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ANS: T PTS: 1
ANS: F PTS: 1
ANS: F PTS: 1
13. A service encounter is any interaction between a customer and the service provider.
ANS: T PTS: 1
14. The demand for services is usually easier to predict than the demand for goods.
ANS: F PTS: 1
ANS: F PTS: 1
16. The greater the customer participation, the more uncertainty the firm has with respect to service time.
ANS: T PTS: 1
17. A customer benefit package (CBP) consists of both a primary good and a primary service.
ANS: F PTS: 1
18. The ability to download music onto a cell phone would be considered a primary service.
ANS: F PTS: 1
19. Peripheral goods and services are not essential to a primary good or service.
ANS: T PTS: 1
20. Many products that appear to be only physical goods often include bundled services.
ANS: T PTS: 1
ANS: F PTS: 1
ANS: T PTS: 1
23. A process can be designed by operations managers independently of the choice of a customer benefit
package, which is chosen exclusively by marketing staff.
ANS: F PTS: 1
24. Taking a customer order at a quick service restaurant would generally be viewed as a support process.
ANS: F PTS: 1
25. Quality has been a principal focus of operations management since the industrial revolution.
ANS: F PTS: 1
26. The reason that many Japanese firms captured major shares of world markets in the 1970s was the
result of their focus on quality rather than efficiency.
ANS: T PTS: 1
27. As manufacturers sought to customize products for global markets and increase goods and service
variety, they were able to leverage the mass production methods that are very efficient and
cost-effective.
ANS: F PTS: 1
28. Today, almost half the U.S. economy is involved in service industries.
ANS: F PTS: 1
29. Many business-to-business manufacturers think of the physical good they produce as peripheral to
their service offerings.
ANS: T PTS: 1
30. Time-based competition means providing new and innovative products that surprise and delight
customers.
ANS: F PTS: 1
31. Operations management is the only function by which managers can directly affect the value provided
to all stakeholderscustomers, employees, investors, and society.
ANS: T PTS: 1
MULTIPLE CHOICE
4. In relating operations management and the customer benefit package (CBP), which is the correct
timing sequence?
a. Operating system processes lead to customer needs and expectations, which lead to
customer benefit package.
b. Customer benefit package leads to customer needs and expectations, which lead to
operating system processes.
c. Customer needs and expectations lead to customer benefit package, which leads to
operating system processes.
d. Customer needs and expectations lead to operating system processes, which lead to
customer benefit package.
ANS: C PTS: 1
5. Which of the following is not true regarding the differences between goods and services?
a. Demand for services is easier to forecast.
b. Customers participate in many services.
c. Services cannot be stored as physical inventory.
d. Patents do not protect services.
ANS: A PTS: 1
12. Support processes would typically include all of the following except
a. inventory management
b. customer help desk operations
c. research and development
d. manufacturing and assembly
ANS: D PTS: 1
13. Which of the following is the correct sequence describing the evolution of operations management?
a. efficiency, customization, quality, service, sustainability, time-based competition
b. quality, efficiency, time-based competition, sustainability, customization, service
c. efficiency, quality, customization, time-based competition, service, sustainability
d. quality, service, customization, time-based competition, efficiency, sustainability
ANS: C PTS: 1
14. The following termsinterchangeability of parts, division of labor, highly repetitive tasksbest relate
to a focus on
a. quality
b. efficiency
c. quality
d. time
ANS: B PTS: 1
20. Which of the following would be the lowest in goods content and highest in service content?
a. fast food restaurant
b. attending a theater production
c. getting an oil change for your car
d. filling a medical prescription
ANS: B PTS: 1
21. Service management skills would include all of the following except
a. accounting and finance
b. knowledge and technical expertise about operations
c. marketing and cross-selling
d. human interaction
ANS: A PTS: 1
24. Which one of the following statements about the structure of the U.S. economy is true?
a. About 91 percent of all U.S. jobs are in service-providing processes.
b. All goods-producing jobs account for 25 percent of total U.S. jobs.
c. All service-providing jobs account for 65 percent of total U.S. jobs.
d. The largest U.S. industry with respect to U.S. jobs is manufacturing.
ANS: A PTS: 1
25. The three issues that are at the core of operations management include all of the following except
a. cost
b. quality
c. utilization
d. efficiency
ANS: C PTS: 1
SHORT ANSWER
ANS:
Operations management (OM) is the science and art of ensuring that goods and services are created
and delivered successfully to customers. Some examples of OM activities are:
Translating market knowledge of customers to design and manage goods, services and
processes.
Helping organizations do more with less.
Ensuring that resources (labor, equipment, materials, and information) and operations are
coordinated.
Exploiting technology to improve productivity.
