94 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR
undertaking so enormous a task. A conference was held with the
head of the medical department of the army, at which it was unanimously
 decided that the assistance of the Zemstvo Union should be
enlisted. The telegram dispatched in this connection by the Ministry
 of War included the following sentence: “Prompted by the consideration
 that this Union has extended its activities throughout the
interior with such success, we feel that it possesses the best and most
adequate means and resources to undertake the construction of the
above-mentioned hospitals.”
The building season was coming to an end and the transport of
building material by rail was extremely difficult. Nor was it possible
everywhere to purchase suitable sites for the hospitals, while compulsory
 expropriation would have involved complicated formalities.
In spite of these obstacles, the Zemstvo Union, having communicated
 with its local committees, undertook this work also, stipulating
merely that the Government should assist it in the conveyance of the
requisite materials and in obtaining the necessary sites. The Government
 accepted these terms, the local committees proceeded to buy
the building materials, and work was started in many places. According
 to the estimates, the cost of one bed varied from three hundred
 to seven hundred rubles and the length of time required to complete
 the buildings from two to four months.
The Government, nevertheless, found itself unable to deliver all
the materials and to obtain the sites. The result was that the zemstvos
 were freed from some of the obligations they had assumed, the
more so as the termination of the German offensive made the whole
enterprise far less urgent than it had been. Still, by March and
April, 1915, substantial, heated hospital barracks with a capacity
of 24,480 beds had been built. This work was shared by the following
 provincial zemstvos: Vladimir, Saratov, Kostroma, Nizhni-Novgorod,
 Perm, Poltava, Samara, Simbirsk, Tambov, Ufa, and
Kharkov. In the Don and Kuban territories such barracks were
constructed by the Rostov committee of the Union.
From September, 1915, to about the latter part of December of
that year, there was a complete standstill in hostilities on all Russian
 fronts, interrupted only by minor clashes in the Riga-Dvinsk
sector, which could not in any way affect the work of the clearing
hospitals. But at the end of December there were almost simultane