Comrades in Arms

Historian Major Harold Hill considers how The Salvation Army represented Germany in its War Cry publications during the Great War.

A 1915 copy of the New Zealand War Cry carried a news report reprinted from Der Kriegsruf—the German War Cry. An illustration showed a German in military uniform preaching to a group of soldiers, and the report was headed, ‘German Salvationist speaks of God’s grace to his comrades at the Front’. The Salvationist was Lieutenant Robert Treite, serving with the German army in France. On the same page, a report from Switzerland mentioned that eight German officers serving in Switzerland ‘had been called up for service in the Fatherland’.

At this time, New Zealand, like other British countries, was in the grip of anti-German hysteria. Newspapers fanned the flames. The 1 September 1914 New Zealand Herald, for example, carried four articles under the headings: ‘Brutal Treatment of Refugees in Germany’, ‘Unspeakable German Outrages at Louvain’, ‘Cowardly Germans’, and ‘Atrocities in Belgium’.

Anti-German vigilante committees were formed in many New Zealand towns, devoted to hounding people of German descent or with German-sounding names out of their jobs and, if possible, out of the country. Mrs Ida Boeufve declared to the Women’s Anti-German League at a 1916 rally in Napier, ‘To be truly British we must be anti-German.’ Even Dalmatian immigrants—Serbians actually on the side of the Allies against the Central Powers in Europe—were persecuted in various ways.

Over 300 people were interned and some were deported to Germany after the war. Being a naturalised New Zealander and British subject was no defence, with a ‘Revocation of Naturalisation Act’ passed in 1917. George William Edward Ernest Von Zedlitz, whose mother was English,  left Germany as a child, was educated in Britain and had been a New Zealand resident and Professor of Modern Languages at Victoria University since 1902. In 1915, Parliament passed an Act especially to deprive him of this post because the University Council refused to dismiss him.

Counter-cultural reporting

Given this background, we might wonder at the apparently counter-cultural War Cry report, but there were many others like it. We might wonder whether ‘pub-boomers’, selling The War Cry in hotel bars, were abused, and whether there were other repercussions. Letters to newspaper editors, normally a vent for bigotry, surprisingly demonstrated no adverse reactions. The only response was that occasionally a daily newspaper reprinted one of these reports from The War Cry. Perhaps the Army’s welfare and chaplaincy services with the troops offered some protection.

Some reports were matter-of-fact updates on what was happening in Germany. For example, in November 1914, an article on ‘Salvation in the German Army’ recounted the experiences of German Salvationists, including Captain Soinicksen, a crew member of the submarine U15 who survived when it was sunk by HMS Birmingham. A letter from Captain P. Schmidt, wounded while fighting as a sergeant in Alsace, described the horrors of warfare and his efforts to pray with dying soldiers. Staff-Captain Grüner, editor of Der Kriegsruf, had been made a regimental scribe, Ensign Claudi a medical orderly, and Ensign Witzled a chaplain. Adjutant Tebbe, director of Salvationist social work in Cologne, had been appointed back to that city and given permission to carry on with that work in addition to his military duties.

The following month, social relief work in Germany was reported on. Salvation Army halls had been converted into relief centres and children’s homes. Nearly 1000 hungry people were being fed daily in Hamburg and there were similar programmes in other large cities. Letters from German soldiers Heinrich Keienburg and Sergeant Ludwig were quoted, and stories told of Sergeant Gratz and Band-Secretary H. Boldt, both wounded. Women Salvationists in Essen were busy knitting warm socks for the troops. The following January, The War Cry referred to Germany, amongst other nations, in a brief synopsis of Salvation Army work in the war zone, mentioning that many of its buildings were now in use as hospitals and that 100 German officers were ‘on the firing line’.

An article in February 1915 claimed that despite the difficulties of the war, the ‘purely spiritual work in the 150 odd corps throughout the territory is not greatly interfered with … At Magdeburg, a hundred souls have been saved in eight weeks … A new corps has sprung into being at Altona, near Hamburg.’ A liberal response was reported to an appeal for assistance for the thousands of refugees from East Prussia arriving in the west. A War Auxiliary League had been set up to care for the wives of soldiers, and women officers of The Salvation Army were assisting with this. Extracts from letters from Brother Franz Rensch of Charlottenburg (since killed in action) and Penitent-Form Sergeant Ebert of Altona were also included. In an obituary for Staff-Captain Fuchs, formerly Divisional Commander in Hanover and a holder of the Iron Cross, who was killed in action near Ypres, The War Cry said, ‘The Salvation Army loses one of its most valiant German officers.’

