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Title: The Origin of the Red Cross: "Un souvenir de Solferino"

Author: Henry Dunant

Translator: Anna B. Heylin Wright

Release date: January 19, 2016 [eBook #50968]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Bryan Ness, Moti Ben-Ari and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
        file was produced from images generously made available
        by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ORIGIN OF THE RED CROSS: "UN SOUVENIR DE SOLFERINO" ***




Produced by Bryan Ness, Moti Ben-Ari and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)









[Illustration: JEAN HENRI DUNANT]




  _The_ ORIGIN _of_
  _the_ RED CROSS

  "_Un Souvenir
  de Solferino_"

  BY
  HENRI DUNANT

  Translated from the French by
  MRS. DAVID H. WRIGHT,
  of the Philadelphia Chapter of the American
  Red Cross, Independence Hall.
  Philadelphia, Pa.

  1911
  THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.
  PHILADELPHIA, PA.




  Copyright, 1911,
  By MRS. DAVID H. WRIGHT.




  AMERICAN RED CROSS.
  WASHINGTON, D. C., November 9, 1910.

  Mrs. David H. Wright,
  Philadelphia, Pa.

  DEAR MRS. WRIGHT:

I appreciate and thank you for your courtesy in dedicating to me, as
President of the American Red Cross, this recent translation of Henri
Dunant's "Un Souvenir de Solferino."

Whoever calls attention of the people to the sufferings and misery
caused by war so that men realizing its results become loath to
undertake it, performs a public service.

[Illustration: handwritten signature of William Howard Taft]
_President American Red Cross._




_EDITOR'S NOTE_


_So far as is known, this book of such far-reaching influence has never
before been translated or published in English._




PREFACE


_Henri Dunant, the famous author of "A Souvenir of Solferino," was born
in Geneva in 1828._

_The instruction and philanthropic principles received by him in his
youth, together with his natural energy and power of organization, were
a good foundation for the unfolding of the ideas and inclinations which
led to his fertile acts._

_In 1859 occurred the event which definitely impelled him to a course
of action which did not discontinue during his whole life. A course of
action for the mitigation of the sufferings caused by war, or from a
broader point of view, for the commencement of the reign of peace._

_This event was the battle of Solferino, when he first organized, in
Castiglione, corps of volunteers to search for and nurse the wounded._

_Having thus started the idea of a permanent organization of these
voluntary bands of compassionate workers, and also of an international
treaty agreement in regard to the wounded, he presented himself to
Marshal MacMahon and afterwards to Napoleon III, who became interested
in the project of Dunant and immediately ordered his army no longer to
make prisoners of the physicians and nurses of the enemy._

_Soon Dunant organized an Aid Committee in Geneva, and shortly
afterwards he published his "Souvenir of Solferino," which was
enthusiastically received and greatly applauded._

_He met, however, opposition and obstacles, principally from the French
Minister of War._

_The philanthropic ideas of this book were received with interest
by many European sovereigns with whom Dunant had intercourse,
either by correspondence or by conversation; he always propagated
persistently his ideas in regard to the organization of a national
permanent committee for the wounded, his International Treaty, and the
neutralization of those injured in war (he developed in separate works
his ideas which were outlined only in the "Souvenir")._

_The Geneva Society of Public Utility created a commission for the
purpose of studying the question. Meanwhile Dunant had the opportunity
to speak with the King of Saxony, and to persuade representatives of
some other countries to take up the question with their respective
sovereigns._

_Dunant interested the governments so much in his project that various
nations sent delegates to the International Conference, which was
held in Geneva, in 1863, when it was decided to establish a National
Committee, and when the desire was expressed that the neutralization
of the physicians, nurses and injured should be provided by treaty,
and for the adoption of a distinctive and uniform international emblem
and flag for the hospital corps, and the unanimous thanks of this
Conference were extended to Dunant._

_To consider this subject, a diplomatic International Congress was held
in 1864, at Geneva, by invitation of the Swiss Federate Counsel. The
treaty there drafted accepted the projects of Dunant and the formation
of Volunteer Aid Societies, later called Red Cross Societies, was
recommended by the Convention to the signatory powers._

_In the further development of the ideas of Dunant The Hague
Conference, in 1899, extended the provisions of the Treaty of Geneva to
naval warfare._

_Thus, a single individual, inspired with the sentiment of kindness
and compassion for his fellow-creatures, by his own untiring energy
attained the realization of his ideas, and aided in the progress of
mankind toward peace._

_Thus, truly all men, and above all, the workers for peace, owe to this
laborer merited and everlasting gratitude and remembrance._

       *       *       *       *       *

_The recompense, however, arrived late._

_In the zealous propaganda, for which, during four years, he edited
pamphlets and articles in all languages, and traveled continuously
through the whole of Europe, Dunant spent everything that he possessed,
and, for many years, nothing more was heard of the modest and good man,
to whom the approval of his conscience was all sufficient._

_At last, in 1897, he was discovered in the Swiss village of Heiden,
where he was living in misery, in a "Home" for old men, with almost no
means other than a small pension received from the Empress of Russia._

_The Baroness von Suttner sent at that time to the press of the whole
world, and especially to those interested in International Peace,
an appeal to raise a contribution of money to ease his last years.
In 1901, when the Nobel-Peace-Prize, valued at 208,000 francs, was
awarded for the first time, it was divided between Henri Dunant and
Frederick Passy._

_It is true that many peace workers did not approve of this decision
of the Nobel Committee. They said in opposition, that the projects of
Dunant not only were not pacific, but could even have the contrary
effect. To lessen the terrors of war is really, according to them,
to destroy the most effective means of turning men from it, and
consequently tended to prolong the duration of its reign. One of the
chief representatives of this idea, Signor H. H. Fried, said that the
Geneva Convention was only a small concession by the governments to the
new idea that is fighting against war._

_Without doubt, they do not approve of the humane plan of Dunant, on
the contrary, they think that it is not essentially peace-making; that
it should not be recompensed by the first peace prize, and that it is
dangerous to confuse pacification with simple humanitarianism._

_The contrary opinion is shown by the following words, written by
Signor Ruyssin, in the review "Peace by Right," at the time when Dunant
received his prize:_

_"His glory has grown each year in proportion to all the lessening of
suffering which his work has accomplished, to all the lives which it
saves, and to all the self-devotion to which it gives birth._

_"Henri Dunant has decreased the abomination of war; Frederick Passy
fought to make it impossible. One has accomplished more; the other has
created more remote, but brighter hopes. One has harvested already;
the other sows for the future harvest; and so it would be arbitrary
and unjust to compare such dissimilar lines of work, both equally
meritorious. The accomplishment of the wishes of Nobel rightly placed
identical crowns on the heads of two old men who employed their lives
in fighting against war."_

_This disagreement is interesting in that it shows the contrary
judgment to which different zealous peace workers were led in regard to
the project of Dunant._

_Whatever may be the conclusion of the reader, about the relation
between it and the peace propaganda, he will certainly be of the
opinion that "A Souvenir of Solferino," showing the abominations of
war, is a useful instrument of the propaganda, and that the name of
Dunant should be blessed, as that of one of the most self-devoted
benefactors of mankind._

_Henri Dunant died at Heiden, Switzerland, on October the thirty-first,
1910._




THE ORIGIN OF THE RED CROSS


The bloody victory of Magenta opened the gates of Milan to the
French Army, which the towns of Pavia, Lodi and Cremona welcomed
enthusiastically.

The Austrians, abandoning the lines of the Adda, the Oglio, and the
Chiese, gathered their forces on the bank of the River Mincio, at whose
head the young and courageous Emperor Joseph placed himself.

The King of Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel, arrived on the seventeenth
of June, 1859, at Brescia, where, with great joy, the inhabitants
welcomed him, seeing in the son of Charles Albert a saviour and a hero.
During the next day the French Emperor entered the same town amid the
enthusiastic cries of the people, happy to show their gratitude to the
monarch who came to help them gain their independence.

On the twenty-first of June, Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel II
left Brescia, from which place their armies had departed during the
previous day. On the twenty-second they occupied Lonato, Castenedolo
and Montechiaro. On the evening of the twenty-third Napoleon, who was
commander-in-chief, published strict orders for the army of the King
of Sardinia, encamped at Desenzano, and forming the left flank of the
allied armies, to proceed early the following day to Pozzelengo.

Marshal Baraguey d'Hilliers was ordered to march on Solferino; Marshal
MacMahon, Duke de Magenta, on Cavriana; General Neil was to proceed to
Guidizzolo; Marshal Canrobert to Medole; Marshal Regnaud de Saint-Jean
d'Angley, with the Imperial Guard, to Castiglione.

These united forces amounted to 150,000 men, with 400 cannon.

The Austrian Emperor had at his disposition, in the Lombardo-Venetian
kingdom, nine army corps, amounting in all to 250,000 men, comprising
the garrison of Verona and Mantua. The effective force prepared to
enter the line of battle consisted of seven corps, some 170,000 men,
supported by 500 cannon.

The headquarters of the Emperor Francis Joseph had been moved from
Verona to Villafranca, then to Valeggio. On the evening of the
twenty-third the Austrian troops received the order to recross the
River Mincio during the night to Peschiera, Salionze, Valeggio, Ferri,
Goito and Mantua. The main part of the army took up its position from
Pozzolengo to Guidizzolo, in order to attack the enemy between the
Rivers Mincio and Chiese.

The Austrian forces formed two armies. The first having as
Commander-in-chief Count Wimpffen, under whose orders were the corps
commanded by Field Marshals Prince Edmund Schwarzenberg, Count
Schaffgotsche and Baron Veigl, also the cavalry division of Count
Zeidewitz. This composed the left flank. It was stationed in the
neighborhood of Volta, Guidizzolo, Medole and Castel-Gioffredo.

The second army was commanded by Count Schlick, having under his orders
the Field Marshals Count Clam-Gallas, Count Stadion, Baron Zobel and
Cavalier Benedek, as well as the cavalry division of Count Mensdorf.
This composed the right flank. It occupied Cavriana, Pozzolengo and San
Martino.

Thus, on the morning of the twenty-fourth, the Austrians occupied all
the heights between Pozzolengo, Solferino, Cavriana and Guidizzolo.
They ranged their artillery in series of breastworks, forming the
center of the attacking line, which permitted their right and left
flanks to fall back upon these fortified heights which they believed to
be unconquerable.

The two belligerent armies, although marching one against the other,
did not expect such a sudden meeting. Austria, misinformed, supposed
that only a part of the allied army had crossed the Chiese River. On
their side the confederates did not expect this attack in return, and
did not believe that they would find themselves so soon before the army
of the Austrian Emperor. The reconnoitering, the observations and the
reports of the scouts, and those made from the fire balloons during the
day of the twenty-third showed no signs of such an imminent encounter.

The collision of the armies of Austria and Franco-Sardinia on Friday,
the twenty-fourth of June, 1859, was, therefore, unexpected, although
the combatants on both sides conjectured that a great battle was near.

The Austrian army, already fatigued by the difficult march during the
night of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth, had to support from the
earliest dawn the attack of the enemies' armies and to suffer from the
intensely hot weather as well as from hunger and thirst, for, except
a double ration of brandy, the greater number of the Austrians were
unable to take any food.

The French troops already in movement before daybreak had had nothing
but coffee. Therefore, this exhaustion of the soldiers, and above all,
of the unfortunate wounded, was extreme at the end of this very bloody
battle, which lasted more than fifteen hours.

Both armies are awake.

Three hundred thousand men are standing face to face. The line of
battle is ten miles long.

Already at three o'clock in the morning, corps commanded by Marshals
Baraguey d'Hilliers and MacMahon are commencing to move on Solferino
and Cavriana.

