_Ruin of the Austrian cause at Königgrätz.--Dr. Bresser at the seat
of war.--I resolve to join him and seek for my husband.--Aspect of
the railway station and line in a time of defeat.--The
journey.--The regimental surgeon’s experiences of the horrors of
war.--I arrive at the seat of war and meet Dr. Bresser and Frau
Simon.--Night journey to Horonewos.--The horrors I saw there.--I
sink exhausted under them, and am carried back by Dr. Bresser to
Vienna.--My father takes me home, and there I am joined by my
husband, who had been wounded._
The battle of Königgrätz had been fought. Another defeat! And this time
as it seemed a decisive one. My father communicated the news to us in
such a tone as he would have used in announcing the end of the world.
And no letter, no telegram from Frederick. Was he wounded? dead? Conrad
gave his _fiancée_ news of himself--he was untouched. The lists of the
slain had not yet arrived, it was only known that there were 40,000
killed and wounded at Königgrätz; and the latest news I had had ran: “We
are moving to-day to Königgrätz”.
On the third day still not a line. I wept and wept for hours: I could
weep just because my grief was not quite hopeless; if I had known that
all was over, there would have been no tears for my load of woe. My
father too was deeply depressed. And my brother Otto was mad with thirst
for revenge. It was announced that corps of volunteers were to be formed
in Vienna. He wanted to join them. It was further announced that
Benedek was to be removed from his command and the victorious Archduke
Albert summoned to the north to take his place, and then perhaps there
might yet be a rally; the overweening enemy, who wanted altogether to
annihilate us, might be beaten back, as he would be caught on his march
on Vienna. Fear, rage, pain filled all minds; all pronounced the name of
“the Prussians” as if they were all that is detestable. My only thought
was Frederick--and no news--none!
A few days afterwards arrived a letter from Dr. Bresser. He was busy in
the neighbourhood of the battlefield in giving what assistance he could.
The need, he wrote, was without limit, mocking all power of imagination.
He had joined a Saxon physician, Dr. Brauer, who had been despatched by
his government to give them information from actual inspection on the
state of affairs. In two days a Saxon lady was to arrive--Frau Simon, a
new Miss Nightingale--who since the outbreak of the war had been busy in
the hospitals of Dresden, and who had offered to undertake the journey
to the fields of battle in Bohemia in order to render assistance in the
hospitals adjacent. Dr. Brauer, and Dr. Bresser with him, were going, on
a day named, at seven in the evening, to Königinhof, the nearest station
to Königgrätz to which the railway was still open, to await the
courageous lady there. Bresser begged us to send if possible a quantity
of bandages and such things to that station, so that he might receive
them there himself.
I had hardly read this letter before my resolution was taken. I would
take the box of bandages myself. In one of those hospitals which Frau
Simon was to visit possibly lay Frederick. I would join her and find the
dear sufferer--nurse him--save him. The idea seized me with compelling
force--so compelling that I held it to be a magnetic influence from
afar, derived from the longing wish with which the dear one was calling
for me.
Without telling any one in my family of my purpose--for I should only
have encountered resistance on all hands--I embarked on the journey a
few hours after the receipt of Bresser’s letter. I had given out that I
wanted to look out the things which the doctor required, in Vienna, and
send them off myself, and so I managed to get away from Grumitz without
difficulty. From Vienna I meant to write to my father “I am off to the
seat of war”. It is true that doubts arose in me--my incapacity and want
of experience, my horror of wounds, blood, and death--but I chased these
doubts away. What I was doing I was compelled to do. The gaze of my
husband was fixed on me, in prayer and supplication. From his bed of
pain he was stretching his arms out after me, and “I am coming, I am
coming,” was all I was able to think of.
I found the city of Vienna in unspeakable excitement and confusion.
Disturbed faces all round me. My carriage came across a number of
carriages full of wounded men. I was always looking to see whether
Frederick might be among them. But no! His longing cry, which vibrated
in my vitals, rang from far away, from Bohemia. If he had been sent off
home the news would have come to us simultaneously.
I drove to an hotel. From thence I went to look after my purchases, sent
the letter which I had prepared for Grumitz, got myself equipped in a
travelling costume most adapted for rough work, and drove to the
Northern Station. I wanted to take the first train that was starting, so
as to reach my destination in good time. I had a single fixed idea under
whose domination I carried out all my movements.
At the station all was in a bustle of life, or should I say a bustle of
death? The halls, the waiting-room, the platform, all full of wounded,
some of them at their last gasp. And a corresponding crowd of people,
sick nurses, soldiers of the sanitary department, sisters of mercy,
physicians, men and women of all ranks and occupations, who had come
there to see whether the last train had brought one of their relations;
or again, to distribute presents, wine and cigars, among the wounded.
The officials and servants, busy everywhere in pushing back the folks
who were pushing forward. They wanted to send me off too.
“What do you want there? Make way! you are forbidden to give out things
to eat and drink. Go to the committee; your presents will be taken in
there.”
“No, no,” I said; “I want to set off. When does the next train start?”
It was long before I could get information in reply to this. Most of the
departure trains, I found at last, were suspended, in order to keep the
line open for the arrival trains which were coming in, one after
another, laden with the wounded. For the day there were absolutely no
more passenger trains. There was only one with the reserve troops that
were being sent forward, and another exclusively reserved for the
service of the Patriotic Aid Society, which had to take away a number of
physicians and sisters of mercy, and a cargo of necessary material to
the neighbourhood of Königgrätz.
“And could not I go by that train?”
“Impossible.”
I heard, ever plainer and more beseeching, Frederick’s cry for help, and
could not get to him. It was enough to drive one to despair. Then I
espied at the entrance of the hall Baron S----, vice-president of the
Patriotic Aid Society, whose acquaintance I had first made in the year
of the war of ’59. I hastened to him.
“For God’s sake, Baron S----, help me. Surely you recognise me?”
“Baroness Tilling, the daughter of General Count Althaus. Of course, I
have that honour. What can I do to serve you?”
“You are sending off a train to Bohemia. Let me travel by it! My dying
husband is pining for me. If you have a heart--and your action surely
proves how fair and noble your heart is--do not reject my prayer!”
There were still all kinds of doubts and difficulties, but in the end my
wish was granted. Baron S---- called one of the physicians despatched by
the Aid Society, and recommended me to his protection as a
fellow-traveller.
There was still an hour before our departure. I wanted to go into the
waiting-room, but every available space had been turned into an
hospital. Wherever you looked, you saw cowering, prostrate, bandaged,
pale forms. I could not look at them. The little energy which I
possessed I had to save up for my journey, and for its object. I could
not venture to expend here anything of the stock of strength, of
compassion, or of power of assistance which was at my command--all
belonged to him--to him who was calling for me.
Meantime, there was no corner to be found in which a painful scene could
be spared me. I had taken refuge on the platform, and there I was
brought face to face with the most grievous of all sights, the arrival
of a long train, all whose carriages were full of wounded, and the
disembarkation of the latter. The less seriously wounded got out by
themselves, and managed to get themselves forward; but most had to be
supported, or even carried altogether. The available stretchers were at
once occupied, and the remaining patients had to wait till the bearers
returned, lying on the floor. Before my feet, at the spot where I was
sitting on a box, they laid a man who made, without cessation, a
continuous gurgling sound. I bent down to speak a word of sympathy to
him, but I started back in horror, and covered my face with both hands.
The impression on me had been too fearful. It was no longer a human
countenance--the lower jaw shot away, one eye welling out, and, added to
that, a stifling reek of blood and corruption. I should have liked to
jump up and run away, but I was deadly sick, and my head fell back
against the wall behind me. “Oh what a cowardly, feeble creature I am,”
I said, reproaching myself; “what have I to do in these abodes of
misery, where I can do nothing, nothing, to help, and am exposed to such
disgust?” Only the thought of Frederick rallied me again. Yes, for him,
even if he were in the condition of the poor wretch at my feet, I could
bear anything. I would still embrace and kiss him, and all disgust, all
horror would be drowned in that all-conquering feeling--love.
