SICK AND WOUNDED 95
ously two offensives of the Russian armies—at Czernovitsy and
Erzerum. Kharkov and Tiflis were the only points which now felt
the increased stream of casualties, and the Tiflis clearing hospital
was at this time subjected to the strain of an unprecedented number
of sick rather than of wounded.?
In February, 1916, it was decided to launch a partial offensive in
the region of Lake Naroch. The immediate rear, as has been stated
previously, had been deprived of some of the large hospitals, evacu-
ated to the interior during the last great retreat. In view of the ex-
pected renewed influx of large numbers of sick and wounded, it was
proposed to the Zemstvo Union that it should equip all along the
front a number of receiving stations. This order was executed within
one month, and huts accommodating 40,000 patients were soon
erected on the northern and western fronts.
Notwithstanding these preparations, the evacuation of casualties
during the spring battles of 1916 did not proceed very smoothly.
The question was again raised of bringing about better coordina-
tion between the evacuation at the front and in the rear. The move-
ment of the sick and wounded from the clearing hospitals was being
carried out with more or less order and system because the two un-
ions, having at their disposal telegraphic information as to the num-
ber of vacant beds in the hospitals of the interior, were able
promptly to overcome difficulties that might accidentally arise. But
the Zemstvo Union had no influence whatever over the evacuation
from the front to the clearing hospitals, and all its efforts to
establish some kind of a working agreement with the evacuation
authorities at the front were invariably defeated. In the meantime,
the administration of military communications at the front paid
not the slightest attention to the capacity of the clearing hospitals,
but merely reckoned with the number of trains that might be dis-
patched to those points. In particular, in the spring of 1916, they
ordered the dispatch of six trains a day to Orel, nine to Petrograd,
and only five to Moscow, whereas the relative capacity of these
clearing stations was altogether different.
At conferences held in the beginning of May, 1916, the two Un-
ions again urged upon the authorities the need of increasing the ac-
commodation in the hospitals of the interior, in view of the expected
* Izvestia (Bulletin) of the Central Committee, Nos. 37-38, pp. 26-29.
