careful dispositions, rendered a great service in providing train accommodation for sixty thousand wounded to which the Minister of War added twenty thousand; and which again, I believe, was considerably increased by General Galliéni during his brief but strenuous period at the Ministry of War. As originally conceived the ambulance of the Front was equipped for major operations as well as the hospital in the rear, but afterwards it was found inadvisable to perform operations in these conditions where the surgeon had not the time or the tranquillity of mind necessary for the purpose; and so by a later arrangement the hospitals for the major operations were placed fifteen or twenty miles to the rear. And so it happened that the first mistakes were rectified. Instead of great and important operations being conducted on the field of battle, subject to the dangers and interruptions from such a propinquity, the more gravely wounded, whose state required amputation, were rapidly transported to these hospitals in the rear after their wounds had been attended to in the first place, and an examination made in the field hospital, or ambulances as they are called in France. This system gave much better results than that adopted in the beginning, whereby the _ambulances de l’avant_ (or advanced ambulances) and the reserve ambulances, the divisional ambulances, and the army ambulances, were interchangeable. They were intended to serve for all the purposes of attending to the wounded. They were used either as a place of temporary relief for the wounded or took on a _quasi_ permanent character according to the necessities of the case. When the advanced ambulances in certain circumstances became stationary, the reserve ambulances followed the army on the march. It seemed in many respects an excellent system, and certainly was very supple and ingenious, for these ambulances became interchangeable; but they possessed the inconvenience, to which I have already alluded—that is to say, the proper sort of attention could not be given to the important cases. Hence the change that the Committee brought about, whereby the _grands blessés_ were transported to the hospital at the rear, where the necessary skill and the instruments required were at their disposal. The present system works in this manner. The battle takes place. The chief medical officer fixes the spot in the rear where the formation ought to be established. The formation establishes itself there in a couple of hours with its motor-cars. An hour after, it has pitched its first tent and is ready to shelter the first wounded which come to it from the ambulances, perhaps in the space of three or four hours. Instruments sterilised in advance permit the surgeons to commence to operate three hours after having received their orders to establish the hospital tent. Other tents can be established to the number of five. A hundred wounded persons can thus be taken care of and treated in the open country.