Horrors and Atrocities of the Great War / Including the Tragic Destruction of the Lusitania

“At the bandaging camp the surgeons and their assistants must revive and examine the men and make them ready for transport. Operations are seldom practicable or necessary here. The chief concern is to bandage wounds of bones, joints, and arteries carefully. . . . Severe hemorrhages usually stop of themselves, on which account it is seldom desirable to bind the limb tightly above the wound. The wound itself must never be touched, washed, or probed. After the clothing is removed or cut away it must merely be covered with the contents of the bandage package.”

Every soldier carries two of these packages in a pocket on the lower front corner of his left coat-tail. Each package contains a gauze bandage enclosed in a waterproof cover. There is sewed to this bandage a gauze compress saturated with sublimate and of a red color. It is so arranged that the bandage can be taken hold of with both hands without touching the red compress.

It is strongly impressed upon the stretcher-bearers and all assistants that cases having wounds in the abdomen are not transportable and must on no account be given food or drink; also that bleeding usually stops of itself. They are taught, too, that touching, washing, or probing the wound is injurious, and that only dry bandages must be placed on the wound—never those that are damp or impervious.

“The wounded who are capable of marching leave their ammunition, except for a few cartridges, at the bandaging camp, are provided if need be with a simple protective bandage, and march first to the nearest ‘camp for the slightly wounded,’ or to the nearest ‘resting-camp.’ The rest of the wounded are removed as soon as possible directly to the field hospitals or lazarets. If obliged to remain for a while before removal they are protected by portable tents, wind-screens, etc. . . . If it is impossible to carry the wounded along in a retreat they are left in care of the hospital staff under the protection of the Red Cross.”

THE SANITATION COMPANY

In case of a big battle a sanitation company remains near the bandaging camp. Every army corps has three of these companies, which, together with the twelve field lazarets of the corps, form a sanitation battalion.

As soon as it is apparent that the troops will remain in one locality for some length of time the smaller bandaging camps or stations are supplemented by a chief bandaging station some distance in the rear, and if possible, near a highway and near houses. At this spot there are arranged places for the entry and exit of the wagons carrying the wounded, for the unloading of the wounded, for the dying and the dead, for cooking, and a “park” for wagons and horses.

Each field lazaret is capable of caring for two hundred men, but this capacity may be extended by making use of local aid. The supplies carried are very comprehensive, including tents, straw mattresses and woolen blankets, lighting materials, clothing and linen, tools, cooking utensils, soap, writing materials, drugs and medical appliances, sterilization ovens, bandages, instruments, and an operating-table. As fast as possible the patients treated are sent home on furlough or removed to permanent military hospitals. The very perfection of this system but deepens the tragic irony that occasions it.

THE HOSPITAL BARGE

One very important development in the care for the wounded is the introduction of the hospital barge. The rivers and canals of France offer splendid opportunities for conveying wounded from point to point. This new method of transport was foreshadowed in an article in the London Times, in which the writer, in describing the hospital barges, said:

“The north of France, as is well known, is exceedingly rich in waterways—rivers and canals. The four great rivers, the Oise, the Somme, the Sambre, and the Escaut (Scheldt), are connected by a network of canals—quiet and comfortable waterways at present almost free of traffic. So far as the reaching of any particular spot is concerned these waterways may be said to be ubiquitous. They extend, too, right into Belgium, and have connection with the coast at various points—for example, Ostend. Here, then, is a system of ‘roads’ for the removal of the wounded, a system which, if properly used, can be made to relieve greatly the stress of work imposed upon the ambulance motor cars and trains. Here also is the ideal method of removal.

“The Ile de France is lying at present at the Quai de Grenelle, near the Eiffel Tower. This is a Seine barge of the usual size and type, blunt-nosed, heavily and roomily built. You enter the hold by a step-ladder, which is part of the hospital equipment. This is a large chamber not much less high from floor to ceiling than an ordinary room, well lighted, and ventilated by means of skylights. The walls of the hold have been painted white; the floor has been thoroughly scrubbed out for the reception of beds, of which some forty to fifty will be accommodated.

“The forward portion of the barge can accommodate more beds, and there is no reason why a portion of it should not be walled in and used as an operating room, more especially since in the bow a useful washing apparatus is fitted. The barge is heated by stoves, and a small electric plant could easily be installed. The barges are used in groups of four, and a small tug supplies the motive power. In favorable circumstances about fifty kilometers a day can be traveled.”

The barges employed are big, roomy barges one hundred and twenty feet long, sixteen feet broad, and ten feet high. Care is taken to use only fairly new and clean barges which have been used in the conveyance of timber or stone or other clean and harmless cargoes.

CHAPTER XXXVI
WHAT WILL THE HORRORS AND ATROCITIES OF THE GREAT WAR LEAD TO?

WAR, A REVERSAL TO THE PRIMITIVE BRUTE IN MAN — THE SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY — DECLINE OF THE WAR SPIRIT — THE DAWN OF UNIVERSAL PEACE.

In the mobilization of armies, in the appropriation of colossal funds and consequent imposition of intolerable taxes, in the disregard of the neutrality of lesser nations, in the “emergency measures” that tear apart a home to give its bread-winner to the reeking shambles—in all these phenomena original incentives quickly are forgotten, as though they had never been.

