Comrades
In Arms Germany as represented in the
War Cry during the Great War
by Major Harold Hill
A 1915 copy of the New Zealand
War Cry carried a news report reprinted from
Der Driegsruf
(sic) – the
German War Cry. An
illustration showed a German in military uniform preaching to
a group of soldiers, and the report was headed, “German
Salvationist speaks of God’s grace to his comrades at the
Front.” The Salvationist was Lieutenant Robert Treite, serving
with the German army in France. On the same page a report from
Switzerland mentioned that eight German officers serving in
Switzerland “had been called up for service in the
Fatherland”.[1]
At this time New Zealand, like other
British countries, was in the grip of anti-German hysteria.
Newspapers fanned the flames. The
New Zealand Herald
on 1st September 1914, for example, carried four
articles under the headings: “Brutal Treatment of Refugees in
Germany”, “Unspeakable German Outrages at Louvain”, “Cowardly
Germans” and “Atrocities in Belgium”. Anti-German vigilante
committees were formed in many New Zealand towns, devoted to
hounding people of German descent or with German-sounding
names out of their jobs and if possible, out of the country.
Mrs Ida Boeufve declared to the Women’s Anti-German League at
a 1916 rally in Napier that “To be truly British we must be
anti-German”.[2]
Even Dalmation immigrants, Serbians actually on the side of
the Allies against the Central Powers in Europe, were
persecuted in various ways.[3]
Over 300 people were interned and some
were deported to Germany after the war.[4]
Being a naturalised New Zealander and British subject was no
defence, with a “Revocation of Naturalisation Act” passed in
1917. George William Edward Ernest Von Zedlitz, whose mother
was English, left
Germany as a child, was educated in Britain and had been a New
Zealand resident and Professor of Modern Languages at Victoria
University since 1902. In 1915 Parliament passed an Act
especially to deprive him of this post because the University
Council refused to dismiss him.[5]
Given this background, we might wonder at the apparently
counter-cultural War Cry
report, but there were many others like it. We might wonder
whether “pub-boomers”, selling the
War Cry in hotel
bars, were abused, and whether there were other repercussions.
Letters to the Editors of newspapers, normally a vent for
bigotry, surprisingly demonstrated no adverse reactions. The
only response was that occasionally a daily newspaper
reprinted one of these reports from the
War Cry. Perhaps the Army’s welfare and chaplaincy services with the
troops offered some protection.
Some reports were matter-of-fact updates
on what was happening in Germany. For example, in November
1914 an article on “Salvation in the German Army” recounted
the experiences of German Salvationists, including Captain
Soinicksen, a crew-member of the submarine U15 who survived
when it was sunk by HMS Birmingham. A letter from Captain P.
Schmidt, wounded while fighting as a sergeant in Alsace,
described the horrors of warfare and his efforts to pray with
dying soldiers. Staff-Captain Grüner, editor of
Der Kriegsruf, had
been made a regimental scribe, Ensign Claudi a medical orderly
and Ensign Witzled a chaplain. Adjutant Tebbe, director of
Salvationist social work in Cologne, had been appointed back
to that city and given permission to carry on with that work
in addition to his military duties.[6]
The following month, social relief work
in Germany was reported on.
Salvation Army Halls had been converted into relief
centres and children’s homes. Nearly 1,000 hungry people were
being fed daily in Hamburg and there were similar programmes
in other large cities. Letters from German soldiers, Heinrich
Keienburg and Sergeant Ludwig, were quoted, and stories told
of Sergeant Gratz and Band-Secretary H. Boldt, both wounded.
