Revealed: Extraordinary story of British WWI captain
released by Kaiser from German prison camp so he could see his dying mother in Kent - on
condition that he returned to his cell... and he DID
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2410059/WW1-soldier-released-German-prison-camp-dying-mother-Kaiser-promise-returned-cell--did.html
Captain Robert Campbell was injured and captured in France in July,
1914
After two years in German camp his mother in Gravesend, Kent,
fell ill
Briton wrote to the Kaiser asking to return home and enemy
leader agreed
Story revealed in documents unearthed by historian Richard
van Emden
A British soldier was freed from a German POW camp during
World War One to see his dying mother - and kept his promise to the Kaiser by
returning, historians have discovered.
Captain Robert Campbell, aged 29, was captured just weeks
after Britain declared war
on Germany
in July, 1914.
But after two years in Magdeburg Prisoner of War Camp the
British officer received word from home his mother Louise Campbell was close to
death.
He speculatively wrote to Kaiser Wilhelm II begging to be
allowed home to visit his mother one final time.
Incredibly the German leader granted the request allowing
the professional office two weeks leave - as long as he returned.
The only bond he placed on the leave was Capt Campbell's
‘word' as an army officer.
He returned to his family home in Gravesend Kent in
December 1916 and spent a week with his cancer-stricken mother.
He then kept his promise by returning to his German prison -
where he stayed until the war ended in 1918.
The remarkable example of wartime honesty was uncovered by
historian Richard Van Emden, 48, as he researched his new book.
But the author admitted the act of chivalry was rare even
for the bygone age of the Great War.
He said: 'Capt Campbell was an officer and he made a promise
on his honour to go back. Had he not turned up there would not have been any
retribution on any other prisoners.
'What I think is more amazing is that the British Army let
him go back to Germany.
The British could have said to him ‘you're not going back, you're going to stay
here'.
'This was totally
unique. I think it is such a unique example that I don't think you can draw any
parallels. In my experience this is a one off and is one of those things that
just tickles your fancy.'
Capt Campbell had been leading the 1st Bn East Surrey
Regiment when his battalion took up a position on the Monds-Conde canal in
north-western France.
But a week later his troops were attacked by the German
forces and Capt Campbell was gravely injured and captured by enemy soldiers.
The wounded Brit was treated in a military hospital in Cologne, Germany,
before being transported to the Magdeburg Prisoner of War Camp.
In 1916 he was allowed two weeks compassionate leave by the
German Kaiser, to include two days travelling in each direction by boat and
train.
Capt Campbell reached his mother's bedside on December 7 and
spent a week with her before returning to Germany. She finally passed away in
February.
The British officer, who had served in the army for 11 years
before the outbreak of war, remained in Magdeburg
until the armistice in 1918.
Mr Van Emden discovered the incredible story in
correspondence between the British Foreign Office and their German
counterparts.
The records also show the Germans contacted the British
requesting German national Peter Gastreich be allowed to leave the Isle of
Wight to visit his dying father - but the British authorities refused the
request.
At the end of the war Capt Campbell was freed from the camp
and allowed to make the journey back to the British coast - retiring from the
military in 1925.
And despite his traumatising ordeal Capt Campbell was again
thrust into military action in 1939 when he rejoined the 1st Bn East Surrey
Regiment for World War Two.
His role as the Chief Observer of the Royal Observer Corps
in the Isle of Wight was less precarious than
that thirty years earlier.
He managed to survive the war unscathed and died back in his
home country in July 1966 aged 81.
Capt Campbell's story has been told in Mr Van Emden's new
book, ‘Meeting the Enemy: The Human Face of the Great War'.
KAISER BILL SET ASIDE 'HATRED' TO SEND SOLDIER HOME TO BRITAIN
The last emperor of Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II, (right)
had a schizophrenic relationship with the British until he was forced to
abdicate in 1918.
He was the nephew of Queen Victoria and had an English mother,
developing a passion for the country, but was furious that he was never
accepted by high society.
The expansion of the German navy before the war was directly
because of his love, and his mother's, of the Royal Navy.
He once told his uncle Edward VII that his dream was to have
a 'fleet of my own some day'.
Historian David Fromkin described his love-hate relationship
with Britain
as: 'The half-German side of him was at war with the half-English side.
'He was wildly jealous of the British, wanting to be
British, wanting to be better at being British than the British were, while at
the same time hating them and resenting them because he never could be fully
accepted by them'.
As World War One dragged on Wilhelm's influence over the
military disintegrated and he was left to hand out awards and attend
ceremonies.
But the case of Captain Campbell reveals a more
understanding side, which allowed him to use influence to help a British man
get home.