In connection with all our cantonments there are field hospitals arranged and managed as they would be on the battle front. As the training camp does not provide enough real emergency cases for training the hospital attendants, ambulance drivers and stretcher bearers, able bodied men submit to being carried on stretchers to the hospital tents where their imaginary wounds are treated with neatness and dispatch. The training and work of our army surgeons and hospitals corps wearing their insignia, the red cross, is worthy of a whole lecture. This single view will have to suffice at this time. It should be remarked, however, that our men whether in the training camps or on the other side, are receiving the best possible medical attention without distinction as to rank or previous position in the civil life. “The health conditions,” at these amps, to quote from ex-president Taft who made a tour of nearly all the cantonments, “Are so much better than they ever have been in the past, that while we should not abate our efforts to reduce disease, we certainly can felicitate ourselves and the War Department on the comparatively small percentage of deaths and illness.”
A decidedly realistic turn is given the novices when with their gas masks they practice carrying supposedly overcome companions on stretchers from the trenches. In this view the details of the masks can be seen. The rubber contrivance fits closely over the head with great staring goggle-eyes which gives the wearer a sepulchral appearance. A large tube brings the air from which the gas has been eliminated or neutralized to the nostrils of the encased man. When the danger from gas is passed the mask is removed, folded just so, and put in the flat carrying case worn on his chest where it will be ready for immediate use. All branches of the service are provided with masks, for German gas shells are often thrown far behind the lines even to the sections were the artillery is located. In France, even the peasants who work the fields near the front are being supplied with masks so that they can continue their agricultural work not only amid shot and shell as they often do, but in the enveloping poisonous gas.
Before the signal to fire is given we will go over to the enemy’s side, out of range, however, and see what happens. There are seventeen cannons drawn up opposite us and at the signal all of them belch forth. In America it sounds big — like the real thing. Were it on the other side during a big battle it would pass almost unnoticed. The impossibility of reproducing actual war conditions on this side makes it necessary to gradually accustom our men to such conditions near the battle lines. No matter how brave a man may be, he cannot be changed from a civilian to a hardened soldier in a day. The spirit may be willing but the flesh is weak. We must bear this in mind in all our plans as to the size of the army we ought to put in training at once.
Next to the infantry, the field artillery is the most extensive and important branch of the army. A brigade consists of brigade headquarters, two regiments of light and one of heavy artillery, a trench mortar battery with 72 guns, 12 trench mortars, and the necessary transportation supplies, etc. The total strength is 185 officers and 4781 men. A brigade makes a very formidable array. We do not see all of the units in this view, but we have light field artillery units from several brigades as they passed in review at Camp Hancock, near Augusta, Ga.
As the gases used are all heavier than air they settle in the trenches and shell holes where they would remain for a long time rendering them uninhabitable except with the protecting masks. To clear the trenches of this gas, squads of “flappers” go through with great fans stirring up the gas and driving it out.
Going to another camp we see the head of an artillery column with the limbers and casinos drawn by from four to six horses, as they start out early in the morning for the day’s drill. The general view of the camp in the background gives an impression of the size of these cantonments.