Hardly have the advance columns passed Castiglione when they themselves
are in the presence of the first posts of the Austrians, who dispute
the ground.

On all sides bugles are playing the charges and the drums are sounding.

The Emperor Napoleon who passed the night at Montechiaro hastens
rapidly to Castiglione.

By six o'clock a furious fire has commenced.

The Austrians march in a compact mass in perfect order along the open
roads. In the air are flying their black and yellow standards, on which
are embroidered the ancient Imperial arms.

The day is very clear. The Italian sun makes the brilliant equipments
of the dragoons, the lancers and the cuirassiers of the French army
glitter brightly.

At the commencement of the engagement the Emperor Francis Joseph,
together with his entire staff, leaves headquarters in order to go to
Volta. He is accompanied by the Archdukes of the House of Lorraine,
among whom are the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Modena.

In the midst of the difficulties of a field unknown to the French
army the first meeting takes place. It has to make its way through
plantations of mulberry trees, interlaced by climbing vines, which form
almost impassable barriers.

The earth is cut by great dried up trenches which the horses have to
leap, and by long walls with broad foundations which they have to climb.

From the hills the Austrians pour on the enemy a constant hail of shot
and shell. With the smoke of the cannon's continual discharge the
rain of bullets is ploughing up the earth and dust into thousands of
missiles.

The French hurl themselves upon these strongly fortified places in
spite of the firing of the batteries which falls upon the earth with
redoubled force.

During the burning heat of noon the battle everywhere becomes more and
more furious.

Column after column throw themselves one against the other with the
force of a devastating torrent.

A number of French regiments surround masses of Austrian troops, but,
like iron walls, these resist and at first remain unshaken.

Entire divisions throw their knapsacks to the earth in order to rush at
the enemy with fixed bayonets.

If a battalion is driven away another replaces it; each hill, each
height, each rocky eminence becomes a theatre for an obstinate struggle.

On the heights, as well as in the ravines, the dead lie piled up. The
Austrians and the allied armies march one against the other, killing
each other above the blood-covered corpses, butchering with gunshots,
crushing each other's skulls or disemboweling with the sword or
bayonet. No cessation in the conflict, no quarter given. The wounded
are defending themselves to the last. It is butchery by madmen drunk
with blood.

Sometimes the fighting becomes more terrible on account of the arrival
of rushing, galloping cavalry. The horses, more compassionate than
their riders, seek in vain to step over the victims of this butchery,
but their iron hoofs crush the dead and dying. With the neighing of
the horses are mingled blasphemies, cries of rage, shrieks of pain and
despair.

The artillery, at full speed, follows the cavalry which has cut a way
through the corpses and the wounded lying in confusion on the ground.
A jaw-bone of one of these last is torn away; the head of another is
battered in; the breast of a third is crushed. Limbs are broken and
bruised; the field is covered with human remains; the earth is soaked
with blood.

The French troops, with fiery ardor, scale the steep hills and rocky
declivities in spite of shot and shell.

Hardly does some harassed and profusely perspiring company capture
a hill and reach its summit, when it falls like an avalanche on the
Austrians, overthrows, repulses and pursues them to the depths of the
hollows.

But the Austrians regain the advantage. Ambuscaded behind the houses,
the churches and the walls of Medole, Solferino and Cavriana, they
heroically fight on and very nearly win the victory.

The unending combat rages incessantly and in every place with fury.
Nothing stops, nothing interrupts the butchery. They are killing
one another by the hundreds. Every foot of ground is carried at the
bayonet's point, every post disputed foot by foot. From the hands of
the enemy are taken villages, house after house, farm after farm, each
is the theatre of a siege. Doors, windows and courts are abattoirs.

A rain of cannon balls is sending death to the distant reserves of
Austria. If these desert the field they yield it only step by step, and
soon recommence action. Their ranks are ceaselessly reforming. On the
plains the wind raises the dust, which flies over the roads like dense
clouds, darkening the day and blinding the fighters.

The French cavalry flings itself on the Austrian cavalry; uhlans and
hussars slash furiously at each other with their swords.

The rage is so great that in some places, after the exhaustion of the
cartridges and the breaking of the muskets, they fight with fists and
beat one another with stones.

The strongest positions are captured, lost, and recaptured, to be lost
again. Everywhere men are falling mutilated, riddled with bullets,
covered with wounds.

In the midst of these endless combats, these massacres, blasphemies
arise in different tongues, telling of the diverse nationalities of the
men, many of whom are obliged to become homicides in their twentieth
year.

The soldiers of the Sardinian King, defending and attacking with
fervor, continue their skirmishes from early morning. The hills of San
Martino, Roccolo, Madonno della Scoperta are captured and recaptured
five or six times. Their Generals Mollard, La Marmora, Della Rocca,
Durando, Fanti, Cialdini, Cucchiari, de Sonnoz, with all kinds and all
grades of officers help the king before whose eyes lie the wounded
Generals Cedale, Perrier and Arnoldi.

The French Emperor orders that the corps of Baraguey d'Hilliers and
MacMahon, together with the Imperial Guard, attack at the same time the
fortress of San Cassiano and occupy Solferino.

But the brave Austrians make the allied army pay dearly for its
success.... One of its heroes, Prince Aleksandro de Hessen, after
fighting with great courage at San Cassiano defends against repeated
attacks, the three heights of Mount Fontana.... At Guidizzolo, Prince
Charles of Windischraetz, braves certain death in seeking to recapture
under a hail of balls Casa Nova. Mortally wounded, he still commands,
supported and carried by his brave soldiers, who vainly make for him a
rampart of their own bodies.

Marshal Baraguey d'Hilliers finally enters the town of Solferino,
courageously defended by Baron Stadion.

The sky is darkened, dense clouds cover the horizon. A furious wind
is rising. It carries away the broken branches of the trees. A cold
rain, driven by the tempest, a veritable cloud-burst, drenches the
combatants, exhausted from hunger and fatigue, while dust, hail and
smoke are blinding the soldiers forced to fight also the elements.

The army of the Emperor Francis Joseph retreats. Throughout the entire
action the chief of the House of Hapsburg shows admirable tranquillity
and self-control.

During the capture of Cavriana the Austrian Emperor finds himself,
together with Baron Schlick and the Prince of Nassau, on the adjacent
heights, Madonna della Pieve, opposite a church surrounded by cypress
trees. Towards evening, the Austrian center having yielded and the
left flank not daring to hope to force the position of the allies,
the general retreat is decided. In this grave moment, Emperor Francis
Joseph, around whom rained balls and bullets during the whole day,
goes with a part of his staff to Volta, while the Archdukes and the
hereditary Grand Duke of Tuscany returned to Valeggio.

The Austrian officers fought like lions. Some, through despair, let
themselves die, but sold their lives dearly. The greater number rejoin
their regiments covered with the blood of their own wounds or with that
of the enemy. To their bravery should be rendered merited praise.

... Guidizzolo remains occupied by the Austrians until ten o'clock
in the evening.... The roads are covered with army wagons, carts
and reserve artillery. The transport vans are saved by the rapid
construction of improvised bridges. The first Austrian wounded
consisting of men slightly injured, commence to enter Villafranca.
The more seriously wounded follow them. Austrian physicians and their
assistants rapidly bandage the wounds, give some nourishment to
the wounded and send them by railroad trains to Verona, where the
embarrassment is becoming terrible.

Although during its retreat the Austrian army tries to carry away all
the wounded which it could transport (and with what great suffering!),
nevertheless, thousands remain lying on the ground moistened with their
blood.

The allied army is in possession of the conquered field.

Near the close of the day when the evening shadows creep over this vast
field of carnage, more than one officer, more than one French soldier,
seek here and there a comrade, a compatriot, or a friend, when he
finds the wounded friend, he kneels beside, trying to restore him to
consciousness, wiping away the blood, bandaging the wounds as well as
he can, wrapping a handkerchief around the broken limb, but rarely can
he secure water for the suffering man.

How many silent tears were shed during this sad night, when all false
pride, all human regard were set aside.

During the battle, hospitals for the wounded established in nearby
farmhouses, churches, monasteries, in the open air, under the shade
of trees receive the wounded officers and non-commissioned officers,
who are hastily given treatment. After these comes the turn of the
soldiers, when that is possible. Those of the latter who are still
able to walk find their way to the field hospitals. The others are
carried on litters and stretchers, weakened as they are by loss of
blood, by pain, by continued lack of food, and by the mental and moral
shock they have experienced. During the battle a pennant fixed on an
elevation marks the station for the wounded and the field hospitals of
the fighting regiments. Unfortunately, only a few of the soldiers know
the color of the hospital pennant or that of the hospital flag of the
enemy, for the colors differ with the different nations. The bombs fall
upon them, sparing neither physicians, nor wounded, nor wagons loaded
with bread, wine, meat or lint.

The heights which extend from Castiglione to Volta, sparkle with
thousands of fires, which are fed by pieces of Austrian gun-wagons and
by huge branches of trees, broken by the tempest or by cannon balls.
The soldiers dry their dripping clothes; then, overcome by fatigue and
exhaustion, they fall asleep on the stones or on the ground.

What terrible episodes! What touching scenes! What disillusionments!

There are battalions without food, companies lacking almost every
necessity, because of the loss of the knapsacks. Water also is lacking,
but their thirst is so intense that officers and soldiers resort to
slimy and even bloody pools. Everywhere the wounded are begging for
water.

Through the silence of the night are heard groans, stifled cries of
anguish and pain, and heartrending voices calling for help.

Who will ever be able to paint the agonies of this horrible night!

The sun on the twenty-fifth of June, 1859, shines above one of the most
frightful sights imaginable. The battle-field is everywhere covered
with corpses of men and horses. They appear as if sown along the roads,
in the hollows, the thickets and the fields, above all, near the
village of Solferino.

The fields ready for the harvest are ruined, the grain trodden down,
the fences overturned, the orchards destroyed.

Here and there one finds pools of blood.

The villages are deserted. They bear traces of bullets, of bombs and
shells and grenades.

The houses whose walls have been pierced with bullets and are gaping
widely, are shaken and ruined.

The inhabitants, of whom the greater number have passed almost twenty
hours in the refuge of their cellars, without light or food, are
commencing to come out. The look of stupor of these poor peasants bears
testimony to the long terror they have endured.

The ground is covered with all kinds of debris, broken pieces of arms,
articles of equipments and blood-stained clothing.

The miserable wounded gathered up during the day are pale, livid and
inert.

Some, principally those seriously injured, have a vacant look, they
seem not to understand what is said to them. They turn their staring
eyes toward those who bring them help.

Others, in a dangerous state of nervous shock, are shaking with
convulsive tremblings.

Still others, with uncovered wounds, where inflammation has already
appeared, seem frenzied with pain; they beg that someone may end their
sufferings, and, with drawn faces, writhe in the last torments of agony.

Elsewhere, poor fellows are prostrated on the ground by bullets and
bursting shells. Their arms and legs have been fractured by the cannon
wheels that have passed over them.

The shock of the cylindrical ball shatters the bones, so that the wound
it causes is always very dangerous. The bursting of shells and the
conical balls make extremely painful fractures, the internal injury
being terrible. Every kind of pieces of bone, of earth, of lead, of
clothing, of equipments, of shoes, aggravate and irritate the wounds of
the patients and increase their sufferings.

Those who cross this vast field of yesterday's battle meet at every
step, in the midst of a confusion without parallel, inexpressible
despair and suffering of every kind.

Some of the battalions which had taken off their knapsacks during the
battle, at last find them again, but they have been robbed of all their
contents. During the night, vagabonds have stolen everything. A grave
loss to the poor men whose linen and uniforms are stained and torn. Not
only do they find themselves deprived of their clothing, but even their
smallest savings, all their fortune as well as of the treasures dear to
them; small family mementoes given by mothers, sisters and sweethearts.

