To the army in the field the innovation meant that with the speedy removal of the sick and wounded it would be relieved of the great source of embarrassment caused by the presence and dependence upon it of so many inefficients;[16] depôt and intermediate hospitals could be reduced to the smallest proportions, and would thus occasion less inconvenience if, owing to a retreat or a change in the strategical position, they were brought within the sphere of military operations; with the delegation of so many of the sick and wounded to the care of civil practitioners in the interior, fewer of the divisional, brigade and regimental medical officers would require to be detached from the marching column; a smaller supplementary medical staff would suffice; a considerable reduction could be effected in the stocks of ambulance supplies kept on hand at the front; while important strategical advantages would be gained through (1) the greater freedom of movement which the army would secure; (2) the decreased risk of the number of efficients being reduced through the outbreak of epidemics; and (3) the prospect of a large proportion of the sick and wounded being enabled to rejoin the fighting force on their making a speedy recovery from their illness or their wounds. The earliest occasion on which the railway was made use of for the conveyance of sick and wounded from a scene of actual hostilities to the rear was on the occasion of the _Crimean War_, when the little military line between Balaklava and the camp before Sebastopol, of which an account will be given in Chapter XV, was so employed. The facilities afforded were, however, of the most primitive character. Only the wagons used for the transport of supplies to the front--wagons, that is to say, little better than those known as "contractors' trucks"--were available, and there were no means of adapting them to the conveyance of sufferers who could not be moved otherwise than in a recumbent position. Sitting-up cases could, therefore, alone be carried; but what was to develop into a revolution in the conditions of warfare was thus introduced, all the same.