Barbed Wire Disease

By the time of the Armistice in 1918, some 6.5 million prisoners of war were held by the belligerents. Little has been written about these prisoners, possibly because the story is not one of unmitigated hardship and cruelty. Nevertheless, hardships did occur and the alleged neglect and ill-treatment of prisoners captured on the Western Front became the subject of major propaganda campaigns in Britain and Germany as the war progressed. 'Barbed Wire Disease' looks at the conditions facing those pr