The Note-Book of an Attache Part 18

British, 2 deaths to 11 casualties.

(The low rate of mortality among the British is due to the great number of motor ambulances which they possess, to the smallness of their army, to the efficiency with which they care for their wounded, and to the short distance which separates their forces from their home country.)

The numbers of prisoners held on February 1st:

IN GERMANY: British 18,000 Belgian 39,000 Russian 350,000 French 245,000

IN AUSTRIA: Russian 250,000

IN ENGLAND: German 15,000

IN FRANCE: German, approximately 50,000

MEDICAL CORPS

The battle practice in the French army in handling wounded is as follows:

When a man is wounded he is carried to a dressing station in some partly protected neighborhood within the battle area. He is generally taken there by the stretcher-bearers attached to his company. After field dressing, he is removed to a field hospital one to three miles toward the rear. The means of transportation are varied, and made to suit the particular battle conditions, the princ.i.p.al means being stretcher-bearers, motor ambulances, and horse ambulances. In case of heavy casualties, all the men who can possibly stagger are obliged to go to the rear by themselves and are sent in small parties so that they may a.s.sist one another _en route_.

The field hospitals are nearly always established in village churches with overflow into neighboring houses in case of heavy casualties. All the furniture is removed from the church and the floor is covered thick with straw, upon which the wounded are laid out in long rows.

The altar is made the pharmacist's headquarters, the vestry is converted into an operating room, and a Red Cross flag is hung from the tower or steeple. These field hospitals are generally well within the zone of artillery fire, and are frequently struck by sh.e.l.ls.

The men are evacuated from the field hospital to a base hospital in motor ambulances or by a combination of motor ambulances and railway trains. Theoretically, this should be done within a day or two with all cases except the very gravest. In practice, the men frequently lie in field hospitals for weeks before the opportunity of evacuation is found. The base hospitals are in cities or large towns, and serve as clearing-houses. They are well out of the military zone, being from five to fifteen miles behind the zone of artillery fire. I will give a definite example. In October, I saw the front at Albert. There were dressing stations just behind the battle-line. There was a field hospital at Henencourt. From Henencourt the wounded were evacuated upon Amiens, which contained the base hospitals for a front extending from a point north of Sus St. Leger to the neighborhood of Guerbigny.

Here the railway station had been converted into a receiving center to which all the wounded were brought for examination and cla.s.sification.

Those who could bear travel were immediately placed upon trains and s.h.i.+pped to the south of France. There were four other hospitals in Amiens, and all cases considered too grave for transportation to the south were sent to one of these. They were divided and cla.s.sified so that cases of a kind were grouped together, each hospital and the various floors of each hospital having a different cla.s.s of patient.

Some of the cla.s.sifications were: head cases, amputation cases, gangrene cases, cases in which the patient could not refrain from screaming, either because of delirium or for other reasons. It is on leaving the base hospital that wounded are first cla.s.sified as to nationality.

For the railway transportation of the wounded, luggage vans are used.

I estimate the interior length of a French luggage-van or freight-car to be about twenty-five feet, the doors being placed, as in America, in the middle of each side. Wooden racks are built to the right and left of the door in the ends of the car. These racks are arranged to hold two layers of three stretchers each, so that each end of the freight car contains six lying cases. The men who are able to sit or stand and the orderlies in charge are placed in the aisle between the doors, a s.p.a.ce about six feet wide between the stretcher handles. On their way to the south of France these trains stop about every twenty-four hours, the first stop being Aubervilliers, a station some two miles outside the gates of Paris. Here a large storage warehouse has been converted into a hospital. Food and water are distributed to the train on its arrival, the dead taken out, and the delirious or very grave cases are removed to the Paris hospitals. The others are allowed twelve hours' rest before continuing on the next stage of their journey.

The trains are usually made up of from 30 to 50 vans, and each train carries from 500 to 800 wounded. No particular effort seems to be made to isolate gangrene cases from the others, and the wounded invariably remain in the uniforms in which they fought until they reach the home hospital in the south of France. Their dressings, until they reach these home hospitals, are superficial ones. I have seen numerous cases with grave wounds, such as shattered thighs, which have remained in this condition for four and five weeks before finally being undressed and washed at the home hospital.

The whole system of handling the wounded seems to be theoretically well conceived. In practice among the French it worked thus poorly during the early months of the war. The wounded suffered from lack of food, water, attention, and bathing, and the resulting number of mortalities and amputations was exceedingly high. The effect on the morale of those who recovered is very serious, and is in singular contrast to the eagerness to return to the front often shown by British and German convalescents. The care given to the wounded by these two nations is very excellent indeed.

