxey, 1986), p. 92. 12 Mark, Prisoners of War in British Hands, p. 121. 13  MNH/MS09310, Isle of Man Constabulary Archive, Box 5, Daily Return of Prisoners Interned; Pat Kelly, Hedge of Thorns: Knockaloe Camp, 1915–19 (Douglas, 1993), p. 5. 14 NA/HO45/10833/327753, Home Office Memorandum, 18 November 1918; MNH/MS09310, Isle of Man Constabulary Archive, Box 5, Daily Return of Prisoners Interned. 15  NA/FO383/276, Swiss Embassy Report on Knockaloe, 30 May 1917. 16  NA/HO45/10947/266042, James Cantlie, Report upon the Conditions of the Internment Camps at Knockaloe, Isle of Man. 17  Paul Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still: My Internment in England (London, 1931). 18  Ibid., p. 47.

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Knockaloe  231 A list of 200 Knockaloe internees repatriated to Holland in September 1917 provides an indication of the origins of those brought to the camp. The information collated in Table 10.1 suggests that only 57 per cent of the 200 internees had resided in Great Britain before the outbreak of war, while 16 per cent faced arrest at British ports. The next largest group, totalling twenty-six (13 per cent), came from West Africa (Cameroon, Gold Coast, Togo, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Dahomey). This exceeds the number of those captured at sea. The only other significant group originated in Gibraltar, transferred from the camp on the island at the beginning of 1915. The individuals from Las Palmas, Mexico, and Canada point to the randomness of the arrest and incarceration process. The list also breaks down the occupation and place of apprehension of those arrested in Great Britain, which points to the fact that residence in 1914 or 1915 played little role in the camp where internment occurred. Thus fifty-eight of those on the list came from London, mirroring the situation of the pre-war British German community, about half of whom lived in the capital.19 The pre-war ­occupations of those in Knockaloe reflect the situation of the Germans in Britain before 1914 ranging from manual occupations such as barbers, butchers, bakers (although many of these would have owned shops), and waiters to merchants,20 although many wealthier Germans became naturalized and therefore exempt from interment. A separate list of 323 prisoners removed from neutral ships and transported to camp IV points to the global nature of those interned at Knockaloe. They wrote to the German Foreign Office in August 1917 complaining precisely about the fact that the ‘English government’ had removed them from ships flying under a neutral flag. Many had undertaken fairly short-distance voyages such as Anton Kowalski taken off the Swedish Ednor in Portsmouth while on his way from Dieppe to Stockholm, or Willy Frewall, removed from the Portuguese San Miguel ‘in the vicinity of Lisbon harbour’ while travelling from Madeira to Lisbon. Others faced arrest during transatlantic journeys, including those taken from the Dutch Potsdam travelling from New York to Amsterdam on 23 August 1914 and landing in Liverpool, or those removed from the Dutch Elisabeth on its way in the opposite direction from Rotterdam to New York in Portsmouth as late as 22 June 1917. Others faced arrest undertaking journeys thousands of miles from Britain, including A. Tambour on his way from Japan to Copenhagen on the Danish Natal and brought to shore in Kirkwall on 11 March 1916. Similarly, a Herr Schumacher sailing from Batavia to Rotterdam on board the Dutch Rinjandi faced removal in Deal on 9 October 1915.21 19 Panikos Panayi, German Immigrants in Britain during the Nineteenth Century, 1815–1914 (Oxford, 1995), pp. 92–101. 20  Ibid., pp. 89–144. 21  BA/R901/83961, list attached to Gesuch der von neutralen Schiffen genommen Gefangenen des Lagers IV, Knockaloe/Isle of Man, 16 August 1917.

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232  Enemies in the Empire Many of those who ended up in Knockaloe arrived there via other camps as this establishment took in those incarcerated in some of the early short-term places of internment. Thus, following the decision for general internment after the sinking of the Lusitania, when Knockaloe started to expand significantly, the reason for the increase in numbers lay not simply in the fact that it took first time internees but also because, for example, the ships moored off Ryde, Southend, and Gosport ceased to operate.22 Similarly, Stobs civilian internees moved to Knockaloe in June 1916 when this camp changed from holding both civilians and military personnel to just soldiers.23 Long-term German residents of Great Britain who spent time in Knockaloe included a ‘leather specialist’ who on 24 June 1915 had ‘to report to the Police Station on Harrow Road, Paddington, at 10 in the morning in order to be interned’. After an afternoon here he spent the night in Stratford and travelled to Knockaloe the following day to live in camp II.24 George Kenner had moved to London in 1910 in order to study commercial art and entered into ‘a commercial art business partnership with a British colleague’. On the outbreak of war ‘he was vacationing in the Lake District’ and had to register as an enemy alien. He initially spent time in the temporary camp in Frith Hill before transfer to Alexandra Palace in September 1915 and to Knockaloe in the following June.25 As we have seen, some of those in England in the summer of 1914 were not long-term residents but, instead, simply passed through the camp, as the examples of Paul Cohen-Portheim and Frederick Lewis Dunbar-Kalckreuth indicate.26 While the majority of those in Knockaloe resided in England as long-term residents or visitors in the summer of 1914, a few personal narratives illustrate the global origins of many of the others. Those captured while crossing the Atlantic in the summer of 1914 included Fritz Meyer and Karl von Scheidt. One tried to get home to Germany via Italy and faced arrest in Gibraltar, while the other tried to sail to Holland and faced capture in the Channel. They met each other again on the Canada, moored off Ryde in the spring of 1915.27 They subsequently spent about a year in Alexandra Palace28 and were moved to Knockaloe in June 1916.29 Table 10.1 also points to the fact that significant numbers of prisoners ori­gin­ ated in Africa. They included the missionary Otto Schimming, arrested in Togo. After a long sea journey, he initially faced incarceration in Alexandra Palace before transfer to the Isle of Man, but then returned home to Germany via 22 Mark, Prisoners of War in British Hands, p. 122. 23 Stefan Manz, ‘Enemy Aliens in Scotland in a Global Context, 1914–1919: Germanophobia, Internment, Forgetting’, in Hannah Ewence and Tim Grady, eds, Minorities and the First World War (London, 2017), pp. 117–42. 24  BA/MA/MSG200/2277, ‘Schilderungen eines Lederfachmannes’. 25  MNH/MS11425, Christa Kenner Bedford, ‘My Father—George Kenner—Memories’. 26  See Chapter 7. 27  Scheidt and Meyer, Vier Jahre, p. 7. 28  Ibid., pp. 32–68. 29  Ibid., p. 68.

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Knockaloe  233 Table 10.1  Place of arrest of Knockaloe internees sent to Holland in September 1917 Place of arrest

Total number

Percentage

Great Britain British ports At sea Cameroon Gold Coast Togo Sierra Leone Nigeria Dahomey South Africa Gibraltar Las Palmas Ireland Mexico Canada Total

114 32 13 13 4 2 4 4 1 1 8 1 1 1 1 200

57 16 6.5 6.5 2 1 2 2 0.5 0.5 4 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 100

The Prisoners Source: NA/FO383/308, Holland List, Knockaloe, September 1917. Alexandra Palace and Stratford.30 Table 10.1 also points to the randomness of internment. Paul Rentz claimed American citizenship when facing trial for attempting to escape from Knockaloe in January 1916, justifying his attempt to leave the camp by claiming that the ‘British or American Authorities’ had taken too long to look into his citizenship claims.31 Pál Stofa, an Austro-Hungarian, ended up in Alexandra Palace and then Knockaloe camp III after initial capture in Russia as a prisoner of war sent to Siberia, from where he escaped and made his way through China to the Pacific Ocean where he managed to board a ship to the USA. Here he found employment as a stoker on a Swedish ship sailing to Europe and was captured when the ship docked in Stornoway.32

Life Behind the Wire The diverse group of males of military age who spent varying amounts of time in Knockaloe had to try to survive this experience away from their families in order to prevent the onset of barbed-wire disease. In fact, Adolf Lukas Vischer, who 30  Otto Schimming, 13 Monate hinter dem Stacheldraht: Alexandra Palace, Knockaloe, Isle of Man, Stratford (Stuttgart, 1919). 31  Isle of Man Examiner, 12 February 1916. 32  Pál Stoffa, Round the World to Freedom (London, 1933), pp. 1–182; http://www.knockaloe.org. uk/paul-stoffa, Pál (Paul) Stoffa, Major (1876–?), Knockaloe Virtual Museum and Archive, accessed 28 July 2016.

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234  Enemies in the Empire popularized this concept, based many of his findings on his visits to Knockaloe as a Swiss Embassy inspector.33 Cohen-Portheim regarded lack of privacy as one of the key determinants of the mood of the prisoners. This went together with a lack of space, which ‘was exactly six feet by four (a coffin is six feet by two)’.34 While Cohen-Portheim focused primarily upon Wakefield, this lack of space became part of everyday reality in Knockaloe where the prisoners lived in wooden huts ‘of the regular War Office pattern of 30 feet by 15 feet, each section holding thirty men. Six huts are placed together, and each hut is capable of accommodating 180 men. They are provided with trestle-tables and chairs for each group of men, and each man has a bed board, mattress and three blankets’.35 In these spaces the internees would ‘sleep, eat, work, play, chat and smoke’36 (Figure 10.1). One Swiss Embassy report pointed out that: ‘Perhaps no complaints have been so persistent on the part of the prisoners as those in regard to the conditions of the huts’.37 Discontent about accommodation surfaced early, focusing upon the

Figure 10.1  Aerial view of Knockaloe. 33 See, for instance, his reports on Knockaloe dated 30 May and 29 November 1917 in NA/ FO383/276 and NA/FO383/277, respectively. 34 Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still, p. 85. 35  Reports of Visits of Inspection Made by Officials of the United States Embassy to Various Internment Camps in the United Kingdom (London, 1916), p. 20. 36  Adolf Vielhauer, Das englische Konzentrationslager bei Peel (Insel Man) (Bad Nassau, 1917), p. 2. 37  NA/FO383/432, Swiss Embassy Report on Knockaloe and Douglas, 11 September 1918.

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Knockaloe  235 construction of the huts and the grounds, aggravated by the dampness of the ­climate and the strong winds for much of the year. Some of the problems emerged because of the rapidity with which Knockaloe emerged. US and Swiss Embassy reports regularly confirmed the poor conditions of the huts and their surroundings. ‘In Camps II, III & IV the hut walls are made of thin horizontal boards, creoceted but not tarred, each board overlapping the one below. Many of these walls were not weather-proof ’. Every hut had walls which ‘were black with damp or grey with mould’ and had ‘many spots at which the rain had blown in’. Furthermore, ‘luggage, boots, and clothing were entirely covered with mildew’ while bed covers ‘were in many instances damp’. A prisoner returning to Germany confirmed this picture, pointing out that the huts were ‘completely wet through so that bread becomes covered with mould in a day and all clothes become rotten. Therefore, one sits freezing by the insufficient oven during bad weather’. On a visit in December 1915, US Embassy inspectors pointed out that ‘almost the entire six acre area of every compound was covered with mud and rain water’. A Swiss Embassy report from May 1917 on camp I pointed out that ‘the dust and sand in the air is a feature of the camp. Some of the walls leak. The huts are overcrowded, not only on account of the number of men, but owing to the fact that luggage and washing are stored in them’. Furthermore, several reports commented on the insufficient nature of the latrines and the bathing facilities in Knockaloe.38 Food became another contentious issue, perhaps because meals formed the centre of the day for many prisoners.39 The ration changed during the course of the conflict because of the increasing scarcity of some foods, and proved im­port­ ant in prisoner psychology, representing a key symbolic way in which they lost control of their lives. The official ration dictated that prisoners should receive three meals a day, with the midday meal providing the most food and nourishment. During the first two years of the war the daily ration for prisoners in Britain included bread, meat, cheese, peas, beans or lentils, and rice.40 As the conflict progressed, these rations altered. At the start of 1916, bread decreased and cheese seems to have disappeared.41 By the end of 1918 bread declined and was supplemented by four ozs of broken biscuit, while meat included beef or horseflesh, Chinese bacon, and salt-cured, smoked, or pickled herrings.42 During 1919 horseflesh became the norm on five days per week, while ‘pork and beans’ also

38  NA/FO383/162, US Embassy Report on Knockaloe of 8 January 1916; NA/FO383/276, Swiss Embassy Report on Knockaloe of 30 May 1917; BA/R67/1437, ‘Einiges über Knockaloe’. 39  BL, Rudolf Rocker ‘Alexandra Park Internment Camp in the First World War’, p. 4. 40  NA/HO45/11025/410118, Report of the Directorate of Prisoners of War, September 1920. 41  NA/FO383/237, Army Council Instruction No. 103 of January, 1916, Amended Scale of Rations for Prisoners of War. 42  NA/FO383/499, Army Council Instruction No. 1203 of 1918, Prisoners of War, Amended Scale of Rations.

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236  Enemies in the Empire made an appearance.43 Menus from the compounds in camp I for the week ­ending 27 May 1916 provide slightly more detail. In compound 2, for example, dinner consisted of corned beef, potatoes, and suet pudding on Monday, clear soup, turnips, beef, and potatoes on Thursday, and clear soup, beef, potatoes, and dumplings on Saturday. Although this diet appears monotonous, as the prisoners ate beef every day during this week,44 it may have represented an improvement on the working-class English and German diet of the early twentieth century.45 Together with the official ration, many prisoners obtained food in the parcels they received, while each camp had its own canteen where internees could buy add­ ition­al supplies. In July 1916 a total of 29,590 parcels arrived in Knockaloe, 21,266 from Germany and over 800 from the USA. The largest parcels came from Austria. But the average packet from Germany did not provide more than a day’s provisions.46 The food items available in canteens consisted mostly of processed or dried food including dried fruits, cheese, pickles, and rice.47 Prisoners regularly complained about the quantity and quality of their food. In the summer of 1916 a survey of the Knockaloe diet pointed out that internees received an average of 2,535 calories per day. But they wanted more bread and the same standard and amount of food obtained in camps elsewhere in Britain.48 Two years later the internees complained to Gaston Carlin of the Swiss Embassy that ‘the food restrictions are becoming more and more stringent and must lead to starvation’.49 The type of food which the prisoners ate also caused concern. For instance, at the end of 1915 they complained that they did not receive haricot beans or rice even though they should have done so according to the menu, and instead were given cabbage or turnips.50 Despite these complaints, the prisoners consumed enough calories to keep them healthy, as the low death and disease rates would suggest. Nevertheless, the prisoners ‘were far more strictly limited in food than the general population, and felt acutely . . . the sudden change in conditions’. Despite its calorific value, the food ‘was monotonous and ill-balanced’.51 The lack of control over the food they consumed also irked the prisoners. 43  NA/HO45/11025/410118, Report of the Directorate of Prisoners of War, September 1920; NA/ FO383/543, Army Council Instruction No. 194 of 1919, Prisoners of War, Amended Scale of Rations. 44  MNH/MS0937/7, Catering Records of Knockaloe Alien Detention Camp, Menus. 45 See, for example, Alf Lüdtke, Eigen-Sinn: Fabrikalltag, Arbeitererfahrungen und Politik vom Kaiserreich bis in den Faschismus (Hamburg, 1993), pp. 194–209; Hans-Jürgen Teuteberg, ‘Food Provisioning on the German Home Front, 1914–1918’, in Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Rachel Duffett, and Alain Drouard, eds, Food and War in Twentieth Century Europe (Farnham, 2011), pp. 59–72; and Linda Bryder, ‘The First World War: Healthy or Hungry’, History Workshop, vol. 24 (1987), pp. 141–57. 46  NA/FO383/164, ‘Knockaloe Diet Survey’, 25 September 1916. 47 NA/FO383/276, Swiss Embassy Report on Knockaloe, 30 May 1917; NA/FO383/431, Swiss Embassy Visit to Black Park, 1 February 1918. 48  NA/FO383/164, ‘Knockaloe Diet Survey’, 25 September 1916. 49  NA/FO383/432, Swiss Embassy Report on Knockaloe, 21 May 1918. 50  NA/FO383/162, US Embassy Report on Knockaloe, 8 January 1916. 51  Anna Braithwaite Thomas, St Stephen’s House: Friends Emergency Work in England, 1914 to 1920 (London, 1920), p. 51.

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Knockaloe  237 This last point also applies to the post, the key contact with the outside world for most prisoners, which played a central role in the mood of camps. A diary kept by Karl Schönwalder in Knockaloe gradually came to focus almost entirely upon his correspondence, providing little other information.52 Despite the desire of many prisoners to continue with their external contacts as best they could, regulations controlled correspondence, based on the Hague Convention.53 Archibald Knox, a censor at Knockaloe, claimed that ‘from the day I started work Nov 9 1914 until I left Oct 25 1919: 1,207,000 parcels passed through my department’. The number which arrived daily increased from about 2,500 to around 5,000 at Whitsun and Christmas, which suggests that each prisoner received an average of one every fortnight. As well as the letters and parcels which internees obtained from friends and families, German charities sent them further provisions.54 Perhaps the most fundamental problem faced by the prisoners consisted of the absence of women. Rudolf Rocker emphasized the position of those men who had families for whom ‘sudden and long-continued segregation . . . must cause a corresponding reaction in their psychology’.55 Cohen-Portheim contrasted the position of internees with that of soldiers because ‘all armies recognized the need of making some sort of provision for the satisfaction of the sexual needs of the troops’.56 The Quaker J. T. Baily, who assisted Knockaloe internees, displayed concern about the ‘sexual perversities of an all-male society’.57 Vischer emphasized that ‘the prisoners are deprived of normal sexual intercourse, and they live solely in association with men’. He hinted at masturbation when he pointed out that the prisoners ‘initially try with all their might to keep the recollection of their women­folk alive, and by this means obtain some relief. This is in reality an effort towards a substitute for normal sexual intercourse’. He pointed to the presence of ‘suggestive pictures’. He also wrote that: ‘Homosexual practices are probably not as frequent as may be imagined. Mutual self-abuse would be more likely to be indulged in’. He claimed that ‘the image of woman is gradually suppressed into the subconsciousness’.58 Cohen-Portheim claimed that ‘sexual acts’ between two men were ‘extremely infrequent’ and that he ‘knew of none at all’, partly because ‘the camp offered no possibility of isolation’.59 52  MNH/MS12038, Diary of Karl Robert Schonwalder. 53 Mark, Prisoners of War in British Hands, pp. 13–19. 54 Mark, Idem, pp. 24, 28; MNH/MS09954, Letter from Archibald Knox to Mrs Holding, 17 November 1919; Charles Field, Internment Mail on the Isle of Man (Sutton Coldfield, 1989), p. 4; Hilfe für kriegsgefangene Deutsche, Landesausschuss für Anhalt, Arbeitsbericht 1914 bis 31. März 1917 (Dessau, 1917), p. 6; BA/R67/774, Ausschuss für deutsche Kriegsgefangene in England, Richtlinien für die Versorgung der deutschen Kriegs- und Ziviligefangenen in England mit Einheitspaketen, Mai 1917. 55  BL, Rudolf Rocker ‘Alexandra Park Internment Camp in the First World War’, p. 52. 56 Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still, p. 126. 57  Leslie Baily, Craftsman and Quaker: The Story of James T. Baily, 1876–1957 (London, 1959), p. 93. 58 A. L. Vischer, Barbed Wire Disease: A Psychological Study of the Prisoner of War (London, 1919), pp. 42–3. 59 Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still, p. 128.

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238  Enemies in the Empire Although Knockaloe appears a camp without women, a few internees c­ on­tinued to see their wives, as a small number moved to the Isle of Man for varying time periods in order to live near their husbands. Wives had to go through a complicated procedure to receive a permit to visit. Once on the island, they had to register with the Douglas police station and obtain permission to travel more than 5 miles. They ‘could only remain on the Island seven days and three visits during that time was the limit; there could be no further permit for three months. In certain approved cases British born and non-enemy born wives were permitted to reside on the island and to visit fortnightly’.60 During 1917 and 1918 between thirty and forty women with interned husbands lived in Douglas.61 If women broke any of these regulations, they faced a fine, as in the case of ‘two aliens—well to do ladies, who were on a visit to their husbands who are interned at Knockaloe’. They failed to register and travelled more than 5 miles without a permit. On another occasion two visiting women, together with their landlord, faced charges of falsely filling in the forms for permits.62 It seems difficult to come to conclusions about the way in which long-term internees dealt with the absence of women. Cohen-Portheim and Vischer suggest that sex became suppressed, while few stories of any sexual activity survive either in the press or in official papers. Such stories might suggest that sexual acts, whether homosexual or heterosexual, occurred more widely, but the evidence remains too limited to come to any conclusions. The importance of contact with wives and girlfriends seems more evident, whether this consisted of the receipt of a letter or a visit. Both events caused great excitement and the failure to maintain contact could cause great anxiety on the part of prisoners. As in all societies, crime formed part of camp life. Vischer claimed that in Knockaloe ‘on an average one prisoner is sent to trial each week for an offence against common law, such as stealing government property or robbing a fellow prisoner’, although the reporting of crimes in Knockaloe by the Isle of Man news­ papers suggests that this represents a significant exaggeration. It seems unlikely that illegal acts exceeded what happened in society as a whole. Vischer partly blamed lawbreaking in Knockaloe on ‘a certain number of criminals and, in fact, all disreputable elements from other civilian camps find their way to Knockaloe’. He claimed that they numbered over 1,000 and that ‘these bad characters must have a most deteriorative influence on their fellow prisoners’.63 Both non-violent and violent crimes occurred in Knockaloe. The former include perhaps the most common misdemeanour of all, for which prisoners faced punishment, in the form of escaping. A total of ninety-eight men faced trial 60  MNH/MS10417/4, Papers of J. T. Baily, Scrapbook No. 8, p. 593. 61  See the lists of ‘Alien Enemies Residing on the Isle of Man’ in MNH/MS09845. 62  Mona’s Herald, 12 May, 22 September 1915. 63  NA/FO383/311, Letter from A. L. Vischer to R. Vansittart, 4 December 1917; NA/FO383/277, Swiss Embassy report on Knockaloe, 29 November 1917.

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Knockaloe  239 by military court for attempting to abscond from Knockaloe and the Isle of Man during the war. None succeeded.64 More than anything else, the frustration caused by internment led to escape attempts. In January 1916 four Germans who fled Knockaloe made it as far as nearby Peel harbour, where they tried to hide in a boat and initially evaded a search party but, when they tried to move from one boat to another, passers-by spotted them and they faced arrest.65 Heinrich Voegler ‘drew a knife and threatened to kill’ the police officer who attempted to arrest him. The latter then called for the help of a nearby farmer and labourers. ‘Several of the men were armed with guns, but being loth to shoot Voegler, who still maintained a defiant attitude, they contented themselves with surrounding him pending the arrival of the military, who had been sent for. Two soldiers eventually came to the scene, and Voegler then immediately submitted’.66 Although not a crime in itself, Vischer displayed much concern about gambling in Knockaloe. He accused the criminal elements here of ‘starting gambling dens . . . where “card sharping” and similar practices are not uncommon’. Some of those who received external funds ‘cannot resist the temptation of passing their time by gambling’.67 Forgery also occurred in Knockaloe. For instance, in February 1917 Frank Moss interned at Douglas and Walter Jack in Knockaloe faced conviction for ‘feloniously altering and forging an order payment of money dated 28th October 1915, and drawn on Lloyds Bank, Ltd, Horfield, for the sum of £18 15s. with intent thereby to defraud’.68 Theft certainly occurred. Five prisoners faced a charge of ‘breaking and entering a warehouse . . . and stealing goods to the value of £66’, while August Dittmer stole tobacco from a ‘lock-up shop’.69 Other internees robbed their fellow inmates. For instance, Paul Oswald received a sentence of six months’ hard labour for ‘stealing letters and money with which he was entrusted as a postman to deliver to fellow prisoners’.70 Violent crime and murder remain rare. In December 1915 Kurt Bruder went to jail for two months with hard labour for stabbing Henry Stocker in the head during an argument. This appears the culmination of a series of quarrels from Stocker’s arrival on 21 October 1914.71 In the autumn of 1916 Wilhelm Pinhammer stood trial for attacking Edward Lehndorf following an argument over who should sweep a room, with Pinhammer striking Lehndorf on the head with a brush, resulting in instant death. At the trial the jury unanimously agreed on manslaughter.72 In the autumn of 1916 Georg Coller stood trial for ‘making a speech, which 64 Baily, Craftsman, p. 102. 65  Peel City Guardian and Chronicle, 22 January 1916; Isle of Man Weekly Times, 22 January 1916. 66  Morning Post, 2 September 1915. 67  NA/FO383/311, Letter from A. L. Vischer to R. Vansittart, 4 December 1917; NA/FO383/277, Swiss Embassy report on Knockaloe, 29 November 1917. 68  Peel City Guardian and Chronicle, 3 February 1917. 69  Mona’s Herald, 29 December 1915, 1 August 1917. 70  Isle of Man Weekly Times, 27 November 1915. 71  Ibid., 4 December 1915. 72  Ibid., 23 September; Peel City Guardian and Chronicle, 30 September 1916.

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240  Enemies in the Empire incited the crowd so that a state of mutiny existed, with the result that three hut captains were assaulted in Knockaloe’. Those involved in the dis­order faced prosecution. The incidents occurred in compound 3 of camp III and, again, violence broke out because of simmering resentments, on this occasion over internal administration.73 Such incidents appear to confirm Cohen-Portheim’s analysis of the ‘desperate quarrels’ which broke out amongst prisoners over petty issues.74 They may form the tip of an iceberg and came to court because of their seriousness. Nevertheless, the death of Lehndorf appears the only ex­ample of the killing of a prisoner, which seems a low murder rate considering the tens of thousands of men forced together in Knockaloe. Despite Vischer’s claim that ‘very few prisoners who have been over six months in the camp are quite free from’ barbed-wire disease,75 statistics point to a generally sound mental and physical condition amongst the Knockaloe prisoners when compared with the population as a whole. An official report on Knockaloe from October 1916 claimed an insanity rate of 1.6 per thousand, which ‘is markedly less than the pauper lunacy incidence in the general population in 1914—for males of the same ages’, although the report mentioned ‘milder forms of mental derangement’, whose incidence the investigators could not establish.76 Another possible way of measuring insanity consists of suicide attempts, which certainly occurred in Knockaloe, although the suicide rate here did not exceed that outside.77 No more than five prisoners appear to have killed themselves.78 They included Johannes Juchstock who hung himself in January 1917 after capture on a Danish steamer in Kirkwall in November 1916.79 Wolfgang Dorfer, arrested in the Cameroons in December 1914 but not arriving in Knockaloe until July 1916, cut his wrists and throat.80 Most prisoners who died in Knockaloe did so as a result of physical rather than mental ailments, although numbers remain relatively low. When James Cantlie of the British Red Cross Society visited the camp in 1918 he pointed out that the death rate averaged out at about 2.5 per thousand, whereas that for the Isle of Man stood at 15.7.81 Internees died from a variety of natural causes. Those who perished as a result of heart failure included Ludwig Lembke, Leonard Fuchs, and Anton Roesch.82 Albert Peter died in the hospital in camp IV at Knockaloe. After

73  Peel City Guardian and Chronicle, 28 October 1916; Mona’s Herald, 25 October 1916; NA/ HO45/10947/266042, letter from Lt. Col. Panzera to Government Secretary, 6 October 1916. 74 Cohen-Portheim, Time Stood Still, p. 89. 75 Vischer, Barbed Wire Disease, p. 53. 76 NA/HO45/10946/266042/199. 77  Christian Goeschel, Suicide in Nazi Germany (Oxford, 2009), pp. 207–9. 78  See the three listed by Paul Francis, Isle of Man Twentieth Century Military Archaeology, Part 1, Island Defence (Douglas, 1986), pp. 169–72. 79  Mona’s Herald, 10 January 1917; Isle of Man Weekly Times, 6 January 1917; Isle of Man Examiner, 6 January 1917. 80  Isle of Man Weekly Times, 3 February 1917. 81 NA/HO45/10947/266042/307. 82  Isle of Man Examiner, 4 September, 13 November 1915, 1 January 1916.

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Knockaloe  241 entering it initially suffering from ‘gastritis’, doctors discovered he had a ‘malignant growth on his liver’, which caused his death.83 Those who fell victim to tuberculosis in Knockaloe included Peter Kusper and Henri Hoffmann.84

Prison Camp Societies While many Knockaloe prisoners may have suffered from barbed-wire disease, they also created a prison camp society by pursuing activities such as: practising their religion; reading, writing and learning; participating in high cultural ac­tiv­ities; and playing sport. Apart from the desire to create community and stave off barbedwire disease, the other reason why so much social activity took place lay in the fact that most Knockaloe internees did not carry out paid work, although many prisoners responded to opportunities to carry out some type of useful employment.85 A US Embassy report from 1916 claimed that 72 per cent of Knockaloe internees ‘are at work’. They included ‘bootmakers, tailors, cap workers, plumbers, woodworkers, gardeners, latrine men, police, coal and railway workers, quarry workers, postoffice workers, and parcel-post workers’. In add­ition, each compound had its own kitchen ‘with an average of 10 cooks in each, all of whom were German. There were 230 cooks in all, including those in the hospitals’. This report also included the cultivation of vegetables, an outdoor activity which resembled sport in terms of its health benefits. ‘There are “plots” everywhere, both in and around the Camp, where the prisoners can cultivate their own food’.86 Much planning went into the improvement of the soil, as well as the drawing up of a timetable of planting and the distribution of crops.87 The ­gardeners had success, as indicated by the holding of agricultural shows88 (Figure 10.2). A variety of schemes, in which the Society of Friends Emergency Committee (FEC) played an important role, attempted to make use of the labour power available in Knockaloe. The FEC provided tools and equipment and helped to organize the industrial committees established by the prisoners. It also tried to sell the goods which internees manufactured. Camp III in Knockaloe, for ex­ample, held four professional basket makers, leading to the establishment of a basket-making industry where these four instructed sixty-five others. In camp IV, internees manufactured boots, suits, tables, and cupboards.89 83  Ibid., 2 December 1916. 84  Ibid., 14 August, 11 September 1915. 85  NA/FO383/432, Swiss Embassy Report on Knockaloe and Douglas, 11 September 1918. 86  Reports of Visits of Inspection, pp. 21–2. 87  MNH/MS10417/2, Prisoners of War Camp Knockaloe, I.O.Man, Garden Planning, Abhandlung über Gemüsebau. 88  MNH/MS10417/2, Results of the Agricultural Show. 89 Panayi, Enemy, pp. 117–18; Baily, Craftsman, pp. 104–5; NA/FO383/405, Industrial Department, Camp III, Knockaloe to Swiss Legation, German Division, 16 April 1918; Knockaloe Lager-Zeitung, 10 May 1917; MNH/MS10417/1, Papers of James T. Baily, FEC 1915–19, Isle of Man.

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242  Enemies in the Empire

Figure 10.2  Knockaloe gardeners.

As well as those civilians working inside Knockaloe, others laboured outside on a voluntary basis. By March 1916 the Isle of Man government had instituted a scheme for the use of internees for agricultural work whereby farmers would apply to the Commandant.90 Although this scheme initially remained confined to agriculture, during the course of 1916 the Manx government devised others.91 In August of that year the ‘War Working Stations’ on the island included: a site in ‘the near neighbourhood of the camp’ where one hundred men constructed a new sewage system; a quarry ‘within a five minute walk of Camp IV’ where ‘about 150 men are employed in stone-breaking’; another 150 broke stones at Tynwald Hill, about 2 miles from Knockaloe; while a further 150 carried out the same task at Poortown Quarry. In addition, 200 men worked in the canalization of the Sulby river, about 15 miles from Knockaloe.92 Internees also developed a rich social and religious life. In each Knockaloe sub-camp services for both Roman Catholics and Protestants were held. In camp I a large theatre in compound 2 served as the church for both. By 1916 three Roman Catholic priests held services in both Douglas and Knockaloe. At one stage the same German pastor, Rudolf Hartmann, held Lutheran services in both camps II and III while a clergyman from Peel led those in camp IV. Hartmann actually held overall responsibility for all those interned at Knockaloe. Bible 90 MNH/MS09845, Government Circular No. 188, Alien Labour on Farms, 21 March 1916; Government Circular No. 211, Alien Labour on Farms, 14 July 1916. 91  MNH/MS09845, Government Circular No. 240, Reclamation of Waste Land by Prisoner of War Labour, 24 November 1916. 92  NA/FO383/163, US Embassy Report on Prisoners of War Working Stations, Isle of Man, 28 August 1916.

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Knockaloe  243 classes and religious lectures also occurred in Knockaloe. By 1918 the evangelical service in camp I occurred in compound 1 on Sundays at 11.15, with each compound housing an individual who took responsibility for religion. Internees had access to religious books. Bible classes took place every week in five of the six compounds in camp I. In addition, the YMCA held a weekly meeting, while prisoners could speak to a pastor.93 Figures on participation in organized religious activity suggest a fairly low rate of attendance at services, however. The Home Office believed that the Isle of Man camps contained ‘about 9,000 baptised Roman Catholics . . . of whom about 2,000 avail themselves of the opportunity to receive the Sacrament every month’.94 A survey of camp IV listed four different types of services held every Sunday: Protestant, Roman Catholic, Old Catholic, and Low Church. It claimed that the average attendance stood at the following figures, respectively: 80–100, 100–130, 30–40, 40–50. Between eighty and one hundred men also participated in the bible classes here.95 Such figures might confirm Gerald Newton’s assertion that most men held at Knockaloe had become ‘kirchenfremd’, or alienated from the Church.96 Roman Catholics may have had a higher attendance rate. Visiting church could facilitate contact with former acquaintances. George Kenner ‘looked in vain’ for his brother at the Roman Catholic services in Knockaloe, but ‘met former comrades . . . when of course, a mutual joyful conversation followed’.97 Although a minority of prisoners may have participated in organized religious activity, more celebrated the key festivals of the year. These included New Year’s Eve, Fasching (the carnival before Lent), and Whitsun. The Knockaloe newspaper Die Hunnen published an article by Pastor Hartmann for Whitsun 1917 in which he contemplated its religious meaning and its significance before the outbreak of the war, as well as asking the prisoners to take the opportunity to look forward to a period of peace and brotherhood. But by far the most important festival was Christmas.98 Religion offered just one way of escaping the monotony of life behind barbed wire. The other serious pursuits consisted of reading, writing, and learning. The presence of significant numbers of middle-class educated Germans, including teachers and academics, most of whom came from the German community in Britain, facilitated such activities. While the educational events included informal 93 Vielhauer, Das englische Konzentrationslager, p. 5; F. Siegmund-Schultze, ‘Die Gefangenenseelsorge in England’, Die Eiche, vol. 6 (1918), p. 319; MNH/B115/xf, ‘Bericht über die Evangelische Kirchengemeinde des Kriegsgefangenen Lagers Knockaloe’; NA/FO383/181, letter from Home Office to Foreign Office, 29 May 1916. 94  NA/FO383/181, Letter from Home Office to Foreign Office, 29 May 1916. 95  NA/HO45/10946/266042, Report on Camp IV. 96  Gerald Newton, ‘Wie lange noch? Germans at Knockaloe, 1914–18’, in Gerald Newton, ed., Mutual Exchanges: Sheffield Münster Colloquium II (Frankfurt, 1999), p. 111. 97  MNH/MS11425, ‘Sketches of a German Interned Civilian Prisoner in England (1914–1919)’. 98  Lager-Echo, 1 January 1918.

