Military death

“ Death had a manifold and horrible diversity. A soldier's head, with ghastly face and conscious eyes, momentarily poised in the air while the body rode away invisibly with an exploding shell! He told of men blown up, shot through and riddled and brained and disemboweled, while their comrades, grim and unalterable, standing in a stream of blood, lived through the rain of shells, the smashing of walls, lived to fight like madmen the detachment following the bombardment, and to kill them every one. ”

“ The shudder with which we heard the first report that three thousand of our men were slain was but the sign of the blow that our hearts received. But there must be no shrinking from the prospect of the death of our soldiers. Better than that we should fail that a million men should die on the battle-field. ”

“ I have carried out the dead from [25] hospital and ambulance, and I have watched them lie in strange ways where the great shell had struck. But death is a pleasant gift, and the loss of a limb is light. For death leaves a rich memory. And a crippled soldier is dearer than he ever was to the little group that knows him. ”

“ They died to a man, fighting. It seemed to me one of the most pitiful and heroic things of this war, that little crowd of men, many of them wounded, some of them dazed and deaf, stumbling forward to their certain death to oppose the enemy's advance. ”

“ Many of my mates envied the dead soldiers and wished to be in their place in order to be at least through with all their misery. Yet all of us were afraid of dying—afraid of dying, be it noted, not of death. All of us often longed for death, but we were horrified at the slow dying lasting hours which is the rule on the battle-field, that process which makes the wounded, abandoned soldier die piecemeal. I have witnessed the death of hundreds of young men in their prime, but I know of none among them who died willingly. ”

“ Thus if our casualties at sea, which are mainly of one kind only, be added up, they will probably be found to exceed our deaths on land, which are always much less numerous than other kinds of losses; yet the mortality of our battlefields has been mournful enough, especially among officers—where the death percentage has been higher than in any other war we ever waged. ”

“ At every step is war, and this is enough: soldiers black with powder; bayonets bent with the violence of the encounter; the earth ploughed with cannon-shot; trees torn and mutilated; the dead and dying; wounds and agony; fields covered with broken carriages, outstretched horses, and mangled bodies; while disease, sad attendant on military suffering, sweeps thousands from the great hospitals, and the multitude of amputated limbs, which there is no time to destroy, accumulate in bloody heaps, filling the air with corruption. ”

“ Death moved continually about the ranks of the army—not the death they had been trained to meet unflinchingly, the death in high enthusiasm and the pride of life, with all the world to weep or cheer; but a silent, unnoticed, almost ignominious summons, scarcely less sudden and far more painful than the bullet or the sword-cut. ”

“ They all die of that much feared disease, diarrhœa. There are no less than five hundred now in the hospital down with the same complaint, all belonging to the different regiments in our army. Oh! How solemn and imposing is a military funeral; many a poor soldier dies and is put under sod without anyone knowing anything about him, or even what regiment he belonged to. He is thrown into his shallow grave, with his blankets wrapped around him, without any coffin. ”

“ The look was on the dead lying sprawled and twisted in the last silent paralysis of humanity. And although the dead and dying and wounded lay like warnings of a coming fate, although men tossed and reared grotesquely, and shattered horses screamed shrilly in throes of blind agony, the unhurt thousands moved on or lay in their trenches giving fire for fire, death for death without a quiver of concern. ”

“ Yes indeed, the soldier's death is close to natural things. It is a frank horror, a horror that does not attempt to cheat the law of violence. I often passed close to bodies that were gradually passing into the clay, and their change seemed more comforting than the cold and unchanging aspect of the tombs of town cemeteries. From our life in the open we have gained a freedom of [Pg 170] conception, an amplitude of thought and of habit, which will for ever make cities horrible and artificial to those who survive the war. ”

“ The cry had been heard before from German officers speaking excellent French, but this time there was no treachery in it. The shadows who moved forward through the night were Frenchmen changing from one trench to another.
The risk of death is taken lightly by all these men. It is curious, indeed, that almost every French soldier has a conviction that he will die in battle sooner or later. In moments of imagination he sees his own corpse lying out in the field, and is full of pity for his wife and children. ”