What imperial chancellery now remembers, or now cares, that a sovereign’s nephew and his morganatic wife were done to death in an obscure dependency upon the Adriatic shores? Their hands and steel are at each other’s throats on that pretext, but they improve the occasion to settle all old scores that rancorous racial antagonism in an interminable blood-feud have created. War has thrown down the barriers of social restraint; it has abolished the delimitations of political adjustment; international decorum, propriety, all that is signified in the German tongue under the untranslatable name of “Sittlichkeit” are no more; landmarks set in place with a thankful sense of achievement and a pious aspiration are obliterated.

None will deny to our heroes living, nor to those who after warfare rest in peace, the sublimity of their utmost pattern of devotion and of the sacrifice they made. But with all that selfless devotion implies and patriotism means, with all that the bugle sings or flaunting pennons inspire, with all that the sight of old and tattered battle-flags conveys, with all that the histories tell, with all the exemplary careers of conquerors that were not ruthless and armies that sang psalms and nations whose quarrel was just and kings who laid their crowns before the throne of God in prayer, and their laurels in the dust of the profoundest self-abasement—the nature of war is not changed.

With all the Te Deums that have risen in cathedrals, and hosannas that were sung for conquering Caesars when earth and sky were shaken like a carpet with their welcome at the gate; with all the splendor of shining accoutrements of guardsmen and Uhlans and cuirassiers; with all the investiture of romance that poet and painter and even the sensitive historian have been able to confer upon it—war remains what it is: an abysmal and sickening reversion to the primitive brute in man. It must still be a sight “to grieve high heaven and make the angels mourn” that men created in the image of their Maker, endowed with a diviner instinct beyond the body’s need or transient existence, could sink so far, and in the slough of primordial animality forget the very light of life and their immortal destiny for the sake of the mere fiction of power on land, sea and even in the throbbing and embattled air through which the prayers of women ascend like silent flame to God.

THE SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY

We are apt, in thinking of the consequences of the European war, to consider the readjustment of national boundaries as of prime importance. Such a thought betrays a wrong perspective, or a narrowness of vision, or both. Territorial definition is a small, material factor. The larger, spiritual considerations that affect all mankind are the momentous things. And probably of all the consequences that are evolved out of the horrors and atrocities of the great war, the spread of the democratic spirit must be the most momentous. Despite the fact that the ambitions of the people and the dynasties are in accord, the effect of the war upon monarchical institutions must be momentous. The spirit of democracy is abroad. It has practically abolished the British House of Lords. It has forced the establishment of a parliament in Russia. It is so active and alert in Germany that the Social Democratic party is the largest and most powerful political organization in the empire. In France it overturned the monarchy nearly half a century ago, and is now so firmly established that only the wildest dreamers ever imagine that republican institutions can be displaced. It is regnant in Portugal and nearly so in Spain. A nation in arms, as Germany now is, will not long be content to remain a nation without a ministry responsible to its Parliament. The democratization of German institutions is inevitable after the war, whatever the result. The people, even in Russia, are no longer driven serfs. They think, they reason, and a demonstration of the power of 5,000,000 men on the battle-field will not be lost on the patriots who wish also to demonstrate the power of the same number of millions in deciding at first hand the causes for which they will take up arms. Whether the kings and the emperors remain on their thrones matters little. Great Britain, though it retains the fiction of a monarchy, is as democratic as the United States, and its Parliament responds with greater precision to popular sentiment than the American Congress. The war means the end of autocracy whether the kings remain or not.

DECLINE OF THE WAR SPIRIT

It is significant that the most democratic nations are likewise the most peace-loving. With the spread of democracy must come the decline of the war spirit. The teaching that war is a biological necessity for the preservation of the heroic virtues in men has met its fate in this war, for we have found men, whole regiments of them, who had only been in warlike training a few months, showing just as cool courage and just as stubborn fighting powers as men who had been trained to war from their youth. Even from the standpoint of effectiveness in war the war spirit is unnecessary.

And we have a right to insist that the bravery of the battle-line is not the highest bravery, and that the deliverance wrought by bayonet and shrapnel is not the most necessary to the welfare of humanity. The courage which is unmoved by the roar of great guns and undaunted by the gleam of advancing bayonets is good, but it is no better than the courage of the timid woman who faces death upon the operating-table without shrinking or complaint; and it is in nothing superior to the courage which, in the daily life of our people, takes up patiently the burden of the day, and in the face of poverty, sorrow, and pain, and bearing also the contempt of many, goes forward without bitterness and even with cheerfulness to the end of the journey, faithful unto death.

THE DAWN OF UNIVERSAL PEACE

Finally, as the spirit of democracy rises and the spirit of war declines, the vision of universal peace begins to crystallize. While to many it may seem that this must always remain a vision, the real seers of the world do not doubt that, when the awful conflict in Europe is ended, the warring nations, viewing their dead and their devastated countries, will welcome a plan which promises an end of such disasters. The practicability and feasibility of the idea of an international tribunal is shown by the successful operation of the American Constitutional Courts of Arbitration, which have settled controversies between the states, and by the so-called general arbitration treaties to submit justiciable disputes to arbitration. And if an international arbitration court is feasible, an international police, to give force to the decrees of the tribunal, is also feasible. We have only to come to believe this and the plan itself can be formulated. All great achievement in the world has been a matter of great faith.

The hope of humanitarianism and civilization rests on the very enormity of the present calamity. The horrors and atrocities of the war are so great, its waste and devastation so enormous, its scars so deep, that no one who is touched by it can want war again. The disaster is so overwhelming that peace when it comes must be lasting.