237. Two big bets

In the 19th century, people's lifespan was very short, and the requirements for age and basic education were not so high. Many geniuses were able to make a mark on their respective stages early.

These figures often appear together in the art world, and they can win the favor of royal nobles before they reach adulthood, simply because artistic creation relies on talent and inspiration rather than experience accumulated over time.

But even so, Kawei's promotion along the way is nothing short of magical. To be recognized by almost all surgeons at such an age, and to be reused by King Franz at the same time, is unprecedented in the Austrian medical community.

Caesarean section, Justina's modified breast cancer resection + breast reconstruction, Fernand's abdominal surgery, Marshal Ludwig's spine surgery

In the 19th century, when surgical conditions were extremely harsh, Kawei managed to reach this point by relying on one operation after another that was beyond current knowledge.

Military medicine, including medical logistics, requires a complete set of systems to ensure operation. Maintaining the old routine will definitely cause considerable trouble, so at first he wanted the entire military medical department to make changes.

It's a pity that one mountain cannot tolerate two tigers. Being another person in charge who is equal to Edinson did not eliminate some people's doubts. On the surface, he was authorized by the imperial power, but at the critical moment, Carvey's qualifications and title still failed to convince everyone.

If you stand on the forefront, everyone will stare at you. Rather than doing this, it is better to take a step back.

Finally, after discussion, Carvey chose to give up his power to interfere with the military medical office and the medical committee, and further reduced his power to intervene in surgical operations. He only took the Northern Front Olmitz Army Fortress General from Edinson.

hospital and became the director there.

I only got this after Archduke Brecht helped me talk.

Power is meaningful only when it is recognized by his subordinates. This kind of exchange and active concession made Kawei feel relaxed.

In Edinson's eyes, the northern front is closest to Vienna and is heavily garrisoned. It is also the main direction of Austria's attack. The situation will not be too serious. Even if there is a war, the front will have already advanced to Silesia, and it will not be far behind Kavi.

relation.

You will live a very comfortable life, and at the same time you will not get any meritorious honors.

After decentralization, among the military hospitals of the entire Austrian army, only the Olmitz and Jodek hospitals on the northern front strictly abide by Kawei's "Military Medical Manual", and all the hospitals used are those who are willing to follow Kawei.

surgeon.

On the Western Front, the army as a whole focused on defense.

The town of Muchen along the Isar River is the top priority this time. The general hospital there was built under the supervision of Edinson himself, and its overall level is basically equivalent to the Prussian hospital in Gransenyi.

Of course, this is also related to the size of the town. There is no large hospital like Olmitz, so everything needs to be expanded on the basis of small hospitals.

With this four-month preparation period, it is not a problem at all to complete the expansion of a 1,500+ bed hospital. Kawei also gave a list of logistics supplies required by the hospital, as well as a ward planning diagram, including how to eliminate rodents and pests, and how to do it.

Ward disinfection, how to clean bed sheets and equipment, how to get water, how to transport supplies, wounded soldiers, etc.

Unfortunately, Edinson still maintained the original arrangement and did not adopt it.

He only made a small expansion on the original basis of the small hospital, and then placed a large number of wards in private houses around the hospital, using simple wall panels to enclose a large medical area. This really saved costs, and after leaving

It would not bring much change to the city, but he seriously underestimated the intensity of casualties on the battlefield.

In three days, the 1,000 beds brought by the private housing were quickly exhausted. Faced with the continuous influx of wounded soldiers being evacuated, it was obviously impossible to expand further, and the only way to solve the accommodation problem was to rely on tents.

By the third day, they had run out of tents, so they could only use churches and some large houses in the town as temporary settlement sites for wounded soldiers.

The ward was only one of the difficulties he encountered. The more critical problem was that he failed to take into account the number of wounded soldiers before, and the four expanded operating rooms also experienced serious crowding.

The operating room here cannot be compared with the professional operating room carefully renovated by Kawei. There is no connected logistics warehouse, no regular disinfection and cleaning, and no green express lane connected to the ward. If you want to send a patient for surgery, you need to find the patient's location.

A certain private house, and then calling a horse-drawn carriage to transport it, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive.

What's even more troublesome is that the area of ​​the operating room is very limited.

Unlike Carvey, Edinson has difficulty breaking away from the constraints of the internal layout of the operating theater. One operating room and one operating table severely limits the utilization of the operating room.

Of the 2,300 casualties, nearly 800 needed timely surgery. Only four operating rooms were obviously not enough. In the end, it evolved into a situation where residential buildings were renovated or used directly as operating rooms. The concept of disinfection emphasized by Kawei before

It has also become obsolete.

When everything changed due to the surge in the number of personnel, the doctors' treatment operations began to deform, and the operations became disorganized. Everything was performed to complete the task rather than to treat the wounded soldiers.

The director of Muchen General Hospital is a chief physician from Hungary, Etler.

The reason why Edinson is willing to hand over the management of this hospital to him is because the 45-year-old Etler opened a hospital in Budapest, Hungary and has 14 years of hospital management experience. At the same time, he also agrees with Edinson's philosophy.

No matter how you look at it, Etler is a very rare talent.

But managing a dental hospital and a frontline military hospital were completely different things. On the second day of the war, Etler encountered a lot of troubles.

What troubled him the most was not the treatment of wounded soldiers, but language communication.

Austria's troops on the Western Front were mixed with Hungarians, Czechs, Poles, and even some Slavs, so it was difficult to unify their languages. Moreover, the morale of these non-Austrian soldiers was far from excellent. They began to fight as soon as they encountered setbacks.

