GLORIOUS WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 290, 30 April 1913, Page 6

GLORIOUS WAR.

WHAT THE REAL THING IS. M.P.'S TERRIBLE TABLE. THE WOUNDED IN THE BALKANS. "I hesitate to state truly what I saw of the wounded in the Balkan war," writes Mr. Noel Buxton, M.P., in the (Contemporary Review. "We dislike honors, and we dislike the people who have a taste for them. The ugly facts in normal life we agree not to speak of." But to Mr. Buxton the time has come to tell just what war means to the human beings whom we disguise and forget under the name of "soldier" or "army." With hia own eyes Mr. Buxton has seen the horror of the Balkan war, and these are some of the things he saw:— . WHAT WAR MEANS. "Many who fell where the Turks afterwards advanced were mutilated, almost always, happily, in such a way that life could only last two or three hours," says Mr. Buxton. "Often the eyes were gouged out. In other cases men were blinded by shell explosions. Blinding seemed to stupefy the mind. A man.so injured said to the doctor, 'The flour has got into my eyes, and the mice are eating it.'

"The majority of the infantrymen were hit in the left arm' or hand, as it was lifted for firing. Shrapnel balls (coming from above the troops as they knelt or lay) struck the shoulders, back and legs. We saw many men pierced through the lungs. An officer rode six miles shot just below the heart. "They are terrified of losing a limb'. I heard one man say to the doctor who was preparing to take off his gangrenous arm, 'Please kill me rather than take off my arm. If I can't work on my farm I would rather'be dead.'

"Foreign military attaches picked up Turkish dum-dum ammunition, and nothing, else would have expanded in soft flesh with the dreadful results' that came in a few cases to our surgery. One, for instance, had, in traversing'the upper arm, spread so as to make the exit wound quite five inches-long; Another entering the ittner side df' tlie' thigh caused on the outer sidea hole quite fourteen inches in length, the flesh pro: trading in separate oblong mass'es, mangled together, the skin aipparfently all carried away. '' -i" ''< "A milch -slighter (fum-dmtf 'Wcmhd was in the liand. In the palni was the' tinyentrance hole; at the' back' of' the' hand the core iof the bullet had splintered the metacarpal bone Vhicll i etmnects'''lshe"ni , st finger witli the wrist; but "'round the course taken by this, cord; the :soft 'load 'seemed to have sprayed, so quickly that in'a flight of one inch it llad'Sproad to a' circle more than an''inch Iwide, carrying away all'this extent.of'Binewand-'flesh, and' leaving a cavernbus hollow across which the jagged ends t>f fibre'met unevenly, i The 'task wasdtio! these loose ends and clea'ti'the hbloi'■:;>■• ' •' ! ■>■'

"The more ruthlessly land IqUicttly we worked, the larger seemed/the crowd still needing our services. ...,„Tlie-.aic-grew "fouler, the heat more intolerable, the crush more annoying, -the, smell-of gangrenous and exposed fleslrinftre-disgust-ing, fatigue made one eyjjnjngje callous; but never could we get through that endles queue at theidqqr;['j / \)V.\,\; "'"■'' ',.'■ ■• THE IMAGES OF GOD.

"Here were humsln ll b : dihgff'of'a fine .type,-of pure bipod,.in-thepr-gneiiof life, remarkably free "front o ifamoral'i'dis'gase, of a courage and endurance that'makes them renowned., as fighters throughout Europe, with a qualify'of mind and body unique among the peasants'ofrthe 'world. As one worked on, •the'iriind'frecollected, with impartial coldnes's,"thC inim'ens'fe value of each of thesa'crea'tores,' beings'to ; whom the expression 'made in the image • of' diod' might quite philosophically be .applied. • _ ~..,' .jJI.

And here, at closest quarters,, by the insistent impact of sight and smell and hearing and touch, we ...realised this Image' smashed;' i't's capadrty idt' Work, thought, fatherhood, happiness, destroyed by resultant ill-health;'not> one'alone, such as would, in peace'time; ; in a case of misfortune, move a Whole nation- to sympathy, but by scores- and' hundreds' and tens of thousands.!''; :,-' ; ■• ■ '■