Prisoners on Cannock Chase: Great War PoWs & Brockton Camp

By Richard Pursehouse

The “fascinating” story of a First World War prisoner of war camp which held captured German personnel in the very heart of the English countryside (Books Monthly).

Richard Pursehouse first became aware of the existence of a camp while walking over Cannock Chase in Staffordshire, finding sewer covers in what appeared to be uninhabited heathland. Intrigued, the author set out to investigate the mystery and discovered that the sewers were for two Army camps—Brocton and Rugeley—that had been constructed for soldiers training during the First World War. What he also found, however, was that the Brocton Camp site also included a segregated autonomous prisoner of war camp.

With the aid of an old postcard, Richard was able to identify the exact location and layout of the long-lost camp. His research continued until he had accumulated an enormous amount of detail about the camp and life for its prisoners. He found a file by the Camp Commandant, Swiss Legation correspondence, stories in newspapers, letters and diaries, and received photographs from interested individuals. Amongst his finds was a box holding scores of fascinating letters sent home by an administration clerk while he was working at the camp.

During his investigations, Richard also learned of attempted murders and escapes (including the only escapee to make it back to Germany), deaths, thefts—and a fatal scandal. The letters, documents and diaries reveal how the prisoners coped with incarceration, as well as their treatment, both in terms of camp conditions and their medical needs.

The result is a unique insight into what life was like inside a British Prisoner of War camp during the First World War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781526728265

Book preview

Maps

Chapter 1

Background – Treatment of Prisoners

The Hague Convention on Land Warfare of 1907 and the Geneva Convention of 1864 (revised 1906) formed the basis for the treatment of prisoners during the Great War: ‘Each belligerent would use its prisoners as surety, retaliating against them for any bad treatment against its own men held captive by the enemy.’

From the start of the Great War, the British public read accounts in newspapers of atrocities against civilians after the German Army had invaded Belgium in August 1914.¹ The sinking of the unarmed liner RMS Lusitania in May 1915 contributed to a hardening of attitudes regarding the treatment of German prisoners. The ‘Cruiser Rules’² stated that an unarmed ship should be given a warning so that the crew and passengers could get to safety; no such warning was given to the Lusitania and anti-German riots across Britain followed the sinking.

The story of a Canadian soldier apparently ‘crucified’ on a barn door by Germans in 1915 caused outrage throughout the Allied countries.³ The execution of Nurse Edith Cavell⁴ elicited protests across the globe. In 1916 Germany tried, sentenced and executed by firing squad all on the same day Captain Charles Algernon Fryatt⁵ of the British steamer SS Brussels after he had rammed a German submarine in March 1915; international condemnation followed, with the New York Times newspaper declaring it a ‘deliberate murder’. On 5 December 1916 Captain James Blaikie, in charge of the passenger ship Caledonia, was captured by the German submarine he had attempted to ram in self-defence. Correspondence on this subject was blunt: ‘His Majesty’s Government threatened reprisals should the German Government see fit to murder Blaikie as they had done Fryatt’.⁶ Blaikie was exonerated, and Fryatt was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

However, there was a voice of caution concerning reacting to German actions. Lieutenant General Sir Herbert Belfield, the Director of the Department of Prisoners of War at the War Office, considered reprisals as un-British; ‘Our national characteristics are opposed to the ill-treatment of a man who has no power to resist and this especially in the case of one who is not personally responsible for the acts complained of’.

As the war progressed, the treatment of prisoners in France, Germany and Britain deteriorated. In late 1915 Germany wanted to apply pressure on France for sending prisoners to French North African colonies to work in poor conditions and cynically allowed over sixty postcards from French prisoners to reach the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, describing how they were being treated, with one French prisoner declaring they had been reduced to eating grass to survive. German pressure included the use of British prisoners from May 1916, followed by ‘quid pro quo’ reactions against German prisoners that would eventually lead to negotiations in the Netherlands between the two sides as recriminations on a ‘tit for tat’ basis had been happening for months. Eventually the insistence that German prisoners be moved at least 30km from the front line on the Continent was agreed, and as a result Allied prisoners were moved the same distance. Germans guarding British prisoners of war blamed them for ‘frustrating their war of conquest’ (and therefore treated the Belgian and French prisoners better).⁷

