The
Hotel Majestic, in Paris,
Having
been transformed,
Into
an English Red Cross Hospital,
Is
now receiving all wounded.
A
visitor witnesses the arrival,
Of
fifteen wounded soldiers –
Two
of whom seriously wounded,
Since
dying. More cases suffer,
From
rifle bullets and shell severity,
In
their legs, bodies and heads.
The
injured are French and German,
With
one Englishman among them,
Who
is from the Oxford Light Infantry.
Perhaps
curiously the Germans,
Have
the more serious wounds.
Than
the French soldiers - although
Many
remain cheerful and eager
For
war news, in Paris papers.
Now
installed with a surgical theatre,
The
ladies cloakroom of the hotel,
Now
a place for serious operations
To
be carried out, including Trephining -
Being
the cutting of a hole in the skull.
The
soldiers recount their experiences,
And
impressions of battlefields.
A
German with a shell wound in the thigh,
Says
the acts of the Kaiser’s army,
Carried
out at Dinant, seen as atrocities –
Are
in fact, the soldiers says,
Metered
out by Belgians to the Uhlans.
On
entering the town the German army
Found
three Uhlans, tied to a stake,
With
attempts to burn them, quite evident.
Elsewhere,
an injured, delirious
Frenchman
is heard to say,
‘J’ai
Peur: ou sont les Anglais?’
A
testament to the high regard
The
French hold, for the quality
Of
fighting for their British Allies.
The
visitor states how an officer,
Of
the French army medical services
Being
cultured (Of course), confirms
This
thought. He states how French
Soldiers
are 'distinguished by his dash,
His
impetuosity, His elan’ –
With
regard to the British soldier,
‘What
you admire is his patience,
His
stubbornness, his stern resistance,
His
perfect calmness, under the most
Unnerving
circumstances'-
‘Ah!’
he said. 'We do admire gallantry
Of
the British soldier!’
It
is apparent the German wounded,
Have
been taught to believe,
That
English soldiers shoot prisoners –
A
libel against The British army! -
Which
explains the terror of any German,
Falling
into British hands.
At
the Hotel Majestic, with one British
Soldier,
shot in the knee,
Being
treated, is quite happy
To
be out of the frontline,
In
the comfort of the English Red Cross.
Unlike,
perhaps, his equivalent,
In
a French Hospital, being treated by medics,
Who
speak no English.
Only
when a lady visitor spoke to him,
In
his native tongue,
did
he proclaim, ‘Madame, take me out of this,
Nobody
here understands me!’
A
valuable advancement arrives by telegram,
In
the Paris Academy of Science,
Of
an improvement in treatment of wounded,
And
for the field Ambulance work.
A
simplified process of radiographic images
Of
wounds. Pictures can be made,
Not
on glass plates, but upon ‘papier au gelatino.’
At
the Lariboisiere Hospital,
The
work is completed by M'sieur Charles Vallant,
The
papier Gelatino being,
1/13
of the weight and1/3 of the cost of glass plates.
So
instead of two processes,
Radiographic
images can now be made in one.
by Jamie Mann.
Anon.,1914.
Hospital scenes in Paris – Stories of the Field. The Daily Telegraph,
[online] 17 Sept. p.9. Col.3. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11077936/Daily-Telegraph-September-17-1914.html
[Accessed: 17 September 2014].
Mann, J., 2014. 100
years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal communication, 17
September 2014).
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#WW1centenary #GreatWar #WW1poem #GreatWar #ww1centenary #worldwarone
#worldwaroneremembered #WW1Paris
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