Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I just read this article in a German newspaper, but also found an English version of it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23957605

I found it fascinating that something like this was actually allowed and, furthermore, that Captain Campbell actually returned, apparently feeling honour-bound by his word.

I'm pretty sure something like this would simply never, ever happen in today's political climate and today's POW camps. It's just something that has changed in the "culture" of warfare, for lack of a better word, over the last century, I think.

There's honour and there's honour. It is certainly commendable that he returned to the POW camp so that the same privilege might be extended to others, and for the Germans to make such a humane gesture in the first place, but "honour" was also a tool cynically used to manipulate men into believing they were serfs, whose lives were the government's to spend as they saw fit.

That's a heck of a story, like the Christmas truce. I hate frickin war and the way it messes up the lives of people.

Relapse wrote:
That's a heck of a story, like the Christmas truce. I hate frickin war and the way it messes up the lives of people.

I was thinking the same. It made me wonder why people who can apparently be so polite and trusting in each other have to wage a war like World War I. But, well, it was a single incident...it appears not all sides were equally happy with the Kaiser's decision.

As I thought, this was Early War. Things were pretty "civil" in 1914.

It was afterwards when things got really dehumanizing.

I think it was made clear that had he not returned, reprisals would have been taken. It's still an astonishing story, but lets not forget that it was under threat of serious consequences.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I think it was made clear that had he not returned, reprisals would have been taken. It's still an astonishing story, but lets not forget that it was under threat of serious consequences.

Either way, the guy was one hell of a man.