FOOTNOTES

[5] Aeschylus.

THE BRITISH RED CROSS IN ITALY.

BY LEWIS R. FREEMAN.

For the first time in a fortnight there had been a few hours of really good visibility, and, as a consequence, the artillery of both sides were endeavouring to make up for lost time with an increase of activity, just as a pet Pomeranian begins to cut capers the instant it is freed from its restraining leash. For some reason, a goodly share of the Austrian fire appeared to be directed to the vicinity of a certain road along which we had to pick our way in returning from an advanced Italian position we had just visited.

A road under heavy gun fire is not a comfortable place to be at large upon on any of the battle fronts of Europe, and least of all that of the stony Carso, where flying rock fragments increase the casualties three and four-fold over what they would be if the hurtling shells were burying themselves in eight or ten feet of soft earth before accumulating enough resistance to detonate their charges of high explosive. The ‘cave-men’ who held the plateau had all disappeared into their burrows on the ‘lee’ side of the dolinas or sink-holes which pit the repulsive face of the Carsic hills, but here and there along the road there were evidences—mostly pools of blood and scattered kit—that some whom recklessness or duty had kept from cover had met with trouble. Plainly there was going to be work for the Red Cross, and one of the first things I began to wonder about after we had passed on to the comparative shelter of a side-hill, was whether or not they would see fit to risk one of their precious ambulances up there on the shell-torn plateau where, from the rattle and roar, it was evident that, in spite of the failing light, things were going to be considerably worse before they began to be better. Picking up our waiting car in the niche of a protecting cliff, we coasted down across the face of a hillside honeycombed with dug-outs to the bottom of a narrow valley, a point which appeared, for the time being at least, the ‘head of navigation’ for motor traffic. Here we found ourselves stopped by the jam that had piled up on both sides of a hulking ‘210’ that was being warped around a ‘hairpin’ turn. Suddenly I noticed a commotion in the wriggling line of lorries, carts, and pack-mules that wound down from the farther side of the jam, and presently there wallowed into sight a couple of light ambulances, plainly—from the purposeful persistence with which they kept plugging on through the blockade—on urgent business.

Now the very existence of a jam on a road is in itself evidence of the fact that there is an impasse somewhere, and until this is broken the confusion only becomes confounded by any misdirected attempts to push ahead from either direction. But the ambulance is largely a law unto itself, and when it signals for a right-of-way there is always an attempt to make way for it where any other vehicle (save, of course, one carrying reinforcements or munitions at the height of a battle) would have to wait its turn. Mules and carts and lorries crowded closer against each other or edged a few more precarious inches over the side, and by dint of good luck and skilful driving, the two ambulances finally filtered through the blockade and came to a halt alongside our waiting car on the upper end. Then I saw that their cool-headed young drivers were dressed in khaki, and knew, even before I read in English on the side of one of the cars that it was the gift of some Indian province—that they belonged to a unit of the British Red Cross.

‘Plucky chaps those,’ remarked the Italian officer escorting me. ‘Ready to go anywhere and at any time. But it’s hardly possible they’re going to venture up on to the plateau while that bombardment’s going on. That’s work for the night-time, after the guns have quieted down. But there is one of them coming back now; perhaps they’re going to discuss the situation before going on.’

I leaned out to eavesdrop on that momentous debate, and this is what I heard:

‘Jolly awful tobacco this,’ said the one on the ground, after filling his pipe from his companion’s pouch.

‘Poisonous,’ agreed the other, ‘and nothing better in sight for a week. Your engine isn’t missing any more, is it?’

‘Nu-u,’ mumbled the first, continuing to puff at the pipe he was lighting. ‘Goin’—like a—top.’

‘Right-o, then; better be getting on.’

‘Hu-u’; and so the ‘discussion’ ended.

Without another word the boy on the ground pulled on his gloves, walked back to his car, cranked up, climbed into his seat, and led the way off up the empty road.