“Frederick, my Frederick, I am coming.” I repeated half-aloud this fixed
thought of mine which had seized me at the time I read Bresser’s
letter, and had never quitted me.
A fearful notion passed through my brain--what if this man should be
Frederick? I collected all my forces, and looked at him again. No, it
was not he.
* * * * *
The anxious hour of waiting did, however, come to an end. They had
carried off the poor gurgling fellow. “Lay him on the bench there,” I
heard the regimental doctor order; “he is not to be brought back into
hospital. He is already three parts dead.” And yet he must surely have
still understood the words, this three-parts-dead man; for with a
despairing gesture he raised both his hands to heaven.
Now I was sitting in a carriage with the two physicians and four sisters
of mercy. It was stiflingly hot, and the carriage was filled with the
smell of the hospital and sacristy--carbolic acid and incense. I was
unspeakably ill. I leaned back in my corner, and shut my eyes.
The train began to move. That is just the time when every traveller
brings before his mind’s eye the object towards which he is being taken.
I had often before travelled over the same ground; and then there lay
before me a visit to a château full of guests, or a pleasant
bathing-place--my wedding-tour, a blessed memory, was made on this same
route, to meet with a brilliant and loving reception in the metropolis
of “Prussia”. What a different sound that last word has assumed since
then! And to-day? What is our object to-day? A battlefield and the
hospitals round it--the abodes of death and suffering. I shuddered----
“My dear lady,” said one of the physicians, “I think you are ill
yourself. You look so pale and so suffering.”
I looked up; the speaker had a friendly, youthful appearance. I guessed
that this was his first service on being recently promoted to the rank
of surgeon. It was good of him to devote his first service to this
dangerous and laborious duty! I felt grateful to these men who were
sitting in the carriage with me for the relief which they were in the
act of bringing to the sufferers. And to the self-sacrificing
sisters--really of mercy--I paid heartfelt admiration and thanks. Yet
what was it that each of these good men had to bestow? An ounce of help
for 1000 hundredweights of need. These courageous nuns must, I thought,
bear in their hearts for _all_ men that overmastering love which filled
mine for my own husband; as I had felt just now that if the fearfully
disfigured and repulsive soldier who was gurgling at my feet had been my
husband, all my repulsion would have vanished, so these women must have
felt towards every brother-man, and surely through the power of a higher
love--that for their chosen bridegroom, Christ. But alas! here also
these noble women brought an ounce only--one ounce of love to a place
where 1000 hundredweights of hatred were raging!
“No, doctor,” I replied to the sympathetic question of the young
physician. “I am not ill, only a little exhausted.”
The staff-surgeon now joined in the conversation.
“Your husband, madam, as Baron S---- told me, was wounded at Königgrätz,
and you are travelling thither to nurse him. Do you know in which of the
villages around he is lying?”
No, I did not know.
“My destination is Königinhof,” I replied. “There a physician awaits me
who is a friend of mine--Dr. Bresser.”
“I know him. He was with me when we made a three days’ examination of
the field of battle.”
“Examined the field of battle!” I repeated with a shudder. “Let us
hear.”
“Yes, yes, doctor, let us hear,” begged one of the nuns. “Our service
may bring us into the position of helping at an examination of the
kind.”
So the regimental surgeon began his narration. Of course I cannot give
the exact words of his description; and, again, he did not speak in a
single flow of words, but with frequent interruptions, and almost with
reluctance, being only compelled to speak by the persistent questions
with which the curious nuns and I assailed him. The narration, however,
though sketchy, formed a series of perfect pictures before my mind’s
eye, which impressed themselves so on my memory that I can even now make
them pass before me. In other circumstances I should not have so clearly
comprehended and retained the doctor’s sketches--one always forgets so
easily what one has heard or read--but at that time the narratives made
almost the impression of an experience. I was in a state of high nervous
tension and excitement. My fixed thought of Frederick, which had gained
the mastery over me, made me represent Frederick to myself as a person
concerned in each scene described; and on that account they remained
fixed in my mind as painful things I had myself experienced. Later on I
noted down the events related by the regimental surgeon in the red book,
just as if they had taken place before my own eyes.
* * * * *
The ambulance was placed behind a hillock which protected it. The battle
was raging on the other side. The ground quavered, and the heated air
quavered. Clouds of smoke were rising, the artillery was roaring. Now
the duty was to send out patrols to repair to the scene of battle, pick
out the badly wounded, and bring them in. Is there anything more heroic
than such going into the midst of the hissing rain of bullets, in the
face of all the horrors of the fight, exposed to all the perils of the
fight, without allowing oneself to be penetrated by its wild excitement?
According to military conceptions this office is not distinguished. On
“the Sanitary Corps” no smart, active, handy, young fellow will serve.
No man in it turns the girls’ heads. And a field doctor, even if one is
no longer called by that name, but “regimental surgeon,” can he
nevertheless hold a comparison with any cavalry lieutenant?
The corporal of the Sanitary Corps ordered his people towards some low
ground against which a battery had opened its fire. They marched through
the dark veil of the powder smoke and the dust and the scattered earth
to a point where a cannon ball, which struck the ground at their feet,
bounded in front of them. They had only gone a few paces when they
began to meet with wounded men, men slightly wounded, who were crawling
to the ambulance, either alone or in pairs, giving each other mutual
support. One sank down; but it was not his wounds which had sapped his
strength, it was exhaustion. “We have eaten nothing for two days, made a
forced march of twelve hours, got into the bivouac, and then, two hours
afterwards, came the alarm and the fight.”
The patrol went forward. These men would find their way for themselves,
and manage to take their exhausted comrade with them. Aid must be
reserved for others still more in need of aid.
On a heap of rocks, forming part of a precipitous declivity, lies a
bleeding mass. There are a dozen soldiers lying there. The sanitary
corporal stops and bandages one or two of them. But these wounded men
are not carried off; those must first be fetched in who have fallen in
the centre of the field. Then, perhaps, on their return march, these men
can be picked up here.
And again the patrol goes on, nearer to the battle. In ever thicker
swarms wounded men are tottering on, painfully creeping forward, singly
or together. These are such as can still walk. The contents of the field
flasks is distributed amongst these, a bandage is applied to such wounds
as are bleeding, and the way to the ambulance pointed out to them. Then
forward again. Over the dead--over hillocks of corpses. Many of these
dead show traces of horrible agonies. Eyes staring unnaturally, hands
grasping the ground, the hair of the beard staring out, teeth pressed
together, lips closed spasmodically, legs stiffly outstretched. So they
lie.
Now through a hollow way. Here they are lying in heaps, dead and wounded
together. The latter greet the sanitary patrol as angels of rescue, and
beg and shriek for help. With broken voices, weeping and lamenting, they
shout for rescue, for a gulp of water. But alas! the provisions are
almost exhausted, and what can these few men do? Each ought to have a
hundred arms to be able to rescue them all. Yet each does what he can.
Then sounds the prolonged tone of the sanitary call. The men stop and
break off from their work of aid. “Do not desert us! Do not desert us!”
the poor injured men cry; but the signal horn calls again and again, and
this, plainly distinguishable from all other noises, is evidently going
further afield. Then also an adjutant comes in hot haste. “Men of the
Sanitary Corps?” “At your command,” replies the corporal. “Follow me.”
Evidently a general wounded. It is necessary to obey and leave the rest.
“Patience, comrades, and keep a good heart; we will return.” Those who
hear and those who say it know that it is not true.
