The American Red Cross Magazine (Vol. 8, No. 2, April 1913)American National Red Cross
History
The American Red Cross Magazine (Vol. 8, No. 2, April 1913)
American National Red Cross
American National Red Cross -- Periodicals; Red Cross and Red Crescent -- Periodicals
BY G. BIE RAVNDAL, _American Consul General, Secretary Red Cross Chapter._
Our Chapter was just withdrawing from the earthquake stricken coast
of the sea of Marmora, where, owing to the generosity of charitable
Americans, acting through the American National Red Cross, it had been
enabled to furnish medical and other timely aid, as described in my
report of October, 1912, when the wardogs were let loose in the Balkans,
and then began the initial scenes of that terrible drama which, during
the winter, has monopolized the attention of the world.
Hardly had the curtain fallen after the first battles, which followed
each other in swift, unrelenting succession, before the cholera began its
fearful ravages, competing with the shrapnel in deadly work.
Thousands of families, mostly women, children and old men, fled before
the onrush of soldiers from the north. Their suffering on the trail
baffles all description.
No feature of the catastrophe proved more heartrending than the condition
of affairs in the San-Stefano cholera camp, in which masses of sick
and wounded soldiers were thrown together after the battles of Louleh
Bourgas and Wisa. It is gratifying to be able to report the fact that it
was Hoffman Philip, secretary of the American Embassy in Constantinople;
Major Clyde Sinclair Ford, of the Medical Corps of the United States
Army, and Frederick Moore, of the Associated Press, who taking their
lives in their hands, first undertook the heroic work of organizing
relief in this place of horror. They were nobly assisted by Reverend
Dr. Frew, of the Scotch Mission in Constantinople, by two Swiss ladies,
residents of San-Stefano, Miss Alt and Mrs. Schneider, and also by Hon.
Maurice Baring, of London. The details of the relief furnished by our
Chapter in the San-Stefano cholera camp have been described in letters by
Mrs. W. W. Rockhill, wife of the American Ambassador at Constantinople,
and I shall not attempt to add to the information submitted by her, as
at the time under report I was in the United States. Mrs. Rockhill has
taken a leading part in the relief work instituted by the Constantinople
Chapter in the present emergencies, and the Chapter is deeply grateful to
her. Ultimately the San-Stefano situation was taken in hand by the Red
Crescent.
[Illustration: COMMITTEE OF NICHAUTACHE (SULTAN’S) HOSPITAL.]
[Illustration: EGYPTIAN RED CRESCENT MISSION UNDER DR. MAX REICH.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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