[From Time Stood Still by Paul Cohen-Portheim]

X THREE CAMPS

[100]OFFICIALLY there was but one prisoners' camp at Lofthouse Park, Wakefield, but it had been divided into three parts. While the Knockaloe 'compounds' each held one thousand men, each of these 'camps' only held five hundred, and I have never understood the reasons of this sub-division. I suppose it just happened, or else the authorities thought it simpler to add new camps rather than increase the original one when that became too small. I suppose they had not counted on finding so many ' gentlemen ' amongst their prisoners. What­ever the cause may have been, the division was a fact and a very unpleasant one. To begin with, it restricted the space one could move in, which would have been none too great even if the three camps had formed one. It also restricted the possibilities of human intercourse by mainly limiting one to the men in one's own camp. For having once decided that three camps were preferable to one, everything was done to keep them separate, and this was most unnecessarily irritating. All three together were, of course, enclosed by barbed wire and guarded, so that there was no imaginable risk in allowing the men to move all over the place, but that idea did not please officialdom and so even such modest freedom of movement was never granted. If one wished to visit one of the other camps one had to apply for a pass the day before­hand, and it had to be signed by the second officer in command, who might refuse to do so if he thought the number of passes granted too great. [101]If there was a performance in one camp, a general pass was issued to members of the other camps, but here again the number of men allowed to cross the borders was strictly limited. And stopping all passes was a favourite form of punishment for some minor offences committed. Having obtained a pass, one handed it to a soldier who liked to make one wait before unlocking the gate, after which one was free of that other barbed-wire partition, but only during the hours set aside for such delirious joys. They ended at six p.m. if I remember right. Some very privileged people obtained weekly or even monthly passes, but I was never one of the lucky, and never learnt the secret subterfuges by which such favours were obtained. Everything has its two sides, however, and as a visit to another camp was not so easy it became quite an adventure, a change one looked forward to, just as visiting another but in one's own camp would have seemed a privilege if it had only been allowedon exceptional occasions. I recommend such a system to all would-be tyrants : begin by making laws and conditions as severe as possible and relax them a very little gradually or on certain occasions, and you will find many to bless your name and but few to see through you.

The three camps were very instructive in many ways. For one thing, one learnt the huge importance of frontiers, the results of division. The frontiers here were but of barbed wire, but that was quite enough to make people learn to consider the inmates of one of the other camps as strangers and as questionable as all strangers are. One got, in fact, an extraordinary opportunity of studying the rise and growth of nationalism. Here there were no different races, languages, religion, or historical origins, but as there was an artificial division there was a feeling of separate entities, of difference, of strangeness as between neighbouring peoples. [102]Individual friendships and good personal relations were very frequent, which is not unusual between people of different nationality either in normal times, but 'the camp' existed above and separately from the men who composed it ; it was a state, a nation to which one belonged while those of another camp did not - they were outsiders. Human nature would not be what it is if things had stopped there, and they did not. People outside barbed wire prefer their country to others, so do people inside the wire, in short, 'patriotism' of sorts arose and led to rivalry. I have read much about friendly rivalry amongst nations, but so far I have failed to find any ; on the other hand, I have seen more than enough hostile rivalry, nor do I find that it has got any the less after the war which was caused by it. The different parts of the old Austrian empire got on none too well with each other, but that is nothing compared to their mutual hostility since they are divided by frontiers and free to compete with each other in armaments and trade. In the same way the barbed-wire divisions created hostility, distrust and dislike, which went on increasing as the years passed by. I don't think a rupture of mutual relations would have been out of the question if more years had passed. As it was, there were all the absurdities of nationalism : you must prefer your own 'country' to the others, you must not profess too much approval of their institutions or characteristics, you must stand up for your ' own people ' against ' the strangers.' Things had not developed as far as active hostility, they were in the stage of more or less polite disdain ;each camp was convinced of its own superiority, and if it could not deny that the other camp possessed certain advantages-well, they were not advantages they themselves would have cared for. [103If it would be too much to say that they disliked each other as the French might the Germans or the Turks the Greeks, their attitude to each other might be compared to that of Prussians, Bavarians, and Austrians who, while united as against the foreigner, cordially disliked and despised each ether, and would insist not on their obvious common characteristics but on their more or less trifling differences.

