Captain Fryatt’s Murder
A Court-Martial in Which Vengeful Malice Mocked Justice and the Rules of Naval War in the Lust of Blood
Brutal blundering was a German characteristic throughout the war. Indeed it has been declared more than once that her abandonment of moral restraints and obligations, imposed by international codes and the laws of humanity, is responsible for Germany’s overthrow. Without entering into that question it is admitted that two of the German blunders—both of which were subjects of diplomatic efforts at prevention—which incensed the world and roused the United States from its dream of neutrality were the murders of Edith Cavell and Capt. Charles Fryatt. We have told the story of Miss Cavell; that of Capt. Fryatt is no less a testimony to German turpitude if less revolting to sentiment in that the first was a nurse, a ministering angel to the sick and wounded (German soldiers included) whose offense was due to her compassion for the helpless and hunted.
Capt. Fryatt, an Englishman, was master of the Great Eastern Railway Company’s steamer Brussels, a merchant vessel. June 23, 1916, the Brussels was captured by German warships. (The circumstances of the capture are presented in the report of First Officer Hartwell, which follows later.) The steamer, its officers and the crew were taken to Zeebrugge and searched. On Capt. Fryatt was found a gold watch that had been presented to him by the Mayor of Harwich at a public demonstration in his honor, the inscription commemorating an incident of March 20, 1915, when Capt. Fryatt attempted to ram the German submarine U-33, to avoid capture or destruction. After a brief imprisonment at Zeebrugge he was transferred to Bruges, where, July 27th, he was tried by court-martial, was condemned to be shot as a franc-tireur and was executed that same afternoon.
June 28th the English Government first learned of the Germans’ intention to try Fryatt by court-martial, and immediately undertook to arrange for his proper defense. Sir Edward Grey telegraphed to the American Ambassador at Berlin requesting his efforts in this behalf and that he would convey to the German authorities the contention of the English Government that “in committing the act impugned Capt. Fryatt acted legitimately and in self-defense for the purpose of evading capture or destruction, and that the act of a merchant ship in steering for an enemy submarine and forcing her to dive is essentially defensive and precisely on the same footing as the use by a defensively armed vessel of her defensive armament in order to resist capture, which both the United States and His Majesty’s Government hold to be the exercise of an undoubted right.”
In spite of possible influence and efforts, Ambassador Gerard’s intervention was unavailing, and on July 27th, the very day of the execution, he telegraphed to London that his efforts to secure a postponement of the trial were futile because the German Government insisted that “the German submarine witnesses could not be further detained.” In other words, the men whose business it was to conduct a sea campaign of lawlessness and “frightfulness” could not be delayed from their destructive work by anything so paltry as a consideration of justice and honor in the trial of a prisoner.