Part 24

S. Fifteen years, colonel.

C. How is it possible that you at your young age came into service?

S. Only my passion for horses induced me to volunteer my services in the most beautiful regiment of France, as trumpeter.

C. Can you ride horseback and take care of horses?

S. At your service, colonel!

C. Where are the many prisoners who have been brought here, according to reports there should be 800.

S. What you see here, colonel, is the sad remainder of those 800 men. The others have died.

C. Is there an epidemic disease in this house?

S. Pardon me, colonel, but those comrades of mine have all died from starvation; for during the six days we are here we received no food.

C. What you say, little fellow, cannot be true, for I have ordered to give you the prescribed rations of bread, meat, and brandy, the same as are given to the Russian soldiers, and this has been the will of the Czar.

S. Excuse me, colonel, I have told the truth, and if you will take the pains to walk into the rear yard you will see the corpses.

The colonel went and convinced himself of the correctness of my statement. He returned in the greatest anger, addressed some officer in Russian, gave some orders and went along the front to hear Schehl’s report confirmed by several other prisoners. The officer who had received orders returned, accompanied by six Uhlans, each of the latter with hazelnut sticks. Now the jailors were called and had to deliver everything which they had taken from their prisoners; unfortunately, Schehl’s clarinette was not among the articles that were returned. And now Schehl witnessed the most severe punishment executed on the jailors. They had to remove their coats and were whipped with such cannibal cruelty that bloody pieces of flesh were torn off their backs, and some had to be carried from the place. They deserved severe punishment, for they had sold all the food which during six days had been delivered to them for 800 men.

The surviving prisoners were now treated well, the colonel took Schehl with him to do service in his castle.

The case of Karl Schehl is a typical one.

Holzhausen has collected a great many similar ones from family papers, which never before had been published. All the writers of these papers speak, exactly like Schehl, in plain, truthful language, and the best proof of their veracity is that all, independent of each other, tell the same story of savage cruelty and of robbery. All, in narrating their experiences, do not omit any detail, all give dates and localities which they had retained exactly from those fearful days which had left the most vivid impressions. There is much repetition in these narrations, for all had experienced the same.

All tell that the Cossacks were the first to rob the prisoners. These irregular soldiers received no pay and considered it their right to compensate themselves for the hardships of the campaign by means of robbery.

Besides the tales collected by Holzhausen I can refer to many other writers, Frenchmen, the Englishman Wilson, and even Russians among them, but the material is so voluminous that I shall confine myself to select only what concerned physicians who were taken prisoners.

The Bavarian Sanitary Corps, captured at Polotsk, after having been mercilessly robbed by Cossacks, was brought before a Russian General, who did not even take notice of them. It was only after Russian physicians interfered in their behalf that they obtained a hearing of their grievances.

Prisoners tell touching stories how they were saved by German physicians, in most instances from typhus. In almost all larger Russian cities there were German physicians, and this was a blessing to many of the prisoners. Holzhausen gives the names of several of the sick and the names of the physicians who spared no pains in attending to the sufferers.

In the course of time and with the change of circumstances the lot of the prisoners in general was ameliorated, and in many instances their life became comfortable. Many found employment as farm hands or at some trade, as teachers of languages, but the principal occupation at which they succeeded was the practice of medicine. Whether they were competent physicians or only dilettantes they all gained the confidence of the Russian peasantry. In a land in which physicians are scarce the followers of Aesculap are highly appreciated.

When a Russian peasant had overloaded his stomach and some harmless mixture or decoction given him by some of the pseudo physicians had had a good effect—post hoc ergo propter hoc—the medicine man who had come from far away was highly praised and highly recommended.

Lieutenant Furtenbach treated with so-called sympathetic remedies and had a success which surprised nobody more than himself.

Real physicians were appreciated by the educated and influential Russians and secured a more lucrative practice within weeks than they had been able to secure after years at home. Dr. Roos, of whom I have already spoken, having been taken prisoner near the Beresina, became physician to the hospitals of Borisow and Schitzkow and soon had the greatest private practice of any physician in the vicinity; he afterward was called to the large hospitals in St. Petersburg, and was awarded highest honors by the Russian government.

More remarkable was the career of Adjutant Braun which has been told by his friend, Lieutenant Peppler, who acted as his assistant.

Braun had studied medicine for a while, but exchanged sound and lancet for the musket. As prisoner of war, at the urgent request of his friend Peppler, he utilized his unfinished studies. Venaesection was very popular in Russia, he secured a lancet, a German tailor made rollers for him, and soon he shed much Russian blood. The greatest triumph, however, of the two Aesculapians was Braun’s successful operation for cataract which he performed on a police officer, his instrument being a rusty needle. The description of the operating scene during which the assistant Peppler trembled from excitement is highly dramatic. Braun became the favorite of the populace and everybody regretted that he left when he was free.

TREATMENT OF TYPHUS

Among the old publications referring to the medical history of Napoleon’s campaign in Russia I found one of a Prussian army physician, Dr. Krantz, published in the year 1817 with the following title: Bemerkungen ueber den Gang der Krankheiten welche in der königlich preussischen Armee vom Ausbruch des Krieges im Jahre 1812 bis zu Ende des Waffenstillstandes (im Aug.) 1813 geherrscht haben. (Remarks on the course of the Diseases which have reigned in the Royal Prussian Army from the Beginning of the War in the Year 1812 until the End of the Armistice [in August] 1813). From this I shall give the following extract:

It is well known that the soldiers constituting the wreck of the Grand Army wherever they passed on their way from Russia through Germany spread ruin; their presence brought death to thousands of peaceful citizens. Even those who were apparently well carried the germs of disease with them, for we found whole families, says Krantz, in whose dwelling soldiers, showing no signs of disease, had stayed over night, stricken down with typhus. The Prussian soldiers of York’s corps had not been with the Grand Army in Moscow, and there was no typhus among them until they followed the French on their road of retreat from Russia. From this moment on, however, the disease spread with the greatest rapidity in the whole Prussian army corps, and this spreading took place with a certain uniformity among the different divisions. On account of the overflowing of the rivers, the men had to march closely together on the road, at least until they passed the Vistula near Dirschau, Moeve, and Marienwerder. Of the rapid extent of the infection we can form an idea when we learn the following facts: In the first East Prussian regiment of infantry, when it came to the Vistula, there was not a single case of typhus, while after a march of 14 miles on the highway which the French had passed before them there were 15 to 20 men sick in every company, every tenth or even every seventh man. In those divisions which had been exposed to infection while in former cantonments, the cases were much more numerous, 20 to 30 in every company.