Volume 1

Minutes of evidence taken before the Royal Commission on the War in South Africa.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on the South African War, 1899-1900
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Minutes of evidence taken before the Royal Commission on the War in South Africa. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    496/558 (page 478)
    A. Ogston, C.M. 478 have the advantage of assistance from them. I do not understand you to mean that they put any impediments in the way of those societies’ work ?—Yes, I think they did. I think they were jealous of the Red Cross Society from the very first, and impeded its usefulness as well as that of other voluntary agencies. 11076, (Sir Frederick Darley.) Who did that? were jealous ?—The Army Medical Department. Who officials of the Red Cross Department with whom I talked, mentioned that it was difficult for them to be of use, as they should have liked to be, and that they were not able to get in touch with, orto supply the Army with, the things for which their funds were provided. There was even an order issued that no Army medical officer was to apply to the Red Cross Society for any- thing, unless it had been sanctioned by his superior authorities. That of itself was almost prohibitory, be- cause away ata distance such as at Boshof, Bothaville— or rather we will say at Kimberley and Modder River, which are certainly within reach of the Red Cross Society, in the state of the transport and the postal de- partment, it was impossible to requisition things at the time they were wanted, and save in the later stages which I witnessed, when the Red Cross Society were enabled to establish depéts, such as they did at Kimberley, the operations of the Red Cross in such places as Modder River really resolved themselves into the provision of a few pyjamas. An agent would come, he was not a medical man and had no sympathy with the Army medical officers, and did not know their wants; he would call like a commercial traveller, and say, “Do you want any- thing” P and, of course, there was nothing taken from him. I think a clinical thermometer or two were once given by the Red Cross Society at Modder River, and, I think, one or two pyjamas, but really I do not know of anything else which was given by the Red Cross Society there. At Kimberley, however, I believe it was different; when they took the schools and public buildings and converted them into hospitals, the depdt of the Red Cross Society was of considerable service there, but very much in the same direction supplying such things as I have mentioned, and it was not an agency by which the deficiencies as regards instruments and modern appliances could be made good. 11078. In your précis you also say : “The Army Medi- cal Department were unprepared to deal with such ques- tions as have arisen in all large wars, as, for example, the organisation and utilisation of Volunteer-aid societies, such as the Red Cross and Good Hope Societies, whose usefulness was thus paralysed,” and then you say: ‘The employment of women and others as volunteer nurses and as aids in attending to the sick and wounded ; the employment of volunteered aid in the form of hospitals and ambulances; many scandalous things resulted from the want of preparation to deal with such matters”; what is the sort of preparation that you suggest?—I think there should have been, as in Germany, a Commissioner appointed by the War Office, whose sole function was to organise voluntary aid. That is how Germany deals with it. He has a series of well-conceived instructions as to how volun- tary aid is to be admitted, organised, and utilised. He arranges that it shall be taken advantage of in every way, that the funds shall be directed in the most useful channels, instead of allowed to find their efficiency in haphazard channels, and he arranges for the employment of ladies who wish to nurse, who wish to attend the wounded, who wish to arrange for writing, communica- tion of the wounded and sick with their friends, and also organise—I do not remember what they call them— regular refreshment stations for the assistance of men who are being transported by convoys or trains, for the refreshment and provision of luxuries to those—all that is under this official, and at every halting station on the lines of communication there are under him organisa- tions of voluntary aid by which the sick and wounded are provided with all kinds of luxuries that are suitable for them, and beneficial things, such as clothing, food, tobacco, and so forth. . All that was entirely wasted in this war, and the people did not know what to give. If they gave goods, the chances were that they were il] selected and were laid aside, and if they gave money the chances were that it went to the Good Hope Society or the Red Cross Society, who were paralysed by want of organisation in connection with the Army Medical Department, and the money was really almost thrown awat. 11079. In Germany 1s the Commissioner you have saen- tioned a Commissioner in the field >—Yes, in the field, and you will find his duties fully laid down in “ Kriegs Sanitéts Ordnung,” Ed. 1888, page 177; and all those yuestions or nursing, benevolence, and the provision of requisites and luxuries are organised in an admirable way. 11080. And your suggestion is that in future we should have some official appointed to deal with all these ex- ternal societies?—Some enlightened official, with a staff, appointed to deal with voluntary aid, to organise it in time of peace, and to deal with it in war. 11081. Then, as regards the sick transport, how is — that managed in Germany or Russia?—In Germany they have trains for the wounded, and they have trains for the sick, and what I saw in South Africa convinces me that it is of the utmost importance that we should have trains for fever, so that infection may not need- lessly be conveyed. Those trains in Germany for the ordinary wounded and the sick trains are somewhat differently organised, I understand, and they are pro- vided in time of peace. The fitting up of the carriages for the easy transport of the wounded, and their accom- modation in all respects is well thought out and organised. 11082. But you understand that is a comparatively easy matter in Germany where they know pretty well the lines along which they would have to bring the wounded, we will say, back again from a possible frontier; but can you suggest how that could have been arranged in South Africa ?—I think that if it had been well thought out beforehand it could have been better done in South Africa; but we may be fighting even in Germany some day. 11083. Have you ever been in India?—Never. The trains in South Africa were as well done as care and zeal could manage, but they were not what they should have been. They were dreadful things for a man with a bad fracture, or even for a patient badly ill with fever, to go down some hundreds of miles in; and I suppose you have been told that nearly all the cases of typhoid, which were transported when seriously ill, either died . or had very dangerous complications, perforation or hemorrhage, from being transported in those trains. 11084. (Sir George Taubman-Goldie.) Was that from shaking ?—Yes, the shaking and the total inadequacy of them. The hospital trains were good, but even they might have been improved in many respects with regard to the shaking. The other trains that were used to carry the sick and the wounded (and only a small proportion of them were carried in the hospital trains) were very badly arranged for the purpose. There were convoys of sick with dysentery and diarrhea, and even typhoid fever, sent down by them, and sometimes there was no water in the train, sometimes even orderlies were absent. The carriage latrines were utterly unsuitable, no water even sometimes in them, not disinfected, and sometimes the wounded were trans- ported in improvised trucks. Hardships must occur in war, but it made one very sad to see a man getting his leg and his elbows and his head knocked about in a springless truck when he was ill and suffering, and, perhaps, wounded ; it was very terrible to behold. 11085. (Sir Frederick Darley.) Surely the railway trucks had springs, had they not?—I should think probably they had some springs, but they were such as would suit coals, not men, merely to prevent damage from jolting, and not provided for the carriage of men. 11086. Really what the men wanted was beds under them laid on the truck?—I think they had hair mattresses on some of them; but, still, on the narrow gauge, jolty, South African lines, it was very terrible for a man to travel when seriously ill. Sometimes those trains were sent away without food for the sick and wounded. , 11087. (Chairman.) In Germany and Russia they have those trains provided ready in times of peace 7— They have those carriages provided and ready, and I have seen them ; so that if trains had to be improvised they could be better done than in our country where we would have to get them hastily made. 11088. We do not possess any such, not even the model of such a carriage, so far as you know. (Sir John Hopkins.) 1 think they have them on the