In several places the dead are stripped of their clothing by the
thieves, who do not always spare the wounded who are still living.

Besides these painful sights are others still more dramatic.

Here the old, retired General Le Breton wanders, seeking his
son-in-law, the wounded General Douay, who has left his daughter,
Madame Douay, in the midst of the tumult of war, in a state of the
most cruel uneasiness. There, Colonel de Maleville, shot at Casa
Nova, expires. Here, it is Colonel de Genlis, whose dangerous wound
causes a burning fever. There, Lieutenant de Selve of the artillery,
only a few weeks out of Saint Cyr, has his right arm amputated on the
battle-field, where he was wounded.

I help care for a poor sergeant-major of the Vincennes Chasseurs, both
of whose legs are pierced through with balls. I meet him again in the
Brescia Hospital; but he will die crossing Mount Cenis.

Lieutenant de Guiseul, who was believed dead, is picked up on the
spot, where, having fallen with his standard, he was lying in a swoon.
The courageous sub-lieutenant Fournier, of the flying-guard, gravely
wounded, finishes in his twentieth year a military career commenced in
his tenth year by voluntarily enlisting in the foreign legion. They
bury the Commander de Pontgibaud, who died during the night, and the
young Count de Saint Paer, who had attained the rank of major hardly
seven days before. General Auger, of the artillery, is carried to the
field hospital of Casa Morino. His left shoulder has been shattered by
a six-inch shell, part of which remained imbedded for twenty-four hours
in the interior of the muscles of the armpit. Carried to Castiglione he
is attacked with gangrene, and dies as a result of the disarticulation
of the arm. General de Ladmirault and General Dieu, both gravely
wounded, also arrived at Castiglione.

The lack of water becomes greater and greater. The sun is burning, the
ditches are dried up. The soldiers have only brackish and unwholesome
water to appease their thirst. Where even the least little stream or
spring trickling drop by drop is found, guards with loaded guns have
great difficulty in preserving this water for the most urgent needs.

Wounded horses, who have lost their riders, and have wandered during
the whole night, drag themselves to their comrades, from whom they seem
to beg for help. They are put out of their agony by a bullet. One of
these noble chargers comes alone into the midst of a French company.
The rich saddle-bag, fastened to the saddle, shows that it belongs to
Prince von Isenberg. Afterwards, the wounded Prince himself is found;
but careful nursing during a serious illness will allow him to return
to Germany, where his family, in ignorance of the truth, have believed
him dead and have mourned for him.

Among the dead some have peaceful faces; these are the men who were
struck suddenly and died at once. But those who did not perish
immediately have their limbs rigid and twisted in agony, their bodies
are covered with dirt; their hands clutch the earth, their eyes are
open and staring, a convulsive contraction has uncovered their clenched
teeth.

Three days and three nights are passed in burying the dead who are left
on the battle-field.

On so large a field, many of the corpses hidden in the ditches, covered
by the thickets or by some uneveness of the ground are discovered very
late. They, as well as the dead horses, emit a fetid stench.

In the French army a number of soldiers from each company are detailed
to recognize and bury the dead. As far as possible soldiers of the
same corps must pick up their fellow-members. They write down the
number stamped on the clothing of the dead. Then, aided in this painful
duty by paid Lombardy peasants, they put the corpses in a common grave.
Unfortunately, it is possible that, because of the unavoidable rapidity
in this labor, and because of the carelessness and inattention of the
paid workmen, more than one living man is buried with the dead.

The letters, papers, orders, money, watches found on the officers are
sent to their families, but the great number of the interred bodies
make the faithful accomplishment of this task impossible.

A son, the idol of his parents, educated and cared for during many
years by a loving mother who was uneasy at the very slightest
indisposition. A brilliant officer, beloved by his family, having left
at home his wife and children. A young soldier who has just left his
betrothed and his mother, sisters and old father; there he lies in the
mud and in the dust, soaked in his own blood. Because of the wound in
his head his face has become unrecognizable. He is in agony, he expires
in cruel suffering, and his body, black, swollen, hideous, thrown in
a shallow grave, is covered with a little lime and earth. The birds
of prey will not respect his feet and hands protruding from the muddy
ground of the slope which serves him as a tomb. Someone will come back,
will carry more earth there and, perhaps, will put up a wooden cross
above the place where his body rests, and that will be all.

The corpses of the Austrians, clothed in mud-stained cloaks, torn linen
jackets, white tunics stained with blood are strewn by thousands on
the hills and plains of Medole. Clouds of crows fly over the bodies in
hopes of having them for prey.

By hundreds they are crowded into a great common grave.

Once out of the line of fire, Austrian soldiers, slightly wounded,
young first-year recruits, throw themselves on the ground from fatigue
and inanition, then weakened by loss of blood, they die miserably from
exhaustion and hunger.

Unhappy mothers in Austria, Hungary and Bohemia, your sorrow will be
great when you learn that your children died in the enemy's country,
without care, without help, and without consolation!

The lot of the Austrian prisoners-of-war is very sad. Led like simple
cattle, they are sent in a crowd, with a strong guard, to Brescia,
where they at last find repose, if not a kind welcome.

Some French soldiers wish to do violence to the Hungarian
captives whom they take for Croates, adding furiously that those
"Glued-pantalooners," as they called them, always killed the wounded.
I succeeded in tearing from their hands these unfortunate, trembling
captives.

On the battle-field many Austrians are permitted to keep their swords.
They have the same food as the French officers. Some troops of the
allied army fraternally divide their biscuits with the famished
prisoners. Some even take the wounded on their backs and carry them to
the ambulances. Near me the lieutenant of the guard bandages with his
white handkerchief the head of a Tyrolese which was scarcely covered
with old, torn, and dirty linen.

During the previous day at the height of the battle, Commandant de la
Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, the fearless African hunter, threw himself
upon a squad of Hungarians; but his horse having been pierced through
with balls, he himself was struck by two shots and made prisoner by the
Hungarians. Learning that wounded La Rochefoucauld had been captured
by the soldiers, the Austrian Emperor ordered that he be treated with
great kindness and given the best care.

The commissary continue to pick up the wounded. These, bandaged or not,
are carried by mules or wheelbarrows and litters to the field hospitals
in the villages and towns near the place where they fell.

In these towns, churches, monasteries, houses, parks, courts, streets
and promenades are transformed into improvised hospitals.

In Carpenedolo, Castel-Goffredo, Medole, Guidizzolo, Volta and
neighboring places are arriving many of the wounded. But the greater
number are carried to Castiglione, where the least mutilated have
already succeeded in dragging themselves.

Behold the long procession of vehicles of the Commissary Department,
loaded with soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers of all
grades mixed together; cavalry-men, infantry, artillerymen, bleeding,
fatigued, lacerated, covered with dust. Each jolt of the wagons which
carry them imposing on them new suffering.

Then the mules come trotting in, their gait drawing, each instant,
bitter cries from the throats of the unfortunate wounded whom they are
bearing.

Many die during the transportation.

Their corpses are put on the sides of the roads. To others is left the
duty of burying them. These dead are enscribed, "Disappeared."

The wounded are sent to Castiglione. From there they are carried on to
the hospitals in Brescia, Cremona, Bergama, Milan, and other cities
of Lombardy, where they will receive the regular care and will submit
to the necessary amputations. But as the means of transportation are
very scarce, they are obliged to wait several days in Castiglione. This
city, where the confusion surpasses all imagination, soon becomes for
the French and Austrians a vast temporary hospital.

On the day of battle the field-hospital of headquarters is established
there. Chests of lint are unpacked, dressings for wounds and medicate
necessities are prepared. The inhabitants give everything that they can
get ready--coverings, linens, mattresses and straw.

The Hospital of Castiglione, the monastery, the Barracks of San Luigi,
the Church of the Capucines, the stations of the police, the churches
of Maggiore, San Giuseppe, Santa Rosalie, are filled with the wounded
lying crowded on the straw.

Straw is also arranged for them in the courts and in the public parks.
Plank roofs are quickly put up and linen is stretched to protect them
from the hot sun.

The private dwellings are soon converted into hospitals. Officers and
soldiers are there received by the inhabitants.

Some of these last run through the streets anxiously searching for a
physician for their guests. Later, others, in consternation, go and
come through the city, insistently begging that someone take away from
their houses the corpses with which they do not know what to do.

A number of French surgeons, having remained in Castiglione, aided by
young Italian physicians and by hospital orderlies, dress and bandage
the wounds.

But all this is very insufficient.

The number of convoys of wounded becomes so great during Saturday
that the administration, the citizens and the few soldiers left in
Castiglione are incapable of caring for so much misery.

Then, melancholy scenes occur. There is water; there is food; and
nevertheless the wounded are dying of hunger and thirst. There is much
lint, but not enough hands to put it on the wounds! The greater number
of the army of physicians must go to Cavriana; the hospital orderlies
make mistakes, and hands are lacking at this critical moment.

A voluntary service, good or bad, must be organized. But this is
difficult in the midst of such disorder, to which is added a panic of
the Castiglionians, which results in aggravating the misery of the
wounded. This panic is caused by a very insignificant circumstance.

As each corps of the French army had recovered itself, after taking up
its position, on the day after the battle, convoys of prisoners were
formed who were sent to Brescia, through Castiglione and Montechiaro.
The inhabitants took one band of captives coming from Cavriana escorted
by hussars, for the Austrian army returning in force. Alarm was given
by the frightened peasants, by the assistant conductors of the baggage,
by itinerant merchants who follow the troops in a campaign.

Immediately all the houses are closed, the inhabitants barricading
themselves in their homes, burning the tri-color flags which had
adorned their windows, hiding themselves in the cellars or the attics.
Some run into the fields with their wives and children carrying with
them their most valuable possessions. Others, less frightened and more
sagacious, remain at home, but take in the first Austrian wounded upon
whom they lay their hands and overwhelm them with kindness and care.

In the streets, on the roads, blocked by wagonloads of wounded, by
convoys of supplies, are rapid transport wagons, horses flying in all
directions, amid cries of fear, of anger and of pain. Baggage wagons
are overturned, bread and biscuits fall into the gutter. The drivers
detach the horses, dashing away with hanging bridles on the road to
Brescia, spreading the alarm as they go. They collide with carts of
provisions and convoys of wounded. These latter, trodden under foot and
frenzied with terror, beg to be taken with them. In the city some of
them deaf to all orders tear away their bandages, go staggering out of
the churches, into the streets where they are jostled and bruised and
finally fall from exhaustion and pain.

       *       *       *       *       *

What agonies! What suffering during the days of June twenty-fifth,
twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh!

Wounds poisoned by heat, by dust and by lack of water and care, have
become intensely painful.

Suffocating stenches pollute the air in spite of efforts to keep in
good condition these local hospitals.

Every quarter of an hour the convoys sent to Castiglione are bringing
new loads of wounded. The insufficiency in the number of assistants, of
hospital orderlies, of servants is cruelly felt.

In spite of the activity of the Commissary Department, which is
organizing transportation to Brescia by means of ox-carts; in spite of
the spontaneous care of the inhabitants of Castiglione, who transport
the sick, the departures are much less numerous than the arrivals, and
the crowding grows unceasingly greater.

On the stone floors of the churches of Castiglione are placed, side
by side, men of every nation. French, Germans, Slavs and Arabs are
temporarily crowded to the most remote part of the chapels. Many have
no longer the strength to move themselves and cannot move or stir in
the narrow space where they are lying. Oaths, blasphemies and cries
which can be interpreted by no expression, are sounding beneath the
arches of the sanctuaries.

