Between the devil and the deep blue sea - University of Canterbury

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365 military guards eventually assigned to the 2,200 troops in Gaasterland could not stop
the more determined escapees. 73
By November 1918, the overall number of Belgian escapees totalled 2,830, not
considerably more than the total in December 1915. 74 Yet the desire to flee remained high
among some. In a fictional account based on his time as an interned officer, Charles
Morgan described his imprisonment at Wierickerschans castle. He stressed the
demoralisation of being a prisoner, even after officers were given the chance to live outside
the camp bound, by a "word-of-honour" documene s
Here we are - shut up .. , We've [sic] given parole; we can't escape; we can't
help in any way, even as civilians in England can help. Weare as much out of
the world as if we are dead. What we do or don't do makes no difference to a
living soul. As long as we live, we shall never again be responsible to ourselves
alone. And we don't know how long it will last - years perhaps; or Holland may
corne into the war next week and we find ourselves in the trenches the week
after. It gives me a feeling, as far as the war is concerned, of absolute fatalism. 76
Some officers fled the country as soon as they had a chance, even if they gave their word of
honour, but Belgium, Britain and Gelmany effectively sealed this corridor by agreeing to
return any escaped officers back to the Netherlands?7 The system worked so well that the
Dutch subsequently allowed some officers to go horne for funerals or to visit sick relatives,
and even to take their leave allocations outside the country.78 France was the only warring
nation that did not allow its officers to sign word-of-honour agreements. As a result, the
Dutch moved the few French officers held in captivity to a rather bleak camp on the small
island ofUrk in the middle of the Zuiderzee. Officers from other Allied countries who
refused to guarantee they would not escape joined their French counterparts there. 79
By late 1915, when the prospect of a speedy end to the war seemed all too unlikely,
new solutions had to be found for the internee problem. It was simply not appropriate or
healthy to keep thousands of bored and listless men locked up in camps. During 1916, the
73 Ibid. p. 33; Bossenbroek et. al. (eds.), Vlllchten voor de Groote Oorlog p. 32.
74 Vries, "Nederland als non-belligerente natie" Appendix 5, p. 125.
75 Bosboom, In Moeilijke Omstandigheden p. 337. A copy of the "word-of-honour" declaration can be found in
Vries, "Nederland als non-belligerente natie" Appendix 8, p. 131.
76 Charles Morgan, The Fountain. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1932, p. 92.
77 Roodt, Oorlogsgasten p. 99.
78 Bosboom, In Moeilijke Omstandigheden pp. 332 - 333; Smit, Nederland in de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Tweede deel
pp. 32 - 33.
79 Bosboom, In Moeilijke Omstandigheden p. 329; Smit, Nederland in de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Tweede deel. p. 35;
Bossenbroek et. al. (eds.), Vluchten voor de Groote Oorlog p. 33; Roodt, Oorlogsgasten p. 122.