And again they go further: following the adjutant, at the double quick,
who spurs on in front and points the way. There is no halting on the
way, although on the right hand and on the left resound shrieks of woe
and cries for help; and although also many bullets fall among those who
are thus hurrying on, and stretch one and another on the ground--only
onwards and over everything. Over men writhing with the pain of their
wounds, men trodden down by horses tearing over them, or crushed by guns
passing over their limbs, and who, seeing the rescue corps, mutilated as
they are, rear themselves up for the last time. Over them, over them!
* * * * *
This sort of thing goes on for pages of the red book. The relation that
the regimental surgeon gave of the march of a sanitary patrol over the
battlefield contains many similar, and even more painful things, such as
the description of moments when bullets and shells fall in the midst of
the dressers and tear up new wounds; or when the course of the battle
brings the fight on to the dressing station itself, right up on to the
ambulance, and sucks in the whole _personnel_ of the sanitary corps,
with the physicians and with the patients into the whirl of the fighting
or fleeing or pursuing troops; or when frightened riderless horses all
abroad come across the way, and overturn the stretcher on which a
severely wounded man is lying, who is now dashed to the earth all
shattered. Or this, the most gruesome picture of all--a farmyard, into
which a hundred wounded men had been carried, bandaged, and made
comfortable--the poor wretches, glad and thankful that their rescue had
been effected. Then a shell came and set the whole on fire. A minute
afterwards the hospital was in flames. The shrieks, or rather the howls,
which resounded from this abode of despair, and which in its wild agony
drowned all the other noises, will remain for ever in the memory of any
one who heard it. Ah me! it remains for ever in my memory too, though I
did not hear it; for, as the regimental surgeon was telling it, I
fancied again that Frederick was there--that I heard his shriek out of
the burning place of torture.
“You are getting ill, dear madam,” said the narrator, breaking off. “I
must have tried your nerves too much.”
But I had not yet heard enough. I assured him that my momentary weakness
was the consequence merely of the heat and of a bad night, and I was not
too tired to ask for the rest. I kept feeling still that I had not yet
heard enough; that of the infernal circles that were being described,
the description had not yet been given of the lowest and most hellish;
and when once the thirst for the horrible has been awakened it is
impossible to stop till it has been slaked by the most horrible of all.
And I was right, for there is something more hideous than a battlefield
during the fight, _viz._, one afterwards.
No more thunder of artillery, no more blare of trumpets, no more beat of
drum; only the low moans of pain and the rattle of death. In the
trampled ground some redly-glimmering pools, lakes of blood; all the
crops destroyed, only here and there a piece of land left untouched, and
still covered with stubble; the smiling villages of yesterday turned
into ruins and rubbish. The trees burned and hacked in the forests, the
hedges torn with grape-shot. And on this battle-ground thousands and
thousands of men dead and dying--dying without aid. No blossoms of
flowers are to be seen on wayside or meadow; but sabres, bayonets,
knapsacks, cloaks, overturned ammunition waggons, powder waggons blown
into the air, cannon with broken carriages. Near the cannon, whose
muzzles are black with smoke, the ground is bloodiest. There the
greatest number and the most mangled of dead and half-dead men are
lying, literally torn to pieces with shot; and the dead horses, and the
half-dead which raise themselves on their feet--such as they have left
them--to sink again; then raise themselves up once more and fall down
again, till they only raise their head to shriek out their pain-laden
death-cry. There is a hollow way quite filled with corpses trodden into
the mire. The poor creatures had taken refuge there no doubt to get
cover, but a battery has driven over them, and they have been crushed by
the horses’ hoofs and the wheels. Many of them are still alive--a pulpy,
bleeding mass, but “still alive”.
And yet there is still something more hellish even than all this, and
that is the appearance of the most vile scum of humanity, as it shows
itself in war--_i.e._, the appearance and the activity of “the hyenas of
the battlefield”. “Then slink on the monsters who grope after the spoils
of the dead, and bend over the corpses and over the living, mercilessly
tearing off their clothes from their bodies. The boots are dragged off
the bleeding limbs, the rings off the wounded hands, or to get the ring
the finger is simply chopped off, and if a man tries to defend himself
from such a sacrifice, he is murdered by these hyenas; or, in order to
make him unrecognisable, they dig his eyes out.”
I shrieked out loud at the doctor’s last words. I again saw the whole
scene before me, and the eyes into which the hyena was plunging his
knife were Frederick’s soft, blue, beloved eyes.
“Pray, forgive me, dear lady, but it was by your own wish----”
“Oh yes; I desire to hear it all. What you are now describing was the
night which follows the battle; and these scenes are enacted by the
starlight?”
“And by torchlight. The patrols which the conquerors send out to survey
the field of battle carry torches and lanterns, and red lanterns are
hoisted on signal poles to point out the places where flying hospitals
are to be established.”
“And next morning, how does the field look?”
“Almost more fearful still. The contrast between the bright, smiling
daylight and the dreadful work of man on which it shines has a
doubly-painful effect. At night the entire picture of horror is
something ghostly and fantastic. By daylight it is simply hopeless. Now
you see for the first time the mass of corpses lying around on the
lanes, between the fields, in the ditches, behind the ruins of walls.
Everywhere dead bodies--everywhere. Plundered, some of them naked; and
just the same with the wounded. These who, in spite of the nightly
labour of the Sanitary Corps, are still always lying around in numbers,
look pale and collapsed, green or yellow, with fixed and stupefied gaze,
or writhing in agonies of pain, they beg any one who comes near to put
them to death. Swarms of carrion crows settle on the tops of the trees,
and with loud croaks announce the bill of fare of the tempting banquet.
Hungry dogs, from the villages around, come running by and lick the
blood from their wounds. There are a few hyenas to be seen who are still
carrying on their work hastily further afield. And now comes the great
interment.”
“Who does that--the Sanitary Corps?”
“How could they suffice for such a mass of work? They have fully enough
to do with the wounded.”
“Then troops detailed for the work?”
“No. A crowd of men impressed, or even offering themselves
voluntarily--loiterers, baggage people, who are supporting themselves by
the market stalls, baggage waggons and so forth, and who now have been
hunted away by the force of the military operations, together with the
inhabitants of the cottages and huts--to dig trenches--good large ones,
of course--wide trenches, for they are not made deep--there is no time
for that. Into these the dead bodies are thrown, heads up or heads down
just as they come to hand. Or it is done in this way: A heap is made of
the corpses, and a foot or two of earth is heaped up over them, and then
it has the appearance of a tumulus. In a few days rain comes on and
washes the covering off the festering dead bodies! but what does that
matter? The nimble, jolly gravediggers do not look so far forward. For
jolly, merry workmen they are, that one must allow. Songs are piped out
there, and all kinds of dubious jokes made--nay, sometimes a dance of
hyenas is danced round the open trench. Whether in several of the bodies
that are shovelled into it or are covered with the earth life is still
stirring, they give themselves no trouble to think. The thing is
inevitable, for the stiff cramp often comes on after wounds. Many who
have been saved by accident have told of the danger of being buried
alive which they have escaped. But how many are there of those who are
not able to tell anything! If a man has once got a foot or two of earth
over his mouth he may well hold his tongue.”
“Oh my Frederick, my Frederick!” I groaned in my heart.
“That is the picture of the next morning,” said the surgeon, in
conclusion. “Shall I go on further and tell you what happens next
evening?”
“I will tell you that, doctor,” I broke in. “One of the two capitals of
the powers engaged has received the telegraphic news of the glorious
victory. And there in the morning, while the hyena dance is going on
round the trench, they are singing in the churches: ‘Now thank we all
the Lord,’ and in the evening there the mother or the wife of one of the
men buried alive is putting a lighted candle or two in the window-sill
because the city is illuminated.”
“Yes, madam, that is the comedy which is being played at home.
Meanwhile, on the field of battle, the tragedy is still far from played
out by the second sunset. Besides those who are carried to the hospital
or the trench, there still remain the ‘missing’. Hidden behind some
thick brushwood, in the fields of standing corn, or amongst the ruins
of buildings, they have escaped the sight of the bearers or the buriers,
and for them begins now the martyrdom of an agony which lasts many days
and nights--in the burning heat of midday--in the dark shadows of
midnight, crouched on stones and thistles, in the stench of the corpses
around and of their own putrefying wounds--a prey, while still
quivering, for the feasting vultures.”
