THE HOSPITAL BARGE
One very important development in the care for the wounded is the introduction of the hospital barge. The rivers and canals of France offer splendid opportunities for conveying wounded from point to point. This new method of transport was foreshadowed in an article in the London Times, in which the writer, in describing the hospital barges, said:
“The north of France, as is well known, is exceedingly rich in waterways—rivers and canals. The four great rivers, the Oise, the Somme, the Sambre, and the Escaut (Scheldt), are connected by a network of canals—quiet and comfortable waterways at present almost free of traffic. So far as the reaching of any particular spot is concerned these waterways may be said to be ubiquitous. They extend, too, right into Belgium, and have connection with the coast at various points—for example, Ostend. Here, then, is a system of ‘roads’ for the removal of the wounded, a system which, if properly used, can be made to relieve greatly the stress of work imposed upon the ambulance motor cars and trains. Here also is the ideal method of removal.
“The Ile de France is lying at present at the Quai de Grenelle, near the Eiffel Tower. This is a Seine barge of the usual size and type, blunt-nosed, heavily and roomily built. You enter the hold by a step-ladder, which is part of the hospital equipment. This is a large chamber not much less high from floor to ceiling than an ordinary room, well lighted, and ventilated by means of skylights. The walls of the hold have been painted white; the floor has been thoroughly scrubbed out for the reception of beds, of which some forty to fifty will be accommodated.
“The forward portion of the barge can accommodate more beds, and there is no reason why a portion of it should not be walled in and used as an operating room, more especially since in the bow a useful washing apparatus is fitted. The barge is heated by stoves, and a small electric plant could easily be installed. The barges are used in groups of four, and a small tug supplies the motive power. In favorable circumstances about fifty kilometers a day can be traveled.”
The barges employed are big, roomy barges one hundred and twenty feet long, sixteen feet broad, and ten feet high. Care is taken to use only fairly new and clean barges which have been used in the conveyance of timber or stone or other clean and harmless cargoes.
CHAPTER XXXVI
WHAT WILL THE HORRORS AND ATROCITIES OF THE GREAT WAR LEAD TO?
[WAR, A REVERSAL TO THE PRIMITIVE BRUTE IN MAN] — [THE SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY] — [DECLINE OF THE WAR SPIRIT] — [THE DAWN OF UNIVERSAL PEACE.]
In the mobilization of armies, in the appropriation of colossal funds and consequent imposition of intolerable taxes, in the disregard of the neutrality of lesser nations, in the “emergency measures” that tear apart a home to give its bread-winner to the reeking shambles—in all these phenomena original incentives quickly are forgotten, as though they had never been.
What imperial chancellery now remembers, or now cares, that a sovereign’s nephew and his morganatic wife were done to death in an obscure dependency upon the Adriatic shores? Their hands and steel are at each other’s throats on that pretext, but they improve the occasion to settle all old scores that rancorous racial antagonism in an interminable blood-feud have created. War has thrown down the barriers of social restraint; it has abolished the delimitations of political adjustment; international decorum, propriety, all that is signified in the German tongue under the untranslatable name of “Sittlichkeit” are no more; landmarks set in place with a thankful sense of achievement and a pious aspiration are obliterated.
None will deny to our heroes living, nor to those who after warfare rest in peace, the sublimity of their utmost pattern of devotion and of the sacrifice they made. But with all that selfless devotion implies and patriotism means, with all that the bugle sings or flaunting pennons inspire, with all that the sight of old and tattered battle-flags conveys, with all that the histories tell, with all the exemplary careers of conquerors that were not ruthless and armies that sang psalms and nations whose quarrel was just and kings who laid their crowns before the throne of God in prayer, and their laurels in the dust of the profoundest self-abasement—the nature of war is not changed.
With all the Te Deums that have risen in cathedrals, and hosannas that were sung for conquering Caesars when earth and sky were shaken like a carpet with their welcome at the gate; with all the splendor of shining accoutrements of guardsmen and Uhlans and cuirassiers; with all the investiture of romance that poet and painter and even the sensitive historian have been able to confer upon it—war remains what it is: an abysmal and sickening reversion to the primitive brute in man. It must still be a sight “to grieve high heaven and make the angels mourn” that men created in the image of their Maker, endowed with a diviner instinct beyond the body’s need or transient existence, could sink so far, and in the slough of primordial animality forget the very light of life and their immortal destiny for the sake of the mere fiction of power on land, sea and even in the throbbing and embattled air through which the prayers of women ascend like silent flame to God.
The World’s Best Intellects on War
JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU: War is the foulest fiend that ever vomited forth from the mouth of hell.
THOMAS JEFFERSON: I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: There never was a good war or a bad peace.
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON: My country is the world; my countrymen are all mankind.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE: The more I study the world, the more am I convinced of the inability of force to create anything durable.
PAUL ON MARS HILL: God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.
ANDREW CARNEGIE: We have abolished slavery from civilized countries, the owning of man by man. The next great step that the world can take is to abolish war, the killing of man by man.
GEORGE WASHINGTON: My first wish is to see the whole world at peace, and the inhabitants of it as one band of brothers, striving which should most contribute to the happiness of mankind.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive***to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
EMANUEL KANT: The method by which states prosecute their rights cannot under present conditions be a process of law, since no court exists having jurisdiction over them, but only war. But through war, even if it result in victory, the question of right is not decided.