Report on the medico-military aspects of the European War from observations taken behind the allied armies in France / by A. M. Fauntleroy.

  • Fauntleroy, A. M. (Archibald Magill), 1876-1937.
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the medico-military aspects of the European War from observations taken behind the allied armies in France / by A. M. Fauntleroy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The country over which this movement took place is open and gently undulating, the fields are large and for the most part unfenced, the splendid roads often run in a straight line for many miles, and altogether it is eminently fitted for the operations of large armies. So swift was the onrush, a French offensive could not be developed until August 25, a little less than two weeks after the Germans had begun to menace the northwestern territory. French and English mobilization and concentration could not keep pace with the on¬ coming Germans. During this time the allied surgical field work was an extremely arduous, not to say impossible, undertaking. The lines were con¬ stantly falling back, which allowed for practically no organization for field hospital work, or even the assembling of the wounded, much less caring for the dead. Scarcely would a regimental stand be made and allow the surgeons to form a hasty plan to group and succor the wounded, when the order would come to fall back. There was nothing to do but apply as many first-aid dressings as prac¬ ticable to the wounded in the immediate neighborhood of a surgical unit, and then leave them on the field to care for themselves, where those who survived necessarily became prisoners. On August 25, Gen. Joffre issued an order of the day explaining that as it had been impossible to carry out the projected French offensive, a regrouping of forces would be necessary in order that, by the junction of the Fourth and Fifth French Armies and the British Army, and of forces drawn from the east, a mass of troops might be assembled in the region of Amiens which would be able to assume the offensive in a general direction toward Saint-Pol-Arras or Arras-Bethune. The same order arranged that this extensive movement of troops should be covered by rear guards, whose mission it was to utilize every advantage of ground to stop, or at least to retard, by means of short and violent counter attacks (principally with artillery), the march of the enemy. From August 25 to September 4, this great movement was carried out, but the rapidity of the advance of the German right wing, coupled with transport and other difficulties and the congestion of the railways caused by the evacuation of Paris, compelled the troops assembling from the east to take positions more to the south than had originally been intended, and the French offensive was consequently delayed. On September 4, reconnoissances by the allied cavalry and aviators discovered that the German right had deflected its march on Paris toward Meaux and Coulommiers. By this time, however, what had been formerly the French left (Fifth Army) was ready to attack the front of the enemy’s columns, and it was supported toward the northwest by the British Army and by the army sent out from Paris in taxicabs under Gen. Maunoury, both lying northeast from Paris.