* * * * *
What a journey that was! The regimental surgeon had long ceased to
speak, but the scenes he had described went on continually presenting
themselves before my mind’s eye. To escape from this train of thoughts
which persecuted me, I began to look out of the carriage window and try
to find distraction in the prospect of the country. But here also
pictures of the horrors of war presented themselves to my vision. It is
true that no violent devastation had taken place in this neighbourhood,
there were no ruined villages smoking there, “the enemy” had effected no
lodgment there, but what was raging there was perhaps still worse,
_viz._, the _fear_ of the enemy. “The Prussians are coming! the
Prussians are coming!” was the signal of alarm through the whole region,
and though in travelling past one did not hear the words, yet even from
the carriage window their effect was plainly to be seen. Everywhere on
all the roads and lanes were people flying, leaving their homes with bag
and baggage. Whole trains of waggons were moving inland, filled with
bedding, household furniture and provisions, all evidently packed up in
the greatest haste. On the same car would be some little pigs, the
youngest child, and one or two sacks of potatoes, beside it on foot man
and wife and the elder children; that is how I saw a family making their
escape as they moved down a road near me. Where were the poor creatures
going? They themselves very likely did not know, it was only away, away
from “the Prussians”. So men flee from the roaring fire, or the rising
flood.
Frequently a train passed us on the other line--wounded, always and
again wounded--always once more the ashy faces, the bandaged heads, the
arms in slings. At the stations especially one might feed on this sight
in all its variations to satiety. All the large or small platforms, on
which one usually sees the travelling population waiting or cheerfully
standing or walking about, were now filled with prostrate or cowering
figures. They were the invalid soldiers who had been brought from the
field-or private-hospitals in the neighbourhood, and were waiting for
the next train which might serve for the transport of the wounded. There
they might have to lie for hours; and who knows how many removals they
have already passed through! From the battlefield to the first-aid
station, from thence to the ambulance, from thence to a movable
hospital, then to the village, and now to the railway, whence they have
still the journey to Vienna before them; then from the station to the
hospital, and from thence, after all these long tortures, perhaps back
to their regiment--perhaps to the churchyard. I was so sorry--so
sorry--so terribly sorry for these poor fellows! I should have liked to
kneel down before each of them and whisper a few words of compassion to
him. But the doctor would not allow me. When we got out at a station he
gave me his arm and took me into the stationmaster’s office. There he
brought me some wine, or some other refreshment.
The nurses carried on their work of mercy here also. They gave the
wounded men drink and food, such as they could hunt up, but often there
was nothing to be had. The provisions in the refreshment rooms were
generally exhausted. This movement at the stations, especially at the
large ones, had a bewildering effect on me. It seemed to me like an evil
dream. All this running hither and thither, this confused
pell-mell--troops marching out, people flying away, sick-bearers, heaps
of bleeding and complaining soldiers, sobbing women wringing their
hands, shouts, harsh words of command--crowds on all hands, no free
passage anywhere--baggage being sent in, war material, cannons--on
another side horses and bellowing cattle, and amongst them the
continuous sound of the telegraph--trains rushing through filled, or
crowded rather, with the reserves coming up from Vienna. These soldiers
were brought along in third and fourth class carriages--nay, also in
baggage and cattle trucks--just in the same way as cattle to be
slaughtered, and regarding it as a matter of fact, I could not repress
the thought: “What else were they in reality? Were they not like the
cattle marked out for slaughter--were they not, like them, sent to the
great political market, where business is done in food for powder--what
the French call _chair-à-canon_?” A mad roar--was it a war song?--pealed
out and drowned the rattling sound of the wheels--one minute, and the
train was gone. With the speed of the wind it bore a portion of its
freight to certain death. Yes, certain death. Even if no individual can
say of himself that he is sure to fall, yet a certain percentage of the
whole must and will fall. An army marching to the field, as they sweep
along the high road on foot or on horseback, may have a touch of antique
poetry about it; but for the railroad of our modern day, the symbol of
culture binding nations together, to serve as the means for promoting
barbarism let loose--that is a thing altogether too inconsistent and
horrible. And what a false ring also has the telegraph signal used in
this service--that splendid sign of the triumph of the human intellect,
which has enabled us to propagate thought with lightning speed from one
land to another. All these inventions of the new era which are designed
to promote the intercourse of nations, to lighten, beautify, and enrich
life, are now misapplied by that old-world principle which aims at
dividing the peoples and annihilating life. Our boast before savages is:
“Look at our railroads, look at our telegraphs; we are civilised
nations”; and then we use these things to increase a hundredfold our own
savagery.
My being forced to torture myself with such thoughts as these, and these
only, as I waited at the station or pursued my way in the train, made my
grief still more deep and bitter. I almost envied those who merely wrung
their hands and wept in simple pain, who did not rise up in wrath
against the whole hideous comedy, who accused no one--not even that
“Lord of armies” of whom yet they believed that He was so, and that it
was He who was keeping suspended over their heads the misery that had
come to them.
* * * * *
It was late at night when I got to Königinhof. My travelling companions
had been obliged to get out at an earlier station. I was alone, in fear
and anxiety. How if Dr. Bresser were prevented from coming? What step
could I then take in this place? Besides I was, so to speak, broken on
the wheel by the journey, quite unnerved by all the experiences of grief
and terror that I had passed through. If it had not been for my longing
for Frederick I should have wished now for nothing but death. To be able
to lie down, go to sleep, and never wake again in a world where things
go on so horribly and so madly! But preserve me from one thing at least,
to live on and know that Frederick is among the “missing”!
The train stopped. Tired and trembling, I alighted and took out my
hand-baggage. I had taken with me a hand-basket, with some linen for
myself and charpie and bandages for the wounded, and also my travelling
dressing-case. This I had taken quite mechanically, in the belief in
which I was brought up that one could not exist without the silver cases
and baskets, the soaps and essences, the brushes and combs. Cleanliness,
that virtue of the body, corresponding to honour in the soul, that
second nature of educated humanity, what a lesson had I now to learn,
that there can be no thought of it at such times as these! That,
however, is only consistent--war is the negation of education, and
therefore all the triumphs of education must be annihilated by it; it is
a step backwards into barbarism and must therefore have everything that
is barbarous in its train, and amongst others that thing which to the
cultured man is so utterly abominable--dirt.
The chest with materials for the hospitals, which I had looked out for
Dr. Bresser in Vienna, had been given over with the other chests to the
care of the Aid Committee, and who could tell when and where they would
be delivered? I had nothing with me except my two pieces of
hand-baggage, and a bag of money round my neck containing a few hundred
florin notes. With a tottering step I crossed the rails to the platform.
There, in spite of the lateness of the hour, the same confusion
prevailed as at the other stations, and the same picture was always
repeated. Wounded men--wounded men. No, not the same picture, one still
worse. Königinhof was a place which was over-full of these unfortunates,
there was not an unoccupied room in the whole village, and now they had
brought the sick in crowds to the railway station, where, hastily
bandaged up, they were lying about everywhere--on the ground--on the
stones.
It was a dark, moonless night, the scene was illuminated only by three
or four lamps on the pillars. Exhausted and thirsting for sleep, almost
for the sleep of death, I sank on the unoccupied corner of a bench and
put my luggage on the ground in front of me.
At first I had not the courage to look about me and see whether amongst
the number of men who were busy passing to and fro here one might be Dr.
Bresser. I was almost persuaded that I should not meet him. It was at
least ten chances to one that he would be prevented from coming, or that
he would get here at another hour than the one fixed, for there was no
longer any regularity in the service, my train had certainly arrived
much later than was fixed by the railway regulations. Regulations--another
civilised conception, and so it was now set aside along with the rest.
