Parents' Love (Latest Update: 22 August 2011)

Parents' Love

22 August 2011

Blood

La Grande Armee
by georges Blond
(translated by Marshall May)

Below i have included some scans of pictures from the book - La Grande Armee by Georges Blond (translated by Marshall May). It is a 'Tour De Force" historical account of the Napoleonic campaigns from Boulogne and Austerlitz to Spain and Moscow to the dramatic conclusion at Waterloo.

i will only refer to the start of the Russian campaign of Napoleon's Grand Army and end with their retreat "in a cold hell". And from there, i will pick only passages and pictures of interest to the medical military enthusiasts.

The campaign in Russia



Napoleon entered Smolensk at about 6am. This was not the first time that he had ridden into a conquered city through smoking ruins and dead piled high...In his progress across the city, the Emperor was constantly confronted by scenes of desolation. 24 hours would be needed before the streets could be cleared enough to allow the collection of the French and Russian wounded - those seemed to have a chance of survival - and once again, where should they be put? Fifteen large buildings were chosen as hospitals, according to the official reports; in fact, only a few houses were still standing. As usual, the sick and wounded were piled into them. Lacking straw, they were laid out on paper and parchments taken from the archives. 'In the hospitals of Smolensk,' wrote the Belgian surgeon Kerchove, 'or more accurately, in these cloaca of misery and infection, one could observe the impact of these putrid miasmas on the production of hospital gangrene.' For 24 hours, the wounded had practically nothing to eat or drink...

'In less than a month,' said Napoleon to caulaincourt, 'we shall be in Moscow and in ten weeks we shall have peace.' - chapter: The scorched earth of Russia (pg. 311)

On his arrival on 5 September, Napoleon had wished to take the Schwardino redoubt, the farthest west and the first encountered on the Smolensk road. His order was carried out, not without difficulty. It took three assaults. Next day ambulance crews passing by saw a ditch filled with limbs and bodies. Apparently, Larrey and his colleagues had been operating there the previous day. - chapter: The scorched earth of Russia (pg. 316)



Casualty evacuation: this scene, observed by Albrecht Adam at Smolensk in 1812, shows a common method of carrying a wounded man, using a musket as an improvised stretcher.





There was an immense cheer from the French side - 'as if from all the voices of Europe in every language' when the Three Fleches strong-point fell. It was heard by the surgeons and doctors who had established their ambulance in a coppice 50m behind the lines. Later they were ordered to bring it forward. 'We started to receive wounded Saxons, Westphalians, Wurttembergers and even Russians. They were mainly cavalrymen with deep wounds or crushed limbs. An unusually tall Saxon cuirassier had been wounded in the thigh by an explosion. The shattered muscles had exposed the femur bone from the knee to the great trochanter. The wound did not bleed. Wounds from tissue torn away paralyses the vessels, while wounds from cutting instruments bleed copiously. The Saxon was alert and said "My wound is serious, but i shall heal quickly as i am healthy and my blood is pure." The French were quiet and patient. many died before their turn came to be bandaged. - chapter: The scorched earth of Russia (pg. 320)

Officers and men at rest ...



Convoys from Smolensk arrived daily, but too often they brought nothing, having been harrassed and pillaged by the Cossacks en route. The escorts brought horrific tales of the makeshift hospitals set up between Smolensk and Moscow, sepulchres they are called. Their presence could be discerned from afar by the putrid smell and the piles of rotting corpses, excrement and mud, forming a frightful cloaca around the building. - chapter: Moscow - The horizon aflame (pg. 336)

The retreating Russian army remained invisible, but each day the French were harassed by Cossacks. Daily the advance-guard gained ground but lost men. Orders were to evacuate the sick and wounded to Moscow - but how? The orders did not specify and the advance-guard had no transport. Of the seven senior surgeons at the crossing of the Niemen, only von Roos remained; the others had stayed behind or were sick or wounded or in charge of one of the putrid hospitals on the road to Moscow. - chapter: Moscow - The horizon aflame (pg. 337)

Field surgery: Napoleon with Marshal Lannes, mortally wounded at Essling. At the left stands Dominique-Jean Larrey, chief surgeon of the imperial guard, who performed the amputation on Lannes' leg. 



