Most men who have been under fire will frankly confess that the sensation is anything but a pleasant one. But inspired by a sense of duty and a lively enthusiasm, the anxious feeling soon passes off. The skirmishers load and fire, the gunners work their guns without much thought of their own danger. Indeed it is well if this indifference does not go too far, for then reckless excitement and careless haste take the place of soldierly deliberation and prudence.

At Waterloo the fighting between two armies armed with old weapons of short range was all at what we now call close-quarters. The most effective range for artillery was about five hundred yards, and musketry-fire was exchanged at less than half that distance. Rifled weapons of long range have changed all this, and the introduction of breech-loading small-arms has worked a perfect revolution on the battle-field. In 1866 the Prussian needle-gun shewed in the fighting in Bohemia the terrible effects that can be produced by rapid rifle-fire. Every army in Europe was soon provided with breech-loading rifles; and in the war of 1870, for the first time two great armies thus formidably armed met in battle. In the first conflicts of the war the Prussians attacked in close order, as they had done in 1866; but in the great battle of Gravelotte, fought on August 18, 1870, they learned a lesson which made them completely change their tactics; and every European army (but one) has followed their example. The lesson was dearly bought. On that day the French army, one hundred and twenty thousand strong, lay along the hills to the west of Metz, where it was attacked by two hundred thousand Germans. The village of St Privat, on holding which the security of the whole French position depended, was held by Marshal Canrobert’s corps. The village is surrounded by long gentle slopes; and in fighting it is always found that it is more difficult to storm such a place than one that stands upon a steep hill. The very steepness of the ascent in some degree protects the attacking party as they ascend, by making the fire of the defenders more vertical; whereas on a gentle slope each bullet has a longer course and more chances of doing harm. As a preparation for the attack on St Privat, and in order in some degree to destroy the steadiness of the defenders, the place was bombarded for some time with one hundred and twenty guns; then when it was hoped that the artillery-fire had cleared the way, three brigades of the Guards, the picked men of the German army, were ordered to carry the village.

Massed in close order, with a front of two thousand paces, and covered by clouds of skirmishers, the Guards began their advance up the slopes. In ten minutes the attack was over, and had utterly failed. Brief as it was, it was a terrible time. The German official Report does not deal in exaggerated language, and it speaks of the ‘storm of bullets that came beating down from St Privat’ and forced the Guardsmen to crowd together in every hollow and behind every wave of the ground. The French used their chassepots to deadly purpose; in those ten minutes six thousand of the Prussian Guard had fallen. But the rapid fire of the French had all but emptied their cartridge-boxes, and the defective arrangements made by the staff had not provided properly for supplying the deficiency. This is always a danger to which men armed with the breech-loader are liable, and it is an awkward one, for in modern war the man who is without cartridges is virtually disarmed. The cartridges of the dead and wounded were collected and distributed; but this was a poor resource. The enemy had formed new columns of attack, composed of Saxon and Prussian troops, and these, though not without heavy loss, carried the village, and decided the battle which shut Marshal Bazaine and his great army up in Metz. The day after Gravelotte was fought and won, the German headquarters staff published an order that an attack in heavy masses like that which had won Sadowa but had failed at St Privat should never be attempted again.

The deadliness of breech-loading fire has produced another effect upon tactics in battle. The spade has taken a place second only to the rifle, and no General occupies a position in battle even for a couple of hours without rapidly strengthening it with light intrenchments. These consist generally of a shallow trench, the earth from which is thrown up towards the enemy, so as to form a little parapet in front of it. This is the shelter-trench which we hear of so often in war correspondence. Effective shelter-trenches can be constructed in from eighteen minutes to half an hour, according to the nature of the ground and the skill of the men engaged in the work; and they have this advantage, that they can be continually improved, the trench being deepened, the parapet raised, and a ditch formed outside it, if the position is occupied long enough; so that what was at first a mere shelter-trench, gradually becomes a formidable line of earthworks. A trench is a very efficient protection against artillery-fire, for unless the shells drop actually into it, or upon the parapet, the fragments are not likely to hurt the men crouching or lying down in it; and such accurate hits are rare, most of the projectiles falling a little behind or a little short of the line aimed at.

It is a fact that the actual number of men put hors de combat by artillery-fire is very few in any case. It really is meant to produce an effect on the morale of the troops attacked; that is to say, to make them nervous, excited, liable to panic, and apt to give way before a sudden onset. Hundreds of shells exploding on the ground and in the air, and scattering showers of fragments on all sides, dropping neatly over walls and barricades, crashing through walls and roofs, and searching woods and thickets, are apt to gradually break down the nerve of all but the steadiest men.

