Beersheba was swarming with troops. They filled the town and overflowed
on to the sands outside, where a great tent-city grew up. And everywhere
that the Turkish soldiers went, disorganization and inefficiency
followed them. From all over the country the finest camels had been
"requisitioned" and sent down to Beersheba until, at the time I was
there, thousands and thousands of them were collected in the
neighborhood. Through the laziness and stupidity of the Turkish
commissariat officers, which no amount of German efficiency could
counteract, no adequate provision was made for feeding them, and
incredible numbers succumbed to starvation and neglect. Their great
carcasses dotted the sand in all directions; it was only the wonderful
antiseptic power of the Eastern sun that held pestilence in check.
The soldiers themselves suffered much hardship. The crowding in the
tents was unspeakable; the water-supply was almost as inadequate as the
medical service, which consisted chiefly of volunteer Red Crescent
societies--among them a unit of twenty German nurses sent by the
American College at Beirut. Medical supplies, such as they were, had
been taken from the different mission hospitals and pharmacies of
Palestine--these "requisitions" being made by officers who knew nothing
of medical requirements and simply scooped together everything in sight.
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