3 - The development of prisoner of war labour companies on the western front: the spring reprisals of 1917

Summary

I see these pitiful creatures working every day; their faces haggard, numbed. They advance harassed by fatigue, their insides ravaged with hunger. Five men receive one loaf a day. They sleep in a barracks on the bare ground without a blanket, having only their clothes as covering. And it is every day, every day the same suffering. If you could see them! A spectacle of misery, of horror. I am not yet hardened enough by war to look on indifferently. I am seized with rage at seeing such things.

Letter found on a captured German soldier, written to his parents, describing French prisoners of war held in reprisal camps behind the German lines, 28 February 1917.

Introduction: cycles of violence

One of the most significant and overlooked uses of forced labour in the First World War was the development of a mass prisoner of war workforce by armies on the western front. In 1915, the German army began using Russian prisoners of war, on a trial basis, in western front labour companies. In 1916, the British and French armies followed suit, deciding to permanently retain increasing numbers of prisoners of war in new labour companies for army needs. The same year, the German system, using Russian prisoners, rapidly developed. This military use of forced prisoner labour subsequently dramatically expanded on the western front, leading to major redefinitions of what constituted the legitimate limits of violence against prisoners of war.