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I was intrigued to come across this, which I didn't know, though others may be familiar with it. [Dysentery is a form of infectious diarrhoea, can be severe or fatal, and characteristically causes the passage of blood and mucus].
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20324148
'Epidemic bacillary dysentery... was the main cause of the Gallipoli failure. No fewer than 120,000 casualties were evacuated from the Peninsula from July to November 1915 and they were mostly due to bacillary dysentery...'
That is very interesting indeed. We know that 60% of the deaths in the 2nd Boer War were due to disease, mostly apparently from the failure to provide sanitary drinking water supplies: the so-called "Enteric fever".
An ironic failure considering the effort the Japanese, and probably others as well, put into copying and putting into military use the ceramic water filters pioneered in the U.K.
So it seems the lesson was not learned in South Africa - one wonders when it was finally learned?
A subject worthy of a much closer and wider study.
Interesting the struggles the Japanese had with Beri-Beri
In my opinion, the main cause of the failure of the Gallipoli invasion was the Turkish Army... Fighting for their homeland, out numbered in most cases, these 'bloody wogs' just plain out fought the allied invasion forces. My Uncle Jack Spratt was just too happy to get out of there alive.
So very true!Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom in N.J.
As a nation we never count our defeats; instead we present them as heroic actions and focus on individual stories of valour whilst not dwelling on the bigger picture.
I wonder what my father would have thought of the films made about Dunkirk?
Family history has it that he made it into a coal barge with other elements of the East Lancs to escape back to Blighty, the sole mention of it was made when my older brother made fun of the "Sally" army band one remembrance parade post war and was told to shut up because they had given him a blanket on his arrival at the docks.
And the Red Cross sold the blankets......
My father in law spent the war in the UK and had nothing but good to say about the Sally Ann.
He would not donate one single penny to the Red Cross as they were selling all the knitting and other items Canadian women sent to the overseas boys.
I was just thinking that the smell on the ships evacuating from Gallipoli must have rivalled a cattle boat!!!
Having been to Gallipoli what a daunting task they had to go up the cliffs.
The cliffs there are almost straight up.
I started to dig in the cliffs and sand looking for artifacts but got the run put on me by a Turkish forestry patrol...:surrender:
Infections from wounds, as well as almost non-existent sanitary practices probably carried off more troops than direct combat up to WW2.
In the last great unpleasantness, the Allies had bulk antibiotics, mostly sourced from Penicillin "Pharms" in Canada and the USA.
Because they had basically NO penicillin, Axis deaths from wounds, injuries and diseases were disproportionately higher.
The US Civil war and the Crimean War saw the first glimmers of a systematic approach to casualty treatment, but "finesse" was somewhat lacking. Lots of Carbolic acid and alcohol being splashed about, with a vague notion of "antisepsis, but the introduction of practical "asepsis" (keeping the bugs out so you do not have to fight them later), started to nudge the death-rate down. It was the same in civilian hospitals. Stories of doctors walking straight from a messy autopsy into a delivery room without changing gowns or washing hands do not boost confidence regarding the survival of mother or baby..
The much later introduction of "Keyhole" surgery (making the smallest possible incision to do the job) also saw a reduction in recovery times and post-op infections. Slicing frm the sternum to the groin to deal with a feral gall bladder or similar, was an iatrogenic death waiting to happen.
One of the issues with the British fighting the new Americans, was that Malaria was as bad as any fighting force against them. The British Soldiers suffered and were not able to fight as well in their weakened condition.
Malaria in Wars and Victims Malaria Site
Dave
There are other effective "herbal" antiseptics of course. Have read that garlic juice was used in WWI to good effect and of course honey itself being hygroscopic is an excellent antiseptic. Have also read that in WWI the Russians included a clay powder with the soldier's rations and that this was highly effective for dysentery. The lessons from the case of Dr. Semmelweis are timeless. Women were still dying of "iatragenic" "puerperal fever" by the tens of thousands generations after his death.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce_in_Oz
A small book from my shelves written in the first person to our then Prime Minister probably one of the best short accounts of what turned out to be folly of the highest order but at the time the objective was set and a plan hatched.
No one will ever say that the troops that landed there that fateful morning nor the troops defending their homeland shores fought with any less vigor than was expected of them, our boys nearly carried the day such was their endeavour but it was not to be and thus the stalemate occurred much like the Western front trenches.
