CHAPTER VI
RELIEF OF SICK AND WOUNDED SOLDIERS
Evacuation.
At the beginning of August, 1914, the War Department turned to
the Zemstvo Union for assistance in the following task. The num-
ber of sick and wounded soldiers expected each month was about
200,000. Their transport from the front was to be carried out by
five clearing stations: Petrograd (60,000), Moscow (84,000),
Kursk (8,000), Orel (24,000), and Kharkov (28,000). It was nec-
essary to consider how the prompt distribution of evacuated men all
over the country should be organized. At the end of August, the
serious fighting in Galicia clearly demonstrated that there might be
as many as 280,000 casualties a month requiring evacuation from
the front.
The plan of the Zemstvo Union, prepared in conformity with this
request of the Ministry of War, was as follows: clearing hospitals
were to be established in the above-named cities, in which the evacu-
ated soldiers were to be classified and given the most indispensable
medical aid. The stay of a patient at a clearing hospital was to last
an average of three days and in no case more than ten. Allowing,
for the sake of safety, for a maximum figure of ten, it was necessary
to provide accommodation at the clearing hospitals for at least one-
third of the total monthly quota of sick and wounded soldiers that
might arrive at these points. From the hospitals they were to be
transferred to the so-called “circuit” hospitals. The time allowed
2ach patient in such hospitals was about three weeks. This esti-
mate determined the number of beds needed both at the clearing hos-
pitals and in the “circuits,” that is to say, those provinces that were
assigned to serve each clearing hospital.’
The military authorities thought themselves capable of assuming
the whole burden of organizing the clearing hospitals, but were of
opinion that in the “circuits” they would be able to maintain only
part of the necessary hospital beds; all the rest were left to the care
‘ The Petrograd circuit comprised six provinces and Finland; the Mos-
cow circuit, fifteen provinces; the Orel circuit, five; Kursk, two; Kharkov,
two.
