File No. 763.72114/3722
The Chargé in Great Britain ( Laughlin) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8.35 p.m.]
10710. Answers received from Foreign Office to three specific inquiries contained in your 8075, June 4, 5 p.m., appear to furnish all essential information on subject of status of officers and crews of British mercantile marine interned in Germany.
1. His Majesty’s Government admit the right of capture, and regard the officers and crews of the mercantile marine when captured as civilian prisoners of war. The German Government have claimed to treat such persons as combatants in all cases when they belong to the crews of prizes.
The object of this claim is to justify the German Government in their policy of indiscriminate submarine warfare. This claim if conceded would result in the assimilation of the status of merchant ships subsidiary [to that] of warships and in the abandonment of their right to defend themselves against attack without losing their non-combatant character. The German Government have a further interest in treating seamen of the mercantile marine as combatants inasmuch as in some capacity they can be compelled to work.
You will therefore understand the extreme importance which His Majesty’s Government attach to maintaining their view of the civilian status of members of the mercantile marine who are prisoners of war. A communication will shortly be forwarded to the Netherland Legation at Berlin relative to this matter and I shall have the honor to forward a copy of it to you as soon as possible.
2. No allowances are paid by His Majesty’s Government to the captured officers and men of the mercantile marine except in the cases of officers to the extent mentioned below nor is there any legal [Page 230] liability on the part of the shipping companies to pay salaries or wages to their captured employees. The companies, however, in nearly all cases provide relief voluntarily for their interned employees.
3. Although His Majesty’s Government refuse to recognize captured merchant seamen as combatant prisoners, they have found it necessary, in order to obviate the hardships which result from the internment of the officers of merchant ships in combatant camps where they would be compelled to work and otherwise treated as prisoners of the rank and file, to make arrangements by which allowances amounting to 100 marks and 60 marks a month respectively, according to rank, are paid to the officers in the event of their being transferred by the German Government to camps for combatant officers. Although the German Government claim to treat these officers as combatants, they would not intern them in combatant officers’ camps as a matter of course because the contention of His Majesty’s Government that these prisoners are civilians precludes them from guaranteeing the repayment to the German Government at the termination of hostilities of pay advanced in accordance with the article 17 of the annex to the Hague convention of 1907, as would be done in the case of combatant officers. Under the arrangement made for the payment of allowances to the officers of the mercantile marine their transfer to officers’ camps cannot of course be claimed by His Majesty’s Government as a matter of right. In order to emphasize the distinction between combatant officers and mercantile marine officers interned in officers’ camps the allowances paid to the latter by the German Government are repayable by His Majesty’s Government per ton [from time to time] and not on the conclusion of peace. Accordingly the contention of His Majesty’s Government as to the civilian status of the prisoners in question is not prejudiced by the transfer of the officers to camps for combatant officers.
The ratings to whom the allowance of 100 marks a month are made are as follows: masters, officers second in command, and chief engineers holding Board of Trade certificates.
Those to whom the allowance of 60 marks monthly are made are all junior deck officers and junior engineer officers holding Board of Trade certificates, pursers, and certificated wireless operators.
Uncertified officers, both deck and engineer, have recently been added to the 60-mark class.
The allowances are not paid to these ratings whether of the 100-or 60-mark class unless they are interned in camps for combatant officers.
It should be observed that these allowances while guaranteed by His Majesty’s Government are to be defrayed ultimately by the shipowners concerned, who have in general raised no objection to this liability. Consequently the amount involved is not a charge on Government funds.
Arrangements have been made for the payment of allowances to the dependents in this country of captured, officers and men of the mercantile marine. These dependents receive either the same allowances as they would have received if the men had lost their lives by enemy action, or allowances in accordance with the following scale if it is more beneficial, namely, half wages or 1 pound weekly, whichever [Page 231] is less. The dependents’ allowances are payable from the date of capture, 80 per cent being defrayed by His Majesty’s Government and the remaining 20 per cent by the shipowner.
A circular explaining the allowances payable in the case of men who have lost their lives as the result of enemy action will be sent in next pouch.1
- Circular not printed.↩