Women Salvationists in Essen were busy knitting warm socks for
the troops.[7]
The following January the
War Cry referred to
Germany amongst other nations in a brief synopsis of Salvation
Army work in the war zone, mentioning that many of its
buildings were now in use as hospitals and that 100 German
officers were “on the firing line”.[8]
An article in February 1915 claimed that
despite the difficulties of the war, the “purely spiritual
work in the 150 odd Corps throughout the Territory is not
greatly interfered with… At Magdeburg, a hundred souls have
been saved in eight weeks… A new Corps has sprung into being
at Altona, near Hamburg.” A liberal response was reported to
an appeal for assistance for the thousands of refugees from
East Prussia arriving in the west. A War Auxiliary League had
been set up to care for the wives of soldiers and women
officers of the Salvation Army were assisting with this.
Extracts from letters from Brother Franz Rensch of
Charlottenburg (since killed in action) and Penitent-Form
Sergeant Ebert of Altona were also included.[9]
In an obituary for Staff-Captain Fuchs, formerly Divisional
Commander in Hanover and a holder of the Iron Cross, killed in
action near Ypres, the
War Cry said that “The Salvation Army loses one of its
most valiant German Officers”.[10]
Other reports were stories of “good”
Germans, obviously intended to counter the picture of
brutality common in the Press. General Bramwell Booth cited
one such example in an article reprinted from the British
War Cry, describing
two Uhlans (German cavalry) stopping for food outside a
Belgian inn. Some children were passing and one of the “grim
soldiers” removed his “terrible helmet”, sat a child on his
knee and kissed her. “Ah, my God, I have five of my own at
home,” he said, tears running down his cheek.[11]
The usual reports of Germans in Belgium at this time were of
butchery and rape. In another article Booth
quoted correspondence from
Adjutant Somers (or Summers), an English officer still working
in Strasburg, Alsace, in a German military hospital,
describing the support she had from the German chief surgeon.[12]
Her story was expanded upon in a later number, and reprinted
in the Otago Daily Times.[13]
A 1915 issue reprinted from the British
War Cry two stories
told by “Brother Moore, of the 1st East Lancs
Regiment”, recovering at home from wounds received at Ypres.
In the first he described fetching water for a wounded German;
in the second it was another wounded German who struggled out
of his own greatcoat and flung it over a shivering, almost
naked and evidently-dying British soldier at a dressing
station.[14]
One story concerned the kindness shown by
a senior German officer who also happened to be a
Salvationist. This involved an Alsatian Salvation Army
officer, Adjutant Muller, stationed in Paris on the outbreak
of war but called up to the German forces; his wife returned
to Alsace. Serving on the Eastern front, Muller asked for
compassionate leave on hearing that one of his children had
died. This was initially denied, but the General commanding
his Brigade recognized Muller’s name and acceded to the
request. Mrs Muller then took up an appointment in Switzerland
where their second child also died. Although leave to a
neutral country was unheard-of, the General stood surety for
his comrade and he was able to attend the funeral.[15]
The
War Cry did not give the General’s name but described the
circumstances of his conversion in 1912 when he had mistaken
the time for a lecture he planned to attend at the Circus
Busche and found himself in a Salvation Army meeting being
addressed by Bramwell Booth. However, his obituary, curiously
appearing in the Evening
Post many years later, identified him as a Colonel
Ferdinand Peterssen, of the Prussian Guards. This gave the
circumstances of his conversion. Apparently fellow-officers
complained to the War Office about his membership of the
Salvation Army and Kaiser William II himself responded that
“he did not consider it a slight to the dignity of his
Prussian officers’ corps that one of its members should belong
to the Salvation Army or wear the uniform of that
organisation.” After the war, Peterssen served as a prison
chaplain at the Plotzensee penitentiary.[16]
Some were “human interest” stories,
intended to emphasise the common humanity, and especially the
common Salvationism of British and Germans. One of these was
headed “Salvationists Meet in Bayonet Charge”. Salvationist
John Coombs of the 1st Gloucester Regiment wrote
home to his wife of the aftermath of a bayonet charge in which
he found a wounded German trying to reach his water bottle.
