GERMAN prisoners of war being held at Alton Abbey caused much exasperation 100 years ago this week when they broke their bounds with the result that over 20 of them were arrested and taken in handcuffs to Alton police station.

The guard at the Abbey consisted of the Alton Troop of Boy Scouts under the direction of the District Scoutmaster Mr Wentworth, and while the Scouts were able to raise the alarm they were powerless to physically stop the “able-bodied” fully grown men being held prisoners, who had taken advantage of the relaxed security and seized the chance to stray beyond the limits prescribed by the rules which governed the camp.

A considerable number of the prisoners made their way to the nearest pub some mile and a half away from the camp.

The police were soon on their track and by six o’clock some 15 had been rounded up and taken to the police station. The police returned again some time later with another batch brought back from their temporary moment of liberation from the camp.

Those associated with the well-being of the prisoners were particularly disappointed by the episode as the Germans, who were mostly seamen from English merchant ships and were generally regarded as being perfectly harmless and had been considered as trustworthy by their captors, would now find themselves under close scrutiny, as their latest escapades had completely betrayed the goodwill of their captors.

Meanwhile at Southampton five or six hospital ships arrived in the port, each bringing with them its freight of varying numbers of broken humanity wounded at the Front. The exact figures relating to the wounded was not disclosed but the Southern Daily Echo report of the time suggested the full total was a large one, with the invalids being despatched to hospitals in various parts of the country, including the nearby Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley, with the least possible delay.

As an instance of the machine-like expedition with which casualties in the field were dealt with, one man with a bullet through his calf found himself lying on a stretcher in Southampton Docks less than fortyeight hours after being shot down at “a place in France”, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Lille.