Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 217, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1916 — ERCY WORKERS IN WAR DOING GREAT SERVICES [ARTICLE]

ERCY WORKERS IN WAR DOING GREAT SERVICES

All Countries Striving to Improve Conditions Surrounding Wounded. WORK OF AMERICANS LAUDED Motor Ambulance Service Does Invaluable Work in Transporting Wounded Soldiers—French People Touched , by Volunteer Work of Americans. London.—To no one race in this war belongs exclusively the work of mercy. France, Russia, England, Germany and Austria have each striven hard to improve the conditions surrounding the wounded in their armies. In the Ottoman Red Crescent, a Mahommedan equivalent of the Red Cross, even the Turks have a corps of mercy workers, to render aid to those injured in battle. But not only the belligerent nations are occupied in the field of mercy toward fallen fighters. America, with all the cheerful optimism which characterizes her people, has worked vigorously to alleviate the sufferings of the wounded soldiers in France. Distant Abyssinia, too, was one of the first neutral countries to establish a place of succor for the injured near the firing line. Indeed, the AngloEthiopian hospital at Prevent, provided with funds supplied by the Abyssian crown prince, did great service early in the war. Japan, representing the far East, also sent a wonderfully equipped ambulance corps which has since occupied the Hotel Astoria, Paris. Dainty women and intellectual men have given their time and their services eagerly in the cause of humanity. The ladies of the Russian cq.urt, self-sacrificing In the extreme, have been trained for hospital work in the field. They have performed duties at which men might shudder and they have performed them well. So it is in France and England and in the other countries, botli in and out of the war. That the majority of the workers have been volunteers is to the credit of civilization. Mercy, so often ‘beaten under in the actual conflict of the belligerents, has survived gloriously among those whose function has been to relieve, where possible, the victims of shot and shell. Automobile Great Help. Like the aeroplane, the automobile is a new departure, a very important one. In warfare. Since August, 1914, it has played many parts. Armored cars, transport lorries and other vehicles directly and indirectly contributing to the success of the different armies in the field, have established a fresh reputation for the motor industry. But it Is largely owing to the motor ambulance that the noble work of mercy has been possible. So far as Great Britain is concerned, the motor ambulance service owes its existence and its triumph to Lord Derby’s brother, Hon. Arthur Stanley, M. P.,~ chairman of the British Red Cross society, and also to the Royal Automobile club. Soon after the outbreak of war, in September, 1914, Mr. Stanley, quick to see the possibilities of the motor ambulance, was given a permit to send one or two out to the front by the late Lord Kitchener. “The actual permit,” said Mr. Stanley, “was in Lord Kitchener’s own handwriting—-on half a sheet of notepaper. It is now one. of the mosttreasured possessions if not the most treasured, in the archives of the Red Cross society. “One of the. first things I did on receiving the necessary permission.” continued Mr. Stanley, “was to get together. half a dozen volunteer motorists, all members of the Royal Automobile club, to drive the ambulance cars which we were sending to France. Our position was curious. The motorambulance was then practically an unknown quantity so far as actual warfare went, and the military authorities stipulated that our drivers were not to wear Uniform, nor, under any circumstances, to go near the firing line. There Was to be no Red Cross on the cars. Truly, the mission of the motor ambulance was to be extremely limited. They were simply to go about far behind the firing line and pick up wounded men who could not be carried to the field hospitals; men, for example, who had crawled for safety into abandoned cottages and barns. Proves Its Worth. “With the possible exception of the American ambulance cars at Neuilly, ours were the first motor ambulances used in France. But the value of a rapid service for the transport of wounded soldiers was quickly recogr nized, and now, of course,.wherever there is fighting there are motor ambulances.” Here is a typical instance, as told by Mr. Stanley, how the motor ambulance proved its worth in the'early days the war : “Lase one evening one of our ambulances crept up close to the firing line. They met an officer, who turned them back ‘because,’ as he said, ‘it is so dark, it is no use going further.’ “They went back to a farmhouse and to bed. In the middle of the night they were awakened by the same bffi-

