Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights Part 45

Right now she is making practically as great a variety as Germany ever sent over here.

A few miles outside of Philadelphia, at Marcus Hook, on the busy Delaware river where the s.h.i.+ps of the world are being made, the Benzol Products Company turns out large quant.i.ties of aniline oil. The aniline oil, the essential basis of aniline dyes, is made into tints as fair and perfect as any the wizards of Germany ever conjured out of their test tubes.

The tale about America's inability was proved to be a fable. The Marcus Hook plant is one of three which sprang up when the war began. Others are the Schoellkopf Aniline and Chemical Works at Buffalo and a third is the Becker Aniline and Chemical Works at Brooklyn. The three are now merged into one great operating company and Germany will have some difficulty in getting back her dye trade when she is ready to again fight for the world markets.

Moreover, the world-famous duPont Company, which has made powder and chemicals for all the nations, turned in and purchased the Harrison Chemical Works in 1917, and besides making "pigments" has entered the coal tar dye industry. The company made an intensive study of the dyeing industries--cotton, calico printing, wool, silk, leather, paper, paints, printing inks, &c., and made plans to meet the requirements of each. The Harrison plant is but one of the immense group operated by the duPont Company and it has been famous for the manufacture of white lead and acids.

A CHEMICAL DISCOVERY.

There is in fact no line in which the chemists of America did not rise to the emergency and the "romances of the industrial" world are not more entrancing than are those of the medical and other fields. Chemistry, for instance, discovered an ant.i.toxin for the deadly gangrene, or gas bacillus, poisoning of the battlefields. The discovery was made by research workers in Rockefeller Inst.i.tute.

It is one of the most important discoveries in medical research as applied to war, having an even greater bearing on the treatment of war wounds than the Dakin-Carrel treatment of sluicing wounds previously referred to. The serum works on the same principle as the anti-teta.n.u.s serum used to prevent lockjaw. The gangrene ant.i.toxin is injected to prevent the development of gangrene poisoning.

The serum was developed by Dr. Carrel Bull and Miss Ida W. Pritchett, of the Rockefeller Inst.i.tute, by immunizing horses by the application of the bacillus germs, then obtaining the resultant serum from the horses.

The new serum displaces, in a measure, the Dakin-Carrel method of treating wounds. As soon as a soldier is picked up wounded, the plan is to give him an injection of the serum so that he can be rushed to the rear ambulances with no fear that the deadly gas infection will develop.

The use of the serum means the wiping out of the big death rate from infection, with death resulting merely from wounds that are in themselves fatal. The gas bacillus was discovered by Dr. William H.

Welch, of Johns Hopkins University, 25 years ago. The bacillus frequently is present in soil and when carried to an open wound germinates quickly, developing into bubbles of gaseous matter, whence comes the name "gas bacillus." The bubbles multiply rapidly, a few hours often being sufficient to cause death.

A WOUND-FLUs.h.i.+NG SYSTEM.

Possible gangrene poisoning has been offset by the Dakin-Carrel system of constantly flus.h.i.+ng the open wounds, but patients are frequently too far off to be given the advantage of the flus.h.i.+ng method and this is where the serum is chiefly valuable. The ambulance or medical corps "shoots" the serum into the wounded soldier even before they douse his wound with iodine.

The progress that has been made along these lines is indicated by the statement of Lord Northcliffe, who after a visit to the front declared that the annual death rate in the English army was 3 per cent of 1000 and that the average illness, including colds and influenza, was less than in London, despite the discomforts of the trenches.

In the past disease has been as destructive as battles. Biology and pathology, to say nothing of surgery and therapeutics, have made such strides that disease has been virtually eliminated as a factor in warfare. War takes medical science into the field, where the control of large ma.s.ses of men enables it to develop the highest efficiency.

Even in normal peace conditions biological and pathological science has been accomplis.h.i.+ng results not popularly understood. Individual cures by surgery and medicine appeal to personal interests, but these are negligible compared to the prevention of plagues like smallpox, typhus and tuberculosis. If such diseases had not been successfully combated by science three out of four of the present civilized population would not be in existence at all. The organized and intensive application and developments of science, of preventive medicine, const.i.tute the strictly neutral work in this war by which all humanity will profit for all time to come.

