In the Franco-German War of 1870–1, a larger number of troops were assembled within a short time upon the field of battle than in any previous campaign. On the German side 33,101 officers and 1,113,254 men took part in the war; the average number of men in the German field-army was 815,000. The total number of French soldiers under arms is not definitely known; that it was enormous is evident from the fact that the number of prisoners taken (including the garrison in Paris and General Bourbaki’s army) amounted to no less than 21,500 officers and 702,000 men. At certain periods of the war huge bodies of troops were congregated within comparatively narrow limits; at the battle of Gravelotte (August 18, 1870) some 180,000 to 200,000 men faced one another on either side; at the siege of Metz the average size of the German investing army was 240,000 men, while the French army in the city numbered 173,000 men at the time of the capitulation. At the battle of Sedan (September 1, 1870) 124,000 French soldiers were opposed to nearly twice that number of Germans. The garrison in Paris amounted to about 250,000 men, while the German besiegers averaged 240,000 men.
II. Dysentery, Typhoid Fever, and Typhus Fever
Despite the fact that these enormous congregations of men were often exposed to very unfavourable weather conditions, and were much of the time scantily fed, the number of German field-troops that contracted and succumbed to infectious diseases was comparatively small. The total loss sustained by the German army in consequence of injuries and diseases amounted to 43,182 men and of these 14,648 died of disease. The following table indicates the percentage of deaths caused by the various diseases:
| Disease. | Per cent. |
|---|---|
| Typhoid Fever | 60·0 |
| Dysentery | 16·2 |
| Small-pox | 1·9 |
| Intermittent Fever | 0·1 |
| Other infectious diseases | 0·3 |
| Other diseases | 21·5 |
Typhoid fever and dysentery were most prevalent, for the reason that the troops were often quartered in places where these diseases were already endemic. Regarding these matters we are accurately informed by the ‘Health Report relating to the German Armies in the War of 1870–1 against France’, an exhaustive account published by the Medical Division of the Prussian War Department.[[238]]
A total of 74,205 men in the German field-army contracted typhoid and gastric fever, and 8,904 succumbed to them. The eastern Departments of France, especially the city and vicinity of Metz, were constantly afflicted with typhoid fever. This explains why both the German besiegers and the French defenders suffered so severely from that disease, the dissemination of which was helped by the contamination of the springs and water-courses, partly through excessive use, and partly in consequence of the burial of dead men and horses in close proximity to them. And while drinking-water was for that reason brought from a distance, the water used for other purposes was obtained in the immediate neighbourhood. It is obvious that typhoid fever must have raged extensively among the inhabitants of the villages surrounding Metz, the mortality in which during the siege was three times as high as normal. This is evident from a compilation of figures in the German Health Report,[[239]] indicating how the death-rate in these villages rapidly decreased after the withdrawal of the Germans; per 100 inhabitants, there died in:
| Inhabitants. | Nov. | Dec. | Jan. | Feb. | March. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Verneville | 672 | 2·39 | 1·34 | 1·04 | 0·30 | 0·74 |
| St. Privat | 480 | 2·70 | 1·20 | 1·68 | 0·84 | 0·42 |
| Gravelotte | 708 | 2·14 | 0·71 | 0·55 | 0·71 | |
| Ste. Marie aux Chênes | 340 | 1·17 | 0·59 | 0·59 | 0·29 | 0·59 |
| Rezonville | 587 | 1·87 | 0·87 | 0·68 | 0·68 | 0·85 |
| Gorze | 1,774 | 1·45 | 0·73 | 0·56 | 0·22 | 0·39 |
Typhoid fever and dysentery were chiefly responsible for this high mortality. As at Metz, so also at Sedan and Paris, the troops suffered severely from typhoid fever.
Large numbers of typhoid-fever patients were taken to lazarets in Germany; the Prussian lazarets alone took in 30,507, of whom 1,376 died.
Typhoid fever raged furiously among the French prisoners of war, who usually brought the germ of the disease with them from the scene of the hostilities. ‘Most observers’, we read in the German Health Report,[[240]] ‘agree that the disease was most prevalent during the first three weeks after the arrival of large transports of prisoners at their place of detention; after that it gradually abated, and finally appeared only sporadically.’ The military prisons, however, while they often formed new sources of infection, did not help to disseminate the disease, owing to the advanced season of the year.