The Sun.
London, England, 1870-09-17 00:00:00

THE SOCIETE DE SECOURS ON THE
BATTLE FIELD,

M. de Pressen* who is attached to one of the ambu-
lances of the Sociad de Secours has given an interesting
account of his labours on the battle field at Sedan. M. de
Pressens4 is a Protestant pastor, and discharged the office
of chaplain to the society. The division to which he
belonged had 20 surgeons, 2 Catholic chaplains, 1 Pro-
testant chaplain, and 80 volunteers. As they
started on their charitable enterprise they re-
ceived the warmest greetings. At Chalons they
passed the corps of General Failly, and were struck by
its harassed and travel stained appearance. Afterwards
they saw MacMahon, who would gladly have attached
them to his army. They were particularly struck
by his melancholy aspect. The party arrived
at Beaumont, near the scene of action, which was
to be their headquarters, on August 29, and immediately
learned that fighting was going on in the charming Bois
des Dames, close at hand. There could not, says the pastor,
have been a more striking and painful contrast than be-
tween the beautiful scenery around and the carnage of the
battle-field. The wounded were distributed in the neigh-
bourhood, and the first surgical operations were performed
in the salon of a splendid chateau in which the piano was
still left. It is certain, says the narrator, that without the
aid of the society a large number of the wounded must
have died untended on the battlefield. The operations
were numerous and serious in their nature, but the sol-
diers bore them bravely. At such moments the real gran-
deur of human nature displays itself, and the wounded or
dying soldier thinks not of himself, but of his family and
his God. " I beg you," said one dying young man
weeping, " WI, my father so as not to startle him.'
Another cried out, at the very moment of amputation, " I
can never use my arm again to work for my poor father!"
The occasional military references of the pastor fully
confirm the accounts already given of the incapacity
and negligence of the French administration. He says
they surpassed imagination. On the fatal 30th the unfortu-
nate and incompetent General Failly treated as an alarmist
the messenger who said that the enemy was commencing the
action; and the regiments were quietly making soup when
the mitrailleuse opened fire upon them, One of
the ambulances of the society was in the middle
of the, battle-field, in the .midst of the rain of balls; but
the surgeons did not hesitate to traverse the fire to open a
second ambulance, which was required by the increasing
number of wounded, whose blood flooded the rooms. Close
by a housewas iu flames, now and then a shell would burst
in the ambulance and strike one of the wounded men. The
fight lasted two hours, which seemed short, for the assis-
tants were engrossed with the terrible sufferings before
them. When the cannonade from Mouzon began there
were some hundreds of wounded, and the surgeons were
hard at work, while the chaplains and some others
searched the field of battle and its vicinity in quest of
fresh victims, stooping among the bushes and listening for the
least sigh or murmur of a wounded man. To their great
relief they met some gentlemen bringing large waggons
for the conveyance of the wounded. The ,village of
Beaumont took 1,000, and ,distributed them throughout
its houses, while the twenty surgeons worked
incessantly. Unfortunately, the supplies of nour-
ishment were very insufficient, for the Prus-
sians had drained the resources of the locality.
The wounded French who could walk were taken prisoners
to Germany, and asked for bread, with tears in their
eyes, after their long fast. The chaplain arranged for a
distribution of bread and soup to them from the ambu-
lance at midday, the hour fixed for their departure• They
were compelled, however, to go off an hour earlier, and could
not have it ! The Prussians in general observed the conven-
tion of Geneva, and when one of their officers infringed i
a formal apology was made. They allow no irregularities
among their troops, but they are implacable towards the
peasantry whom they shoot without pity, if they defend
themselves. The pastor says he shall never forget the
despairing appeal of a man who vainly begged for mercy,
on account of his four little children. The services of the '
ambulances were impartially divided, and the chaplain at
one moment performed the last offices for a dying French
Protestant commander and the next said the last solemn
words over the grave of a Prussian captain. Ordinary
military arrangements, he says at the close of his interest-
ing account, could not have sufficed for a tenth part of the
assistance demanded.