The attitude of German soldiers and guards towards prisoners deteriorated further from 1917 onwards, in direct proportion to the way the war was going for Germany and the fact that the Royal Navy’s economic blockade, restricting food supplies into Germany, was – finally – becoming effective. As rationing in Britain began in 1918 and stories of German atrocities continued to be published in newspapers and pamphlets, feelings here towards German prisoners likewise worsened.⁸

On Thursday, 30 May 1918 the Member of Parliament for Ludlow in Shropshire, Major Roland Hunt, rose in the House of Commons to ask the Prime Minister, ‘whether, in view of the starvation and cruelties inflicted on officers and men in some camps on Germany, he will at once give the German government notice that, unless this treatment ceases, the treatment of German officers and men in this Country will be very much altered and the most severe measures short of cruelty taken as reprisals for German barbarity’.⁹

Public opinion increasingly pushed for reprisals. In 1918, the British press baron Lord Northcliffe attempted to put pressure on Lord Newton, head of the Prisoner of War Committee at the Foreign Office, to consider reprisals here against German prisoners for the poor treatment of British prisoners in ‘Arbeitskommandos’ (working or labour units) in German mines and labouring for the German Army in occupied France and Belgium; Newton resisted, appreciating such actions could well be counter-productive.¹⁰

Chapter 2

Brocton Prisoner of War Camp

The main thoroughfare through Brocton Camp (Brocton Lagerstrasse). The sign behind the central flower bed points to the interpreters’ hut to the left.

Cannock Chase had been used for military manoeuvres in the late nineteenth century and in 1915 the local landowner Lord Anson (the Earl of Lichfield) offered the area to the War Office (with the caveat that the area was not to be used for holding prisoners), which in turn allocated Cannock Chase to Northern Command (whose headquarters were in York). Wooden huts rapidly sprang up across the area to house troops sent to be trained at the two camps at Brocton and Rugeley. Electricity was supplied to the camps, water and sewer systems dug, and roads plus a railway line spread across Cannock Chase.

Sewer manhole cover.

Tackeroo military railway line 2019, looking towards the German Cut about two miles away.

Constructed on a rectilinear, rectangular grid system (‘A’ Lines, ‘B’ Lines etc. through to ‘T’ Lines), Brocton Camp could be expanded or contracted as requirements for accommodation fluctuated. The construction of the whole of Brocton Camp had begun in late 1915 and was laid out for an entire division, with each grouping of four blocks designed for an infantry brigade plus support staff, kitchens etc.

With the area under its control, the War Office ignored Lord Anson’s caveat on prisoners and adapted the huts situated in and around Brocton Coppice¹ on the north-eastern extremity of Brocton Camp for a prisoner of war camp at the end of 1916.²

In January 1917 a perimeter of two parallel barbed wire fences 10ft high, with a gap between the two, was erected around the huts; a similar double fence separated ‘A’ and ‘B’ Lines. These double fences had an area of random, waist-high tangled barbed wire between the fence and another parallel row of 3ft high wooden poles. A gap of around 2ft between these shorter poles and a row of slightly higher white-painted wooden poles, was nicknamed by the guards ‘The Run’ (and by some the ‘Death Run’) and any prisoner found between the two rows of poles could be shot, which happened on at least two occasions. There was a similar barrier between the camp in ‘B’ Lines and the hospital area in ‘C’ Lines. Around the perimeter were thirteen timber and corrugated-iron guard towers.

Once the huts in ‘A’ Lines were full, those in ‘B’ Lines were opened up. The barbed wire fence between the two Lines was installed to separate the two camps as the ‘A’ Lines block was intended always to be as full to capacity as possible, and ‘B’ Lines to fluctuate according to prisoner numbers (it would eventually be taken over for wounded Germans). Both ‘A’ and ‘B’ Lines were self-contained, with their own ablution blocks and parade grounds. An administration area for the Commandant and his staff took over the purpose-built clerical huts at the top (north-west on the map), running along the main thoroughfare of the camp.³

The area of ‘C’ Lines was set aside as a hospital for injured and sick prisoners as it contained several larger huts deemed ideal for medical purposes (originally built as administration huts for the British brigade). Finally, ‘D’ Lines – with rapid access to the camp – consisted of huts for the guards (eventually guards from the Royal Defence Corps) plus additional administrative accommodation for the camps and hospital, including messes for British officers and NCOs.

In due course ‘E’ and ‘F’ Lines were taken over too in 1917 (and part of ‘G’ Lines in 1918), becoming temporary accommodation from which prisoners would be transferred to internment camps in the Netherlands. The camp railway line ran between these two separate areas (‘A’ and ‘B’ Lines plus ‘E’ and ‘F’ Lines), which brought prisoners, troops and supplies up from Milford railway station just over two miles away.

