The terrible truth about Serbia

London: Brit. Red Cross Soc., (1915)

Gallant little Serbia! How magnificently has she played her part in this
great world struggle, the greatest of all time! Thrice already has she
flung back the Austrian invader, chasing him from her borders. She
at least has thrown every ounce of her strength into the scale, and the
memory of her deeds wiIl never die. Now in the flush of her triumph
our brave little ally is threatened by a new arid terrible foe against
whom valour and the sword are powerless. The warrior nation whom
the might of Austria could not subdue is likely to be overborne by an
invisible enemy – typhus.
I have recently been privileged to visit Serbia and to traverse the
whole length of the country. In the course of my journeyings I was able
to see with my own eyes the grievous affliction which has fallen upon
her, and the noble fortitude with which she is enduring what she is
helpless to combat. In the following pages I shall try to give my readers
som, account of things which must be of vivid interest to every man
and woman in this land. Are not the Serbians our brothers in arms?
We have learned a great deal about Serbia during the past few
months, and it is my conviction that we shall learn a great deal more
in the near future. As it often happens with nations (though by no
means always), the better we know her, the more we find to admire.
Our admiration is warmly returned – that I know. The Serbians have
a most touching belief in the British nation. Wherever you go you find
that, even among the poorest peasants. It seemed to me that their everpresent
desire was to win the approval of England. Yet, poor as they
are, they are a most independet people – a Serbian would rather starve
than beg. And as for bravery, whenever and wherever they have had
the opportunity they have proved that there is no braver nation in the
world. No men have surpassed them in this respect. They do not fear
death at all on the battlefield.
But worse almost than deaths or wounds, the privations endured
by the tiny army during the terrible winter campaign laid them open
to the onslaughts of disease. Concurrently the flight of poor refugees
from the area of hostilities to the towns and villages behind the front
induced conditions of overcrowding with which it was impossible to
cope in a proper manner.
Tile difficulty was enormously increased by the vast numbers of
Austrian prisoners for whom it was necessary to find lodging. It is
said that it was among the latter that the dreaded typhus fever first
developed. It is more than likely to be so. In any case the disease, once
having made its appearance, spread with frightful rapidity, until now
it has become an enemy more deadly than the Austrian. In the very
flush of victory indomitable Serbia has been attacked by disease as I
think no country has ever been attacked before. It is a plague such as
the world has seldom known, and all the benevolence of humnanity
will be required to deal with it. And smallpox and scarlet fever are
helping to sweep away thousands in all ranks of life.
Doctors tell us that typhus is essentially a disease produced by
famine and overcrowding. Our own land has suffered grievously from
it in times past, but the advance of sanitation has enabled us to overcome
it, and typhus is almost unknown in Britain at the present day. In
Serbia it is otherwise, and a moment’s reflection will show that this is
perfectly natural. What need has a robust peasant community for the
science of sanitation?
Until this calamity fell upon her Serbia was one of time healthiest
countries in the world. Typhus has come upon her unawares, and she
is helpless. Shall we not help her? She is our ally. By her prowess in holding
a quarter of the whole Austrian army at bay she has done all and
more than all that should or could be asked of her. Not only that, but
who can say how far the disasters which have befallen the Austrian
arms in other spheres of the war are due to the loss of morale inflicted
by Serbia?
Serbia has fought three wars in gallant defence of her native land,
and the resources of the country are now strained to the utmost. Nis,
with a normal population of 15,000 to 20,000, is now packed with
over 100,000. In that overcrowded town there are many thousands of
typhus cases; deaths have averaged 140 a day - on one day alone nearly
300 people died of typhus and the cemeteries were unable to receive the
dead. Typhus carts drawn by oxen rumble through the streets, bearing
as their burden men raving in fever and delirium. On the street
pavements I saw white-faced men sitting shivering in the first grip of
the disease, unable to drag themselves to shelter, and waiting for the
bullock-cart to pick them up.
At Djevdjelija and Nis and Belgrade, and even at Kragujevac, the
headquarters of the army, typhus, the dreaded disease, is spreading
like a terrible blight from which neither man nor woman nor child
of any station in life is immune. What is happening to the women of
Serbia I dare not think. In all the hospitals of Serbia I did not once see
a woman patient. They are all filled with men, so there is no room for
women, who, I fear, must die in their own homes for want of doctors
or medicine to save them. Dr. Ryan, the chief of the American Red
Cross Mission in Serbia, at Belgrade, where he has the best hospital in
the Balkans under his charge, with nearly 3,000 patients, told me that
unless something is done immediately to stop the disease more than
half the population of Serbia will be wiped out. As I write this I see by
the papers that Dr. Ryan is himself lying very ill with typhus.
Although I noticed the Red Cross flag over nearly every large
building throughout Serbia, the hospital accommodation is quite inadequate
for the thousands of patients. How many thousands of cases
there are I cannot say, because exact and accurate figures are unascertainable.
Mrs. Hankin Hardy, who has charge of an old prison turned
into a hospital at Kragujevac, told me that day after day men in the
delirium of typhus were brought in ox wagons to her door, and were
laid there to die because there was no room for them inside. Multiply
this by a thousand cases, and you have Serbia as it is to-day.
Even more grievous is the paucity of doctors and nurses, and the
lack of sick-room necessaries. Mrs. Hardy, whose husband is an army
chaplain at the front, and whose children are in England, slept in what
had been a prison cell. She told me she had over 600 patients, and neither
a doctor nor a nurse to attend to them. She lacked almost everything
in the way of medicines and disinfectants. I asked her how she
managed with her patients. She replied that the only help she had was
from some Austrian prisoners, who were in anything but a clean condition
to wait upon the sick. In some hospitals they had neither blankets
nor mattresses; in some the mattresses were put sideways, and
three or four patients were lying on one mattress. Yet the men have
never a word of complaint. In one ward I saw a fever patient whose
magnificent voice was booming songs to cheer his comrades.
In passing through Djevdjelija I was met at the station by Dr. Donnelly,
who asked me and my party of doctors and nurses to visit the
hospital, as we had two and a half hours to wait at the station. Djevdjelija
is a village in a barren, uncultivated country, the hospital an
old tobacco factory formerly belonging to Abdul Hamlil. In it were
crowded 1,400 men, some witimout blankets or mattresses or even
straw – men lying in the clothes in which they had lived in the trenches
for months, swarming with vermin. All diseases – typhus, typhoid,
dysentery – were herded together when Dr. Donnelly arrived, he said.
But the hospital was being improved and the patients distributed into
different wards. He had a force there of six American surgeons, twelve
American nurses, and three Serbian physicians. When I visited the
hospital three American physicians, the three Serbian physicians, and
nine of the nurses were themselves ill. The patients were waited on
by Austrian prisoners. The fumes of reeking wounds and fever were
unbearable.
The first thing the doctor had done on his arrival was to test the
water, which he found infected. He then improvised boilers of oil
drums, in which to boil water for use. The boilers saved five hundred
lives, said tile doctor. He also built ovens in which to bake the clothes
of the patients; but he was not provided with a proper sterilising apparatus.
Before the train started Dr. Donnelly, with two of the Amnerican
nurses whom I had not seen, came to see me off. They had a talk with
a number of the nurses in my party, and I gave them some little hospital
comforts to take back with them. While waiting at the station Dr.
Donnelly told me he was afraid the Bulgarians might attack that district,
and he would like to have a large American flag, which he would
hoist in a conspicuous position in order to protect the hospital. The