Prisoners of war were common in the First and Second World Wars, and their treatment varied. However, if they wrote home or escaped, their experience could shape how the home front viewed prisoner camps and could either ease or increase their fears for a loved one if they were captured. Major C.B. Vandaleur was a British officer who had escaped from a prisoner camp at Crefeld. He claimed he was cursed at, pushed around, and he and fifty-two other prisoners had been confined to a wagon and starved on the three day journey from Douai to Cologne.
“German Brutality to British Prisoners of War,” Berlin Daily Telegraph, May 11, 1915.