‘They’re not much on “dramatics,” these young Britons,’ said my companion, ‘but they’re always on hand when they’re wanted, and they take danger and emergencies—and there isn’t much else to work on the Carso—just about as much of a matter of course as they do afternoon tea. The actual work they’ve done for us here with their ambulances and hospital has been very considerable; but even more importance attaches to the fact that they have come to stand in the minds of the Italian army as the tangible expression of British sympathy for our country. The good they have done, and will continue to do, on this score is beyond reckoning.’

It has been well said, now that the absolute superiority of the Allies in men, material, and moral has been established beyond a doubt, that the only eventuality that can conceivably intervene to prevent their obtaining a sweeping victory over the Central Powers is one which might arise as a consequence of trouble among themselves. It is for this reason that every effort calculated to promote better feeling between, and a fuller appreciation of each other’s efforts and ideals among, the various peoples of the Entente nations is so highly desirable; and it is on this account that the work of the British Red Cross Mission to Italy has an importance incalculably greater than that which attaches to it merely as a material contribution.

The work of this Mission comes nearer, perhaps, to being a pure labour of love than any other comprehensive piece of international effort called forth by the war. Duty, sympathy, pity—these are the mainsprings of the American Commission for Belgian Relief, and the splendid work is carried on by men to whom Belgium was but little more than a name before the invading Germans began trampling it under foot; and in the American ambulances and flying squadron in France the spirit of adventure vies with affection for France in bringing those devoted workers and fighters across the sea. The Red Cross and other British work for the comfort and welfare of the Italian army is almost entirely under the direction of those who have seized the opportunity to pay back with present effort the accumulated debts of past years of residence or study in a country which occupies only a lesser place in their hearts, and a slighter claim on their services, than their own.

Mr. George M. Trevelyan, essayist and historian and author of the works on the life of Garibaldi, had been with the Relief Committee in Servia prior to Italy’s entry into the war. As soon as that event took place he hastened to England, and was fortunately able to unite the efforts of a number of persons, all equally anxious to demonstrate in a practical form their friendship for Italy. There resulted the formation of a Red Cross ambulance unit for service on the Italian front. With the help of the British Red Cross authorities at home, and Lord Monson, their Commissioner in Italy, this unit came out in September 1915, under Mr. Trevelyan as commandant; forming the original nucleus of the present Mission of the British Red Cross and Order of St. John, which, united under the direction of Lt.-Col. Lord Monson, now consists of three ambulance and two X-ray units and an English-staffed hospital of 110 beds. Two other hospitals of 320 and 150 beds respectively are also being equipped for the Italian Sanitary Service.

From the inception of the movement all of the British residents in Italy threw themselves into it heart and soul; and not only these, but also those then resident in England who, through past acquaintance or study, felt that the land of Michael Angelo and Raphael, of Dante and Tasso, of Garibaldi and Mazzini, was deserving of a fitting testimonial of sympathy. Voluntary contributions of money and service poured in for the Red Cross Mission from all sides, while various auxiliary organisations were formed to help in other ways. Over 20,000 garments and over 12,000 bandages have been made in the Joint War Committee’s ten War Hospital Supply Depots in Italian cities, where 500 ladies are engaged in making comforts for the sick and wounded. The total of garments supplied through the Commissioner’s Stores Department is in excess of 60,000, and that of bandages 113,000. A number of Posti di Ristoro, or refreshment depots, are conducted by English ladies at various railway stations near and on the way to the front, while more recently a movement has been inaugurated for starting a system of recreation huts patterned after those conducted with such success by the Y.M.C.A. in France and Flanders.

To return to the Red Cross work. Mr. Trevelyan’s pioneer unit is the largest of the three now in operation. It consists of an 110-bed hospital, working as a regular part of the Italian army corps, and of some thirty ambulances and twelve other cars, which are attached to several army corps in Gorizia and neighbourhood. The hospital is under the charge of Dr. George S. Brock, the medical doctor of the British Embassy in Rome, and Colonel Sir Alexander Ogston, the celebrated Scotch surgeon, and Dr. W. E. Thompson of Edinburgh. The personnel of the hospital consists of about twenty English nurses, the matron, Miss Power, having marched through the snow in the retreat of the Servian army, with which she worked in 1915. There are sixty English drivers and mechanics, one of whom has been severely wounded and another slightly. The King of Italy has made personal presentation of the Silver Medal for Military Valour to the commandant as a testimony to the services of the whole unit under fire during its year and a half of service on the Italian front.

