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IN THE REAR OF THE FOURTH ARMY 157
houses which have been fitted up as hospitals during the war.
Many, too, are sent direct to their homes. The main governing
principle all the way from the front to the home country is :
make room, make room, make room ! Therefore every
effort is made to get rid of the wounded as speedily as possible
to make room for new arrivals.
Every first-aid medical wagon is carefully divided into
compartments and boxes so that each requisite has its proper
place and can be found in an instant. The hospital trains
are organised and equipped with equally exemplary care and
forethought, everything being planned beforehand in peace
time. The iron framework supporting the berth for the
wounded is always kept ready, all that is required is to remove
from third-class carriages the seats and racks, and screw
fast in their place the framework for the berths. It is known
beforehand how many mattresses, pillows and blankets are
required for each carriage. In the medical and apothecaries’
store wagons all is arranged with such precision as to enable
the doctor to find, blindfolded, the tincture of iodine or quinine
he requires, or a piece of sticking plaster, or a safety pin.
Everything is arranged on a uniformly fixed system ; if a new-
comer cannot at once find his way he need only refer to the
printed key which applies for all German ambulance trains.
The punctilious thoroughness of the Germans has been
ridiculed and called pedantry. But it now appears why this
pedantry was useful. All goes like clockwork and no one has
any need to search or enquire. And the same order, regulated
by strict rules laid down in peace time, reigns everywhere ;
therefore the Germans do not behave like half-dazed dreamers
startled out of their slumber, when they are faced with war
in earnest. They are well prepared and trained in everything,
whether the duties assigned to them are on the lines of com-
munication or at the operating table.
I have been told in German quarters that the French Army
surgeons are better equipped than the German, that is to say
that in the French Army there are on ’hand larger supplies
of pharmaceutical and surgical stores. It is said that the
French field hospitals are more numerous than the German
and are not replaced subsequently by the clearing hospital.
This last mentioned circumstance is, of course, quite natural
and arises from the situation of the war itself. The Germans
have been advancing on French soil ; their hnes of communi-
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