"Ah, sir, how I suffer!" say to me some of these poor fellows. "We are
abandoned, left to die miserably, and yet we fought bravely!" They can
get no rest, in spite of the nights they have passed in sleeplessness
and long-endured fatigue. In their distress they beg for help which
is not given. Some, in despair, roll in convulsions which will end in
tetanus and death. Others, believing that the cold water poured on
their festered wounds produce worms, which appear in great numbers,
refuse to have the bandages moistened. Others still, whose wounds
were dressed at the improvised hospitals on the battle-fields, are
given no further attention during the halt they are obliged to make
in Castiglione, and as these bandages are very tight, in view of the
roughness of the transportation and have not been changed, they are
suffering veritable tortures.

These, whose faces are black with flies, with which the air is infested
and which cling to their wounds, cast on all sides distracted glances.
But no one notices. On these, the cloaks, shirts, flesh and blood form
a compact mass that cannot be removed.

Here, lies a soldier totally disfigured; his tongue hanging far out
of his broken jaws. He stirs and wishes to rise. I moisten his dried
palate and hardened tongue. Seizing a handful of lint I soak it in
a bucket and squeeze the water from this improvised sponge in the
formless opening which is in the place of his mouth.

There, is an unfortunate man a part of whose face, the nose, lips and
chin have been cut away by the stroke of a sword. Incapable of speech,
half blind, he makes signs with his hands, and by that heartrending
pantomime, accompanied by guttural sounds, draws attention to himself.
I give him a drink by dropping gently on his blood-covered face a
little pure water.

A third, with a cleft head, expires, his blood spreading over the stone
floor of the church. He presents a horrible sight. His companions in
misfortune push him with their feet, for he incommodes the passage. I
protect his last moments and cover with a handkerchief his poor head
which he still feebly moves.

Although every house has become an infirmary, and every family has
dedicated itself to nursing the wounded officers, that it has gathered
in, nevertheless I succeed by Sunday morning in collecting a certain
number of women of the people, who assist, as best they can, in the
efforts made to help so many thousands of wounded men who are without
succor. Food must be given, and above all, drink, to the men who
literally are dying from hunger and thirst. Wounds must be bandaged,
blood-stained bodies, covered all over with dirt and vermin, must be
washed, and all this must be done in the extremely hot weather, in the
midst of the suffocating, nauseating stench, and of groans and cries of
pain.

Nevertheless, a little group of volunteers is formed. I organize, well
as I can, aid in the section which seems to be the most without care,
and I choose one of the churches of Castiglione, called Chiesa Maggiore.

Nearly five hundred soldiers are crowded together on the straw, about
one hundred others, suffering and groaning, are lying in the public
park before the church.

In the church the women of Lombardy go from one to the other with
jars and pitchers full of clear water, which serves to appease the
thirst and to bathe the wounds. Some of these improvised nurses
are good-hearted old women, others are charming young girls. Their
gentleness, goodness, compassion, and their attentive care restores a
little courage to the wounded.

The boys of the neighborhood come and go between the church and the
nearby springs with buckets, pitchers and jars.

The distribution of water is followed by that of bouillon and soup, of
which the servants of the Commissary Department are obliged to cook a
marvelous quantity.

Thick bundles of lint are placed here and there. Everyone can use it
freely; but bandages, linen and shirts are lacking, and one can hardly
procure the most necessary articles. I purchase, however, some new
shirts by the aid of those kind-hearted women who have already given
all their old linen; and, on Monday, early in the morning, I send my
coachman to Brescia to bring back supplies. He returns after some hours
with his cabriolet loaded with sponges, linen, pins, cigars, tobacco,
camomile, mallow, sambuca, oranges, sugar and lemons.

This makes it possible to give refreshing lemonade, wash the wounds
with mallow-water, put on warm compresses and renew the material of the
bandages.

In the meantime we have gained some recruits, who help us. The first
is an old naval officer, then some English tourists, who, desiring to
see everything, have entered the church, and whom we keep almost by
force. Two other Englishmen, on the contrary, show themselves desirous
to help. They distribute cigars to the Austrians. An Italian priest,
three or four travelers, a Swiss merchant from Neuchatel, a Parisian
journalist, who afterwards takes charge of the relief in the adjacent
church, and some officers whose company has received orders to remain
in Castiglione, also aid us.

But soon some of those voluntary nurses go away, not being able to bear
the sight of this suffering. The priest follows their example, but he
reappears, however, with delicate kindness to make us smell aromatic
herbs and bottles of salts. A tourist, oppressed at the sight of these
living debris, swooned from emotion. The merchant from Neuchatel
perseveres for two days, bandaging wounds and writing for the dying
letters of farewell to their families. We are obliged to quiet the
compassionate excitement of a Belgian, fearing that he will have an
attack of burning fever.

Some men of the detachment, left to garrison the city, try to help
their comrades, but cannot endure the sight which breaks down their
courage, striking too keenly upon their imagination. Nevertheless, a
corporal of the engineer corps, wounded at Magenta, almost restored to
health and about to return to his battalion, but whose orders leave him
a few days of liberty, aids us with courage and perseverance.

The French Commissary, remaining in Castiglione, finally grants, on my
insistence, authority to utilize for service in the hospitals, some
healthy prisoners, and three or four Austrian physicians who aid the
efforts of the few surgeons left in Castiglione.

A German physician remaining voluntarily on the battle-field to care
for the soldiers, dedicates himself to the injured of both armies.
After three days the Commissary sends him back to Mantua to rejoin his
compatriots.

"Do not leave me to die," exclaim some of these agonized men seizing my
hand in despair, but their death is not long delayed.

"Ah, sir, if you would write to my father, that he might console my
poor mother!" said to me, with tears in his eyes, a corporal named
Mazuet, scarcely twenty years old. I noted down the address of his
parents and a few minutes later he had ceased to live. The parents, who
dwelt on rue d'Alger, in Lyons, and of whom this young man, enlisted
as a volunteer, was the only son, received no other information about
their child than that which I sent to them. He very probably, like so
many others, has been enscribed, "disappeared."

An old sergeant, decorated with many chevrons, repeated with profound
melancholy and an air of conviction full of bitterness: "If someone had
cared for me sooner, I should have lived, whereas, this evening I will
die." That evening he died.

"I do not want to die! I do not want to die!" cries, with savage
energy, a grenadier of the guard, full of strength and health three
days before, but who, mortally wounded, and feeling sure that his
minutes are irrevocably numbered, fights against this dark certainty. I
talk to him, he listens to me, and this man, calmed, soothed, consoled,
finally resigns himself to die with the simplicity of a child.

In the back of the church, on the steps of an altar, a Chasseur
d'Afrique lies on straw. Three balls have struck him, one on the right
side, one on the left shoulder, the third remained in the right leg. It
is Sunday, and he asserts that he has eaten nothing since Friday. He is
covered with dried mud flecked with blood, his clothing is torn; his
shirt is in tatters. After I had washed his wounds, given him a little
bouillon and wrapped him in covers, he put my hand to his lips with an
expression of unspeakable gratitude. Later we were able to send him to
a better hospital.

At the entrance of the church is a Hungarian who cries unceasingly,
calling in heartrending tones for a physician. His back and his
shoulders, ploughed with grapeshot, appear as if torn by iron hooks and
are one mass of quivering, raw flesh. The rest of his body is swollen,
green and black--horrible. He can neither lie down nor sit up. I dip
some packages of lint in cool water and try to make a cushion for him,
but gangrene soon carries him off.

A little further on lies a dying Zouave who is weeping bitter tears,
and we console him as if he were a little child. The preceding fatigue,
the lack of food and repose, the intensity of the pain, the fear of
dying without help, excites even in these brave soldiers a nervous
sensibility which betrays itself by sobs. One of their chief thoughts,
when they are not suffering too cruelly, is the memory of their mother,
and the fear of the grief she will experience on learning of their
fate. On the corpse of a soldier we found, hanging from his neck, a
medallion containing the portrait of an aged woman, without doubt his
mother, which with his left hand he was pressing on his heart.

In the part nearest the great door of the church Maggiore lie, now, on
straw, enveloped in covers, about a hundred French non-commissioned
officers and soldiers. They are ranged in two nearly parallel ranks,
between which one can pass. Their wounds have been dressed. The
distribution of soup has taken place. They are quiet. They follow me
with their eyes; all heads turn to the left if I go to the left, to
the right when I go to the right. Sincere thanks are visible on their
astonished faces. "One can easily see that he is a Parisian," say some.
"No," retort others, "he seems to be a Southerner." "Truly, sir, are
you not from Bordeaux?" asks a third, and each wishes that I might
be from his city or province. I met afterwards some of these wounded
men, who had become crippled invalids. Recognizing me, they stopped
to express their gratitude because I had nursed them in Castiglione.
"We called you 'the gentleman in white,'" said one, in his picturesque
language, "for you were always dressed entirely in white. It is true
the weather did not fail to be hot."

The resignation of the poor soldiers was often touching; they suffered
without complaint, they died humbly and silently.

On the other side of the church, some wounded Austrian prisoners
fear to receive care which they distrust. They angrily tear off
their bandages, opening their bleeding wounds. Others remain silent,
dejected, impassive. But the greater number are far from being
insensible to kindness and their faces express their thanks. One of
them, about nineteen years of age, who with forty of his compatriots is
pushed into the deep recesses of the church, has been without food for
two days. He has lost one eye, he trembles with fever, he is scarcely
able to speak or to drink a little bouillon. Our nursing revives him;
twenty-four hours later when we are able to send him to Brescia, he
leaves us with sorrow, almost with despair, pressing to his lips the
hands of the good-hearted women of Castiglione, whom he entreats not to
abandon him.

Another prisoner, a prey to a burning fever, draws attention to
himself. He is not yet twenty years of age and his hair is already
perfectly white; it became white during the battle, as his wounded
comrades near whom he lies assure us.

The women of Castiglione, seeing that I make no distinction in
nationality, imitate my example, showing the same kindness to all these
men of such different origin and who are to them all equally strangers.
"Tutti Fratelli," they repeat with compassion. "All are brothers."

Honor to these compassionate women, to these young girls of
Castiglione! As devoted as they are modest, they give way neither
before fatigue, nor disgust, nor sacrifice; nothing repels, wearies or
disheartens them.

For the soldier recommencing the everyday life of the campaign, after
the fatigue and emotions of a battle like that of Solferino, the
memories of his family become more strong than ever. That mental state
is vividly described by the following lines from an officer writing
from Volta to his brother in France:

"You cannot imagine how the soldiers are moved when they catch sight
of the baggage-master who distributes the letters to the army; because
he brings to us, understand, news from France, from our native land,
from our parents, from our friends. Each one listens, watches, and
stretches to him eager hands. The happy men, who receive a letter--open
it hurriedly and devour it immediately; the rest, deprived of this
happiness, depart with heavy heart and isolate themselves in order to
think about those so far away.

"Sometimes a name is called to which there is no response. The men
glance at each other, they question among themselves, they wait.
'Dead,' murmurs a voice, and the baggage-master files the letter away
and returns it unopened to the writer. They had rejoiced when they sent
it, and had said to one another. 'He will be happy to receive it!' When
they see it returned, their poor hearts will break."

The streets of Castiglione are quieter; the deaths and the departures
have left vacancies.

In spite of the arrival of new wagons full of wounded, order, little by
little, is established and regular attendance commences.

The convoys from Castiglione to Brescia are more frequent. They consist
principally of hospital wagons and heavy carts which, constantly
carrying, to the French Commissary Department, gun supplies, and
provisions, go back empty to Brescia.

They are drawn by oxen, walking slowly under the fierce sun and through
the thick dust in which the pedestrian sinks to his ankles. These
uncomfortable wagons are covered with branches of trees which very
imperfectly protect from the rays of the coming sun. The wounded, piled
up, one may say, one upon another. It is difficult to imagine the
torments of this long ride.