They said they had seen mutilated soldiers on the devastated battlefield of Borodino, alive but incapable of moving, who survived inside the cadavers of horses from which they tore strips of festering meat. They were black and resembled animals. The arms and ammunition had been collected, but no one had bothered about these unfortunates...Segur reported that these abandoned wounded exhibited signs of cannibalism. - chapter: Moscow - The horizon aflame (pg. 339)

There were some 15,000 sick and wounded in the hospitals in Moscow. - chapter: Moscow - The horizon aflame (pg. 339)

The retreat ...



The wearisome nature of military marhes on campaign





Mojaisk was reached on the night of 28 October in a full-blooded snow storm and a temperature of -4 degree C. The town was a miserable collection of wooden houses, in varying states of dilapidation. They emitted a frightful stench and torch light revealed piles of decomposing corpses; these were the wounded from the Moskowa who had been left in intact houses and public buildings where they had died. In the abbey of Kolotskoi there were still 2,000 wounded; the doctors who had been left with them had no medicaments and could do nothing against typhus and gangrene. - chapter: 1812 - Retreat in a cold hell (pg. 347)

On the morning of 29 October, the following order was circulated: 'Each regiment is to identify their wounded and to put those who can be moved into the carriages... The wounded were rapidly sorted out and those who were dying were abandoned; this was to become routine during the retreat. ...Soldiers and civilians had been able to see on the sides of the road the distorted bodies of French soldiers that looked as if they had been thrown there. And, in truth, they had been; dead, near-dead or even patients in reasonable shape were thrown out. - chapter: 1812 - Retreat in a cold hell (pg. 347)

On the march in bad weather ...



It started to snow on the night of 5/6 November, but the temperature stayed at minus 20 degree C. The wife of a company barber of the Guard, one Madame Dubois, gave birth to a boy in a shelter of branches hastily constructed on the border of a wood. The company surgeon was present and the colonel donated his cloak to cover the shelter. He also gave the mother his horse which she rode, carrying her new-born in her arms wrapped in a sheepskin; she herself wore two claoks taken from soldiers who had died from cold during the night. The baby died from cold some days later; the sappers dug a grave with their axes. - chapter: 1812 - Retreat in a cold hell (pg. 350)



The misery of war: a column of French troops on the retreatfrom moscow





Towards night the temperature fell again, with, as a bonus, icy snow. The horses began to drop in their hundreds...

In every war before armies were motorised, the horses had been the martyrs. The supreme crown of martyrdom should be awarded to the horses of the Grand Armee in Russia. Massacred (like the men) on the battlefields, wounded and abandoned (often, like the men) legs broken, bellies ripped open, dying by inches, pecked by crows while still alive, then on the frozen snow, eaten alive by the men.

Fallen horses were attacked even before they were dead; the frost would harden them too quickly. They were seen whinnying and shaking their heads as the butchers went to work. ...When a horse fell, and was being cut into, the gourmands went in quest of the liver, reputed to be the most succulent morsel, others cut the throat in order to collect the blood in their big cooking pots. ...men would cut steaks from a horse's thigh while the beast was still walking, harnessed to a cart. In the cold, the animal scarcely bled, continuing to walk, apparently without being aware of what was happening - a kind of local anaesthetic - at least temporarily, thanks to the cold.

When they left Moscow, the soldiers had some well-loved dogs. No dogs now - all eaten.

