The American Ambulance in Paris, 1914-1917. Part I: The Creation of the American Ambulance.

Abstract

On August 3, 1914, Germany declared war on France. Within days, Myron Herrick, the American Ambassador to France (Fig. 1), met with Dr. Ami J. Magnin, his personal physician, to discuss a proposal from the Board of Governors of the American Hospital of Paris for the creation of a military hospital to treat wounded soldiers. To conform with President Woodrow Wilson’s request that all Americans remain neutral in the war, the Board assured Ambassador Herrick that the “Ambulance” (the French term for a military hospital) would serve the wounded of all belligerent nations. Of course, being in Paris, the American Ambulance (Ambulance Americaine) would primarily serve the French Army, as a predecessor had done during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Dr. Magnin and Ambassador Herrick (no less pro-French than the Board) presented the plan for a small tented facility in the gardens of the American Hospital to Dr. Charles Fevrier, Surgeon General of the French Army. Dr. Fevrier, “a man of big ideas” according to Herrick, proposed a much bigger hospital and offered the use of the Lycee Pasteur, a partially completed boys’ school in the Neuilly-sur-Seine suburb, not far from the American Hospital. The only condition was that the Ambulance be self-supporting: the costs of construction, equipment, staffing, and the operating expenses borne by the American Hospital. This proved to be no obstacle. Influential, wealthy men and women from the American colony in Paris, and the East Coast of the United States—where support for France was strongest—formed the American Committee to raise the estimated $400,000 needed to turn the Lycee into a military hospital and operate it for a year. Appeals for donations (subscriptions) to the Ambulance Fund appeared in magazines and newspapers throughout the United States and France. Within a month, the Committee had exceeded its goal. Individuals, organizations, even towns and cities, donated, but the American government did not. During the early development of the Ambulance, the Board of the American Hospital decided to remain “independent” and not be “absorbed” by the American Red Cross (ARC). The ARC was the federally chartered agency for distributing American international medical assistance, but, at the start of the war, it was small and poorly funded, and likely could not have undertaken the project anyway. Moreover, the little resources at hand were being sent to all warring countries as “neutral relief.” In September, the “SS Red Cross,” dubbed the “Mercy Ship” by the press, carried the first ARC medical aid to Europe. In all, 16 hospital units (3 surgeons and 12 nurses to a unit) would be deployed among the belligerents. The team assigned to the French went to Pau, France, a small town in the Pyrenees far removed from the battlefields, rather than to the American Ambulance, which was badly in need of surgeons. Because most French tradesmen and artisans were mobilized by the French Army, the construction of the Ambulance was done by American volunteers. “Art students, architects, doctors, nurses, tourists, bankers, American residents, music students, and young workers at the universities” worked as carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers, and plasterers reported the New York Times. Despite their inexperience, the Ambulance was ready to receive patients in early September. The Ambulance was widely acclaimed by the press to be the best equipped and staffed military hospital in France. Wounded French and British soldiers favored it as the treatment facility of choice. General Gallieni, the Military Governor of Paris, reported to Ambassador Herrick that “a great number of our [French] wounded ask as a favor to be taken there.” Ambassador Herrick also remembered that shortly after the hospital opened “orders were soon issued to the British Army to send all badly wounded officers to our Ambulance up to the limit of its capacity.” Throughout its existence there were criticisms, concerning the operation of the Ambulance. The New York Times summarized the complaints: “extravagance in expenditure of money, inefficiency in administration, favoritism in the choice of Editor’s Note: Before the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, individual Americans played crucial roles in the war effort as volunteers. In this four-part series, author Dr. Ginchereau documents the story of the American Ambulance, a volunteer surgical hospital operating in Paris from 1914 to 1917. doi: 10.7205/MILMED-D-15-00405