Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Propaganda representations of violence against prisoners
- Part II Violence and prisoner of war forced labour
- 3 The development of prisoner of war labour companies on the western front: the spring reprisals of 1917
- 4 From discipline to retribution: violence in German prisoner of war labour companies in 1918
- 5 Inevitable escalation? British and French treatment of forced prisoner labour, 1917–18
- Part III The end of violence? Repatriation and remembrance
- Glossary of foreign terms
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - The development of prisoner of war labour companies on the western front: the spring reprisals of 1917
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Propaganda representations of violence against prisoners
- Part II Violence and prisoner of war forced labour
- 3 The development of prisoner of war labour companies on the western front: the spring reprisals of 1917
- 4 From discipline to retribution: violence in German prisoner of war labour companies in 1918
- 5 Inevitable escalation? British and French treatment of forced prisoner labour, 1917–18
- Part III The end of violence? Repatriation and remembrance
- Glossary of foreign terms
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
I see these pitiful creatures working every day; their faces haggard, numbed. They advance harassed by fatigue, their insides ravaged with hunger. Five men receive one loaf a day. They sleep in a barracks on the bare ground without a blanket, having only their clothes as covering. And it is every day, every day the same suffering. If you could see them! A spectacle of misery, of horror. I am not yet hardened enough by war to look on indifferently. I am seized with rage at seeing such things.
Letter found on a captured German soldier, written to his parents, describing French prisoners of war held in reprisal camps behind the German lines, 28 February 1917.Introduction: cycles of violence
One of the most significant and overlooked uses of forced labour in the First World War was the development of a mass prisoner of war workforce by armies on the western front. In 1915, the German army began using Russian prisoners of war, on a trial basis, in western front labour companies. In 1916, the British and French armies followed suit, deciding to permanently retain increasing numbers of prisoners of war in new labour companies for army needs. The same year, the German system, using Russian prisoners, rapidly developed. This military use of forced prisoner labour subsequently dramatically expanded on the western front, leading to major redefinitions of what constituted the legitimate limits of violence against prisoners of war.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Violence against Prisoners of War in the First World WarBritain, France and Germany, 1914–1920, pp. 127 - 166Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011