Triage by Martin King & Michael Collins

Author:Martin King & Michael Collins [King, Martin & Collins, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-07-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

From Here to Hemingway

During the greater part of World War I from July 20, 1914, until November 9, 1917, General Cadorna was the Italian army’s chief of staff. He was eventually relieved of command for his alleged role in Italy’s resounding defeat at the epic Battle of Caporetto. Cadorna allegedly executed more of his own men than all the other incumbent armies together. Between 1915 and 1917, more than half a million Italian soldiers met violent deaths on what was known as the “Isonzo Front.” Hundreds of thousands more succumbed to disease, hunger, freezing temperatures, and avalanches. Hemingway vividly referred to the aftermath of the Battle of Caporetto in his famed novel A Farewell to Arms, but he wasn’t actually there at the time.

On April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany. That day, the American Red Cross (ARC) renounced its neutrality and assumed its other federally-chartered military role to provide medical assistance to the country’s armed forces in wartime. It looked good on paper, but in reality, just like the U.S. armed forces, the organization was drastically ill prepared for the role it was assuming. It’s entirely possible that Hemingway saw the ARC has a possible vehicle to get to the front faster than the army. Six base hospitals had already been dispatched to support the British Expeditionary Force in May 1917. Most, if not all, of these Red Cross hospitals were already operating as American-sponsored independent institutions even before America’s entry into the war. The first of these to be appropriated by the Army and ARC was the “American Ambulance in Paris.” The order came directly from Major General “Black Jack” John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force.

In 1917 a young man from Illinois called Ernest Miller Hemingway left his job at the Kansas City Star newspaper, and signed on as an ambulance driver with the American Red Cross. He was eighteen, eager for action and adventure and responding to a recent recruitment drive. He had attempted to enlist in the army, but had been rejected due to poor vision, undeterred he would get to the front. Many believe that Hemingway harbored a pure undiluted determination to join the fray and get stuck in, but this wasn’t the case at all. As far as he was concerned the location of the front was superfluous, the fight was on and he wanted to get close (but despite his pugnacious attitude to just about everything he didn’t want to get too close). In desperation to join up in some form or another, he had even written to his sister explaining that he was planning to join the Canadian army. He settled for the National Guard but soon discovered that they had no intention whatsoever of getting sent overseas. Hemingway was bitterly disappointed.

According to one version of Ernest Hemingway’s account, one day a wire service story came to the telegraph desk, dealing with the Red Cross’s need for volunteers to work with the Italian Army; being

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