As a matter of actually killing and maiming a large number of the enemy, it is coming to be believed that the old artillery of Napoleon’s days used at close quarters, that is at about four hundred yards, against heavy masses, was more deadly than the modern rifled gun. Artillery is now effective up to two thousand five hundred yards, and sometimes even beyond that range. Rifle-fire generally begins at four hundred yards, though picked marksmen may be engaged at longer ranges. The ordinary fighting range of the rifle is thus now equal to that of the field-gun of thirty years ago, and the accuracy of the fire is increased in even a greater ratio. With the old musket the chances of a bullet finding a human billet were extremely uncertain. At one hundred yards there was a deviation of two feet to right or left, which at two hundred yards had increased to more than six feet. The average deviation of the Martini-Henry is about seven inches at three hundred yards, a little less than a foot at five hundred, and about twenty inches at eight hundred; or less than the error of the old musket at one hundred yards. Without aiming, a rapidity of fire equal to twenty-five shots per minute has been obtained with the Martini-Henry with which our army is now furnished. How different from the weapons used in the Peninsula and at Waterloo.

Yet it is singular that the proportion which the loss in battle bears to the number of men engaged is on the whole decreasing, notwithstanding (or perhaps in consequence of) improved armaments. At Marengo in 1800 the loss in killed and wounded amounted to one-sixth of the effective force engaged; at Austerlitz (1805) it was one-seventh; at Preuss-Eylau (1807), as much as one-third; at Wagram (1809), rather more than one-ninth; at Borodino (1812), one-fourth; and at Waterloo (1815), rather more than one-sixth. Coming now to more recent battles, we find that at Solferino (1859) the loss was only one-fourteenth; at Sadowa (1866), one-eleventh; at Gravelotte (1870), one-ninth; at Sedan, only one-seventeenth. It would seem that the diminution of the loss is the result of the open order, the use of cover, and the briefness of the struggle at the decisive points, where, on account of the severity of the fighting, it cannot last very long. Men will stand longer under a fire that knocks over only one man in a minute, than they will under one that kills a score in the same time. The heavy fighting at Plevna before its fall, was an exception to this diminution of loss, for in one of their attacks the Russians lost as much as one-fifth, but this was the result of their fighting in heavy columns, in defiance of the experience of 1870. Statistics from both the Russian and the German armies shew that at all times the officers in proportion to their numbers lose more than the men. Naturally they are liable to attract attention and to be picked off by the enemy’s marksmen.

With the immense armies of our day the total loss of men is enormous. At Sadowa the Prussians lost 10,000 men out of 215,000 engaged; the Austrians and Saxons 30,000 out of 220,000. At Gravelotte the French, 120,000 strong, lost 14,000; the Germans 20,000 out of 200,000. At Sedan the losses of the Germans were 10,000; of the French, 14,000. The heaviness of the German loss at the battle of Gravelotte was as we have already said, largely due to the failure of the Guards at St Privat.

From these statistics of loss in battle it may be imagined what a painful task and what severe labour are thrown upon the army which remains in possession of a battle-field at the end of the fight. The length of the lines in a general engagement like Sadowa is enormous, ranging from ten to fifteen miles; and the depth of the tract over which the fighting rolls perhaps from two or three to five or six miles; so that the ‘battle-field’ is a tract of country from thirty to eighty square miles in extent, and this immense tract is strewn with thirty or forty thousand killed and wounded. Here they lie scattered, so that it is a long walk from one fallen man to another; but over there on that hill-side, or in that village where the fight was close and hot, they are thrown together in little heaps, and there is no need of searching for them. Wherever there is water, wounded men are sure to be found, who have dragged themselves down to it. Perhaps they are dead at the brink. There is little blood to be seen; the rivers of blood shed on the battle-field exist only in poetry. Of the actual blood in a pool here and there on the field, most has come from cavalry or artillery horses killed by shell-fire.

The victors in the fight have thrown on their hands not only their own wounded, but those of the enemy. The hurried telegram which announces their success gives also in round numbers a rough estimate of the loss on both sides; generally it is an unintentional exaggeration, for it is hard to judge correctly. In two or three days the real numbers are known; for the dead have been collected, counted, and buried, with great mounds of earth that will mark the battle-field for centuries, and shew too where the fight was hottest. The wounded, much more numerous than the dead, have been collected in the field-hospitals, and as many as possible are being sent off by train to the great hospitals of distant cities, in order to relieve the strain upon the resources of the medical staff and the volunteer aid societies working in the field. Hard work it is to deal with the immense mass of suffering men. Think what it is to have to arrange suddenly for even two cases of severe illness in an ordinary household, and then try to imagine what labour, care, and forethought are required to provide for many thousands of wounded men in the open country.