“ Here, too, the groans of the wounded were echoed back by the shrieks of the dying; and, ever and anon, between the roar of the artillery and the thunder of the bursting shells, were heard the bitter taunts of the enemy. Let any one imagine all this, I say, and they may have some faint ideas of the [189] horrors of war. Yet, dreadful as this is, could the veil but drop here, the soldier’s heart might still throb with pride, as he recounted the hard-fought battle, where valor stood preëminent, and none yielded, but to death, until the victory was won. ”

“ The troops in the cantonment consisted of the following:—6th Dragoon Guards, 60th Rifles, and two batteries of Bengal Artillery (all Europeans) ; Natives, 11th and 20th Infantry, and 3rd Cavalry. Every man, woman, and child (Europeans) that fell in their way was murdered. And, as an eye-witness of some of these scenes, I can say that every horror, making war hideous, attended this dreadful outbreak. The cry of murder from poor defenceless women and children echoed throughout the land. Death in all modes was rampant—from the sword, bayonet, water, flames, and starvation. ”

“ One of the most terrible tragedies of the war—more tragic, even, than the death of the gallant boys on the day the armistice was signed, yes, within an hour of it. For those letters indicated a disgrace that seldom, if ever, could be wiped out. ”

“ And through it all, all the time, goes on the hungry growl of cannons, and just a few miles out continue, all the time, those wild and passionate struggles for life and death between the Allies and Germans, which soon—God in His mercy forbid—may fling this smiling, fair-headed boy out into the sad dark glory of death on the battle-field, leaving his little one fatherless. ”

“ But through four long years scarcely a family in Great Britain and the Dominions that possessed men on the fighting fronts—and none were finally exempt except on medical or industrial grounds—but was either in mourning for, or in constant fear of death for one or more of its male members, whether by bullet, shell-fire or bomb, or must witness the return to them of husbands, brothers, and sons, more or less injured for life. The total American casualties are 264,000. ”

“ A cavalryman is killed in peace time by a fall from his horse, it scarcely excites comment; an army airman falls and is killed and a thrill of horror goes through the country—it is a new kind of death. ”

“ Graves and danger and death. Death over head, death under foot, death in every direction—suffering, loneliness, longing, agony, death—Death! But the greedy fiends really responsible were not there. And a sort of awe came over me and a feeling of tender pity for those brave, unselfish men, mere boys, many of them, standing silently, majestically—facing death in those front line trenches.
Time passed quickly, for like all officers of our army who entered the lines, regardless of previous training, I had very much to learn. ”

“ A dead man is a dead man, and at this moment there are much more horrible things than death. Many French and English, whose nerves have given way, have jumped on the sandbags and asked death to set them free.
“And death is everywhere. It is everywhere, the whole length of the front, from the sea to the snow-mountains. Bullets whistle, mines and hand-grenades fly about, shells fired a long distance off plough into the ground with terrific explosions, a bit of trench trembles and flies into the air. Death takes officer and man without distinction. ”

“ The surging masses of human beings intent on each others destruction with the death dealing artillery with its terrific roar and the more destructive missiles of small armies with their hateful hissing sounds, together with the deafening cheers of the moving armies, and the heartrending screams and moans of the wounded and dying make the scene agonizing to the extreme. ”

“ One of my achievements, when I was a little boy in a black velvet blouse, was the impersonation of what we called "the dead man"; the dying man would have been more correct. From my earliest days I evidently pitied the soldier dying a violent death on the battlefield. ”

“ To many and many of the dying the last sound of which they were conscious must have belonged to the clamour of war, and it was well for those who heard, or fancied they heard, above the roar of guns the shout of victory. One officer, dying in the hospital at Spearman's, had his last moments made happy by the sound of battle. ”