My undertaking seemed to me now a perfect lunacy. This fancied call from
Frederick--could I then believe in mystical things of that sort? It
certainly had no foundation whatever. Who knows? Frederick was perhaps
on his way home, perhaps he was dead; why was I seeking for him here?
Another voice began now to call upon me, other arms were stretched out
to meet me. Rudolf, my son, how he would have been asking for “mamma”
and not been able to get to sleep without his mother’s kiss when he bade
“good-night”. Whither should I turn here if I did not find Bresser? And
the hope of finding him had of a sudden become as small as the hope of
the lucky number among 100,000 lots. Luckily I had my bag of money--the
possession of bank notes affords always a means of getting out of
difficulties. Mechanically I felt the place where the bag should have
been hanging. Good God! the strap by which it had been fastened had been
torn off, and the bag was gone--was lost! What a blow! And yet I had not
recourse to any complaint against my destiny. I could not lament: “How
hard fortune is hitting me!” for, at a time when misfortune was falling
in floods on all sides, to complain about a little misfortune of one’s
own would have made one blush for one’s own selfishness. And besides,
for me there was only one possibility which could alarm me--Frederick’s
death; all the rest was nothing.
I began to look at all the people present. No Dr. Bresser. What to do
now? To whom to address myself? I stopped one of the men passing----
“Where can I find the stationmaster?”
“You mean the director of the Sick Depôt--Staff-surgeon S----. He is
standing there.”
He was not the person I meant, but perhaps he would be able to give me
information about Dr. Bresser. I approached the place he pointed out.
The staff-surgeon was speaking to a gentleman standing near him.
“It is a pity,” I heard him say. “Here and at Turnau depôts have been
founded for all the hospitals of the theatre of war. Gifts are flowing
in in masses--linen, food, bandages as much as you can wish, but what is
to be done with them? How are they to be unpacked? how sorted? how sent
out? We have no hands. We could occupy a hundred active officers.”
I was just going to speak to the staff-surgeon when I saw a man hurrying
towards him in whom--O joy!--I recognised Dr. Bresser. In my excitement
I fell on the neck of my old family friend.
“You! you! Baroness Tilling! Whatever are you doing here?”
“I am come to help--to nurse. Is not Frederick in one of your
hospitals?”
“I have seen nothing of him.”
Was this a disappointment or a relief? I do not know. He was not there,
and therefore either dead or unhurt ... besides, Bresser could not
possibly know all the wounded in the neighbourhood. I must search
through all the hospitals myself.
“And Frau Simon?” I asked next.
“She has been here now some hours. A splendid woman! quick in decision,
prudent. Just now she is busied in getting the wounded who are lying
here carried into empty railway trucks. She has discovered that in a
village near, at Horonewos, the need is the greatest. She is going
there, and I am to accompany her.”
“And I also, Dr. Bresser, let me go with you.”
“Baroness Martha, where are you thinking of going? You, so delicate and
unaccustomed to such hard, bitterly hard work as this?”
“What else have I got to do here?” I said, interrupting him. “If you are
my friend, doctor, help me to carry out my purpose. I will really do
anything, perform any service. Introduce me to Frau Simon as a volunteer
nurse; but take me with you--for mercy’s sake take me with you.”
“Very well; your will shall be done. The brave lady is there. Come.”
* * * * *
When Dr. Bresser brought me to Frau Simon and introduced me to her as a
sick nurse she nodded, but turned away at once to give some order. I was
not able to see her features in the dubious light.
Five minutes later we were on our journey to Horonewos. A country
waggon which had just brought some wounded from that place served as our
conveyance. We sat upon the straw which was perhaps still bloody from
its former freight. The soldier who sat by the driver held a lantern
which threw a flickering light on our road. “An evil dream--an evil
dream.” Such was more and more the impression of what I was going
through. The only thing which brought to my mind the reality of my
situation, and which at the same time gave me repose, was Dr. Bresser’s
company. I had placed my hand in his, and his other arm supported me.
“Lean on me, Baroness Martha, my poor child,” he said softly.
I did lean on him as well as I could, but what a position of torture it
was! When one has been accustomed during the whole of one’s life to
repose upon cushioned seats, carriages on well-hung springs, and soft
beds, how heavy it falls on one all at once, after an exhausting day’s
travel, to be sitting on a jolting country cart, the hard planks of
which are cushioned only by a layer of bloody straw. And yet I was
uninjured. What then must those have felt who were hurried over stock
and stone in such a conveyance as that with shattered limbs and their
bones sticking out of their skin?
My eyelids closed with a leaden weight. A painful feeling of sleepiness
tortured me. Sleep was indeed impossible from the discomfort of my
position--every limb was aching--and from the excitement of my nerves,
but the somnolence which I could not shake off had the more terrible
effect on me. Thoughts and images, as confused as the visions of fever,
whirled through my brain. All the scenes of horror which the regimental
surgeon had described repeated themselves before my spirit, partly in
the very words of the narrator, partly as delusions of sight and
hearing, called up by those words. I kept seeing the gravediggers
shovelling in the dead, saw the hyenas sneaking up, heard the shrieks of
those who were being sacrificed in the burning lazaretto, and between
whiles words came in as if they were pronounced aloud in the accents of
the regimental surgeon, such as carrion crows, market folks, sanitary
patrols. That, however, did not prevent me from hearing the conversation
that was being carried on half aloud by my companions in the cart.
“A part of the routed army fled to Königgrätz,” Dr. Bresser said; “but
the fortress was closed and the fugitives were fired on from the
walls--especially the Saxons, who in the twilight were mistaken for
Prussians. Hundreds plunged into the ditches of the fort and were
drowned. The flight was checked by the Elbe, and the disorder reached
its height. The bridges were so overcrowded by horses and cannon that
the infantry could find no room. Thousands flung themselves into the
Elbe--even the wounded.”
“It must be a horrible state of things at Horonewos,” said Frau Simon.
“All abandoned by its inhabitants--village and castle. The whole of the
inner rooms destroyed and yet filled with helpless wounded men. What joy
will the refreshments we are bringing give the wretched men! But it will
not be enough--not enough!”
“And our medical aid is also not enough,” added Dr. Bresser. “There
should be a hundred of us, in order to do what is required; we are in
want of instruments and medicines; and would even these help us? The
overcrowding of these places is such as to threaten the outbreak of
dangerous epidemics. The first care is always this, to send away as many
wounded as possible, but their condition is usually such that no
conscientious man would take the responsibility of their transport--to
send them off means to kill them, to leave them there means to introduce
hospital gangrene--a sad alternative! The horrors and miseries I have
seen in these days since the battle of Königgrätz exceed all conception.
You must prepare yourself for the worst, Frau Simon.”
“I have the experience of many years and courage. The greater the
misery, the higher rises my determination.”
“I know, your fame has preceded you. I, on the contrary, when I see so
much misery feel all my courage sink, and it strikes me to the heart.
To hear hundreds--nay, thousands--of men in want of help, praying for
help, and not to be able to help--it is hideous! In all these ambulances
which have been set up in the most hasty way around the field of battle
we have been in want of restoratives--above all things, there is no
water. Most of the wells around have been made unserviceable by the
inhabitants, far and wide there is not a piece of bread to be obtained.
All rooms that have a roof over them, churches, country houses,
châteaux, huts, all are filled with sick. Everything in the shape of a
carriage has been sent off with its load of wounded. The roads in all
directions are covered with such carts of hell, for in truth the
sufferings carried by those wheels are hellish. There they
lie--officers, petty officers, soldiers, disfigured by dirt and dust and
blood till they are unrecognisable--with wounds for which there is no
human help available, uttering cries of pain, shrieks which are hardly
human; and yet those who can still cry are not the most pitiable.”
“Then many die on the way.”
