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first months in icy cold sheds, vilely fed, they died by
tens of thousands of spotted typhus, of tuberculosis,
scurvy, or else became invalids for life. From the
second year there was an improvement in their lot, an
improvement partly due to the action and censure of the
neutrals, partly to the spirit of organisation inherent in
Germany. Spacious sheds were built, and they were
light and airy, if not warm. Cleanliness reigned there.
But penury and the bad quality of the food continued to
play havoc among the prisoners, and the German iron
discipline always bore the same hostile and unfair
character, and tried to degrade the poor wretches
subjected to it. The question of the treatment of the
prisoners caused some conferences to be held in
Stockholm under the auspices of the Swedish Red
Cross between representatives of the Russian, German,
Austrian and Hungarian Red Cross Societies. Prince
Charles of Sweden presided. Both sides desired to
effect an improvement in the lot of the prisoners;
the Russian delegates—moderate bureaucrats—did not
refuse their consent to the possible amelioration and
especially the regulation of the treatment of enemy
prisoners in Russia; on the German side Prince Max of
Baden, on the Hungarian side Count Apponyi, and on
the Austrian side Slatin-Pasha, all displayed undoubted
good will at the conference. A whole code of rules and
humanitarian measures was agreed on and drawn up.[1]
Many of these measures were carried out there, where
they were not opposed by the inflexible cruelty of the
German military command or the incurable disorder of
Russian administration.
From the autumn of 1915 the prisoners’ camps were
visited first by the neutral Red Cross delegates, then by
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