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244  Enemies in the Empire lectures, all types of schools emerged on a sophisticated and significant scale. Each of the sub-camps developed its own places of instruction. In camp I activity began in early 1915 because of the efforts of Pastor Hartmann and a series of teachers who lived here. Education took place within the different compounds with thousands of pupils attending classes every week by September 1917. Within camp I a series of specialist institutions had emerged, including a commercial school and a textile school.99 The school in camp III, compound 5 formally took in pupils in September 1915 and by the autumn of 1917 education focused upon languages, commerce, and technology.100 In camp IV education became centralized with the establishment of a school board. By the end of 1917 a total of 389 pupils attended classes run by fifty-one teachers.101 The development of so much educational activity necessitated a ready supply of books, obtained from a variety of charitable sources. Each sub-camp had its own library together with others in the compounds. In April 1916 each camp held approximately 4,000 books.102 By the end of the war the number of volumes held in camp IV alone had reached 18,080.103 As well as reading, many prisoners became involved in writing, especially in the main literary vehicle for internees during the Great War in the form of camp newspapers. As Rainer Pöppinghege has demonstrated, this became a phe­nom­ enon amongst German, British, and French internees held in camps throughout the world. In Knockaloe such newspapers became formalized during the course of 1915. One of their key functions consisted of providing information on social and educational activity, although they also allowed prisoners to express their feelings about internment, especially through literary sketches and poems. Newspapers had an overarching aim of creating community amongst prisoners within specific camps.104 Jennifer Kewley Draskau, using the newspapers produced upon the Isle of Man, has focused upon their role in creating a sense of Heimat, fuelled by the feeling of alienation which the prisoners felt and encouraged by the overwhelmingly German male environment.105 Pöppinghege has 99  Ludwig Meyn and Wolfgang J. Mörlins, eds, Knockaloe Aliens Detention Camp, 1914–1917: Drei Jahre Schul-Arbeit (Knockaloe, 1917); Textil-Fach-Schule, Zivilgefangenen Lager Knockaloe, Insel Man, England, Lager I, Compound 4, Jahres-Bericht, 1917–1918 (Knockaloe, 1918); Handels-Schule, Camp I, Compound IV, Bericht über das Winterhalbjahr 1916/1917 und Lehrplan für das Sommerhalbjahr 1917 (Knockaloe, 1917). 100  MNH/B115/xf, Lager-Schule Compound 5, gegründet 10 September 1915, ‘Stundenplan für das 5. Halbjahr Winterhalbjahr 1917/18’. 101  MNH/B115/43q, Camp IV, Knockaloe, I.  O.  M., ‘Final Report and Statistical Record on the Internal Administration of the Prisoners of War Camp No. IV. 1915–1919’. 102  NA/FO383/163, US Embassy Report on Knockaloe, 18 May 1916. 103  MNH/B115/43q, Camp IV, Knockaloe, I.  O.  M., ‘Final Report and Statistical Record on the Internal Administration of the Prisoners of War Camp No. IV. 1915–1919’. 104  Rainer Pöppinghege, Im Lager unbesiegt: Deutsche, englische und französische KriegsgefangenenZeitungen im Ersten Weltkrieg (Essen, 2006), pp. 183–294. 105  Jennifer Kewley Draskau, ‘Relocating the Heimat: Great War Internment Literature from the Isle of Man’, German Studies Review, vol. 32 (2009), pp. 83–106, pp. 83–106.

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Knockaloe  245 identified seven Knockaloe newspapers, although they tended to remain short-lived. Some served individual sub-camps, while others aimed at a specific constituency, including gymnasts.106 The earliest effort consisted of Werden, edited by Pastor Hartmann, which seems to have appeared only twice in April and May 1915. Quousque Tandem ran to just one edition of nine pages in October 1915. LagerEcho, which appeared intermittently from 1916 until 1918 and serviced camp III, devoted much of its time to pieces contemplating the internment ex­peri­ence.107 The Knockaloe Lager Zeitung first appeared in September 1916 because of the efforts of H. Beckmann, E. Behrens, and F. Oberdorfer. It described its purpose as the promotion and recording of activities within the camp and ‘to show relatives abroad that the inmates of the camp were making the best of circumstances’. It published twenty-six issues with an average circulation of 2,500, of which 750 went abroad. This newspaper carried a wide range of articles, including those that informed readers of artistic and sporting activity within camp IV, together with literary pieces. It regularly published poems on a variety of subjects including life within the camp, weather, climate, and the seasons, the surrounding countryside, imprisonment, and ‘In der Heimat’.108 The literary pieces which appeared in the newspapers form part of what we might describe as a high culture which emerged, developed by many of the ­middle-class internees. Music reflected both the position of this art form in prewar Germany and the presence of large numbers of musicians in Britain before 1914, ranging from players in the leading British orchestras to members of marching brass bands.109 ‘Concerts were an important feature of . . . life behind barbed wire’ as they ‘were needed to keep up morale and were a necessary outlet for those alien prisoners with talent going to waste’.110 Jutta Raab Hansen has pointed to symphony orchestras, choirs, and ensembles as well as music critics and the use of music in religious festivities and plays.111 Each of the four camps had both a string and a brass orchestra. Although these partly accompanied theatrical performances, they also regularly performed purely orchestral concerts.112 Whitsun 1917 witnessed a concert given by ‘Mr Sterbal and his new symphony orchestra’ in compound 2 of camp I, which included pieces by Liszt and Tchaikovsky. A positive review of this event written in German in one of the

106 Pöppinghege, Im Lager unbesiegt, pp. 318–21. 107 Ibid. 108  Draskau, ‘Relocating the Heimat’, p. 86; MNH/B115/43q, Camp IV, Knockaloe, I. O. M., ‘Final Report and Statistical Record on the Internal Administration of the Prisoners of War Camp No. IV. 1915–1919’. 109 Panayi, German Immigrants, pp. 126–30; Stefan Manz, Migranten und Internierte: Deutsche in Glasgow, 1864–1918 (Stuttgart, 2003), pp. 111–24. 110 West, Island at War, p. 88. 111  Jutta Raab Hansen, ‘Die Bedeutung der Musik für 26.000 internierte Zivilisten während des Ersten Weltkrieges auf der Isle of Man’, in Richard Dove, ed., ‘Totally un-English?’ Britain’s Internment of ‘Enemy Aliens’ in Two World Wars (Amsterdam, 2005), pp. 63–81. 112  NA/FO383/163, US Embassy Report on Knockaloe, 18 May 1916.

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246  Enemies in the Empire Knockaloe camp newspapers began and ended with the English quote, ‘Iron bars do not a prison make’.113 Subscription concerts also appear to have developed as witnessed by four performed during a concert cycle in May and June 1917. Extracts, rather than full pieces, were the norm.114 Theatre became a central activity in camps throughout Europe during the Great War. In 1933 Hermann Pörzgen examined its importance for German prisoners, viewing it as an escape from the monotony of captivity which they faced and a development which could prevent barbed-wire disease. Theatre helped to divert attention from the everyday realities of internment, provided an intellectual stimulus, and allowed the development of a communal life by acting as a meeting point for new interests which brought prisoners together.115 Alon Rachamimov, focusing upon Germans interned in Russia, tackled the crossdressing actors who played female roles, arguing that they helped to keep the idea of women alive in the camps.116 Jennifer Kewley Draskau has suggested that female impersonators on the Isle of Man ‘played an important role in the social and psychological resilience of heterogeneous all-male societies within the internment camps’.117 In Knockaloe theatre performances took place not only in each camp, but also in many, if not all, of the compounds. A total of twenty separate theatres seem to have emerged here.118 In camp IV seven independent theatres emerged, each with its own stage and even orchestral pit, pointing to the numbers of people involved in such activity. The individual companies ‘toured’ the other compounds. In total, 170 prisoners in camp IV engaged in acting, together with seventy-four further people connected with theatrical activity as stage hands and dressmakers, scenery painters, and electricians. Between October 1915 and March 1919 a total of 1,125 ‘theatrical plays’ were produced, together with eighty-four variety shows, 220 concerts, and 102 ‘festivals, social evenings etc.’, making a ‘total number of entertainments of 1,532’.119 A similar situation existed in camp I. Apart from the evening performances, the actors spent much of the day rehearsing.120 Each of

113  Die Hunnen, 1 June 1917. 114  BA/MA/MSG200/1973, ‘Dritter Konzert-Zyklus’. 115  Hermann Pörzgen, Theater ohne Frau: Das Bühnenleben der kriegsgefangenen Deutschen 1914–1920 (Königsberg, 1933), pp. 5–6. 116  Alon Rachamimov, ‘The Disruptive Comforts of Drag: (Trans)Gender Performances among Prisoners of War in Russia, 1914–1920’, American Historical Review, vol. 111 (2006), pp. 375–82. 117  Jennifer Kewley Draskau: ‘Prisoners in Petticoats: Drag Performance and Its Effects in Great War Internment Camps on the Isle of Man’, Proceedings of the Isle of Man Natural History and Antiquarian Society, vol. 12 (April 2007–March 2009), pp. 187–204, p. 202. 118  Franz Bauer, 1915–1918: Mein Erinnerungsbuch zum dreijährigen Bestehen des Camp Theaters Compound 2, Camp 1, am. 20. März 1918, zugleich ein Überblick über die Tätigkeit aller anderen Bühnen des Lager 1 (Knockaloe, 1918), p. 2. 119  MNH/B115/43q, Camp IV, Knockaloe, I.  O.  M., ‘Final Report and Statistical Record on the Internal Administration of the Prisoners of War Camp No. IV. 1915–1919’. 120  Scheidt and Meyer, Vier Jahre, pp. 90–4.

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Knockaloe  247 the six compounds here developed its own theatre and collectively produced a large range of plays, predominantly in German.121 Sport and exercise also became part of everyday life in Knockaloe and may have involved more people than theatrical activity in view of the range of games the prisoners organized, both competitive and non-competitive and encompassing English and German pastimes. An article in one of the Knockaloe newspapers summed up the role of sport by stating the obvious: ‘A healthy body means a healthy mind’.122 The British authorities recognized the value of sport and exercise by providing facilities, including a ‘large recreation field open to each compound as a rule twice a week, alternately morning and afternoon’, while each compound also had its own hall of 150 by 30 feet.123 The prisoners took full advantage of the facilities available. In camp IV the internees participated in gymnastics, athletics, cricket, football, tennis, and golf (based on three holes). As many as 180 people played cricket. Football proved most popular with thirty-six teams existing between 1915 and 1919 playing 600 matches.124 During 1916 the gymnastics society of camp I, compound 6 had ninety members, ‘75 active and 15 inactive’, but claimed that 7,425 people had used the available equipment.125 Sporting festivals also became a feature of camp life. In August 1917 a Heimat festival occurred in Camp I at Knockaloe, which involved sport, theatre, and the schools. Preparations for this event took place during May, June, and July. These included qualifying tournaments for the tennis and football competitions. The event lasted for a whole week. In addition to the competitions which took place during the day, plays and concerts followed during the evening.126 Other events focused upon specific sports such as a gymnastics festival in camp IV on 15 August 1916, which began at 8 a.m. with music sounding throughout the camp.127

Conclusion These sporting events represent an attempt by confined men to construct a type of normality, as do the educational activity, religion, and theatre. There seems no doubt that theatre, sport, and the celebration of festivals of various types, whether religious or sporting, both relieved the boredom of internment and created a sense of camaraderie and positive mental unity. 121 Bauer, 1915–1918. 122  Werden, May 1915. 123  NA/FO383/162, Report US Embassy Report on Knockaloe, 8 January 1916. 124 MNH/B115/43q, Camp IV, Knockaloe, I.  O.  M., ‘Final Report and Statistical Record on the Internal Administration of the Prisoners of War Camp No. IV. 1915–1919’; Lager-Ulk, 7 November 1917. 125 Turnverein Knockaloe Compound 6, Gefangenenlager Knockaloe Insel Man, Camp 1, Turnbericht über das Jahr 1916 (Knockaloe, 1916). 126  Scheidt and Meyer, Vier Jahre, pp. 98–105. 127  Knockaloe Lager-Zeitung, 7 October 1916.

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248  Enemies in the Empire While playing football, learning foreign languages, listening to the music of Beethoven and Mozart played by top-class musicians, or regularly attending the theatre seemed preferable to the experience of millions of German males fighting in the Kaiser’s armies, the Knockaloe internees nevertheless experienced confinement against their will in an all-male environment away from any members of their families, especially their wives, daughters, and other females. The events they constructed acted as a substitute for their previous lives. The educational, sporting, and cultural activities certainly kept prisoners together and many clearly enjoyed them. Yet they also acted as substitutes for life outside Knockaloe: substitute food, substitute sport, substitute festivals, substitute education, and substitute theatre, which contained the ultimate illusion in the form of substitute women made up of men who dressed up and helped to keep the outside world alive. Somehow, the activities of these internees, the majority of whom came from the German community in pre-war Britain, reflected their lives as Germans in Britain. On the one hand, much of what they did appears purely Germanic, as indicated by the fact that they engaged in playing German music and acting in predominantly German plays, and also writing for German-language news­papers. Yet the playing of golf and, more especially, cricket may provide an indication of the type of integration which had taken place amongst the German community in pre-war Britain. Some of those held here had English-born wives while others even had sons born in Britain and fighting for king and country. W. Roderwald wrote to the Swiss Embassy and pointed out that, while he faced internment, his wife and two daughters ‘are in Germany anxiously awaiting for my return’, while his son faced conscription into the British army.128 Experiences in Knockaloe mirror those taking place in British camps throughout the Empire. The uniqueness of this establishment lies not simply in the fact that it acted as the head camp for the whole global internment system, reflected in the diversity of its prisoners in terms of their site of capture, but also in its durability. This longevity precisely allowed the development of the sophisticated camp life outlined above. The 30,000 men who passed through Knockaloe created a type of civilization in the few years they spent in Knockaloe, no matter how temporary and artificial. The end of Knockaloe as a place of internment occurred gradually. It still held 15,974 civilian internees at the signing of the armistice, a figure that actually increased to 15,983 at the beginning of January 1919 but fell by 4,000 during the course of that month. By 1 March the total had declined to 8,472 and by 1 April to 1,493, although the camp did not finally empty until 1 October.129 Those who departed from Knockaloe in 1919 included George Kenner, who wrote that he left 128  NA/FO383/298, W. Roderwald to Swiss Minister, 22 May 1917. 129  NA/HO45/10833/327753, Home Office Memorandum, 18 November 1918; MNH/MS09310, Isle of Man Constabulary Archive, Box 5, Daily Return of Prisoners Interned.

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Knockaloe  249 ‘burdened with small luggage and 2 rations of tinned meat with bread’ and went together with 600 others ‘cheerfully down the valley to Peel’. He actually had to wait another three days because the assigned boat could only take 300 people, but he finally ‘travelled on a small freight steam-boat on a rather stormy sea to Liverpool’. He and his companions reached their destination after ‘4 or 5 hours’ and then ‘travelled across England to another transfer camp’. They then went to Harwich and sailed on to Rotterdam.130 When the British government used the Isle of Man for internment in the Second World War, Knockaloe did not come back to life. 130  MNH/MS11425, George Kenner, ‘Sketches of a German Interned Civilian Prisoner in England (1914–1919)’.

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11

Fort Napier Context The decision to locate the largest internment camp in Africa in the garrison town of Pietermaritzburg derived from a confluence of global, national, and local factors. The Union of South Africa’s semi-independent dominion status meant that a state of war existed from 4 August 1914, and that it had to play its part in containing the enemy alien danger in the Empire. In the first three months of the war it did so in a number of temporary holding stations. During this ‘trial and error’ phase the discussion about where enemy aliens should be concentrated on a longterm basis was overshadowed by the ongoing Afrikaner rebellion against British dominance. The political leadership was pulled into different directions and had to navigate a middle course. Prime Minister Louis Botha and Defence Minister Jan Smuts condemned the revolt in the harshest terms but distanced themselves from emotional calls for the internment of all Germans regardless of their citizen status. The rebellion was finally crushed in January 1915, but there were disconcerting rumours about the Afrikaner rebels planning to free the German prisoners in Pretoria to join forces. It seemed to be the safest option for the government to move the prisoners from the Afrikaner-dominated Transvaal out of reach of the rebels. The Eastern province of Natal was the only one of the four South African provinces without any insurgent activities. Here, pro-British in com­bin­ ation with anti-German sentiments were most stridently displayed as the hallmark of settler identity. According to Louis Botha, Natal was the ‘most British portion’ of the country.1 Within Natal, Fort Napier was the obvious choice. The garrison fort had been built in 1843 and was a key stronghold for establishing British rule against resistance from white Afrikaner settlers (Voortrekkers) and the local Zulu population. Graham Dominy has produced the first constitutive account of the Fort until 1914, highlighting its strategic importance within the Empire, as well as its profound impact on the economy and culture of the adjacent city, Pietermaritzburg, which developed into the capital of the Natal colony. Successive regiments sent from Britain did not only secure British power in the region but were also transferred from and to other locations such as India, Ireland, China, and the West 1  Quoted by Graham Dominy, ‘Pietermaritzburg’s Imperial Postscript: Fort Napier from 1910 to 1925’, Natalia, vol. 19 (1989), pp. 30–42 (35).

Enemies in the Empire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War. Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi, Oxford University Press (2020). © Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198850151.001.0001

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Fort Napier  251 Indies. The garrison town of Pietermaritzburg was therefore an established global hub for intracolonial movements. The last posting was the 1st South Staffordshire regiment, which left for the western front on 19 August 1914, thus vacating substantial premises.2 Dominy’s monograph narrative ends here, but in earlier article publications the same author had touched upon the re-use of the premises as an internment camp during the Great War. Although these publications provided some limited insight into the camp itself through local sources, their main concern was with the impact of operations on the local town and community.3 This approach can retrospectively be seen as an empirical contribution to more recent theorizations of the spatial turn in the humanities, social sciences, and more specifically historical scholarship. The approach moves away from analysing abstract translocal systems and rather embeds institutions and events into their immediate geographical environment. Nazi concentration camps have been reconceptualized within this framework,4 and it can also contribute to a fuller narrative of camps in other ­periods and world regions. In methodological terms, the following narrative will thus weave the spatial turn into a closer look behind the concrete walls of Fort Napier between August 1914 and August 1919. It is the first account which will use sources from British, German, and South African archives to reconstruct both camp life and its impact on the local community of Pietermaritzburg. In doing so, it points to global patterns. For example, a parallel history across continents could be written for the Citadel Fort George in the garrison town of Halifax, Nova Scotia. This housed British regiments until 1906, followed by Canadian troops, before being turned into the first-class and officer camp for ‘enemy aliens’ described in Chapter  6 of this study. When the South Staffordshire regimental band gave its farewell concert in Pietermaritzburg City Hall to a patriotic crowd on 19 August 1914, internment operations were well underway across the Union. After temporary accommodation in the Johannesburg agricultural showgrounds and the Roberts Heights barracks in Pretoria, the prisoners were finally brought together in Fort Napier. The first trains arrived in late August 1914 at Pietermaritzburg railway station. Prisoners were marched to the nearby fort where many would spend the next five years.

2  Graham Dominy, Last Outpost on the Zulu Frontiers: Fort Napier and the British Imperial Garrison (Urbana, IL, 2016). 3  Graham Dominy and Dieter Reusch, ‘Handicrafts, Philanthropy and Self-Help: The Fort Napier Kamp-Industrie during World War I’, Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, vol. 5 (1993), pp. 207–24; Dominy, ‘Pietermaritzburg’. 4  Barney Warf and Santa Arias, eds, The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (London, 2009); Beat Kümin and Cornelie Usborne, ‘At Home and in the Workplace: A Historical Introduction to the  “Spatial Turn” ’, History & Theory, vol. 52 (2013), pp. 305–18; Anne Kelly Knowles et al., eds, Geographies of the Holocaust (Bloomington, IN, 2014); Nikolaus Wachsmann, KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps (London, 2016).

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252  Enemies in the Empire

Topography and Composition Fort Napier was (and is) situated on an elevation adjacent to Pietermaritzburg town centre and clearly visible to the local population. The site was surrounded by a solid corrugated-iron fence with barbed-wire entanglements. Armed guards were stationed on tower platforms around the whole. The site was divided into four main camps and one small camp, and these were in turn separated by the same corrugated-iron and barbed-wire structure. Each camp had an elected captain, and each barrack an elected representative to assist in maintaining discipline and represent prisoners’ interests towards the commandant. Camp I consisted of eighteen barrack rooms constructed from wood and iron with brick foundations, each measuring 112 by 20 feet. It was furnished with twenty-six toilets, twelve showers, and two bathrooms. There was a kitchen with cooking utensils and a recreation ground. Facilities in Camps II and III were described in very similar terms, although Camp III also contained one brick structure which was divided into five big rooms. Resembling military barracks, the huts were equipped with basic furniture. Each prisoner was given a mattress, blankets, and simple tableware and cutlery. Each of the four camps had kitchen staff comprising one white cook as well as several Indian and African assistants. African workers cleaned the latrines on a daily basis.5 Racial hierarchies remained intact behind the prison walls (Figure 11.1).

Figure 11.1  Lunch in Fort Napier. 5 BA/R901/83133, inspection report American Consul at Durban, 28 and 29 May 1915; NA/ FO383/469, internees to Louis Botha, 20 July 1917, in Swiss Consul Cape Town, portfolio on Fort Napier, 22 January 1918.

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Fort Napier  253 The quality of accommodation was based on a three-tier class system. Camps I and II were second class. They were the biggest and together contained around 70 per cent of the total inmate population. One barrack slept fifty prisoners on average. Camp III was the third-class facility, sleeping sixty-four on average in one room. The American Consul noted that it contained ‘some men of a rougher and less reasonable class than are those in Camps 1, 2, and 4’.6 The Swiss Consul concurred that it had the ‘poorest accommodation’ in store rooms with concrete floor and little light and ventilation.7 Consequently, this camp drew the most substantial criticism from inmates. They complained that cold and moisture caused rheumatism, and that ‘no animal could live there for any length of time’. They found themselves unfairly blamed for insubordinate behaviour: ‘Under the influence of their dismal surroundings . . . is it to be wondered that these unfortunates have at times rebelled against their tormentors?’8 Camp IV, then, was the first-class facility. It held older and ‘better class men’ and was considered the most desirable one at Fort Napier. The American Consul summed up its advantages: Unlike the other camps, where each barrack contains a single large room occupied by many men, in Camp 4 the buildings are divided into 136 rooms, 3 or 4 men being quartered in each apartment. Another advantage which this camp has is that it is supplied with bedsteads. Furthermore it is enclosed only  with a barbed-wire fence, while the others are surrounded with high ­corrugated-iron ones.9

There was also a small Camp V consisting of a single barrack with just nine occupants in August 1916. This was for ‘outcasts from the other camps, where their presence was not desired or tolerated. They were disliked there on account of objectionable habits or for other reasons’. The existence of this camp indicates some violent behaviour between inmates, triggered by extreme closeness over a prolonged time period. Some were thrown over the fence in their original camps ‘and thus summarily disposed of by their fellow prisoners’.10 One such instance was that of a prisoner who notified the guards of escape plans by his inmates. He was thrown out of his hut and beaten up in such a serious manner that the guards feared for his life and intervened.11 Detention and isolation cells existed for those prisoners who disobeyed orders or were recaptured after attempted escapes. Overall, however, inspectors and camp authorities praised the discipline

6  BA/R67/823, inspection report George H. Murphy, American Consul-General, Cape Town, visit 3 to 7 August 1916, 9. 7  NA/FO383/469, Swiss Consul Cape Town, portfolio on Fort Napier, 22 January 1918. 8  NA/FO383/469, internees to Louis Botha, 20 July 1917, in Swiss Consul Cape Town, portfolio on Fort Napier, 22 January 1918. 9  Ibid., p. 10.    10  Ibid., p. 11. 11  Helga Brodersen Manns, Wie alles anders kam in Afrika (Windhoek, edited 1991), pp. 34–5.

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254  Enemies in the Empire and orderliness amongst the prisoners. One medical officer and twelve orderlies staffed the basic camp hospital with support from a prisoner who was in charge of the dispensary. Total numbers in Fort Napier rose from 514 in August 1914 to 1,174 in September and 2,554 in December 1914. The latter number constituted the rough average until 1919, with fluctuations between 2,332 (March 1915) and 2,782 (July 1915), depending on government policies of detention and parole. The rise in numbers leading up to July 1915 was clearly triggered by the fallout of the Lusitania sinking two months earlier. In comparison with other dominions and Britain, parole on humanitarian grounds such as illness or dying relatives was granted liberally, although in many cases applications were still rejected by the camp authorities. Table 11.1 shows how the total of 2,426 in the sample month of August 1916 was divided into camps, facilities, and nationalities. Camp I was consistently the biggest at around 1,000 inmates. The numerical dominance of German over Austro-Hungarian and Turkish inmates reflects the global picture. In December 1916, prisoners themselves conducted a ‘mini-census’ to collect data for perusal by the Berlin-based Relief Committee for the Germans in British South Africa. Although some numbers do not add up exactly because of in­accur­ate Table 11.1  Prisoner numbers in Fort Napier, August 191612 BY COMPOUND Camp I Camp II Camp III Camp IV Camp V Camp hospital Detention camp Total in enclosures: Psychiatric hospital Sanatorium Grand total:

931 717 387 334 9 33 3 2,414 10 3 2,426

BY NATIONALITY German Austro-Hungarian Turkish Naturalized British Total:

2,212 192 6 16 2,426

12  BA/R67/823, Inspection report George H. Murphy, American Consul-General, Cape Town, visit 3 to 7 August 1916, p. 2.

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Fort Napier  255 answers on questionnaires, the compilation provides valuable insights into social structures. Out of a total of 2,323 inmates, thirty-eight were under twenty years of age, fifty-seven were over fifty-five and thus beyond military age, and the bulk of the remainder were between twenty and fifty-five; 863 were married with a total of 1,763 children, and 1,375 were unmarried; 733 had resided or travelled in South Africa only temporarily, 350 had resided more than five years, 677 more than ten years, and 443 more than twenty years. Roughly a third indicated that they wanted to stay in South Africa after the termination of war, another third wanted to return to Germany, and another third were undecided. An earlier compilation from April 1915 by a repatriated consular secretary gives further differentiated data about the first-class compound. Of the 450 inmates at the time, the majority were between seventeen and sixty years old, but some were very young or old: four inmates were fifteen or sixteen years old; fifteen were over sixty, with the oldest being seventy-one. Military service had been completed by sixty-two whilst 139 had not completed it, 222 were exempt, and twenty-two too young. There were also thirty civilians from German Southwest Africa.13 Table 11.2 covers a range of sectors and provides a broad snapshot of occupational structures of the pre-war immigrant community. It is broadly in line with the composition of German communities in other destination countries14 and includes trade, service, craft, agriculture, engineering, education, and also over 200 seamen captured in South African ports. An unspecified number of men happened to be on holiday, research, or business trips in the Union when war broke out and spent the next five years behind walls.15 In sum, these figures made Fort Napier a medium-sized camp in the imperial context. It was a long way from Table 11.2  Prisoners’ occupations in Fort Napier, December 1916 Artisans Merchants Hotel employees, chefs, hairdressers, etc. Seamen Farmers Miners Engineers, architects, etc. Teachers, missionaries, pastors Doctors, dentists, pharmacists

798 514 274 234 146 84 75 38 5

Source: NASA CES170/ES70/3892/14, Camp Representatives to Hilfsausschuss für die Deutschen in Britisch-Süd-Afrika Berlin, 27 December 1916.

13 

BA/R901/83828, Consular Secretary Bruchhagen, general report, 26 April 1915. Thomas Sowell, Migrations and Cultures: A World View (New York, 1997), pp. 50–104. 15  Erich von Schulte, ‘Die Internierten und Kriegsgefangenen in der Südafrikanischen Union’, in Hans Weiland and Leopold Kern, eds, In Feindeshand: Die Gefangenschaft im Weltkriege in Einzeldarstellungen, vol. 2 (Vienna, 1931), pp. 111–13. 14 

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256  Enemies in the Empire the head camp at Knockaloe, but it was also considerably bigger than the Canadian camps which held a maximum of several hundred each, or even smaller camps in the Caribbean, Australasia, and elsewhere across the Empire.

Activities, Social Dynamics, and Identity In order to escape boredom and depression, prisoners kept themselves busy. The size of the camp in combination with the varied occupational and social backgrounds of its inhabitants led to a differentiated camp life. Prisoners organized a range of cultural, educational, professional, and physical activities, and although these were always subject to censorship and permission, the camp command was generally positively disposed towards them. Commandant Lieutenant Colonel Manning and his staff were aware that good relationships between inmates and regular occupation helped to keep up morale and avoid unrest. Giving a green light for these activities was therefore just as much a question of efficient camp management as it was one of humane treatment. Their nature was very similar to the ones described in Knockaloe and Ahmednagar, and certainly more differentiated than in smaller camps with more socially homogenous populations such as the Canadian labour camps consisting mostly of Slavic-speaking Austro-Hungarian working-class inmates, or small camps in the Atlantic such as Bermuda, which consisted mostly of captured seamen. In February 1918 inmates compiled a table (11.3) entitled ‘Sports and Pastimes’ which gives an insight into the various organized activities in each compound. In the third-class Camp III there was considerably less self-organization. Theatre and music performances are mentioned, but these seem to have been performed by troupes from the other compounds. There were no educational activities, and gardening was purely functional for vegetable growing. The overview confirms that Camp III was altogether a less vibrant place, and the fact that it was the ­centre of a riot in August 1917 links in with this observation. Coupled with lower facility standards, less activity meant more discontent. Sources like these are crucial to understanding the social dynamics in and between the different compounds. Most of the published camp narratives were produced by educated middle-class inmates whose accounts differ significantly from those in Camp III. They present an altogether more positive picture which does not necessarily reflect the experience of Camp III inmates, or indeed of those at the lower end of the social scale in a given compound. The inspecting American Consul noted that many ‘avoid destitution by performing services for their more fortunately placed fellow prisoners, such as acting as barbers, washing clothes, preparing baths, etc’.16 Erich von Schulte’s recollections reflect life in the 16 

BA/R67/823, inspection report American Consul-General Cape Town, 3 to 7 August 1916.

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Fort Napier  257 Table 11.3  Sports and pastimes in Fort Napier COMPOUNDS

Football Hockey Tennis Skittle alley Boxing booth Theatre ‘Bioscope’ (cinema) Military band String band Gymnastics Educational classes Café(s), light refreshments, some serving meals Vegetable growing Flower gardens Chess club Club swinging Wood work

I

II

III

x x x x x x x x x x x x

x

x

x x

x x x

x x x x x x x x x

across camps

x

IV

x x x

x

x x

x

x

x

x x x x

Source: Compiled from tables in NASA/CES199/ESC31, prisoners to camp commandant, 3 February 1918.

second- and first-class compounds from the perspective of privilege. Although he stresses that it was ‘a sad time’, his account attempts to include positive aspects: [We had] enough space for exercise and sport. There was soon a singing as­so­ci­ ation, several sports clubs and a scientific library from saved stocks. Especially the patriotic festivities were celebrated in an uplifting manner, and as time went by even theatre and music groups developed. Scientific lectures were of particular importance. Amongst us were many academics, engineers, doctors, merchants, and scholars on research trips; no wonder that the lecture series were most diverse and individual lectures of high quality. Many an internee was thus able to draw rich benefits from his time in captivity . . . Every inch of free soil was transformed into gardens. Artists and craftsmen produced most wonderful objects which, together with paintings, also roused the delight of the English. Musicians established genuine music schools. We can safely say that nowhere in the whole of South Africa were to be found better classical music performances than in the internment camp in Pietermaritzburg . . . Most of the ‘public life’, even the events, did of course take place open air due to the mild climate, and also the courses, lectures and the well organised language instruction took place open air.17 17 

Schulte, ‘Die Internierten’, p. 112.

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258  Enemies in the Empire Camps could be spaces of creativity and learning.18 Many inmates made the best of their time and attended professional training classes in preparation for their release. The camp schools offered a range of subjects, including languages, accounting, and sciences. In Camp I alone there were two much-frequented lending libraries.19 The case of one inmate, W.  Gehring, illustrates the benefits that could be derived from this pedagogical infrastructure. He had held various accountancy positions in German Southwest Africa and Bechuanaland before moving to Johannesburg in 1914. His internment on 17 August interrupted his career with the registered public accountancy firm, Alex Rodger. After his re­pat­ ri­ation in 1919 he submitted his curriculum vitae to the German foreign office and stated: I used the imposed idleness of the long-lasting captivity as a prisoner of war to obtain language and professional training; I would like to mention my participation in lectures and seminars in the following scholarly areas: Law: civic law; trade law; maritime law Political Science: basics; colonial politics; colonial economics Economics: general; economic policy; journalism20

The quality of music performances was observed by the inspecting American Consul-General who found that ‘the orchestral music is excellent’.21 This assessment ties in with the global migrations of German musicians before 1914 and their presence in the cultural life of Britain and its overseas territories.22 The ‘Lagerkapelle’ (camp band) in Camp I had to surmount obstacles such as a lack of sheet music or instruments. The timpani had to be put together with a barrel and sailcloth. Camp I had ‘a number of truly exquisite artists on the piano, the violin and the cello. A singer regularly comes from Camp II for guest roles’.23 Many inmates experienced a degree of urban culture which had not been available to them in their daily lives. Even for urban dwellers the sheer frequency of per­form­ ances exceeded that in their respective city environments. With an air of cultural superiority an inmate in Camp I reported that ‘in this ape country (Affenland), these kind of artistic delights were seldom heard even in the bigger cities. And

18  Gilly Carr and Harold Mytum, ‘The Importance of Creativity Behind Barbed Wire: Setting a Research Agenda’, in Gilly Carr and Harold Mytum, eds, Cultural Heritage and Prisoners of War: Creativity Behind Barbed Wire (Abingdon, 2012), pp. 1–15. 19 Anonymous, Südafrikas Deutsche in englischer Gewalt (Dresden, 1916), p. 27. 20  BA/R901/83134, W. Gehring to German Foreign Office, 2 August 1919. 21  BA/R67/823, American Consul-General, report on visit 3 to 7 August 1916. 22 Sowell, Migrations and Cultures, pp. 50–104; Stefan Manz, ‘Intercultural Transfer and Artistic Innovation: German Musicians in Victorian Britain, German Life and Letters, vol. 65 (2012), pp. 161–80. 23 Anonymous, Südafrikas Deutsche, p. 23.

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Fort Napier  259 many of our comrades live in the countryside and on remote farms where the next door neighbour is miles away. These comrades can now catch up and enjoy what they had been missing for years’.24 The same inmate, however, mentions that the manifold sources of music produced a constant background noise which could equally impact on nerves, especially in cases where it was badly executed. Many just played by themselves or in small groups, and this also included folk and popular music performed on guitars, mandolins, accordions, and zithers. The claustrophobic proximity meant that there was no escape from the soundscape of the camp. As we picture life in Fort Napier and other large camps in the Empire, we have to imagine a constant accompanying background noise.25 The intensification of urban soundscapes in the nineteenth century26 was not only reciprocated, but also increased in the camps because of the concentration of amateur, professional, classical, popular, and folk musicians who would otherwise have lived separate lives. The ironically entitled camp newspaper Der Hunne was a make-shift affair with type-written texts and hand drawings.27 The inmates did not have a printing press at their disposal as in the large British camps Knockaloe and Stobs. The content was a mixture of patriotic, informative, and entertaining entries. Contributions tackled themes such as Alsace Lorraine (‘poisonous Frenchmen shouting for revanche’), the East African campaign, written by an interned doctor of the Schutztruppe, and the ‘Lager Industrie’ (all October 1917). An article on ‘Voices of Peace from England’ from December 1917 maintained that the reason why England pondered making a peace offer was ‘our ever improving war situation, whilst our enemies have not delivered those successes which they had promised for 1917’. The cover of the August 1917 issue was a drawing of Hindenburg with laurel, spiked helmet, and the caption, ‘We are ever faithful to you, through joy, misery and suffering’. A poem in this issue is a panegyric to the embattled fatherland and contains the lines: The fight still rages; but you stand firm like iron, And never will the enemy plunder you, That you will be victorious, Germania, Is our deepest sacred belief.28 24 

Ibid., p. 24. For Knockaloe see Jutta Raab Hansen, ‘Die Bedeutung der Musik für 26.000 internierte Zivilisten während des Ersten Weltkriegs auf der Isle of Man’, in Richard Dove, ed., ‘Totally un-English?’ Britain’s Internment of ‘Enemy Aliens’ in Two World Wars (Amsterdam, 2005), pp. 63–81. See also Chapter 10. 26 Sabine Mecking, ed., Sounds of the Towns—Stadt und Musik, special issue of Moderne Stadtgeschichte, vol. 1 (2017). 27  Only three issues of Der Hunne could be traced: October 1917, NASA/CES164/ES70/3707/70; August 1917 and December 1917, NMHMSA, collection 920, Michael Bentz. The first edition appeared in July 1917, but it is not clear how long it ran. Some of the pages are illegible because of the bad production quality. 28  Der Hunne, August 1917. 25 

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260  Enemies in the Empire Elsewhere in Der Hunne, inmates advertised their services such as ‘Kafé zum Deutschen Kaiser’, ‘anatomically trained masseur Heinrich Steffen’, ‘optician and goldsmith H.  Michel’, and courses in ‘boxing, self-defence, body training H. Podzuhn’. The paper reported on lectures such as ‘Malaria’ or ‘Reflections on Morality in Psychological and Criminological Perspective’.29 One of the internees in Fort Napier had been singing master at the South African College of Music in Cape Town, from which position he was first dismissed and later interned. His wife and children left South Africa shortly after the Lusitania riots. He managed to send a letter to the Allgemeine Musikzeitung in Germany and reported, slightly tongue in cheek, that in Camp II ‘we have two theatres, one cabaret, a big Berlin bakery, Café Hindenburg, Café Hamburg, a sausage factory, an institute for ­pickled herrings, kosher cuisine, barbers and hairdressers, three singing and ten further clubs, washing and ironing facilities’30 (Figures 11.2 to 11.4). The Kamp Industrie was an activity which created a spatial link between the camp and its immediate surroundings. Prisoners produced elaborate craftwork

Figure 11.2  Camp newspaper Der Hunne in Fort Napier. 29 

Der Hunne, October 1917.   

30 

Reported in Frankfurter Zeitung, 4 June 1915.

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Fort Napier  261

Figure 11.3  Painting and gardening in Fort Napier.

Figure 11.4  Christmas 1914 in Fort Napier.