In pa.s.sing it is interesting to note that the great power supplied by Niagara Falls is being utilized to produce some of the chemical marvels.

One great industry there is making soda by the electrolytic process.

That is, salt brine is pumped from the saline deposits in western New York and piped to the works. This is run into electric cells and through these a current of electricity is led. The salt, which is composed of chlorine and sodium, decomposes under the electric attack. The sodium goes to one pole and combines with water to form caustic soda, whereas the chlorine escapes at the other pole. Let us follow the chlorine, which is a yellowish-green gas, more than twice as heavy as air, and has found a new use as poison gas in the great war--for which all the world should be ashamed.

It is collected and compressed to a liquid form and s.h.i.+pped in containers under pressure for use in chemical works and bleacheries and for the purification of drinking water. It has been found above all things effective in destroying noxious bacilli. A surprisingly small amount of the gas dissolved in the water is enough. In New York city the water has been chlorinated and no single case of typhoid fever has been traced to the supply.

CHAPTER XXI.

OUR NEIGHBORING ALLY.

CANADA'S RECRUITING--RAISE 33,000 TROOPS IN TWO MONTHS--FIRST EXPEDITIONARY FORCE TO CROSS ATLANTIC--BRAVERY AT YPRES AND LENS--MEETING DIFFICULT PROBLEMS--QUEBEC AROUSED BY CONSCRIPTION.

The world has marvelled at the achievement of Canada at Valcartier camp near Quebec and the dispatch across the Atlantic Ocean of a fully equipped expeditionary force of 33,000 men within two months of the outbreak of war between Great Britain and Germany. But the magnitude of that feat cannot be appreciated properly until one considers that on August 4, 1914, Canada had a permanent force of only about 3500 men.

These soldiers, who for the most part were instructors and men on guard duty, provided a nucleus for a training organization. In addition to its "standing army," the Dominion had an active militia numbering approximately 60,000 men. Their training consisted of what has been aptly called "after-supper soldiering." Members of city regiments drilled for one night each week, partic.i.p.ated in an annual church parade and spent two weeks every year in summer camp.

The training of the rural regiments consisted almost entirely of the two weeks in summer camp. Yet from these militia units were drawn a large proportion of the men in the first Canadian oversea contingent, while the militia regiments, to a large extent, formed the basis of Canada's recruiting organization after the outbreak of hostilities.

Enlistments during the first two years in the expeditionary force numbered approximately 415,000, while probably 150,000 applicants were rejected as physically unfit.

Immediately upon the declaration of war Major General Sir Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia, telegraphed the officers commanding the militia regiments to commence recruiting for oversea service. After the recruits were signed up and accepted, they lived at home and drilled during the day at the armories throughout the Dominion.

Meanwhile, Valcartier camp was being prepared for the gathering army.

The building of this great military center almost overnight was an engineering feat of no mean magnitude. Two weeks after work was started, troops recruited by the militia regiments began to arrive, and before the end of a month Valcartier was a tented city of 25,000 soldiers.

There were some complaints, of course. They were inevitable in an encampment so hastily prepared. But the essentials were there, and when the contingent sailed from Gaspe, on the coast of Quebec, on October 3, it was a well-trained, efficient body of soldiers, besides being the largest army that ever crossed the Atlantic at one time.

AN EFFICIENT COMMANDER.

The contingent was in command of Lieutenant-General Edwin Alfred Hervey Alderson. He was born at Ipswich in 1859 and began his military career with the Militia, going to the regular army in 1878. He joined the Royal West Kent Regiment as Second Lieutenant and rapidly won promotion. He served in the Transvaal, later in Egypt and partic.i.p.ated in actions at Ka.s.sa.s.sin and Tel-el-Kebir, receiving the Khedive's bronze star. Service in South Africa and in India followed, during which General Alderson successively became Captain, Major and Lieutenant Colonel. He became a Colonel in 1903 and was placed in charge of the Second Infantry Brigade, and in 1908 commanded the Sixth Division, Southern Army of India, having meantime been given the rank of Major General.

