Nationale Bodenreform

Russian local government during the war and the Union of Zemstvos

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 832363383

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-68350

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Steller, Paul

Title:: Die deutschen Hypotheken-Aktien-Banken

Place of publication:: Stuttgart

Publisher:: Aue

Year of publication:: 1877

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (69 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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66 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR dreds of thousands of rubles and representing an excellent hospital on wheels. The number of such trains, however, soon proved abso- lutely inadequate. After serious battles they could remove at best only a small proportion of the casualties. Moreover, during the first months of the War the railways near the front were badly con- gested, so that even such hospital trains as happened to be available were not always able to reach the point where they were most needed. In order to cope with such emergencies, the military au- thorities were compelled to use whatever means happened to be available at the moment. Freight cars arriving at the front with munitions, provisions, or troops, would be immediately loaded with the sick and wounded and sent back to the interior. These freight cars had, of course, no sleeping accommodation whatever and frequently lacked even straw bedding, so that the sufferers had to lie on the hard wooden floors. In the meantime, the nights were becoming chilly. There were no kitchens on these trains and sometimes they would arrive during the night at the clearing stations and canteens when the medical staffs and other attendants were absent. As a general rule, such a train would be accompanied by a single army surgeon, or perhaps only a junior medical officer or a nurse from some army hospital. Lacking practically everything that might help to alleviate the suffering of their patients, these nurses or doctors, acting under strict orders of the military authori- ties which required them to attend to six hundred or seven hundred charges, were simply forced to keep out of sight of their helpless patients, being unable to do anything for them. When these im- provised hospital trains finally arrived at Moscow after many days, the appearance of the patients was often shocking. As long as clear- ing hospitals had not been established, the most that could be done was to make a hasty round of the train, dress some of the wounds, feed the men, and provide straw or perhaps wood shavings for bedding, to make them a little more comfortable. Frequently, how- ever, it was impossible to do even this. Sometimes a train might arrive unexpectedly in the night or on holidays. when it was difficult to obtain necessary supplies. All these facts compelled the Zemstvo Union to insist that it should be informed in advance of the arrival of every train. It pro- ceeded to organize a continuous day and night watch of the medical personnel and opened a special supply depot for the most mndis-

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