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262  Enemies in the Empire and furniture which was sold outside the camp, mostly to German-speaking ­families. This was organized by two businessmen, K. Täuber and H. F. Weinlig, who liaised with the camp authorities, arranged exhibitions, acquired material, and co-ordinated sales and accounts. Tools were simple and included kitchen knives, pen knives, and self-made devices such as saws or a small lathe. Artefacts were mostly made from wood and included picture frames, boxes, and more substantial items such as chairs and tables. Parts of the proceeds went to the prisoners to buy some additional food or minor luxuries; other parts went to wives and families. By summer 1919, the committee of the Kamp Industrie had accrued a credit of £1,262 which was used to support former internees and the education of their children.31 The total turnover over the five years amounted to £7,000.32 In typological terms, the Kamp Industrie was just one example of a number of instances which show to what extent the internment camp impacted on its immediate environment. It was not a closed-off space but was interwoven into the economy and society of its surroundings. After the removal of the Staffordshire regiment, the premises continued to offer business opportunities for local food and materials suppliers who would otherwise have fallen into a vacuum. Indeed, most of the soldiers’ barracks were demolished in August 1914 and new huts built for the prisoners through local building contractors. Once the prisoners arrived there was a clear awareness of townspeople as to the presence of over 2,000 ‘enemy aliens’ in their midst. For example, a commotion occurred at Pietermaritzburg Station on 25 October 1914 when a trainload of prisoners arrived.33 Two days later the city was swept by rumours that the prisoners had attempted a mass escape. The local Rifle Association mobilized its members and ‘hundreds of middle-aged and middle-class white Pietermaritzburg men poured up Church and Longmarket streets to mill about the closed gates of the Fort . . . The slightly hysterical tenor of Pietermaritzburg patriotic feelings is clearly discernible in this incident’.34 This public mood explains why prisoners were never allowed to leave the camp for fear of their safety. The American inspecting ambassador assessed this mood correctly when he first described the depressive monotony of camp life and then asked whether it would be possible for the prisoners to be taken on walks under guard, ‘not to town (as that might result in friction) but through . . . some neighborhill or field’.35 Female enemy aliens, in contrast, were a common sight in town. Destitute wives and children had moved in from all areas of the Union just to be close to their husbands. Their attempts to find accommodation were often jeopardized by landlords who refused to rent out to ‘enemy 31 Dominy, ‘Kamp Industrie’; Anon., Südafrikas Deutsche, p. 26; Der Hunne, October 1917; E. S. von Fintel, compilation Fort Napier, pp. 46f, 178, in NASA Pietermaritzburg. 32  BA/R901/83086, Deutscher Hülfs-Verein und Allgemeiner Unterstützungs-Verein, Rundschreiben No. 10, 10 October 1919. See also correspondence related to the Relief Society in BA/R901/83133, 31 January to 6 July 1917. 33  Natal Witness, 21 August 1914.    34  Dominy, ‘Imperial Postscript’, p. 35. 35  BA/R67/823, inspection report American Consul-General, 3 to 7 August 1916.

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Fort Napier  263 aliens’.36 Parties of female internees from Lüderitzbuch who were interned in the women’s camp between September 1914 and March 1915 were allowed to visit the town under guard every two weeks. They were stared at by passers-by who had never seen any of the prisoners before. When the women were allowed a night out in the cinema, they did not enjoy this experience: ‘The film represented the German Kaiser and military as a caricature. The English were obviously highly amused, and when we did not stand up in the end to sing their national anthem paper balls were thrown at our heads to remind us of our duty’.37 These few instances suggest that a more comprehensive spatial approach to Fort Napier during the First World War—which is not possible within the confines of this chapter—would be a worthwhile methodological undertaking. This can usefully complement the global approach adopted by this study, but it can also be linked to translocal and transnational perspectives. Outside the camp, sales and support of artefacts produced by prisoners were organized by the German Relief Society and General Support Society (Deutscher Hülfs-Verein und Allgemeiner Unterstützungs-Verein) which had its base in Johannesburg and comprised nineteen local committees across the Union of South Africa. This was the main ethnic philanthropic organization which was run by German-speakers who had been left to live in freedom. Its aim was to support anyone who had been detrimentally affected by internment, including Austro-Hungarians and Turks, irrespective of religion and nationality. Outside the Union it also supported destitute families in Bechuanaland, Namaqualand, Rhodesia, Congo, and Mozambique. It organized a range of relief measures, not just with regard to the Kamp Industrie. Other activities for inmates and their families included finding work, storing possessions, advising on and administering personal financial matters such as mortgage, rent, pensions, and insurance, general legal advice, clothes and supplies for repatriates, looking after the graves of those who had died in captivity, and similar. Between August 1914 and September 1919 the Relief Society had spent the substantial sum of £102,000 to alleviate the conditions of prisoners and their families.38 This was also fed by collections from within Germany. These were administered through the umbrella organization Relief Committee for the Germans in British South Africa (Hilfsausschuß für die Deutschen in Britisch Südafrika) which had its main office in Berlin and local branches in the different regions. The Bavarian branch, for example, had collected 23,497 Marks by February 1916.39 Help also came from German Americans. A committee led by a Mrs Franziska Weihhagen in Milwaukee sent packets with books, clothes, Christmas gifts, and other items to camps across the world, including Japan, Russia, Guam, and throughout the British Empire: Knockaloe, Amherst in Canada, St James on 36  See

Chapter 8.   37 Manns, Wie alles anders kam, p. 32.    38 Ibid. Hilfsausschuß für die Deutschen in Britisch Südafrika, 26 February 1916. Substantial cor­res­pond­ence with Berlin in NA FO383/1917/305, FO383/297. 39  BHSTA/MA93422,

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264  Enemies in the Empire Trinidad, and Fort Napier.40 Those ethnic transnational structures that had ­developed globally before 191441 were now activated during a time of crisis in order to confirm diasporic connectedness and offer concrete relief. In order to gauge the wider significance of Fort Napier and other Empire camps we thus argue for a mix of concentric spatial perspectives, from local to national and transnational. Returning to the camp itself, we can mention theatre production as another important activity offering both escape from boredom and identity performance. The plays were a mixture of light-hearted comedies, idylls, serious dramas, and patriotic pieces. Dorf und Stadt (Village and Town) by Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer was a piece of escapism which satisfied ‘what our encumbered hearts thirsted for: an atmospheric still! Black Forest magic! Heimat air! The intense longing which lives in us all’. Der Weibsteufel (The Ladies’ Devil) by Karl Schönherr was a serious drama set in the Alps with two female and two male roles. Comedy plays (Lustspiele) included Leander im Frack (Leander in the Tail-Coat) by Wilhelm Wolters, and Liselotte by Heinrich Strobitzer, although these could also carry a political message and were not always as innocent as the surface suggests. Liselotte, for example, tackles the marriage between the daughter of the elector Karl Ludwig von der Pfalz and the brother of the French king, Louis XIV. The theatre critic of Der Hunne commented that it shows how Liselotte ‘in her blunt, earthy German ways makes a big entrance at the French court with its effeminate etiquette, and how she dominates her weakling (Waschlappen) of a husband’.42 The critics in Der Hunne were generally complimentary of the efforts made by these amateur groups, but one of them found it ‘incomprehensible that the Drama Club in Camp I with its first class actors did not aim for anything higher than the flat, boring farces of W. Wolters. There are so many better pieces in the German theatre literature for our acting gentlemen to apply their energy and understanding of art’. Referring to the love drama The Ladies’ Devil, the same critic referred to the involuntary effects of cross-dressing and asked the audience ‘to stifle their laughter when they hear expressions from the mouth of a man which they usually associate with a woman. This can disturb the effect intended by author and actors’.43 The performance of the play Alt Heidelberg had to be postponed because the actor playing the main female character, Käthchen, had managed to escape. He was captured and had to spend twenty-eight days in the detention hut.44

40 

NASA/CES67/ES70/1220/14, Dankesbriefe aus Gefangenenlagern, 14 July 1915. Stefan Manz, Constructing a German Diaspora: The ‘Greater German Empire’, 1871–1914 (New York, 2014), passim, and for Milwaukee pp. 135–45. Also see an article in the New York Staatszeitung full of exaggerations: ‘British Hangmen in South Africa: Imprisoned Germans Have to Suffer the Tortures of Hell’, 15 November 1916. Correspondence relating to this article in NASA/CES179/ES70/4231/14, 7 March 1917. 42  Der Hunne, August 1917.    43  Der Hunne, October 1917. 44 Anon., In Südafrika interniert, p. 23. 41 

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Fort Napier  265 Fitting together these pieces allows us to apply a number of patterns to the civilian sphere which are usually discussed within a military prisoner of war c­ ontext.45 Although inmates in Fort Napier had not experienced the trauma of capture on the battlefield and removal of rank insignia, as civilians they felt a similar sense of emasculation and disempowerment. The camp newspaper and other inmates’ utterances brim with frustration at being locked away and not being able to defend the fatherland against a perceived world of enemies. The ‘stigma of surrender’ which Feltman attests to military prisoners can be conceptualized in a wider sense as a ‘stigma of captivity’ to encapsulate both combatant and civilian internees. It was an affront against notions of honour, which were, in turn, firmly linked to constructions of national identity. The discourse was gendered: the homeland was personified as a feminine Germania, and the forces that were necessary to defend her were decidedly masculine. These clear-cut gender delineations became negotiable through the state of internment as roles could not be fulfilled. In addition, as in Knockaloe and elsewhere, the absence of women meant a social and sexual vacuum. Theatre with cross-dressing characters had a crucial compensatory function to create the illusion of a female presence. The most differentiated analysis of this phenomenon has been produced by Alon Rachamimov for prisoners of war in Russian captivity. He argues for an ambivalent understanding of these drag performances as both disrupting and normalizing. On the one hand they were a ‘ “safe space” that reaffirmed upper- und middle-class heterosexual masculinity’. At the same time they ‘created powerful contrary undercurrents that sanctioned forms of homo­ erot­ic relations and transgender identifications’.46 Rachamimov is well served by extant and reflective primary sources, most importantly in the form of Hermann Pörzgen’s Theater ohne Frau (Theatre without Woman) from 1933.47 We do not have a comparable set of compact sources on theatre in Empire camps but can deduce from the quoted information that similar mechanisms were in place here. An inmate’s report mentions that fancy-dress balls were popular in Fort Napier, and that during these there was ‘no shortage of dressed-up sweet maidens (Mägdelein)’.48 The photograph taken in the Australian Holsworthy Camp is nothing short of lascivious and projects a similar air to those photographs reproduced by Pörzgen and Rachamimov (Figure 11.5). 45  Brian Feltman, The Stigma of Surrender: German Prisoners, British Captors, and Manhood in  the Great War and Beyond (Chapel Hill, NC, 2015); Alon Rachamimov, ‘The Disruptive Comforts of Drag: (Trans)Gender Performances among Prisoners of War in Russia, 1914–1920’, American Historical Review, vol. 111 (2006), pp. 362–82; Anne Schwan, ‘German Internees Writing the First World War: Identities, Border Crossings and Humor in the Camp Newspaper Stobsiade’ (forthcoming). 46  Rachamimov, Idem, p. 364. 47 Hermann Pörzgen, Theater ohne Frau: Das Bühnenleben der Kriegsgefangenen Deutschen 1914–1920 (Königsberg, 1933). 48 Anonymous, Südafrikas Deutsche, p. 31.

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266  Enemies in the Empire

Figure 11.5  Theatre in Holsworthy Camp, Australia.

Feltman notes that German military prisoners in Britain pursued a plethora of activities and interprets these as redemptive masculinity to compensate for the sense of inadequacy and shame. Mental and physical activity gave prisoners of war some direction for the time they would return and be able to serve the fatherland again.49 This is another aspect which can be extended from the military into the civilian sphere. Sources on Fort Napier are similarly infused with the notion that through their activities the internees would live up to expectations bestowed upon them through their ‘Germanness’. For example, prisoners ascribed the fact that by 1917 there had only been three cases of suicide and a dozen cases of insanity ‘to our method of keeping ourselves employed in true German fashion’.50 The above-mentioned former singing master, after listing the plethora of activities pursued by the prisoners, adds that ‘yet again this demonstrates the vitality of the German people’.51 And a lengthy article in Der Hunne interprets the Kamp Industrie as a display of the best qualities of the German national character: 49 Feltman,

Stigma, p. 106. letter inmates Camp 4 to General Botha, 2 April 1917, in Swiss Consul Cape Town, portfolio on Fort Napier, 22 January 1918. 51  Frankfurter Zeitung, 4 June 1915. 50  NA/FO383/469,

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Fort Napier  267 Our enemies are envious of two things in particular: German industriousness (‘Fleiss’) and German diligence (‘Gründlichkeit’). These two Volk character traits are important factors in this war, and in the great economic struggle which lies ahead after the war they will yet again serve us well. Even the monotonous and deadening camp life does not manage to stifle these positive traits . . . It is un­worthy of us to thoughtlessly live our days in idleness.52

Symbolism and celebrations were platforms to perform these constructions of national traits and identity. Prisoners built spaces of secular worship into the topography of the camps. In Camp III ‘busts of His Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm II and His Majesty the Kaiser of Austria were modelled and ceremoniously unveiled’.53 Camp II celebrated the birthday of General von Hindenburg on 2 October 1917 with choir, orchestra, and a speaker ‘who described the great hero and leader (Held und Führer) in powerful words and incited the enthusiasm of the camp inmates who had shown up in great numbers’.54 In Camp I prisoners constructed a substantial monument for the Kaiser, adorned with a marble plate and surrounded by a flower bed with a pattern of the imperial crown. Camp life was largely structured around the patriotic calendar, with the Kaiser’s birthday on 27 January constituting the most important jour fixe. Celebrations took up the whole day, with parade marching and a religious service at the Kaiser monument and a torchlight procession and other events in the evening: The sight was very beautiful as the procession wound its way through the camp like a snake. It stopped at the monument which was adorned with big torchlights and colourful light bulbs. Here the crowds had gathered. Music and songs performed by our singing club made the celebration even more beautiful. A rousing Kaiser-speech delivered by a comrade was received with enthusiasm.55

Pastor Georg Wagener, who has already been introduced in Chapter 8 as a typical representative of German Pastorennationalismus, was instrumental in giving these performances a sacralized framework. He mentions occasions in the patriotic calendar: In wonderful ways we celebrated our festive services on the occasion of the birthdays of our emperor, our empress, the crown prince, the Austrian emperor, the unveiling of our monuments, and the consecration of a wreath in memory of 52 

Der Hunne, October 1917. BA/R901/83828, report consular secretary Bruchhausen, 26 April 1915. 54  Der Hunne, October 1917. 55 Anonymous, Südafrikas Deutsche, p. 31. For an image of the Kaiser monument see Eckhart von Fintel, Fort Napier: Internment Camp for Germans during World War I, electronic compilation in Pietermaritzburg Archive, no classification, p. 63. 53 

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268  Enemies in the Empire our compatriots who had been killed in the war . . . I also gave many speeches and lectures in Camp III. Our patriotic songs were sung, processions organised—the enthusiasm of the prisoners was enormous. It was very clear that the majority of these prisoners felt German and thought German.56

These festivities were, at the same time, a display of defiant resistance, and the camp commandant was acutely aware that limits had to be set. A surrogate conflict around symbols unfolded. For the Kaiser’s birthday celebrations in 1915 Colonel Manning had forbidden national flags during the marches. When this was not obeyed he threatened to destroy the Kaiser monument. The prisoners quickly removed the marble plaque with the Kaiser’s image and replaced it with a gypsum caricature of King George crying for help as a German iron fist hits his head. Images of Prime Minister Botha and General Smuts were cut out in cardboard and hung up next to King George. A poster asked the commandant to obtain German flags from German Southwest Africa if he wanted any. As a consequence canteens were shut, mail traffic was temporarily stopped, and no newspapers were allowed.57 All this was not necessarily visible to the outside world because any outgoing information was heavily censored. When German and Austrian inmates tried to send birthday telegrams to their respective emperors, this was rejected by the Commissioner for Enemy Subjects.58 When they tried to send issues of the camp newspaper Der Hunne to friends in South Africa, this was first permitted by the camp commandant as containing ‘no objectionable matter’. Three days later, however, this permit was withdrawn by the Commissioner.59 Generally, though, correspondence with the outside world was encouraged by the camp administration, perhaps with the prospect of giving the prisoners an outlet for their emotional distress. The downside was that the camp censors found themselves exhausted by the sheer mass of letters that needed to be scrutinized.60 A look into the women’s camp which existed in the early phase of the war shows that nationalistic symbolism was not confined to the male sphere. This does not come as a surprise in the light of recent scholarship which shows that German women were strongly implicated into the nationalist and imperialist project of the Kaiserreich. Their main task in this project was to uphold the nationalist spirit in the domestic sphere and to pass it on to the next generation. Self-organization in the form of women’s associations shows a degree of 56 W.  Wagener, Bericht über meine Gefangenschaft in Süd-Afrika und England (Berlin, 1916), pp. 15–16. 57 Anonymous, Südafrikas Deutsche, pp. 53–4. 58 BA/R901/83133, Farmer Ette to friend ‘Oscar’, 9 January 1916; NASA GG619/9/64/181, Governor-General’s office, 2 December and 21 December 1915. 59 NASA/CES164/ES70/3707/70, correspondence camp commandant and Commissioner for Enemy Subjects, 9 and 12 October 1917. 60 NASA/CES74/ES/70/1331/14, camp commandant to Commissioner for Enemy Subjects, 12 January 1916.

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Fort Napier  269 identification with these aims.61 This mechanism was also visible in the diaspora. Once interned, women performed patriotism in a gendered way. On 22 October 1914 they put on a celebration for the birthday of ‘our revered Empress’ in Fort Napier women’s camp. This was introduced with ‘Deutschland über Alles’, followed by a speech from a Mrs Wehlmann and a general toast to the Empress. The children wore festive clothes and had flower garlands woven into their hair. The celebration concluded with a procession through the camp.62 Patriotic songs were also sung during the Christmas celebrations of 1914, which included children, as well as in everyday life in the women’s camp.63 Camps not only confirmed but also shifted identities with regard to nationality. Some of the sources can be read as a form of re-ethnicization, often in tandem with alienation from the host society. A professor Gürich who had been on a research trip to East Africa was interned in December 1914 and released in July 1915. After his return he gave a matter-of-fact report without nationalistic pathos. As for the shifting mindset of internees, he stated: Energetic young men suffered because they were excluded from fighting in the homeland. Many who had settled for a long time in South Africa and had almost forgotten the homeland were regained for Germandom (Deutschtum) through their long captivity. What became stronger and stronger was the firm belief in a happy ending of the fighting in the homeland, as a well as a belief that once peace arrives the Reich-government will give generous support to those Germans in South Africa who had lost everything.64

Language use was an important marker of ethnicity and displayed patterns of ­re-ethnicization. The language mix in the camp consisted of German, English, and Afrikaans,65 and also a sprinkling of Slavic languages and Turkish. A nationalistic voice, however, insisted that ‘our everyday language in the camp was of course German, and whoever had almost unlearned it had to re-learn it in our camp in Pietermaritzburg’.66 Identity shift was also discernible through alienation

61  Lora Wildenthal, German Women for Empire, 1884–1945 (Durham, NC, 2001); Andrea SüchtingHänger, ‘ “Gleichgroße mut’ge Helferinnen” in der weiblichen Gegenwelt: Der Vaterländische Frauenverein und die Politisierung konservativer Frauen, 1890–1914’, in Ute Planert, ed., Nation, Politik und Geschlecht: Frauenbewegung und Nationalismus in der Moderne (Frankfurt, 2000), pp. 131–46; Birthe Kundrus, ‘Weiblicher Kulturimperialismus: Die imperialistischen Frauenverbände des Kaiserreiches’, in Sebastian Conrad and Jürgen Osterhammel, eds, Das Kaiserreich Transnational: Deutschland in der Welt, 1871–1914 (Göttingen, 2004), pp. 213–36. 62 Brodersen, Wie alles anders kam, p. 25.    63  Ibid., pp. 21, 37f. 64  Hamburger Nachrichten, 16 April 1916.    65 Anonymous, Südafrikas Deutsche, p. 19. 66 Wagener, Bericht, p. 16. This could also include coarse language in the absence of women. The tongue-in-cheek report from an anonymous inmate notes: ‘One tends to use rude language, probably due to the taming influence of the gracious feminine sex. As a consequence during visits from relatives there have been linguistic aberrations. I would love to reiterate these here, but . . .’ , Anonymous, Südafrikas Deutsche, p. 25.

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270  Enemies in the Empire from the majority society. Four years of internment had an impact on Hugo Bode’s complex mix of hybrid belonging. His wife Frieda and two children were still in South Africa. He wrote to his parents: It is becoming increasingly clear to me that my inner attachment to Africa is coming to an end although my heart is close to this ‘country’. Well, ‘ubi bene ibi patria’. 17 years in a country leave impressions. Although I have been through and suffered a lot it is against my nature to regard this country merely as a milk cow.67

Bode had to be careful in his expression as his was a normal censored letter. Where prisoners managed to circumvent the censor, they had no such in­hib­ itions. Farmer Hans Ette’s smuggled letter describes cases of inmates’ sufferings and then says in plain language: ‘Since then I hate every Englishman so much, I could strangle each of them with a cold smile on my face’.68 Another letter, ori­ gin­al­ly written in invisible ink, is similarly outspoken: ‘Oh, I wish you were able to feel the hatred against this volk as much as we do here. It is the meanest, lowliest, dirtiest volk on God’s earth’.69 The diasporic nationalism which had been building up in the pre-war decades experienced a step-change in the camps. Fort Napier is a case in point for identity shifts which occurred in captivity around the world, not just with regard to German-speakers. Eastern and South Eastern Europe consisted in large parts of rural multilingual and multi-ethnic populations with little interaction with their respective state. Captivity squeezed them into a paradigm of national ascription, and in the camps they were often exposed to ideas that confirmed their belonging to a single nationality. Educational and cultural events, or indeed plain nationalistic performativity, reduced hitherto complex individual and group identities.70 In this sense, camps were a microcosm of the socio-political shifts pushed by the First World War, transitioning from multi-ethnic empires in the nineteenth to nation states in the twentieth century. It is against this wider background that we have to read the sources on nationalism in Fort Napier and other camps in the Empire. Identity shifts are most poignant when they concern processes of re-ethnicization. Individuals who had been largely assimilated in South Africa 67 

Hugo Bode to parents, 7 March 1918, in compilation Fintel, Fort Napier, p. 79. BA/R901/83133, Farmer Ette to friend ‘Oscar’, 9 January 1916. 69  BA/R901/83133, no name or date. 70  Heather Jones, ‘Prisoners of War’, International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https:// encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/prisoners_of_war, accessed 25 June 2018. Specifically for Germans in British camps see Daniel Rouven Steinbach, ‘Defending the Heimat: The Germans in South-West Africa and East Africa during the First World War’, in Heather Jones, Jennifer O’Brien, and Christoph Schmidt-Supprian, eds, Untold War: New Perspectives in First World War Studies (Leiden, 2008), pp. 179–208; Mahon Murphy, Colonial Captivity during the First World War: Internment and the Fall of the German Empire, 1914–1919 (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 95–104. 68 

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Fort Napier  271 were now thrown together with others who had only recently moved to the country. Their common heritage and victim status created bonds across class, de­nom­in­ation, and regional origin which would otherwise only have existed as an ‘im­agined community’.71 Nationalism in all its performative facets was ripe in the camps as a social glue and has to be seen as an important element of prison camp societies.

Mental Health and Protest Despite what appears to be vibrant activity, the mental state of inmates deterior­ ated steadily as internment dragged on. This becomes clear when reading successive inspection reports. The American Consul in Durban, visiting in May 1915, found the prisoners ‘exceedingly well, and in good spirits, and on the whole I am inclined to think they are satisfied with their condition, and accept the inevitable good naturedly’.72 Over a year later, his colleague from Cape Town comes to very different conclusions which point towards endemic ‘barbed wire-disease’. His report is full of descriptors like ‘depressingly monotonous’, ‘mental and physical degeneration resulting from idle brooding over anxieties and troubles’, ‘wearisome confinement’, ‘mental depression’, and ‘sullenness’. He found it natural that, after two years of confinement, ‘some natures become fretful and some minds abnormal’.73 Professional existences slipped away. Farmer Hans Ette, for example, had his farm let out, but his lessee ran away, his cattle disappeared, and part of his wattle plantation was destroyed by fire. Repeated applications for temporary parole to look after his affairs were rejected.74 Families and friends became alienated, and children grew up without their fathers. The mental state clearly came to the fore in internees’ utterances. Dr Carl August Cohn wrote to relatives in Hamburg: This month I complete the third year of my sad captivity. It has to be endured, even when the corrugated iron disease starts to destroy the mental and physical organism. To be herded together within such a confined space . . . for such a long time without interruption, behind corrugated iron and idle—even the strongest nerves and body are not able to cope with this in the long run.75 71  Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1983). 72  BA/R901/83133, American Consul Durban, Report on Civil Camps, 28/29 May 1915. 73 BA/R67/823, passim, Inspection report American Consul-General, Cape Town, visit 3 to 7 August 1916. 74  NASA/CES55/ES70/963/14, Commandant Fort Napier to Commissioner for Enemy Subjects, 12 January 1916. 75  BA/R901/83133, C. A. Cohn, written to cousin of MP D. F. Waldstein, 19 October 1917. Further accounts of this nature in the same file.

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272  Enemies in the Empire Cohn was the offspring of a German-Jewish merchant family which had strong trading connections with South Africa in the form of Arndt & Cohn Ltd. Ironically, twenty years later he would be detained again, this time in Hamburg by the SS in the wake of Reichskristallnacht. His assets in the company were confiscated and he re-migrated to Johannesburg in 1939, ‘which town he has selected as his permanent domicile. He has not the intention to return to Germany’.76 Escape was both a form of protest and an attempt to rectify the shame of being captured. In the case of combatant prisoners, military oath and honour even made it a duty. In the early phase, Fort Napier had a separate compound holding sixtyfive German and Austrian officers. On 1 November 1914, during the commotion caused by the move to the Lords Ground camp in Durban, six managed to escape temporarily. Four of them had constructed a hole and tunnel, covered by a trap door underneath a bed. The tunnel was not completed, but the four hid in the hole and then left the now deserted camp. Another one, Captain Ludorff, illegally got hold of a pass to visit the women and children in their compound and from there managed to slip away. And the sixth, Lieutenant Ley, ‘escaped by blackening his face and hands, and walking out past the guard at the gate in the character of an Indian waiter (of whom there were several employed at the camp) . . . He had also shaved off his side whiskers’. All six were captured within a matter of days.77 As Fort Napier developed into a purely civilian male camp, escape attempts continued. The sources have gaps and only report on individual attempts, which makes it impossible to give an overview of numbers and success rates. It appears that most escapees were recaptured, although one inmate claimed that by 1916 around forty-five had escaped for good. One dressed up as a carpenter, carried some tools, and thus passed the sentries without being stopped.78 Skilfully digging tunnels was the most widespread method, helped by the fact that there were many miners and engineers among the prisoners.79 Some managed to build their tunnel exits into the public drainage system outside the camp, linking their escape route with existing infrastructure. An overground attempt was made by a group of three. They obtained cover in the overgrown vegetable gardens, crawled to the deserted recreation ground, and from there managed to escape, while the sentries fired at them. One escapee was captured in the grass shortly thereafter, and the other two managed to get away. Several days later a builder in Rustenburg reported to the police that they had tried to find work with him.80 76  Frank Bajohr, ‘Aryanisation’ in Hamburg: The Economic Exclusion of the Jews and the Confiscation of Their Property in Nazi Germany (New York, 2002), p. 226; NASA/OMGUS260/M1922, Petition Dr. C. A. Cohn to Supreme Court of South Africa, 3 October 1939 (quote), and Arndt & Cohn to Chief Finance President Hamburg, 18 April 1940. 77  NASA/CES81/ES70/1516/14, various reports, drawings, and witness statements, 3 November 1914, 27 August 1915. 78 Anonymous, Südafrikas Deutsche, pp. 50–1. 79  NASA/CES81/ES70/1516/14, Commissioner for Enemy Subjects, 29 November 1915. 80  NASA/CES81/ES70/1516/14, Commissioner for Enemy Subjects, 13 November 1915, and statement by K. Heyne, Rustenburg, 25 November 1915. This archive file contains documentation pertaining to escape between 3 November 1914 and 11 January 1916.

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Fort Napier  273 In Fort Napier, by 1917 three cases of suicide and a dozen cases of insanity had occurred. The situation escalated in 1917. In April inmates in Camp IV wrote a letter to Prime Minister Botha, complaining about remarks made by the Minister of the Interior, Sir Thomas Watt. This included a statement that Germans in South Africa had been induced by their Consuls to become naturalized to act as spies for the German government. The letter was discussed in Parliament and triggered a visit to the camp by Louis Botha on 30 July. He met with eleven camp representatives who assured him that feeling amongst inmates had ‘risen to fever heat’, and that many were ‘on the verge of mental breakdown’ because of cramped conditions, separation from families, destroyed professional existence, and, most importantly, incomprehension of why they were interned at all. Botha’s visit did not generate any improvements, and the situation soon boiled over. Frustrated inmates in Camp III initiated a three-day riot, starting on the evening of 16 August. Applying paraffin, they burnt down two wood and iron buildings. Another building was partially destroyed, and an attempt to set fire to the canteen was intercepted. Two hundred and fifty yards of barbed-wire fence was broken down, but no prisoner managed to escape. Seven rioters were injured, and one of them, sailor Emil Gehrer, later succumbed to his wounds. Three of the troops and police were injured. Additional troops were brought in from Pietermaritzburg and Durban to support the guards.81 The cost of damage to buildings either totally or partially destroyed amounted to £1123.6.1.82 As a punishment, eightyeight inmates were sent to the Kanus camp in Southwest Africa, where harsh conditions prevailed.83 Although prisoner complaints about hygiene, food, a lack of exercise outside the camp, and cramped conditions continued after the riots,84 resignation about the inevitability of internment seems to have set in and the monotony of camp life carried on. Berlin occasionally hinted at the history of neglect in the British concentration camps in the South African War as a sinister precedent to the fate of the German prisoners,85 but despite the undeniable hardships, camp life in Pietermaritzburg never deteriorated to a similar level of suffering as insinuated by Berlin. The prisoners protested vehemently when the regular visits of their wives were reduced to only one every ten days instead of once per week.86 Objections were also raised when a promised swimming pool had not materialized,87 although 81  BA/R901/83134, prisoners to Prime Minister Botha, 20 July 1917, and various documents pertaining to riots; NA/FO383/277, Telegram Governor-General to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 21 August 1917. For Botha’s visit and the riots from a prisoner’s perspective also see Der Hunne, ‘Botha’s Besuch’, August 1917, and a hardly legible twelve-page report, ‘Die Unruhen im Kriegsgefangenenlager zu Fort Napier’, both in NMHMSA, collection 920, Michael Bentz. 82 NASA/CES178/ES70/4202/14, South African Police, Office of the Chief Paymaster and Accountant to Commissioner for Enemy Subjects, 10 October 1918. 83  Various files February and March 1918 in NA/FO383/437 and NASA/CES184/ES70/4387/14. 84  NASA/CES199/ESC31, Internees to Camp Commandant, 3 February 1918. 85  NA/FO383/103, German Foreign Office to US Embassy, 24 March 1915. 86  NASA/CES97/ES/70/1843/14, Inspection Visit, 28 December 1915. 87  NASA/CES97/ES/70/1843/14, Inspection Visit, 9 November 1917.

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274  Enemies in the Empire this was later built by the prisoners. Complaints about the reputedly excessive chicory content of the coffee were only refuted after an official investigation.88

Release and Repatriation Armistice Day did not lead to immediate release. Just as in other countries and parts of the Empire, prisoners were held back as a bargaining chip to put pressure on Germany during peace negotiations and to expedite the release of nationals held by the Central Powers. This period also saw more lengthy discussions about the fate of imprisoned women and children in East Africa who initially were destined to be shipped to occupied German Southwest Africa. The Union authorities were loath to accommodate even more German prisoners at a time when antiGerman sentiment among British South Africans ran high. These plans folded, however, mainly because the outbreak of Spanish Influenza heightened fears of importing infected prisoners to the Union’s new territorial acquisition.89 In April 1919 there were still 2,116 prisoners in Fort Napier. Half of them were repatriated to Germany between 11 May and 4 July on German and British steamers including the Shepstow Castle, Guildford Castle, Ingoma, Intaba, and Feldmarschall. Transports also included 210 women and 240 children. Criteria for forced re­pat­ ri­ation were ‘strong pro German sympathies’, as well as less than three years’ residence in South Africa prior to the war. The Commissioner for Enemy Subjects received many letters begging for exemption from this latter clause. W. Capito, for example, had come to Durban in 1913 at the request of his Scottish-born uncle and aunt with a view towards adoption: ‘They are 58 and 54 years of age. I should be of help and comfort to them in their old age, as I also should assist my uncle in his business. I myself have been exempted from Military-Service in Germany’.90 Most of the 1,096 remaining inmates were gradually released into South African society, although at the beginning of August 1919 there were still 291 whose release may have been delayed because of difficulties in arranging for their re­pat­ri­ation. On 16 August Camp Commander Manning reported that he had transferred five inmates to the Natal Mental Hospital and released the remainder, making the camp population ‘Nil’.91 Ironically, Fort Napier was turned into a psychiatric hospital in 1927 and has been used in this function up until the present day. 88 NASA/CES97/ES70/938/14, part IV, Commandant Fort Napier to Commissioner for Enemy Subjects, 5 June 1916. 89  NA/FO383/5436, Secretary of State for the Colonies to Administrator German East Africa, 19 October 1918. 90 NASA/CES124/ES70/2592/14, W.  Capito, No 639, Camp IV, to Commissioner for Enemy Subjects, 21 May 1919. This file also contains the lists of repatriated prisoners, including a summary of evidence which mostly consisted of pro-German sympathies. Also see BA/R901/83086, Deutscher Hülfs-Verein und Allgemeiner Unterstützungs-Verein, Rundschreiben No. 10, 10 October 1919. 91  AA/PA, Kapstadt, Name list March/April 1919 compiled by internees, including report July 1919, 56; NASA/CES137/ES70/2860/14, tables May 1916 to August 1919 in camp commandant’s reports.

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Fort Napier  275 Pro-Empire loyalists started a campaign after the war to have all German r­ esidents, irrespective of their naturalization, repatriated from the Union. One of the most vociferous groups was the Sons of England Patriotic and Benevolent Society. The suggestion for wholesale repatriation stirred vehement resistance among Afrikaners, leading to the withdrawal of the Enemies Repatriation and Denaturalisation Bill which had proposed the deportation of all German ­prisoners and possibly of other Germans residents deemed to be hostile to the Empire.92 The German Relief Society was positively surprised that former internees had been able to reintegrate into the South African labour market better than expected.93 This constellation harks back to our argument made in Chapter  8 about the squeezed position of South Africa’s German minority between the two dominant white groups—not necessarily to its detriment. The history of internment in South Africa indicates a global trend towards a sharper definition of ethnic identity and citizenship during the First World War, culminating in more restrictive migration regimes during the 1920s.94 Many Germans had not conceptualized their identity within such clearly demarcated categories until being made aware of them during their years in confinement. Conversely, the political struggles between Afrikaners and British South Africans contributed to the relatively benign treatment of the German prisoners because Afrikaner sympathies provided an antidote to excessive Germanophobia. Prime Minister Botha and General Smuts continuously emphasized throughout the war that they fought the German government but did not have any quarrels with the German people. When Prime Minister Louis Botha visited the camp in 1917, he was almost apologetic towards internees, stressing that he had to follow the British lead, and that ‘relations between the German people, and the Boer nation have always been friendly’.95 Although the present study takes on an Empire-wide perspective, the specificities of the South African case—and indeed other regional cases—must not be left out of sight. This will also become clear in Chapter 12 on Ahmednagar.

92  Debates of the House of Assembly of the Union of South Africa as reported in the Cape Times 15 and 29 March 1919, 4 April 1919; NASA/GG634/9/64/632, Resolution of Sons of England Society, 29 November 1918 to 23 December 1918. 93  BA/R901/83086, Deutscher Hülfs-Verein und Allgemeiner Unterstützungs-Verein, Rundschreiben No. 10, 10 October 1919. 94  Andreas Fahrmeir, Oliver Faron, and Patrick Weil, eds, Migration Control in the North Atlantic World (New York, 2003). 95  NA/FO 383/469, Swiss Consul Cape Town, portfolio on Fort Napier, 22 January 1918.