Building quality into goods, services, and processes.
Understanding how to determine resource capacity and schedules.
Creating a high-performance workplace.
Continually learning and adapting the organization to global and environmental changes.
PTS: 1
2. Differentiate between a good and a service. What is the difference between a durable and nondurable
good? Give an example of each.
ANS:
A good is a physical product you can see, touch or possibly consume. A service is any primary or
complementary activity that does not directly produce a physical product. Services represent the
non-goods part of a transaction between a buyer (customer) and a seller (supplier).
A durable good is a product that typically lasts at least three years. Vehicles, dishwashers and
furniture are examples of durable goods. A nondurable good is perishable and generally lasts for less
than three years. Examples include toothpaste, software, shoes and fruit.
PTS: 1
3. Though there are similarities between goods and service, there are significant differences; discuss five.
ANS:
Goods are tangible while services are intangible.
Customers participate in many service processes, activities and transactions.
The demand for services is more difficult to predict than the demand for goods.
Services cannot be stored as physical inventory.
Service management skills are paramount to a successful service encounter.
Service facilities typically need to be in close proximity to the customer.
Patents do not protect services.
PTS: 1
ANS:
A service encounter is an interaction between the customer and the service provider. Service
encounters consist of one or more moments of truthany episodes, transactions or experiences in
which a customer comes into contact with any aspect of the delivery system, however remote, and
thereby has an opportunity to form an impression. Employees who interact directly with customers,
such as airline flight attendants, nurses, lawyers, fast food counter employees, telephone customer
service representatives, dentists and bank tellers, need to understand the importance of service
encounters on their customers. However, human interaction, either face-to-face or through a contact
technology such as a telephone line, is not required to establish a service encounter. A service
encounter also includes the interaction the customer has with buildings, equipment, advertisements,
brochures, etc. For example, while driving, a customer might see a large sign for a store (one moment
of truth) but observe that the store's parking lot is poorly-lit (a second moment of truth); and so,
believing the area is not safe, the customer decides to keep driving and not stop to shop at that store.
Customers judge the value of a service and form perceptions through service encounters.
PTS: 1
5. Explain a customer benefit package (CBP). Also, differentiate a primary good or service from a
peripheral good or service.
ANS:
A customer benefit package (CBP) is a clearly defined set of tangible (goods-content) and intangible
(service-content) features that the customer recognizes, pays for, uses or experiences. In simple terms,
it is some combination of goods and services configured in a certain way to provide value to customers.
A CBP consists of a primary good or service, coupled with peripheral goods and/or services. A
primary good or service is the "core" offering that attracts customers and responds to their basic
needs. For example, the primary service of a personal checking account is convenient financial
transactions. Peripheral goods or services are those that are not essential to the primary good or
service but enhance it. A personal checking account might be supported and enhanced by such
peripheral goods as a printed monthly account statement, designer checks and checkbooks, a special
credit card and such peripheral services as a customer service hotline and online bill payment. Finally,
processes create and deliver each primary or peripheral good or service, and process design and
management is a key focus of OM. A variant is a CBP feature that departs from the standard CBP and
is normally location- or firm-specific such as a fishing pond at an auto dealership.
PTS: 1
6. Define a process. Then differentiate among a value creation process, a support process, and a general
management process.
ANS:
A process is a sequence of activities that is intended to create a certain result such as a physical good,
a service or information. A value creation process focuses on primary goods or services such as
assembling dishwashers or providing a home mortgage. A support process focuses on peripheral
goods and services such as purchasing materials and supplies, managing inventory, installation,
customer support, technology acquisition and research and development. A general management
process includes accounting and information systems, human resource management and marketing.
PTS: 1
7. In the last century, operations management saw six major themes. What are they? Briefly discuss each.
ANS:
A focus on efficiency. As international trade grew in the 1960s, the emphasis on
operations efficiency and cost reduction increased. Many companies moved their factories
to low-wage countries. Managers became enamored with computers, robots, and other
forms of technology, While advanced technology continues to revolutionize and improve
production, in the 1960s and 1970s technology was viewed primarily as a method of
reducing costs.
The quality revolution. As Japan was rebuilding from the devastation of World War II,
two U.S. consultants, W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran, were sought extensively by
Japanese industry. Deming and Juran told Japanese executives that continual improvement
of quality would open world markets, free up capacity, and improve their economy. The
Japanese eagerly embraced that message. They embarked on a massive effort to train the
workforce, using statistical tools developed at Western Electric and other innovative
management tools to identify causes of quality problems and fix them. They made steady
progress in reducing defects and paid careful attention to what consumers wanted. Those
efforts continued at a relentless pace until, by the mid-1970s, the world discovered that
Japanese goods had fewer defects, were more reliable, and better met consumer needs
than American goods. As a result, Japanese firms captured major shares of world markets
in many different industries such as automobiles and electronics. Therefore, quality
became an obsession with top managers of nearly every major company.