‘Good’ Germans

Other reports were stories of ‘good’ Germans, obviously intended to counter the picture of brutality common in the Press. General Bramwell Booth cited one such example in an article reprinted from the British War Cry, describing two Uhlans (German cavalry) stopping for food outside a Belgian inn. Some children were passing and one of the ‘grim soldiers’ removed his ‘terrible helmet’, sat a child on his knee and kissed her. ‘Ah, my God, I have five of my own at home,’ he said, tears running down his cheeks. The usual reports of Germans in Belgium at this time were of butchery and rape.

In another article, Booth quoted correspondence from Adjutant Somers (or Summers), an English officer still working in Strasburg, Alsace, in a German military hospital, describing the support she had from the German chief surgeon. Her story was expanded upon in a later number, and reprinted in the Otago Daily Times.

A 1915 issue reprinted from the British War Cry included two stories told by ‘Brother Moore, of the 1st East Lancs Regiment, recovering at home from wounds received at Ypres’. In the first, he described fetching water for a wounded German. In the second, it was another wounded German who struggled out of his own greatcoat and flung it over a shivering, almost naked and evidently-dying British soldier at a dressing station.

One story concerned the kindness shown by a senior German officer who also happened to be a Salvationist. This involved an Alsatian Salvation Army officer, Adjutant Muller, stationed in Paris on the outbreak of war but called up to the German forces, with his wife returned to Alsace. Serving on the Eastern front, Muller asked for compassionate leave on hearing that one of his children had died. This was initially denied, but the General commanding his Brigade recognized Muller’s name and acceded to the request. Mrs Muller then took up an appointment in Switzerland where their second child also died. Although leave to a neutral country was unheard of, the General stood bail for his comrade and he was able to attend the funeral.

The War Cry did not give the General’s name, but described the circumstances of his conversion in 1912, when he had mistaken the time for a lecture he planned to attend at the Circus Busche and found himself in a Salvation Army meeting being addressed by Bramwell Booth. However, his obituary, curiously appearing in The Evening Post many years later, identified him as a Colonel Ferdinand Peterssen, of the Prussian Guards. This gave the circumstances of his conversion. Apparently, fellow officers complained to the War Office about his membership of The Salvation Army and Kaiser William II himself responded that ‘he did not consider it a slight to the dignity of his Prussian officers’ corps that one of its members should belong to The Salvation Army or wear the uniform of that organisation’. After the war, Peterssen served as a prison chaplain at the Plotzensee penitentiary.

Common humanity

Some reports were ‘human interest’ stories, intended to emphasise the common humanity—and especially the common Salvationism—of British and Germans. One of these was headed ‘Salvationists Meet in Bayonet Charge’. Salvationist John Coombs of the 1st Gloucester Regiment wrote home to his wife of the aftermath of a bayonet charge in which he found a wounded German trying to reach his water bottle. This proving empty, Coombs gave the German water from his own bottle. Seeing a Salvation Army badge on Coombs’ uniform, the German whispered, ‘Salvation Army; I am also a Salvation Army soldier.’ And indeed he was also wearing a Salvation Army badge. Coombs carried the dying German to an ambulance and heard his last words, ‘Jesus, safe with Jesus’.

Incidentally, an even more poignant story was printed in several New Zealand papers, although not in The War Cry: A gruesome coincidence is recorded in the meeting of a German soldier who is a member of The Salvation Army and a British soldier who also belongs to The Salvation Army. The Germans were charging the British trenches with the bayonet and the German Salvationist, as he drove his bayonet into the British Salvationist, found that he had killed the man at whose house he had been a guest for some weeks during the International Congress of The Salvation Army which was held in London in May last.

From the circumstances, that sad tale must have originated from Germany.