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12

Ahmednagar Ahmednagar developed the same type of symbolic importance for those interned in India as that which Knockaloe held for the Germans interned in Great Britain. While much smaller in scale than the head camp further north, Ahmednagar lasted for a similar length of time and played a leading role in the incarceration of Germans from East Africa, India, and Siam. As in the case of Knockaloe, Fort Napier, and other camps, some of those who spent time in Ahmednagar published accounts of their experiences during and immediately after the Great War.1 The best-known book came from the pen of Albrecht Oepke of the Leipzig Missionary Seminary, which had trained and sent missionaries to India since the 1840s.2 The title of Oepke’s book, Ahmednagar und Golconda,3 mentions the second central symbol of the German Great War experience in India. During two journeys in November 1915 and April 1916, the British ship Golconda transported hundreds of deportees from India to Europe, among them a significant portion of missionaries. As Karl Foertsch, the chief inspector of the Gossner Mission, wrote: ‘Golconda, thy name will never disappear from our memory as long as we live’,4 a sentiment echoed in other accounts.5 While the majority of missionaries left India on these two journeys, the camp would continue to hold Germans into 1920, as most of those incarcerated here did not work for religious organizations.

The Development of Ahmednagar Just like Pietermaritzburg, Ahmednagar was a British garrison town with a long military tradition, as well as a history of internment dating back to the South 1 The earliest included: Hans Georg Probst, Unter indischer Sonne: 19 Monate englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft in Ahmednagar (Herborn, 1917); J. Maue, In Feindes Land: Achtzehn Monate in englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft in Indien und England (Stuttgart, 1918). Later came N. O. Tera, Meine 800: Heimkehr aus Ahmednagar: “Der Käpt’n erzählt” (Hannover, 1934); and, much later, Albert Achilles, Erinnerungen aus meiner Kriegsgefangenschaft im Mixed-Transit-Camp Ahmednagar und Erholungslager Ramandrog in Indien während des ersten Weltkrieges 1914–1920 (Berlin, 1977). 2  Details of Leipzig missionaries in India exist in Leipzig Missionswerk, Missionäre, Indien, http:// www.lmw-mission.de/de/missionare--2-site-1.html, accessed 1 June 2015. 3  Albrecht Oepke, Ahmednagar und Golconda: Ein Beitrag zur Erörterung der Missionsprobleme des Weltkrieges (Leipzig, 1918). 4 Karl Foertsch, Unter Kriegs-Wettern: Kriegserlebnisse der Gossnerschen Missionare in Indien (Berlin-Friedenau, 1916), p. 64. 5  Therese Zehme, Heimkehr mit der Golconda: Wie es den Kindern unserer vertriebenen indischen Missionare erging (Leipzig, 1916); E. Pohl, Schiff in Not: Die Breklumer Mission in Indien in und nach dem Kriege (Breklum, 1929). Enemies in the Empire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War. Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi, Oxford University Press (2020). © Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198850151.001.0001

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Ahmednagar  277 African War. The town itself is situated about 100 miles east of Bombay and counted 42,940 inhabitants according to the 1911 census.6 The local economy revolved around textiles, especially handloom weaving, together with the trading of cotton and silk goods and carpets, but also brass and copper tableware.7 Ahmednagar’s main feature was its medieval fort, taken over by the British in 1803, which acted as a temporary camp in the initial stages of the First World War before more permanent barrack structures were built.8 During the South African War, the location had been a node in Britain’s global ‘archipelago of camps’.9 The Boer prisoners who spent time in Ahmednagar formed part of a group of around 9,000 transported from South Africa not just to India but also to St Helena, Ceylon, and Bermuda. Those in India lived in seventeen camps initially in the Punjab, Bengal, Madras, and Bombay commands. Ahmednagar became the most important and housed as many as 1,000 Boer prisoners. Some mistreatment appears to have taken place, although the Government of India denied any allegations. The prisoners developed a rich social life which included sporting activity. Memorialization of the Boer internees in Ahmednagar took place when the Bishop of Bombay opened a cenotaph in 1906 to commemorate those who died in the camp.10 A similar example of imperial internment continuities in Southeast Asia would be the Diyatalawa camp on Ceylon. When Rudolf Wettenger was taken from Colombo to Diyatalawa in October 1914 he was aware that this was ‘an old concentration camp from the Boer War, where the deportation of Boer warriors’ wives and uninvolved civilians, suffering from hunger and epidemics, was supposed to prevent victory for their husbands and heroes’.11 Turning to the First World War, little information has survived on the actual administration of the Ahmednagar camp other than that provided by a US consular report from 2 October 1915. This pointed out that the camp had its own commandant, answerable, in military terms, to the Brigadier General of the 6th Poona Divisional Area. The commandant had ‘immediate responsibility for the organization, maintenance of discipline and proper observance of camp orders,

6  Census of India, 1911, Vol. 1, Part II, Tables (Calcutta, 1913), p. 16. 7 N.  G.  Bapat, Economic Development of Ahmednagar District, 1881–1960 (Bombay, 1973), pp.  396–400; NAI/Home/Police/April1918/180, Swiss Consular Report on Ahmednagar, 23 April 1917; BA/R901/83964, Herr Dr Herbert Müller, ‘Im Gefangenen-Lager zu Ahmednagar’, p. 1. 8 D. D. Nagarkar, Glimpses of Ahmednagar (Ahmednagar, 1977). 9  Aidan Forth, ‘Britain’s Archipelago of Camps: Labour and Detention in a Liberal Empire, 1871–1903’, Kritika, vol. 16/3 (2015), pp. 651–80. 10  NAI/PublicWorks/CivilWorksA/April1902/29–31, Letter from the Government of India, Military Department, 18 March 1901 to the Adjutant General in India; NAI/RevenueandAgriculture/ Archaeologyand EpigraphyA/February 1903/23/27/1903, Allegations made by Dr Vogel, Archaeological Survey Punjab Circle, regarding the treatment of Boer prisoners of War in India; Isabel Hofmeyr, ‘South Africa’s Indian Ocean: Boer Prisoners of War in India’, Social Dynamics, vol. 38 (2012), pp. 363–80; Floris Van der Meuwe, Sport in die Boere-krygsgevangekampe tydens die Anglo-Boereoorlog, 1899–1902 (Stellenbosch, 2013), pp. 121–46. 11 Hans Weiland and Leopold Kern, eds, In Feindeshand: Die Gefangenschaft im Weltkriege in Einzeldarstellungen, Vol. 2 (Vienna, 1931), p. 109.

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278  Enemies in the Empire together with numerous personal applications or complaints from prisoners’. Both the Government of India and the Bombay presidency played a role in its establishment.12 The first internees reached Ahmednagar during the autumn of 1914. They included L.  Tesch who had attempted to travel to Calcutta as a reservist at the declaration of war with the intention of sailing either to the German protectorate in Kiao Chow or the Persian Gulf. He claimed that he was made a ‘prisoner of war’ on 6 August in Sakchi, 285 kilometres west of Calcutta, but at first this only meant that he was not allowed to leave this city and remained under observation. Deportation and internment proper followed three months later: At 9.30 on the evening of 21 October soldiers suddenly appeared, surrounded the houses and ordered us to pack and travel to Calcutta in half an hour. People were hauled away from their beds and from their work. In a coolie wagon with blacks to the left and right we were taken to Calcutta during the night, marched to Fort William with half a company of soldiers and were accommodated there. On the 23rd we travelled through India to Ahmednagar, this time in 1st and 2nd class wagons.

Tesch pointed out that some Ahmednagar internees had spent time in prisons, including ‘the house of correction in Byculla near Bombay’.13 Some prisoners had reached Ahmednagar before Tesch’s arrival, including: thirty-three-year-old Joseph Links from Cologne, manager of a Madras export firm; thirty-one-year-old Karl Neander from Scharmbeck in East Prussia, who worked as a ship’s officer for the Hansalinie in Bremen; thirty-seven-year-old C.  E.  L.  Kappelhoff from Hamburg, a businessman from Aden; and forty-two-year-old Wilhelm Buritz, a cook on board the steamship Kurmark.14 Missionaries also reached Ahmednagar in the early autumn, including Karl Foertsch, arrested on 2 October and arriving on 5 October.15 Ahmednagar consisted of three different camps, although accounts about them do not consistently assign their functions and purpose. A and B generally attracted the description of prisoners of war camp with C usually labelled as a civil internment camp. At the beginning of the war the difference between those held in the three depended upon age. Those of military age were held in A and B, while those in C were either under seventeen or over forty-five. Those in camp B had obtained parole and could leave the camp and walk around in a designated area. As the war progressed, however, the third camp became the parole camp. 12  NA/FO383/237, Report on Military and Civil Camps at Ahmednagar, India, by James Smith, American Consul-General at Calcutta, 2 October 1915. 13  BA/R901/83007, letter from L. Tesch, 1 February 1915. 14  AA/PA//R48283, Verhandelt zu Ahmednagar (Indien), 21 October 1914. 15 Foertsch, Unter Kriegs-Wettern, pp. 53–5.

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Ahmednagar  279 According to a Swiss consular report from April 1917, A and B camps ‘are ­absolutely on one footing and have only to be considered as 2 separate camps as a road runs between them’. A report from January 1916 asserted that the civilian internment camp ‘lies approximately three English miles from Ahmednagar and is under the control of the Ahmednagar magistrate’.16 Earlier chapters have demonstrated that social class was an important factor in dividing prisoners into different compounds and camps. This global pattern also applied to Ahmednagar. The academic Herbert Müller, who was interned from November 1914 until March 1916, reported that: ‘B camp was for the so-called better class of people, namely rich businessmen and naval officers who had been given parole. They promised not to undertake anything against England and her Allies during the War’. This meant that they could walk in specific areas beyond the barbed wire. ‘I was assigned to Camp A. I therefore became one of the prisoners who were not given parole. About half were seamen. The missionaries were also assigned to this uncomfortable camp’.17 The total number held in Ahmednagar fluctuated throughout the war between 1,100 and 1,700, with camp C always being the smallest.18 In the early autumn of 1915, 1,151 prisoners were interned in camps A and B, made up of 966 Germans and 185 Austrians and divided between 791 in A and 360 in B. In addition, the civil camp C held 127, of which ninety-six were German and thirty-one AustroHungarian.19 In the following summer another US consular official counted 736 in camp A, 282 in camp B, and 177 in the ‘parole camp’, making a total of 1,195. ‘In addition to these, 89 men have been temporarily transferred to a military camp in Dagshai, a hill station in the Punjab . . . upon the recommendation of the general medical officer of the camp’ as they required ‘a change of climate to enable them to convalesce more quickly’. In terms of nationality the 1,264 prisoners (including those in Dagshai) broke down into 1,075 Germans, 207 Austrians, and two Bulgarians.20 A year later, the population had risen by about 500. A Red Cross report from the spring of 1917 stated that Ahmednagar now contained ‘1,621 persons, of whom 452 were military (apparently captured crews of German

16  NA/FO383/237, Report on Military and Civil Camps at Ahmednagar, India, by James Smith, American Consul-General at Calcutta, 2 October 1915; BA/R901/83083, Swiss Consular report, 23 April 1917; BA/R67/251, Interner Bericht 57, 15.1.1916. 17  BA/R901/83964, Herr Dr Herbert Müller, ‘Im Gefangenen-Lager Ahmednagar’, pp. 2–3. The assertion about those held in camp B receives support in a report in Evangelisch Lutherische Freikirche, 10 September 1916, p. 151. See also Emanuel Schoch, F. Thormeyer, and F. Blanchod, eds, Reports on British Prison Camps in India and Burma Visited by the International Red Cross Committee in February, March and April 1917 (London, 1917), p. 25, who assert that in A and B ‘prisoners were assigned according to social class’. 18  BA/R901/83083, Swiss Consular Report, 23 April 1917. 19  NA/FO383/237, Report on Military and Civil Camps at Ahmednagar, India, by James Smith, American Consul-General at Calcutta, 2 October 1915. 20  NA/FO383/240, Report on Military and Civil Camps at Ahmednagar, India, by James Smith, American Consul-General at Calcutta, date of visit 5 to 10 July 1916.

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280  Enemies in the Empire Table 12.1  Total number of internees in Ahmednagar Date

Total number of internees

October 1915 July 1916 April 1917 October 1919

1,278 1,195 1,621 1,700

Sources: NA/FO383/237, Report on Military and Civil Camps at Ahmednagar, India, by James Smith, American Consul-General at Calcutta, 2 October 1915; NA/FO383/240, Report on Military and Civil Camps at Ahmednagar, India, by James Smith, American Consul-General at Calcutta, date of visit 5 to 10 July 1916; Emanuel Schoch, F. Thormeyer, and F. Blanchod, eds, Reports on British Prison Camps in India and Burma Visited by the International Red Cross Committee in February, March and April 1917 (London, 1917), p. 25; BMAC3/13, Consulate General for Switzerland, Bombay to General-Direktion, Norddeutsche Versicherungsgesellschaft, 2 October 1919.

ships), the rest civilians’.21 In October 1919 a letter from the Swiss Consul in Bombay pointed to ‘ca.1700’ prisoners (Table 12.1).22 Ahmednagar continued to function as a camp into early 1921 when it held German and Cossack refugees from the Russian Revolutionary Wars. By the time it was vacated in April 1921, it held seventy-five.23 Ahmednagar would, however, come back to life as an internment camp for Germans at the outbreak of the Second World War.24 The location therefore embodies a clear continuity of civilian deportation and internment in the British Empire from the South African War to the Second World War. In geographical, structural, and chronological terms Ahmednagar has to be seen in a wider framework which goes far beyond the local and national contexts.

The Prisoners Ahmednagar internees were all male and came from a variety of backgrounds. A  US consular report from the autumn of 1915 found that the majority ‘are civilians, who were previous to the war residing in India and engaged in various occupations, such as merchants, bankers, professional men, priests, missionaries, 21  Schoch, Thormeyer, and Blanchod, Reports, p. 25. 22  BMAC3/13, Consulate General for Switzerland, Bombay to General-Direktion, Norddeutsche Versicherungsgesellschaft, 2 October 1919. 23 AA/PA/R48342, verbal note, 18 January 1921; NAI/Foreign and Political/External B/July 1921/112–23, Evacuation of the Ahmednagar Civil Refugees Camp and retention by the Govt. of Bombay of the use of the Belgaum and Deolali camps for refugees. 24 Wilhelm Schlatter and Hermann Witschi, Geschichte der Basler Mission, Vol. 5, 1920–1940 (Basel, 1970), p. 297.

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Ahmednagar  281 medical men, and also officers and crews of captured merchant steamers’.25 A detailed list describing six internees who remained ‘in Civil Charge’ of camp C after the first sailing of the Golconda in November 1915 points to the type of diversity found in camps throughout the world. The six consisted of: brother Edward Luck, a thirty-seven-year-old Jesuit missionary from Kausen in Prussia; Edgar Boessenger, a forty-nine-year-old hotel manager from Nairobi, born in Trieste; Oswald Schuler-Baudesson, a sixty-nine-year-old ‘superintendent of ­stables, Bhopal State’ born in Scezinkin in Posen; fifty-six-year-old Paul Smith, a civil engineer born in Winnipeg, Canada, whose ‘nationality is uncertain, but he is believed to be a German though he claims to be a Canadian’; and fifty-nineyear-old Arend Weihmann, the ‘captain of a ship’ from Oldenburg. The most remarkable individual on this list was sixty-one-year-old Johann Ungefroren, described as a ‘zamindar [landowner] at Musoorie’ from Brandenburg who has ‘been away from Germany for 37 years and in India for 32 years, having retired from service on a State Railway in 1913. Is married to an Englishwoman and believed himself, until recently, to be a British subject’, having ‘enlisted in the Transvaal Rifles in 1879’ and served in the ‘Zulu War’ for which he ‘received the South African medal’.26 Two other interesting profiles included Major Richard Dinkelmann and Lieutenant Bernard Waurick who strayed into Indian territory while travelling home from Tsingtau to Germany at the end of 1916 with Norwegian passports27 Much information has survived on the missionaries who made up a significant percentage of internees in the early days of Ahmednagar. A list from August 1915 shows that a total of 106 of them lived in camp A, originating from the following missionary organizations: Basel, sixty-eight; Gossner, nineteen; Hermannsburg, three; Leipzig, seven; Kurku, one; Moravian, one; American Missouri Synod, one; Salvation Army, one; YMCA, one; ‘Neukirchen’, three; ‘Seven Days Adventists’, one.28 Although most were deported during 1915 and 1916, some missionaries still remained well into 1916. Others were held in camp B.29 The list ignored the approximately sixty employed by the Roman Catholic Church in India who seem to have spent no more than a few months in Ahmednagar.30 German missionaries in Ahmednagar included the Basel employee Jakob Maue, who had first 25  NA/FO383/237, Report on Military and Civil Camps at Ahmednagar, India, by James Smith, American Consul-General at Calcutta, 2 October 1915. 26  NA/FO383/237, List of hostile aliens remaining in Civil Charge after Repatriation. In the Civil Camp at Ahmednagar, n.d. 27  BL/IOR/L/PS/10/644, Northern Frontier: Arrest of two Germans Travelling with Norwegian Passports. 28  BMA/C3/13, List of Protestant Missionaries in Prisoners of War Camp A, Ahmednagar, August 1915. 29  Evangelische Lutherische Freikirche, 10 September, 22 October, 3 December 1916. 30 Ernest  R.  Hull, The German Jesuit Fathers of Bombay: By an Englishman Who Knows Them (Bombay, 1915), p. 99; Alfons Väth, Die deutschen Jesuiten in Indien: Geschichte der Mission von Bombay-Puna (Regensburg, 1920), pp. 231–4; Die katholischen Missionen, no. 4 (1915–16), p. 83.

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282  Enemies in the Empire

Figure 12.1  Ahmednagar internees.

arrived in India in 1899 and who spent eighteen months in the camp, providing a balanced account of his experiences. Upon arrival, the ‘guard opened the large iron door and we entered. The creaking door closed behind us and the following thought came to us: when would it open for us again. We could not guess how long it would remain closed for us’.31 Georg Probst was another Basel missionary who spent eighteen months in Ahmednagar, beginning in November 1914 and ending with his departure on the second sailing of the Golconda in April 1916.32 Doctor of philosophy Herbert Müller precisely recorded the time he spent in Ahmednagar in a detailed typescript which he wrote when he returned to Berlin.33 Other academics who spent time in Ahmednagar included Otto Strauβ who held a chair in Comparative Philology in Calcutta at the outbreak of war and spent five years behind barbed wire between 1915 and 1920. During this time, he learnt Russian and used the knowledge he gained to translate a Russian commentary into German, published in Munich after his return to Germany.34 Meanwhile, Otto Schrader, director of the Adyar Library in Madras from November 1905, learned Tibetan and Siamese and conducted research with his friend and as­sist­ ant Johan van Manen. He returned to Germany in 1920 and took up the post of 31 Maue, In Feindes Land, p. 15. 32 Probst, Unter indischer Sonne. 33  BA/R901/83964, Herr Dr Herbert Müller, ‘Im Gefangenen-Lager Ahmednagar’. 34 Elpidius Pax, ‘Otto Strauβ’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, vol. 100 (1950), p. 43.

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Ahmednagar  283 Professor of Indology and Comparative Linguistic Studies at the University of Kiel in the following year.35 The Germans interned in Ahmednagar during the war, mirroring the situation elsewhere in the Empire, also came from other parts of the world. For example, at the beginning of 1915 seven men arrested in Basra and Bahrain faced transportation here.36 They included G. Harling, seized in the office of his employer Robert Douckbans & Co. in Bahrain on 28 October 1914, who complained that this event had taken place in ‘an independent country’.37

Everyday Realities and Complaints in Ahmednagar Placed within the context of other places of confinement discussed in previous chapters, Ahmednagar was one of the better-run camps in the Empire, broadly comparable to Fort Napier. Inmates’ utterances of depression hinting at ‘barbedwire disease’ remained less clearly articulated than elsewhere. Some accounts even viewed Ahmednagar in a positive light. These included Karl Huber, an officer who arrived at the end of 1917 after the final defeat of German forces in East Africa. After a stint in Ahmednagar, he spent six months in a small ‘recuperation camp’ in Hospet. The title of his wartime memoirs is indicative of its positive tone: ‘The Indian Prisoner of War Paradise’. Huber wrote of Ahmednagar: ‘We lacked nothing—other than freedom’.38 Other published accounts, such as those by Basel missionaries Jakob Maue and Georg Probst, remained more crit­ic­al, but nevertheless balanced when it came to camp conditions.39 Nonetheless, the US and Swiss Embassy Consuls found themselves bombarded with complaints from prisoners. This can partly be explained by the fact that the internees had much time on their hands because they did not work. One senior British soldier pointed to the fact that ‘there are a large number of well-to-do prisoners who cannot but feel considerable difference between their present mode of life and that to which they have been previously accustomed’.40 The climate became an issue which caused much consternation. In 1916 a complaint came forward about the ‘unsuitability of the Ahmednagar climate during the hot weather’, accompanied by a ‘request that all prisoners be removed to a 35 Joachim Friedrich Sprockhoff, ‘Friedrich Otto Schrader zum Gedächtnis’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, vol. 113 (1963), p. 3. 36  NA/FO383/46, A. W. Chitty to Secretary, Military, Department, India Office, 25 February. 37 NA/FO383/46, American Consulate, Bombay to Deputy Secretary to the Government of Bombay, Political Department, 12 May 1915. 38  Karl Huber, ‘Das indische Kriegsgefangenen-Paradies’, in Edgar Grueber, ed., Deutsche hinter Stacheldraht: Kriegsgefangene erzählen ihre Erlebnisse (Tübingen, 1935), pp. 182–90. 39 Probst, Unter indischer Sonne; Maue, In Feindes Land. 40  NA/FO383/163, General Officer Commanding, 6th (Poona) Divisional Area to the Adjutant General in India, 3 May 1916.

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284  Enemies in the Empire more healthy spot before next summer’.41 An India Office employee put this in the context of more amenable conditions during other periods of the year, coming to a more positive assessment: The climate is on the whole genial. The cold season from November to February is dry and invigorating. A hot dry wind from the North East then sets in, lasting from March till the middle of May, when sultry oppressive weather succeeds, till, with the break of the South West Monsoon, about the middle of June, the climate again becomes temperate and continues agreeable until the close of the rains in either early or late October.42

Similarly, a Swiss Embassy report declared that Ahmednagar ‘is considered healthy, and although in summer rather hot during the day time, it has advantages that generally the nights and the mornings are fairly cool’.43 When the Basel missionary Jakob Maue awoke on his first morning in Ahmednagar, he wrote of the ‘sun rising upwards from a virtually cloudless sky’, which, however, displayed to him the ‘naked reality’ of his situation. Maue, who lived under canvas upon first arrival, found that: ‘Living in tents became increasingly uncomfortable with rising heat. If the rain came suddenly, most of the tent stood in water. If there was a strong wind, dust was driven into the tent to the extent that one could not see one’s neighbour’.44 In the early stages of the war, many complaints focused upon accommodation, including overcrowding and the lack of ‘proper floors’, which meant the prisoners in camp A basically stood on ‘dirt’, ‘the heat, wet and vermin’.45 Generally, the accommodation in camp A caused more complaints than that in the privilege camp B, where one inmate found that ‘buildings are very beautifully furnished and provide enough space’.46 With regard to complaints about overcrowding in camp A, one US consular report asserted that the ‘space allowed each man is stated by the Commandant to be the same as that for British troops’. The internees also lived in barracks in camp B but ‘the quarters do not appear to be overcrowded’ except in corrugated-iron huts.47 Complaints about accommodation declined as the war progressed, partly because the camp authorities had responded to the earlier problems that surfaced. 41  NA/FO383/163, draft letter from Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to US Ambassador, 24 June 1916. 42  NA/FO383/34, Letter from India Office, 18 August 1915. 43  NAI/Home/Police/April1918/180, Swiss Consular report on Ahmednagar, 23 April 1917. 44 Maue, In Feindes Land, pp. 15, 20. 45  NA/FO383/163, Army Department to Austen Chamberlain, 4 August 1916; NA/FO383/237, Report on Military and Civil Camps at Ahmednagar, India, by James Smith, American ConsulGeneral at Calcutta, 2 October 1915. 46  Die Biene auf dem Missionsfelde, May 1915, p. 74. 47  NA/FO383/237, Report on Military and Civil Camps at Ahmednagar, India, by James Smith, American Consul-General at Calcutta, 2 October 1915.

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Ahmednagar  285 By the beginning of August 1916: ‘Pucca floors have been completed for four huts; the flooring of the remaining seven huts is in progress’.48 In camp A, ‘about half are housed in barracks, the others in newly constructed huts which are long low structures with thick sun-proof and galvanised iron sides’ that generally remained cool.49 A Swiss consular report from April 1917 asserted that ‘the space allotted to each prisoner is sufficient, and where there are complaints in this respect, it is probably due to the prisoners according to the custom amongst Europeans in the tropics having an enormous quantity of luggage with them which of course takes up a good deal of space’. The same report also spoke positively about the accommodation and the ‘ample provisions for daily baths for washing’.50 Similarly, the Red Cross report on the Indian camps from the spring of 1917 spoke in positive terms about accommodation in all three of the Ahmednagar camps: In camp C, the parole camp, the interned are housed in three large dressed stone buildings, with wide verandahs . . . In camp B, the usual form of hutment is a building measuring 150 by 60 feet, sub-divided into a central hall and several smaller chambers. Right round it the roof projects about 26 feet, forming a veranda, supported by columns . . . The 150 by 60 feet huts accommodate 43 men each.

While not referring specifically to camp A, the description of housing concluded by stating that ‘the interned have full liberty to decorate their rooms with pictures, photographs, portraits of their sovereign and the German Generals, and with flags and patriotic emblems’51 (Figure 12.2). Those reports that commented upon sanitation and water supply did so in a positive manner. ‘The latrines and urinals are separated from the barracks, being in some cases of corrugated iron. They are cleaned by native sweepers with ­phenyl emulsion’. The water came from beyond the camp, originally ‘from a lake some three miles distant from the camp’,52 and by 1917 ‘from a well 15½ miles from the camp’. In both cases it underwent chemical sterilization. By this time every house had a tap, while the camp as a whole had ‘130 douches, one for every ten prisoners’.53

48 NA/FO/383/163, General Officer Commanding, 6th (Poona) Divisional Area to Adjutant General in India, Simla, 3 May 1916. 49 NA/FO383/36, Copy of a letter from Mr  G.  P.  Bryce, 1 May 1915; NA/FO383/163, Army Department to Austen Chamberlain, 4 August 1916. 50  NAI/Home/Police/April1918/180, Swiss Consular Report on Ahmednagar, 23 April 1917. 51  Schoch, Thormeyer, and Blanchod, Reports, pp. 25–7. 52  NA/FO383/237, Report on Military and Civil Camps at Ahmednagar, India, by James Smith, American Consul-General at Calcutta, 2 October 1915. 53  Schoch, Thormeyer, and Blanchod, Reports, pp. 28–9.

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286  Enemies in the Empire

Figure 12.2  Plan of Ahmednagar Camp.

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Ahmednagar  287 Throughout the war most British, American, and Swiss official accounts of food in Ahmednagar painted a positive picture. They pointed to the fact that the internees obtained the same rations as British soldiers stationed in India. The daily supply included 1lb of bread, 12oz of fresh meat, and 8oz of potatoes, together with other vegetables, fresh milk, tea, rice, and butter.54 ‘For variety, 28.35 gr. of coffee are supplied instead of 14.17 gr. of tea, and 28.35 gr. of lentils in place of rice’. By 1917, volunteers from among the interned carried out most of the cooking. The internees took breakfast at 8 a.m., lunch at noon, and supper at 5 p.m.55 Many internees supplemented their daily rations by purchasing meat, veget­ables, or eggs. Those who did not have sufficient funds to do so, such as the crews of cargo ships, earned extra money by attending to the ‘personal comfort’ of wealthier prisoners, ‘cleaning their rooms, clothes etc., or by acting as cooks’. Utterances from prisoners themselves were less complimentary about the food provided. Apart from the size of the rations, on which most prisoners claimed ‘it would be impossible to live’ without purchasing additional food from canteens, other complaints emerged about the quality and lack of variety.56 Herbert Müller wrote: ‘We obtained a warm meal every day consisting of some meat, lots of bones from very old cows, a few potatoes and a bit of rice. For vegetables there were squashes every day for 8 months and carrots daily through a period of 4 months’.57 Complaints also emerged about the fact that the camp authorities had subcontracted the running of the canteen ‘to a Parsi of the name Cursetji’, pointing to a strong tinge of racism, who had a monopoly and therefore charged prices regarded as too high.58 Despite these grumbles, the Ahmednagar internees continued to eat the type of European food they had done before the outbreak of the war. As in the case of their fellow prisoners in other parts of the world, the complaints about food partly surfaced because it was a symbol of the lack of control over their lives. An examination of the health of those in Ahmednagar supports the fact that they received a nutritious and sufficient diet. By June 1915 a total of seventy-one internees had spent time in the camp hospital. They included eleven cases of venereal disease, all contracted prior to arrival, and nine of malaria, six of them already present before arrival. In July 1915 the medical officer proudly declared: ‘There has only been one death . . . an old standing case of diabetes’.59 Ahmednagar developed advanced medical provision including a hospital with four wards 54  NA/FO383/237, Report on Military and Civil Camps at Ahmednagar, India, by James Smith, American Consul-General at Calcutta, 2 October 1915. 55  Schoch, Thormeyer, and Blanchod, Reports, p. 27. 56  NAI/Home/Police/April1918/180, Swiss Consular Report on Ahmednagar, 23 April 1917. 57  BA/R901/83964, Herr Dr Herbert Müller, ‘Im Gefangenen-Lager Ahmednagar’, p. 7. 58 NA/FO383/163, note verbale, 31 July 1916. See also the equally racist account by Probst, Unter indischer Sonne, pp. 37–40, entitled ‘Der Parsi’. 59  NA/FO383/237, Major W. W. Browne, R.A.M.C., Medical Officer in Charge of Prisoners of War to Commandant, Prisoners of War, Ahmednagar, 28 July 1915.

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288  Enemies in the Empire ‘­fitted up in accordance with modern requirements’, together with ‘a doctor qualified to practice in India . . . Nineteen German orderlies are distributed among the three camp infirmaries and the hospital’.60 Again, not all internees agreed with these positive assessments. Upon his repatriation in June 1917, a Dr Finck made detailed allegations to the German authorities about inadequate arrangements for operations and a lack of precautions against malaria and dysentery. The British dismissed all assertions, providing statistics to demonstrate the relative health of the internees compared with British troops.61 A serious outbreak of disease occurred in the second half of 1916 in the form of bubonic plague, spreading from the district of Ahmednagar, where it began in July. The infection surfaced in camp B in November when Richard Krueder fell victim and died. In fact, because of the outbreak in the adjoining areas the camp authorities had already taken measures to prevent its spread. The prisoners left camp B and moved to tents while cleaning and disinfection took place. Inoculation also occurred. Camp A and the parole camp remained free of the disease.62 As well as the handful of people who died in Ahmednagar as a result of disease, killings of prisoners took place on two separate occasions. Little information survives on the first of these on the evening of 17 October 1914 when an English guard shot Walter Luley. Evidence taken a few days later pointed to the fact that Luley appears to have stepped too close to the barbed wire and disobeyed one of the guards who told him to move. Luley may have had too much to drink, as one of the witnesses suggested that he urinated in the open, near the barbed wire.63 In fact, drunkenness proved ‘very common’ in the early stages of internment, especially in camp A ‘which contains many sailors and lower-class prisoners’.64 Alcohol consumption in imperial camps was at the discretion of camp com­mand­ ants. In Fort Napier, for example, it was strictly forbidden. Whether Luley was drunk or not, it is clear that the sentry who shot him overreacted. This, however, did not prevent another fatal shooting on the evening of 24 May 1918, by which time stones ‘marked out’ a ‘five yard strip’ from the barbed wire which prisoners were not allowed to overstep. Evidence given by two sergeants to one of the three enquiries which looked into this incident suggested that ‘there had been a good deal of crossing the line and jeering at the sentries and running

60  Schoch, Thormeyer, and Blanchod, Reports, p. 29. 61  BA/R901/83083: statement by D. A. Finck, Gardelegen, 26 June 1917; General Officer Commanding, 6th (Poona) Divisional Area to the Adjutant General in India, 17 January 1917. See also the tables attached to NA/FO383/163, General Officer Commanding, 6th (Poona) Divisional Area to the Adjutant General in India, 3 May 1916. 62  NA/FO383/347: the Officer Commanding Station Hospital, Ahmednagar to Assistant Director, Medical Services, 6th (Poona) Divisional Area, 13 November 1916; Senior Medical Officer Ahmednagar Brigade, A Report in Continuation of my No. 4646, 27 January 1917. 63  AA/PA/R48283, Verhandelt zu Ahmednagar (Indien) 21 Oktober 1914. 64  Schoch, Thormeyer, and Blanchod, Reports, p. 32.

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Ahmednagar  289 back again when they turned around’,65 although none of the prisoners cor­rob­or­ated this. It appears that Private Dawson Thomas shot Johann Anderka and Karl Röttlicher in the exclusion zone, killing the former and wounding the latter. The investigations into this incident reveal hostility between guards and prisoners, as well as an official side of the story put forward by members of the guard which justified the actions of Thomas in the carrying out of his duty. The unofficial perspective from interviewed German internees did not accept that Anderka and Röttlicher stood within the exclusion zone and, if they did, this did not justify their shooting.66 Incidents of real and perceived mistreatment also occurred. For example, two prisoners were removed from Ahmednagar and jailed for not obeying camp rules.67 In July 1916, four prisoners wrote to the US Consul with serious allegations about their treatment following their capture after escaping from Ahmednagar. After being on the run between 5 and 22 December, they were apprehended near Ratnagiri 400 kilometres away and confined in the local jail until 28 December: On our arrival at the jail we were forced to divest ourselves of our clothes and native Wardens and Policemen who gave this order made a minute bodily examination. We objected to such degrading treatment and asked for the presence of some competent authority. The jail-superintendent, a Parsee, who appeared abruptly rejected our moral objection to such shameful and degrading treatment, nay, the proceeding was even intensified and such parts of the human rectum had to submit to visitation.

The protest letter then turned to the food and the ‘escort to Bombay consisting of Europeans and Natives . . . heavily armed with revolvers besides fixed bayonets, but in spite of this we were handcuffed’. In the police jail in Bombay ‘a call of nature had to take place on the floor within the space of confinement with signs of our predecessors still apparent. From the Bombay jail we were transported to the station again handcuffed followed by a crowd of native spectators’. As this extract suggests and, as made clear later in the letter, they especially objected to ‘such detestable, uncivilised and degrading (to us Europeans) handling at the hands of the Natives’,68 reflecting views of Germans subjected to treatment by 65  BA/R901/83085, Order, signed C. A. Beyts, District Magistrate Ahmednagar, 1 August 1918. 66  See NA/FO383/515, Army Department to the Right Honourable Edwin Montagu, 4 October 1918, and the documentation which accompanies this letter. 67  See NA/FO383/441, Extract Para. 44 (Army) Despatch from the Government of India, No. 56, dated 26 July 1918, which deals with ‘the complaint of Alexander von Menges, a German subject in the Prisoners of War Camp at Ahmednagar, against the treatment accorded him during the period he was undergoing a sentence of detention for 168 days in the Military Prisons and Detention Barracks, Poona’. See also the case of Baron von Turcke in NA/FO381/171. 68  NAI/Army/Secretary of State/1179–83/July 1916, letter from Carl Marnitz, Hans Moller, Adolf Ringetholtz, and Ludwig Politzer to US Consul, 5 July 1916.

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290  Enemies in the Empire Africans elsewhere in the British Empire. While ‘enemy aliens’ may have had no choice but to accept internment, they remained determined to keep the racial hierarchy in place. In cases where the British colonial powers allowed transgression, ‘symbolic violence’ is a useful concept to understand perceived suffering.69 Prisoners devoted considerable mental energy to their absent wives and fam­ilies with whom they wished to reunite. In the early stages of confinement not only could their wives not visit them, they could also only write one letter per month.70 In February 1915 the German prisoners requested internment in the same camp as their wives and families who ‘in several instances have been subjected to affronts and covert insults by various people, both Europeans and Natives, in spite of the protection Government affords them’.71 Family reunification took place for some Ahmednagar internees,72 and by December prisoners could write one letter per week.73 By early January wives could also visit their husbands for up to four days as long as they registered their names with the nearest American consulate. They would either stay at the American Mission or, in the case of those visiting parole prisoners, they could use one of two bungalows in Mackenzie Road in Ahmednagar as long as they paid ‘Rs. 5 per head per diem, which includes hire of bungalows, servants and food (breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner if required)’.74 The Government of India had initially considered interning families in Ahmednagar but, as a Home Department Civil Servant made clear: ‘We had Concentration Camps in South Africa for Boer women and children. Were we to send these people to Ahmednagar we can be certain that atrocity mongers would, sooner or later, make out that we had made them prisoners of war and sent them to a Concentration Camp’. Although this reservation did not prevent the establishment of other mixed camps, this formed part of discussions leading to a decision to provide separation allowances for wives and children which should not ‘exceed the amount that the average family of a British soldier, proceeded on service has to live on’.75 These texts corroborate our argument made in Chapter 8: lessons learned from the Boer War strongly influenced the way Britain and imperial governments

69  Daniel Steinbach, ‘Power Majorities and Local Minorities: German and British Colonials in East Africa during the First World War’, in Panikos Panayi, ed., Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, 2014), pp. 270–6. 70 BA/R901/83828, American Consulate, Bombay to Secretary of State, Washington  D.C., 19 December 1914. 71  BA/R901/83006, letter from Ahmednagar internees through the Ahmednagar Commandant to the Viceroy, 10 February 1915. 72  See Chapter 9. 73 BA/R901/83828, American Consulate, Bombay to Secretary of State, Washington  D.C., 19 December 1914. 74  See two letters in BA/R901/83009, from the American Consulate, Bombay, dated 14 and 30 December 1914 entitled ‘To the Wives of Prisoners of War at Ahmednagar’. 75  NAI/Home/PoliticalA/September1914/394–397, Grant of allowance to the wives and children of prisoners of war interned at Ahmednagar.