Competing through customization and design. As the goals of low cost and high
product quality became "givens," companies began to emphasize innovative designs and
product features to gain a competitive edge. Quality meant much more than simply defect
reduction; quality meant offering consumers new and innovative products that not only
met their expectations, but also surprised and delighted them. Inflexible mass-production
methods that produced high volumes of standardized goods and services using unskilled
or semiskilled workers and expensive single-purpose equipment, though very efficient and
cost-effective, were inadequate for the new goals of increased good and service variety
and continual product improvement. The operating system had to change. New types of
operating systems emerged that enabled companies to manufacture goods and services
better, cheaper, and faster than their competitors, while facilitating innovation and
increasing variety. The Internet began to help companies customize their goods and
services for global markets.
Time-based competition. As information technology matured, time became an important
source of competitive advantage. Quick response is achieved by continually improving
and reengineering processes; that is, fundamentally rethinking and redesigning processes
to achieve dramatic improvements in cost, quality, speed, and service. That task includes
developing products faster than competitors, speeding ordering and delivering processes,
rapidly responding to changes in customers' needs, and improving the flow of paperwork.
The service revolution. While the goods-producing industries were getting all the
attention in the business community, the popular press, and in business school curricula,
service industries were quietly growing and creating many new jobs in the U.S. economy.
In 2008, about four of every five U.S. jobs are in services.
Sustainability. Sustainability refers to an organization's ability to strategically address
current business needs and successfully develop a long-term strategy that embraces
opportunities and manages risk for all products, systems, supply chains, and processes to
preserve resources for future generations. Sustainability can be viewed from three
perspectives: environmental, social, and economic. These three dimensions of
sustainability are often referred to as the "triple bottom line."
PTS: 1
8. For each of the three dimensions of sustainability (environmental, social, and economic), provide three
examples of business practices that support it.
ANS:
Environmental:
Waste management reduce waste and manage recycling efforts.
Energy optimization reduce consumption during peak demand times.
Transportation optimization use efficient vehicles and design routes to save fuel.
Technology upgrade clean and reuse water in manufacturing processes.
Air quality reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Sustainable product design design goods whose parts can be recycled or safely disposed of.
Social:
Product safety ensure consumer safety in using goods and services.
Workforce health and safety ensure a healthy and safe work environment.
Ethics and governance ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements and transparency
in management decisions.
Community improve the quality of life through industry-community partnerships.
Economic:
Performance excellence build a high-performing organization with a capable leadership and
workforce.
Financial management make sound financial plans to ensure long-term organizational survival.
Resource management acquire and manage all resources effectively and efficiently.
Emergency preparedness have plans in place for business, environmental, and social emergencies.
PTS: 1
9. What are four key current challenges in OM that managers need to understand?
ANS:
Technology has been one of the most important influences on the growth and
development of OM during the second half of the 20th century. Microprocessors have
become ubiquitous in most consumer products and industrial processes. Advances in
design and fabrication of goods as well as advances in information technology to enhance
services have provided the ability to develop products that one could only dream of a few
decades ago. They also enable managers to more effectively manage and control
extremely complex operations.
Globalization has changed the way companies do business and must manage their
operations. With advances in communications and transportation, we have passed from
the era of huge regional factories with large labor forces and tight community ties to an
era of the "borderless marketplace." No longer are "American" or "Japanese" products
manufactured exclusively in America or Japan.
Consumers' expectations have risen dramatically. They demand an increasing variety of
products with new and improved features that meet their changing needs. They expect
products that are defect-free, have high performance, are reliable and durable, and are easy
to repair. They also expect rapid and excellent service for the products they buy. For the
services they buy, customers expect short waiting and processing times, availability when
needed, courteous treatment from employees, consistency, accessibility and convenience,
accuracy, and responsiveness to unexpected problems. Companies must now compete on
all these dimensions.
Today's workers are different; they demand increasing levels of empowerment and more
meaningful work. Today's work requires constant learning and more abstract thinking and
on-the-spot decision-making skills. Service plays a much greater role within
organizations. Finally, the environment is different; we live in a global business
environment without boundaries.
Quality continues to be a challenge. Despite significant advances, organizations cannot
take quality for granted and must continue to focus on it when designing goods and
services, operations, and management systems.
Perhaps the biggest challenge that OM faces in modern Western nations is the loss of
manufacturing jobs.
PTS: 1
Other documents randomly have
different content
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 manœuvers 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 -> manœuvers.
P. 89: catastrophies -> catastrophes.
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