“Certainly, or after they are unloaded they finish quietly and
unobserved on the first bundle of straw on which they have been left to
die. Some quietly, but others raving and raging in a desperate fight
with Death, uttering such curses as might make your hair stand on end.
It must have been curses like these that that Mr. Twining of London
heard who made the following proposal at the Geneva Conference: ‘Would
it not be well, if the condition of a wounded man leaves not the
slightest hope of recovery, in such a case to give him first the
consolations of religion, then, as far as the circumstances allow, leave
him a moment for reflection and then put an end to his agony in the
least painful way possible? This would prevent his dying a few moments
later, with fever in his brain, and perhaps blasphemies against God on
his tongue.’”
“How unchristian!” cried Frau Simon.
“What, to give him the _coup de grâce_?”
“No, but the idea that a blasphemous expression wrung from the soul of
a man in the midst of unbearable tortures could imperil his soul. The
Christian’s God is not so unjust as that, and assuredly will take every
fallen warrior into His grace.”
“Mahomet’s paradise was assured to every Mussulman who had killed a
Christian,” replied Bresser. “Believe me, my dear Frau Simon, all those
deities who have been represented as leaders of wars, and whose
assistance and blessing the priests and commanders promise as the wages
of murder, all of them are as deaf to blasphemies as to prayers. Look up
there; that star of the first magnitude, with reddish light, it is only
seen twinkling or rather shining, for it does not twinkle, over our
heads every second year, that is the planet Mars, the star dedicated to
the God of War, that god who was so feared and reverenced in old times
that he had by far more temples than the Goddess of Love. Of old on the
field of Marathon, in the narrow pass of Thermopylæ, that star shed a
bloody light on the battles of men, and to him rose up the curses of the
fallen who accused him of their misfortune, while he indifferent and
peaceful, then as now, was circling round the sun. Hostile stars? there
are no such things. Man has no enemy except man, but he is savage
enough. And no other friend either,” added Bresser after a short pause;
“of that you yourself are giving an example, magnanimous lady. You
are----”
“O doctor,” interrupted Frau Simon; “look there, that flame on the
horizon, it is surely a village in flames----”
I opened my eyes and saw the red glare.
“No,” said Dr. Bresser, “it is the moon rising.”
I tried to get into a more comfortable position, and sat up for a time.
I kept constantly preventing myself from closing my eyes, for that state
of half-slumber, with the consciousness of not being asleep, in which
the most horrible fancy-pictures carried on their wild procession, was
far too painful. Better to take part in the conversation of the other
two, and tear myself away from my own thoughts. But the gentleman and
lady were dumb. They were looking towards the place where now the
luminary of night was really rising. And again in spite of me my eyes
closed for a space. This time it _was_ sleep. In the one second during
which I felt that I was going to sleep, that the world around me was
ceasing to exist, I felt such a delight in annihilation that the brother
of my benefactor, Death, would have been quite welcome to me.
I do not know how long a space I passed in this negatively happy state
of removal from existence, but I was torn out of it suddenly and
forcibly. It was no noise, no shock that woke me, but a vapour of
intolerably poisoned air.
“What is that?”
The others called out the same question at the same time as I did.
Our waggon turned round a corner, and at the side of the way we found
the answer. Brightly lighted by the moon there stood up a white wall,
probably of a church. Anyhow, it had served as a cover from gunshot. At
its foot, heaped up, lay numerous corpses. It was the smell of
putrefaction, which rose up from their dead bodies, that had broken my
sleep. As we drove by, a thick crowd of ravens and crows rose screaming
from the heap of dead, fluttered for a time, as a black cloud against
the clear background of the sky, and then settled down again to their
feast.
“Frederick! my Frederick!”
“Calm yourself, Baroness Martha,” said Bresser consolingly. “Your
husband could not have been present there.”
The soldier who was driving had pressed his team on in order to get away
the quicker from the neighbourhood of the mephitic vapour--the
conveyance clattered and jolted as if we were in wild flight. I thought
the horses had run away ... trembling fear took hold on me. With both
hands I clasped Bresser’s arm, but I could not help turning my head back
to look _there_ at that wall, and--was it the deceptive light of the
moon, or was it the movements hither and thither of the birds as they
came back to their booty? I thought that the whole troop of the dead
rose up, and that the corpses all stretched their arms towards us, and
made ready to pursue us. I would have shrieked, but my throat was closed
by fear and would not obey my impulse.
* * * * *
Again the waggon turned round the corner of a street.
“Here we are--this is Horonewos,” I heard the doctor say, and he ordered
the driver to stop.
“What are we to do with the lady?” said Frau Simon complainingly. “She
will be rather a hindrance than any help.”
I collected myself. “No, no,” I said, “I am better now; I will do all I
can to help you.”
We found ourselves in the middle of the village at the gate of a
château.
“We will first do here what there is to do,” said the doctor. “The
château, which is deserted by its owners, must be filled from cellar to
roof with wounded.”
We got out. I could hardly keep on my feet, but stiffened myself with
all my force, so as not to give in.
“Forward,” said Frau Simon. “Have we all our luggage? What I am bringing
with me will give the people some refreshment.”
“There are restoratives and bandages in my box too,” said I.
“And my hand-bag contains instruments and medicines,” added Bresser.
Then we gave the needful orders to the soldiers who accompanied us; two
were to wait with the horses and the others come with us.
We passed under the gate of the château. Stifled sounds of woe proceeded
from various sides. All was dark.
“Light! the first thing is to strike a light!” called out Frau Simon.
Alas! we had brought all possible things with us--chocolate, meat
essence, cigars, strips of linen, but no one had thought of a candle.
There was no means of illuminating the darkness which surrounded us and
the poor fellows. Only a box of lucifers, which the doctor had in his
pocket, enabled us for a few seconds to see the terrible pictures which
filled this abode of the wretched. The foot slipped on the floor,
slippery with blood, if one tried to go on. What was to be done? To the
hundred despairing men who were groaning and sighing here a few more
people had come to despair and sigh. “What is to be done? What is to be
done?”
“I will find out the clergyman’s house,” said Frau Simon, “or get some
assistance somewhere else in the village. Come, doctor, you conduct me
with your lucifer-matches to the egress, and you, Frau Martha, remain
here meanwhile.”
Here, alone, in the dark, amongst all these wailing people, in this
stifling odour? What a situation! I shuddered to the marrow of my bones.
But I said nothing against it.
“Yes,” I replied, “I will remain on this spot, and wait till you come
back with the light.”
“No,” cried Bresser, putting his arm through mine. “Come with us. You
must not be left behind in this purgatory, amongst men who may be in the
delirium of fever.”
I was thankful to my friend for this speech, and clung tight to his arm.
To stop behind in these rooms might perhaps have driven me mad with
fear. Ah, I was still a cowardly, helpless creature, not brought up to
the misery and the horror into which I had now plunged. Why had I not
kept at home? Still, supposing I should find Frederick again? Who could
tell whether he might not be lying in these same dark rooms, which we
were just quitting? As we went out I called out his name more than once,
but the answer which I hoped for and feared: “Here I am, Martha,” was
not returned.
We got again into the open air. The waggon was standing in the same
place. Dr. Bresser decided that I should get in again.
“Frau Simon and I are going meanwhile into the village to seek for aid,
and you shall remain here.”
I willingly submitted, for my feet could hardly carry me. The doctor
helped me to get up and arranged a convenient seat for me with the straw
that was lying about. Two soldiers remained behind with the waggon. The
rest Frau Simon and the doctor took along with them.
After about half-an-hour the whole expedition came back. No success. The
parsonage was destroyed, like everything else, and empty. All the houses
in ruins; no light to be obtained anywhere. So there was nothing else to
be done except to wait till day dawned. How many of the poor wretches in
whom our coming had already roused hope, and whom our aid might still
have saved, might perhaps die during this night?