As between peoples, it is ever difficult to decide whether there is a primary difference between them which finds its expressions in frontiers and divisions, or whether it is the divisions which are the cause of the differences, though it is quite certain that divisions must accentuate differences. But in Wakefield the case was quite clear and therefore all the more instructive : there was no difference whatsoever between the men of one camp or the other, but the division created a conviction of essential difference and in time differences actually came to exist. Each camp became slightly distinct in character from the others, the difference would have, I imagine, been invisible and incomprehensible to an outsider, but it was a reality to the people concerned. It is so terribly easy to create divisions, so terribly difficult to bridge them over when once created. There is difference everywhere, quite insignificant as compared to essential similarity, but most easily enhanced. English and French are extremely alike when compared, let us say, with the aborigines of darkest Africa, but how essentially different a Breton feels from a Marseillais, a Highlander from a Cockney ! So all depends on the point of view. One may state that all human beings are extremely alike when compared to fish or birds, or that not two members of one family are really alike. Both statements are true, but it is equally true that to insist on differences is not conducive to peace. So it is true in a sense that there were differences between the type of men who formed one camp or the other ; they had not-taken en masse - exactly the same antecedents (just as little as any two individuals would have), but if there had been but one camp these differences would have merged into an entity. [104] As there were three, they inevitably started to accentuate them.

The majority of the men in each camp bore no very marked character, they were just that crowd which always takes its cue from some leader or leaders ; it was that minority of leaders which differed from one camp to the other and which in time stamped each with a character of its own.

The South Camp was the oldest of the three, and in every way the least conventional. I have already alluded to its central hall, and that rather dilapidated reminder of past frivolity was not only its centre but also a kind of symbol. There was nothing military-looking in that rather untidy agglomeration ; some huts were larger, some smaller, and they looked as if they had been dumped down anywhere where there happened to be room. The hospital lay at one end, and at the other there was a tiny copse where in summer people actually lay on the ground instead of in gentlemanly and proper deck-chairs. The dominant note of the South Camp was colonial. There were a good many men from the German colonies in Africa, and riding-breeches and wide-brimmed hats were in evidence. There was certainly a good deal of drinking and possibly - the rumour was persistent - not a little drug-taking. Many of the people had lived in tropical climates, many had had adventurous voyages before they were taken off some ship by the British, some looked rather desperate. All had been interned for a good long time already, and most of them had very little money. There was an untidy, furtive and rather romantic atmosphere in that camp. Few of the men had friends outside their own camp and most of them seemed to have few friends inside it, but to keep to themselves. [105]They had made next to no improvements in their camp, there were no sports ; there seemed little social life of any sort with the exception of theatricals. Probably there were quite a number of original characters to be found there, but they avoided strangers and one did not come across them. When in 1917 the, erection of tiny single huts was permitted, a few wealthy men moved to the South Camp where there was room to build them ; there was the director of a well-known bank, there was some sort of dignitary from Turkey, but they, too, seemed to lead solitary lives. The South Camp was inclined to be cranky, the other camps shrugged their shoulders at it, while their bourgeois neatness was despised by the South. In that strange and abnormal camp-city this was ' Bohemia.'

The North Camp was frigid and correct. as its name suggests. Its huts stood on flat, featureless ground, all similar, symmetrically disposed, monotonous and depressing. A largish waste space served for games : there were tennis-courts, there was a corrugated iron hall, very ugly, but neat and clean inside, which had a stage and many chairs of yellow wood. The whole place looked well-kept and extremely dreary. It was, I suppose, a model prisoners' camp. Also it was doubtlessly socially superior. There were few men there who had lived in England ; they had mostly lived somewhere abroad and a good many had been 'captured' at Gibraltar ; the majority were young men. Many were of the Hanseatic type, in its way one of the best German types, though not a very exhilarating one ; they were well-mannered, correct, cool and slow. There were a number of former officers or reserve-officers ; I think the two tennis champions belonged to that class. And last but not least there were a number of titled men to enhance the camp's social glory. [106]It must be remembered that in pre-war Germany the nobility, der Adel, lived a life socially separated from the other classes, hardly mixing with anyone outside its rank. So it was perhaps natural that in camp as well they congregated and that there was one but which went by the name of die Grafenhütte because a number of the counts, barons, etc., had elected it for their common residence. I say 'perhaps' because some of the nicest of the nobles could not stand its feudal atmosphere and preferred to live anywhere else. But it was that but which impressed popular imagination and which was responsible for what the North Camp stood for in the eyes of the other camps and in its own to a great extent. Its inmates regarded it with a mixture of awe and distrust, but they were proud of it, while the other camps felt envy and dislike, and declared, of course, that they would never have put up with that crying scandal of social inequality in a place where all were comrades in misfortune.

