Henry Dunant, A Memory of Solferino, 1863

Henry Dunant, A Memory of Solferino, 1863:

Everyone has heard, or may have read, some account of the battle of Solferino.
The memory of it is so vivid that no one has forgotten it, especially as the consequences
of that day are still being felt in many European countries. I was a mere
tourist with no part whatever in this great conflict; but it was my rare privilege,
through an unusual train of circumstances, to witness the moving scenes that I
have resolved to describe. In these pages I give only my personal impressions;
so my readers should not look here for specific details, nor for information on
strategic matters; these things have their place in other writings.
(…)
At San Martino, Captain Pallavicini, an officer of Bersaglieri, was wounded; his
soldiers lifted him in their arms and carried him to a chapel where he was given
first aid. But the Austrians, who had been momentarily repulsed, returned to the
charge and forced their way into the chapel. The Bersaglieri were not strong
enough to resist them, and had to desert their commander; whereupon the
Croats picked up heavy stones from the doorway and crushed the skull of the
poor Captain, whose brains spattered their tunics.
From the midst of all this fighting, which went on and on all over the battlefield,
arose the oaths and curses of men of all the different nations engaged -men, of
whom many had been made into murderers at the age of twenty!
In the thickest of the fight, Napoleon's chaplain, the Abbé Laine, went from one
field hospital to the next bringing consolation and sympathy to the dying. The
death-dealing storm of steel and sulphur and lead which swept the ground shook
the earth beneath his feet, and more and more martyrs were added to the human
hecatomb as the firing lines ploughed the air with their deadly lightning. A
Second Lieutenant of the line had his left arm broken by a chain shot, and blood
poured from the wound. A Hungarian officer saw one of his men aiming at the
boy; the officer stopped him, and then, going up to the wounded man, wrung his
hand compassionately and gave orders for him to be carried to a safer place.
The canteen women moved about the field under enemy fire like the soldiers.
They were often wounded themselves as they went among the wounded men,
lifting their heads and giving them drink as they cried piteously for water [2]. An
officer of Hussars, weakened by loss of blood, was struggling to get clear of the
body of his horse, which had fallen heavily on him when hit by a shell splinter. A
run-away horse galloped by, dragging the bleeding body of his rider. The horses,
more merciful than the men on their backs, kept trying to pick their way so as to
avoid stepping on the victims of this furious, passionate battle.
(…)
Oh, the agony and suffering during those days, the twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth
and twenty-seventh of June! Wounds were infected by the heat and dust, by
shortage of water and lack of proper care, and grew more and more painful. Foul
exhalations contaminated the air, in spite of the praiseworthy attempts of the
authorities to keep hospital areas in a sanitary condition. The convoys brought a
fresh contingent of wounded men into Castiglione every quarter of an hour, and
the shortage of assistants, orderlies and helpers was cruelly felt. In spite of the
activity of one army doctor and two or three other persons in organizing transportation
to Brescia by oxcart, and in spite of the spontaneous help given by carriageowners
in Brescia, who came to fetch officer patients with their carriages,
cases could not be evacuated nearly as quickly as new ones came in, and the
congestion grew worse and worse.
Men of all nations lay side by side on the flagstone floors of the churches of Castiglione-
Frenchmen and Arabs, Germans and Slavs. Ranged for the time being
close together inside the chapels, they no longer had the strength to move, or if
they had there was no room for them to do so. Oaths, curses and cries such as
no words can describe resounded from the vaulting of the sacred buildings.
"Oh, Sir, l'm in such pain!" several of these poor fellows said to me, "they desert
us, leave us to die
miserably, and yet we fought so hard!" They could get no rest, although they
were tired out and had not slept for nights. They called out in their distress for a
doctor, and writhed in desperate convulsions that ended in tetanus and death.
Some of the soldiers got the idea that cold water poured on already festering
wounds caused worms to appear, and for this absurd reason they refused to allow
their bandages to be moistened. Others, who were fortunate enough to have
had their wounds dressed at once in field hospitals, received no fresh dressings
at Castiglione during their enforced stay there; the tight bandages that had been
put on to help them to stand the jolts of the road having been neither replaced
nor loosened, these men were undergoing perfect tortures.
With faces black with the flies that swarmed about their wounds, men gazed
around them, wild-eyed and helpless. Others were no more than a worm-ridden,
inextricable compound of coat and shirt and flesh and blood. Many were shuddering
at the thought of being devoured by the worms, which they thought they
could see coming out of their bodies (whereas they really came from the myriads
of flies which infested the air). There was one poor man, completely disfigured,
with a broken jaw and his swollen tongue hanging out of his mouth. He was tossing
and trying to get up. I moistened his dry lips and hardened tongue, took a
handful of lint and dipped it in the bucket they were carrying behind me, and
squeezed the water from this improvised sponge into the deformed opening that
had been his mouth. Another wretched man had had a part of his face-nose, lips
and chin-taken off by a sabre cut. He could not speak, and lay, half-blind, making
heart-rending signs with his hands and uttering guttural sounds to attract
attention. I gave him a drink and poured a little fresh water on his bleeding face.
A third, with his skull gaping wide open, was dying, spitting
out his brains on the stone floor. His companions in suffering kicked him out of
their way, as he blocked the passage. I was able to shelter him for the last moments
of his life, and I laid a handkerchief over his poor head, which still just
moved.
(…)
But why have I told of all these scenes of pain and distress, and perhaps aroused
painful emotions in my readers? Why have I lingered with seeming complacency
over lamentable pictures, tracing their details with what may appear desperate
fidelity? It is a natural question. Perhaps I might answer it by another: Would it
not be possible, in time of peace and quiet, to form relief societies for the purpose
of having care given to the wounded in wartime by zealous, devoted and
thoroughly qualified volunteers?
(…)
It must not be thought that the lovely girls and kind women of Castiglione, devoted
as they were, saved from death many of the wounded and disfigured, but
still curable, soldiers to whom they gave their help. All they could do was to bring
a little relief to a few of them. What was needed there was not only weak and
ignorant women, but, with them and beside them, kindly and experienced men,
capable, firm, already organized, and in sufficient numbers to get to work at
once in an orderly fashion. In that case many of the complications and fevers
which so terribly aggravated wounds originally slight, but very soon mortal,
might have been avoided. If there had been enough assistance to collect the
wounded in the plains of Medola and from the bottom of the ravines of San
Martino, on the sharp slopes of Mount Fontana, or on the low hills above Solferino,
how different things would have been! There would have been none of those
long hours of waiting on June 24,
hours of poignant anguish and bitter helplessness, during which those poor men
of the Bersagliere, Uhlans and Zouaves struggled to rise, despite their fearful
pain, and beckoned vainly for a letter to be brought over to them, and there
would never have been the terrible possibility of what only too probably happened
the next day-living men being buried among the dead!
(…)
If the new and frightful weapons of destruction which are now at the disposal of
the nations, seem destined to abridge the duration of future wars, it appears
likely, on the other hand, that future battles will only become more and more
murderous. Moreover, in this age when surprise plays so important a part, is it
not possible that wars may arise, from one quarter or another, in the most sudden
and unexpected fashion? And do not these considerations alone constitute
more than adequate reason for taking precautions against surprise?