What a long, long night that was! Though in reality only between three
and four hours passed before sunrise, how endless these hours
necessarily seemed to us, their course being marked, not by the ticking
of a clock, but by the helpless cries of fellow-men for aid.
At last the morning dawned. Now we could act. Frau Simon and Dr. Bresser
took the road again to see whether they could rouse up some of the
concealed inhabitants of the village. They succeeded. Out of the ruins
here and there one or two peasants crawled forth, at first morose and
distrustful. When, however, Dr. Bresser spoke to them in their own
language, and Frau Simon urged them with her soft voice, they agreed to
give their services. It was necessary before all things to recruit all
the other hidden villagers, so that they might help in the work--bury
the dead that were lying about, get the wells into working order so as
to procure water for the living, collect the field kettles that lay
scattered about the roads so as to have vessels, empty the knapsacks of
the slain and the dead, and use the linen they contained for the
wounded. Now arrived also a Prussian staff-surgeon with men and aid
materials, and then the work of bringing help to these poor creatures
could be undertaken with some success. Now the moment was come for me
too, when I might perhaps discover him at whose fancied call I had
undertaken this luckless journey, and whose recollection whipped up to
some extent my failing powers.
Frau Simon betook herself, under the conduct of the Prussian surgeon,
first to the château, where most of the wounded were lying. Dr. Bresser
chose to search through the other places in the village. I preferred to
keep with my friend, and went along with him. That Frederick was not
lying in the château the doctor had discovered by a previous look round
it.
We had hardly gone a hundred paces when loud cries of pain smote on our
ears. They came from the open door of the little village church. We went
in. There more than a hundred men were lying on the hard stone pavement,
severely wounded, crippled. With feverish, wandering eyes they shrieked
and cried for water. I had nearly sunk down even on the threshold; still
I walked through the whole row. I was seeking for Frederick. He was not
there.
Bresser with his people set themselves to attend to the poor fellows. I
leaned against a side altar, and contemplated the scene of woe with
infinite horror.
And _this_ was the temple of the God of Love! These were the
wonder-working saints who were there folding their hands so piously in
the niches and on the walls, and lifting up their heads with the golden
glories round them! “Oh Mother of God--holy Mother of God, one drop of
water; have mercy on me!” I heard a poor soldier pray. That prayer he
had probably been addressing all the long day to the gaudily-painted
dumb image. Ah poor men! Till you yourselves have listened to the
command of love which God has put into your own hearts you will always
call in vain upon God’s love. So long as cruelty is not overcome in your
own selves you have nothing to hope from the compassion of heaven.
* * * * *
Ah, how much I had to see and to go through in the whole of this same
day! It would in truth be the simplest way and the most pleasant to
pursue the narrative no further. One shuts one’s eyes and turns away
one’s head when something altogether too horrid presents itself--even
the recollection has the power to make one shut one’s eyes. And if there
is no more power to help (and what can be altered in this stony past?)
why torture oneself and others by writing up these horrors?
Why? I will answer the question afterwards. Now I can only say I _must_
do it.
More still. I will not merely tax my own memory that I may be able to
relate what I have in view, for my powers of perception were far too
weak to bear the burden of the events, but I will also add what Frau
Simon, Dr. Bresser, and the Saxon inspector of field hospitals, Dr.
Naundorff, told me. As in Horonewos, so also in many of the villages in
this neighbourhood, Hell had set up branch establishments. It was so in
Sweti, in Hradeck, in Problus. So in Pardubitz, where, when the
Prussians first took possession of it, “over _one thousand_ severely
wounded men, operations and amputations, were lying about, some dying,
some already dead, corpses mixed with those in the act of death, and
those who envied them their end, many with nothing on but bloody shirts,
so that no one could tell even what countrymen they were. All those who
had still a spark of life in them were shrieking for water and bread,
writhing with the pain of their wounds, and begging for death as a
blessing.”
“Rossnitz,” writes Dr. Bauer in his letters--“Rossnitz, a place whose
picture will live in my memory till the hour of my death--Rossnitz,
whither I was sent by the St. John’s Society six days after the
murderous fight, and where the greatest misery which the human fancy can
picture was still reigning down to that day. I found there ‘R.’ of ours
with 650 wounded, who were lying in wretched barns and stables without
any nursing in the midst of death and half-dead men, some of them lying
for days in their own offal. It was here that after the erection of the
funeral mound of the fallen Lt.-Col. von F---- I was so overcome with
pain that _for an hour I poured out the hottest tears_ and could hardly
regain self-control in spite of the expenditure of all my moral force.
Though as a medical man I am accustomed to look at human suffering in
all its forms, and in the exercise of my profession have learnt to bear
the shrieks of tortured human nature, yet here in very truth tears which
I could not repress welled from my eyes. It was here in Rossnitz that
when, on the second day, I found that our powers were not equal to cope
with such misery, I lost courage and left off dressing the wounds.”
“In what condition were these 600 men?” It is Dr. Naundorff who is
speaking this time. “It is impossible to depict it accurately. Flies
were feeding on their open wounds, which were covered with them; their
gaze, flaming with fever, wandered about asking and seeking for some
help--for refreshment, for water and bread! Coat, shirt, flesh and blood
formed in the case of most of them one repulsive mass. _Worms were
beginning to generate in this mass and to feed on them._ A horrible
odour filled every place. All these soldiers were lying on the bare
ground; only a few had got a little straw on which they could repose
their miserable bodies. Some who had nothing under them but clayey,
swampy ground had half sunk into the mud it formed; they had not the
strength to get out of it. Others lay in a puddle of horrible filth
which no pen could consent to describe.”
“In Masloved,” so says Frau Simon, “a place of about fifty houses, there
were lying, eight days after the battle, about 700 wounded. It was not
so much their shrieks of agony as their abandonment without any
consolation which appealed to heaven. In one single barn alone sixty of
these poor wretches were crowded. Every one of their wounds had
originally been severe, but they had become hopeless in consequence of
their unassisted condition, and their want of nursing and feeding;
almost all were gangrenous. Limbs crushed by shot formed now mere heaps
of putrefying flesh, faces a mere mass of coagulated blood, covered with
filth, in which the mouth was represented by a shapeless black opening,
from which frightful groans kept welling out. The progress of
putrefaction separated whole mortified pieces from these pitiable
bodies. The living were lying close to dead bodies which had begun to
fall into putrefaction, and for which the worms were getting ready.
“These sixty men, as well as the greater number of the others, lay for a
week in the same situation. Their wounds were either not dressed at all,
or only in a most imperfect way--since the day of the battle they lay
there, incapable of moving from the spot--only scantily fed, and without
sufficient water. The bedding under them corrupting with blood and
excrement--that is how they passed eight days! living corpses--through
whose quivering limbs a stream of poisoned blood hardly circulated. They
had not been able to die, and yet how could they expect ever again to
return to life? Which is the more astonishing in this matter,” says Frau
Simon, in concluding her tale, “the eternal living force of human
nature, which could endure all this and yet go on breathing, or the want
of efficient assistance?”
What is most astonishing, according to my way of looking at it, is, that
men should bring each other into such a state--that men who have seen
such a sight should not sink on their knees and swear a passionate oath
to make war on war--that if they are princes they do not fling the sword
away--or if they are not in any position of power, they do not from that
moment devote their whole action in speech or writing, in thought,
teaching or business to this one end--Lay down your arms.
* * * * *
Frau Simon--she was called the Mother of the Lazarettos--was a heroine.