RAMC Sergeants’ Mess.

The first batch of 300 German prisoners arrived on 10 April 1917, with a further 500 prisoners arriving nine days later. The Staffordshire Advertiser’s reporter covered their arrival:

I was on Tuesday one of a small band of spectators who gathered near a railway station when the first batch of German prisoners arrived. The weather was bitterly cold, and occasional snowstorms rendered waiting a none-too-attractive pastime. Many of the prisoners – there were several hundred in all – were wounded, and arrangements had been made for the transport of such men as could not walk. There were many pairs of crutches to be seen, but by means of private motor-cars, motor-bus, and Army transport waggons the journey to the destination was accomplished with ease. There were many lads among the prisoners, and also some whom I should have classed over military age. Most of the men appeared serious, some looked too ill to be trouble, while some – evidently bent on making the best of life as it happened to be – were laughing and joking. One wounded officer in a car smiled cheerily and waved his hands to a batch of men in transport waggons he raced quickly by. But the laughers and jokers were a minority – war has been no laughing matter for them. Then, the wounded having been sent on, the march of the main body began. Well-guarded by soldiers with fixed bayonets, the procession ambled on, no soldierly dignity being shown by the prisoners, who marched awkwardly, without unity, without discipline, as though they were unwilling warriors. Perhaps they were. And so the procession passed over the brow of the hill, an outward visible sign of the inward spiritual grace – the ultimate overwhelming of Germany’s autocratic dash for world power means the united efforts of the free nations of the two hemispheres.⁴

Once operational the camp and hospital were inspected over the next two years by the Swiss Legation of the International Red Cross Committee (the Swiss representatives’ first visit to Brocton dated the opening of the camp as 11 April). The following month William Towers Mynors commented in the Ingestre Hall estate diary that he witnessed 100 prisoners arriving via Milford railway station who, ‘were of a very low type indeed’, and a few days later he wrote, ‘we saw the unloading of a train full of severely wounded German prisoners, who were carried from the train to Red Cross Motor Ambulances, on Stretchers’.⁵

A clerk working at the prisoner of war camp named Horace Thompson⁶ posted home many letters to his mother, living in Poplar, East London, describing the camp and reflecting on the character of the inmates, as well as his thoughts on the way the war was being fought. He wrote that the location of the prisoner of war camp provided excellent views of the Welsh hills on a clear day and, ‘the Wrekin, the highest hill in England is easily visible’. In another letter he stated the views were at times up to 50 miles all around and, ‘were most pleasant’. The area was not without its problems however, as Thompson requested some fly ointment to be sent from home to combat several gnat bites, as one of his eyes was nearly closed, one lip swollen and an ear enlarged.

Chapter 3

The Prisoners and the Guards

Only NCOs and privates were initially sent to Brocton, although the adjacent hospital also treated officers. Between thirty-two and forty men slept in each hut (nearly all the huts were 60ft long and 20ft wide), with each hut having a single central stove.¹

Inside a hut, Brocton Prisoner of War Camp. (Photo courtesy Phil Mills)

The Royal Defence Corps (RDC) was created in March 1916 and was responsible for guarding strategic areas such as ports, munitions factories and prisoner of war camps. It was made up of men who would be considered ‘too old’ for joining up, but who still wanted to serve, many of whom had for example fought in the South African War in the previous century. Some were medically unfit for fighting (graded C1 and below), and some had been wounded or gassed in the fighting and although not fit, were already trained. Others still were not in a position to volunteer to go abroad (e.g. Territorial Force soldiers) due to personal commitments but still able to join the RDC. In essence those who could join the RDC could free up younger, more able-bodied men. Previously prisoner of war camps were guarded by an ad hoc collection of veterans and wounded soldiers willing to ‘do their bit’, but who were physically unable to do so, either due to their age or their injuries.²

Inside the same hut from the doorway. (Photo courtesy Phil Mills).

German prisoners at Brocton Camp 1918. Note the patches on the trousers of the seated soldier on the right. (Photo courtesy Phil Mills)

Photograph dated 26 September 1917 of three wounded German prisoners relaxing at Brocton Camp, including, seated, R. Kuhl. They are all wearing British ‘Hospital Blues’ uniform – blue tunic, white collar and shirt, red tie.

A prisoner with pipe at Brocton Camp 1917.