[16] A saying attributed to Napoleon is that he preferred a dead soldier to a wounded one.
[17] "Ueber den Transport Schwerverwundeter und Kranker im Kriege, nebst Vorschlägen über die Benutzung der Eisenbahnen dabei." 33 pp. Berlin, 1860.
[18] "Les Institutions Sanitaires pendant le Conflit Austro-Prussien-Italien." Par Thomas W. Evans. Paris, 1867.
[19] For "A short consideration and comparison of the regulations for the transport of sick and wounded by rail, as laid down in four of the leading Continental armies (the German, French, Austrian and Italian)," see a paper on "Continental Regulations for the Transport of Sick and Wounded by Rail," by Surg.-Capt. C. H. Melville, A.M.S., Royal United Service Institution Journal, vol. 42 (1898), pp. 560-594.
[20] In an article on "Military Hospital Trains; their Origin and Progress," in The Railway Gazette of December 4, 1914, it is said: "The comparatively small loss of the Germans by death from wounds in 1870 was due solely to the fact that they entered upon the war with what were then considered wonderfully elaborate arrangements for removing the wounded.... The trains were composed partly of first-class carriages, for the less badly wounded, and partly of covered goods wagons.... In these covered vans were placed beds formed of boards laid on springs. Each van would hold four or five men, and a sister rode in the van." One would not, however, consider to-day that there was anything wonderfully elaborate in an arrangement under which no more than four or five sufferers were accommodated in each goods van.
CHAPTER IX
Preparation in Peace for War
The greater the experience gained of the application of rail-power in practice, and the closer the study devoted to its possibilities, in theory, the more obvious it became that the fullest degree of advantage to be derived therefrom could only be assured as the result of preparation and organisation in peace; and this conclusion appeared specially to apply to countries whose geographical and political conditions led them to regard it as expedient that they should always be ready to meet some great national emergency. The Federal Government of the United States certainly did succeed, in the early sixties, in creating an excellent military rail-transport organisation after hostilities had broken out; but the conditions of warfare to-day make it essentially necessary that arrangements for the use of railways for military purposes should, as far as possible, be planned, perfected or provided for long in advance of any possible outbreak of hostilities.
Among other considerations which strengthen this view are the following:—