Holzhausen describes scenes which were
not less atrocious than those enacted by Russian peasants.
And those who were treated kindly had the most serious difficulties: the
sudden change from misery to regular life caused many serious disorders of
the organs of digestion, ennervation and circulation. All who have been in
the field during our civil war know how long it took before they were able
again to sleep in a bed. The Napoleonic soldiery describe how the warmth of
the bed brought on the most frightful mental pictures; they saw burnt,
frozen, and mutilated comrades and had to try to find rest on the floor,
their nervous and their circulatory systems were excited to an intolerable
degree. After eating they vomited, and only gradually the ruined stomach
became accustomed again, first, to thin soups and, later on, to a more
substantial diet.
How much they had suffered manifested itself in many ways after the thick
crust had been removed from their body and, above all, after what had taken
the place of shoes had been taken off. When Sergeant Toenges removed the
rags from his feet the flesh of both big toes came off. Captain
Gravenreuth's boots had been penetrated by matter and ichor. Painful
operations had to be performed to separate gangraenous parts. In
Marienwerder Hochberg found all the attendants of Marshal Victor on the
floor while a surgeon was amputating their limbs.
But these were comparatively minor affairs, amputated limbs played no roll
when hundreds of thousands of mutilated corpses rested on the fields of
Russia.
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