[To face p. 96.
In due time tidings came of the victory of Alma. But alas for the brave “lads,” for the news came too of the wounded lying uncared for, the sick untended, the dying unconsoled. In the midst of the nation’s rejoicings at victory a cry of indignation arose on behalf of her soldiers.
There had been gross neglect in the war administration, and the commissariat had broken down. Food, clothing, and comforts had been stowed in the hold of vessels beneath ammunition and could not be got at when required, while other stores rotted on the shores of the Bosphorus while awaiting delivery. Not only were food and clothing lamentably scarce, but the surgeons were often without even lint and bandages, to say nothing of other requisites for ambulance and hospital work. “The commonest accessories of a hospital are wanting,” wrote The Times war correspondent, William Howard Russell, “there is not the least attention paid to decency or cleanliness, the stench is appalling; ... and for all I can observe, the men die without the least effort to save them. There they lie just as they were let gently down on the ground by the poor fellows, the comrades, who brought them on their backs from the camp with the greatest tenderness, but who are not allowed to remain with them.”
The staff of army doctors was insufficient to deal with the wounded, which after the battles of Alma and Inkerman accumulated in appalling numbers, and there were no nurses except the untrained male orderlies, many of whom were only a little less sick than those whom they were supposed to tend. There was no woman’s hand to soothe the fevered brow, administer nourishment, perform the various little offices for the sick, and console the dying.
The untended and uncared-for state of our own soldiers was rendered more conspicuous by the humane system which prevailed amongst our French allies. In camp and hospital sisters of mercy glided from stretcher to stretcher, and from bed to bed, administering food and help to the wounded. In their convent homes all over France they had been trained in the work of sick nursing, and their holy vocations did not prevent them from going forth to the scene of battle.
Soon came the appeal which roused Englishwomen and their country to a sense of duty, and the honour of uttering it belongs to Mr. (later Sir) William Howard Russell, the veteran war correspondent, then representing The Times at the seat of war. After describing the suffering which he had witnessed amongst the sick and wounded soldiers, he raised the clarion note:—
“Are there no devoted women amongst us, able and willing to go forth to minister to the sick and suffering soldiers of the East in the hospitals at Scutari? Are none of the daughters of England, at this extreme hour of need, ready for such a work of mercy?... France has sent forth her sisters of mercy unsparingly, and they are even now by the bedsides of the wounded and the dying, giving what woman’s hand alone can give of comfort and relief.... Must we fall so far below the French in self-sacrifice and devotedness, in a work which Christ so signally blesses as done unto Himself? ‘I was sick and ye visited Me.’”
The wives of officers at the seat of war sent home harrowing accounts of the distress amongst the wounded and the futility of their own efforts to cope with it. “Could you see the scenes that we are daily witnessing,” wrote one lady to her friends, “you would indeed be distressed. I am still in barracks, but the sick are now lying in the passages, within a few yards of my room. Every corner is filled up with the sick and wounded. However, I am enabled to do some little good, and I hope I shall not be obliged to leave just yet. My time is occupied in cooking for the wounded. Three doors from me there is an officer’s wife who devotes herself to cooking for the sick. There are no female nurses here, which decidedly there ought to be. The French have sent fifty sisters of mercy, who, we need hardly say, are devoted to the work. We are glad to hear that some efforts are being made at home.”
The reason why female nurses had not been sent out at the beginning of the war was explained by the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for War, when he gave evidence before Mr. Roebuck’s Commission, which sat in 1855 to inquire into the conduct of the campaign, and it is of interest to quote the evidence as it so exactly explains the train of circumstances which led to Miss Nightingale’s appointment. Asked “When did you first determine on sending nurses to Scutari?” the Duke replied:—
“The employment of nurses in the hospital at Scutari was mooted in this country, at an early stage before the army left this country, but it was not liked by the military authorities. It had been tried on former occasions. The class of women employed as nurses had been very much addicted to drinking, and they were found even more callous to the sufferings of soldiers in hospitals than men would have been. Subsequently, in consequence of letters in the public press, and of recommendations made by gentlemen who had returned to this country from Scutari, we began to consider the subject of employing nurses. The difficulty was to get a lady to take in hand the charge of superintending and directing a body of nurses. After having seen one or two I almost despaired of the practicability of the matter until Mr. Sidney Herbert suggested Miss Nightingale, with whom he had been previously acquainted, for the work, and that lady eventually undertook it.”