Poorly organized as were the French medical services, demand far outstripped supply almost throughout the war, but several times at Verdun the system threatened to break down altogether. There were never enough surgeons, never enough ambulances, of course no ‘wonder drugs’, and often no chloroform with which to perform the endless amputations of smashed limbs. If a casualty reached the clearing station, his ordeals were by no means over.
Georges Duhamel, a doctor at Verdun and later a member of the Academy, vividly describes the chaos in one of these primitive charnel houses in ‘La Vie des Martyrs.’ Arriving during the early stages of the battle, he noted in despair, ‘there is work here for a month’.
The station was overflowing with badly wounded who had already been waiting for treatment for several days. In tears they beseeched to be evacuated; their one terror to be labelled ‘untransportable’. These, not merely the hopelessly wounded, but those whose wounds were just too complicated for the frantic surgeons to waste time probing, or who looked as if they would be little use to the army again, were laid outside in the bitter cold. It was not long before German shells landed among the helpless pile, but at least this reduced the doctors’ work.
Source:
Horne, Alistair. “Widening Horizons.” The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916. New York: St. Martin's, 1963. 184. Print.
Further Reading:
Posting an extra submission today - it's my birthday!