POWs at Fron-goch – German not Irish

Photos of ‘Frongoch POWs‘ is the heading of one a collection of photos at the National Library by the Bala chemist, H. W. Lloyd.

I immediately thought of the Irish Republican prisoners kept there after the Easter Rising of 1916 in what became known as the ‘university of the revolution’. An interesting account of their containment has been written by Lyn Ebenezer and published, first in Welsh in 2005 as Y Pair Dadeni – Hanes Gwersyll y Fron-goch and then, in 2006, in English, as Fron-goch Camp 1916 – And the Birth of the IRA. There is also a trilingual plaque, Irish, English and Welsh, to their incarceration at the site of the old camp which is now Ysgol Bro Tryweryn primary school.

German POWs at Fron-goch

The Germans arrived there on 25 March 1915 – exactly a month and a year before the Irish Easter Rising, whose defeat would see the next group of prisoners to arrive at the damp camp near Bala.

The photos, it seems to me, were taken in one day. There are many informal photos of a stage production – clowns, singers, an orchestra and men convinsingly dressed as a women (see above). The others are of the more formal, Edwardian (or should I say, Wilhelmine) military pose.

What became of these men after the War?

I’m trying to guess their ages. Is it just me, or do people in old photos always look older than people today? Maybe it’s their clothing or moustaches or the wrinkles on their weather-beaten cheeks that makes them look older. But most of the men would be in their twenties or thirties. Did they return to join the Freikorp or even the Spartakists  or, did they, like most Germans, try and keep away from the extremes? Did they return to Metz only to find it was no longer in Germany but in France or that their village in Upper Silesia was now part of Poland? Were their savings wiped out in the hyperinflation of the 1920s? Were any of them Jewish? Did the younger ones fight in the Second World War?

With the turmoil of the First World War and its tragic aftermath, those months in Fron-goch may have seen an almost idyllic retreat of fellowship and recreation.

I wonder if any of them ever returned to Bala and Fron-goch and if there are any stories, in Wales or Germany, of their time at the Camp?

Siôn Jobbins