KAISER'S CAPTIVE: In the Claws of the German Eagle

First published under the sub-title in 1917 in New York, Albert Rhys Williams (1883-1962) was an American journalist, author and labour organiser who studied on a fellowship at Cambridge University. In 1914 he found work as a journalist with the magazine Outlook as a special war correspondent, with the duty of reporting the events of the Great War. He was arrested in Belgium and detained by Germans who suspected him of being a British spy. In the early days of the conflict, Williams had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Imperial German Army and, arrested in Belgium, they marched him into captivity. On his return to the USA, he published 'In the Claws of the German Eagle' in 1917. He then joined the New York Post and was sent to Petrograd to report on the conflict that was taking place in Russia following the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II, and he remained an ardent supporter of Russia until the end of his life. 'The horrible and incomprehensible hates and brutalities of the European War! Unspeakable atrocities! Men blood-lusting like a lot of tigers! Horrible they are indeed. But my experiences in the war zone render them no longer incomprehensible... Two weeks later I fell under the spell of the self-same Germans. That long gray column swinging on through Liege so mesmerised me that my natural revulsion against slaughter was changed to actual admiration. Had an officer right them thrust a musket into my hand, I could have mechanically fallen into step and fared forth to the killing of the French...' 142 pages.