In these wagons some groan, others call for their mother; there are the
ravings and delirium of fever, sometimes curses and blasphemies.

The least interest shown to these unhappy men, a kind salutation, gives
them pleasure and they return it at once with expressions of gratitude.

In all the villages along the road leading to Brescia, the women
sitting before their doors, silently prepare lint. The Communal
authorities have had prepared, drinks, bread and nourishment. When a
convoy arrives the women of the village go to the wagons, wash the
wounds, renew the lint compresses, which they moisten with fresh water.
They pour spoonfuls of bouillon, wine or lemonade in the mouths of
those who have not the strength to raise their heads or extend their
arms.

In Montechiaro, three small hospitals are under the care of the women
of the people, who nurse with as much wisdom as kindheartedness. In
Guidizzolo, about one thousand invalids are placed in a large castle.
In Volta, some hundreds of Austrians are received in an old monastery
which has been transformed into barracks. In Cavriana, they establish
in the church a number of Hungarians who had been forty-eight hours
without help. In the field-hospital of the headquarters, chloroform is
used in operating; this produces, in the Austrians, almost immediate
insensibility, and in the French nervous contractions, accompanied by
exaltation before unconsciousness results.

The people of Cavriana are entirely without provisions; the soldiers of
the guard feed them by sharing with them their rations and their mess;
the country has been laid waste, and almost everything edible, cattle,
garden produce, etc., has been sold to the Austrian troops. The French
army has campaign food in abundance, but only with difficulty can it
procure the butter, meat and vegetables necessary for the ordinary food
of soldiers.

The wounded of the Sardinian army, who have been transported to
Desenzano, Rivoltella, Lonato, and Pozzolenzo, are in conditions less
disadvantageous than the French and Austrians temporarily established
in Castiglione--Desenzano and Rivoltella not having been occupied
at a few days interval by two different armies. Food is still to be
found there; the hospitals are better kept and the inhabitants, less
troubled, actively support the nursing service. The sick are sent
to Brescia in good carts provided with thick beds of hay. They are
protected from the sun by arches of interlaced foliage which support a
strong linen cover.

The feeling that one has of his own insufficiency in such solemn
circumstances, is an inexpressible suffering. It is extremely painful
to feel that you cannot help all those who lie before you, because of
their great number, or aid those who appeal to you with supplications.
Long hours pass before you reach the most unfortunate. You are stopped
by one, petitioned by another, all equally worthy of pity. Embarrassed
at each step by the multitude of miserable sufferers who press about
you, who surround you, who beg support and help. Then, why turn to the
left, while on the right are so many men who will soon die without a
word of consolation, without even a single glass of water to appease
their burning thirst? The thought of the importance of one human life
that one might be able to save; the desire to alleviate the tortures
of so many unfortunate and to restore their courage, the forced and
unceasing activity which one imposes on himself in such moments,
gives a supreme energy, a thirst to carry help to the greatest number
possible. One becomes no longer moved by the thousand scenes of this
terrible tragedy, one passes, with indifference, before the most
hideously disfigured corpses and glances almost coldly at sights, so
much more horrible than those already described, that the pen refuses
absolutely to depict them; but it happens, sometimes, that the heart
suddenly breaks, struck all at once by a poignant sadness at the sight
of a single incident, an isolated fact, an unexpected detail, which
goes directly to the soul, draws out our sympathy, moves the most
impressionable cords of our being and brings a realization of the whole
horror of this tragedy.

Worn out with fatigue, but unable to sleep, I have my little carriage
harnessed on the afternoon of Monday, the twenty-seventh, and go away
about 6 o'clock to breathe in the open air the freshness of the evening
and to find a little repose by escaping, for a moment, from the dismal
sights which surround me on every side in Castiglione.

It was a favorable time, for no movement of the troops had been
ordered during the day.

Calm had succeeded the terrible agitation of the previous days.
Here and there are visible pools of dried blood which redden the
battle-field. One meets newly turned earth, white with freshly
strewn lime, indicating the place where repose the victims of the
twenty-fourth.

At Solferino, whose square tower has proudly dominated for some
centuries that country, where for the third time have just met two of
the greatest powers of modern days, one still picks up much debris
which covers, even in the cemeteries, the crosses and the bloody stones
of the tombs. The ground is strewn with swords, guns, haversacks,
cartridge boxes, tin boxes, shakos, helmets and belts. Almost
everything is twisted, torn and broken.

I arrive at Cavriana at about 9 o'clock in the evening.

The train of war surrounding the headquarters of the Emperor of France
is an imposing sight.

I seek the Marshal, Duke of Magenta, with whom I am personally
acquainted.

Not knowing exactly where his army corps is encamped, I stop my little
carriage on the park opposite the house occupied, since Friday
evening, by the Emperor Napoleon. I find myself suddenly in the midst
of a group of generals, sitting on straw chairs and wooden stools,
smoking their cigars and inhaling the fresh air before the improvised
palace of the Sovereign.

While I inquire about the location of Marshal MacMahon, several
generals, very suspicious of my arrival, question the corporal, wounded
at Magenta, who begged permission to accompany me on this excursion
through the armies as his rank would ensure me safe conduct. Sitting
beside the coachman, he gives me, in a certain degree, official
character. The generals desire to know who I am and to discover the
object of the mission with which they suppose I am charged, for they
cannot imagine that a simple traveler would dare to risk himself alone
in the midst of the camps at such a time.

The corporal, who knows nothing, remains impenetrable, while he replies
respectfully to their questions. Their curiosity increases considerably
when they see me leave for Borghetto where the Duke of Magenta is.

The second corps, commanded by the Marshal, has been moved from
Cavriana to Castellaro, which is at a distance of five kilometers;
its divisions are encamped on the right and left of the road leading
from Castellaro to Monzambano. The Marshal, himself, with his staff,
occupies Borghetto.

Although the night has arrived, we continue our way. The fires of the
bivouac, fed by whole trees, and the lighted tents of the officers,
present a picturesque appearance. The last murmurings of a sleeping,
yet watchful, camp soothes a little my excited imagination. Under this
beautiful star-lit sky, a solemn silence at last takes the place of the
noises and emotions of the preceding days. I breathe with delight the
pure sweet air of a splendid Italian night.

Having obtained only incomplete information, we mistake our way and
follow a road leading to Volta. We are about to fall into the army
corps of General Neil, made Marshal three days before, which is
encamped on the outskirts of the town.

My Italian coachman is so frightened at the idea of being very near the
Austrian lines that, more than once, I am obliged to take the reins
from his hands and give them to the corporal seated beside him on the
box. The poor man had run away from Mantua several days before to save
himself from the Austrian service, taking refuge in Brescia, he hired
out as a coachman. His fears grow greater on hearing the discharge of a
distant gun, fired by someone who disappears in the underbrush. After
the retreat of the Austrian army, many of the deserters hid themselves
in the cellars of the houses of the villages, abandoned by their owners
and partially plundered. In order not to be captured, they, at first,
ate and drank in those underground retreats, then, being at the end of
their resources and pressed by hunger, but well armed, they ventured
out at night.

The unhappy and terrified Mantuan can no longer guide his horse. He
constantly turns his head, he casts affrighted glances at all the
thickets along the road, at all the hedges and hovels, fearing, any
moment, to see emerge some hidden Austrians.

His fears increase at every turn of the road and he almost swoons,
when, in the silence of the night we are surprised with a shot from a
guard, whom we do not see on account of the darkness. His terror knows
no limit when we almost collide with a large, wide open umbrella which
we vaguely catch sight of at the side of the road near a path leading
to Volta. That poor umbrella, riddled with bullets and balls was,
probably, a part of the baggage of some canteen-woman who had lost it
during the storm of the twenty-fourth.

We were retracing the road to reach Borghetto. It was after 11 o'clock.
We were making the horse gallop and our modest vehicle rolled across
the space, almost without noise, on to the Strato Cavallara, when cries
of "Who goes there? Who goes there? Who goes there? or I fire," came
like a bolt from the mouth of an invisible sentinel. "France," replies
immediately a loud voice, which adds, in giving his rank: "Corporal
in the First Engineer Corps, Company Seventh." "Go on," is the reply.
Without this presence of mind of the corporal we would have received a
shot almost in the face.

Finally, at a quarter before twelve we reach, without other adventure,
the first houses of Borghetto.

All is dark and silent. However, a light shines on the ground floor
of a house on the principal street, where are at work in a low room
the accounting officers. Although embarrassed in their work and very
much astonished at our appearance at such an hour, they treat us very
kindly. A paymaster, Signor Outrey, gives me a cordial invitation to
be his guest. His orderly brings a mattress on which I throw myself,
completely dressed, to rest for several hours, after drinking some
excellent bouillon, which seems to me the more delicious as I am
hungry and for several days have eaten nothing even passable. I can
sleep quietly, not being, as in Castiglione, suffocated with fetid
exhalations and tormented with the flies, which though satiated with
corpses, attack also the living.

The corporal and the driver settled themselves simply in the carriage,
remaining in the street, but the unfortunate Mantuan, always in great
terror, could not shut his eyes during the whole night and the next day
he was more dead than alive.

Tuesday, the twenty-eighth, at six in the morning I was received
most kindly by Marshal MacMahon. At ten o'clock I was on the way to
Cavriana. Soon after I entered the modest house, since historic, for
there was lodged the Emperor Napoleon.

At three o'clock in the afternoon I found myself once more in the midst
of the wounded of Castiglione, who expressed their joy at seeing me
again.

The thirtieth of June I was in Brescia.

This city, so charming and picturesque, is transformed, not into a
large temporary shelter for the wounded like Castiglione, but into
a vast hospital. Its two cathedrals, its palaces, its churches, its
monasteries, its colleges, its barracks, in a word all its buildings
receive the victims of Solferino.

Fifteen thousand beds, of some sort, have been improvised in
forty-eight hours. The inhabitants have done more than was ever done
before under similar circumstances.

In the centre of the city the old basilica, "il Duomo recchio,"
contains a thousand wounded. The people come to them in crowds, women
of every class bring them quantities of oranges, jellies, biscuits and
delicacies. The humblest widow or the poorest little old woman believes
that she must present her tribute of sympathy and her modest offering.

Similar scenes occur in the new cathedral, a magnificent temple of
white marble, where the wounded are taken by the hundreds. It is the
same in forty other buildings, churches or hospitals which contain
nearly twenty thousand wounded.

The municipality of Brescia understood the extraordinary duty imposed
upon it by such grave circumstances. With a permanent existence it
associates with itself the best men of the town, who bring to it eager
co-operation.

In opening a monastery, a school, a church, the municipality created,
in a few hours, as if by magic, hospitals with hundreds of beds, vast
kitchens, improvised laundries for linen and everything that would be
necessary.

These measures were taken with so much courage that, after a few days,
one was able to admire the good order and regular management of these
hurriedly arranged hospitals. The population of Brescia, which was
forty thousand, was suddenly almost doubled by the great number of
wounded and sick. The physicians, numbering one hundred and forty,
displayed great self-devotion during the whole duration of their
fatiguing service. They were helped by the medical students and some
volunteers. Aid committees being organized, a special commission was
appointed to receive donations of bedding, linen and provisions of all
kinds; another commission administered the depot or central store house.

In the large rooms of the hospitals, the officers are ordinarily
separated from the soldiers. The Austrians are not mixed with the
allies. The series of beds are all alike, on the shelf above the bed of
each soldier, his uniform and military cap indicate to which branch of
the service he belongs.

They have commenced to refuse permission for the crowd to enter, it
embarrasses and hinders the nurses.

