ARTICLE: The American Hospital, 1914

Felix Klein was a priest, who witnessed and wrote about both world wars. He rushed to become a French Army Chaplain on the outbreak of the First World War. His memoir: La Guerre vue d’une Ambulance, looks at the opening months of the conflict from where he was primarily based at the American hospital in Paris. In this excerpt, having been relatively bored so far, he writes about receiving the wounded following the Battle of the Marne:

12th September.

Last night, in horrible wind and rain, our ambulances, in the forsaken villages about Meaux, were still gleaning wounded left uncared-for for several days. They brought back a dozen in the middle of the night, and at six o’clock this morning they set forth to look for others. The battle-fields after a battle are a piteous sight, they tell me, especially when they are so endless, and one can’t tell in what wood, in what solitary barn, or in what church, the most wretched will be discovered. With a mind bent upon the pitiful goal, as the motor flies along, one scarce gives a look to the broken-down trees, the burnt houses, the remains of equipments, the horses dead and already swollen, or to those that stand erect upon the hills, starving, motionless, like great skeletons.

At last one makes out a piteous group; one stoops over the blood-stained grass, ministers to soul and body; distributes drink, nourishment, dressings; revives strength and hope. Very gently the poor wounded are wrapped up, lifted, laid on the mattresses of the ambulance or on the cushions of the private car; and here they are off for the home of science and kindness, where the hideous crimes of war will find amends, if amends be possible. There is a science that kills and a science that cures, as there are good and evil, and God and devils.

14th September.

The wounded arrive in even greater numbers. The other ambulances and hospitals are complaining at not getting any. We have no lack of them because we have cars to go to fetch them in ourselves. They are still the victims of the beginning of the great battle, of the great victory; for since yesterday afternoon, the good news has been confirmed. Victory - that is the sovereign remedy for our wounded. And what a joy it is to take them the announcement, and between the beds from which they raise themselves to listen better, to read them the bulletins that report it! We need it, too, to endure the sight of their sufferings. Once bathed, shaved, clothed in clean linen, eased by the first attentions, refreshed by sleep and good food, it is delightful to look at them in their little white beds, with quiet faces and eyes full of gratitude and mild wonder.