The same stretcher is used throughout the French army, and its universal use is compulsory on all organizations, whether volunteer or regular. It is not unusual for a grave case to be picked up on the battlefield and placed upon a stretcher and to travel on it all the way to the south of France without once being removed. The company stretcher-bearers turn him over to the dressing station with the stretcher upon which they have borne him. Since these stretchers are identical in size and construction they fit all ambulances and all railway equipments. They may be said to be current, like money, and whenever one organization turns over a grave case to the succeeding organization, the stretcher goes with the case, and an empty one is received in return. The number at any one point is thus maintained at a constant figure, and there is a general tendency for battered and infected stretchers to gravitate toward the south of France, and for new stretchers to gravitate toward the front.

There has been much typhoid in the armies in France, and it is on the increase. The wounded men develop it more often than any other cla.s.s.

Inoculation against typhoid is theoretically compulsory in the French army. I have no personal knowledge as to the thoroughness or effectiveness of inoculation in practice.

Lockjaw seems to develop late. Most of the cases occur after the men have reached the south of France. The new French anti-lockjaw inoculation of Doctor Doyen has produced most remarkable results. I have heard, on reliable authority, that with it 80% of the cases treated make a complete recovery. Three of my personal friends have had lockjaw and recovered. This is, in part, due to the fact that in all the hospitals the diagnosis is quick and sure, and the serum always in stock. The injection is made into the spinal cord at the small of the back. The patient is kept on his back on a slightly sloping table, his feet being at the higher end, while his head is allowed to hang unsupported over the end of the table.

A considerable proportion of the French and British troops in France, the Russian, Austrian, and Hungarian troops in the eastern fields, and the prisoners in Germany suffer from lice. Fleas seem to be a comparative rarity in the zones of operation.

The physique and condition of the French troops have greatly improved since the beginning of the war. War conditions seem to have caused a marked change. Many of the men have gained twenty and even thirty pounds, and the younger men have grown inches in height.

The French have well-defined regulations in the matter of sanitation, but these rules are not generally well-observed or strictly enforced.

In the French trenches, however, where discipline is best, this matter is very well regulated. The Germans are particularly orderly in this regard. I have never observed that the French mark wells or water supplies in any manner.

I have no observations to offer on the subject of cremation of refuse, but have seen several attempts at cremation of bodies in the French army, all of which were glaring failures.

AeROPLANES

The German aeroplanes are generally conceded to be the most effective in the war, and the Germans seem to possess more of them than any other nation. None of their machines are slow and their fastest ones are faster than any in the other armies. Aeroplanes have been singularly ineffective in attacking as their shooting is extremely bad. They usually miss their target by at least two hundred yards, and, so far as my personal knowledge goes, the only damage that they have ever done has been when they have had a whole city to shoot at.

Something like forty bombs were thrown on Paris while I was in that city, and although some thirty or forty non-combatants were killed or wounded, a target of any military importance was. .h.i.t on only one occasion, when a bomb was dropped through the roof of the Gare St.

Lazare. In the field, the princ.i.p.al targets aimed at by the aeroplanes are supply and ammunition convoys. The method is for the aeroplane to fly above the road and to drop a bomb as it pa.s.ses over the convoy. It then makes a circle and repeats the operation. I know personally of some fifty bombs thus dropped, not one of which struck anywhere near the target. The effect of the bombs is of small consequence and damage is seldom done except to the people who happen to be standing in the immediate neighborhood.

The crater of the bombs thrown by German aeroplanes, when striking macadam or similar surfaces, is about fifteen inches in diameter and four inches deep. I have seen three such craters. The shrapnel bullets from the exploding bombs fly with a killing force to a distance of about fifty yards, and at the latter range the lowest bullets fly at a height of about twelve or fifteen feet. These bombs weigh about fourteen pounds.

Aeroplanes have proved to be almost invulnerable in war. They are extremely difficult to hit, because one must calculate for three dimensions and for the speed of the aeroplane; when hit they seldom suffer serious damage. I know of a case where first and last nearly 200 bullets pa.s.sed through a machine without its ever being put out of action. Indeed, it seems impossible to bring down an aeroplane except by a freak shot. The gasoline tank is high and narrow and is protected by a thin metal plate underneath, while struts and steering wires are usually double. Wounding the aviator does not usually bring down a machine, because he is sitting and is strapped in, and on calm days needs to employ only a slight muscular effort to steer. Moreover, there are usually two officers in an aeroplane and the systems of double control enable the aeroplane to return to its base even if one of them is killed outright.