At the side of soldiers, with resigned faces, are others who murmur
and complain. The idea of an amputation scarcely frightens the French
soldier, because of his careless nature, but he is impatient and
irritable; the Austrian, of a less thoughtless disposition, is more
inclined to be melancholy in his isolation.

I find in these hospital wards some of our wounded from Castiglione.
They are better cared for now, but their torments are not ended.

Here, is one of the heroes of the Imperial Flying Guard, wounded at
Solferino. Shot in the leg, he passed several days at Castiglione,
where I dressed his wounds for the first time. He is stretched on a
straw mattress; the expression of his face denotes profound suffering;
his eyes are hollow and shining; his great pallor gives evidence that
purulent fever has set in to complicate and increase the gravity of his
condition; his lips are dry; his voice trembles; the assurance of the
brave man has given place to fear and timidity; care even unnerves him;
he is afraid to have any one approach his poor injured leg which the
gangrene has already attacked.

A French surgeon, who makes the amputations, passes by his bed; the
sick man, whose touch is like burning iron, seizes his hand and presses
it in his own.

"Do not hurt me! My suffering is terrible!" he cries.

But one must act, and without delay. Twenty other wounded must be
operated on during the same morning, and one hundred and fifty are
waiting for bandages. One has not time to pity a single case nor to
await the end of his hesitation. The surgeon, cool and resolute,
replies: "Let me do it." Then he rapidly lifts the covering. The broken
leg is swollen double its natural size; from three places flows a
quantity of fetid pus, purple stains prove that as an artery has been
broken, the sole remedy, if there is one, is amputation.

Amputation! Terrible word for this poor young man, who sees before him
no other alternative than an immediate death or the miserable life of a
cripple.

He has no time to prepare himself for the last decision, and trembling
with anguish, he cries out in despair: "Oh! What are you going to do?"
The surgeon does not reply. "Nurse, carry him away, make haste!" he
says. But a heartrending cry bursts from that panting breast; the
unskilled nurse has seized the motionless, yet sensitive, leg much too
near the wound; the broken bones penetrating the flesh, has caused new
torments to the soldier whose hanging leg shakes with the jolts of the
transportation to the operating room.

Fearful procession! It seems as if one were leading a victim to death.

He lies finally on the operating table. Nearby, on another table, a
linen covers the instruments. The surgeon, occupied with his work,
hears and sees only his operation. A young army doctor holds the arms
of the patient, while the nurse seizes the healthy leg and draws the
invalid to the edge of the table. At this the frightened man shrieks:
"Do not let me fall!" and he seizes convulsively in his arms the young
physician, ready to support him and who pale from emotion is himself
almost equally distressed.

The operator, one knee on the floor and his hand armed with the
terrible knife, places his arm about the gangrenous limb and cuts
the skin all around. A piercing cry sounds through the hospital. The
young physician, face to face, with the tormented man can see on his
contracted features every detail of his atrocious agony.

"Courage," he says, in a low tone to the soldier, whose hands he feels
gripping his back, "two minutes more and you will be saved."

The doctor stands up again; he separates the skin from the muscles
which it covers, leaving them bare; as he draws back the skin he cuts
away the flesh, then returning to the attack, with a vigorous turn, he
cuts away every muscle to the bone; a torrent of blood gushes out of
the arteries, just opened, covering the operator and flowing down on to
the floor.

Calm and expressionless, the rough operator does not speak a word; but,
suddenly, in the midst of the silence reigning in the room, he turns
in anger to the awkward nurse, reproaching him for not knowing how to
press on the arteries. This latter, inexperienced, did not know how to
prevent the hemorrhage by applying his thumb properly on the bleeding
arteries.

The wounded man, overcome by suffering, articulates feebly, "Oh! it is
enough, let me die!" and a cold sweat runs down his face.

But he must bear it still another minute,--a minute which seems an
eternity.

The young physician, ever full of sympathy, counts the seconds as he
watches sometimes the operating surgeon, sometimes the patient, whose
courage he tries to sustain, saying to him: "Only one minute more!"

Indeed, the moment for the saw has come and already one hears the
grinding of the steel as it penetrates the living bone, separating from
the body the member half gangrenous.

But the pain has been too great for that weak, exhausted body; the
groans have ceased, for the sick man has swooned. The surgeon, who is
no longer guided by his cries and his groans, fearing that this silence
may be that of death, looks at him uneasily to assure himself that he
has not expired.

The restoratives, held in reserve, succeed, with difficulty, in
reviving his dull, half-closed, vacant eyes. The dying man, however,
seems to return to life, he is weak and shattered, but at least his
greatest sufferings are over.

Imagine such an operation on an Austrian, understanding neither
Italian nor French and letting himself be led like a sheep or an ox to
slaughter without being able to exchange one word with his well-meaning
tormentors! The French meet everywhere with sympathy; they are
flattered, pampered, encouraged; when one speaks to them about the
battle of Solferino, they brighten up and discuss it: That memory, full
of glory for them; drawing their thoughts elsewhere than on themselves,
lessens a little their unhappiness. But the Austrians have not this
good fortune. In the hospitals where they are crowded, I insist upon
seeing them and almost by force enter their rooms. With what gratitude
these good men welcome my words of consolation and the gift of a little
tobacco! On their resigned faces is depicted a lively gratitude, which
they do not know how to express. Their looks tell more than any word of
thanks.

Some of them possess two or three paper florins, a small fortune for
them, but they cannot change this modest value for coins.

The officers particularly show hearty appreciation of the attentions
bestowed upon them. In the hospital where he is lodged, Prince von
Isenburg occupies with another German prince, a comfortable little room.

During several successive days I distribute, without distinction of
nationality, tobacco, pipes and cigars in the churches and hospitals
where the odor of the tobacco lessens a little the nauseous stench
produced by the crowding of so many patients in suffocating places.
Besides that, it is a distraction, a means of dispelling the fears of
the wounded before the amputation of a member; not a few are operated
on with a pipe in the mouth, and some die smoking.

Finally all the supply of tobacco in Brescia is exhausted. It must be
brought from Milan.

An eminent inhabitant of Brescia, Signor Carlo Borghetti, takes me in
his carriage, from hospital to hospital. He helps me to distribute my
modest gifts of tobacco, arranged by the merchants in thousands of
little bags that are carried by willing soldiers in very large baskets.

Everywhere I am well received. Only a doctor of Lombardy, named Calini,
will not allow the distribution of cigars in the hospital San Luca,
which is confided to his care. In other places the physicians, on the
contrary, show themselves almost as grateful as their patients. But
wishing to try once more at San Luca, I visit again that hospital and
succeed in making a large distribution of cigars, to the great joy
the poor wounded, whom I had innocently made suffer the torments of
Tantalus.

During the course of my investigations I penetrate into a series
of rooms forming the second floor of a large monastery, a kind of
labyrinth of which the ground and the first floors are full of the
sick. I find in one of the upper rooms four or five wounded and
feverish patients, in another ten or fifteen, in a third about twenty,
all neglected (this is very excusable; there were so many wounded,
everywhere), complaining bitterly of not having seen a nurse for
several hours and begging insistently that someone bring them bouillon
in place of cold water which they have for their only drink. At the
end of an interminable corridor, in a little isolated room, is dying
absolutely alone, motionless on a mattress, a young corporal attacked
with tetanus. Although he seems full of life as his eyes are wide open,
he hears and understands nothing and remains neglected.

Many of the soldiers beg me to write to their relatives, some to their
captains, who replace in their eyes their absent families.

In the hospital of Saint Clement, a lady of Brescia, Countess Bronna,
occupies herself, with saintly self-abnegation, in nursing those
who have had limbs amputated. The French soldiers speak of her with
enthusiasm, the most repellant details do not stop her. "Sono madre!"
she says to me with simplicity: "I am a mother!" These words well
express her devotion as complete as motherly.

In the hospital San Gaetano, a Franciscan monk, distinguishes himself
by his zeal and kindness to the sick. A convalescent Piedmontese,
speaking French and Italian, translates the petitions of the French
soldiers to the Lombardy physicians. They keep him as interpreter.

In a neighboring hospital chloroform is used. Some patients are
chloroformed with difficulty, accidents result and sometimes it is
in vain that they try to revive a man who a few minutes before was
speaking.

I am stopped many times on the street by kind people who beg me to come
to their homes, for a minute, to act as interpreter to the wounded
French officers, lodged in their houses, surrounded by the best care,
but whose language they do not understand. The invalids, excited and
uneasy, are irritated at not being understood, to the great distress of
the family whose sympathetic kindness is received with the bad humour
that fever and suffering often call forth. One of them, whom an Italian
physician desires to bleed, imagining that they wish to amputate him,
resists with all his strength, overheating himself and doing himself
much harm. A few words of explanation in their mother tongue, in the
midst of this lamentable confusion, alone succeed in calming and
tranquilizing these invalids of Solferino.

With what patience the inhabitants of Brescia devote themselves to
these who have sacrificed themselves in order to deliver them from a
foreign rule! They feel a real grief when their charge dies. These
adopted families religiously follow to the cemetery, accompanying to
its last resting place, the coffin of the French officer, their guest
of a few days, for whom they weep as for a friend, a relative or a son,
but whose name, perhaps, they do not know.

During the night the soldiers, who have died in the hospitals, are
interred. Their names and numbers are noted down, which was rarely done
in Castiglione. For example, the parents of Corporal Mazuet, aided by
me in the Chiesa Maggiore and who lived in Lyons, 3 Rue d'Alger, never
received other information about their son than that which I sent them.

All the cities of Lombardy considered it due to their honor to share in
the distribution of the wounded.

In Bergamo and Cremona special commisions organized in haste are aided
by auxiliary committees of devoted ladies. In one of the hospitals of
Cremona an Italian physician having said: "We keep the good things
for our friends of the allied army, but we give to our enemies only
what is absolutely necessary, and if they die, so much the worse for
them!" A lady, directing one of the hospitals of that city, hastened
to disapprove of these barbarous words, saying that she always took
the same care of Austrians, French and Sardinians, not wishing to make
any difference between friends and enemies, "for," she said, "Our Lord
Jesus Christ made no distinction between men when it was a question of
doing them good."

In Cremona, as everywhere else, the French physicians regret their
insufficient number. "I cannot, without profound sorrow," said Dr.
Sonrier, "think of a small room of twenty-five beds assigned, in
Cremona, to the most dangerously wounded Austrians. I see again their
faces, emaciated and wan, with complexion pallid from exhaustion and
blood poisoning, begging with heartrending gestures, accompanied by
pitiful cries, for one last favor, the amputation of a limb (which they
had hoped to save), to end an intolerable agony of which we are forced
to remain powerless spectators."

Besides the group of courageous and indefatigable surgeons, whose names
I would like to be able to cite (for, certainly, if to kill men is a
title to glory, to nurse them and cure them, often at the risk of one's
own life, merits indeed esteem and gratitude), medical students hasten
from Bologna, Pisa and other Italian cities. A Canadian surgeon, Dr.
Norman Bettun, professor of anatomy in Toronto, comes to assist these
devoted men. Besides the people of Lombardy, French, Swiss and Belgian
tourists seek to render themselves useful, but their efforts had to
be limited to the distribution of oranges, ices, coffee, lemonade and
tobacco.

In Plaisance, whose three hospitals are administered by private
individuals, and by ladies serving as nurses, one of these last, a
young lady, supplicated by her family to renounce her intention to pass
her days in the hospital, on account of the contagious fevers there,
continued her labors so willingly and with such kindness that she was
greatly esteemed by all the soldiers. "She enlivens the hospital," they
said.