Editorial policy

International editorial policy lay behind these War Cry reports, many reprinted from the British War Cry and also published in the Australian War Cry. Ironically, given that they founded an ‘Army’, the Booths were pacifists at heart. On the outbreak of the second Boer War in 1899, William Booth had written, ‘No matter who wins … I lose, for there are Salvationists fighting on both sides.’ His instructions to Salvationists at that time were reprinted in The War Cry of 5 August 1916:

Pray. Pray. Pray. Live in the spirit of intercession. Plead for a speedy termination of the horrid strife. Pray for your comrades … on the British side, and pray also for your comrades, the Salvationists, who are on the other …

Give what you can to help the wounded and the suffering generally. We shall soon have to help our own suffering people … We cannot do this without means, nor without men and women on the spot, and that means money. Give something, and let that something be according to your ability.

Go on with your own Salvation work, and go on with it in greater, deeper, truer earnestness. For Christ’s sake, don’t let the poor sinners suffer in one country because this dreadful feud is raging in another …

Bramwell Booth made a similar appeal in 1914. He rejected any suggestion that he should forbid soldiers of The Salvation Army to take up arms or proclaim that all war was murder, but he equally refused to allow Salvation Army officers to enlist as combatants unless they were compelled by law to do so. He forbade the use of the word ‘enemy’ in Salvation Army publications and announced that ‘Every land is my Fatherland for all lands are my Father’s!’ Two years into the war he was able to meet with The Salvation Army’s acting-Territorial Commander for Germany, Lieut-Colonel Treite, in Sweden.

The New Zealand War Cry was criticised by the Maoriland Worker, a Labour paper opposed to conscription, for an article headed, ‘To the Shirker’. (‘Shirkers’ was an abusive term for people reluctant to join the forces.) The editor of The War Cry responded that if the critic had read the article he would have found that it was about the war against sin and was intended to encourage Salvationists to be whole-hearted in their Salvationism, rather than ‘shirkers’; the reference to the actual war was only as an illustration.

He pointed out that The Salvation Army was ‘AGAINST WAR, believing it to be of the devil. But seeing that the horror is upon us, our duty is to … utilise our organisation to serve every combatant possible on whichever side he may be fighting, irrespective of creed; to visit the wounded of each Army, and to minister to the bereaved and suffering of every nation. The War Cry has carefully avoided matter and illustrations calculated to encourage the military spirit, and has only reproduced those which would call forth the best qualities in our readers, and make the abhorrence of war greater, thus making for a lasting peace’. The Maoriland Worker graciously printed a retraction.

At a local level, Salvationists were not always as conciliatory in their views. A public meeting, chaired by the divisional commander, was called in Lyttleton to pass a resolution ‘that on this anniversary of the declaration of a righteous war, this meeting of the citizens of Lyttleton records its inflexible determination to continue to a victorious end the struggle in maintenance of those ideals of liberty and justice which are the solemn and sacred cause of the Allies’. ‘Prayers will be offered… for the success of Great Britain and her Allies.’

Writing about a similar meeting in Wellington, the Maoriland Worker noted that German Salvationists were no doubt praying that God would help defeat the Allies, and asked would ‘The War Cry please explain which of the two sections is right?’ Bandmaster Henry Goffin published a song to celebrate the battle between HMS New Zealand and the Blucher in the North Sea, the chorus of which ended, ‘They’ll sink the Kaiser’s dreadnoughts, manned by cowardly German Huns.’

There were fewer references to German Salvationists in The War Cry as the war progressed. In the last four months of 1914, there were 11 such articles; in 1915, a total of 14; and in 1916, only five. For 1917, there were only two, and in 1918 just three. This could have been due to the increasing difficulty of obtaining information—a 1918 article commented that ‘only occasionally does there come through to us tidings of the work which is being carried on by our … comrades in Germany.’ It could also have been a concession to adverse opinion, though there is no evidence for this.

It is also true that The Salvation Army apparently made no explicit effort to counter-act the victimisation of German nationals or people of German descent in New Zealand, although one British report described the successful efforts made by a Salvationist to have German workers, dismissed because of their nationality, reinstated in their positions. At least by representing Germans with humanity, as fellow Christians and Salvationists, The War Cry did its bit to counter the inhumanity of the times.

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by Harold Hill (c) 'War Cry' magazine, 18 April 2015, pp5-7.
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