Composition of the prisoners of war

About 300 prisoners were transferred from the Himeji Prisoner of War Camp to the Aonogahara Prisoner of War Camp. But more than 400 prisoners were interned at Aonogahara with the addition of those transferred from the Fukuoka Prisoner of War Camp, which was closed down in October 1916, and the number increased to almost 500 at the largest.

According to the List of German and Austrian Prisoners of War (revised in June 1917) (in the possession of the Prisoners of War InTelligence Bureau and the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), the prisoners interned at the Aonogahara Prisoner of War Camp consisted of 13 officers and people of equivalent rank and 430 warrant officers and people of lower rank, including 249 German soldiers and 194 Austro-Hungarian soldiers. The prisoners were from a wide range of areas, reflecting the regional composition of German and Austria-Hungary at that time. In particular, the Austro-Hungarian soldiers were a group of many races.

• Prisoners at the Aonogahara Prisoner of War Camp (based on the List of German and Austrian Prisoners of War revised in June 1917 [in the possession of the Prisoners of War InTelligence Bureau and the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs])[PDFファイル／174KB] 

The Austro-Hungarian soldiers were characteristic of the large number of people from an area that encompassed Dalmatia, Istria and Trieste. There were 51 Austro-Hungarian soldiers from the area along the coastline of the Adriatic Sea. A military port of the Imperial Navy was in this area and Pula, the home port of the SMS Kaiserin Elisabeth, which had sunk at Qingdao, was also here. For this reason, it can be considered quite natural that many prisoners who had been crew members on the SMS Kaiserin Elisabeth were from the area on the Adriatic coast. But this meant that there were many people of Italian and Croatian origin, which triggered friction among the prisoners.