The destructive effect of
the modern, high-explosive shell has been well known, but it is the
trench form of warfare which, by keeping troops in stationary
positions, under grilling artillery fire, has given such shells their
opportunity. Shrapnel has not been so deadly to the men in the
trenches.
The result of the vast casualty lists has been some hundreds of
isolated hospitals scattered through France, not affiliated with any
of the Red Cross societies, unorganised, poverty-stricken, frequently
having only the services of a surgeon who can come but once a week.
They have no dressings, no nurses save peasants, no bedding, no coal
to cook even the scanty food that the villagers can spare.
No coal, for France is facing a coal famine to-day. Her coal mines are
in the territory held by the Germans. Even if she had the mines, where
would she get men to labour in them, or trains to transport the coal?
There are more than three hundred such hospitals scattered through
isolated French villages, hospitals where everything is needed. For
whatever else held fast during the first year of the war, the nursing
system of France absolutely failed. Some six hundred miles of hospital
wards there are to-day in France, with cots so close together that one
can hardly step between. It is true that with the passing of time, the
first chaos is giving way to order.
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