After the departure of the first contingent recruiting was continued by the militia regiments, and during the winter the men were quartered in exhibition grounds, Y.M.C.As., sheds, etc. In the spring of 1915 existing camps were enlarged and new ones opened.

During this period the recruiting machinery developed from the militia regiments. Through the latter officers were recommended to command new battalions. These O.Cs. selected most of their subordinate officers from their own militia regiments and used the parent organization as a general basis for recruiting operations, headquarters being located at the regimental armories.

The keen compet.i.tion existing between the militia units was maintained between the new oversea formations, and battalions were raised in a few weeks. For months enlistments all over Canada averaged more than 1000 men daily, and with recruits coming forward at this rate, there was no necessity of protracted delay in bringing battalions up to strength.

DIFFICULTY OF RECRUITING.

There was a disposition, especially in military circles, to attribute the increasing difficulty of the recruiting situation during the winter of 1915-16 and since to a change of system and the introduction of the so-called "political colonels." The change, however, was rather the result of new conditions than the cause of it. Recruiting had slowed down--largely from natural causes.

A new appeal was needed to reach a cla.s.s of eligible men who had not yet enlisted. The recruiting problem apparently had outgrown the facilities of the militia organizations. Rightly or wrongly, the government commissioned a number of well-known men, without military experience, to raise battalions. Their popularity and local confidence in them were the excuses for their appointment--and the experiment was in the main successful.

Perhaps there was a suggestion of politics about it, although it may be stated emphatically that politics had not been a serious influence in connection with the recruiting, training or leaders.h.i.+p of Canada's oversea forces. That such is the case stands to the enduring credit of Major General Hughes.

The attempt to "popularize" recruiting was soon found to entail serious evils. Compet.i.tion for recruits in an already well-combed field became very keen. The new political colonels realized that their reputations were at stake, and in the effort to fill up their battalions various undignified and regrettable expedients were employed. Cabarets, bean-counting contests, lotteries and callithumpian methods generally marked a period in Canada's recruiting history not pleasant to review, and which brought discredit upon the entire voluntary enlistment system as a permanent method of filling up armies.

TRAINING SERIOUSLY DELAYED.

Besides the moral influence of such schemes to get men in khaki, the recruiting efforts of the political colonels had a serious effect in delaying the training of new men. With their personal reputations as organizers involved, the commanding officers were reluctant to admit inability to fill up the ranks of their units, and repeatedly pleaded for more time.

For months partly recruited battalions made little or no progress with their training, while the officers devised new recruiting "stunts" and while men were being sought in the highways and byways.

The situation was complicated by allowing a number of infantry battalions to recruit in the same area at the same time, with the result that the new men came in driblets, valuable time was lost and much money wasted. In some cases it has taken well over a year from the date when they were authorized before battalions were dispatched oversea--due very largely to ineffective recruiting methods. Battalions were allowed to continue the heart-breaking quest for recruits long after they should have been amalgamated and sent to England. Such amalgamations came ultimately, battalions retaining their ident.i.ty when leaving Canada only when 600 or more strong.

The high cost of recruits was a direct consequence of compet.i.tion among battalions recruiting independently in the same territory at the same time. The government allowance was not adequate to maintain the pace and had to be supplemented by private funds.

There was in Toronto a certain group of fifty recruits referred to as the "$10,000 squad," because it is estimated that the cost of recruiting them averaged nearly $200 each, the money coming from private funds of officers and their friends. Perhaps the estimate involves some exaggeration, but many units added to their ranks only at a cost of $50 or more per recruit.

Some idea of the waste of such a system may be secured when it is stated that, with men coming forward freely, the cost of recruiting is considerably less than $10 per man, even after allowing a generous bonus to the recruiting sergeants. More serious than the cost in money was the delay in training men needed at the front.