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Ahmednagar  291 treated ‘enemy aliens’ during the First World War. Authorities were acutely attuned to the fact that any instances of mistreatment, particularly against women and children, would have negative repercussions in the global propaganda battle for moral hegemony. Refuting allegations, stressing prisoners’ health, or listing daily food rations were therefore not mere administrative box-ticking exercises. Instead, they were crucial information fodder to convince the global public that Britain fought a bellum iustum. Typologically, they can therefore be brought together with British propaganda about German atrocities in Belgium and elsewhere.76 While the Government of India may not have done everything in its power to ease the plight of Ahmednagar internees, it certainly responded positively to most of the complaints, which meant a gradual improvement in conditions as the war progressed. No systematic mistreatment took place, although in two cases guards shot and killed internees who violated regulations. One of the clearest examples of the way in which the British authorities reacted positively to the plight of the prisoners lies in the fact that those who suffered as a result of the summer heat could be transferred to one of three cooler hill stations in the form of Dasgshai, Kataphar, and Ramandroog.77 Little information has survived on the first of these. Kataphar, located near Darjeeling at an altitude of 8,000 feet, acted as the summer hill station of the Government of Bombay. The prisoners here lived in army barracks of stone with timber roofs. In February 1916 the camp held forty-four ­people consisting of thirty-five Germans, eight Austrians, and one Montenegrin,78 made up of nine men, seventeen women, and eighteen children. The internees here could walk in the surrounding countryside as far as they wished.79 Ramandroog, situated about 3,000 feet above sea level 500 kilometres to the south of Ahmednagar, again utilized barrack buildings. In July 1918 it held eighty-four prisoners, rising to 232 at the beginning of 1920, presumably awaiting re­pat­ri­ation. While cooler than Ahmednagar, the summer climate seemed less than ideal, as the monsoon still made its presence felt. Ramandroog had limited accommodation while the supply of foodstuffs ‘is very irregular’.80 Albert Achilles spoke positively about the size of the tents and the food and also developed an interest in the variety of butterflies and beetles in the area, which he caught and collected. Prisoners in

76  Alan Kramer and John Horne, German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial (London, 2001). 77  NA/FO383/432, Senior Medical Officer, Ahmednagar to Commandant, Prisoners of War Camp Ahmednagar, 14 July 1917. 78  Montenegro was on the Allied side. The background to this individual case could not be traced. 79  NA/FO383/432, Senior Medical Officer, Ahmednagar to Commandant, Prisoners of War Camp Ahmednagar, 14 July 1917; BA/R901/83082, American Consul Report on Kataphar, 8 March 1916; Schoch, Thormeyer, and Blanchod, Reports, pp. 45–6. 80  NAI/Home/WarB/June1920/2, Swiss Consul Report on Ramandroog, 23 to 25 July 1918; BA/ R67/1118, Deutsche Kriegsgefangene Ramandroog.

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292  Enemies in the Empire Ramandroog could wander outside the camp as long as they returned by dusk, which allowed Achilles to explore the local area.81

Ahmednagar’s Prison Camp Society In his reminiscences of internment, the Basel missionary Georg Probst included a section entitled ‘Remedies against mental enfeeblement (Verblödung)’, explaining that ‘the Ahmednagar people did their utmost to protect themselves against boredom’.82 It seems that they were relatively successful in their endeavour, as those symptoms of ‘barbed-wire disease’ discussed in earlier chapters of this volume hardly surface in sources on Ahmednagar. This was despite the fact that little support came from the outside world. In Britain, philanthropic organizations such as the Society of Friends or the Markel Committee supplied books, musical instruments, sporting equipment, and other materials to alleviate fretting among prisoners.83 Prisoners in Fort Napier were assisted by the Berlin-based Support Committee for the Germans in British South Africa, as well as the local German Aid Society and General Support Society in Johannesburg.84 Apart from the presence of the YMCA, relatively little of this could be traced in Ahmednagar. The inmates developed the same range of activities as elsewhere in the Empire, but largely from within their own resources. Inmate Herbert Müller provides an indication of these activities: ‘The course of the day was something like this for me: private morning blessing, breakfast, walk by the barbed wire, some academic work, rest after lunch, vespers, reading, writing, walking as before, outdoor games, lectures or singing practice’.85 A routine emerged quickly which allowed some degree of normality to develop. Mealtimes played an important role in this sense with breakfast at 8 a.m., and then ‘just after twelve the whistle sounded for lunch’. At 3 p.m. there was ‘tea and bread’ as well as butter.86 Work was a way of providing structure and escaping boredom, although opportunities were limited. The only employment in Ahmednagar involved poorer prisoners working for their wealthier compatriots and some internees playing a role in aspects of camp administration. Some also established small businesses which produced all types of goods advertised in theatre programmes and selling products such as sausages, jam, cheese, cold drinks, ‘fruit champagne’,

81 Achilles, Erinnerungen, pp. 51–78. 82 Probst, Unter indischer Sonne, p. 57. 83  Panikos Panayi, Prisoners of Britain: German Civilian and Combatant Internees during the First World War (Manchester, 2012), pp. 242–6. 84 NA/FO383/1917/305, Deutscher Hülfs-Verein und Allgemeiner Unterstützungs-Verein; BA/ R901/83134, Hilfsausschuß für die Deutschen in Britisch-Südafrika. 85  BA/R901/83964, Herr Dr Herbert Müller, ‘Im Gefangenen-Lager Ahmednagar’, pp. 13–14. 86 Maue, In Feindes Land, p. 16.

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Ahmednagar  293

Figure 12.3  Small business adverts in Ahmednagar.

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294  Enemies in the Empire and cigars. Other individuals advertised their services as barbers and cobblers87 (Figure 12.3). The presence of missionaries, especially at the beginning of internment, meant religion played a significant role in the lives of many of the prisoners. Services took place at the very beginning of internment but some sort of ban came into operation upon both religious and educational activity, although it did not last long.88 During the first Christmas the prisoners could not secure fir trees but used ‘thorn bushes with green leaves’ instead.89 By 1917 ‘Benedictine monks who  were missionaries in Northern India, as well as some Catholic priests and Protestant pastors’, held ‘services alternately in the premises of the YMCA’.90 The internees also celebrated a series of ‘patriotic festivals’91 including ‘the birthdays of the Emperor, the empress, the Austrian Emperor, the crown princes or the anniversary of the outbreak of war, Bismarck’s 100th birthday’. The pre­par­ ations for these events lasted for weeks and involved orchestras practising, ‘poets producing poems, lecturers planning lectures’, while a festival committee tried to bring everything together.92 Sport and physical activity played a particularly important role in Ahmednagar, mentioned in both official reports and memoirs. Route marches developed early with up to one hundred men marching out of the camp for an hour and covering up to 3 kilometres.93 However, by April 1917 ‘these walks have been practically abandoned’ because ‘it has been impossible to find 40 at a time who were willing to go out’,94 a situation which continued until the beginning of the following year.95 More organized sporting activity also developed. Both camps A and B contained large rooms for sport and other events. Camp A had a football pitch and a gymnastics hall.96 Prisoners played hockey on the football field while the camp also contained ‘a first class tennis court’.97 Similar activities took place in camp B.98 A range of indoor activities characteristic of First World War internment camps elsewhere also evolved. Concerts, for example, took place regularly with the help of instruments provided by the YMCA, as did theatre productions.99 In 1918 the theatre in camp A staged a range of plays with several internees taking female roles. The productions included musical pieces in the form of Weber’s Der 87  BA/MA/MSG200/1847, 1915–1918, A-Lager Theater Jubiläums-Aufführung, 10 Oktober 1918; BA/MA/MSG200/1977, A-Lager Theater, Programm, 1918. 88 Foertsch, Unter Kriegs-Wettern, p. 56; Maue, In Feindes Land, p. 18. 89  Maue, Idem. 90  Schoch, Thormeyer, and Blanchod, Reports, p. 32. 91 Maue, In Feindes Land, p. 19. 92 Probst, Unter indischer Sonne, p. 67. 93  BA/R901/83964, Herr Dr Herbert Müller, ‘Im Gefangenen-Lager Ahmednagar’, p. 10. 94  NAI/Home/Police/April1918/180, Swiss Consular Report on Ahmednagar, 23 April 1917. 95  NA/FO383/469, Swiss consular report on Ahmednagar, 11 January 1918. 96  BA/R67/251, Interner Bericht 57, 15 January 1916. 97  NA/FO383/36, Copy of a letter from Mr G. P. Bryce, 1 May 1915. 98  BA/R67/251, Interner Bericht 57, 15 January 1916. 99  NA/FO383/36, Copy of a letter from Mr G. P. Bryce, 1 May 1915; BA/R67/251, Interner Bericht 57, 15 January 1916.

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Ahmednagar  295 Gesundbeter and Im Weissen Rössl by Oskar Blumenthal and Gustav Kadelburg.100 Educational activity developed with much interest taken in the study of oriental languages,101 presumably because of the presence of German scholars here which also helped the development of ‘a little university’ with lectures on ‘the history of dogma, church history, geography, Indian botany, Sanskrit . . . and Tibetan’. The first two subjects point to the presence of missionaries.102 Both camp A and camp B had well-stocked libraries, which helped with the educational activity.103 Mirroring internment elsewhere in India and in the Empire as a whole, the prisoners in Ahmednagar came to terms with their incarceration and experienced humane conditions. Few people died here and the camp authorities reacted positively to most of the complaints which the prisoners raised in the early stages of internment, leading to improvement in accommodation and communication with wives, for example. The prison camp society which evolved became as sophisticated as those elsewhere in the world. However, as in the case of other camps, this represented an essentially make-do society where prisoners had to find ways of killing time. Frustration and resentment at interment clearly existed, which activities such as playing football or participating in theatre productions could not eliminate. The clearest indications of the negative feelings surface in the constant complaining of the prisoners but also in the clearly negative relationships with the guards which led to the shootings of May 1918.

Golconda: Deportation and the End of Internment in India As a postscript to this chapter, we can briefly outline the end of internment in India. By the close of 1920 virtually no Germans remained in the country as the result of a similar type of deportation which characterized other parts of the Empire. Ahmednagar and the other Indian camps were emptied in two stages in 1915–16 and 1919–20, respectively, with the first stage concentrating on the elimination of missionaries and their families and the second on those who remained after the deportations of 1915–16. The decision to undertake the first stage of repatriation evolved during the summer of 1915 at the same time as the decision to introduce wholesale internment, following an exchange of correspondence involving the Government of

100  See the programmes in BA/MA/MSG200/1847 and BA/MA/MSG200/1977. 101  NAI/Foreign and Political/War B/November 1917/16–17, Question of allowing prisoners of war to study Eastern languages. 102  BA/R901/83964, Herr Dr Herbert Müller, ‘Im Gefangenen-Lager Ahmednagar’, p. 14. 103  NA/FO383/237, Report on Military and Civil Camps at Ahmednagar, India, by James Smith, American Consul-General at Calcutta, 2 October 1915; BA/R67/251, Interner Bericht 57, 15 January 1916.

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296  Enemies in the Empire India, the Colonial and Foreign Offices, and the Admiralty.104 The Government of India made the new policy public in a press communiqué of 13 August 1915.105 On the same day the Home Department of the Government of India wrote to the Secretary of State for India, Austen Chamberlain, about the German missions, asserting that ‘we have no hesitation in recommending that we should aim at their immediate removal’.106 This was confirmed by an Inter-Departmental Conference regarding German and Austrian Missions on 2 November, involving representatives from the India Office, Colonial Office, and Foreign Office, which recommended ‘the final removal of missions that were German or Austrian, pure and simple’.107 These developments actually meant the repatriation of both those still at liberty and most interned missionaries. By this time deportation had already begun, and by late September the Viceroy had come to an agreement with the Admiralty about using the SS Golconda for the deportations.108 The ship made two sailings. The first departed in late November 1915 and picked up passengers in Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. It then sailed on to Cape Town and Tilbury, following a decision in August 1915 that ‘no alien enemies should pass through the Suez Canal’.109 Those picked up in Calcutta included ‘actingconsul Brill of Madras’ who claimed that he ‘travelled from Ahmednagar to Calcutta under a military escort on 13 November’.110 The ship departed from here on 15 November with ‘470 deportees’111 and arrived in Madras on 23 November. Those who embarked here included the Basel missionaries held in Bellary.112 The Golconda sailed on to Bombay, where those it picked up included the Basel missionary Jakob Maue, held in Ahmednagar, who arrived there by railway.113 Several accounts, mostly from those on board, provided numbers of those who travelled on the Golconda. Karl Foertsch constructed a table which gave a total of 823. Missionaries, including ‘sisters’, wives, and children from all of the major missionary groups, totalled 336. He also included 176 ‘German and Austrian families, businessmen, officials etc.’, while the remainder consisted of the crew.114 The first journey of the Golconda ended in Tilbury docks on 12 January after fiftytwo days at sea.115 The second began on 19 April 1916 and involved mostly 104  NA/CO323/681, Repatriation from India of certain alien enemies and question of use by alien enemies of the Suez Canal route, 5 August 1915. 105  BL/IOR/L/PJ/6/1399/3517, Communiqué, 13 August 1915. 106  NA/FO383/36, Government of India, Home Department to Austen Chamberlain, 13 August 1915. 107  NA/CO323/681, Inter-Departmental Conference regarding German and Austrian Missions on 2 November 1915. 108  NA/FO383/237, Viceroy to Secretary of State, Home Department, 28 September 1915. 109  NA/FO383/237, Secretary of State to Viceroy, 10 August 1915. 110  NA/FO383/237, Extract from report of Acting-Consul Brill of Madras on his internment in India, journey on the ‘Golconda’, and re-internment in England. 111  NA/FO383/105, Telegram from the Viceroy, 9 November 1915. 112  Johann Jakob Jaus, Als Kriegsgefangener: Von Indien nach Deutschland (Stuttgart, 1916), p. 28. 113 Maue, In Feindes Land, p. 23. 114 Foertsch, Unter Kriegs-Wettern, p. 65. 115  Ibid., p. 73; Schlatter and Witschi, Geschichte der Basler Mission, p. 221.

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Ahmednagar  297 missionaries, although Herbert Müller also travelled on this occasion. The ship left Bombay and made just one stop in Cape Town, where it picked up fifty men from the internment camp in Pietermaritzburg. By the time it reached Tilbury on 17 May it held about 500 people.116 Upon landing in Tilbury, whether on the first or second journey of the Golconda, not all the expellees went directly to Germany, as  males spent a few weeks in the Alexandra Palace internment camp in north London, before journeying to Germany.117 Those women and children who landed on 12 January were transferred to the Mecklenburg on the following day bound for Vlissingen.118 Similarly, the women and children arriving in May went immediately to the Kilkenny.119 The two journeys of the Golconda became the first part of the process of re­pat­ ri­ation, finally completed in 1920, with many of those forced to leave, having no desire to return to a Germany they may not have seen for decades. In October 1919 the Swiss Consul in Bombay counted 2,500 internees held in Ahmednagar and the other Indian camps in Belgaum, Sholapur, Ramandroog, and Yercaud.120 By this time some men had been confined in Ahmednagar for over five years, including four who had worked for the Indian sales organization of the Badische Aniline and Soda Factory in Ludwigshafen.121 Some Germans remained until the end of 1920 because all available British transportation initially returned home British troops stationed abroad. This meant that German boats would have to become available for the long sea journey from the Indian Ocean, which did not happen until late 1919.122 At the end of the war, transport from India to Europe took place in two main batches using the SS Main in December 1919 and, a much smaller number, on the SS Patricia in the following October. The Main left Bombay on 30 December 1919. The journey home proved more complicated than expected because of an outbreak of Spanish Influenza, which meant that the ship landed in Port Said and left 689 prisoners in a camp there, including 300 Germans from East Africa and approximately 250 seamen captured in the Indian Ocean and held in India since the beginning of the war. The internees themselves returned home in two groups. The Main reached Rotterdam on 6 February with sixty-five officers, 171 crew and 976 civilians, made up of 854 men, sixty women, and sixty-two children. Those left in Port Said would have to remain there until 26 March 1920 when they 116  ‘Die Letzte Fahrt der Golconda’, Evangelisch Lutherische Freikirche, 2 July 1916; BA/R901/83964, Herr Dr Herbert Müller, ‘Im Gefangenen-Lager Ahmednagar: Heimreise’. 117  ‘Kriegsgefangen in Indien’, Evangelisch Lutherische Freikirche, 25 March 1917; BA/R901/83964, Herr Dr Herbert Müller, ‘Im Gefangenen-Lager Ahmednagar: Heimreise’; Pohl, Schiff in Not, pp. 26–9; Probst, Unter indischer Sonne, pp. 124–31; Maue, In Feindes Land, pp. 26–31. 118 Jaus, Als Kriegsgefangener, pp. 42–3. 119 Jessen, Vertrieben, pp. 110–15. 120 AA/PA/R48339, Swiss Consulate Bombay to Swiss Political Department, Bern, 18 October 1919. 121  AA/PA/48338, Badische Anilin & Soda Fabrik, Ludwigshafen, to Friedens-Kommission, Berlin, 18 September 1919. 122 Panayi, Prisoners, p. 278; AA/PA/R48338, Wako Goette to Leg. Rat Martius, 10 October 1919.

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298  Enemies in the Empire departed on the Christian Rede, reaching Hamburg several weeks later.123 The Main deported the overwhelming majority of the Germans remaining in India, as only forty-two travelled on the Patricia, which arrived in Liverpool on 18 October 1920. They continued by rail to Grimsby and departed for Hamburg.124 Some of the Germans in India at the end of the war had no desire to return to Europe, including some from Siam and their wives and children who wanted the Main to take them back there.125 While the males may not have visited Europe for decades, their wives and children would never have seen the continent. Despite this, ‘117 men to whom are to be added 27 women and children’ from this group actually travelled to Europe. A handful of Germans were allowed to return to Siam on condition that they renounce their German nationality.126 The  Siamese Government also agreed to accept women and children if they chose not to accompany their enemy alien husbands back to Europe.127 Six other Germans and one Austrian, meanwhile, received permission to travel to the Dutch East Indies.128 The internees displayed much concern at the fate of their possessions. Indian regional governments made the decision about the amount of luggage which prisoners could take with them, in some cases as much as possible ‘and that which is left behind will be vested in the Custodian and sold’.129 However, the Government of India changed this decision in the following year so that ‘in cases where the personal effects of such persons have been sold, the sale proceeds, whether vested or not, may be restored to them if they apply for the money after deduction of freight, storage and commission, if any’.130 Throughout the nineteenth century, German migrants had been woven into the fabric of the European colonial presence in India. Through their networks as merchants, scientists, missionaries, and other elite occupations, they connected

123  Two sources trace the fate of those who originally boarded the Main: AA/R48340; and Tera, Meine 800. 124 NAI/Home/PoliceB/February1921/106–107, List of Germans repatriated in the SS Patricia; AA/R48341, Society of Friends of Foreigners in Distress to E. Schroetter, 2 October 1920. 125  AA/PA/R48339, letter from Foreign Office, 1 December 1919. 126 See the correspondence in NAI/ForeignandPoliticalB/External/September 1921, 353–424, Matters connected with the disposal of German and Austrian prisoners of war interned on behalf of the Siam government. 127  NAI/Home/WarA/June1919/11–22, Repatriation of Germans and Austrians in India on behalf of the Siamese Government and the disposal of women of Siamese origin married to Germans and Austrians at the time of the repatriation of their husbands. 128 NAI/Home/War/February1920/123–36, Grant of permission to Mr Hoeppner, a German interned at Yercaud, to go to Sumatra; NAI/Foreign and Political/ExternalA/9/1920/897–914, Grant of permission to Germans and Austrian prisoners of war in civil and military camps in India to proceed to the Dutch East Indies at their own expense. 129  NAI/Home/WarB/December1919/238–249, Details of the arrangements in connection with the repatriation of German and Austrian prisoners of war and civilians interned in India, minute of 23 September 1919. 130 NAI/Foreign and Political/ExternalB/September1921/347, Government of India, Depart. of Commerce, to all local governments and administrations, 12/11/1920.

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Ahmednagar  299 the subcontinent with Europe and other world regions, profiting from British colonial rule. The concept of ‘participatory colonialism’131 provides an interesting method of understanding their presence in British possessions before 1914. This explanation helps us to see them as part of the process of imperial and European control of India, whether as missionaries, businessmen, or scholars. The conflict made them visible despite the fact they had previously remained largely invisible as part of the white race, a status that changed as a result of the war because it imposed European nationalism upon the British and German elites.132 As we have seen, Germans resented the threat to their racial status, demonstrated especially by their hostility at the fact that Indian officials, whether soldiers, policemen, or people who provided their food, developed power over them. By the end of 1920 the story of the Germans in India had come to an end through wholesale internment and subsequent deportation. To make this per­ man­ent, the Government of India prohibited the entry of further Germans to the country for a period of up to five years after the conclusion of peace.133 Straight after deportation, and indeed up until the 1970s, memorialization set in. Memoirs and reminiscences gave the ‘Germans in India’ a retrospective group identity which they had never formulated before 1914. Source texts used for this chapter such as Albrecht Oepke’s Ahmednagar und Golconda therefore have to be seen in their double function as subjective ego-documentation134 and memorialization. At the core of all these texts stand two symbols which epitomize the plight of the Germans in India: Ahmednagar for internment, and Golconda for deportation.

131  Bert Becker, ‘Das deutsche Hongkong: Imperialismus und partizipierender Kolonialismus vor 1914’, in Markus A. Denzel, ed., Deutsche Eliten in Übersee. 16. bis frühes 20. Jahrhundert (St Katharinen, 2006), pp. 361–76. 132 The visibility and invisibility of the Germans in India and their relationship to the British receives full attention in Panikos Panayi, The Germans in India: Elite European Migrants in the British Empire (Manchester, 2017). An excellent introduction to the ‘white race’ in India, which, however, does not distinguish between different European groups, is Satoshi Mizutani, The Meaning of White: Race, Class, and the ‘Domiciled Community’ in British India 1858–1930 (Oxford, 2011). 133  NA/CO323/844, India Office, Admission into India of Aliens desiring to undertake Missionary, Educational, or other Philanthropic Work in India after the War, January 1920; BL/IOR/L/ PJ/6/1569/1126, Government of India Press Communiqués, ‘Exclusion of former Enemy Nationality from India for a Period of Five Years from the Conclusion of the War’, 1919–20. 134 Mary Fulbrook and Ulinka Rublack, ‘In Relation: The “Social Self ” and Ego-Documents’, German History, vol. 28 (2010), pp. 263–72.

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PART IV

C ONC LU SION

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13

The Nature and Legacy of British Imperial Internment The Nature of British Imperial Internment During the First World War Britain became the centre of a system of global internment. It played a leading role in the evolution of this form of minority exclusion, linking imperial events of the second half of the nineteenth century with the incarceration which would take place in the middle of the twentieth ­century. While Britain may never have practised the type of totalitarian intolerance that characterized Nazism and Stalinism, it has used internment consistently for over a century, moving from a policy of controlling outsider populations at the end of the nineteenth century, whether Boers, diseased Indians, or the British poor,1 through to the exclusion of enemy aliens during the two world wars, returning to a policy of concentration of people regarded as threatening colonial rule during the wars of decolonization (especially in Kenya and Cyprus) and, by the early twenty-first century, a method to keep out undesirable aliens. One of our key aims consisted of establishing Britain’s role in the development of the concentration camp. While the London-led policy may have remained basically humane after the calamitous impact of the Boer War on the image of Britain as a leader in fair play, especially in comparison with the practice in Second World War continental Europe, one of the unique characteristics of internment in British history lies in its continuity and adaptability.2 As our narrative has demonstrated by focusing specifically upon the First World War, Britain globalized internment in a structured, organized, and ­co-ordinated manner. As the Appendix demonstrates and as the German Red Cross recognized during the Great War,3 Britain controlled more camps than any other Empire during this conflict as the policy operated on an imperial level. While no clear set of documents has survived to illustrate the way in which this policy operated globally, the work we have carried out for this book clearly 1 As argued by Aidan Forth, Barbed-Wire Imperialism: Britain’s Empire of Camps, 1876–1903 (Berkeley, CA, 2017). 2 For mainland Britain see Jordana Bailkin, Unsettled: Refugee Camps and the Making of Multicultural Britain (Oxford, 2018). 3  J. Köhler, ed., Karte von Grossbritannien, Italien u. den überseeischen Ländern, in denen Kriegs- und Zivilgefangene sich befinden (Hamburg, 1917). Enemies in the Empire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War. Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi, Oxford University Press (2020). © Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198850151.001.0001

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304  Enemies in the Empire indicates that decisions taken in London found replication throughout the Empire. Perhaps the most co-ordinated aspect of First World War British internment lay in the global web spun to capture and imprison ‘enemy aliens’ in camps throughout the world, building upon centuries of experience of transporting ­people, whether as slaves, convicts, or resistance fighters in the case of the Boers. Quite simply, Britain thought globally during the Great War as it had done for centuries. Part of the process of global expansion and control consisted of the ability to move people from one part of the world to another, no matter what crime they may have committed. First World War internment simply continued and adapted this policy to the needs of the time. Less obvious co-ordination may have taken place in other aspects of internment policy, but patterns certainly emerged throughout the Empire. Early shortlived and chaotic camps emerged in all British territories, whether under direct control in Africa or with a degree of autonomy in India or the White Dominions. As the war progressed, consolidation took place in the permanent camps which developed, as we have seen in our three case studies of Knockaloe, Fort Napier, and Ahmednagar. The first of these was unique in terms of its scale and its global reach, although, while most camps may have taken the majority of their prisoners from the immediate locality, primarily the territory in which they lay, the global transportation system meant that camps housed people from much further afield: all had an international aspect, even if they simply held German migrants. It does not appear that many orders came directly from London to instruct the colonies and Dominions about exactly how to deal with their enemy alien populations: rather, the sources point to a copycat policy, with London taking the lead. The element of imitation worked not simply within the British Empire but also in other parts of the world. The way in which Britain treated its enemy alien popu­la­tions found replication in policies in the French and Russian Empires and even in the dying Ottoman Empire, although the latter carried out far more intolerant and brutal acts.4 None of these empires operated on quite the same global scale, even in the case of France,5 although both the French Empire and the Portuguese Empire controlled some overseas internment camps, but certainly not on anything like the same scale.6 As we have seen, internment policy formed part of a multifaceted government attack on enemy aliens which also included legislative control, property confiscation, and deportation, backed up by a hostile public opinion. This happened in both the metropole and the imperial territories where 4  Khatchig Mouradian, ‘Internment and Destruction: Concentration Camps during the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1916’, in Stefan Manz, Panikos Panayi, and Matthew Stibbe, eds, Internment during the First World War: A Mass Global Phenomenon (Abingdon, 2018), pp. 145–61. 5  Or at least not as argued by Jean-Claude Farcy, Les Camp de Concentration Français de la Première Guerre Mondiale (1914–1920) (Paris, 1995). 6 Köhler, Karte, provides a list of Portuguese camps, while Mahon Murphy, Colonial Captivity ­during the First World War: Internment and the Fall of the German Empire, 1914–1919 (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 161–8 points to camps in French West Africa.

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The Nature and Legacy of British Imperial Internment  305 the replication remains almost total. The similarity between British actions and those in the Russian Empire seems even more remarkable,7 except that we should remember that Britain simply offers one example of the way in which internment policy and the marginalization of ethnic minorities and other outsiders developed from the late nineteenth century. Some variation did exist within the Empire, most particularly with regard to Canada, which primarily utilized Ukrainians as a type of forced labour, but it could not undertake such a policy for Germans because of their predominantly middle-class nature and because of the fear of retaliation against Britons living in Germany, meaning that some co-ordination even here must have taken place. Moving away from policy to the people who faced incarceration, those trapped by the British Empire consisted primarily of German males. Clearly, Bulgarians, Austro-Hungarians, and Ottomans of various nationalities also became subject to internment, although the authorities tended to exempt people who claimed allegiance to the states which would emerge from the dying Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and German Empires. As we have demonstrated, women did not face universal internment, although some did experience spells of incarceration, whether because they posed a security threat such as Milly Rocker who spent time in the Aylesbury Inebriate Reformatory, because they wanted to stay with their husbands, as in the case of Belgaum camp in India, or because of a local decision to incarcerate women, as in the case of those brought to Pietermaritzburg from German South West Africa. Life for women outside the wire did not prove easier than the experiences of their husbands as they had lost their breadwinner and would have to face the Germanophobic atmosphere which existed throughout the Empire. Worse still, women could face deportation to Germany during the course of the war, away from the lives they had built up in their new surroundings over decades, whether this happened without husbands, as the ex­ample of Britain indicates, or with them, as occurred with the sailing of the Golconda from India in 1916. Numerous archived complaints from mostly middle-class inmates belie the fact that life within the camps remained humane. The authorities did not deliberately mistreat prisoners either on an imperial or more local level, whether within an individual territory or camp. The three camps we examined in detail (Knockaloe, Fort Napier, and Ahmednagar) reveal similar patterns of humane treatment. The culture of complaining largely emanated from middle-class internees resentful that they had lost the cosmopolitan lifestyle which they had carved out over decades away from their German homeland and which gave them a sense of identity. They now had time on their hands to contemplate their new lives and took opportunities to express their misery at their situation to the US and Swiss 7  Eric Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire: The Campaign against Enemy Aliens during World War I (Cambridge, MA, 2003).

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306  Enemies in the Empire Embassy and consular inspectors, most of whom listened sym­pa­thet­ic­al­ly and even communicated grievances to the German government, although, on some occasions, the inspectors essentially told the internees to remember the fact that the world faced a global war and that they could not expect a better existence. Notwithstanding the culture of complaining, while the British may have treated prisoners humanely, internment remained an awful experience for those who faced it. They were isolated from their families and therefore experienced a wrench which disrupted their everyday lives and, in some cases, ended their marriages. The women left behind often came from local communities, whether in England or Siam, for example, and the end of the war resulted in traumatic decisions about where to live in a Germanophobic world. Even when families lived in camps together during the war, which meant that sexual relationships could continue and children could even receive an education, this experience simply became a temporary and artificial phase in German diasporic lives. Although before 1914 few German migrants could have imagined that they would spend years behind barbed wire in a world at war, perhaps those taken off ships in the mid-Atlantic, or elsewhere in the world, and ending up in, for example, Knockaloe, in a place and nation state they had never visited before, would have undergone the most traumatic experience, hundreds or thousands of miles away from their families, in contrast to those interned in the territory in which they lived with some access to their relatives. Thus, despite the fact that British internment camps throughout the Empire treated prisoners in a humane way, those who experienced life behind barbed wire did not see it in this way. While for working-class internees conditions may have resembled those they had experienced before 1914, middle-class prisoners resented the lack of space, silence, and privacy, even though some of them lived in so-called privilege camps with slightly better conditions. The fact that the im­per­ ial, national, and camp authorities did not carry out acts of deliberate mistreatment did not matter to internees because they were conscious of the injustice done to them, especially as some of them had a strong sense of German national identity. At the same time, despite the humane treatment, we should not forget the fact that some of the camps had fairly dire conditions, at least for a time, ­especially those temporary institutions established at the beginning of the war. Such conditions led to the riot which took place at Douglas in November 1914, although this would subsequently become something of a model camp. Meanwhile, some establishments, such as Stratford in London or Amherst in Nova Scotia, utilizing old factory buildings, maintained a reputation as particularly undesirable, as evidenced by those who passed through them. We have also seen examples of killings within individual camps, although these ultimately remain unrelated incidents even though their causes are similar in the form of resentment between internees and those who guarded them.

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The Nature and Legacy of British Imperial Internment  307 Life behind the wire for male internees shows similarities throughout the world, not just within British camps but also those run by other Empires, as demonstrated, for example, in the camp newspapers which emerged for both German civilian and military prisoners.8 Barbed-wire disease appears to have become something of a universal phenomenon, even though some camps experienced, or recorded, it more than others. The emergence of the camp newspapers demonstrates the fact that the internees gave meaning to their lives in their new environment, creating prison camp societies with activities ranging from religion to sport and therefore catering for every conceivable interest. Within these Germanic spaces the internees continued to practise their diasporic consciousness which had emerged in the pre-war years, whether by practising religion, reading German books and newspapers, acting in or watching German plays, or participating in or listening to orchestras. In these spaces, despite the carnage taking place throughout the world, they really did feel undefeated.9 However, reality hit home when the war ended and the authorities continued to eliminate traces of a German presence throughout the Empire. While the British Empire Union remained a radical right-wing pressure group based in Britain, its motto of the ‘Extirpation—Root and Branch and Seed—of German Control and Influence from the British Empire’10 became the guiding principle of the British authorities who had, in fact, already achieved this aim by the elim­in­ ation of many German businesses, and who would continue carrying out mass deportations, breaking up families and sending both men and women to Germany.

Return, Legacy, and Memorialization Those who returned to Germany after many decades away or, in the case of foreign wives, set foot on German soil for the first time experienced feelings of loss and trauma in an alien atmosphere in a state in the grip of political and economic crisis. German society and authorities had to cope with the reintegration of approximately 1.2 million returnees. These consisted of two groups. First, combatant prisoners of war, and second, civilians who had in many cases spent their whole working lives abroad and had little personal and professional contacts in their ‘homeland’. Although Reinhard Nachtigal is certainly right in arguing that returning British, American, and German soldiers received a more positive welcome than their French and Russian counterparts, the sources do not necessarily

8  Rainer Pöppinghege, Im Lager unbesiegt: Deutsche, englische und französische KriegsgefangenenZeitungen im Ersten Weltkrieg (Essen, 2006). 9 Ibid. 10  IWM, British Empire Union Leaflet no. 23.

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308  Enemies in the Empire back up his claim that German returnees were received ‘with open arms and minds’,11 particularly as the 1920s progressed. Various local associations started to emerge from autumn 1918, which came together in January 1919 as the People’s Federation for the Protection of German Military and Civilian Prisoners of War (Volksbund zum Schutze der deutschen Kriegs- und Zivilgefangenen). It had over 3,000 local associations across Germany and several hundred thousand members. The Federation cooperated closely with a second group, the Reich Association of former Prisoners of War (Reichsvereinigung ehemaliger Kriegsgefangener). Their aims were threefold: first, to influence international public opinion for the speedy release of the captives; second, to awaken public interest and empathy within Germany for the returnees; third, to fight for their economic demands such as restitution of property or state support.12 As early as 1916 a specific interest group was founded in Berlin for those expelled from Britain and its territories. It was chaired by the former German consul in Hartlepool, E. W. Peters, under the name of the Committee for Expelled Reich Germans from Great Britain, Ireland and the British Colonies (Ausschuss für vertriebene Reichsdeutsche aus Großbritannien, Irland und den britischen Kolonien).13 National co-ordination rested with the Reich Central Office for Military and Civilian Prisoners of War (Reichszentralstelle für Kriegs- und Zivilgefangene), which, however, stressed that support for civilians was the responsibility of individual federal states.14 This task was taken on in particular by Württemberg through the Support Office of Germans Abroad (Hilfsstelle für Auslandsdeutsche), which acted on behalf of all Germans whose place of residence on 1 August 1914 had been abroad and who were forcibly relocated. The Office stated in 1921 that its work was indispensable to keep returnees away from state poor relief.15 The situation of former civilian prisoners was, indeed, problematic. A report by the Bavarian Red Cross explained that state support was too much directed towards former military POWs and that destitution amongst returnee civilians was comparatively higher: ‘They only have what they wear on their bodies and absolutely nothing else. Their existence is utterly destroyed, they lost their possessions and have here, in their homeland, nowhere to live, not even bed-linen or furniture as 11  Reinhard Nachtigal, ‘The Repatriation and Reception of Returning Prisoners of War, 1918–1922’, Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 26 (2008), pp. 157–84 (173). In contrast, see Brian Feltman, The Stigma of Surrender: German Prisoners, British Captors, and Manhood in the Great War and Beyond (Chapel Hill, NC, 2015). 12  Satzungen des Volksbundes zum Schutz der deutschen Kriegs- und Zivilgefangenen (Berlin, 1918), in State Library Berlin; Volksbund zum Schutze der deutschen Kriegs- und Zivilgefangenen, An die heimkehrenden Kameraden, leaflet without date and place, in Bavarian State Library Munich; Heather Jones, Violence against Prisoners of War in the First World War: Britain, France and Germany, 1914–1920 (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 304, 340–1. 13  BA/Koblenz, R57neu/1040/15, Ausschuss für vertriebene Reichsdeutsche aus Großbritannien, Irland und den britischen Kolonien 1916–1918. 14 BHSTA/M/Inn54008, Reich Officer for Military and Civilian Prisoners of War to Bavarian Home Ministry, 9 September 1919. 15  BA/Koblenz, R57neu/1036/11, files Württembergische Hilfsstelle für Auslandsdeutsche 1921.

