The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-09
WARS HORRORS.
The Numbers and the Care Of the Wounded
Feeding an Army ReauisiIlOns ON the In
I,I.s


Feeding an Army y-ReauisitIOns the In
habitaDts.
The London Spectator says
The policy Of armiDg whole natioCs, whatever It's
merits has it is clear, one enormous drawback. 1t
may, and In the end we believe will, make more
rare but when they occur it will enormously in
their resulting horrors. SO vast are the
beTs which IL cOmpels generals TO handle, direct
is the tendency arising out OF those masses for bat
the field being actually impeded, as at
Rezonville, by want Of p space-that the
pos sible organization, and to be wounded means
for the majority TO die in lingering pain under the
sharp torture Of thirst supposlng, for example
and ReZonvilie there were $4,000 wounded on the
ground around, what number Of surgeons and at
tendants must an army carry to give them anythi0g
like effective aid, and transport them off the field
where, be 1t remembered, they cannot lie among
the dead without dying from the effects of the pes.
thence? The work must be done at once, within
twenty-fOur hours, or thousands will expire of
hauston and Of thirst-that most terrible of all
toriures to the sick-and done by one army only
for the other has retreated of the field We be-
leve that we do not overstate the case when we
say that 500 surgeons and 0,000 men would not be
too many for the work; or u put 1t in another way
the removal OF such a mass Of wounded would be
twice or thrice as difficult as that OF two corps
darn,ec of the usual strength. No army possesses
q medical organization OF this magnitude, or could
possess one without an addition TO Its impedmenta
which generals would find uncomfortable, as endan-
pering the very safety OF their armies and the 4un-
tries they defend. No hospitals however extensive,
could contain such crowds, and no army is yet In
position to furnish sufficient attendants means OF
conveyances, appliance, or return transport to the
cities selected as the depots for wounded. AS to
appliances a single statement In a Birming-
ana an tSsrsors sSsss Of
surgical Instruments till there is not in Sheffield
pair Of artery forceps and the trade cann0t be sud-
denly expanded" The Prussian organization is be-
eved to be the best In the world but it is strained
till the King Is compelled TO ask leave for his
wounded to pass through neutral territory, till the
dead lie unbuiied for DAYS, til correspondent after
correspondent hints that "the wounded must be
regarded as the dead" For all this while there are
the regular ''sick," the thousands who fall from
disease, hardship, or accident, all to be attended
besides the dead the horses as well as the men,
to be buried, lest worse thing befall Neither
side give us a hint OF their losses from disease
though an order for 10000 woolen belts is omi.
nous; but we noted before war was declared
disease, and every army surgeon knows what hap
pens when hundreds OF thousands OF ill-fed men,
without tents, without brandy without morphia, are
hurried by forced marches under summer sun.
We venture 10 say that in this campaign of twenty
days the losses, including dead, wounded, and sent
to hospital to die there have exceeded 100 900
that the entire adult manhood OF two cities like
Gasgow or OF 900 populous villages has been pros
traied Nor Is the immense increase IN the orea OF
bodily suffering the only evil consequence OF the
aTming OF entire nations. The area oI suffering Of
another kind Is equally enlarged, Formerly when an
army OF 5000 men was great one, 1t was possible
il their leaders had motives for leniency, to carry
food for them, to abstain from requsi ions, or TO
confine requistions to comparatively limited
area. Now, when an army may number a quarter
of a million, whole provinces must be plundered to
keep IL lSd ls HcAb W impDhblOlc 10 carry pro-
visions with IT, and It were possible, the burden,
In a military sense, OF such vast trains of carts
would be uncomfortable to the Generals. Ii would
take 500 carts day merely to carry eataoles for
such an army, and the trains would In the end be-
more burdens0me than the army itself. The army,
therefore, rays out cavalry, who partly by menace,
! partly by bribery, partly by a regulated form
OF plage bring IN to the centre all that the cOun-
try can supply, and in this instance ''the country
! covers whole departmental. At least ten de-
| partments of France are at this moment under
foreign requistion 80 searching land severe that
| the unhappy peasantry are deprived not
only OF all they own their cattle their crops, their
CARTS and their horses but OF all the stores upon
which they must rely for their own food In Alsace
whole villages are reported to be peTshing OF hun.
ger, and in all the ten departments stripped by the
UhlanB the visitation Is equivalent TO cpruee-fOl
the peasants impressed 20 drive the carts-and
murrain which Kills all the horses and a paguG
which Kills ali the cattle aud blight which destroys
all the crops all occurring at once aud together.
Outrage to women would appear TO be unknown
IL always be stopped when the snldiery is sOOe
| and the Germans like the North Americans re
fuse 10 consider soldiership an excuse for crime
| Even without this aggravation, the suffering in
nicted by this invasion Is fearful and though tn
nation in part brought it on itself, though we hOl
Casarsm 10 be teTTibe an evil that its extinction
| Is even worth war, our sympathy and we beiev
| that OF all Englishmen, IL now beginning to be an
sorbed by the unhappy people OF France, who, unde
all this hail OF calamtes, still refuse TO believe tina
| tley be overcome.