The North Camp was very Prussian and prided itself on being much more severely national than the others (which did not allow this claim for a minute). If it had been English, it would have been very representative of the 'public school spirit ' ; as it was, it was representative of the spirit of that class of Germans which corresponds as nearly as possible to the public school class in England. Opinions, political opinions particularly, were strictly orthodox and prescribed, bad manners were discouraged, dress was conventional. There were social strata which kept apart from each other, and relations were rather formal. There were certainly a good many rebels against these conventions, but so there are in public schools, without affecting their general character. The North Camp maintained a certain standard of behaviour of which it had reason to be proud, but it was also very inclined to snobbishness. [107]It was the ' Mayfair ' (a pre­war Mayfair) of the camp-city. Consciously or un­consciously, its inhabitants tried to live up to the standards of the aristocrats in their midst, though they would have disputed this just as furiously as do all imitators of aristocracy, at liberty or caged. And the joke of the situation is similar in both cases, for the only people who do not believe in these standards, or think them useful perhaps, but a bore, are the very aristocrats-amongst whom are to be found the only ones not to be snobs. So in the North Camp the least conventional, the least nationalist and narrow-minded, and the ones who cared least about social standing, were a number - the majority indeed - of the counts, barons, and freiherren. And, again, as in normal, life, they could not give the show away.

My own camp, the West, had the least character and was the most colourless and monotonous of the three. It was anything but romantically slipshod, and it could not claim much social standing. It was essentially middle-class. Nearly all its inmates were business men who had lived in England before the war; a very few in a big way of business, but mostly men of moderate means. There was a majority of middle-aged, a minority of young men, mostly city clerks. Though it seemed to me that they were much of a muchness, that was evidently due to my ignorance, for there were plenty of recognized social distinctions. On the very first day I had learnt to my great surprise that bank clerks possessed high social value and were superior to clerks in any other business. The Bankbeamtenhutte was pointed out to me, and I found that it was to the West what the Grafenhutte was to the North. In fact, the inmates of that but had strong ' northern ' tendencies and more friends in that camp than in their own, [108]Besides the sacred legion of bank clerks, some even more socially eminent dwelt there : a director of an important industrial concern (who was a sort of uncrowned king of the camp) and a professor. There was not very much to choose between the other huts, but that did not prevent them from a good deal of mutual despising. To the other camps they were all suspect, socially they were quite undistinguished, and they were besides suspected of lukewarm patriotism. This made them shout all the louder, of course, but to no avail. As a matter of fact, their position was rather different from that of the majority of the other camps. The elder men in particular had had their business in England which obviously they did not wish to see ruined ; many had their families living in that country even then, and they must in their interest wish to pass for as little hostile as possible, and some had English wives and possibly naturalized children. All their interests in the past lay in England and they might lie there again in the future. This was a very different position from that of men who had never lived in England, never been near the place in many cases, and who looked on it simply as a country, which was the enemy of their own and kept them prisoners. Their case was clear and simple, that of the others ambiguous and open to doubts, so in spite of all protests they were looked on as animals of a different and inferior species. The West held other elements as well which were considered not above suspicion, a good many Austrians and Hungarians and a good many Jews ; and, needless to say, anti-semitism was by no means unknown, though on the whole in its politely disguised form.

The West Camp did its best in spite of these inborn weaknesses, but there was not much it could do to dis­tinguish itself. Its only glory were the musicians (mostly Hungarian, Austrian, or Jewish) and that was all right as far as it went.[109[ But where the others had halls of great splendour, the West only possessed a very inferior and rather small Y.M.C.A. but ; the virtuosi desired the largest possible audience (at one shilling or one and a half) and so nearly all concerts were held in the North Camp which thus took to itself even that one outstanding merit. There was no stage, only a tiny platform, so there were no theatricals to attract ' foreign visitors' ; there was no sports ground, and if there was one tennis-court, the North Camp had several and its famous champions as well. I am afraid it must be admitted that there was very little to boast about in the West Camp or to recommend it to others. It was very drab and featureless, it was suburban. Its inmates might in moments of pride look on it as a Hampstead (whence, by the way, a good many hailed), but the others looked on it as Mayfair and Chelsea look on Peckham Rye. Had they all three been merged into one - let us say Kensington - they would have got on quite well together and inter­mingled to a very great extent. There would have been no more than the normal and, as it would seem, incurable desire of human beings to form groups on the principle of excluding others for . some reason or other, but there would have been no large unfriendly wholes. Life would have been more varied, freedom of movement and choice of intercourse less restricted, mental and physical health better. But somewhere there was someone or several someones who decided some day for some reason -or possibly no reason : better have three separate camps. And that settled that.

Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received The Editor HTML© F Coakley , 2021