In 1918, half a year after the end of the war, the Paris Peace Conference was still being negotiated.

The Entente countries, led by Britain, France, and the United States, submitted the "Draft Peace Agreement" to the German delegation on three occasions, but the German delegation rejected them because the conditions were too harsh.

As time went on, the German delegation had fewer and fewer bargaining chips, the Entente made fewer and fewer concessions, France and Belgium had begun to rebuild, but Germany was still in devastation.

After the Southern African Expeditionary Force withdrew from Europe, all the nearly 450,000 German prisoners of war captured during the World War were handed over to the British troops still in France, and at its peak, more than 1.95 million German prisoners of war were held in the Allied prisoner of war camps, including not only German soldiers on the Western Front during the World War, but also German troops who were sent to prisoner of war camps from other places after the Germans laid down their arms.

1.95 million people, if all of them were to be managed by the Southern African Expeditionary Force, would be a huge human resource, but if they were to be managed by the Entente powers, it would be a huge burden.

The eating, drinking, and sleeping of 1.95 million people is simply a disaster for the current level of management of the Entente.

In order to better manage the prisoners of war, the Allies sent all German prisoners of war to the banks of the Rhine for internment, along the 350-kilometer-long Rhine River, densely distributed nearly 200 prisoner of war camps, at this time the British expeditionary force has been disbanded, the French troops have also been largely reduced, only the United States still has sufficient troops, so the main American troops are managed by the prisoner of war camps.

The management of prisoner of war camps by U.S. troops was very rough, and usually U.S. troops would use barbed wire to fence off a piece of land in any area along the Rhine, which was a prisoner of war camp prepared by U.S. troops for prisoners.

It should be noted that there are usually no buildings, no tents, and no medical personnel in the barbed wire, and there is only a deep ditch in each prisoner of war camp as a latrine, and nearly 10,000 people are held in it like a flock of sheep.

Normally, prisoners are denied any supplies, including water, for the first three days of their arrival in the camp.

In the later stages of the World War, the supply of materials for the German army was not sufficient, and many German soldiers were malnourished, so German prisoners of war who were not in good health often died tragically within a few days of being sent to the prisoner of war camp.

Even if they survived the first few days of entering the camp, the tragic fate of the prisoners of war had just begun.

The food provided by the U.S. military units to the prisoners of war was not high-end canned food produced in southern Africa, but egg powder, milk powder, biscuits, chocolate, coffee, and so on produced in the United States.

These foods require a large amount of drinking water to be fully absorbed by the body, and when the drinking water supply is strictly controlled, such foods quickly drain the prisoners' bodies of water, and many suffer from severe constipation.

Even with this kind of food, the captives are not adequately supplied, normal people need about 1,200 calories a day to sustain their lives, and those who work need 2,000-3,000 calories, while the prisoners of war in the camps only get about 400-900 calories a day, which is simply not enough to meet the basic needs of life-sustaining.

After the prisoners entered the prisoner of war camp, the US military did not provide a suitable place for the prisoners to live, not even the most rudimentary tents, the per capita area of the prisoner of war camp was about 3 to 5 square meters, after several consecutive rainy days, the prisoner of war camp became a big quagmire, the prisoners of war without suitable tools had to do their own work to improve the accommodation conditions, they used cutlery and canned food boxes as shovels to dig holes in the ground, used the cardboard of food packaging boxes as building materials, and dug holes from the ground little by little to protect themselves from the wind and rain.

These caves are usually 1.5 to 2 meters below the surface, the openings are about half a meter wide, and the small holes that lack support are extremely dangerous when it rains at night, often collapse due to water seepage, and many prisoners of war are buried alive in the holes, no one knows how many German prisoners of war have died as a result, no one has made relevant statistics, and no one has tried to dig out those who were buried in the holes.

The living are too busy to provide enough help to their companions.

As time went on, after the onset of winter, conditions inside the camps did not improve in any way.

The captives still lived in the burrows they had dug out with their own hands, and the food they received every day was still only a pitiful amount, and when winter came, the captives had no warm clothing and had to hide in their burrows like rats to survive.

At this time, to add insult to injury, the resurgence of the American flu pandemic, the lack of basic defense materials in the prisoner of war camps, a large number of prisoners of war fell ill in patches, and more than 150 corpses were transported every day at the peak.