How valuable, in the cities of Lombardy, would have been some hundreds
of voluntary nurses, devoted, experienced and, above all, previously
instructed! They would have rallied around themselves the meagre band
of assistants and the scattered forces. Not only was time lacking to
those who were capable of counselling and guiding; but the necessary
knowledge and experience was not possessed by the greater number of
those who could offer only personal devotion, which was insufficient
and often useless. What, indeed, in spite of their good will, could
a handful of persons do in such urgent need? After some weeks the
compassionate enthusiasm began to cool and the people, as inexperienced
as they were injudicious in their kindness, sometimes brought improper
food to the wounded, so that it was necessary to deny them entrance to
the churches and hospitals.

Many persons, who would have consented to pass one or two hours
a day with the sick, gave up their intention, because a special
permission was necessary, which could only be obtained by petitioning
the authorities. Strangers disposed to help met with all kinds of
unexpected hindrances, of a nature to discourage them. But voluntary
hospital workers, well chosen and capable, sent by societies with the
sanction of the governments and respected because of an agreement
between the belligerents, would have surmounted the difficulties and
done incomparably more good.

During the first eight days after the battle the wounded, of whom the
physicians said, in low tones, when passing by their beds and shaking
their heads: "There is nothing more to be done," received no more
attention and died neglected. And is not this very natural when the
scarcity of the nurses is compared with the enormous number of the
wounded? An inexorable and cruel logic insists that these unfortunate
men should be left to perish without further care and without having
given to them the precious time that must be reserved for the soldiers
who could be cured. They were numerous, however, and not deaf, those
unfortunate men on whom was passed such pitiless judgment! Soon they
perceive their deserted condition and with a broken and embittered
heart gasp out the last breath while no one notices.

The death of many a one among them is rendered more sad and bitter
by the proximity, on a cot by his side, of a young soldier, slightly
wounded, whose foolish jokes leave him neither peace nor tranquillity.
On the other side, one of his companions in misery has just died; and,
he dying, must see and hear the funeral ceremony, much too rapidly
performed, which shows him in advance his own. Finally, about to die,
he sees men, profiting by his weakness, search his knapsack and steal
what they desire.

For that dying man there have been, lying in the postoffice for eight
days, letters from his family; if he could have had them, they would
have been to him a great consolation; he has entreated the nurses to
bring them that he may read them before his last hour, but they replied
unkindly, that they had not time as there was so much else to do.

Better would it have been for you, poor martyr, if you had perished,
struck dead on the field of butchery, in the midst of the splendid
abomination which men call "Glory!" Your name, at least, would not have
been forgotten, if you had fallen near your colonel defending the flag
of your regiment. It would almost have been better for you had you been
buried alive by the peasants commissioned for that purpose, when you,
unconscious, were carried from the hill of the Cypresses, from the foot
of the tower of Solferino or from the plains of Medole. Your agony
would not have been long. Now, it is a succession of miseries that you
must endure, it is no longer the field of honor that is presented to
you, but cold death with all its terrors, and the word "disappeared"
for a funeral oration.

What has become of the love of glory which electrified this brave
soldier at the commencement of the campaign and during that day at
Solferino, when, risking his own life, he so courageously attempted to
take the lives of his fellow-creatures, whose blood he ran, with such
light feet, to shed? Where is the irresistible allurement? Where the
contagious enthusiasm, increased by the odor of powder, by the flourish
of trumpets and by the sound of military music, by the noise of cannon
and the whistling of bullets which hide the view of danger, suffering
and death.

In these many hospitals of Lombardy may be seen at what price is bought
that which men so proudly call "Glory," and how dearly this glory costs.

The battle of Solferino is the only one during our century to be
compared by the magnitude of its losses with the battles of Moscow,
Leipzig and Waterloo.

As a consequence of the twenty-fourth of June, 1859, it has been
calculated that there were in killed and wounded, in the Austrian and
Franco-Sardinian Armies, three field-marshals, nine generals, fifteen
hundred and sixty-six officers of all grades, of whom six hundred and
thirty were Austrians and nine hundred and thirty-six allies, and about
forty thousand soldiers and non-commissioned officers.

Besides that, from the fifteenth of June to the thirty-first of August,
there were in the hospitals of Brescia, according to the official
statistics, nineteen thousand six hundred and sixty-five patients with
fever and other illnesses, of whom more than nineteen thousand belonged
to the Franco-Sardinian Army.

On their side, the Austrians had at least twenty thousand sick soldiers
in Venice, beside ten thousand wounded, who, after Solferino, were sent
to Verona, where the overcrowded hospitals were finally attacked by
gangrene and typhus fever.

Consequently, to the forty thousand killed and wounded on the
twenty-fourth of June, must be added more than forty thousand sick with
fever or dying from illness caused by the excessive fatigue experienced
on the day of the battle or during the days which preceded and
succeeded it or from the pernicious effects of the tropical temperature
of the plains of Lombardy, or, finally, from the imprudence of these
soldiers themselves.

If one does not consider the military point of view, the battle of
Solferino was then, from the point of humanity a European catastrophe.

The transportation of the wounded from Brescia to Milan, which takes
place during the night because of the torrid heat of the day, presents
a dramatic sight with its trains loaded with crippled soldiers arriving
at the station filled with crowds of people.

Lighted by the pale flare of the tar torches, the mass of men seems
to hold its breath to listen to the groans and the stifled complaints
which reach their ears.

The Austrians, in their retreat, having torn up several places on the
railroad between Milan and Brescia--this road was restored for use
by the first days of July, for the transportation of ammunition, of
supplies and of food sent to the allied army--the evacuation of the
hospitals in Brescia was in this way facilitated.

At each station, long and narrow sheds have been constructed to receive
the wounded. These, when taken from the cars, are placed on mattresses,
arranged in a line one after the other. Under these sheds are set up
tables covered with bread, soup, lemonade, wine, water, lint, linen
and bandages. Torches, carried by the young men of the place where
the convoy stops, light the darkness. The citizens of Lombardy hasten
to present their tribute of gratitude to the conquerors of Solferino;
in respectful silence they bandage the wounded whom they have lifted
carefully out of the cars to place them on the beds made ready for
their use. The women of the country offer refreshing drinks, and food
of all kinds, which they distribute on the cars to those who must go on
to Milan.

In this city, where about a thousand wounded have arrived every night
for several nights in succession, the martyrs of Solferino are received
with great kindness. No longer are rose leaves scattered from the
flag-ornamented balconies of the luxurious palaces of the Milanese
aristocracy, on shining epaulets and on striped gold and enameled
orders, by beautiful and graceful ladies whom exaltation and enthusiasm
rendered still more beautiful. To-day, in their gratitude, they shed
tears of compassion which are interpreted by devotion and sacrifice.

Every family possessing a carriage, goes to the station to transport
the wounded. The number of equipages sent by the people of Milan
probably exceeds five hundred. The finest carriages as well as the
most modest carts are sent every evening to Porto Tosca, where stands
the railroad station for Venice. The Italian ladies consider it an
honor to themselves to place in their rich carriages, which they have
provided with mattresses, sheets and pillows, the guests assigned to
them and who are accompanied by the greatest noblemen of Lombardy,
aided in this work by their not less considerate servants.

The people applaud the passage of these men, famed because of their
suffering. They respectfully uncover their heads. They follow the
slow march of the convoy with torches illuminating the sad faces of
the wounded, who try to smile. They accompany them to the door of the
hospitable palace, where awaits them the most devoted care.

Every family wishes to receive the French wounded and, by all sorts of
kindness, try to lessen the sadness caused by distance from home, from
parents and from friends.

But after a few days the greater number of the inhabitants of Milan
are obliged to remove to the hospitals the wounded whom they have
received in their houses. The administration desires to avoid too
great scattering of the nursing and any increase of fatigue for the
physicians. Before Solferino, the hospitals of this city contained
about nine thousand wounded from preceding battles.

Great Milanese ladies watch beside the bed of the simple soldier, of
whom they become the guardian angels. Countess Verri, née Borroméo,
Madame Uboldi de Capei, Madame Boselli, Madame Sala-Taverna, Countess
Taverna and many others, forgetting their luxurious habits, pass whole
months by these beds of suffering. Some of these ladies are mothers,
whose mourning garments testify to a recent and sorrowful loss. One of
them said: "The war robbed me of my oldest son; he died eight months
ago, from a shot received while fighting with the French Army at
Sebastopol. When I knew that the French wounded were coming to Milan
and that I could nurse them, I felt that God was sending me His first
consolation."

Countess Verri-Borroméo, president of the Central Aid Committee, has
charge of the great depot for linens and lint. In spite of her advanced
age she devotes many hours a day to reading to the sick.

All the palaces contain wounded. That of the Borroméo family has
received three hundred. The Superior of the Ursulines, Sister Marina
Videmari, has converted her convent into a hospital and serves in it
with her companions. This convent-hospital is a model of order and
cleanliness.

The Marchioness Pallavicini-Trivulzio, who presides over the great
Turin Committee with admirable devotion and self-forgetfulness,
collects the donations from different cities and countries; thanks to
her activity the depot in Milan, situated contrada San Paolo, remains
always well provided.

Some weeks later, in the streets of Milan, there were seen passing
a few companies of convalescent French soldiers sadly returning to
France. Some have their arms in slings, others are supported by
crutches or bear marks of wounds. Their uniforms are well worn and
torn, but they wear fine linen, which the rich men of Lombardy have
generously given them in exchange for their blood-stained shirts:
"Your blood flowed to defend our country," they said, "and we wish
to keep these memories of it." These men, not long ago so strong, so
robust, now deprived of an arm or a leg or with head bandaged, bear
their misfortune with resignation. But, thus incapable of continuing
in the army and earning bread for their families, they already with
bitterness, behold themselves, after their return to their native
land, objects of commiseration and pity, a care to others and to
themselves.

In one of the hospitals of Milan, a sergeant of the Zouave Guard,
with an energetic and proud face, who has had one leg amputated and
had borne that operation without a complaint, was seized, some time
after, with extreme sadness, although his health was improving and his
recovery rapidly taking place. This sadness, increasing daily, was
incomprehensible. A Sister of Charity, perceiving tears in his eyes,
questioned so insistently that he at last confessed that he was the
sole support of his aged and infirm mother to whom he used to send each
month five francs of his pay. He added that, being unable to help her,
this poor woman must be in great need of money. The Sister of Charity,
touched with compassion, gave him five francs, the value of which was
immediately sent to France. When the directress of the hospital wished
to make him another gift, he would not accept it, and said to her
thankfully: "Keep this money for others who need it more than I; as for
my mother, I hope next month to send her her usual allowance, for I
count on soon being able to work."

A lady of Milan, bearing an illustrious name, placed at the disposition
of the wounded one of her palaces, with one hundred and fifty beds.
Among the soldiers, lodged in this magnificent mansion, was a grenadier
of the Seventieth Regiment of the French Infantry, who, having
undergone an operation, was in danger of death. The lady, trying to
console him, spoke to him of his family. He told her that he was the
only son of poor peasants in the Department of Gers, and that he was
very sad at leaving his parents in misery, for he alone provided
for their maintenance. He added that his greatest consolation would
be to kiss his mother before he died. Saying nothing to him of her
project, the noble lady suddenly decides to leave Milan, takes the
train, reaches the Departments of Gers, near the family, whose address
she has procured, takes possession of the mother of the wounded man.
After having left a large sum of money for the infirm old father, she
brings the humble villager with her to Milan; and six days after the
confession of the grenadier, the son kisses his mother, weeping and
blessing his benefactress.

But why recall so many pitiful and melancholy scenes and thus arouse
such painful emotions? Why relate, with complaisance, these lamentable
details and dwell upon these distressing pictures?

To this very natural question we reply with another question.

Would it not be possible to establish in every country of Europe, Aid
Societies, whose aim would be to provide, during war, volunteer nurses
for the wounded, without distinction of nationality?

