340 Towards a Modern Army, 1825-1874Making allowance for those who passed away in their unit lazarety (where
ordinary soldiers were more likely to remain),^103 the mortality rate was pro-
bably twice that of other European armies-although less than that of the
British army in India.^104 Losses in the active army were just as high as tho.se in
invalid commands, aithough these consisted oi veterans; oniy gendarmes had a
significantly lower rate.^10 s In the Caucasus the toll was proportionately nearly
twice as great as in Lithuania, but battle casualties accounted for only one in
eleven of these deaths.^106
Figures for those who fell sick are less reliable, since many cases will have
gone unreported; but they make it clear that disease was prevalent. In the first
2S years of Nicholas's reign 16 million cases were treated in base and field
hospitals, which means that on average two-thirds of the soldiers were referred
to them once a year.^107
In the campaigns of 1853-5 the Russian army did not suffer such serious
proportionate losses as in 1828-9, although the overall toll was again fear-
some. In the Crimea the authorities, caught by surprise and not expecting such
a high casualty rate, were slow to respond to the emergency situation which
soon developed. 'The scenes I witnessed will remain in my memory all my life',
wrote a guards officer who was present at the battle on the river Alma.
More than one hundred wounded were lying, groaning terribly, in pools of blood
around a cart; some were suffering so badly that they besought me to finish them off;
others, stricken with thirst, asked me as a favour to give them a drop of water, but there
was none to be had.^108
Pirogov, who arrived in Sevastopol' in November, found 'over 2,000 wounded,
aJI mixed up together, lying on dirty mattresses soaked with blood'. He set to
work at once, performing operations for ten days running, ten hours a
day-although his role was supposed to be purely supervisory.1^09 The regular
medical staff were overwhelmed by events and displayed little initiative. Even
Pirogov, who soon found himself heading a team of capable and energetic
doctors, could make but a modest contribution to solving the problem, which
again was in large measure one of supply. 'There is not an extra mattress to be
had, no decent wine or quinine bark, nor even acid, in case typhus develops',
he wrote in March. 'There are no tents and few horses or carts. No one knows
where to put the wounded, for all the nearby hospitals are already overfull.'^110
103 Yezersky (SVM iii( ii) ) p. 27.
104 ll'yashevich, 'Stat. issled. smertnosti', pp. 363-4, 388, 405. Von Haxthausen (Kriegsmacht
Russ/ands, p. 101) rightly, as we now know, criticized some contemporary Western estimates as
too high; however, those for 1840-1 in MAE, M ct D, Russie, vol. 37 (1831-52), ff. 251-2 were too
low.
105 ll;yashevich, 'Stat. issled. smertnosti', p. 374.
106 Ibid., pp. 391-3.
107 Chernyshev, '1st. obozreniye', p. 374.
IOll Dubrovin, Mat. dlya isl. Krymskoy voyny, ii. 474.
109 Pirogov, Sevast. pis'ma, pp. 5, 17-18, 31, 67.
110 Ibid., p. 97.