There were heroics from all ranks of services involved for our boys perhaps it started as a game but after the debacle in April then in May when the truce was in affect the Aussie diggers got to see first hand their adversary was amiable as they were and grudgingly gave "Abdul" the nod of approval as a fighter.
If you follow our efforts in the first world war it really hit home as in those years Australia's population was around 5-6 million people so WWI touched allot of the families a bit like the Pal's Battalions the British came up with to replace the carnage on the Western Front.
Cinders the father of uncle Rupert was a great journalist he probably is turning over in his grave knowing what the Murdoch empire is doing now . FYI Returning to Aussie in September to build the beach shack
As for why the Gallipoli campaign failed, I've long believed it had too many enemies in the UK to prosper; mostly all those whose first priority was keeping Russia out of the Bosphorus and the Med. It would be a miracle if there was no "leakage" of information from the outset.
And your purely voluntary enlistment was as much a disaster for Australia as it was for Britain and Canada and other Commonwealth countries. When the public-spirited and the willing are gone the refuse[niks] left is the future of a country.Quote:
Originally Posted by CINDERS
True but they tried conscription twice in the first world war and it failed miserably the troops at the Western Front summed it up very well;
"We would rather fight beside someone who wanted to be there, than stuck with someone who did not want to be there".
In WWI, WWII, Korea, Malaya our forces were voluntary when VN came along so did the marble my B/inlaw got his marble and went on as he called it Asian Holiday strange really as he was a farmer but went leaving his parents to run the farm. They were from a little place called Pithara. (Pronounced Pith-ar-a)
Hey cinders , My dad was a regular in VN he was taken from 1 RAR to be a foundation member of 5RAR , the first battalion to have national service soldiers .he was in operation hardihood which was the op that Errol Nouakchott was killed ( australias first national service casulty)
Quote:
Originally Posted by CINDERS
An aspect I'm not familiar with Cinders, but sounds like I should be. Why would it fail in a much more popular war and yet apparently succeed in Vietnam? Or did it?Quote:
Originally Posted by CINDERS
Surpmil , the Vietnam conscription was not really popular here. My dads battalion was the first one to be a mix of Regulars soldiers and conscripted soldiers , he was a regular . Dad always said once the bodies started coming home and it was on the news then the protests started about conscription and australias involvement with America in SVN . He then went on to be a instructor at 1 RTB Kapooka.i was born in 68 almost 12 months after his return .he then went back to 1 RAR then back to Kapooka again as a RI in 1971 . When the war was very unpopular . I do remember us sitting there watching TV live as the fall of Saigon happened and him being ****ed off that the work they had done in SVN was ending not the way the governments planned .
Does that ever happen smerdon! with our Govt at any time why do you think our Aussie and N Zed brethren are so good at pilfering equipment from the US armed forces because our useless behind the door Govt's have bled our forces to ruin apparently the Kiwis were better scroungers than our troops. Now that is sayin' something.Quote:
Originally Posted by smerdon42
Sanitation is as important as beans and bullets in war. In the last Gulf War I had a Captain who insisted in eating the local foods. Not that the food could be poisoned, but he came down with dysentery very quickly. Last I saw him he was lying in his own watery "poop" unable to get up out of his cot. We had to MEDVAC him out with an IV in his arm to maintain his fluid levels.
n
Reminds me of an old John Wayne movie, "Horse Soldiers" where William Holden, who plays an Army Doctor is arguing with a Colonel that the coffee would taste better if the latrines where down stream from the water source.
Cinders , y the old man was the go to scrounge for his battalion and was well known for getting the impossible .
Quote:
Originally Posted by CINDERS
Very interesting read, thanks fpr posting RobD - my great uncle was a casualty on the "forgotten front" in East Africa, also from dysentry.......as others have said, infections and poor hygeine a major factoruntil the development of suitabel medicines.
All too often it seems that such the casualties overlooked or perhaps deemed somehow less "glorious dead" by some - especailly in the more obscure campaigns?
Curious isn't it how the Japanese who seem to us so profligate with the lives of their soldiers, actually took far more trouble far earlier to prevent illness due to unsanitary water supplies.
While the British Army and authorities, whom we tend to see as much more concerned with the preservation of the lives of servicemen, were actually far more profligate in the sense of losses due to illness and disease.
There is a logic to it though: sick or dead soldiers are very expensive or quite useless, whereas healthy soldiers have some chance to fulfill the military objectives, even if they are "human bullets" as in the Russo-Japanese War.