The Russian officers handed me some
arrows tipped with nails which had been shot at them by the
kind-hearted little town boys, and the British pointed out to me
the filthy conditions of the camp. In this, as in unfortunately
many other officer camps, the inclination seemed to be to treat the
officers not as captured officers and gentlemen, but as convicts.
I had quite a sharp talk with the commander of this camp before
leaving and he afterwards took violent exception to the report
which I made upon his camp. However, I am pleased to say that
he reformed, as it were, and I was informed by my inspectors
that he had finally made his camp one of the best in Germany.
Much as I should have liked to, I could not spend much time myself
in visiting the prison camps; many duties and frequent crises kept
me in Berlin, but members of the Embassy were always travelling
in this work of camp inspection.
For some time my reports were published in parliamentary "White
Papers," but in the end our government found that the publication
of these reports irritated the Germans to such a degree that the
British Government was requested not to publish them any more.
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