"So the current situation is that no one knows what is happening in the prisoner of war camps on the Rhine, the German government is negotiating with the Allies and is not in a position to help the prisoners of war, and as long as the Peace Negotiations are not signed for a day, Germany and the Entente will be at war, and the tragedy that is happening in the prisoner of war camps will not end." As the director of the Relief and Reconstruction Agency, Xiao Si had a good understanding of the situation in the prisoner of war camps.

"It's not surprising that Americans have a tradition in this regard, and if you look at how they treat the Indians, you can see how low the bottom line of the United States is as a country." Roque is not surprised at all, two lives, and the black material about Americans that Roque knows can't be written in another 3 million words.

"What's interesting is that the U.S. military claims that they have implemented humanitarian management of the prisoner of war camps, and the number of prisoner deaths in the camps is about the same as normal in Germany, which is really bottomless." Xiao Si now also recognizes the true face of the Americans, but these things cannot be said, after all, the United States is also a member of the Entente, and the relationship between the United States and the British Empire-

Alas, it's hard to put into words!

"Almost?" Roque seriously doubted that this would be a hell of a sight if it could be almost seen, after the end of the world war, 1.95 million prisoners were put in prisoner of war camps, and the number of dead people will be known, even if the Entente countries do not count, the German government will always count.

"That's what the Americans said, you have to know that they will also release some prisoners of war and go home, but how many people were released and how many were buried on the banks of the Rhine, I'm afraid no one knows the real situation." Now the United States claims that there are about 1.5 million prisoners of war in the camps, and indeed some prisoners of war have been released home, but no one knows the exact number.

Even the current German government probably does not know how many German soldiers were killed during the World War, how many returned home, and how many went missing.

After all, the German Empire had fallen, and the Weimar government, which had just been established after the World War, was faced with such a devastated mess, and now the Peace Agreement had not yet been signed, and the Weimar government had not even been recognized by the Entente.

Roque also had a headache, knowing that when the Southern African Expeditionary Force was withdrawn, Roque directly released all the prisoners of war controlled by the Southern African Expeditionary Force, so as to at least reduce the occurrence of some tragedies.

Let's not forget that the British government's attitude towards Germany is extremely ambiguous.

On the one hand, Britain hoped to get more compensation from Germany, but on the other hand, it did not want to weaken Germany too much, so from Britain's standpoint, it hoped that those German prisoners of war could return to their homeland as soon as possible.

For the French government, the more than one million prisoners of war in the camps represent more than one million young and middle-aged laborers, and the French government estimates that it hopes that all those prisoners of war will die in the prisoner of war camps, so that Germany will forever lose the ability to wage war in the future.

"What did you Relief and Reconstruction Agency do?" Roque was very interested in Xiao Si's work, which would actually be more appropriate for Roque to do, but with Roque's status at the end of the world war, it was obviously impossible to hold such a position.

To put it bluntly, the position of director of the Relief and Rehabilitation Agency is too low to be worthy of Roque's status.

"You just said, relief, revival—" Xiao Si rolled his eyes, and Roque was questioning the content of Xiao Si's work.

"How to revive?" Roque's purpose is certainly not to laugh at Xiao Si, but to find more opportunities for businesses in southern Africa, which is Roque's ultimate goal.

The "relief" here is not charity, the materials needed are to be purchased by the British government and the French government, of course, Germany is the same, there is no money to exchange things, although Germany has not been established for many years, but those Junker nobles in Germany have existed for hundreds of years, since Prussia unified Germany in 1871, Germany has hardly missed any important war, so Germany's heritage is still there.

As for "reconstruction", the content of this part is more complicated, and Roque is more interested in the part of post-war reconstruction, which can provide building materials, can provide human resources, and can provide the funds needed for reconstruction, which are urgently needed in Europe.

Not only Germany, but also England, France, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire needed it urgently, and it can be said that in addition to the United States, the countries involved in the world war, and even Japan, which had made huge profits and paid little price, needed external capital investment.

No one likes money.

"I have a plan that needs you and Henry, Sidney, and all of us involved, how about it, are you interested?" Xiao Si can't command the battle, and the business investment is still very discerning, otherwise he wouldn't have been hugging Roque's thigh.

Xiao Si used to be Roque's thigh, but after more than ten years, Roque has become Xiao Si's thigh, which is really a vicissitude.

"Of course, let's hear about it." Roque is the most powerful capital representative in southern Africa, and Roque's participation is definitely indispensable for such a thing.