This proving empty, Coombs gave the German water from his own
bottle. Seeing a Salvation Army badge on Coombs’ uniform, the
German whispered, “Salvation Army; I am also a Salvation Army
soldier.” And indeed he was also wearing a Salvation Army
badge. Coombs carried the dying German to an ambulance and
heard his last words, “Jesus, safe with Jesus”.[17]
Incidentally, an even more poignant story was printed in
several papers, although not in the
War Cry:
A gruesome coincidence is recorded in the
meeting of a German soldier who is a member of the Salvation
Army and a British soldier who also belongs to the Salvation
Army. The Germans were charging the British trenches with the
bayonet and the German Salvationist, as he drove his bayonet
into the British Salvationist, found that he had killed the
man at whose house he had been a guest for some weeks during
the International Congress of the Salvation Army which was
held in London in May last.[18]
From the circumstances that sad tale must have originated from
Germany.
International editorial policy lay behind
these War Cry
reports, many of them reprinted from the British
War Cry and also
published in the Australian
War Cry. Ironically,
given that they founded an “Army”, the Booths were pacifists
at heart. Frederick Coutts noted that “When the Salvation Army
first started to use the printing press as a means of grace,
one of its earliest resolves – as the first issue of the
private magazine for officers [1893] bears witness – was that
“No bloody war spirit, no pandering to the brutal craving for
wholesale slaughter, shall pollute our pages.”[19]
On the outbreak of the second Boer War in 1899 William Booth
had written, “No matter who wins … I lose, for there are
Salvationists fighting on both sides.”[20]
His instructions to Salvationists at that time were reprinted
in the War Cry of
August 5th, 1916:
Pray. Pray. Pray.
Live in the spirit of intercession. Plead
for a speedy termination of the horrid strife. Pray for your
comrades … on the British side, and pray also for your
comrades, the Salvationists, who are on the other. …[21]
Bramwell Booth made a similar appeal in
1914.[22]
He rejected any suggestion that he should forbid Soldiers of
the Salvation Army to take up arms or proclaim that all war
was murder, but he equally refused to allow Salvation Army
officers to enlist as combatants unless they were compelled by
law to do so.[23]
He forbade the use of the word “enemy” in Salvation Army
publications and announced that “Every land is my Fatherland
for all lands are my Father’s!”[24]
Two years into the war he was able to meet with the
acting-Territorial Commander for Germany, Lt. Colonel Treite,
in Sweden.
Magnanimity sometimes ran both ways. A
1917 War Cry quoted
“Professor Foerster, the famed Munich savant, in one of his
recent writings on British Imperialism” reminding his readers
that “England has also given to the world The Salvation Army…
Remember the glorious William Booth, and all the British
goodness and greatness which found expression in him!”[25]
The New Zealand War Cry was criticised by the
Maoriland Worker, a Labour paper opposed to conscription,
for an article headed, “To the Shirker”. (“Shirkers” was an
abusive term for people reluctant to join the forces.) The
editor of the War Cry
responded that if the critic had read the article he would
have found that it was about the war against sin and was
intended to encourage Salvationists to be whole-hearted in
their Salvationism, rather than “shirkers”; the reference to
the actual war was only as an illustration. He pointed out
that the Salvation Army was “AGAINST WAR, believing it to be
of the devil. But seeing that the horror is upon us, our duty
is to … utilise our organisation to serve every combatant
possible on whichever side he may be fighting, irrespective of
creed; to visit the wounded of each Army, and to minister to
the bereaved and suffering of every nation. The
War Cry has
carefully avoided matter and illustrations
calculated to encourage the military spirit, and has only
reproduced those which would call forth the best qualities in
