ive a new "pass" for the Army Corps in which you
have been arrested. The moment you venture into another Army Corps, even
if you return into that from which you were first released, arrest
follows and the whole exasperating rigmarole has to be repeated. The
Army Corps are as arbitrarily defined as anything to be found in
tape-tied Germany.

I do not think that such a wildly humorous feature of organisation to
compare with this is to be found in any other part of the world. Had it
not been for the deliberate misleading, or to term it more accurately,
unblushing lying, upon the part of the respective commanding officers of
the respective Army Corps, the British tourists who happened to be in
Germany when war broke out would have got home safely. Being ignorant of
German manners, customs, and military idiosyncrasies, and placing a
blind faith in German assertion and scraps of paper, the unfortunate
travellers fell into the trap which undoubtedly had been prepared to
meet such conditions.

The British tourists who were caught in eastern Germany, after their
first arrest and release upon one of these despicable and fraudulent
passes, being reassured by the intimation that they were free to go
where they pleased, naturally thought they would be able to hurry home,
and straightaway moved towards the coast. But directly they entered the
adjacent Army Corps they suffered arrest and imprisonment until their
papers were declared to be in order to permit another "pass" to be
issued. Thus it went on, the tourists being successively held up,
delayed, and released. Under these conditions progress to the coast was
exasperatingly slow, and finally was summarily prevented by the drastic
order of the German Government demanding the internment of every
Britisher in the country. It was this senseless and ridiculous
manifestation of German scientific organisation gone mad which
contributed to the congested nature of the civilian internment camps in
the country, and one cannot resist the conclusion that the practice was
brought into force with the deliberate intention of hindering the return
of Britishers who happened to be in the country when war was declared.

At the peaceful residence of my friend overlooking the Rhine, of the
full beauties of which I still cherish a vivid and warm appreciation, I
mended very rapidly. To Mr. and Mrs. K---- I owe a debt of gratitude
which I shall never be able to repay. I entered their home half-starved,