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The Nature and Legacy of British Imperial Internment  309 bare necessities of life’.16 Federal state authorities agreed that the discrimination of civilians created potential for social protest, but that their hands were tied in light of the dire post-war state budgets. Their analysis of the situation was poignant: [The civilians] are severely disadvantaged in integrating swiftly and in­de­pen­ dent­ly into professional life, first because of the detrimental bodily and mental effects of internment, and second because of their lack of knowledge of the domestic situation, since their whole development was geared towards life abroad . . . The situation of returning civilian prisoners is extremely deplorable, and since the current structures do not allow for sufficient support, their dissatisfaction is constantly growing. Very recently it has taken on dimensions which are most disturbing. This dissatisfaction has been increased through the fact that former military POWs have recently been granted special support of 150 million Mark from the federal budget. 17

Throughout the 1920s, the above-mentioned pressure groups agitated for public acknowledgement of their suffering in captivity. They felt unduly perceived as malingerers and ‘second class war participants’.18 The Munich-branch of the Interest Group of Former Military and Civilian Prisoners complained: Our Fatherland, the Government and the people have forgotten that the former military and civilian prisoners fought and suffered for the Fatherland. [They] have forgotten that men who are now broken in body and spirit have sacrificed the most valuable things in their lives: health and happiness. It is true: the former prisoners are never mentioned. People pretend they do not even know that these poor people still existed.19

The cult of military heroism and the fallen soldier in the Weimar Republic20 was mostly confined to active combatants. Prisoners felt left out of narratives of the war experience, which were a crucially defining element of national community creation (Volksgemeinschaft). In 1933, the Reichsvereinigung willingly merged with the new associational apparatus of the National Socialist regime. After 1945, far more substantial streams of military and civilian expellees had to be accommodated, mostly from East Central and Eastern Europe. Once again, the story of First World War internees had no place within these new patterns of memorialization. 16  BHSTA/MInn54008, Bavarian Red Cross, Section Refugees from Abroad, 27 May 1919. See also Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, 17 October 1919. 17  BHSTA/MInn54008, Minutes of federal liaison meeting to harmonise civilian prisoner support, Weimar, 15 August 1919. 18 Rainer Pöppinghege, ‘Kriegsteilnehmer zweiter Klasse? Die Reichsvereinigung ehemaliger Kriegsgefangener 1919–1933’, Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift, vol. 64 (2005), pp. 391–423. 19  Interessengemeinschaft ehemaliger Kriegs- und Zivilgefangener München-West, Mitteilungsblatt 1/3 (June 1927), p. 3, in Bavarian State Library Munich. 20 George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the Two World Wars (Oxford, 1990).

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310  Enemies in the Empire The experiences of civilian internees thus remained at the bottom of the official memorialization which characterized the early interwar period, not only in Germany but also in other countries involved in the conflict.21 However, those who returned tried to ensure that their experiences did not disappear completely from public consciousness. The fact that many Germans told their stories to officials and even to civil courts after setting foot on German soil, especially during the war, as part of the propaganda war to prove the brutality of British war ­methods22 meant that the mistreatment of German minorities by the British remained alive as an issue, helped by the fact that newspapers in Germany carried stories of individual experiences, as cited throughout this volume. Perhaps the most important method in which the experiences of German prisoners remained alive, certainly during the war and into the interwar years, consisted of the narratives written by those who had experienced incarceration all over the world. One of the most famous of these, indicated by the fact that it has remained almost continuously in print in both German and English since the 1920s, consists of Gunther Plüschow’s thrilling story of his capture in Gibraltar while making his way back to Germany from Kiao Chow, then spending time in the officers’ camp at Donington Hall in Britain before escaping back to Germany.23 Plüschow’s story may prove the most exciting narrative of wartime internment experiences, but numerous others also surfaced to thrill a hungry German public eager for stories of wartime adventure. Or so it would seem by the sheer quantity of published narratives quoted throughout this book, outlining experiences through the world, including Africa24 and India. The experiences of the missionaries in the latter gave rise to what seem to be numerous books,25 yet most of these came from the presses of the missionary organizations themselves, in which the main aim consisted of outlining the suffering of their employees in India for the purpose of attracting further funding. These books probably had small print runs and it proves difficult to establish how many people actually read them. While the experience of civilian internees did not disappear completely from public memory in Germany because of the efforts of those who had faced 21  See, for example, Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge, 2014). 22 See, for example, BA/R67/779, Reichskommisar zur Erörterung von Gewalttätigkeiten gegen deutsche Zivilpersonen in Feindesland: Vergleich der Berichte des Genfer Roten Kreuzes über die ­englischen und französischen Sammellager mit den Feststellungen des Reichskommissars (Berlin, 1915). 23  Gunther Plüschow, My Escape from Donington Hall (London, 1922). An almost equally famous account by Felix von Luckner, Seeteufel: Abenteuer aus meinem Leben (Leipzig, 1922), recounted an escape, albeit temporary, from Motuihi Island in New Zealand. See also Andrew Francis, ‘From “Proven Worthy Settlers” to “Lawless Hunnish Brutes”: Germans in New Zealand during the Great War’, in Panikos Panayi, ed., Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, 2014), pp. 304–6. 24  See for example: Wilhelm Kröpke, Meine Flucht aus englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft 1916: Von Afrika über England nach Deutschland zur Flandern-Front (Flensburg, 1937); G. W. Wagener, Bericht über meine Gefangenschaft in Süd-Afrika und England (Berlin, 1916). 25  Quoted throughout Chapters 9 and 12.

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The Nature and Legacy of British Imperial Internment  311 transportation and incarceration to keep their stories alive, tales of German ­suffering proved even more difficult to perpetuate in the British Empire after the end of the war. The main aim of governments and populations in the territories which had sent hundreds of thousands or millions of men to fight abroad consisted of memorializing the millions of their own casualties, rather than trying to remember the suffering of the enemy. If we focus on the metropole, we can give the example of Knockaloe, where the forgetting in the immediate post-war years seemed almost total. The exception consisted of the 1923 novel by the adopted Manxman Hall Caine entitled The Woman of Knockaloe, which centred upon the doomed relationship between Mona Craine, the daughter of the local farmer, and one of the internees brought here from the mainland.26 The other important interwar English-language narrative, focusing upon Wakefield, but with four of its twenty chapters in Knockaloe, consisted of Paul Cohen-Portheim’s Time Stood Still. During the First World War and its immediate aftermath some of those who spent time in Knockaloe published accounts in German about their experiences.27 Among local historians the pioneer was B. E. Sargeaunt, who wrote The Isle of Man and the Great War with an important focus upon internment as long ago as 1922.28 In recent years Knockaloe has received increasing consideration as we can see, for example, from the studies of Jennifer Kewley Draskau,29 Yvonne Creswell,30 and Robert Fyson.31 The popular account of Pat Kelly evolved from the experience of her mother-in-law, who lived on the Isle of Man during the Great War.32 One of the most obvious gaps when dealing with the memory of Knockaloe, however, consists of the absence of any sort of visible memorial. Until recently, only three clues survived. First, the Manx Department of Environment Food and Agriculture put up a small sign on the roadside next to the location where the camp stood. Second, a plaque was put up by the Anglo-German Family History Society in the middle of the current working farm. The only other trace consists of graves in Patrick Church, next to the camp. Those still maintained consist of two Jewish headstones and seven Turkish ones, with a marble commemoration in 26  Hall Caine, The Woman of Knockaloe: A Parable (London, 1923). 27 See especially Adolf Vielhauer, Das englische Konzentrationslager bei Peel (Insel Man) (Bad Nassau, 1917); F.  Hartmann, Bilder aus dem Gefangenenlager Knockaloe in England (Bad Nassau, 1918); Karl von Scheidt and Fritz Meyer, Vier Jahre Leben und Leiden der Auslandsdeutschen in den Gefangenenlagern Englands (Hagen, 1919). 28 B. E. Sargeaunt, The Isle of Man and the Great War (Douglas, 1922). 29  Kewley Draskau’s work includes: ‘Prisoners in Petticoats: Drag Performance and Its Effects in Great War Internment Camps on the Isle of Man’, Proceedings of the Isle of Man Natural History and Antiquarian Society, vol. 12 (April 2007–March 2009), pp. 187–204; and ‘Relocating the Heimat: Great War Internment Literature from the Isle of Man’, German Studies Review, vol. 32 (2009), pp. 83–106. 30  Yvonne Creswell, ed., Living with the Wire: Civilian Internment in the Isle of Man during the Two World Wars (Douglas, 1984). 31  Robert Fyson, ‘The Douglas Camp Shootings of 1914’, Proceedings of the Isle of Man Natural History and Antiquarian Society, vol. 11 (April 1997–March 1999), pp. 115–26. 32  Pat Kelly, Hedge of Thorns: Knockaloe Camp, 1915–19 (Douglas, 1993).

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312  Enemies in the Empire front of them declaring: ‘Here are buried seven Turkish internees who died in the 1914–1918 war’. However, 245 prisoners buried here were moved to the German Military Cemetery in Cannock Chase by the Imperial War Graves Commission in 1962.33 The physical memorialization of Knockaloe recently developed largely as a result of the efforts of the Manx Museum34 and, more especially, the Centre for WW1 Internment, a museum in Patrick School Room, opposite the former internment site, working especially with the descendants of internees. Apart from the impressive exhibition, the Centre has the aim of constructing a database of all of those who passed through Knockaloe, and reconstructing some of the huts which the prisoners used.35 At the same time, Claire Corkhill has recently written a PhD thesis on Knockaloe, which included a virtual reconstruction of the camp in a specially devised website.36 The recent rise in interest in memorializing the camp reflects the increasing attention which internment has received in Britain, connected with the centenary of the Great War. This also applies to Stobs in Scotland. Key heritage players such as Archaeology Scotland and the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland have ‘discovered’ Stobs as a potential memorial site. Archaeological excavation, site accessibility, and explanatory boards are planned to communicate the history of the site to the general public. The Arts and Humanities Research Council facilitated co­oper­ ation with academics, public engagement activities, and integration of local endeavours into a larger research context through the new Internment Research Centre at the Heritage Hub Hawick.37 Recent memorialization activities around Lofthouse Park in Yorkshire include an exhibition, a richly illustrated camp history, and cooperation with partners in the Berlin suburb of Ruhleben, which hosted the main camp for British citizens interned in Germany.38 Transnational rather than nationally demarcated commemoration is at the heart of these recent projects. These indicators suggest that Britain’s ‘internment amnesia’ might finally come to an end. The media and general public have become more receptive towards a differentiated representation of the First World War, one that also includes former ‘enemy aliens’.

33  Margery West, Island at War: The Remarkable Role Played by the Small Manx Nation in the Great War 1914–1918 (Laxey, 1986), p. 107; Isle of Man Weekly Times, 24 August 1962. 34  See, for example, the material held at the imusuem, http://www.imuseum.im. In September 2014 the Manx National Heritage also hosted a conference to commemorate the centenary of the arrival of the first internees on the island. 35  www.knockaloe.im, accessed 16 April 2019. 36  Claire Corkhill, ‘Knockaloe First World War Internment Camp: A Virtual Museum and Archive’ (unpublished University of York PhD thesis, 2013). 37 https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FR002649%2F1, http://www.stobscamp.org/irc, http:// www.gatewaysfww.org.uk/projects/stobs-internment-camp, stobsiade.org, all accessed 22 March 2019. 38  https://ruhlebenlofthouse.com/about, accessed 15 August 2018; Claudia Sternberg and David Stowe, eds, Pleasure, Privilege, Privations: Lofthouse Park near Wakefield, 1908–1922 (Leeds, 2018).

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The Nature and Legacy of British Imperial Internment  313 Commemoration in the former British territories tackled in this study g­ enerates a mixed picture. In India, the Great War is largely represented as one fought by the imperialist power with no place in Indian nationalist-driven historical narratives. Indeed, apart from a Government of India publication on India’s Contribution to the Great War, published in 1923, few books have appeared on India during the Great War, two of them at the time of the submission of this typescript.39 In such circumstances, the memory of German internment has disappeared and seems to have little chance of coming back to life. In South Africa, public memorialization of civilian internment is completely dominated by commemoration sites for Boers on the one hand,40 and for anti-Apartheid activists on the other, with Robben Island representing the most well-known example for the latter group. Interned ‘enemy aliens’ have no place within this memory landscape. In Pietermaritzburg there is no public sign or plaque that would remember this aspect of the city’s history. The premises of Fort Napier are currently used as a psychiatric hospital. Its publicity materials include references to the former gar­ rison fort but none to its subsequent function as an internment camp.41 An ex­hib­ ition in the regional KwaZulu Natal Museum in 2019 constituted a first step towards raising public awareness of enemy alien internment on South African soil. The same applies to Barbados where an exhibition is planned for 2021.42 Higher levels of awareness can be identified in Australia and Canada. Led by the Migration Heritage Centre in New South Wales, a comprehensive online exhibition on Australian operations was created in 2011, which also includes maps and educational resources.43 The narrative of internment is woven into the exhibits and collections of the Australian War Memorial44 and, similar to Britain, the graves of those who died in captivity were disinterred and brought together in 1962. Today, they form part of the German Military Cemetery in Tatura, Victoria, which also includes Second World War casualties.45 Information on the ‘German 39  Dewitt Ellinwood and S. D. Prahan, eds, India and World War 1 (Columbia, MO, 1978); Santanu Das, India, Empire, and First World War Culture Writings, Images, and Songs (Cambridge, 2018); R. D. Long and Ian Talbot, eds, India and World War I: A Centennial Assessment (Abingdon, 2018). 40 For example, Fort Schanskop Museum near Pretoria, http://www.vtm.org.za/fort-schanskop, accessed 15 August 2018, or the memorial in Howick, Kwazulu Natal Province, for those who died in the local ‘Konsentrasiekamp’. 41 Brochure Fort Napier Hospital: Profile for 2014, courtesy public relations department of the hospital. 42 Exhibition catalogue: Stefan Manz and Rosemary Hannay, eds, Behind the Wire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire 1914–1919 (Hawick, 2018). Further showings include Hawick Museum, Fort Douglas Military Museum in Salt Lake City, Oldcastle Public Library in Ireland, and SMT Gallery in Saskatoon, Canada. 43 http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/enemyathome/the-enemy-at-home/index. html, accessed 15 August 2018. 44 https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/gott-strafe-england-walter-koch-holsworthy-camp-1918, accessed 15 August 2018. 45 http://www.liverpool.nsw.gov.au/pioneers/history/World-War-I-German-Internees; https:// www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/14043/tatura-german-military-cemetery, both accessed 15 August 2018.

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314  Enemies in the Empire Concentration Camp’ in Holsworthy, New South Wales was an integral part of the major exhibition Peace Comes to Liverpool in the regional museum during ar­mis­ tice centenary commemorations. Memorialization in Canada is mostly focused on Ukrainians. Following a campaign by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Senate of Canada passed the Internment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act in 2005. A fund worth $10 million was established in 2008 to facilitate commemorative and educational activities remembering First World War internment operations. Activities have included commemorative plaques at former internment sites, as well as the Spirit Lake Camp Interpretive Centre. In the opening speech in 2011, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration found the internment operations to be ‘a blight’ on Canadian history.46 It has taken almost a century for Britain and at least some Commonwealth countries to create momentum in publicly commemorating civilian internment operations during the First World War. Scholars, communities, and public stakeholders have cooperated in embedding the memory of camps into local histories and, at the same time, connected them with the global theatre of the First World War. The present study has provided a framework for understanding the interplay between local, national, and global levels of operation. If anything, it has shown that the rich source material offers myriad possibilities for further investigation within and beyond the British Empire. This applies to geographical and camp case studies, to interdisciplinary perspectives on themes such as cultural production in captivity,47 and to wider themes such as security and humanity that are best discussed at an international level.48 Civilian mass internment breaching humanitarian principles remains an ongoing issue in the twenty-first century. Studying its first global implementation during the First World War helps us understand the underlying mechanics and their destructive consequences for individuals and communities.

46  https://www.internmentcanada.ca, accessed 15 August 2018. 47  For example, Isabella von Treskow and Bernhard Lübbers, eds, Kriegsgefangenenschaft 1914–1919: Kollektive Erfahrung, kulturelles Leben, Regensburger Realität (Regensburg, 2019). 48  For example, the international conference ‘Security and Humanity in the First World War: The Treatment of ‘Enemy Aliens’, convener Arnd Bauerkämper, German Historical Institute London, 11–13 April 2019, https://www.ghil.ac.uk/security_and_humanity_in_the_first_world_war.html, accessed 15 April 2019.

Baviaanspoort Du Toit Pan Mine

near Pretoria Kimberley

Hampshire Cheshire London Isle of Man Wakefield, Yorkshire Berkshire Meath, Ireland London Northamptonshire Isle of Wight Shropshire Essex Hawick, Scotland London

Gosport Handforth Islington Knockaloe Lofthouse Park Newbury Oldcastle Olympia Pattishall/Eastcote Ryde Shrewsbury Southend Stobs Stratford

South Africa

London Isle of Man Hampshire

Location

Alexandra Palace Douglas Frimley

Britain

Name

  1915

1915–19 1914–19 1914–15; 1916–18 1914–15 1914–18 1915–19 1914–19 1914–19 1914–15 1914–18 1914 1914–19 1914–15 1914–19 1914–15 1914–18 1914–17

Duration

963

3,600 2,500 700 22,000 1,500 3,000 600 1,500 4,500 2,500 1,600 5,000 4,600 740  

3,000 2,500 6,000

Maximum numbers

  Mine

Ships Factory   Purpose-built Amusement park Race course Workhouse Exhibition hall Retirement home Ships Factory Ships Purpose-built; military Factory

Amusement park Holiday camp  

Type/former function

  Provisional Continued 

  Civilian then military   Largest camp in the Empire 1st class           Civilian then military   Mixed then military only  

  1st class Tents; civilian then military

Features

Main Civilian Internment Camps in the British Empire

APPENDIX

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near Bloemfontein

Tempe

Maharashtra Karnataka Karnataka Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh Karnataka Maharashtra

Andhra Pradesh Tamil Nadu

Ahmednagar Belgaum Bellary Dinapur Kataphar Ramandroog Sholapur

Waltair Yercawd

India

Fort Verdala Gibraltar Maadi Ras el-Tin Sidi Bishr

Malta, near Valetta   near Cairo near Alexandria Alexandria

Pietermaritzburg Johannesburg Durban Pretoria Pretoria near Johannesburg

Fort Napier Johannesburg Lords Ground Princess Park Roberts Heights Standerton

Egypt and Mediterranean

Location

Name

APPENDIX  Continued

1914–15 1917–18

1914–19 1915–19 1914–17? 1914–15     1917–19

1914–18 1914–17 1914–18? 1915–18 1914–18

1914/15, 1917

1914–19 1914 1914–15 1917 1914–15  

Duration

70 114

1,700 250 100 99 44   286

1,906 882 100   200

134

2,500 1,055        

Maximum numbers

Sanatorium Bungalows

Barracks Military station/sanatorium Barracks Barracks Barracks Sanatorium Hospital

Barracks Military establishment Penitentiary    

Military base

Military garrison Agricultural show ground Cricket ground   Military base Government farm

Type/former function

Main camp in India Families, deportees Missionaries, families Missionaries, families     Women and children deported from Siam Missionaries, families  

  Ship passengers Including 80 missionaries    

Main camp in South Africa Transit camp Deported officers and 1st class Deported women and children Female and mixed Agricultural work for good conduct in Fort Napier Deported women and children

Features

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Nova Scotia Alberta Quebec Manitoba

British Columbia

Amherst Banff/Castle Mountain Beauport Brandon

Edgewood

Canada

Devonport Motuihi Island Somes Island

New Zealand

Auckland Auckland harbour Wellington harbour

Tasmania Queensland New South Wales Victoria Australian Capital Territory Western Australia South Australia New South Wales

Bruny Island Enoggera Holsworthy Langwarrin Molonglo

Rottnest Island Torrens Island Trial Bay

New South Wales New South Wales

Ceylon Hong Kong Hong Kong Singapore North Borneo

Berrima Bourke

Australia

Diyatalawa Kowloon Stonecutter’s Island Tanglin Tenom

Asia other

1915–16

1915–19 1915–17 1914–16 1914–16

1918–19 1914–18 1914–18

1914–15 1914–15 1914–18

1914–15 1914–15 1914–20 1914–15 1918–19

1914–19 1915–18

1914–15 1914–16 1914 1914–15 1915–16  

  several hundred 200

853 191

208 80 271

1,000 400 580

50 140 6,000 500 200

400 100

400 6

400 260

Bunk houses

Factory Tents and bunk houses Armoury Exhibition building

Barracks Quarantine station Psychiatric hospital

Gaol Tents Gaol

  Barracks Purpose-built Tents Purpose-built

Gaol Gaol or private

Barracks Military encampment   Barracks Private house

 

       

Continued

  Prison island, 1st class Prison island, 2nd class

    1st class

  Deported families; not enclosed     Main camp in Australia    

Families        

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1914–18

1914–18 1914–19 1914–18 1914–19

1915–18 1914–17 1914–16 1914–16 1916 1914–20 1914–16 1915–17 1914–18 1918–19 1914–15 1915–18 1915–16 1914–16 1915–18 1915–17 1914–16 1915 1914–20

Duration

 

 

 

43

60 19 58 88

700 85 200 284

 

65 43 39 200 800

438 300 200

180

400 413

Maximum numbers

Barracks

Prison Private house Huts and tents Military hospital

Hotel Barracks Barracks Citadel Bunk houses Bunk houses Exhibition building   Immigration hall Railway cars Government building Armoury Bunk houses Militia camp/tents Armoury Bunk houses Stanley barracks Militia camp/tents Government building

Type/former function

Seamen and local residents

Seamen Local residents Prison island; mostly seamen Seamen

      1st class                             Families

Features

Sources: passim.

NB: Full details could not be traced for all camps. The table only contains those with a degree of size or permanence. There were a multitude of further short-term holding stations and transit camps.

Up Park Camp

Glendairy Prison N/A Ports Island St James Barracks

Barbados Trinidad Bermuda Trinidad, near Port of Spain Kingston, Jamaica,

British Columbia Ontario, Kingston Manitoba, Winnipeg Nova Scotia Alberta Ontario Alberta British Columbia Quebec Saskatchewan British Columbia Ontario British Columbia Ontario Ontario Quebec Ontario Quebec British Columbia

Fernie-Morissey Fort Henry Fort Osborne Halifax Citadel Jasper Kapuskasing Lethbridge Monashee/Mara Lake Montreal Munson, Alberta-Eaton Nanaimo Niagara Falls Revelstoke-Otter Petawawa Sault Ste. Marie Spirit Lake Toronto Valcartier Vernon

Atlantic

Location

Name

APPENDIX  Continued OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/01/20, SPi

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Bibliography A. Primary Sources 1. Archival Material

Archiv der Basler Mission, Basel C, Indien

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R57neu, Ausschuss für vertriebene Reichsdeutsche aus Großbritannien, Irland und den britischen Kolonien; Württembergische Hilfsstelle für Auslandsdeutsche

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320 Bibliography Bundesarchiv, Militärarchiv, Freiburg

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Acc/2805, Office of the Chief Rabbi

Manx National Heritage

Friedrich Bitzer papers, no file classification B115/43q, ‘Final Report and Statistical Record on the Internal Administration of the Prisoners of War Camp No. IV, 1915–1919’. B115/xf, Internment Scrapbooks MS06465, Douglas Camp Journal MS08562, Letters from Max to Thekla Gottshalt, 1915–22 MS09310, Isle of Man Constabulary Archive MS09377, Catering Records of Knockaloe MS11034, Transcripted Correspondence of Edwin Mieg MS10417, Papers of J. T. Baily MS09845, Government Office Papers MS11425, Christa Kenner Bedford, ‘My Father—George Kenner—Memories’.

National Archives, London

CAB24, Cabinet Papers CO28, CO37, CO295, CO323, Colonial Office Papers FO239, FO383, Foreign Office Papers HO45, Home Office Papers MEPO2, Metropolitan Police Papers WO394, War Office Papers

National Archives of India

Army/Secretary of State Commerce and Industry/Commerce and TradeA Foreign and Political/ExternalA Foreign and Political/ExternalB Foreign and Political/Secret War Foreign and Political/WarB Home/Police Home/PoliceB

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Bibliography  321 Home/PoliticalA Home/WarA Home/WarB LegislativeB/Legislative Public Works/Civil WorksA Revenue and Agriculture/Archaeology and EpigraphyA

National Archives of South Africa

BNS994, 995, 1006, various files ‘Enemy Aliens’ CES48 to 199, Commissioner for Enemy Subjects GG631, Governor-General SAP30, South African Police

National Military History Museum of South Africa Collection Michael Bentz

Pietermaritzburg Archive

Eckhart von Fintel, Fort Napier. Internment Camp for Germans during World War I, electronic compilation, no classification PMB1, Chief Magistrate Pietermaritzburg

Private Papers

Frederick McKay

Strathclyde Regional Archives, Glasgow

PA11/II/4, Enemy Alien Danger, Safety of the Realm, 13 June 1916

2. Printed Works

(a) Official Publications

An Agreement between the British and German Governments Concerning Combatant and Civilian Prisoners of War (London, 1917). An Agreement between the British and German Governments Concerning Combatant Prisoners of War and Civilians (London, 1918). Campbell, H., The Law of Trading with the Enemy in British India (Calcutta, 1916). Census of Canada, 1911, Volume II, Table xiii (Ottawa, 1913). Census of India, 1911, Vol. 1, Part II, Tables (Calcutta, 1913). Concentration Camps Commission, Report on the Concentration Camps in South Africa, by the Committee of Ladies Appointed by the Secretary of State for War: Containing Reports on the Camps in Natal, the Orange River Colony, and the Transvaal (London, 1902). Correspondence Respecting Operations against German Possessions in the Western Pacific (London, 1915). Defence of the Realm Regulations Consolidated and Revised, January 31st 1917 (London, 1917). Deutscher Bundestag, ed., Das Werk des Untersuchungsausschusses der verfassungsgebenden Deutschen Nationalversammlung und des Deutschen Reichstages, 1919–1928, Reihe 3: Völkerrecht im Weltkrieg. Bd. III/2: Gutachten des Sachverständigen Geh. Rates Prof. Dr. Meurer (Berlin, 1927). Disturbance at the Aliens Detention Camp at Douglas on Thursday November 19th, 1914: Inquiry by the Coroner of Inquests on Friday, November 20th, and Friday, November 27th, 1914 (Douglas, 1914).

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322 Bibliography Further Correspondence Respecting the proposed Release of Germans Interned in the British and German Empires (London, 1917). Government of India, India’s Contribution to the Great War (Calcutta, 1923). Hansard, Commons, Lords, fifth series, 1914–19. Report of Committee Appointed to Consider Applications for Exemption from Compulsory Repatriation by Interned Enemy Aliens (London, 1919). Reports of Visits of Inspection Made by Officials of the United States Embassy to Various Internment Camps in the United Kingdom (London, 1916). Schoch, Emanuel, Thormeyer, F. and Blanchod, F., eds, Reports on British Prison Camps in India and Burma Visited by the International Red Cross Committee in February, March and April 1917 (London, 1917). Smith, S. J., ‘The Seizure and Occupation of Samoa’, in H. T. B. Drew, ed., The War Effort in New Zealand (Auckland, 1923).

(b) Newspapers and Periodicals (i) British

Daily Express Daily Mirror Harvest Field Hornsey Journal Isle of Man Examiner Isle of Man Weekly Times Manchester Guardian Manx Quarterly Mona’s Herald Morning Post Peel City Guardian and Chronicle Scotsman The Times Wakefield Express

(ii) Canadian Montreal Star

(iii) German

Berliner Neueste Nachrichten Berliner Tageblatt Die Biene auf dem Missionsfelde Die Eiche Evangelische Lutherische Freikirche Evangelisches Missions Magazin Frankfurter Zeitung Hamburger Nachrichten Die katholischen Missionen Kölnische Zeitung Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten Leipziger Tageblatt Münchner Neueste Nachrichten Nachrichtenblatt der Reichszentralstelle für Kriegs- und Zivilgefangene

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Bibliography  323 National Zeitung Neue Preussische Zeitung Schlesische Zeitung Tägliche Rundschau Vorwärts Vossische Zeitung Die Zeit

(iv) German Southwest Africa Windhuker Nachrichten

(v) Internment Camp

Der Hunne (Fort Napier) Die Hunnen (Knockaloe) Knockaloe Lager-Zeitung Lager-Echo (Knockaloe) Stobsiade (Stobs) Werden (Knockaloe)

(vi) Indian

Madras Mail

(vii) Ireland

Meath Chronicle

(viii) New Zeland

New Zealand Herald The Star

(ix) South African

Cape Times Deutscher Evangelischer Volksbote für Südafrika Natal Mercury Natal Witness The Star Union of South Africa Government Gazette Extraordinary

(x) USA

New York Herold (Staats-Zeitung)

(c) Contemporary Books, Articles, and Memoirs

Abell, Francis, Prisoners of War in Britain, 1756 to 1815: A Record of their Lives, Their Romance and Their Sufferings (Oxford, 1914). Achilles, Albert, Erinnerungen aus meiner Kriegsgefangenschaft im Mixed-Transit-Camp Ahmednagar und Erholungslager Ramandrog in Indien während des ersten Weltkrieges 1914–1920 (Berlin, 1977). Allgemeiner Deutscher Schulverein zur Erhaltung des Deutschtums im Auslande, ed., Handbuch des Deutschtums im Auslande (Berlin, 1904). Anglo-German Publishing Company, ed., Die Deutsche Kolonie in England (London, 2013).

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324 Bibliography Anonymous, Südafrikas Deutsche in englischer Gewalt (Dresden, 1916). Bauer, Franz, 1915–1918: Mein Erinnerungsbuch zum dreijährigen Bestehen des Camp Theaters Compound 2, Camp 1, am. 20. März 1918, zugleich ein Überblick über die Tätigkeit aller anderen Bühnen des Lager 1 (Knockaloe, 1918). Bellon, Immanuel, Die gewaltsame Vertreibung der Basler Missionare von der Goldküste (Stuttgart, 1918). Benedix, Hans Erich, In England interniert (Gotha, 1916). Bley, Fritz, Südafrika niederdeutsch! (Munich, 1898). ‘British Treatment of Enemy Prisoners: Journalists Visit Manx Camps’, Manx Quarterly, vol. 17 (October 1916). Brugger, Albrecht Hermann, Meine Flucht aus dem Kriegsgefangenen-Lager Lofthouse-Park (Berlin, 1937). Caine, Hall, The Woman of Knockaloe: A Parable (London, 1923). Cohen-Portheim, Paul, Time Stood Still: My Internment in England (London, 1931). Dunbar-Kalckreuth, Frederick Lewis, Die Männerinsel (Leipzig, 1940). European Association, Thirty-First Annual Report (Calcutta, 1915). European Association, Thirty-Second Annual Report (Calcutta, 1916). Foertsch, Karl, Unter Kriegs-Wettern: Kriegserlebnisse der Gossnerschen Missionare in Indien (Berlin, 1916). Grothe, Hugo, Die Deutschen in Übersee (Berlin, 1932). Handels-Schule, Camp I, Compound IV, Bericht über das Winterhalbjahr 1916/1917 und Lehrplan für das Sommerhalbjahr 1917 (Knockaloe, 1917). Hartmann, R., Bilder aus dem Gefangenenlager Knockaloe in England (Bad Nassau, 1918). Hennings, C. R., Deutsche in England (Stuttgart, 1923). Hilfe für Kriegsgefangene Deutsche, Landesausschuss für Anhalt, Arbeitsbericht 1914 bis 31. März 1917 (Dessau, 1917). Huber, Karl, ‘Das indische Kriegsgefangenen-Paradies’, in Edgar Grueber, ed., Deutsche hinter Stacheldraht: Kriegsgefangene erzählen ihre Erlebnisse (Tübingen, 1935). Hull, Ernest R., The German Jesuit Fathers of Bombay: By an Englishman Who Knows Them (Bombay, 1915). Jaus, Johann Jakob, Als Kriegsgefangener: Von Indien nach Deutschland (Stuttgart, 1916). Jaus, Johann Jakob, Kriegsgefangene Missionskinder (Stuttgart, 1916). Jessen, Otty, Vertrieben (Breklum, 1917). Jung, Emil, Das Deutschtum in Australien und Ozeanien (Munich, 1902). Kammerer, Immanuel, Die deutsche Mission im Weltkrieg (Stuttgart, 1916). Ketchum, John Davidson, Ruhleben: A Prison Camp Society (Toronto, 1965). Kleinschmidt, P. Beda, Auslandsdeutschtum und Kirche, Volume 2, Die Auslandsdeustchen in Übersee (Münster, 1930). Köhler, J., ed., Karte von Grossbritannien, Italien u. den überseeischen Ländern, in denen Kriegs- und Zivilgefangene sich befinden (Hamburg, 1917). Kröpke, Wilhelm, Meine Flucht aus englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft 1916: Von Afrika über England nach Deutschland zur Flandern-Front (Flensburg, 1937). Langhans, Paul, ‘Die Volkszahl der Deutschen: Verteilung der Deutschen über die Erde’, in Alfred Geiser, Deutsches Reich und Volk: Ein nationales Handbuch (Munich, 1906). Lucas, Sir Charles, The War and the Empire: Some Facts and Deductions (London, 1919). Lucas, Sir Charles, ed., The Empire at War, 5 Volumes (Oxford, 1921–6). Luckner, Felix von, Seeteufel: Abenteuer aus meinem Leben (Leipzig, 1922). Machner, J., Gefangen in England: Erlebnisse and Beobachtungen (Hildesheim, 1920). Manns, Helga Brodersen, Wie alles anders kam in Afrika (Windhoek, edited 1991).

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Bibliography  325 Maue, J., In Feindes Land: Achtzehn Monate in englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft in Indien und England (Stuttgart, 1918). Meyn, Ludwig and Mörlins, Wolfgang J., eds, Knockaloe Aliens Detention Camp, 1914–1917: Drei Jahre Schul-Arbeit (Knockaloe, 1917). Münchmeyer, Reinhard, In der Fremde: Einige Zeugnisse aus der Auslandsarbeit (Marburg, 1905). Norden, Heinrich, In englischer Gefangenschaft (Kassel, 1915). Oepke, Albrecht, Ahmednagar und Golconda: Ein Beitrag zur Erörterung der Missionsprobleme des Weltkrieges (Leipzig, 1918). Otter, William D., Internment Operations, 1914–20 (Ottawa, 1920). Plüschow, Gunther, My Escape from Donington Hall (London, 1922). Pohl, E., Schiff in Not: Die Breklumer Mission in Indien in und nach dem Kriege (Breklum, 1929). Pörzgen, Hermann, Theater ohne Frau: Das Bühnenleben der Kriegsgefangenen Deutschen, 1914–1920 (Königsberg, 1933). Probst, Hans Georg, Unter indischer Sonne: 19 Monate englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft in Ahmednagar (Herborn, 1917). Rocker, Rudolf, The London Years (originally 1956; Nottingham, 2005). Röseler, Hermann, ‘Bilder aus englischer Gefangenschaft im deutsch-ostafrikanischen Kolonialgebiet, in Ägypten und in England’, in Hans Weiland and Leopold Kern, eds, In Feindeshand: Die Gefangenschaft im Weltkriege in Einzeldarstellungen, Vol. 2 (Vienna, 1931). Roxburgh, R. F., ‘German Property in the War and the Peace’, Law Quarterly Review, vol. 37 (1921). Scheidt, Karl von and Meyer, Fritz, Vier Jahre Leben und Leiden der Auslandsdeutschen in den Gefangenenlagern Englands (Hagen, 1919). Schenk, G., ‘Wie helfen wir als Seelsorger zur rechten Begrüßung und Fürsorge für die heimkehrenden Kriegsgefangenen?’, in Oskar Goehling, ed., Frei und Daheim! Eine Handreichung für Heimkehrfeiern in Kirche und Gemeinde (Berlin, 1919). Schimming, Otto, 13 Monate hinter dem Stacheldraht: Alexandra Palace, Knocakaloe, Isle of Man, Stratford (Stuttgart, 1919). Schulte, Erich von, ‘Die Internierten und Kriegsgefangenen in der Südafrikanischen Union’, in Hans Weiland and Leopold Kern, eds, In Feindeshand: Die Gefangenschaft im Weltkriege in Einzeldarstellungen, Volume 2 (Vienna, 1931). Stoffa, Pál, Round the World to Freedom (London, 1933). Tera, N. O., Meine 800: Heimkehr aus Ahmednagar: ‘Der Käpt’n erzählt’ (Hanover, 1934). Textil-Fach-Schule, Zivilgefangenen Lager Knockaloe, Insel Man, England, Lager I, Compound 4, Jahres-Bericht, 1917–1918 (Knockaloe, 1918). Thomas, Anna Braithwaite, St Stephen’s House: Friends Emergency Work in England, 1914 to 1920 (London, 1920). Turnverein Knockaloe Compound 6, Gefangenenlager Knockaloe Insel Man, Camp 1, Turnbericht über das Jahr 1916 (Knockaloe, 1916). Väth, Alfons, Die deutschen Jesuiten in Indien: Geschichte der Mission von Bombay-Puna (Regensburg, 1920). Vielhauer, Adolf, Das englische Konzentrationslager bei Peel (Insel Man) (Bad Nassau, 1917). Vischer, A. L, Barbed Wire Disease: A Psychological Study of the Prisoner of War (London, 1919). Vöhringer, Gotthilf, Meine Erlebnisse während des Krieges in Kamerun und in englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft (Hamburg, 1915).