“ Some of the younger soldiers in sighs and groans were calling upon the name of their country, or of their mother; but most of the veterans awaited death either with an impassive or a sardonic air, neither imploring or complaining. The anguish of some of the wounded made them beg of their comrades, as a mercy, to kill them instantly. Among the Russians, the enormous number of wounded presented on every side a spectacle of moving horrors. ”

“ We are not within hearing of the guns (except the guns that shoot at Zeppelins when they come) ; but the war crowds itself in on us sensibly more and more. There are more wounded soldiers on the streets and in the parks. More and more families one knows lose their sons, more and more women their husbands. Death is so common that it seems a little thing. ”

“ KILLING THE WOUNDED There are great numbers of wounded who, on their solemn oath, have related how, when lying on the field of battle, they saw their wounded comrades "finished off" by rifle or revolver shots, or by blows from butt-ends, or by bayonet stabs, or kicked to death by German soldiers, non-commissioned officers, and even by officers. ”

“ I saw a great many men die afterwards, some suffering horribly, but I do not recall any death that affected me quite so much as that of this first victim in my platoon. ”

“ Thousands die, having no mark upon their body. Post-mortems held have disclosed in nearly every case that such deaths were caused by shell shock. Bombs from the huge guns dropping near a company of men will often so disarrange organs that death follows quickly. Many who survive lose mind, sight, hearing, speech, and so on. ”

“ But this assault could not be made without either artillery support or the arrival of fresh troops to fill up our depleted and extended ranks. Our Colonel, therefore, ordered all companies to wait in the positions they had gained, but to be ready to charge immediately after the batteries had bombarded the enemy trenches. Consequently, during the next hour both sides remained on the defensive.
Little ironies pursue us through life; in battle Death sometimes comes with a touch so swift and so ironical that we are made to fear God truly. ”

“ In a moving army the elements of destruction, armed men and munitions of war, have the right of way; and the means of preserving and sustaining even their own lives are left to bring up the rear as they best can. Hence, when the shock and crash of battle is over, and troops are advancing or retreating and all roads are blocked, and the medical staff trying to force its way through with supplies, prompt and adequate relief can scarcely ever reach the wounded. The darkness of night comes down upon them like a funeral pall, as they lie in their blood, tortured with thirst and traumatic fever. ”

“ No mourning group of relatives surround the couch of the attenuated sufferer, to aggravate the grief of parting—no lingering shaft of fate reduces the vigour of manhood to pitiful imbecility, but the winged messenger or the flashing steel summons the victim, and amidst the roar of battle's thunder, he bows to the destroying angel. The warrior's grave, dug on the field of strife, and his bier shrouded by the proud flag of his country, and surrounded by war-worn veterans and faithful comrades, are funeral obsequies befitting the close of the soldier's career. ”

“ To be buried alive is just one of those horrors of the battlefield which your bar-room patriot at home (or in America) does not even dream of in his philosophy.
Nothing was to be seen of the enemy's infantry. It seemed that our opponent had sent only artillery and cavalry to face us. Meanwhile the main portions of our army came up in vast columns. Cavalry divisions with mounted artillery and machine-gun sections left all the other troops behind them. ”

“ Considering the sickness and accidents that have happened in the pre- sent year, and others which may be expected before the troops reach home, I may set down the total number of deaths on the American side, caused by the war, at 15,000, and the number of wounded men at 4000. Suppose the army on the average to have consisted of 50,000 men for two years, this gives a mortality of fifteen per cent, each year, which is an enormous loss even for times of war, and one seldom equalled in modern warfare. ”

“ Only I do know this—I am sure of it now for the first time, and it is worth while spending a long, long winter within the sound of guns in order to know it—that death brings release, not release from mere suffering or pain, but in some strange and unknown way it brings freedom. Soldiers realise it: they have [Pg 143] been more terrified than their own mothers will ever know, and their very spines have melted under the shrieking sound of shells, and then comes the day when they "don't mind." Death stalks just as near as ever, but his face is suddenly quite kind. ”