The Second Unit, with a smaller number of cars, under the command of Mr. F. Sargant, has been working in the rough and difficult Carnic Alps for fifteen months. This is the most isolated of all the units, and its work under conditions calling for unusual resource and initiative has resulted in its being commended in a special Order of the Day issued by General Lequio, who at the time commanded the unit to which it is attached. This, the highest honour an Italian General can confer on the troops under his command, reads as follows:

‘H.Q. Carnia Zone,
‘July 23, 1916.

‘General Orders N. 72.

‘I wish to draw the attention of the troops under my command to the courageous behaviour, the never-failing cheerfulness, and the single-hearted devotion of the officers and men of the British Red Cross Unit serving in the Carnia Zone.

‘This Unit, which arrived at Tolmezzo on October 26, 1915, has from that date worked with untiring zeal and devotion. Wherever duty has called its members—in the neighbourhood of the first lines, frequently under heavy bombardment—they have one and all devoted themselves to the removal of our wounded who were exposed to the merciless fire of the enemy’s artillery.

‘It is, therefore, a great pleasure to me to confer on them all l’encomio solenne, adding thereto my sincerest good wishes and gratitude.

‘(Signed) C. Lequio,
‘Lieut.-General Commanding.’

Mr. Douglas Cooper, of this unit, has received the Bronze Medal for Military Valour for his services under fire.

The ambulances of the Third Unit, which is under the command of Mr. F. Alexander, were a gift of the British Coal Owners’ and Miners’ Committee for service in Italy. This unit has now completed a year of service on the Carso front, especially distinguished for the extremely heavy fighting which has taken place there. No more conclusive proof is required of the high opinion held by the Italian Sanitary Service of the judgment and consideration of the British driver than the fact that over one-third of the wounded carried by the ambulances of this Third Unit have been stretcher cases.

The Fourth Unit is a radiographic one, under the joint command of Countess Helena Gleichen and Mrs. Hollings, who realised early in the war the incalculably valuable work that radiography could fulfil in the immediate vicinity of the front. The apparatus, which combines both power and mobility, is one of the most up-to-date yet devised. For over a year now, without the briefest leave of absence, these ladies have carried on their work close up to the firing line, where their devotion, unselfishness, and disdain of all danger have won for them the Italian Bronze Medal for Military Valour, to say nothing of the undying gratitude, not alone of the wounded who have passed through their hands, but of the whole army corps under whose eyes they have laboured.

The Fifth Unit, recently formed, is also devoted to ‘close-up’ radiography. It is under the command of Mr. Cecil Pisent.

The following grimly amusing, but highly illuminative anecdote is told to illustrate the resourcefulness and energy of the British ambulance driver in an emergency hardly covered by his instructions or previous experience.

One of the voluntary drivers was bringing down, over an especially difficult piece of road, an ambulance full of wounded from a lofty sector of the Alpine front, when he encountered a soldier in a desperate condition from a gaping bullet-wound in the throat. Realising that the man was in imminent danger of bleeding to death, the driver lifted the inert body to his seat, propping it up the best he could next to where he sat behind his steering-wheel. Driving with his right hand, while with a finger of his left he maintained a firm pressure on the severed carotid artery, he steered his ambulance down the slippery, winding mountain road to the clearing station at the foot of the pass. The laconic comment of the astonished but highly pleased Italian doctor on the incident was direct but comprehensive.

‘Well, young man,’ he said, as he took hasty measures further to staunch the gushes of blood, ‘you’ve saved his life, but in five minutes more you would have throttled him.’

