In the very worst days of the Roman Inquisitions, men and women were not treated more cruelly than they have been in Germany during this war. A French writer, M. Edouard Helsey, in a dispatch from Nancy, says: “I have just seen one of the most pitiful sights of the War—a picture of misery which no peace can efface from human memory—three or four thousand prisoners of War huddled in a barrack courtyard, bent with long suffering, with colorless eves, and features drawn by the memory of the past.
“The most destitute are the British, who were kept in slavery and in touch with the Front. They shivered in faded, ragged clothing too large for them, coats sewn with string, tattered trousers, and convict’s caps.
“Some were so thin, so exhausted, and so cadaverous that one was astonished to observe a spark of life in them. Some wore nothing but a horse blanket, which they drew round them with the slow, mechanical movements of a dying man. One poor devil, with a face like putty, emaciated cheeks, and a vacant stare, shivered in a woman’s garment. The faces one saw were reminiscent of outcasts in a night refuge.
“After vainly trying to make them shout ‘Long live Germany!’ they were turned loose without food, and walked for two days, sleeping in the fields. Several fell exhausted before the American lines, and, being unobserved, lay all night in the icy cold. They return with deep hatred in their hearts.
“Many were killed by Allied shells while working at the Front. At Dortmund they were thrown into cellars and tortured with whiffs of poison gas.
“‘We look haggard,’ said one, ‘but you ought to see the cemeteries.’”