As they wish us to give up the desires and hopes of the Societies
of the Friends of Peace, the beautiful dreams of the Abbot of Saint
Pierre and of Count Sellon; as men continue to kill each other without
personal enmity, and as the height of glory in war is to exterminate
the greatest number possible; as they still dare to say, as did Count
Joseph de Maistre, that "war is divine"; as they invent every day with
a perseverence worthy of a better aim, instruments of destruction more
and more terrible, and as the inventors of these death-dealing engines
are encouraged by all the European governments--who arm themselves in
emulation one of another--why not profit from a moment of comparative
calm and tranquillity in order to settle the question which we have
just raised, and which is of such great importance from the double
point of view of humanity and Christianity.

Once presented to the consideration of every man, this theme will
probably call forth opinions and writings from more competent persons;
but, first, must not this idea, presented to the different branches
of the great European family, hold the attention and conquer the
sympathies of all those who possess an elevated soul and a heart
capable of being moved by the suffering of their fellow-men?

Such is the purpose for which this book has been written.

Societies of this kind, once created, with a permanent existence, would
be found all ready at the time of war. They should obtain the favor of
the authorities of countries where they are created, and beg, in case
of war, from the sovereigns of the belligerent powers the permission
and the facilities necessary to carry out their purpose. These
societies should include in their own and each country, as members of
the central committee, the most honorable and esteemed men.

The moment of the commencement of war, the committee would call
on those persons who desire to dedicate themselves, for the time
being, to this work, which will consist in helping and nursing, under
the guidance of experienced physicians, the wounded, first on the
battle-field, then in the field and regular hospitals.

Spontaneous devotion is not as rare as one might think. Many persons,
sure of being able to do some good, helped and facilitated by a
Superior Committee, would certainly go, and others, at their own
expense, would undertake a task so essentially beneficent. During our
selfish century what an attraction for the generous-hearted and for
chivalrous characters to brave the same danger as the soldier with an
entirely voluntary mission of peace and consolation.

History proves that it is in no way chimerical to hope for such
self-devotion. Two recent facts especially have just confirmed this.
They occurred during the war in the East and closely relate to our
subject.

While Sisters of Charity were nursing the wounded and sick of the
French army in the Crimea, into the Russian and English armies, there
came, from the north and west, two groups of self-devoted women nurses.

The Grand Duchess Helen Pavlovna, of Russia, born, Princess Charlotte,
of Wurttemberg, widow of the Grand Duke Michael, having enlisted
nearly three hundred ladies of St. Petersburg and Moscow, to serve as
nurses in the Russian hospitals of the Crimea; she provided them with
everything necessary, and these saintly women were blessed by thousands
of soldiers.

In England, Miss Florence Nightingale, having received a pressing
appeal from Lord Sidney Herbert, Secretary of War of the British
Empire, inviting her to go to the aid of the English soldiers in the
Orient, this lady did not hesitate to expose herself personally by
great self-devotion. In November, 1854, she went to Constantinople and
Scutari with thirty-seven English ladies, who, immediately on arrival
gave their attention to nursing the great number of men, wounded in
the battle of Inkerman. In 1855 Miss Stanley, having come to take part
in her labor with fifty new companions, made it possible for Miss
Nightingale to go to Balaklava to inspect the hospitals there. The
picture of Miss Florence Nightingale, during the night, going through
the vast wards of the military hospitals with a small lamp in her
hand, noting the condition of each sick man, will never be obliterated
from the hearts of the men, who were the objects or the witnesses of
her admirable beneficence, and the memory of it will be engraven in
history.

Of the multitude of similar good works, ancient or modern, the greater
number of which have remained unknown and without fame, how many have
been in vain, because they were isolated and were not supported by
a united action, which would have wisely joined them together for a
common aim.

If voluntary hospital workers could have been found in Castiglione on
the twenty-fourth, the twenty-fifth, and the twenty-sixth of June, and
also in Brescia, Mantua, and Verona, how much good they might have done.

How many human beings they might have saved from death during that
fatal Friday night, when moans and heartrending supplications escaped
from the breasts of thousands of the wounded, who were enduring the
most acute pains and tormented by the inexpressible suffering of thirst.

If Prince von Isenburg had been rescued sooner, by compassionate hands,
from the blood-soaked field on which he was lying unconscious, he
would not have been obliged to suffer for several years from wounds
aggravated by long neglect; if the sight of his riderless horse had not
brought about his discovery among the corpses, he would have perished
for lack of help with so many other wounded, who also were creatures of
God, and whose death would be equally cruel for their families.

Those good old women, those beautiful young girls of Castiglione could
not save the lives of many of those whom they nursed! Besides them were
needed experienced men, skillful, decided, previously trained to act
with order and harmony, the only means of preventing the accidents,
which complicate the wounds and make them mortal.

If there could have been a sufficient number of assistants to remove
the wounded quickly from the plains of Medole, from the ravines of San
Martin, on the slopes of Mount Fontana, or on the hills of Solferino,
there would not have been left during long hours of terrible fear
that poor bersaglier, that Uhlan, or that Zouave, who tried to raise
himself, in spite of cruel suffering, to gesticulate in vain for
someone to send a litter for him. Finally, the risk of burying the
living with the dead would have been avoided.

Better means of transportation would have made it possible to avoid in
the case of the light infantryman of the Guard the terrible amputation
which he had to undergo in Brescia, because of the lack of proper care
during the journey from the battle-field to Castiglione.

The sight of those young cripples, deprived of an arm, or a leg,
returning sadly to their homes, does it not call forth remorse that
there was not more effort made before to avert the evil consequences of
the wounds, which, often could have been cured by timely aid?

Would those dead, deserted in the hospitals of Castiglione, or in
those of Brescia, many of whom could not make themselves understood,
on account of the difference of language, have gasped out their last
breath with curses and blasphemies, if they had had near them some
compassionate soul to listen to them and console them?

In spite of the official aid, in spite of the zeal of the cities of
Lombardy, much remained to be done, although in no other war has been
seen so great a display of charity; it was nevertheless unequal to the
extent of the help that was needed.

It is not the paid employee, whom disgust drives away, whom fatigue
makes unfeeling, unsympathetic and lazy who can fulfil such a noble
task. Immediate help is needed, for that which can to-day save the
wounded will not save him to-morrow; the loss of time causes gangrene,
which leads to death. One must have volunteer nurses, previously
trained, accustomed to the work, officially recognized by the
commanding officers of the armies, so that they may be facilitated in
their mission.

These nurses should not only find their place on the battle-field, but
also in the hospitals, where the long weeks pass away painfully for
the wounded, without family and without friends. During this short
Italian war, there were soldiers who were attacked with home-sickness
to such a degree that, without other illness and without wounds, they
died. On the other hand, the Italians, and this is comprehensible,
showed scarcely any interest in the wounded of the allied army, and
still less for the suffering Austrians. It is true, courageous women
were found in Italy, whose patience and perseverance never wearied;
but, unfortunately, in the end they could be easily counted; the
contagious fevers drove many persons away, and the nurses and servants
did not respond for any length of time, to that which might have been
expected of them. The personnel of the military hospitals is always
insufficient; and, if it were doubled or tripled, it would still be
insufficient. We must call on the public, it is not possible, it never
will be possible to avoid that. Only by this co-operation can one hope
to lessen the sufferings of war.

An appeal must be made, a petition presented to the men of all
countries, of all classes, to the influential of this world, as well as
to the most modest artisan, since all can, in one way or another, each
in his own sphere, and according to his strength, co-operate in some
measure in this good work.

This appeal is addressed to women as well as to men, to the queen,
to the princess seated on the steps of the throne, as well as to the
humble orphaned and charitable maid-servant or the poor widow alone in
the world, who desires to consecrate her last strength to the good of
others.

It is addressed to the general, to the marshal, the Minister of War, as
well as to the writer and the man of letters, who, by his publications,
can plead with ability for the cause, thereby interesting all mankind,
each nation, each country, each family even, since no one can say for
certain that he is exempt from the dangers of war.

If an Austrian general and a French general, after having fought
one against another at Solferino, could, soon afterwards, finding
themselves seated side by side at the hospitable table of the King
of Prussia, converse amicably one with the other, what would have
prevented them from considering and discussing a question so worthy of
their interest and attention?

During the grand manoeuvers at Cologne, in 1861, King William of
Prussia invited to dinner, in Benrath Castle, near Dusseldorf, the
officers of the different nations, who were sent there by their
governments. Before going to the table the King took by the hand
General Forey and General Baumgarten: "Now that you are friends," he
said to them, smiling, "sit there, beside one another, and chat." Forey
was the victor of Montebello, and Baumgarten was his adversary.

On extraordinary occasions, such as those which assembled at Cologne,
at Chalons, or elsewhere, eminent men of the military art of different
nations, is it not to be desired that they will profit by this kind
of congress to formulate some international, sacred, and accepted
principle which, once agreed upon and ratified, would serve as the
foundation for societies for aid for the wounded in the different
countries of Europe? It is still more important to agree upon and adopt
in advance these measures, because when hostilities have commenced,
the belligerents are ill-disposed one towards the other, and will not
consider these questions, except from the exclusive point of view of
their own interests.

Are not small congresses called together of scientists, jurists,
medical men, agriculturists, statisticians, and economists, who meet
expressly in order to consider questions of much less importance? Are
there not international societies which are occupied with questions of
charity and public utility? Cannot men, in like manner, meet to solve a
problem as important as that of caring for the victims of war?

Humanity and civilization surely demand the accomplishment of such a
work. It is a duty, to the fulfilment of which every good man, and
every person possessing any influence owes his assistance.

What prince, what ruler, would refuse his support to these societies,
and would not be glad to give the soldiers of his army the full
assurance that they will be immediately and properly nursed in case
they should be wounded?

With permanent societies, such as I propose, the chance of waste and
the injudicious distribution of money and supplies would often be
avoided. During the war in the East an enormous quantity of lint,
prepared by Russian ladies, was sent from St. Petersburg to the Crimea;
but the packages, instead of reaching the hospitals to which they were
sent, arrived at paper mills which used it all for their own industry.

By perfecting the means of transportation, by preventing the accidents
during the journey from the battle-field to the hospital, many
amputations will be avoided, and the burden of the governments, which
pension the injured will be proportionately lessened.

These societies, by their permanent existence, could also render great
service at the time of epidemics, floods, great fires, and other
unexpected catastrophes; the humane motive which would have created
them would instigate them to act on all occasions in which their labors
could be exercised.

This work will necessitate the devotion of a certain number of persons,
but it will never lack money in time of war. Each one will bring his
offering or his compassion in response to the appeals which will be
made by the committee. A nation will not remain indifferent when its
children are fighting for its defense. The difficulty is not there;
but the problem rests entirely in the serious preparation, in all
countries, of a work of this kind, that is, in the creation of these
societies.

In order to establish these committees at the head of the societies,
all that is necessary is a little good-will on the part of some
honorable and persevering persons. The committees, animated by an
international spirit of charity, would create corps of nurses in a
latent state, a sort of staff. The committees of the different nations,
although independent of one another, will know how to understand and
correspond with each other, to convene in congress and, in event of
war, to act for the good of all.

If the terrible instruments of destruction now possessed by the nations
seem to shorten wars, will not, on the other hand, the battles be
more deadly? And in this century, when the unexpected plays such an
important role, may not war bring about the most sudden and unforseen
results?

Are there not, in these considerations alone, more than sufficient
reasons for us not to allow ourselves to be taken unawares?




Transcriber's Notes

Obvious errors of punctuation and diacritics repaired.

Inconsistent hyphenation fixed.

P. 25: monastary -> monastery.

P. 71: transportation of ammunitions -> transportation of ammunition.

P. 87: manouvers -> manoeuvers.

P. 89: catastrophies -> catastrophes.





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