Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/170

126 THE WINTER TROUBLES. IV. CHAP. With their aptitude for organisation and man- ' agement — with the fitly constructed machinery Provision of a real War Department, and besides, with the made by the ^ . . .p. French for store of experience daily s;ained m their Airican the care of ^ , , ? p -i i their sick warfare — the French had not failed to provide and woujid- /-~, , • • ed. an efficient ' Ambulance Corps, comprising not only skilled directors, intendants, and medical officers, but also infirmary orderlies, well trained for their tasks ; and they did not omit to keep ready all the many appliances needed for re- moving the soldier when wounded or sick, and securing to him at last good, careful treatment in hospital. For this provident use of State power France had a deserved reward in the excellence, nay, the seeming perfection, of her well-ordered hos- pitals ; and, if grave defaults all the while lay hidden under the surface, these were owing apparently to individual acts and neglects not easily brought to light, and hardly therefore avertible by administrative forethought or care. By the In this business of making beforehand due English provision for the sick and the wounded, there was the difference of actual opposites between our Allies and ourselves ; for the French pro- ceeded by means of a perfected organisation kept in vigour by constant use, whilst for any such purpose as that of forming general hospitals to meet the wants of a campaign, the English — strange as it seems — had no organisation at all. Debarred in the way we have seen from the pos-