For weeks she stayed in that neighbourhood and bore all privations and
dangers. Hundreds were saved by her agency. Day and night she worked,
provided, directed. Sometimes she was doing the lowest offices beside
the sick-beds, sometimes ordering the transport of wounded, sometimes
requisitioning necessaries. When she had provided assistance in one
place, she hastened without any rest to another; she got a copious
supply from Dresden, and conveyed it in spite of all opposing
difficulties to the points when help was needed. She undertook to
represent the Patriotic Aid Society on the soil of Bohemia, and made a
position for herself there equal to that which Florence Nightingale took
in the Crimea. And as to me? Exhausted, comfortless, overpowered by pain
and disgust, I had no power to render any help. Even in the church--our
first station--I had fallen fainting with fatigue on the steps of that
altar of the Virgin, and Dr. Bresser had a good deal of trouble to bring
me round again. Thence I tottered a little further by his side, and we
got into just such a barn as Frau Simon has depicted. In the church
there was at least a large space, in which the poor fellows lay side by
side; here they were crowded upon each other, or in each other’s arms,
in heaps or rolls. Into the church there had come nurses--probably some
sanitary corps on its march through--and these had given some help,
though insufficient. But here they were mere castaways quite
undiscovered--a crawling whining mass of half-putrefied remains of men.
Choking disgust laid hold of my throat, the bitterest grief of my
breast. I felt as if my heart was breaking in two, and I gave utterance
to a resounding shriek. This shriek is the last thing remaining in my
memory of that scene.
* * * * *
When I came to my senses again, I found myself in a railway carriage in
motion. Opposite me sat Dr. Bresser. When he perceived that I had opened
my eyes, and was looking about me astonished and questioning, he took my
hand.
“Yes, yes, Lady Martha,” he said, “this is a second-class carriage. You
are not dreaming. You are here in company with a slightly wounded
officer and your friend Bresser, and we are on our way to Vienna.”
So it was. The doctor had brought a detachment of wounded from Horonewos
to Königinhof, and from thence another detachment had been given into
his charge to transport to Vienna. Me, in my fainting state, fainting in
both senses of the word, he had taken with him and was bringing home. I
had shown myself to be entirely useless and incapable in those abodes of
misery, only a hindrance and a burden. Frau Simon was very glad when Dr.
Bresser got me out of the way. And I was obliged to allow that it was
better so. But Frederick? I had not found him. Thank God that I had not
found him, for then all hope was not dead, and if I had been obliged to
recognise my beloved husband among those shapes of woe, I should have
gone mad. Perhaps I should find at home a letter for me from my
Frederick! This hope, no, it would be too much to say “hope,” but the
thought of this bare possibility poured balm into my wounded soul. Yes,
wounded. I felt my inmost soul wounded. The gigantic woe which I had
seen had cut so deep into my own heart that I felt as if it would never
be healed again completely. Even if I were to find my Frederick again,
even if a long future of brilliancy and love were granted me, could I
ever forget that so many others of my poor human brothers and sisters
had had to bear such unspeakable misery? And must go on bearing it till
they come to see that this misery is no fatality but a crime.
I slept almost the whole way. Dr. Bresser had given me a slight
narcotic, so that a longer and sounder sleep might to some extent calm
my nerves, which had been so shattered by the occurrences at Horonewos.
When we arrived at the Vienna station, my father was already there to
take me away. Dr. Bresser, who thought of everything, had telegraphed to
Grumitz. It was not possible for him himself to see me there, for he had
his wounded to see into the hospital, and wished then to return to
Bohemia without delay.
My father embraced me in silence, and I also did not find a word to say.
Then he turned to Dr. Bresser.
“How can I thank you? If you had not taken this little crazy thing under
your protection----”
But the doctor pressed our hands hastily.
“I must go,” he said. “I have duty to do. May you get home safely. The
young lady wants forbearance, your excellency. She has had a terrible
shaking. No reproaches, no questioning. Get her quick to bed.
Orange-flower water--rest. Good-bye.” And he was gone.
My father put my arm in his and led me through the crowd to the exit.
There again a long row of ambulance waggons was standing. We had to go
some distance on foot till we could get to the place where our carriage
was waiting.
The question: “Has any news of Frederick come during this while?” rose
several times to my lips, but I could not find courage to give voice to
it. At last, when we had driven some distance, while my father kept
silence all the way, I brought it out.
“Not up to yesterday,” was the reply. “It is possible that we may find
news to-day. It was, of course, yesterday, immediately after the receipt
of the telegram, that I left for the city. Oh, what a fright you have
given us, you silly creature! To go to the battlefields, where you might
meet the most cruel enemies, for these folks are just like savages. They
are perfectly intoxicated with the victories of their needle-rifle, and
all; they are no disciplined soldiers, these landwehr fellows; from such
men you may be sure of the worst outrages, and you--a lady--to run into
the midst of them--you---- However, the doctor just now ordered me not
to scold you.”
“How is my son Rudolf?”
“He is crying and moaning about you, seeking you all over the house,
will not believe that you could have gone away without giving him a
parting kiss. And do not you ask after the rest? Lilly, Rosa, Otto, Aunt
Mary? You seem to me altogether so indifferent.”
“How are they all? Has Conrad written?”
“They are all well. A letter arrived yesterday from Conrad. Nothing has
happened to him. Lilly is happy. You will see that good news will very
soon arrive about Tilling too. Unfortunately there is nothing good to be
hoped in a political point of view. You have surely heard of the great
calamity?”
“Which? In the present state of things I have seen nothing but great
calamities.”
“I mean Venice. Our beautiful Venice given away--made a present of to
that intriguer Louis Napoleon, and that after such a brilliant victory
as we won at Custozza! Instead of getting back our Lombardy to give up
our Venice as well! It is true that by this means we get free from our
enemies in the South, have Louis Napoleon too on our side, and can now
with our whole force take our revenge for Sadowa, chase the Prussians
out of our country, follow them up and gain Silesia for ourselves.
Benedek has committed great mistakes, but now the chief command will be
put into the hand of the glorious commander of the Army of the South.
But you make no reply? Well, then, I will follow Bresser’s prescription
and give you repose.”
After a drive of two hours we arrived at Grumitz.
As our carriage drove into the court of the château my sisters ran out
to meet me.
“Martha! Martha!” both of them shouted from a distance. “He is there.”
And again at the carriage door: “He is there”.
“Who?”
“Frederick, your husband.”
* * * * *
Yes, so it was. It was the day before, late in the evening, that
Frederick had been brought with a consignment of wounded from Bohemia to
Vienna and from thence here. He had received a bullet in his leg, a
wound which rendered him for the moment unfit for service and in need of
nursing, but was entirely free from danger.
But joy is also hard to bear. The news then shouted to me by my sisters,
so entirely without preparation, that “Frederick was there,” had just
the same effect as the terror of the past days--it deprived me of
consciousness.
They were obliged to carry me from the carriage into the château, and
put me to bed. Here, whether from the after-effect of the narcotic, or
the violence of the shock of joy, I spent several hours in
unconsciousness, sometimes slumbering, sometimes delirious. When I came
to myself and found myself in my own bed I believed myself to have awoke
from a dreadful dream, and thought I had never left Grumitz. Bresser’s
letter, my resolution to start for Bohemia, my experiences there, the
homeward journey, the news of Frederick’s return home--all was a dream.
I looked up. My _femme de chambre_ was standing at the foot of the bed.
“Is my bath ready?” I asked. “I want to get up.”
Now Aunt Mary rushed forward out of a corner of the room.
“Oh Martha! poor dear, are you at last awake and restored to your
senses? God be praised. Yes, yes; get up and take your bath. That will
do you good, when one is covered, as you are, with the dust of the roads
and railways.”
“Dust from railways; what do you mean?”
“Quick; get up. Netty, get everything ready. Frederick is almost dying
with impatience to see you.”
“Frederick--my Frederick?”
How often had I during these last days called out this name, and with
what pain! But now it was a cry of joy--for now I had comprehended. It
was no dream. I had been away and come back again, and was to see my
husband.
A quarter of an hour afterwards I went into his room, alone. I had
requested that no one should go with me. No third person should be
present at our meeting.
“Frederick!” “Martha!” I rushed to the couch on which he lay and sobbed
on his bosom.