Turkey
It seems plain that in France, Germany and Great Britain there has been an honest, if not always a very sympathetic attempt to treat prisoners decently. But we hear little about the condition of prisoners elsewhere. It is curious to note how, in spite of all the horror perpetrated repeatedly by Turkish authorities in times, not of war, but of peace, British feeling is never very indignant against the Turk; and how prisoners of war are faring in Turkey we scarcely know. Not till July, 1917, does there seem to have been any definite application for the inspection of Turkish internment camps. On July 18, 1917, an announcement appeared in the Press to the effect that, in response to a request from the British Government, the International Committee of the Red Cross at Geneva had applied to the Turkish Government for the necessary permission.
Yet here, as in all war matters, we come upon “reprisals.” The following is a cutting from the Daily News of July 20, 1917:
Mr. James Hope, for the Foreign Office, stated in the Commons yesterday that five British officers had been for over three months imprisoned in Constantinople as a reprisal for the alleged imprisonment of Turkish officers in Egypt. The United States Ambassador was requested on April 25 to explain to the Porte by telegram that only one of the five Turkish officers in Egypt had been under arrest, and that for attempted escape. He regretted to say that one of the five British officers had died. They had just received a message from the Danish Minister at Constantinople stating that the four surviving officers returned to camp on July 4.
Statements about enemy reprisals are usually less frank than this. The neutral observer has usually to watch each side describing its most drastic actions as reprisals upon the other for similar deeds.