Anti-aircraft guns are not greatly feared by aviators, and they consider it merely an extraordinary piece of bad luck to be hit by one. The aviators fear most of all the fire of large bodies of infantry, and in flying over a regiment at an alt.i.tude of 1000 yards they realize that they run serious risk of being brought down.

Rifle bullets are effective against aeroplanes up to a height of about 5000 feet. Observers fly just above this alt.i.tude, at about 5500 feet, since they wish to fly as low as possible and yet be reasonably safe. Aviators have told me that this height is so well recognized that they nearly always encounter other observers in the same plane.

Aeroplanes, flying at a height of 5500 feet, can observe the movement or presence of large bodies of troops and the flashes of artillery.

They cannot observe very much else at that height. They seem to be able to descend suddenly for a short time to a very low alt.i.tude when it is necessary and, in a large percentage of cases, to escape.

British aeroplanes have made reconnoissances at an alt.i.tude of only one hundred yards.

Aeroplanes have made surprises in war nearly impossible, since in modern warfare it would be necessary to s.h.i.+ft at least a division to produce any effect, and the movement of such a number of men would certainly be visible to aeroplanes during the daytime. If such a movement were performed at night, the presence of the division in a new spot would almost certainly be detected by the aeroplanes in the morning. The possession of a large and efficient aeroplane corps reduces the surprises of war very nearly to nil, and proportionately increases the importance of preparedness and of tactics.

The German aviators (and in fact all German observers, such as infantry and cavalry patrols) make it a principle to avoid, if possible, any combat; this is, of course, interpreted as cowardice by the Allies, who seem eager for a fight on any terms. There is a distinct reluctance among aviators for engaging in aerial duels. As one French aviator said to me: "You are both killed and that does no one any good." This reluctance is fairly universal, except with British flyers.

The German aeroplanes signal their observations by means of a code expressed in smoke b.a.l.l.s. I never was able to obtain any theory as to how this code works. This method of communication seems to be very effective, as German sh.e.l.ls sometimes arrive with singular accuracy and immediateness. It is commonly reported that Germans also signal with a suspended disc, but I have no personal knowledge of this system. The French had no definite means of signaling from the air in the early months of the war, and I believe this is still the case.

They make their observation and return to their base to report, usually taking notes while aloft on maps and in note-books. I have no personal knowledge of the British methods. The Austrian system of signaling is by means of evolutions of the aeroplanes themselves. When they observe a target they fly over it, and when directly above make a sudden dip. They are observed during their evolutions with instruments, so that the exact angle and hypothenuse at the moment of this dip is known. They then make a circuit and come up from the rear and again fly over the objective. As they reach a point where they can see the target or objective their artillery opens fire and is corrected by the graphic evolutions of the aeroplane. If the sh.e.l.ls drop too far to the left, the aeroplane turns to the right and the distance in profile that it travels before straightening out is the correction. They say, "Shoot short" by dipping and "Shoot farther" by rising.

I have no knowledge of aeroplanes being used at night, although they sometimes return from daylight operations after night has fallen and make their landing with the a.s.sistance of beacons. It is commonly reported both by Germans and French that the steel darts used by the French aviators are the most effective offensive weapon so far used by aeroplanes. I have no personal knowledge on this subject. I have been several times informed upon reliable authority that the French have no particular instruments of precision for use in the dropping of bombs.

At the commencement of hostilities the French aviators feared their own armies much more than they did the Germans, because the French had neglected to familiarize their troops with the designs of hostile aircraft.

It was proved to be nearly impossible to force a fight with your enemy's aeroplane, even if he is far within your own territory. If your own aeroplanes are on the ground it takes them entirely too long to get to his alt.i.tude, and if he wishes to stay in the same neighborhood he himself keeps going higher as your aeroplanes mount toward him. There seems to be no difficulty encountered in avoiding aeroplanes already in the air, since they are usually visible at great distances.

Anti-aircraft guns are generally mounted on automobile trucks, and are usually of small calibre. I have never seen any German aeroplanes other than monoplanes; these I have seen on ten or more occasions.

I saw no aeroplanes which carried other arms than rifles and automatic pistols.

In practice I have nowhere observed machine-guns mounted on aeroplanes, although they are much advertised and talked about.

I have frequently heard, upon what I consider reliable authority, that the Germans use captive balloons for observations.

ARTILLERY