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A British soldier was released from a First World War prison camp to visit his dying mother – on the condition he returned to his German captors.

Captain Robert Campbell had been held at ­Magdeburg in Germany for two years when he received the news his mother Louise was close to death, a historian has discovered.

The young officer, 29, speculatively wrote to Kaiser Wilhelm II begging to be allowed to see her one last time.

And incredibly, the German leader granted Capt Campbell leave with the sole condition he gave his “word” as an officer that he would return.

After going back to Gravesend, Kent, in 1916 to see his cancer-stricken mother, he kept his promise and returned to prison.

He stayed there until the end of the war in 1918.

Historian Richard Van Emden, who uncovered the story, said: “Capt Campbell was an officer and he made a promise on his honour to go back.

“Had he not turned up there would not have been any retribution on ay other prisoners.

“What I think is more amazing is that the British Army let him go back to Germany.

"The British could have said to him, ‘You’re not going back, you’re going to stay here’.”

(Image: SWNS)

Capt Campbell was earlier captured just two weeks after the British declared war on Germany in July 1914.

He had been leading the 1st Battalion East Surrey Regiment when his troops took up a position on the Mons-Conde canal on the France-Belgium border.

But a week later, his men were attacked by German forces and he was seriously injured and captured.

He was treated in a military hospital in Cologne, Germany, before being transported to Magdeburg.

After later being granted two weeks of compassionate leave by the Kaiser, he reached his mother’s bedside on December 7, 1916, and spent a week with her before returning to Germany.

Louise ­eventually died in February 1917.

Richard ­discovered the ­incredible story as he researched correspondence between the British Foreign Office and its German counterparts.

The records also show the Germans contacted the British with a similar request for their soldier Peter Gastreich to be allowed to leave the Isle of Wight to see his dying mother.

But the British were less accommodating than the Kaiser and turned the request down.

Speaking of Capt Campbell’s release, Richard, 48, said: “This was totally unique.

"I think it is such a unique example that I don’t think you can draw any parallels.

“In my experience this is a one-off and is one of those things that just tickles your fancy.”

(Image: Getty)

Capt Campbell was freed from the camp at the end of the war and returned to Britain. He eventually retired from the military in 1925.

Yet despite his ­traumatising ordeal, Capt Campbell was again thrust into action at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 when he rejoined his former regiment.

But his eventual role as Chief Observer for the Royal Observer Corps on the Isle of Wight was less risky than his duties 30 years earlier.

The old soldier managed to survive the war unscathed and died in July 1966 aged 81.

Capt Campbell’s story features in Mr Van Emden’s latest book, Meeting the Enemy: The Human Face of the Great War, which is out now.