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326 Bibliography Wagener, Georg Wilhelm, Bericht über meine Gefangenschaft in Süd-Afrika und England (Berlin, 1916). Wagener, Georg Wilhelm, Meine Gefangenschaft in Südafrika und England vom 15. Sept. 1914 bis 18. Juni 1916 (Brunswick, 1917). Weiland, Hans and Kern, Leopold, eds, In Feindeshand: Die Gefangenschaft im Weltkriege in Einzeldarstellungen, 2 Volumes (Vienna, 1931). Zehme, Therese, Heimkehr mit der Golconda: Wie es den Kindern unserer vertriebenen indischen Missionare erging (Leipzig, 1916).

B. Secondary Sources 1. Published Work Achilli, Luigi, Palestinian Refugees and Identity: Nationalism, Politics and the Everyday (London, 2015). Adams, Ansel, Manzanar (London, 1989). Adams, R.  J.  Q. and Poirier, Philip  P., The Conscription Controversy in Great Britain, 1900–18 (Basingstoke, 1987). Aitken, Robbie and Rosenhaft, Eve, Black Germany: The Making and Unmaking of a Diaspora Community, 1884–1960 (Cambridge, 2013). Allen, Sir James, ‘New Zealand in the World War’, in J.  H.  Rose, A.  P.  Newton, and E.  A.  Benians, eds, The Cambridge History of the British Empire, Vol. 7, Part 2 (Cambridge, 1933). Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1983). Anderson, Clare, Subaltern Lives: Biographies of Colonialism in the Indian Ocean World, 1790–1920 (Cambridge, 2012). Anderson, David M., ‘British Abuse and Torture in Kenya’s Counter-Insurgency, 1952–1960’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, vol. 23 (2012). Applebaum, Anne, GULAG: A History (London, 2003). Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2nd edn (Cleveland, OH, 1958). Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane and Becker, Annette, 14–18: Understanding the Great War (New York, 2002). Baago, K., A History of the National Christian Council of India, 1914–1964 (Nagpur, 1965). Bacon, Edwin, The GULAG at War (Basingstoke, 1994). Bade, Klaus J., ed., Deutsche im Ausland—Fremde in Deutschland: Migration in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Munich, 1992). Bade, Klaus J., Migration in European History (Oxford, 2003). Bade, Klaus J. and Oltmer, Jochen, eds, Fremde im Land: Zuwanderung und Integration in Niedersachsen seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Osnabrück, 2002). Bailkin, Jordana, Unsettled: Refugee Camps and the Making of Multicultural Britain (Oxford, 2018). Baily, Leslie, Craftsman and Quaker: The Story of James T. Baily, 1876–1957 (London, 1959). Bajohr, Frank, ‘Aryanisation’ in Hamburg: The Economic Exclusion of the Jews and the Confiscation of Their Property in Nazi Germany (New York, 2002). Barkhof, Sandra, ‘The New Zealand Occupation of German Samoa during the First World War 1914–1918: Enemy Aliens and Internment’, in Stefan Manz, Panikos Panayi, and Matthew Stibbe, eds, Internment during the First World War: A Mass Global Phenomenon (Abingdon, 2018).

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Bibliography  327 Barnes, Steven  A., Death and Redemption: The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society (Princeton, NJ, 2011). Bauernkämper, Arnd, ‘National Security and Humanity: The Internment of Civilian “Enemy Aliens” during the First World War’, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute London, vol. 40 (2018). Becker, Annette, ‘Captive Civilians’, in Jay Winter, ed., The Cambridge History of the First World War, vol. 3, Civil Society (Cambridge, 2014). Becker, Bert, ‘Das deutsche Hongkong: Imperialismus und partizipierender Kolonialismus vor 1914’, in Markus  A.  Denzel, ed., Deutsche Eliten in Übersee (16. bis frühes 20. Jahrhundert) (St Katharinen, 2006). Beckles, Hilary, A History of Barbados: From Amerindian Settlement to Nation-State (Cambridge, 1990). Beerbühl, Margrit Schulte, The Forgotten Majority: German Merchants in London, Naturalization, and Global Trade 1660–1815 (New York, 2015). Belich, James, Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Angloworld (Oxford, 2009). Bender, Steffen, Der Burenkrieg und die deutschsprachige Presse: Wahrnehmung und Deutung zwischen Bureneuphorie und Anglophobie, 1899–1902 (Paderborn, 2009). Bernard, Roy, My German Family in England (Maidenhead, 1993). Bird, J. C., Control of Enemy Alien Civilians in Great Britain, 1914–1918 (London, 1986). Bispinck, Henrik and Hochmuth, Katharina, eds, Flüchtlingslager im Nachkriegsdeutschland: Migration, Politik, Erinnerung (Berlin, 2014). Blackbourn, David, History of Germany, 1780–1918: The Long Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 2003). Bloxham, Donald, The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (Oxford, 2005). Bravin, Jess, The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay (London, 2014). Brown, Judith, ‘War and the Colonial Relationship: Britain, India, and the War of 1914–1918’, in M. R. D. Foot, ed., War and Society (London, 1973). Bryder, Linda, ‘The First World War: Healthy or Hungry’, History Workshop, vol. 24 (1987). Bueltmann, Tanja, ‘Ethnizität und Organisierte Geselligkeit: Das Assoziationswesen deutscher Migranten in Neuseeland im mittleren und späten 19. Jahrhundert’, Historische Zeitschrift, vol. 295 (2012). Bueltmann, Tanja, Gleeson, David  T. and MacRaild, Donald, eds, Locating the English Diaspora, 1500–2010 (Liverpool, 2012). Buggeln, Marc, Slave Labour in Nazi Concentration Camps (Oxford, 2014). Bush, Barbara, Imperialism, Race, and Resistance: Africa and Britain, 1919–1945 (London, 1999). Cabanes, Bruno, The Great War and the Origins of Humanitarianism, 1918–1924 (Cambridge, 2014). Caglioti, Daniela  L., ‘Germanophobia and Economic Nationalism: Government Policies against Enemy Aliens in Italy during the First World War’, in Panikos Panayi, ed., Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, 2014). Caglioti, Daniela L., ‘Why and How Italy Invented an Enemy Aliens Problem in the First World War’, War in History, vol. 21 (2014). Capus, Alex, A Matter of Time (London, 2011), German original Eine Frage der Zeit (Munich, 2007). Carmichael, Cathie, Genocide before the Holocaust (London, 2009).

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328 Bibliography Carr, Gilly and Mytum, Harold, eds, Cultural Heritage and Prisoners of War (New York, 2012). Carr, Gilly and Mytum, Harold, ‘The Importance of Creativity Behind Barbed Wire: Setting a Research Agenda’, in Carr and Mytum, eds, Cultural Heritage and Prisoners of War: Creativity Behind Barbed Wire (Abingdon, 2012). Carrington, Clarke E., ‘The Empire at War, 1914–1918’, in E. A. Benians, Sir James Butler, and Charles E. Carrington, eds, The Cambridge History of the British Empire, Vol. 3, The Empire-Commonwealth, 1870–1919 (Cambridge, 1959). Carter, David J., POW—Behind Canadian Barbed Wire: Alien, Refugee and Prisoner of War Camps in Canada 1914–1946 (Alberta, 1998). Cesarani, David, ‘The Anti-Jewish Career of Sir William Joynson-Hicks, Cabinet Minister’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 24 (1989). Cesarani, David and Kushner, Tony, eds, The Internment of Aliens in Twentieth Century Britain (London, 1993). Chickering, Roger and Förster, Stig, eds, Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front 1914–1918 (Cambridge, 2006). Clément, Maéva and Sangar, Eric, eds, Researching Emotions in International Relations: Methodological Perspectives on the Emotional Turn (Basingstoke, 2018). Colpi, Terri, ‘The Impact of the Second World War on the British Italian Community’, in David Cesarani and Tony Kushner, eds, The Internment of Aliens in Twentieth Century Britain (London, 1993). Conrad, Sebastian, Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany (Cambridge, 2010). Conrad, Sebastian, What Is Global History? (Princeton, NJ, 2016). Constantine, Stephen, ‘Britain and the Empire’, in Stephen Constantine, Maurice W. Kirby, and Mary B. Rose, eds, The First World War in British History (London, 1995). Conway, Stephen, Britannia’s Auxiliaries: Continental Europeans and the British Empire, 1740–1800 (Oxford, 2017). Corni, Gustavo, Hitler’s Ghettos (London, 2003). Dadrian, Vahakn, The History of the Armenian Genocide (Oxford, 1995). Dadrian, Vahakn, Warrant for Genocide: Key Elements in the Turko-Armenian Conflict (London, 1999). Daniels, Roger, Prisoners without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II (New York, 1993). Daniels, Roger, Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life (New York, 2002). Das, Santanu, ‘Imperialism, Nationalism and the First World War in India’, in Michael S. Nieberg and Judith D. Keene, eds, Finding Common Ground: New Directions in the First World War (Leiden, 2011). Das, Santanu, ed., Race, Empire and First World War Writing (Cambridge, 2011). Das, Santanu, Indian Troops in Europe 1914–1918 (Ahmedabad, 2015). Das, Santanu, India, Empire, and First World War Culture: Writings, Images, and Songs (Cambridge, 2018). Davis, Gerald  H., ‘Prisoners of War in Twentieth Century Economies’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 12 (1977). Davis, John R., ‘Friedrich Max Müller and the Migration of German Academics to Britain in the Nineteenth Century’, in Stefan Manz, ed., Migration and Transfer from Germany to Britain, 1660–1914 (Munich, 2007). Deacon, Desley et al., eds, Transnational Lives: Biographies of Global Modernity, 1700–Present (Basingstoke, 2010).

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Bibliography  329 Dedering, Tilman, ‘Compounds, Camps, Colonialism’, Journal of Namibian Studies, vol. 12 (2012). Dedering, Tilman, ‘ “Avenge the Lusitania”: The Anti-German Riots in South Africa in 1915’, in Panikos Panayi, ed., Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, 2014). Denness, Zoë, ‘Gender and Germanophobia: The Forgotten Experiences of German Women in Britain, 1914–1919’, in Panikos Panayi, ed., Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, 2014). de Verteuil, Anthony, The Germans in Trinidad (Port of Spain, 1994). Denzel, Markus  A., ed., Deutsche Eliten in Übersee (16. bis frühes 20. Jahrhundert) (St. Katharinen, 2006). Dewey, Clive, Anglo-Indian Attitudes: The Mind of the Indian Civil Service (London, 1993). Dominy, Graham, ‘Pietermaritzburg’s Imperial Postscript: Fort Napier from 1910 to 1925’, Natalia, vol. 19 (1989). Dominy, Graham, Last Outpost on the Zulu Frontiers: Fort Napier and the British Imperial Garrison (Urbana and Champaign, IL, 2016). Dominy, Graham and Reusch, Dieter, ‘Handicrafts, Philanthropy and Self-Help: The Fort Napier Kamp-Industrie during World War I, Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, vol. 5 (1993). Dönninghaus, Victor, Die Deutschen in der Moskauer Gesellschaft: Symbiose und Konflikte (1494–1941) (Munich, 2002). Douds, G.  J., ‘Indian POWs in the Pacific’, in Kevin Blackburn and Karl Hack, eds, Forgotten Captives in Japanese-Occupied Asia (London, 2008). Dove, Richard, ed., ‘Totally un-English?’ Britain’s Internment of ‘Enemy Aliens’ in Two World Wars (Amsterdam, 2005). Downes, Alexander B., Targeting Civilians in War (London, 2008). Draskau, Jennifer Kewley, ‘Prisoners in Petticoats: Drag Performance and Its Effects in Great War Internment Camps on the Isle of Man’, Proceedings of the Isle of Man Natural History and Antiquarian Society, vol. 12 (April 2007–March 2009). Draskau, Jennifer Kewley, ‘Relocating the Heimat: Great War Internment Literature from the Isle of Man’, German Studies Review, vol. 32 (2009). Drower, Jill, Good Clean Fun: The Story of Britain’s First Holiday Camp (London, 1982). Durbach, Nadja, ‘Comforts, Clubs, and the Casino: Food and the Perpetuation of the British Class System in First World War Civilian Internment Camps’, Journal of Social History, vol. 52 (2019). Ehs, Tamara, ‘Neue Österreicher: Die austrofaschistischen Hochschullager der Jahre 1936 und 1937’, in Christoph Jahr and Jens Thiel, eds, Lager vor Auschwitz: Gewalt und Integration im 20. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 2013). Ekirch, A. Roger, Bound for America: The Transportation of British Convicts to the Colonies (Oxford, 1987). Elkins, Caroline, Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya (London, 2005). Ellinwood, Dewitt and Prahan, S.  D., eds, India and World War 1 (Columbia, MO, 1978). Erichsen, Casper Wulff, ‘Forced Labour in the Concentration Camp on Shark Island’, in Joachim Zeller and Jürgen Zimmerer, eds, Genocide in South-West Africa: The Colonial War of 1904–8 and Its Aftermath (Monmouth, 2008). Evans, Raymond, Saunders, Kay and Cronin, Kathryn, Race Relations in Colonial Queensland: A History of Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination (London, 1975).

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344 Bibliography Winegard, Timothy  C., Indigenous Peoples of the British Dominions and the First World War (New York, 2011). Winter, Jay, ed., The Cambridge History of the First World War, 3 Volumes (Cambridge, 2014). Winter, Jay, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge, 2014). Wood, Peter, ‘The Zivilinternierungslager at Lofthouse Park’, in Kate Taylor, ed., Aspects of Wakefield 3: Discovering Local History (Barnsley, 2001). Wulff, Amandus, Die Rolle der Flottenbewegung bei der Durchsetzung einer imperialistischen Politik in Deutschland 1897 bis 1900 (Rostock, 1966). Wünschmann, Kim, Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Pre-War Concentration Camps (Cambridge, MA, 2015). Wurzer, Georg, Die Kriegsgefangenen der Mittelmächte in Russland im Ersten Weltkrieg (Göttingen, 2005). Yanikdag, Yucel, Healing the Nation: Prisoners of War, Medicine and Nationalism in Turkey, 1914–1939 (Edinburgh, 2013). Zamindar, Vazira Fazila, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories (Cambridge, 2010). Zeller, Joachim, ‘ “Ombepera I koza—The Cold Is Killing Me”: Notes Towards a History of the Concentration Camp at Swakopmund’, in Joachim Zeller and Jürgen Zimmerer, eds, Genocide in South-West Africa: The Colonial War of 1904–8 and Its Aftermath (Monmouth, 2008). Zeller, Joachim and Zimmerer, Jürgen, eds, Genocide in South-West Africa: The Colonial War of 1904–8 and Its Aftermath (Monmouth, 2008). Zimmerer, Jürgen, ‘War, Concentration Camps and Genocide in South-West Africa’, in Joachim Zeller and Jürgen Zimmerer, eds, Genocide in South-West Africa: The Colonial War of 1904–8 and Its Aftermath (Monmouth, 2008). Zimmerer, Jürgen, Von Windhuk nach Auschwitz? Beiträge zum Verhältnis von Kolonialismus und Holocaust (Berlin, 2011). Zimmermann, Ernest Robert, The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior: A History of Canadian Internment Camp R (Edmonton, 2015).

2. Theses Corkhill, Claire, ‘Knockaloe First World War Internment Camp: A Virtual Museum and Archive’ (University of York PhD, 2013). Denness, Zoë, ‘ “A Question Which Affects Our Prestige as a Nation:” The History of British Civilian Internment, 1899–1945’ (Birmingham PhD, 2013). Maguire, Anna, ‘Colonial Encounters during the First World War: The Experience of Troops from New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies’ (King’s College London PhD, 2017).

3. Web Sources Anglo-German Family History Society, http://www.agfhs.org.uk Australian War Memorial, https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/gott-strafe-england-walterkoch-holsworthy-camp-1918 Avery, Donald H., ‘Internment (Canada)’, in 1914–1918-online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/internment_canada British Concentration Camps of the South African War, 1900–1902, http://www2.lib.uct. ac.za/mss/bccd/Camps/1

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Bibliography  345 Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund, https://www.internmentcanada.ca Centre for WW1 Internment, www.knockaloe.im Chia, Joshua Y. J., ‘Behn, Meyer & Co’, National Library Singapore, https://www.behnmeyer. com/about-us/history Cultural Exchange in a Time of Global Conflict: Colonials, Neutrals and Belligerents during the First World War, http://www.cegcproject.eu Fort Schanskop Museum, Pretoria, http://www.vtm.org.za/fort-schanskop Frevert, Ute, ‘Wartime Emotions: Honour, Shame, and the Ecstasy of Sacrifice’, International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/ wartime_emotions_honour_shame_and_the_ecstasy_of_sacrifice Gaebler, Else, ‘Unsere Kriegserlebnisse’, Braunschweiger Volkskalender, 1918, http://gaebler. info/ahnen/gaebler/else.htm#0 Gateways to the First World War, http://www.gatewaysfww.org.uk/projects/stobsinternment-camp German Historical Institute, Conference on ‘Security and Humanity in the First World War: The Treatment of ‘Enemy Aliens’, 11–13 April 2019, https://www.ghil.ac.uk/security_and_ humanity_in_the_first_world_war.html German Military Cemetery Tatura, Australia, https://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/ cemetery/14043/tatura-german-military-cemetery Handforth Internment and Prisoner of War Camp, 1914–1919, https://handforthpowcamp. com Isle of Man imuseum, http://www.imuseum.im Jones, Heather, ‘Prisoners of War’, International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/prisoners_of_war Knockaloe Virtual Museum and Archive, Francis William Panzera (1851–1917), Colonel, http://www.knockaloe.org.uk/colonel-panzera Knockaloe Virtual Museum and Archive, Pál (Paul) Stoffa, Major (1876–?), http://www. knockaloe.org.uk/paul-stoffa Leipziger Missionswerk, Missionäre, Indien, http://www.lmw-mission.de/de/missionare–2site-1.html Levsen, Sonja, ‘Masculinities’, International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https:// encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/masculinities Library of Congress, ‘Treaty of Peace with Germany (Treaty of Versailles)’, https://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000002-0043. pdf, accessed 4 September 2019. Migration Heritage Centre, ‘The Enemy At Home: German Internees in World War 1 Australia’, http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/enemyathome/holsworthyinternment-camp/index.html Moyd, Michelle, ‘Extra-European Theatres of War’, International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/extra-european_theatres_ of_war New South Wales History, http://www.liverpool.nsw.gov.au/pioneers/history/World-WarI-German-Internees Paul Dubotzki Gallery, www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/enemyathome/ paul-dubotzki-gallery/index.html Ruhleben Lofthouse Project, https://ruhlebenlofthouse.com/about Stapleton, Timothy J., ‘Union of South Africa’, International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/afrikaner_boer_rebellion_union_ of_south_africa

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346 Bibliography Stobs, http://www.stobscamp.org/irc; stobsiade.org UK Research and Innovation, https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FR002649%2F1 United Nations High Commission for Refugees, ‘Internally Displaced People’, http://www. unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c146.html United Nations High Commission for Refugees publication, The State of the World’s Refugees, http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/search?page=search&query=The+State+of+the+ World%27s+Refugees+&x=14&y=13 Wessels, André, ‘Afrikaner (Boer) Rebellion (Union of South Africa)’, International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/ afrikaner_boer_rebellion_union_of_south_africa

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Index Note: Tables and Figures are indicated by an italic t and f following the page number. Accassa 123–4 Accra  105–6, 175 Achilles, Albert  211–12, 291–2 Adelaide  127, 131 Aden  72–3, 278 Adjutant 212–13 Afghanistan 72–3 Ahmednagar camp  6–7, 11–12, 14, 16–18, 22–3, 94, 105–8, 110–11, 113–15, 128, 139–40, 211–18, 220–3, 256, 275–99, 304–6 numbers of internees within  21–3, 279–80, 280t, 297 outbreak of bubonic plague in  288 religion in  294 see also, cultural activity in camps, educational activity in camps, food in camps, India, prison camp societies, sport in camps Aldershot 170 Alexandra Palace camp (Great Britain)  17–18, 101–2, 111–12, 117–18, 123–4, 165–8, 171–4, 172f, 176–7, 179, 182–3, 232–3, 296–7 Alexandria  69, 104–6, 110, 142, 171 Sidi Bishr camp  105–6 Alex Rodger  258 Algerian War of Independence (1950s)  3 Allahabad 70–1 Muir Central College  70–1 Allgemeine Musikzeitung 260 America  101–2, 168 American Missouri Synod  281–2 Amherst camp (Canada)  8–9, 11–12, 17–18, 107–8, 110–11, 131, 135f, 138, 144–9, 154, 263–4, 306 Amsterdam  102–3, 231 Ancona 119–20 Anderka, Johann  288–9 Anglo-German Family History Society  311–12 anti-German rioting  10, 47–8, 65–6, 79–81, 82f, 85–6, 96, 98, 161–4, 179–80, 188–90, 204, 260 Anti-German Union  68–9

Apia 106 Arendt, Hannah  25–6, 31 Argentina 35–6 Armadale Castle 199 Armenians in Britain  9–10 Arndt & Cohn Ltd.  271 Arndt, Max  141 Asquith, Herbert  98, 164 asylum seekers  3, 43–4 internment of  3, 43–4 see also refugee camps Athens 104 Atje 167 Auckland  16–17, 90–1, 120–1, 131 Aurora 166–7 Auschwitz  6–7, 25–7, 31, 41–2, 45 Australia  3–4, 10–11, 21–2, 24, 43–4, 46–7, 51–2, 58–62, 70, 75–8, 80–1, 86–91, 93–6, 98, 100, 101t, 103–4, 106–8, 110–11, 113–16, 119–21, 127, 131, 184, 211–12, 224, 255–6, 313–14 Aliens Restriction Orders  86 Australian War Memorial  313–14 Germans in  59–63, 93–4, 113–16, 127 Deutscher Schulverein von Viktoria 60–1 Nationalfest 60 Migration Heritage Centre  313–14 number of internees  110–11, 113–16, 125–6, 125t War Precautions Act  86–7 Austria  39, 235–6, 267–8 Emperor 294 Austro-Hungarian Empire  78–9, 112–13, 115–16, 144 Austro-Hungarians in the British Empire  4–5, 11–12, 34–5, 53t see also Great Britain, Canada, India Austro-Hungarian internees  9–10, 34–5, 115–20, 127–9, 131, 144–6, 149–50, 154–5, 162–3, 305 see also Great Britain, Canada, India Aylesbury Inebriate Reformatory  178, 305

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348 Index Badische Aniline and Soda Factory  297 Bahrain  211–12, 283 Baily, J. T.  116–17, 180–1, 237 Balkan Wars (1912–13)  32–3, 38 Baltimore 50 Bangkok 219–21 Barbados  8–9, 107–9, 132, 150, 152–4, 313 Boys Industrial School  152–3 Glendairy Prison  132, 152–3 barbed wire disease  37, 140–1, 154–5, 171, 182–3, 202–3, 224, 228–9, 233–4, 240–1, 246, 271–4, 283, 292, 307 Basel 58 Basel Mission  70, 89, 175, 207, 214, 224, 281–4, 292 Basel Mission Trading Act  89, 210–11 Basra  211, 283 Batavia 231 Bathurst 105–6 Battle of Sarıkamış  34 Battle of Tanga  211–12 Bauerkämper, Arnd  10–11 Bechuanaland  203, 258, 263–4 Bechuanaland Trading Association  189 Becker, Annette  35, 37–8 Beckmann, H.  244–5 Behn, Meyer & Co.  72 Behrens, E.  244–5 Belgaum camp (India)  113–15, 211–12, 221–4, 305 Belgian Congo  184–5, 194, 202–3, 263–4 Belgium  61–2, 77, 162–3, 202, 218–19, 290–1 Belich, John  51–2 Bellary camp (India)  214, 217–18 Belmarsh Prison  48 Benares Hindu College  70–1 Beethoven, Ludwig van  136–7, 248 Beresford, Lord Charles  163–6 Bergensfjord 167 Berlin  8–9, 34–5, 58, 63, 70–1, 102–3, 133, 166–7, 176, 202–3, 254–5, 260, 263–4, 273–4, 282–3, 292, 308, 312 Berlin (Kitchener), Canada  66–7 Berlin (South Africa)  63 Berlin Missionary Society  184–5, 202–3 Bermuda  5–6, 29, 53t, 101t, 107–9, 143, 150, 156–8, 256, 276–7 Fort Arthur Barracks  109 Ports Island camp  29, 109, 131, 137, 154f, 156–8 Berrima camp (Australia)  120–1, 132 Bethania 107–8 Birch-Pfeiffer, Charlotte  263–4 Dorf und Stadt 264

Birmingham 177 Bismarck, Otto von  62–3, 66–7, 294 Bismarck (Weeropa), Australia  86–7 Bitzer, Friedrich  7, 175 Blackbourn, David  64 Blandowski, Wilhelm  59–60 Blantyre camp (South Africa)  202–3 Bloemfontein  64–5, 184–5, 189, 202–3 Blumberg (Birdwood), Australia  86–7 Blumenau 50 Blumenthal, Oskar, and Kadelburg, Gustav  294–5 Im Weissen Rössl 294–5 Blumle, Emma  175 Bockmeyer, August  141 Bode, Hugo  269–70 Bode, Frieda  269–70 Boessenger, Edward  280–1 Bogota 152 Bombay  70–2, 88–9, 93, 211–12, 221, 276–80, 289, 291–2, 296–7 Byculla 278 Booth, John  211–12 Borneo  88–9, 107, 127 Botha, Louis  184, 187–8, 191–2, 197–8, 250, 268, 273, 275 Bottomley, Horatio  163–4 Bourke camp (Australia)  113–15 Bradford  52–5, 162 Brande, Eberhard  219–21 Braunfels 212–13 Braunschweig (South Africa)  63 Brazil  74, 79–80, 86–7, 96 Germans in  50, 79–81, 86–7 Breklum Mission  214–16 Bremen  58, 70, 278 Brisbane 59 British Empire Union  68–9, 307 British Honduras  53t British Red Cross  240–1 Brixton prison  177 Brodersen Manns, Helga  199–200, 202 Brown, Judith  205–6 Bruder, Kurt  239–40 Budka, Nykyta  81–3 Buenos Aries  102–3 Bulgarian internees  9–10, 35–6, 115–16, 128–9, 146, 305 see also Canada, India Buritz, Wilhelm  278 Burma 221–2 Burnyeat, Hildegard  178 Buschmann, Johannes  168 Buxton, Earl Sydney  192

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Index  349 Caine, Hall  311 The Woman of Knockaloe 311 Cairo  18–19, 69–70, 104, 126–7, 184–5 Calcutta  70–2, 206–9, 213, 278, 282–3, 296 Fort William  278 Calgary 147–8 Calicut 217–18 Cambridge 173–4 Cameroon  77, 88–9, 94–5, 105–6, 147–8, 171–2, 231, 233t, 240 Canada  3–4, 7–12, 14, 16–18, 21–2, 51–2, 53t, 68–9, 75–8, 81, 88–9, 94–5, 98–100, 101t 107–11, 122–3, 128–9, 131, 133, 137, 139–40, 143–50, 153, 182, 184, 231, 233, 263–4, 280–1, 304–5, 313–14 Austro-Hungarians in  53t, 66–8, 74, 81–3, 99–100, 109, 143–6, 149–50, 153–4, 256 Ukrainians  81–3, 143, 304–5 Bulgarians in  99–100, 146 Germans in  53t, 66–8, 81–3, 99–100, 138, 143–6, 149–50, 182 Berliner Journal 66–7 number of camps  144 number of internees  125–6, 125t, 146, 149–50 Turks in  99–100, 146 Ukrainian Canadian Restitution Act (Internment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act) (2005)  143, 313–14 Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association 313–14 War Elections Act  98–9 War Measures Act  98–9 Cannock Chase  311–12 Cantlie, James  240–1 Cape Times  65–6, 189 Cape Town  64–6, 185–6, 189–90, 193, 196–8, 260, 296–7 Cape Verde Islands  102–3 Capus, Alex  83–4 A Matter of Time 83–4 Capito, W.  274 Caraquet 108–9 Cardiff 170 Carlin, Gaston  236 Carpendale, John Maxwell  5–6, 228 Carr, Gilly  133–6 Carrington, Sir Charles  77–8 Catherine the Great  50 Central League for German Navy Clubs Abroad 56 Cesarani, David  47–8

Ceylon  5–6, 29, 53t, 90–1, 94, 110, 113–15, 127, 198, 276–7 Diyatawala camp  119–20, 127–8, 276–7 Chamberlain, Austin  295–6 Chicago 50 children and internment  6–7, 20–2, 36, 124–8, 168, 173, 186–7, 194, 198–204, 214–24, 262–3, 268–9, 271, 274, 290–2 Chile 35–6 China  3, 39, 42–3, 124, 232–3, 250–1 Chopin, Frédéric  136–7 Christian Patriot 206 Christian Rede  93, 297–8 Christchurch 61–2 Church Missionary Society  58 Claremont camp (Australia)  127 class and internment  16–17, 21, 118–22, 128, 142–6, 150, 154–5, 176, 253–4, 279, 306 Cluver, Paul  186–7 Cohen-Portheim, Paul  111–12, 119f, 116–21, 165–6, 171–4, 181, 230, 232–4, 237–40, 311 Time Stood Still 311 Cohn, Carl August  271 Coko 72–3 Coller, Georg  239–40 Cologne 278 Colombo  71–2, 107, 109–10, 276–7 Collinsville 79–80 Committee of Imperial Defence  77, 98–9 complaints from internees  5–6, 17, 24–5, 121–2, 127, 133, 139–40, 142–5, 148–9, 151, 153–4, 167, 170, 220–1, 234–6, 248–9, 253, 273–4, 283–92, 295, 305–6 concentration and internment camp functions 45–6 concentration and internment camp origin  24–31, 48 conditions in camps  6–9, 12, 14, 21–5, 28–31, 43–4, 106–7, 113–15, 120–1, 123, 127–8, 131–2, 140–8, 150, 157, 171–2, 177–8, 186–7, 195–7, 201–2, 263–4, 273–4, 283–4, 291–2, 295, 306 see also Ahmednagar, Fort Napier, Knockaloe Constatine, Stephen  46–7 Cook, Joseph  75–6 Copenhagen 231 Cork  14, 136–7 Corkhill, Claire  312 Cornwall 102–3 counterinsurgency  43, 48 Cresswell, Yvonne  311

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350 Index Crewe 162–3 Cuban War of Independence (1895–98)  3, 27–8, 30, 41–2 cultural life within camps  22–3, 123, 132–9, 154–7, 173–4, 176, 201, 217–18, 222–3, 241–8, 256–71, 292–5 music  136–7, 154–7, 173–4, 201, 245–8, 256–9, 294–5 theatre  128–9, 132, 136–7, 156–7, 232, 238–9, 242–3, 246–8, 265, 292–5 see also Ahmednagar, Fort Napier, Knockaloe, prison camp societies Cyprus  25–6, 43, 48, 53t, 76, 303 Dachau 39 Dadaab refugee camp (Kenya)  43–4 Dagshai camp (India)  279–80, 291–2 Dahomey  231, 233t Daily Mirror 170 Dar Es Salaam  105–6, 113–15, 126–7 Darjeeling  206–7, 291–2 Das, Santanu  7 Deal 231 deaths in internment camps  14–15, 140–2, 148–9, 239–41, 266, 273, 288–9, 291–2, 306 Dedering, Tilman  27–8 Denmark 35–6 Denness, Zoë  48, 112, 204 deportation  20–3, 47–8, 90–6, 124, 179–82, 185–7, 199, 201–3, 214, 281–2, 295–9, 304–5 see also repatriation Derfflinger 101–2 Deutsch-Asiatische Bank  70–1 Diana 102–3 Dieppe 231 Dinapur camp (India)  214–18 Dinkelmann, Richard  280–1 Dinsamud 212 Dittmer, August  239 Diyatawala camp see Ceylon Dobbert, Johannes  84 Dominy, Graham  203, 250–1 Donington Hall camp (Great Britain)  101–2, 168, 310 Dorchester camp (Great Britain)  102–3 Dorfer, Wolfgang  240 Douglas  163, 227, 229–30, 238, 306 Douglas camp (Great Britain)  111–12, 117–18, 141, 163, 175–6, 177f, 182–3, 227–8, 239, 242–3 Dove, Richard  47–8 Dover 167 Downes, Alexander  32

Drama 104 Dunbar-Kalckreuth, Frederick Lewis  111–12, 165, 179, 232 Durban  20–1, 189, 194–5, 203–4, 271, 273 Lords cricket ground camp  194–5, 272, 274 Dutch East Indies  72, 298 Duala  105–6, 147–8 East London  184–5, 190–1 Ebro 167 Eckert, Joseph  84 Edinburgh  126–7, 166–7, 170, 175–7 Redford Barracks  126–7, 166–7, 170 Ednor 231 educational activity in camps  138, 139t, 222–3, 243–4, 248, 256, 258, 294–5 see also Ahmednagar, cultural life in camps, Fort Napier, Knockaloe, prison camp societies Egypt  35–6, 69, 88–9, 101t, 104, 140–1 Austrians in  69 Dutch in  69–70 Germans in  69–70, 104 Swiss in  69–70 Ehrenbreitstein (Mount Yerila)  86–7 Eichwald, Hermann  121–2 Elisabeth 231 Elizabethville 202 Elkins, Caroline  48 Elma 166–7 El Maadi camp (Egypt)  18–19, 69–70, 126–7, 140–1 Emden  106–7, 119–20 escapes from camps  101–2, 123–4, 140–1, 151–2, 157, 162, 232–3, 253–4, 272 Essex 107–8 ethnic cleansing  31–3, 38, 78–9, 94–5, 198–9 Ette, Hans  196–7, 204, 270–1 Falkland Islands  53t Falmouth 167 Feldmarschall 274 Feltman, Brian  18, 265–6 Ferguson, Niall  33–4 Fernie 81–3 Fiji 53t, 72–3, 106–7, 113–15 Fischer, Gerhard  61–2, 75–6, 93–4, 100, 107, 110–11 Flamman, F.  184–5 Fleischmann, Aloys  14, 136–7 Foertsch, Karl  278, 296 food in camps  9, 117–18, 120–1, 147, 151, 153, 156, 170, 176, 199–200, 216–19, 221–2, 228–9, 235–6, 252f, 260, 287–8, 291–4, 293f

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Index  351 Forsyth, Cecil  55–6 Music and Nationalism 55–6 Fort Cornwallis  106–7 Fort Henry camp (Canada)  144 Fort Napier camp  14–15, 17–19, 21–3, 48–9, 105–6, 110–11, 126–8, 132–3, 149–50, 168, 184–8, 193–4, 196–8, 200f, 204, 250–76, 283, 288, 292, 304–6, 313 Der Hunne  259–60, 260f, 264, 266, 268 number of internees  22–3, 110–11, 254, 254t see also, cultural activity in camps, educational activity in camps, food in camps, prison camp societies, sport in camps Forth, Aidan  5–6, 30, 48, 185–6 France and the French Empire  4–5, 13–14, 35–8, 43, 66–7, 77–81, 90–1, 116–17, 142, 168, 195–6, 304–5, 307–8 French Somaliland  221–2 Francis, Andrew  86 Franco, Francisco  39 Franco-Prussian War  62–3, 66–7 Frankfurt 80–1 Franz Ferdinand 213 Fred Hennings  72–3 Freetown 102–3 Freund, Alexander  53t, 66–7 Frewall, Willy  231 Friedesware 167 Friedrich, Arno  140–1 Frimley camp (Great Britain)  170, 175 Frith Hill camp (Great Britain)  180, 232 Fromberg, Johann  84 Fuchs, Leonard  240–1 Fyson, Robert  311 Gaebler, Else  209 Gaebler, Gustav  209 Gallipoli  61–2, 76 Gambia 53t Gärtner, Siegfried  146–7 Geestemünde 166–7 Gehrer, Emil  273 Gehring, W.  258 Gelhorn, Walter  14–15, 140–1 gender and internment  18, 20–1, 36, 90, 98, 107, 110–15, 122, 124–8, 162, 165–6, 168, 177–80, 185–7, 194–5, 198–204, 214–24, 237–8, 262–3, 265, 268–9, 274, 290–2, 305 Geneva Conventions  6–7, 12–14, 33–4, 36 genocide  24–8, 32–3, 38, 45, 74 George Harper 167 Gerbia 167 German East Africa  17–18, 88–9, 113–15, 124, 126–7, 198–9, 202–3, 211–12, 221–2