Sergeant Bourgogne has this to say: 'We fell in with some soldiers of the Line. ...they had seen some foreign soldiers (Croats) enlisted in our army, withdraw from a fire in a barn a roasted cadaver, which they cut up and consumed. - chapter: 1812 - Retreat in a cold hell (pg. 351)

That was the evening when, shortly before reaching Smolensk, the surgeon Larrey saw a young woman push into a crowd of soldiers who had just disembowelled a horse. She plunged her hands in the animal's belly in order to tear away the liver. ...Some have it that she was a cantiniere, others, a colonel's wife. - chapter: 1812 - Retreat in a cold hell (pg. 352)

The plight of the women and children who accompanied the army was sometimes desperate, most notably during the retreat from moscow.



Smolensk, its houses burned and churches become makeshift hospitals, presented a frightful spectacle. The so-called hospitals were virtually morgues; on entering one had to walk across rigid cadavers. But life continued. - chapter: 1812 - Retreat in a cold hell (pg. 352)

Profiteering (increased GDP) but no $ for its people [Link] ? A German officer of light infantry and his staff. His carriage was full of sacks of tea. At the halts, having little to eat, he would brew up, and would allow his staff to do the same only using the tea-leaves he had already boiled. Another officer criticised this 'cruel parsimony': 'My dear fellow, if I can manage to get this tea to Germany I shall make a fortune.' ...[This] German [officer] lingered to have his tea. The Cossacks arrived and 'we have seen no more of him'.  - chapter: 1812 - Retreat in a cold hell (pg. 353)

The long march was resumed in a temperature of minus 28 degree C. ...the wounded... were under-nourished, verminous beneath their rags and psychologically in a deplorable state; each morning the frozen corpses of their comrades were left behind on the snow. Larry has described the apprearanc of these cadavers: 'The skin and the muscles exfoliate as in wax statues, the bone remaining exposed, the nose removes itself like a false nose and the hands putrefy and fall off.' - chapter: 1812 - Retreat in a cold hell (pg. 355)

On the road they had chosen, the town of Orcha on the Dniper... 600Km from Moscow. For cash or jewels they obtained shelter. The wounded who wished to remain prayed for lodging, as the hospitals at Orcha were already full. But they either had nothing to offer in return, or not enough: 'They were chased away, often falling and being trampled underfoot.'

These men who had marched for weeks in a white waste were now suffering from acute ophthalmia, aggravated by the smoke from bivouac fires and by the irritation caused from rubbing their eyes with filthy hands, or with snow - in the hope of alleviating the pain - but few of the blind reached the Beresina. - chapter: 1812 - Retreat in a cold hell (pg. 357)

$$ ...a Westphalian soldier was sitting on the ground, holding in his hands a silver ingot, which appeared to weigh 15 - 20 pounds. He had carried it all this way and was now offering it in exchange for a loaf of bread. There were no takers and he was chaffed to 'eat his ingot'. - chapter: 1812 - Retreat in a cold hell (pg. 358)

Soldiers' pay !

Battalion Casualty Station and Field Hospital of a very modern army today ...

A 5 tonner truck convertible to a casualty station





The rear view of a mobile casualty station





But still the same blood !







16 August 2011

Parents' Love (update: 12 Aug 2011)

Parents' Love

12 August 2011

争 霸 - 开 始 了 (latest update 06 August 2011)

争 霸 - 开 始 了 Update

06 August 2011

i need a vacation

Singapore Armed Forces OPFOR Training Ground

By David Boey

Was pleasantly [emphasis mine] surprised to see that photographer Ang Song Nian was allowed to take pictures of the oil palm plantation on Pulau Tekong, Singapore's largest offshore island which is exclusively used by the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF).

I have yet to see such a direct reference between oil palm plantations in an SAF training area and those in Malaysia. The SAF also maintains rubber plantations on Tekong and mainland Singapore for its ground forces to stage war games.

The pictures will be part of an art show titled Imagine Malaysia.

The text of the Life! story reads:"Award-winning photographers Robert Zhao and Ang Song Nian both depict the uneasy relationship between the two countries through photographs laden with strong visual puns and symbols.

"Zhao's work features a lion and tiger while Ang's photograph diptych features what look like similar images.

"But one is a Malaysian oil palm plantation, the other is Pulau Tekong, the training site of Singapore's pool of soldiers in the event of war."