It will hardly be necessary to enlarge on the effect upon the Italian wounded of the devoted care they have received while in charge of the British Red Cross Ambulance and Hospital Units; nor yet on the admiration awakened throughout the Italian army by the presence in their midst of these quietly energetic and modestly brave workers of mercy. Reciprocally, too, it has given to hundreds (to be passed on to thousands) of Britons an experience of Italian courage and fortitude which could never have been gained except through the medium of hospital and ambulance work. I do not believe I have heard a finer tribute of one Ally to another than that which a member of the British Red Cross Mission paid to the Italians as he had observed them under the terrible trial of the especially aggravated Austrian gas attack of June 30, 1916.

‘The gas employed on this occasion,’ he said, ‘was the deadliest of which there has been any experience; much deadlier than the Germans employed against us at Ypres. It was, as General Cadorna’s dispatch admitted, very destructive of life, although the valour of the Italian soldier prevented the enemy from reaping any military advantage from the foul sowing. Our cars were summoned early, and we worked all night at Sagrado. The trenches on the Carso were at that time close at hand, and the soldiers who were not overcome at their posts came staggering into the hospitals for many hours after the horror was released. Several hundred of them died that night in the court and garden.

‘It was a scene of heartrending suffering—much the same sort of horror the British went through in Flanders a year before—and the Italians were, very naturally, in a rage with the savagery of the Austrian methods of war. If there ever was a moment when they might have been capable of cruelty or roughness with their prisoners, this was the one when their fury would have carried them away. Their comrades, racked with unspeakable agony, were dying around them by scores. Yet even on that night I observed with admiration that they medicated the Austrian wounded prisoners with exactly the same kindness and attention they showed to their own, passing them on to our waiting cars in due time without injury or insult.’

Under the leadership of Geoffrey Young, Alpine climber and poet, the ambulances of the British Red Cross were the first motor vehicles to enter Gorizia following its capture in August 1916. Perhaps I cannot convey a better idea of the conditions under which the drivers work, and the spirit in which that work is carried out, than by quoting from Mr. Young’s report to Mr. Trevelyan, the commander of his unit, a copy of which has kindly been put at my disposal.

‘On August 8, 6.30 P.M.,’ he writes, ‘I picked up at Lucinico and carried back two cavalry officers, still wet from the ride across the Isonzo. All August 9 Bersaglieri, &c., passed, moving on to cross the river. At 7.50 P.M. Captain Z⸺, who had just moved with us from the Osteria to Vallisella, informed me that he had an urgent call from Gorizia to fetch in cavalry wounded. He asked me if I could get an ambulance across. I selected the light touring car, loaded with bandages (Driver Sessions), and the Ford Ambulance, as that could pass where heavier cars might not be able to; also the Crossley (Watson) as the next in size, and the No. 14 Buick, in case the bridge would allow it.

‘... The roads were still full of shell holes and blocked by munition carts and guns. We reached the Iron Bridge just as darkness fell. Here the cars had to halt, as the holes in the bridge were making it necessary to unharness the artillery horses and man-handle the guns across. At the worst passages the shells were being unloaded from the carts and reloaded beyond the obstacles.

‘I walked across ahead by moonlight. Every ten feet or so there were shell breaches through the bridge. At night it was next to impossible to see them, and even after some twenty crossings I found the greatest circumspection necessary. In various places soldiers, mules, and carts severally fell through during the night. In two places nearly two-thirds of the bridge had been blown away, leaving only narrow passages along the edge. These were slightly but insecurely inclosed by a few loose planks. Again and again the heavy artillery carts broke through, gradually paring away the edge of the remaining galleries. Each of our cars had to be piloted across on foot, inch by inch. In the block it was impossible to keep them together ... and long waits and many retraversings were necessary before all four were steered safely over. There had been no time as yet even to clear away the bodies of the soldiers killed in the first passage of the morning.