German Red Cross  35–6, 303–4 Bavarian Red Cross  308–9 German Southwest Africa  20–2, 24–8, 30, 43, 50, 65–6, 77, 88–9, 94–5, 105–6, 116–17, 124, 182–3, 186–8, 194, 197–9, 200f, 201–2, 201t, 254–5, 258, 268, 273, 305 concentration and internment camps in  26–7, 30, 194 Albrechts 194 Aus  105–6, 116–17, 194 Grootfontein 194 Kanus  194, 273 Okanjande  105–6, 194 Shark Island  26–7 Swakopmund  26–7, 105–6 persecution of Herero and Nama  24–8, 61–2, 105–6, 186–7, 198–9 Germanophobia  20–2, 55–8, 61–3, 65–6, 74–98, 112–15, 122, 149–50, 161–5, 185–6, 306 Germany and the German Empire  4–8, 11–15, 17–20, 23–8, 32–3, 43–4, 50, 55–8, 64, 71–2, 77–80, 90–1, 93–4, 98, 101–3, 123–4, 144–7, 151–3, 162–4, 167, 179–81, 185–7, 191, 209, 211–12, 222–3, 232–6, 254–5, 260, 263–4, 272, 274, 280–3, 296–7, 304–5, 307–12 Ausschuss für vertriebene Reichsdeutsche aus Großbritannien, Irland und den britischen Kolonien 308 Bund der Auslandsdeutschen 180–1 Delbrück Law  116 emigration from Germany  50–73 German Colonial Society  69 Gesellschaft für deutsche Kolonisation 56 Hamburger Nachrichten 65–6 Hilfsstelle für Auslandseutsche 308–9 Imperial Navy  123–4 internment in the First World War  12–13, 34–5, 116–17, 312 Ruhleben camp  34–6, 42, 116–17, 133–6, 138, 166–7, 312 Wünsdorf camp  116–17 Zossen camp  116–17 Interest Group of Former Military and Civilian Prisoners  309 National Zeitung 60–1 Navy League  64–5, 69, 71–2 Nazism  3, 25–8, 37–8, 40–3, 45–8, 63–4, 303, 309 concentration camps  3, 27–8, 37–40, 251 holocaust  24–5, 41–2, 45 Reichskristallnacht 272 Pan-German League  60, 64–6 Alldeutsche Blätter 63–4

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352 Index Germany and the German Empire (cont.) Reichskommissar zur Erörterung von Gewalttätigkeiten gegen deutsche Zivilpersonen in Feindeshand 142 Reichsvereinigung ehemaliger Kriegsgefangener 308–9 Reichszentralstelle für Kriegs- und Zivilgefangene 282–3 revolution of 1848  50–1 Verein für das Deutschtum im Auslande (VDA)  60–1, 67–8 Volksbund zum Schutze der deutschen Kriegs- und Zivilgefangenen  20, 308 Vossische Zeitung 60–1 Weimar Republic  35, 309 Gerwarth, Robert  4–5 Gestrich, Andreas  45–6 Gibraltar 101t, 104, 109–10, 126–7, 161, 168, 182–3, 231–2, 233t internment camp  101–2 numbers of internees in  126–7 Gillman, Peter and Leni  47–8 Glasgow  52–6, 111–12, 162 Golconda  90, 215–18, 221–2, 276, 280–2, 295–9, 305 Gold Coast  7, 88–9, 175, 210–11, 231, 233t Goretzki, P Ernst  167 Gossner Mission  70, 209, 213–17, 276, 281–2 Gosport internment ships (Britain)  232 Ascania 170 Lake Manitoba 170 Scotian 170 Gottshalt, Max  180 Gottshalt, Thekla  180 Gräβle, Karl  180 Great Britain  77–8, 80–1, 85–6, 94–5, 98, 100, 101t, 105–11, 122–4, 161–83, 211, 227–49, 303 Aliens Advisory Committee  179–80 Aliens Restriction Act  86–7, 98–9, 161 Alsatians in  9–10, 165 as a place of internment  11–12, 18, 22, 46–8, 102–3, 124, 161–83, 227–49 Austrians and Austro-Hungarians in  90, 102–3, 173–5, 227, 232–3 Belgian refugees in  171 British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act 87 Czechs in  9–10, 165–6 Conservative and Unionist Party  80, 161 Defence of the Realm Act  86, 98–9, 116, 178 Germans in  52–8, 80–1, 90, 93–4, 111–12, 119–21, 161–83, 204, 227–49, 310 internment policy  98, 123, 162–6, 182–3

National Party  80 Naturalization Act of 1870  59 number of internees in  124, 162–5, 169–76, 178–9 number of internment camps  35–6, 115–16, 124, 169t Poles in  52–5, 165–6 Prisoners of War and Aliens Department  97, 108–9 Trading with the Enemy Acts  161 Turks in  175, 227, 311–12 Vigilantes 80 Greece  32–3, 35–6, 38, 104 Gregory, Adrian  7 Grieg, Edvard  136–7 Grimsby  166–7, 297–8 Grunthal (Verdun)  86–7 Guam 263–4 Guantánamo Bay  3, 43 Guildford Castle 274 Guiomar, Jean–Yves  11–12 Haas, Willi  168 Hacker, Friedrich  103–4 Hackney Wick camp (Great Britain)  171, 173 Hadra 104 Hague Convention  12–14, 16–17, 33–4, 36, 45, 99, 118–19, 121–2, 128, 139–40, 148–50, 237 Halifax (Nova Scotia)  7, 81, 107–8, 251 camp  8–9, 144–7 Hamburg  58, 93, 271–2, 278, 297–8 Red Cross  146–7 Hamilton 156–7 Hammitzsch, Georg  213 Handbook for Germandon Abroad  69, 71–3 Handforth camp (Great Britain)  123–4, 131, 134f, 166–7, 173 Handmann, Otto  213 Hanover 180–1 Hansen, Jutta Raab  245–6 Harcourt, Lewis  100–1 Harling, G.  205 Harms, Bernhard  71–2 Harper, Marjory  46–7 Hartmann, Rudolf  242–5 Harvest Field 207–8 Harwich  166–7, 179, 248–9 Hattem 181 Hawick  128, 174, 312 Hauck, Heinrich  165 Hauptmann, Gerhart  136 Der Biberpelz 136 Heese, Martha  202–3 Helbig, Paul  103–4

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Index  353 Held, Hermann J.  173–4 Hellas 106–7 Henkel, Heinrich  180 Herbert 166–7 Hertzog, James  197–8 Hermannsburg Mission  63, 70, 187–8, 213, 281–2 Hetzenecker, Peter  201 Heussler, Johann Christian  59 Heyningen, Elizabeth van  29–30 Hibbert, Karl  140–1 Highflyer 107–8 Hindenburg, Paul von  259, 267 Hobsbawm, Eric  32 Hoernle, Rudolf  70–1 Hoffmann, Henri  240–1 Holland see Dutch East Indies, Netherlands Holland, Robert  77–8 Hollandia 102–3 Holloway Prison  178 Holsworthy camp (Australia)  37, 92–3, 110–11, 113–15, 120–1, 127–9, 129f, 132–3, 136–7, 141, 149–50, 227, 265–6, 266f, 313–14 Holyport camp (Great Britain)  101–2, 168 Hong Kong  53t, 68–9, 71–2, 87–9, 103–4, 107, 109–10, 113–15, 127, 224 Kowloon camp  107, 127–8 Stonecutter’s Island  127 Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation 68–9 Horne, John  32 Horfield 239 Hornriff 166–7 Hospet 283 Huber, Karl  283 Hull  58, 166–7 Hull, Isabel  12–14 Hyland 167 Hyslop, Jonathan  27–8

Cossacks in  280 Custodian of Enemy Property  209–10, 298 Enemy Missions Act  210–11 Enemy Trading (Winding Up) Order  209–10 European Association  206–7, 209–10 Foreigners Ordinance  208–9 Germans in  37, 53t, 70–2, 205–24, 276–99 Government of India  205–12, 214, 218–21, 223–4, 276–7, 291–2, 295–6, 298 India’s Contribution to the Great War 313 Hostile Foreigners (Trading) Order  209–10 Indian Civil Service  22, 205 India Office  22, 205 Indian Tea Association  209–10 Ingress into India Ordinance  208–9 Missions Trust of Northern India  210–11 Missions Trust of Southern India  210–11 Montagu Declaration  205–6 Montenegrins in  291–2 National Christian Council  207–8 number of internees  113–15, 124, 211–12, 215, 220–2, 291–2 Standing Committee of the Conference of British Missionary Societies  207–8 Trading with the Enemy Act  210–11 Turks interned in  218 see also Ahmednagar Industrial Workers of the World  81–3, 149 Ingoma 274 Intaba 274 International Committee of the Red Cross  12, 33–4, 279–80, 284 Ireland  14, 53t, 76, 233t, 250–1 Irish Republican Army  43 Isle of Man  7, 102–3, 111–12, 126–7, 131, 136, 141, 163, 175, 227–8, 232–3, 238, 240–2, 244–6, 248–9, 311–12 Manx Museum  312 Islington camp (Great Britain)  171–2 Italians in Britain  9–10, 47–8 Italy  35–6, 79–80, 86–8, 96, 232

Ibaddan camp (Nigeria)  105–6, 123–4, 126–7 Imperial War Cabinet  77 Imperial War Conference  87 India  5–8, 16–18, 20–2, 29, 35–6, 43–4, 46–8, 69–70, 76, 86–90, 93–5, 98, 101t, 109–11, 113–15, 122, 124, 127–8, 139–40, 182–3, 205–24, 250–1, 276–99, 303, 305, 310, 312 Arms Act  208–9 Asiatic Society of Bengal  70–1 Austrians and Hungarians in  209, 211–12, 215, 218, 221–2, 279–80, 291–2, 296–8 Bulgarians in  279–80

Jack, Walter  239 Jackson, Ashley  77–8 Jaffa 104 Jamaica  107–8, 150, 154–5 Jamshedpur 70–1 Japan  3, 35–6, 39–42, 231, 263–4 Jaus, Johann Jakob  217 Java 119–20 Jerusalem  7, 104 Jeste, Harry  151–2 Jews  39, 42, 51–2, 79–80, 117–18, 176, 177f, 272, 311–12

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354 Index Jeypur 215–16 Johannesburg  63–5, 126–7, 185–6, 188–93, 263–4, 272 Agricultural Show Grounds camp  193, 195–7, 204 British Patriotic and Consumers Alliance  188 John Bull 163–4 Jones, Heather  13–14 Jörgensen, Mathias  166–7 Joynson-Hicks, William  163–6 Juchstock, Johannes  240 Jürgensen, Alfred  154–5 Kain, Walter  142 Kaiser Wilhelm I  66–7 Kaiser Wilhelm II  17–18, 56, 60, 64–6, 117–18, 128, 133–6, 187–91, 196–7, 248, 262–3, 267–8, 294 Krüger Telegram  64 Kaiser Wilhelm der Große 148–9 Kaminski, Andrzej J.  27–8, 45 Kappelhoff, C. E. L.  278 Kapuskasing camp (Canada)  128–9, 130f, 132–3, 144–5 Kataphar camp (India)  37, 291–2 Kausen 280–1 Kemper, Paul  146–7 Kenner, George  232, 243, 248–9 Kenya  25–6, 43–4, 48, 69, 303 Ketchum, John Davidson  42, 133–6, 138–9 Kévorkian, Raymond  32–3 Kewley Draskau, Jennifer  244–6, 311 Kiao Chow (Kiautschou)  88–9, 101–2, 213, 278, 280–1, 310 Kickl, Herbert  3 Kiel University  71–2, 282–3 Kilkenny 296–7 killings in internment camps see deaths in internment camps Kimberley  63, 126–7, 189, 194 Kingston, Jamaica  107–10, 146, 154–5 King George V  268 King Louis XIV  264 King William II of Württemberg  117–18 Kirkwall  231, 240 Kitchener, Lord  69–70 Klassitsch, Ignatz  153–4 Klause, Fritz  148–9 Klockgether, Heinrich  166–7 Knockaloe camp  5–6, 21–3, 36, 102–3, 110–12, 116–17, 119–20, 128–9, 131–3, 149–50, 163, 165–9, 171, 174–5, 177, 179–80, 182–3, 227–49, 256, 259, 263–4, 276, 304–6, 311–12

Centre for World War One Internment  312 crime within  238–40 newspapers 244–7 Die Hunnen 243 Knockaloe Lager Zeitung 244–5 Lager-Echo 244–5 Quousque Tandem 244–5 number of internees  22–3, 128–9, 227–30, 248–9 religion in  242–4 see also, cultural activity in camps, educational activity in camps, food in camps, prison camp societies, sport in camps Knox, Archibald  237 Knutsford prison  123–4 Koerber 103–4 Kowalski, Anton  231 Kramer, Alan  6–7, 32 Krammer, Arnold  33–4 Krause, Georg  17, 150–1 Krefft, Johann  59–60 Kreienbaum, Johannes  27–8 Kröpke, Wilhelm  15–16, 105–6, 123–4, 126–7, 132, 174 Krueder, Richard  287 Krüger, Rudolf  142 Kuenzer, Richard  104 Kuala Lumpar  106–7 Kurku Mission  281–2 Kurmark 278 Kursk 93 Kushner, Tony  47–8 Kusper, Peter  240–1 Kuß, Susanne  35 Kutscher, Ernst  144–5, 147–8 labour of internees  4–5, 7, 11–14, 16–17, 35, 38–40, 45, 81–3, 99–100, 133, 144–6, 149–50, 182, 241–2, 256, 260–4, 304–5 Lagos 72–3 Lagos prison camp (Nigeria)  15–16, 105–6, 123–4, 132 Lahore University  70–1 Lambert, F. A. Heygate  171–2 Lamu 211–12 Lancaster camp (Great Britain)  168, 173 Langhans, Paul  63–4 Las Palmas  102–3, 107–8, 231, 233t Leeds 177 Lehndorf, Edward  239–40 Leichardt, Ludwig  59–60 Leipzig Mission  70, 209, 213–14, 276, 281–2 Leitner, Gottlieb  70–1 Lembke, Ludwig  240–1

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/01/20, SPi

Index  355 Le Queux, William  55–6 Lesotho 203 Lethbridge camp (Canada)  144–5, 147–8 Levene, Mark  32–3 Levensau 167 Libury Hall camp (Great Britain)  177–8 Lilienthal, Botho  102–3 Lindi 126–7 Linden 219 Link, Erna  220–1 Links, Joseph  278 Liszt, Franz  245–6 Liverpool  52–5, 58, 102–3, 105–6, 123–4, 162, 173, 175, 177, 231, 248–9 Lisbon 231 Lofthouse Park camp see Wakefield Lohrmann, Walter  153–4 London  8–9, 17–18, 24, 50, 52–6, 74, 77–8, 80–1, 85–8, 90–1, 93, 96–101, 111–12, 123–4, 149–50, 161–2, 168–72, 180, 182, 205, 210–11, 231–2, 304 Deptford 162–3 Deutsche Bank  87–8 Dresdner Bank  87–8 East End  164–5 German Hospital  180 German Orphanage  180 Hyde Park  165 Paddington  165–6, 232 London Czech Committee  9–10 London Missionary Society  58, 207–8 South India District Committee  207–8 Lorenzowski, Barbara  67–8 Lothringen 103–4 Lucas, Sir Charles  76–8 Luck, Edward  280–1 Lucinda 167 Lüderitzbucht  194, 198–202, 201t, 262–3 Luders, Albert  220–1 Ludwigshafen 297 Luley, Walter  288 Lusitania  47–8, 81, 85–6, 90, 98, 122–4, 161, 163–4, 185–6, 188, 194, 204, 210–11, 214, 227–8, 232, 254, 260 Machner, J.  181 Madeira 231 Madley, Benjamin  25–6 Madras  70–2, 171–2, 208–9, 218, 220–1, 278, 282–3, 296 Adyar Library  282–3 Fort St. George  213–16 Madras Mail  206–7, 218

Madras Representative Council of Missions 207–8 Main  93, 297–8 Malaya  25–6, 43, 48, 53t, 113–15 Malmo 102–3 Malta 53t, 90–1, 101–10, 101t, 115–16, 128, 140–2 Fort Verdala camp  128, 131, 137, 142 St Clements camp  104, 136 Manchester  52–5, 131, 162, 173, 177, 180 Manela, Erez  4–5 Manitou 181 Manjapra, Kris  4–5 Maridiane 166–7 Mark, Graham  229–30 Markel Committee  133–6, 292 Marwick, Arthur  32 Maue, Jakob  281–4, 296 Mauritius 53t McKenna, Reginald  163 Mckinnon, Henry  228 measures against German businesses  84–90, 95–6, 179–80, 184–5, 209–10, 304–5, 307 Mecklenburg 296–7 Medic 104 Melbourne  60–1, 103–4 Memminger, Lucien  218 memorialization of camps and internment  3, 23, 276–7, 299, 307–14 Metcalfe-Smith, Bertram  228 Mexico  231, 233t Meyer, Fritz  171, 181, 229–30, 232 Michel, H.  260 Mieg, Edwin  101–2, 168 Milan 50 military prisoners of war  12, 18, 33–6, 40, 45–7, 97, 101–2, 115–19, 123, 125t, 128, 131, 143, 162–3, 173–4, 211–12, 218, 232, 272, 307–10 Milwaukee 263–4 Mombasa  105–6, 202–3, 211–12 Mongalo, B. E.  29 Montoro 106–7 Moravian Mission  202–3, 281–2 Morgan, Gwenda  46–7 Moscow  74, 79–80 Moss, Frank  239 Motuihi Island prison camp (New Zealand)  16–17, 90–1, 94, 106, 110–11, 115–16, 120–1, 131 Mozambique  212–13, 263–4 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus  248 Mühlhahn, Klaus  27–8 Muller, Hendrik  191

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/01/20, SPi

356 Index Müller, Herbert  16–17, 279, 282–3, 287, 292–4, 296–7 Müller, Max  70–1 Munich 309 Murphy, Mahon  5–6, 107–8, 147–8 Muscat 72–3 Mussolini, Benito  47–8 Mussorie 280–1 Mytum, Harold  133–6 Nachtigal, Reinhard  307–8 Nairobi  105–6, 211–13, 280–1 Namibia see German South West Africa Natal 231 Natal Mercury 194–5 nationality of internees  115–19, 122, 254t Nauru  43–4, 94–5, 106, 113–15, 119–20 Neander, Karl  278 Netherlands  12, 40–1, 119–20, 180–1, 232 Netz, Reviel  37 Neukirchen Mission  281–2 Newbury race course camp (Great Britain)  126, 167, 170 New Delhi  205 New Guinea  94–5, 106, 119–21, 124 New Langenburg  202–3 Newton, Gerald  243 New York  17–18, 50, 74, 80–1, 101–3, 149, 151, 156–7, 167–8, 231 Prisoner of War Relief Committee  156–7 New Zealand  3–4, 21–2, 51–2, 53t, 58–60, 75–6, 80–1, 90–1, 93–4, 96, 98, 101t, 104, 106–11, 115–16, 125t, 184 Alien Enemies Teachers’ Act  80–1 Chinese in  62–3 Germans in  52, 53t, 58, 62–3 Military Service Act  76 New Zealand Herald 119–20 Nicolau, Valeriano Weyler y  27–8 Nigeria  72–3, 105–6, 123–4, 174, 231, 233t Noordwijk 181 Norden, Heinrich  105–6 Noschke, Richard  111–12, 171–2 Nothnagel, Christian  16–17, 20–1, 84–5, 121–2 Numbers of Germans in the British Empire  52–5, 53t, 93–4 see also Australia, Canada, Great Britain, India, South Africa numbers of internees  3, 10–11, 21–2, 35, 92–3, 113–16, 119–20, 123–6, 128–9, 131–2, 149–50 see also Australia, Canada, Great Britain, India, South Africa number of internment camps in the British Empire 35–6

Oberdorfer, F.  244–5 Oepke, Albrecht  214, 276, 299 Ahmednagar und Golconda  276, 299 Oldcastle camp (Ireland)  14, 131, 136–7, 140–1 Oldenburg 280–1 Oltmer, Jochen  35 Olympia camp (Great Britain)  111–12, 169–70 Ophir 106–7 Orange River Colony  53t Osnabrück 40–1 Oswald, Paul  239 Otago 100–1 Ottawa  98–9, 107–8 Otter, Sir William  99–100 Ottoman Empire  3, 31–5, 45–6, 78–9, 96, 116–17, 140–1, 304–5 Armenians within  3, 31–4, 36, 38, 45, 74, 78–9, 92–3, 112–13 Ottoman internees  305 Oxford  7, 70–1 All Souls College  76–7 Pakistan 43–4 Palestinian refugees  43–4 Panzera, Francis William  5–6, 228 Papeete 103–4 Paraná 79–80 Paris  50, 176 Patricia  93–4, 297–8 Peel  163, 227–8, 238–9, 242–3, 248–9 Penang  71–2, 106–7, 109–10 Perth  127, 131 Perth Amboy  167 Petawawa camp (Canada)  144 Peter, Albert  240–1 Peters, Carl  56 Peters, E. W.  308 Peters, Flamman & Co.  184–5 Peters, R.  184–5 Philippine War (1899–1902)  27–30 Pietermaritzburg  105–6, 126–7, 184–5, 193–4, 196–7, 199–203, 201t, 250–77, 296–7, 305, 313 Pinhammer, Wilhelm  239–40 Pinsamud 212 Pisani, Kobus du  29 Pitt, Charles P.  157 Plato, Karl  69–70 Plüschow, Gunther  101–2, 102f, 310 Plymouth  101–2, 105–6, 167–8 Poland 41–4 Pomerode 50 Poona 88–9 Pöppinghege, Rainer  244–5 Port of Spain  84–5, 150–1

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/01/20, SPi

Index  357 Port Said  93, 101–4, 297–8 Portsmouth  55–6, 231 Portuguese Empire  304–5 Pörzgen Hermann  246, 265 Theater ohne Frau 265 Potsdam  102–3, 171, 231 Potsdam (South Africa)  63 Prager, Robert  79–80 President Grant  101–2, 168 Preston, Paul  39 Pretoria  14–15, 64–5, 126–7, 189–90, 194–7, 199–200, 202–4, 250–1 Princess Park Exhibition Ground camp 202–3 Pretorius, Fransjohan  30, 186–7 Principe de Udine 101–2 prison camp societies  17, 292–9, 307 see also Ahmednagar, cultural life within camps, Fort Napier, Knockaloe Probst, Georg  281–3, 292 Proctor, Tammy  32 Prodzuhn, H.  260 Professor Woermann 102–3 Quakers  116–17, 138, 180–1, 237 see also Society of Friends Queensferry camp (Great Britain)  123–4, 173 Quetta 87–8 Rabaul 105–6 race and internment  15–16, 21, 30, 116–19, 147–8, 150–1, 153, 252, 287, 289–90, 298–9 Rachamimov, Alon  246, 265 Radeke, Albert  19 Ramandroog camp (India)  217–18, 291–2 Ramsgate 102–3 Ranchi 214–17 Rangoon  71–2, 208–9 Ranzau 62–3 Ras el–Tin camp (Egypt)  104, 142 Ratnagiri 289 Reading prison  177 Redmond, John  75–6 refugee camps  30, 34–6, 38, 43–6, 48 Reismann-Grone, Theodor  64 Rentz, Paul  232–3 repatriation  38, 90–3, 113–15, 152, 164, 173–5, 179–82, 195–6, 198–9, 258, 274–5, 295–9, 307–10 see also deportation Roberts Heights Camp (south Africa)  14–15, 126–8, 193, 196–203, 251 Resch, Edmund  59–60 Re Vittoria 101–2 Rey, Koos de la  187–8, 197–8

Rhodesia  194, 203, 263–4 Ringger, K.  219 Rinjandi 231 Risle 166–7 Riversdale 202–3 Robben Island  313 Robert Douckbans & Co.  211, 283 Rocker, Milly  178, 305 Rocker, Rudolf  17–18, 111–12, 169–71, 178, 237 Roderwald, W.  248 Roer, Hans  70–1 Roesch, Anton  240–1 Roland 166–7 Roman Catholic Missionaries  281–2 Romania 112–13 Röseler, Hermann  126–7 Ross, Harry  207 Rotterdam  93, 102–3, 168, 179, 231, 248–9, 297–8 Rotterdam 168 Röttlicher, Karl  288–9 Rottnest Island  127, 131, 135f Roy, Hans  147 Royal Edward 111–12 Royal Navy  102–3, 109–11, 166–8, 182–3, 211 Ruckdäschel, Johannes  213 Ruge, Hedemann & Co.  72–3 Rushton, Peter  46–7 Russia  4–5, 13–14, 34–5, 45–6, 78–9, 87–8, 96, 142, 144–5, 149, 195–6, 232–3, 263–5, 304–5, 307–8 British internees in  144–5 Germans in  50, 79–80, 92–3, 246 Revolution of 1917  45 Revolutionary Wars  280 Right Russian Monarchist Union  79–80 Russian Nationalist Party  79–80 Union of Russian Peoples  79–80 see also Soviet Union Rustenburg 272 Ryde internment ships (Great Britain)  170, 232 Andania 170 Canada  170, 232 Tunisian 170 Sachsenhausen 39 Sakchi  213, 278 Salis, Marie  184–6, 202–3 Salis, Wilhelm  184–5 Salvation Army  48, 281–2 Samoa  94–5, 106, 131 San Francisco  90–1 San Miguel 231 San Salvador  146–7 Sankey, Sir John  179–80 Sappelt, Paul  166–7 Sarau 62–3

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/01/20, SPi

358 Index Sargeaunt, B. E.  311 The Isle of Man during the Great War 311 Saunders, Kay  86 Schaeffer, Otto  220–1 Scharff, Max  166–7 Scharmbeck 278 Scezinkin 280–1 Scheipers, Sybille  27–8, 48 Scheuer-Baudesson, Oswald  280–1 Schimming, Otto  232–3 Schlagintweit, Adolph  70–1 Schlagintweit, Hermann  70–1 Schlagintweit, Robert  70–1 Schmidt-Klafleth, Johannes  167 Schoeffel, Daisy  113–15 Schönherr, Karl  264 Der Weibsteufel 250–75 Schönwalder, Karl  237 Schrader, Otto  282–3 Schroer, H.  191 Schuler, Joseph  84 Schüler, Peter  189 Schultze, Fritz  196–7 Schulz, Eric  106, 120–1 Scott, Ernest  98 Second World War  3, 25–6, 31, 37–45, 47–9, 149, 248–9, 280, 303, 313–14 Seemeier, Franz Xaver  14, 141 Segesser, Daniel  10–11 Seitz, Theodor  198–9 Sellmann, Joseph  84 Senftleben, E. F.  140–1 Seven Day Adventists  281–2 Seychelles 53t Shanghai 68–9 Sheerness 166–7 Sheffield 162 Shepstow Castle 274 Sholapur camp (India)  113–15, 212, 215, 218–21, 224 Sierra 90–1 Sierra Leone  53t, 102–3, 231, 233t Siam  7, 22, 94, 110, 211–12, 215, 218–21, 223–4, 276, 298, 306 Simla 205 Singapore (Straits Settlement)  53t, 71–2, 106–7, 125t, 140–3, 224 St John’s Island camp  106–7 Tanglin Barracks  106–7, 113–15, 133–6, 142–3 Teutonia Klub  72 slave trade  46–7 Smith, Iain R.  27–8 Smith, Paul  280–1 Smuts, General Jan  77, 186–7, 197–8, 250, 268, 275

Society of Friends  133–6, 241, 292 see also Quakers Society of Jesus  88–9 Somes Island camp (New Zealand)  110–11, 115–16, 131 South Africa  3–6, 8, 14, 17–18, 20–2, 28–31, 43, 51–2, 69, 77–8, 81, 88–9, 96, 98, 101t, 107–11, 122, 124, 126–8, 133, 184–204, 233t, 250–75, 313 Austrians and Hungarians in  192–3, 254t, 263–4, 268, 272 Commissioner for Enemy Subjects  191–3, 195, 202–3, 268, 274 Deutsche Nachrichten 65–6 German Relief Society and General Support Society  263–4, 275, 292 Germans in  63–6, 105–6, 184–204, 250–75 Government Gazette 192 number of internees  125t, 168, 198 Relief Committee for the Germans in South Africa  254–5, 263–4, 292 Sons of England Patriotic and Benevolent Society 275 South Africa College of Music  260 South African (Boer) War (1899–1902)  5–7, 28–31, 45, 48, 64–6, 69–70, 105–6, 112, 128, 139–40, 156, 186–7, 196–9, 273–4, 276–7, 280, 290–1, 303, 313 concentration camps  5–6, 29–31, 186–7, 196–7, 276–7 Concentration Camps Commission  29 Siege of Mafeking (1899–1900)  5–6 Turkish internees  254, 254t, 263–4 Southampton  101–2, 168 Southend internment ships (Great Britain)  111–12, 170, 232 Invernia 170 Royal Edward 170 Saxonia 170 Soviet Union  37–44 Germans in  41–2 GULAG 38–43 Tatars in  41–2 see also Russia Sowell, Thomas  55–6 Spain  12, 27–9, 35–6, 39 Civil War  39 Concentration Camps Commission  39 Spalding camp (Great Britain)  179 Spanish Influenza  274, 297–8 Spanish Sahara  107–8 Speyer, Edgar  80–1 Spillhaus & Co.  189 Spinnen, Burkhard  83–4 Zachaarias Katz 83–4

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/01/20, SPi

Index  359 Spirit Lake camp (Canada)  144, 313–14 sport in camps  137, 145–7, 150, 156–7, 222–3, 241, 246–8, 257t, 294, 307 Stafford 177 Stalin, Josef  38–9, 41–2 Stalinism 303 Steffen, Heinrich  260 Stein, Adolf  104 Steinbach, Daniel  147–8 Steinle, Betha  87–8 Steinle, Willi  87–8 Stellenbosch 186–7 St Helena  5–6, 29, 198, 276–7 St John’s  100–1 St Leonard’s–on–Sea  111–12 St Lucia  53t St Petersburg  17–18 Stibbe, Matthew  34–5, 37–8, 204 Stobs camp (Great Britain)  14–15, 123–4, 128, 136–7, 140–1, 174, 232, 259, 312 Stocker, Henry  239–40 Stobsiade 136 Stockholm  102–3, 231 Stofa, Pál  232–3 Stornoway 232–3 Stratford camp (Great Britain)  111–12, 165–7, 171–4, 232–3, 306 Strauβ, Otto  282–3 Stucki, Andreas  27–8 Sudan 88–9 Süd-Australische Zeitung 86–7 suicides in camps see barbed wire disease, deaths in camps Sumatra 119–20 Suva 106 Switzerland  12, 90–1 Sydney  37, 61, 90–1, 107, 113–15 Syria 32–3 Tägliche Rundschau 142 Tahiti 103–4 Tambour, A.  231 Tanga camp (Tanzania)  105–6, 113–15 Tanganyika 94–5 Tatura 313–14 Täuber, K.  260–2 Tauncich, Mary  220–1 Taylor, Graham  228 Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilych  245–6 Tempe camp (South Africa)  113–14, 125, 184–5, 202–3 Tenerife 102–3 Tenom camp (North Borneo)  127 Tesch, L.  213, 278 Thibault, Georg  70–1

The Hague  92 Thomas, Dawson  288–9 Tilbury 296–7 Togo  77, 88–9, 94–5, 105–6, 231–3, 233t Tone, John Lawrence  28 Torrens Island camp (Australia)  127, 131 transportation of internees  6–7, 21–2, 46–9, 94, 100–10, 113–15, 118–19, 122, 124, 154, 161, 166–9, 198, 211–13, 231, 276, 303–4 Traverso, Enzo  25–6 treatment of internees  7–9, 11–15, 17, 24–5, 33–4, 40–2, 45, 74, 92, 96, 112, 116–17, 120–2, 127, 139–40, 142–7, 149–51, 153–4, 186–7, 192–3, 195–7, 215–18, 256, 275–7, 288–92, 304–6, 310 Trentino 9–10 Trial Bay camp (Australia)  120–1, 132, 140–1 Trieste  103–4, 280–1 Trinidad  14–17, 20–1, 53t, 84–5, 107–8, 110–11, 121–2, 132, 150–6, 263–4 Germania Club  84–5 St James Camp (Trinidad)  14–15, 20–1, 150 Trotha, General Lothar von  26–7 Trotsky, Leon  17–18, 149 Tsingtau see Kiao Chow Turkey  77, 116–17 see also Ottoman Empire Turks in the British Empire  53t Turkish internees  35–6, 115–20, 128–9, 146, 154–5 Twain, Mark  28–9 Uganda 77 Ukrainian internees in the British Empire  9–10, 14, 16–17 see also Canada Umtata 184–5 Ungefroren, Johann  280–1 United Nations High Commission for Refugees 34–5 United States of America  12, 25, 27–9, 32–3, 35–6, 40, 42–3, 46, 50–2, 79–80, 86, 90–1, 98–9, 101–2, 107, 128, 139–40, 144–6, 148–9, 156–7, 232–3, 235–6 Germans in  50, 58, 79–80, 263–4 Japanese Americans  42 Mexicans in  52–5 University of Toronto  133 Upmeyer, Friedrich  190–2 Up Park Camp (Jamaica)  107–9, 131, 154–5, 155f Ursus 167 Utrecht 50

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/01/20, SPi

360 Index Valetta 128 Venezuela 151–2 Ventura 90–1 Verdun 7 Vernon camp  144 Versailles Treaty  92–5 Vineta 64–5 violence within camps  14–16, 21, 147–9, 238–40, 273–4, 288–9, 306 see also deaths within camps Vischer, Adolf Lukas  37, 140–1, 233–4, 237–40 Vlissingen 296–7 Voegler, Heinrich  238–9 von Humboldt–Dachröden, Hans Paul  65–6 von Manen, Johan  282–3 von Moltke, Helmuth  66–7 von Scheidt, Karl  171, 181, 229–30, 232 von Schulte, Erich  256–7 von Zedlitz, George  80–1 Waag, Ian van der  187–8 Wagener, Georg  14–15, 17–18, 189, 196–8, 267 Wagener, Wolfram  196–7 Wagner, Richard  136–7 Wakefield camp (Great Britain)  101–2, 111–12, 120–1, 165–6, 168, 173–4, 176–7, 182–3, 230, 233–4, 311–12 Lager-Bote 173–4 Wakefield prison  177 Waltair camp (India)  214–18 Walvin, James  46–7 Wapenveld 181 Ware 178 Warri 72–3 Warth, Hugo  70–1 Warzes, Charles  151–2 Watt, Sir Thomas  273 Waurick, Bernard  280–1 Weber, Carl Maria von  294–5 Der Gesundbeter 294–5 Weber, Sebastian  84

Weihhagen, Franziska  263–4 Weihmann, Arend  280–1 Weinlig, H. F.  260–2 Wellington  74, 80–1, 131 Victoria College  80–1 Wernicke, E. A.  206–7 West Indies  77–8, 88–9, 107–8, 125t, 132, 143, 150–8, 250–1 West, Margery  229–30 Wet, Christiaan de  197–8 Wettenger, Rudolf  5–6, 276–7 Whitehaven 178 Wiegand, Friedrich  111–13 Wiesbaden (South Africa)  63 Wilhelm der Große 107–8 Wilhelmshaven 181 Willochra 93 Wilhelmstal  105–6, 113–15 Wilson, Woodrow  78–9 Fourteen Points  78–9 Windhoek 41–2 Winnipeg 280–1 Wolters, Wilhelm  264 Leander im Frack 264 women internees see gender and internment Wrischeck, Karl  101–2 Wunzdorf, Sofie  180 Yercaud camp (India)  218–21 YMCA  133–6, 138, 218, 242–3, 281–2, 292, 294–5 Yugoslav Wars (1990s)  3 Zambeese 168 Zanzibar  104, 211–12, 221–2 Zeeland 102–3 Zeller, Joachim  26–7 Zimmerer, Jürgen  24–6 Von Windhuk nach Auschwitz 24–5 Zöller, Kurt  144–5