Since we published the 2005 Photo estate of a German officer of the Eastern Front 1914-1918, we always get information about the background and details of local recordings. Recently, an amateur researcher came across a photo from Jelgava. There was also a camp for British! Prisoners of war built, had to do forced labor in the city and surrounding area.
That there was captured Russian soldiers, who could of course be Latvians, it was clear, but British in the middle of Latvia during the first World War was new to me. And the treatment of prisoners of war does not throw any good sign for the German guards.
promoted the search in archives such as the following testimonies of Joseph Driscoll revealed that equippedt in this blog are collected.
"... about 6 pm, we entrained 600 men. We did not know for what destination. The Germans at Libau packed our kits and said that they would send them on in a wagon behind us. We traveled in horse- boxes, clean but no straw. It was extremely cold. Travelled all night and reached Mitau about 4 pm on the 24th February 1917th
On arrival at Mitau we marched to a school on the other side of the town where there were a number of Russians. They were in a terrible condition, starving and Verminous, and during the night they raided many of our food boxes. The front was from 20 to 40 kilometers from us. It was rumored we were to be sent to the trenches. At 10p.m. That night we were ordered to parade at 6 am next morning. Nothing was said about destination.
WW1 British War Graves, Nicholas Cemetery in Jelgava, Latvia
Even after the first British World War fought against German troops in Latvia. The blog author has also collected this material. A great-grandfather was among those killed in the
HMS Dragon 17th October 1919 at Riga BLOG
Who knows more about the events can feel free to contact the blog author. They also investigated
more information about a German soldier Prahl last name, 1st Infantry Regiment of the 8th Army, should have distinguished themselves by particular brutality. Here . The name of the camp is to be latching, but neither German nor Latvian appears that description. Probably a transmission error into English.
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