A comment from a reader:

They know. We know that they know. We pretend that they dun know that we know they know.

This main stream media article is not meant for malaysian's consumption. It's for "National Education" purpose and for a certain "BIG Country" personnel monitoring our main stream media.


The two, ... they are still at it? Good ...

06 August 2011

Parents' Love

Show of tanks: Mr Raysen Boo and his wife pose in front of Tank 25, driven by their 23-year-old son, Lance Corporal Boo Li Yan. The couple stayed faithfully by the Leopard 2SG until it was time for the tank to join the Parade Preview. All this while, they did not even get to see their son - such is the thing that parents do.
[Link]

Every parents love their children.  They will especially worry for their sons whom are drafted into National Service and more so for the sons who served in the combat vocation. It is natural that they will do their utmost to protect their children to the best of their abilities and resources, regardless of their stations in life.


Update: 12 August 2011

National Service: A Mother's Constant Worry [Link]

AS A mother of a full-time national serviceman (NSF) who is nine months into his national service and who has just graduated from the Specialist Cadet School, I feel the pain of the parents of Third Sergeant Ee Chun Sheng ('NSF on training exercise dies'; Aug 3).

Each day, since my son began fulfilling his NS obligations, I have lived in fear of the telephone ringing, or of a soldier in uniform calling at my house, to break some painful news.

We can live with the sores and cuts that he comes home with, but we fear the day we will never see him come home again.

Every year, thousands of our boys leave their homes, their studies or their jobs to fulfil their obligations to the nation. All they and we, their parents, ask for is their safe return two years later.

Why are there fatal accidents involving our NSFs almost every year? Why do they happen even after inquiries and investigations reveal that procedures were followed and safety measures were in place?

The Defence Ministry should correct this distressing record. Let us, the parents of current and future NSFs, live and sleep in peace.


and here we have ...

“These moronic ‘Singaporeans’, their code, their morals, their ‘loyalty’ and ‘patriotism’… all dropped at the first sign of trouble… just ask any of them if they want to be excused from serving NS and they will be the first to raise their hands… Require any of them to serve an extra month of NS and they will riot in Singapore… Ask them to fight a war, almost all will declare they are ready to pack up and run." - Rachelle Ann Beguia Riko (Singapore Foreign Talent)

In memory of ... (1973 to 1992). We will not forget you. Your mom and dad and younger brother cherished your memory. Your friends whom you go to school and junior college with i am sure they too remember you. We think of you from time to time. We will not forget, we will think of you in our memories till time catches up on us. 

Update: 15 August 2011

Senang Diri

Anonymous said...

Derek, pls dun take it personally. From the first batch of NS conscirptees till today, ALL parents worry for their sons. Its just tht now they are more articulate. They write letters to forum, they blog about it but at the end of the day, they still "let go" (majority got no choice and connections and "know how" - like savvy to see a highly regarded professor to try to sift out some congenitor defeats where no captain/major MOs dare to contradict & the addr is in bukit timah) of their sons into SAF's hands.

From the Napoleonic war to the Vietnam war, young soldiers before they breath their last would often call for their mothers. This bond is even stronger than the rambo who try to act macho. Its no different whether one is in Pulau Tekong (bootcamp) or in the Ia Drang Valley (US infantry) or at Helmand, Afghanistan (British paras), these boys are isolated from their families. At Helmand, young paras shed tears for their fallen comrades, are they sissies? On the contrary! their OCs/CO know how to tape into their comeraderie and "emotions", to give time for grieve and this build cohesion and brotherly fighting spirit! Humans are emotive creatures, and the army who knows how to tape this "emotion" will have won half the battle

So on SAF day, we shd not forget the parents of these conscriptees.

Update: 22 August 2011

To The End Of The Land [Link]

a novel by David Grossman of a mother who tries to keep her son alive while he is at war by hiking the length of Israel, hoping that if she cannot be reached to be told of his death, he won't die.

Book Review

01 August 2011