cer, who told them that a wounded soldier, shot through both legs, was lying almost in the German lines. It was so dangerous a mission that the officer wouldn’t order the "ambulance to go! He just told them where the man was, and left them to decide. They went. They crawled, without lights, along an unknown road in the darkness; got almost within the German lines, where they found the man and brought him back to safety. That wounded soldier had lain there for days and would most certainly have died had he not been rescued that night. “In this modest and voluntary way the motor ambulance came into its own without one penny’ of cost to the government! “Today,” went on Mr. Stanley, “there are about 1,600 motor ambulances and cars at the French front alone. Another 1,000 are scattered about with the troops in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Saloniki, Malta, East Africa, etc. We have three ambulance convoys—each one consisting of some sixty cars and a radiographing convoy working in Italy. We have a number of cars in Petrograd and on the western Russian front, while we recently sent a small convoy as a present to Grand Duke Nicholas in the Caucasus.” These motors and ambulances have been provided, and their upkeep maintained, entirely by volunteer subscriptions. “Up to the present,” said Mr. Stanley, “we have collected over $20,000,000 for the Red Cross and St. John’s Ambulance society. The money comes in at the rate of about $5,000,000 every six months. This shows the public appreciation of the work. Our support comes from all sections of society.” “As an Instance of the diversity of our work, it may be interesting to note that we arranged the other day to send motor boats to Mesopotamia and ‘Charlie Chaplin’ films to Malta, this latter for the amusement of the convalescent soldiers! “One of the outstanding features of our organization lias been the splendid work done by the women.” Mr. Stanley mentioned, by the way, the excellent artificial limbs for maimed soldiers -produced by Ameriman manufacturers, both in the United States and especially at a factory established near London, where many disabled men are themselves employed. While the women of all nations at war have been working courageously in aid of their men. American women also have come out brilliantly in the labor of mercy. At the commencement of the war a group of American women, nearly all married to Englishmen, met together to consider how they might best render assistance to the soldiers of the king. The result was the birth of the American Woman’s War Relief fund, of which Lady Paget became president, with Mrs. John Astor as vice-president, the duchess of Marlborough as chairman and Lady Lowther and Mrs. Harcourt as honorary secretary. Other women closely identified with the work were Lady Randolph Churchill, Mrs. Whitelaw Reid and Hon. Mrs. John Ward. Work of American Women. The American Women’s War Relief fund began by sending a motor ambulance out to the front. “Friends in Boston” subscribed for another —it was actually the seventh —which was duly presented to the war office in London. Down tn Devonshire, at Paighton, near Torquay, there is an American woman’s war hospital, where thousands of wounded soldiers have been nursed back to health. Not contented with these activities the American women in question have opened workrooms in various parts of the British capital to enable girls thrown out of work to learn other trades, and so to become self-supporting, in spite of the war. Americans are busy helping in France as well as in England, and the American Relief Clearing house, In Paris, is also an institution of very considerable value and importance. It represents.the American Red Cross, and its distributing committee has already apportioned more than 4,000.000 parcels, from bales of cotton, clothes for men, women and children —shoes, hospital accessories, surgical instruments and countless other useful things/ Nq less than 2,000 hospitals In France have been fitted from the American Relief Clearing house, which has Joseph H. Choate tor Its president. Modeled somewhat on the lines of the organization over which Mr. Stanley presides, is the American Volun-

teer Motor Ambulance corps, yet another body of inercy-workers. . In September, 1914, Prof. Richard Norton of Harvard university saw for himself the plight of the wounded French soldiers, who suffered additionally through inadequate means of transportation. Consequently, with the cooperation of some of his friends, he started the American Volunteer Ambulance corps, which quickly widened its field from two cars to seventy-five. Originally composed of American and British members, the corps has, whilfe always working in conjunction with the French army, been placed under the British Red Cross —owing to questions of American neutrality. The volunteers of the American Motor Ambulance corps have given their time and their services uncomplainingly to the attainment of an excellent object. Under the chairmanship of the late Henry James, the novelist, who directed matters from London, many young college graduates freely entered the corps to work strenuously, without pay or preferment. Professor Norton, Ridgely Carter, Sir John Wolfe Berry, Jordan L. Nott. John Dixon Morrison and many other well-known men are members of the London council. Mr. Nortop and several of the men have been awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Croix d’Armee, the former ranking high in the honors of warring and republican France. Working close up to the firing line, the American Motor Ambulance men have brought relief to many thousands of wounded, and sick soldiers. Sometimes dashing about in country exposed to German artillery fire, the cars have not infrequently come through a hail of bursting shells, but, so far, without the loss of a single life. The only member of the corps to die is A. D. Loney who, while returning from a brief visit to America, was drowned in the sinking of the Lusitania. The American Motor Ambulance corp§ has been “mentioned” for its discipline as well as for the high standard of its members generally; Lieut. Col. Leonard Robinson, in the following words narrates In a report to Mr. Stanley, some experiences he has had with the American volunteers: “Immediately after our return from Lizy-sur-Ourcq.” states the colonel, “we called from the Service de Sante for an ambulance to proceed to Coulomiers to bring back General Snow, who had been seriously injured. Starting with an ambulance and a pilot car, and accompanied by Dr. du Bouchet and Surgeon Major Langle of the French army, we left Paris at about 5 p. m„ reaching Coulomiers toward 8 p. m. The town had been but recently by the enemy, and, as the general was not in a condition to be moved, we spent the night there. The following morning an early start was-made and General Snow was brought safely to Neuilly, where he remained for several weeks. “With the trip to Coulomiers the period during which the service made expeditions to the front for the purpose of bringing wounded back to the entrenched camp—Paris—came to a close and a new phase of duty was entered upon. “While the ambulance was absent at Lizy-sur-Ourcq, a call came from the British authorities, asking that ambulances be sent to their clearing station at Vllleneuve-Triage to bringwounded, taken from their sanitary trains, to’Paris. No ambfllance being available at the time, an emergency column of touring cars, headed by Doctor Davenport, was sent out, bringing in a number of cases and inaugurating a service which occupied all our time for several weeks. “The American Volunteer Motor Ambulance corps has certainly done immense service in creating a very favorable impression on the people of ’’France, people, beyond all others, capable of appreciating, kindness and sympathy. But it has not been alone in this respect. The American Ambulance at Neuilly, known before the war as the American hospital, has also acquired the reputation of performing miracles for the wounded.” “I have visited most of the war hospitals tn France,” said 1 society woman who has gone through the war as n brancnrdlere of the French Red Cross, “and I have never seen such wonderful work— many of the cases are simply terrible, worse than anywhere else—as that performed at the American Ambulance, Neuilly. There they treat daily the most critical surgical cases. Some of the wounded men —poor fellows —seem almost blown away, so little remains for treatment.”