‘We then wound up into the town, again impeded by shell holes in the road, fallen trees, and by remains of carts, horses, and mules. The town was utterly deserted. The only occupation was by squadrons of cavalry. The Austrians were still being cleared out of the outskirts, and stray bullets announced any open gaps in the line of houses to the east of us.

‘We traversed the town in convoy, visiting the Municipio and the principal Piazzas. We failed to find any cavalry aid-post with wounded. We were informed by a colonel of cavalry, who received us most cordially, that no aid-posts had as yet been established, and that we were the first motor ambulances to cross the bridge.

‘In passing and repassing, however, we had constant appeals from the corner-posts of regimental stretcher-bearers, and had soon filled our ambulance with wounded and distributed most of the stores of bandages, &c., with which the touring car had been loaded.

‘We then started to return. The moon had now sunk. The gaps in the Iron Bridge had opened farther. The traffic was all from the other bank, and the munition carts were all successively breaking through and necessitating lengthy rescue operations. It was fully an hour before I secured passage for the touring car. Sessions then returned with me to drive the Ford Ambulance. Another hour passed before he could be started. I left him half-way across, and returned to fetch the other cars. On recrossing I found the Ford with one wheel through. Sessions’ coolness and the car’s lightness enabled us to extract the latter and its load. It was then clear that passage for a wider car had now become impossible. On our return on foot we saw that another portion of one of the narrow galleries had opened out (the footway separating from the roadway), carrying with it a mule. No course lay open but to leave the heavier cars, with their wounded, on the Gorizia side, and to try to get the others back to Vallisella, returning later with another car to which the wounded could be carried across the bridge. The night was cold, and we left all available coats, &c., to cover the wounded in their long wait. The drivers accepted the situation with the coolness one could expect from them.

‘On reaching the Italian side again we found a block, three carts wide, extending back almost to Lucinico. We were forced to abandon, therefore, the remaining Ford Ambulance, for which it proved impossible to make a passage. After a few hundred yards of slow progress in the block, the touring car fell over the side of the road into a shell hole. It was extricated, but a few yards further the block became impracticable. We left it, half in a trench, and walked to Vallisella. On the way we met our two remaining cars, loaded with the material of the hospitals to which we were attached, also completely locked in the block.

‘At Vallisella we filled rucksacks with food and thermos, and with our adjutant, Kennedy, to help, trudged back for the bridge. Fortunately, our tramp-like appearance only led to one “hold-up” in the kindly darkness.

‘My anxiety to return was emphasised by the certainty that the Austrians would begin shelling the bridge as soon as daylight revealed the block. Day broke as we approached it. The risk had also appealed to the drivers, and we met the lorries, cars, &c., all breaking out of the jam and racing for the cover of Lucinico. Glaisyer was able to move off just as we reached him. The two cars that were still on the near side got down to the protection of the Galleria with their hospital staff.

‘As I walked up to the bridge, I was just in time to see Woolmer ably rushing the Crossley over the holes, across which the Genio had thrown a few loose planks and beams. The heavier Buick had to be carefully piloted over, Christie winding through the gaps and rushing the awkward narrow traverses with skill and nerve. The Buick was the last heavy car to recross before the bridge, under fire, was repaired about mid-day. It had also been the first to cross.

‘We were barely clear of the bridge—perhaps four minutes—when the first big shell exploded at the Italian end.’

From the time of the capture of Gorizia down to the present the cars of the First Unit have been stationed there, picking up their wounded within a mile of the Austrian first-line trenches. At the time of my visit to the British Red Cross Hospital one of the drivers had just suffered a broken leg and other injuries sustained when the walls of his quarters in Gorizia were blown down upon him by an Austrian shell.

‘They’re talking about sending me home on a bit of a leave to rest up a bit,’ he told me; ‘but—much as I should like to go—I’m not too keen on it. It’s more men we need here, rather than less. So, unless they insist upon it, I think my leave can wait better than our wounded.’

That seems to me fairly typical of the spirit imbuing every member of the Mission with whom I talked.

UNCONQUERED: AN EPISODE OF 1914.

BY MAUD DIVER.