action and died of wounds than what befel the English force throughout the war. By such computation nearly fifteen thousand are added to the above sum of deaths. Then, the deaths at the French hospitals on the Bosphorus form another considerable increment. It is in my power, as it will be my duty afterwards to prove, that fourteen thousand men sank under disease in these hospitals alone in four months-December, 1855, January, February, March, 1856. And I have read a return which made the burials from them during the whole period of their occupation exceed thirty-two thousand. It would most assuredly be more satisfactory to reader and writer to substitute positive numbers for these approximate ones; but they are unobtainable in any published document. Even M. Baudens does not support by official references his summary of the casualties of the war. I do not imagine this omission is owing to politic reserve on his part. I ascribe it rather to the circumstance that the Medical Department of the French army is not supposed to preserve any records of hospital or field obituary statistics. Hence, notwithstanding his supreme rank and particular mission to the East, M. Baudens could only obtain the collective numbers from the Intendance Militaire or Conseil de Santé as a favour; sources of information evidently not resorted to by him. Accordingly, in his publication he estimates the total hospital mortality, in round numbers, at 63,000,-namely, 31,000 in the Crimea, and 32,000 at Constantinople. This is exclusive of killed in action, which, proportioned to the like loss by the British, will add 8748 for this item; and, also, exclusive of the soldiers who died on board ship on their passage to the Bosphorus, which D mortality M. Baudens puts down at two hundred daily during the height of the typhus endemic. A scrupulous collation of published and private data justifies me in submitting as the lowest summary of French losses for of invalids on passage from Turkey to France; and 5,000 § 93,250 And yet how are we to reconcile the veracity or verisimilitude of these numbers with the statement addressed by Marshal Vaillant to the Emperor himself, and by the latter to the French people? The above figures sum over 93,000 deaths; but the War Minister's report vouches for restoring to France and Algiers the expeditionary army reduced by only 67,000 known deaths (décès constatés). Marshal Vaillant certifies the presence of an effective force of 146,240 troops in the East on 30th March. Where were they, then, on the 17th April following? It will be remembered that on that day the allied armies were paraded for the information of General Lüders, and * Proportional to English. + Baudens, op. cit. Say, 200 (Baudens) for 25 days, and half the total so produced for the remaining period. § Being ten per cent. of former class, and fifteen of latter. With every pos Not to signalize the conclusion of peace. sible effort at military and diplomatic display on that occasion, the French Commander-in-Chief placed in review order a force variously estimated at from 35,000 to 40,000 troops of all arms. The English showed 37,400 soldiers, -infantry for the most part, the cavalry being at Scutariand not a man taken from ordinary camp duties. Where, then, we may be permitted to ask, is to be looked for the bulk of the effective force of 146,240, stated (p. 17) by Marshal Vaillant as in existence on 30th March? certainly in the hospitals in Turkey, for they, when most crowded, did not accommodate more than 25,000 sick ;M. Baudens places not one-half this number in them in April; M. Vaillant 10,448 on 30th March (p. 17) ;- -nor among the convalescents and the regimental depôts on the Bosphorus, composed of men drafted from hospital, and fixed at 15,316 (p. 17). The detachment at Eupatoria amounted to 12,000 at most: and suppose we estimate the ambulance sick in the Crimea at the time as equal to the hospital sick elsewhere, and deduct other 10,500 under this head, we shall have a gross reduction of 48,000, leaving nearly one hundred thousand men-atarms fit for duty,-available for strategic movements at the above date. Hence it follows that either the effective force of the French army is overstated by the War Minister at 146,240 soldiers, on the 30th March, or that no military eye of the English and Russian Quartermaster-General's staffs was skilled to count one-half its numbers on the 17th April: and hence, too, the demonstrated fallacy of the Imperial report to the French nation respecting these particulars of the "personnel" of the Russian war. CHAPTER II. ENGLISH AND FRENCH HOSPITALS ON THE BOSPHORUS.. THE belligerent strength of an army may be not less surely judged of by an inspection of its general hospitals in the rear, than of its paraded battalions before the enemy. Let the practised eye of the surgeon only glance at the state of the wards, note the proportion of occupied to vacant beds, mark the character of the prevailing diseases, observe the general appearance of the convalescents, and the Minister for War may rely on his sagacity to be rightly informed with respect to the probable ratio of deaths, of invalids unfit for further service, and of convalescents soon to rejoin their colours-proportions and particulars bearing importantly on the effective field force to be maintained. It is told of Lord Raglan, that it was in scrutinizing the weekly sick returns from Scutari, in the first winter, he complained how rapidly his army was melting from before him. I have not presumed to ask for a copy of those returns: they may probably be reproduced in the forthcoming Medical Department publication. But I am enabled to give an example and illustration of their military significance. (1.) Return of sick remaining, admitted, and discharged, at Scutar Hospitals, for the weeks ending 29th February and 7th March, 1855. (2.) Return of sick treated in Kulalee Hospital from 1st April to (3.) * Return of the cases of dysentery and diarrhoea treated in my own wards from 16th May to 15th November, 1855. a Division of the hospital appropriated to this class of diseases. |