our readers, and make the abhorrence of war greater, thus
making for a lasting peace.” The
Maoriland Worker
graciously printed a retraction.[26]
At a local level, Salvationists were not
always as conciliatory in their views. A public meeting,
chaired by the Divisional Commander, was called in Lyttleton
to pass a resolution “That on this anniversary of the
declaration of a righteous war, this meeting of the citizens
of Lyttleton records its inflexible determination to continue
to a victorious end the struggle in maintenance of those
ideals of liberty and justice which are the solemn and sacred
cause of the Allies.” “Prayers will be offered… for the
success of Great Britain and her Allies.”[27]
Of a similar meeting reported in Wellington, the
Maoriland Worker noted that German Salvationists were no doubt
praying that God would help defeat the Allies, and asked would
“the War Cry please
explain which of the two sections is right?”[28]
Bandmaster Henry Goffin published a song to celebrate the
battle between HMS New Zealand and the Blucher in the North
Sea, the chorus of which ended, “They’ll sink the Kaiser’s
dreadnoughts, manned by cowardly German Huns”.[29]
There were fewer references to German
Salvationists in the War Cry as the war progressed. In the last four months of 1914,
there were eleven such articles; in 1915, a total of fourteen,
and in 1916, only five. For 1917 there were no references at
all, and in 1918 just three. This could have been due to the
increasing difficulty of obtaining information; a 1918 article
commented that “only occasionally does there come through to
us tidings of the work which is being carried on by our …
comrades in Germany.”[30]
It could also have been a concession to adverse opinion,
though there is no evidence for this. It is also true that the
Salvation Army apparently made no explicit effort to
counter-act the victimization of German nationals or people of
German descent in New Zealand, though one British report
described the successful efforts made by a Salvationist to
have German workers, dismissed because of their nationality,
reinstated in their positions.[31]
At least by representing Germans with humanity, as fellow
Christians and Salvationists, the
War Cry did its bit
to counter the inhumanity of the times.
[1]
The War Cry,
16 January 1915, 3.
[2]
Andrew Francis,
To Be Truly
British, We Must Be Anti-German: Enemy Aliens and the
Great War Experience 1914-1919 (Toronto: Peter Lang, 2012).
[3]
See Judith Bassett, “Colonial Justice: the treatment
of Dalmations in New Zealand
during the First World War”,
The New Zealand
Journal of History, 33, 2 1999, 155-179.
[5]
The 1915 Alien Enemy Teachers Act.
[6]
The War Cry,
28 November 1914, 7.
[7]
The War Cry,
12 December 1914, 5
[8]
The War Cry,
2 January 1915, 8.
[9]
The War Cry,
6 February 1915, 7.
[10]
The War Cry,
28 August 1915, 2.
[11]
The War Cry,
7 November 1914, 2.
[12]
The War Cry,
26 December 1914, 5.
[13]
Otago Daily Times,
22 May 1915, 7.
[14]
The War Cry,
20 February 1915, 7.
[15]
The War Cry,
3 June 1916, 3.
[16]
Evening Post,
16 May 1930, 3.
[17]
The War Cry,
2 January 1915, 3.
[18]
Wanganui Chronicle,
11 January 1915, 6;
Dominion, 15
January 1915, 6;
New Zealand Truth, 3 July 1915, 3.
[19]
Quoted in The
Officer, June 1989, 242.
[20]
Reprinted in
The War Cry,
19 September 1914, 4.
[21]
The War Cry,
5 August1916, 4.
[22]
The War Cry,
26 September 1914, 5.
[23]
The War Cry,
7 November 1914, 2.
[24]
Richard Collier,
The General Next to God (London: Collins, 1965, 250;
Catherine Bramwell Booth,
Bramwell Booth
(London: Rich & Cowan, 1933)
353.
[25]
The War Cry, 7 July 1917, 2.
[26]
Maoriland Worker,
9 January 1918, 5.
[27]
Press,
4 August 1915, 10.
[28]
Maoriland Worker,
19 May 1915, 4.
[29]
Henry C. Goffin, Sheet music, “The Sailors”, published
by H. Warren Kelly, price 2/- nett., and mentioned in
several newspapers including the
Feilding Star, 29 March 1916, 2;
Free Lance 24 March 1916, 18.
[30]
The War Cry,
6 April 1918, 7.
[31]
The War Cry,
1 August 1915, 5.
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