The Struggle for Survival 19:
and surgeons, or roughly four to five times more for double the number ol
men.^124 The army medical services. hitherto partly controlled by the lnterio1
Ministry, were placed wholly under the military ( 1805). This logical reform un·
fort!.!nate!y did net Gfford mcdica.l p.::1~0r11id dut:4uaLe protection agams1
bureaucratic arbitrariness, as was necessary if army service were to be madt
more attractive to skilled doctors; although pay and conditions were improved.
in 1806 there were still 17 field and 56 garrison regiments which had no trained
medical man at their disposal.12' Kutuzov's forces in central Europe lost some
12,000 men to disease before the battle of Austerlitz, when they suffered
21,000 casualties in the field.12^6 The war of 1806-12 against the Turks had a
similarly drastic effect. 'The regiments, reduced to 500 men without having
fought an engagement, were pitiful to behold,· wrote Paskevich later with hi~
customary frankness; 'the soldiers, pale and thin, could scarcely carry their
rifles and equipment.'^127 Part of the trouble here was the breakdown of the
supply services, which left the army dependent on whatever it could requisition
locally-and little was to be had in this under-populated area. But conditions
were similar in north-eastern Europe during the 1806- 7 campaign: at
Preussisch-Eylau and Friedland Russian wounded were left on the battlefield
to the mercies of the foe. Most froze to death; of those who reached base
hospital at Grodno a large number died of starvation.^128
During the War of 1812 care of the wounded seems to have depended as
much on the initiative of regular officers as it did on the official medical ser-
vices. General M. S. Vorontsov set an example in this respect. On his estate in
Vladimir province he set up a hospital where 300 soldiers or NCOs, along with
50 officers, were looked after at his own expense. Although himself wounded
and scarcely able to walk, Vorontsov visited the men daily and before they
were sent back to their units gave each of them a fresh set of clothes and
IO roubles in cash.^129 Other officers are also on record as having shown the
'fatherly care' for their invalid subordinates that was expected of them.13° But
such acts of charity, however worthy, could not offset the general inefficiency
of the medical service, which was overwhelmed by events. The corruption in
Moscow military hospitals 'makes one groan', wrote Rostopchin to the tsar. n^1
Yermolov, passing through the city as the population fled before Napoleon's
advance, heard the cries of thousands of wounded who had been left behind in
churches; this, he says, 'caused indignation in the army' at 'the shameful indif-
ference of the capital to [their] unfortunate lot'.D^2 Once across the border in
124 Ibid., pp. 92, 189.
12s PSZ xxviii. 21866 (4 Aug. 1805); Kruchek-Golubov and Kul'bin, op. cit., pp. 79, 82. Petrov
(Russkaya voyennaya silo, ii. 271) s1ates that the number of trained staff was reduced.
126 Kruchek-Golubov and Kulbin, op. cit.. pp. 239-40; Kcrn10vsky, /storiya, i. 189.
t27 Stcherbatow, Paskevitsch, p. 58.
128 Kruchek-Golubov and Kul'bin, in SVM viii. 242-J.
129 Shcherbinin, B1ografiya ... Vorontsol'U. p. 66.
130 Antonovsky, 'Zapiski', p. 174.
111 Shchukin, Bumagi, vii. 419.
tJ2 Yermolov, Zapiski, pp. 98-9.