Antwerp to Gallipoli A Year of the War on Many Fronts-and Behind Them

man Pri

on a load of deck-hands, and then fades away into a few twinkling lights and the sound of a bell across the water. You may get permission to see a prison camp, but may not stay there, and you are not expected, gen

nce at Zossen-Zossen is one of the prisons near Berlin-there are some fifteen thousand men. The greater number are Frenchmen, droves of those long blue turned-back overcoats and red trousers, flowing sluggishly between the rows of low barracks, Frenchmen of every sort of training and temperament, swept here like dust by the war

es of British Indians-"I've got twenty different kinds of people in my Mohammedan camp," said the lieutenant who was showing me about-squat Gurkhas from the Himalayas, minus their famous knives-tall, black-bearded Sikhs, with the faces of princes. There are even a few lone Englishmen, though most of the British soldiers in this part of Germany are at Doberitz. Whether or not Zossen could be called a "show" camp, it seemed, at any rat

fened at attention as the commandant passed, a young officer, who had lived in England before the war and was now acting as interpreter, volunteered his guileless impressions

well-trained-fine fellows and good soldiers. One could surmise the workings of his mind as one thought of the average happy-go-lucky Tommy Atkins, and then

in the post-office, painting signs for streets, making blankets out of pasted- together newspapers-everywhere they were treated as intelligent men to whom favors could be granted. And, of course, there was this difference between the French and English of the early weeks of th

man's shoulder. The Frenchman's eyes dilated a trifle and a smile flashed behind

ulptor's studio was the head of the young doctor we had just seen and an unfinished plaster group for a camp monument. On the wall was a sign in Latin and French-"Unhappy the spirit w

ions rien avec grace. Jamais un lourdaud quo

hing gracefully. The boor won't pass for a

intellectuality and idealism are things French-men might be expected to like or, at any rate, be interested in. Yet it is one of history's or geography's ironies that the Frenchman goes on his way

ck on the outskirts of

ians. This is quite an

erent kinds of Englishme

-luxurious invalids

negro roust-abouts fro

cturers, professors, li

tudents of music

ds of the Ruhleben track. The place was not as suited for a prison as the high land of Zossen, the stalls wit

ations, but the interesting thing about Ruhleben was not its discomfort, but the rema

here was a sort of university, with some fifty different classes in the long room under the grand stand. And on the evening w

urched down the lane of mud, and stopped at the gate of Ruhleben. Inside was a sort of mild morass, overspread with Englishmen- professional-looking men with months-old beards, pink-cheeked young fellows as fresh as if they had just stepped off Piccadilly, men in faded knic

d officer of middle age, with gracious manners, one of those Olympian Germans who resemble their English cousins of the same class.

y so, stripped to the skin, was slowly and with solemn precision raising and lowering a pair of light dumb-bells. Some saluted as private soldiers would; some bowed almost as to a friend, with a cheery "Guten Abend, Herr Baron!" There seemed, indeed, to be a very pleasant relation between this gentl

way to get their business over. But for the most part they kill without hate. For that, in its noisier and more acrid forms you must g

d draw curtain, footlights made with candles and biscuit tins, and so strung on a wire that at a pull, between the acts, they could be turned on the spectators. A programme had b

pulled a sliver from his foot, danced out of the arena with him instead of eating him. And you can imagine the peculiarly piquant eloquence given to the dialogue between Mr. Shaw's meek but witty Chri

f this sodden camp it was possible to find a youth to play Lavinia, with so pretty a face, such a velvet voice, such a pensive womanliness that the flat-capped, ribald young cockneys in the front row blushed with embarrassment. A professor of archaeology,

ly "nut"-"I say! He-ah's some Christians-let's chaff them!" The crowd was laughing, the commandant was laughing, the curtain closed in a whirl of applause, one had forgotten there was a war. The applause continued, the players strag

ever indeed!") He turned to us, nodded in stiff soldierly fashion. "Sehr nett! Sehr nett!"