The care for the wounded begins while the fight is actually in progress. No help is so efficient as that which comes at once. A man is hit. If the wound is slight, he perhaps does not know anything about it till the fight is over, when he perceives that there is something wrong with his leg or his side; or if he does perceive it, he is able to bandage it at once with a handkerchief, or the bandage that now is carried by almost every soldier. The surgeon of the battalion gives him his assistance if he is at hand; but most men have to do without him if the work is hot, for he cannot multiply himself or be everywhere, though he does his best to accomplish something like it. In most armies, if the men are attacking, he can only attend to the slightly hurt, who are able to keep up with the rest. It is only when the battalion is halted or on the defensive that he can attend to the more seriously injured who fall, for they must not be left behind. The first help is always the most important; given at once to a slightly wounded man, it saves him from having to go into hospital and keeps him in the ranks; given to a fallen man, it probably saves his life. The great danger is exhaustion from loss of blood or from the nervous shock that follows a bullet-wound, which makes a man seem as if he were dying, though with a little help it soon passes off. To stop the bleeding with a tourniquet or a bandage, to give a drink of water or a little brandy, is the aid needed at the outset. This is done actually under fire.

The next help is provided by the field ambulances, or as they are very appropriately called in our service, ‘dressing-stations;’ these are established in shelter-places upon the actual battle-field in rear of the fighting line. Sometimes an inn, a farmhouse, or some barn is available for this purpose; if not, there are hospital tents or the shade of trees. Here is to be found a staff of surgeons and dressers, with appliances for the more necessary operations, and a store of stimulants and sustaining food. To bring the wounded men out of the firing, there are attached to each regiment a few trained bearers with stretchers. These bearers being provided, no man is allowed to leave the ranks to help the wounded; otherwise, every man that fell would be the means of withdrawing two others from the fight, and whole companies might melt rapidly away. The bearers remove as many as they can to the dressing-stations; they take those nearest to hand, and the wounded man who attracts their attention is lucky. Many more less fortunate than he have to wait till the battle is over, for comparatively few can be carried off during the actual fighting. Some, though too disabled to remain in the fight, can themselves make their way to the stations. They ask their way of any bearers they meet; or if they meet none, they look out anxiously for the white flag with the red cross that flies over the little harbour of refuge of which they are in search. The wounded men who are thus brought or come into the stations have their wounds dressed by the surgeons, with the help of chloroform if necessary; a record of the nature of the wound and of the treatment so far, is rapidly written on a card; and if the man will bear removal, his stretcher is placed in an ambulance-wagon, and an easy journey of three or four miles places him in the field-hospital, established in tents or buildings well out of even long-range artillery-fire.

These field-hospitals, rapidly organised with matÉriel that is conveyed with every well-organised army, can accommodate several hundreds of men; and while the battle proceeds, fresh field-hospitals are being got ready wherever buildings or tents are available, for the night will bring in a host of patients. At first there are few men in them; most of the wounded that have been treated are still at the field ambulances. In the evening they arrive more rapidly; next day they come in crowds, and the hospitals are encumbered with them. And now the railway system of the country comes to the help of the overburdened medical staff. Hospital trains—that is to say trains fitted with hanging-beds or stretchers, and provided with nurses and surgeons—carry back to the hospitals of great cities in the rear, all those of the wounded who can safely bear the journey. Gradually death, recovery, or removal clears the field-hospitals; one by one they are closed, their matÉriel and appliances are packed in the wagons of the hospital service, and with their staff of surgeons, dressers, and nurses, they follow the armies in the field. Meanwhile the hospital trains have distributed the wounded into the permanent hospitals at home or into special ones provided for the war. If the army is an English one, ships comfortably fitted up as hospitals have received the wounded at the nearest coast to the battle-field, and they are lying in comfortable hammocks, between airy decks, perhaps at anchor in some roadstead, or better still, going rapidly under sail and steam towards home.

We can dwell with satisfaction on this work of mercy, in which so many willing hands engage to repair, as far as can be done, the wreck and ruin of war. It is a work of mercy which ought to bind nations together, for men of many lands meet to labour under the red cross of mercy wherever war devastates Europe. For many, alas! the help comes too late; the bullet has done its work swiftly and surely; life is gone; or the wound is mortal and the sufferer dies, and will lie under the long green battle-mound. An officer will look at the tablet under his uniform that gives the name and corps of the fallen man, and make an entry in his list of dead; and the news is sent to his friends far away at home. These are the messages that give more pain even than the bullet or bayonet, and terrible it is to think that when men meet in battle the rapid fire of the rifle is doing its work not only in the field, but far away in distant cities and villages, where the sound of the fighting cannot be heard; and where there are women and children and old men to whom that fight will bring sorrow and pain and even death, as surely as if the rapid rifle-fire itself had swept them down. This is perhaps the darkest side of the picture, the portion of the loss caused by war, which our statistics cannot touch.