Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XX. War sufferers
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nothing but skin and bone and who looked like dying
men of sixty, whereas, in reality they were young men
of from twenty to twenty-five years of age! And
sometimes two or three hours later my wife closed the eyes
of these same poor men who, as death cast its shadow
over them, became gradually calmer and resigned to
never seeing their own villages and their families again,
and who died quietly and without a murmur, as dies the
Russian man of the people. For, of the 200 or 250
wounded that each train carried, there were always some
that died during the long journey in spite of all the care
bestowed on them.
One saw all kinds of awful physical suffering in these
moving hospitals: blind men and madmen (a great
number of madmen!), tubercular and maimed men, all
had the same wan and pinched look, and were scantily
clothed in worn-out garments.[1] Emaciated by hunger
(the horrible hunger of German prisons!) and suffering,
by cold and vile treatment, they had most often had
their limbs amputated, not in consequence of wounds
received on the battlefield, but on account of frost-bite
or of some disease contracted in the dog-holes of the
concentration camps.
And all these poor wretches (except the madmen)—the
blind, the tubercular and the maimed—asked one and the
same question, which seemed to cause them real anguish:
“Is it true that we are to make peace with Germany, as
we have been told? We will not believe it. We will go
on to the end, even if all our comrades still in captivity
must perish miserably. The Germans are at the end
of their resources; they often confessed as much to us.
A few more months of effort and the enemy will be
beaten!”
And it was wonderful to see the relief of all these poor
men when I replied peremptorily: “We shall not make
peace, we shall go on to the end; victory is already in
sight!”
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