Spreading panic in the ward.【1】

Soon, this panic, accompanied by sensitive soldier casualty figures, spread to the entire Western Front military camp.

Austria could only build fortifications with the Royal Saxony Army on the east bank of the Isar River to resist the Prussian attack.

The battle losses on October 3 directly shattered the last strength of the Austrian military camp, and the casualties of more than 1,000 people far exceeded the 130 Prussian soldiers.

This kind of battle-loss ratio was intolerable to the commander-in-chief, Archduke Brecht, so after he sent the Sixth Army to the Muchen front line on October 4, after much deliberation, he decided to skip Edinson and go directly to Olmi.

Kawei from Fortress sent a telegram.

The disadvantages in equipment have been highlighted. If medical logistics remains as messed up as it is now, the war will undoubtedly be defeated.

Kavi received the translation of the telegram on the morning of October 8, organized a medical team and left Olmitz.

He left Hills to manage the fortress hospital on his behalf, and Bill Rotter as the chief surgeon to supervise all surgical operations. And Ignatz, the first trauma treatment team, Lucius, Golam, Sarson and a group of assistants

He and the nurse were packed up and put on a carriage bound for the small town of Muchen on the western front.

There were all elites here, escorted by the Royal Guards who were originally responsible for Kawei's security. The journey went smoothly without encountering any problems.

However, Mu Chen at this time is no longer the Mu Chen he was four days ago.

After the Sixth Army entered the Western Front battlefield, Deputy Marshal Wilhelm von Laming under Archduke Brecht immediately commanded the troops to cross the Isar River again and had a fight with Prussian Lieutenant General Metz who was deploying troops in the riverside town.

Face to face.

The battle started in the early morning of October 8.

Deputy Marshal Laming's night attack was very effective, and the timing happened to be at night when supplies were being transported.

Countless baggage trains and artillery carts were crowded on the throat road leading to the town. Even Metz and his staff were trapped in this "traffic jam." The Prussian troops here seemed bloated.

The entire marching team seemed to be squeezed in the middle and unable to move, let alone make effective decisions.

The troops were unable to deploy and the vanguard was caught off guard.

It was not until the middle of the night that after all the hard work, Metz's main force escaped from the crowd, and quickly ordered the army to shrink its defense and withstand Lamin's first wave of offensive.

The two armies made brief repairs in the morning. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the Prussian and Austrian armies had a real battle since the beginning of the war on the high ground. Deputy Marshal Laming's 1st Brigade of the Sixth Army occupied the commanding heights first and carried out repairs.

The subsequent Prussian offensive launched a fierce and courageous resistance.

Among them, the Chasseurs under Lamin performed most outstandingly.

However, the Prussian army immediately launched a counterattack with the rapid firepower of the new rifles. By around 4 p.m., the 1st Brigade was in pieces under the attack of the Prussian army. Laming, who learned of the situation, immediately sent another brigade to support

, but unfortunately, the brigade soon met a similar fate.

During the battle, rows of Austrian infantrymen were hit by bullets and bomb fragments. They fell in groups among the grass and thorns under the huge firepower net.

The battle was extremely fierce, and people can't help but recall the scene during the Battle of Solferino with the French seven years ago. Dead bodies piled up in mountains, and the later soldiers continued to advance on the corpses of their comrades, and then became new ones.

corpse

It was because of the heavy casualties in the battle that neither Nassan nor Franz was in the mood to fight again. In the end, Austria failed and abandoned the Lombardy region.

However, Lamin misjudged the situation at this time. He thought that the Prussians were exhausted after several fierce battles, so he sent out his elite cavalry in the evening, hoping to end the battle in one fell swoop.

However, the Austrian cavalry was quickly intercepted by Metz's dragoons and lancers.

At the same time, because the baggage transportation in the rear town was opened, more infantry and artillery poured into the battlefield and joined the battle. At 8 o'clock in the evening, after several waves of almost suicidal charges by the heroic Austrian cavalry, they completely

After the failure, the stubborn Lamin finally gave the order to retreat.

The embarrassed remaining soldiers crossed the Isar River and returned to the small town of Muchen.

In this battle, the total losses of the Austrian army were more than 6,000, of which 2,500 were declared dead or missing. On the opposite side, Prussia only lost 62 officers and 1,060 soldiers, of which only 315 were killed.

Until October 12, when Kavi brought his medical team to the Western Front battlefield, the original Muchen General Hospital had already left the control of the Austrian army and became part of Prussia.

On the night of the 8th, Laming, who suffered a disastrous defeat in the battle, left the Isar River with the remaining troops and continued to retreat eastward. The Ossanth coalition forces originally in Muchen were no match for the Prussians, so they left with them.

.

Originally, according to the predictions of Archduke Brecht and Laming, the Prussians would not advance too fast.

But facts proved that both Austrian commanders underestimated their opponents' marching speed.

Lieutenant General Metz did not choose to wait for the main force in the rear. He had learned the essence of Moltke's command of operations and acted extremely decisively on the spot. As soon as the Austrian army retreated, he organized his troops to quickly cross the river and march toward Issa.

The small town of Muchen on the east bank of the Er River launched an attack.

If the Austro-Saharan coalition forces had not retreated together, the attack would have failed.

It's a pity that there is no if in the world, Metz won the bet.

The Prussian troops crushed the remaining Austrian troops all the way east until they came to the outskirts of Gablenz, 25 kilometers east of Muchen, and encountered a fierce counterattack by Laming's artillery, and then stopped.

Metz's troops only had 6 artillery pieces and could not provide effective artillery support to the attacking friendly forces. At this critical moment, the Prussian infantry went against the norm and launched a bayonet charge against the Austrian army.
To be continued...