It seemed that the reinforcements brought by Morassau had shocked the Prussian First Army, but in fact, the rapid march for several days, coupled with the temperature difference between the north and the south and the recent rainy weather, seriously weakened the energy of the entire team. If a war starts at this time, the combat effectiveness will be greatly reduced, and there is even a risk of being eaten by the opponent.
So after he took over the Sixth Army, he continued to withdraw to the southeast and returned to Kisschin on the morning of October 17.
This town is the most important stronghold in the northwest of the entire Austrian Empire, and the Plevikhin Mountain between it and Gablenz is its natural barrier. After Morazo returned to Quiscin, he immediately integrated the three groups of troops to form an army of nearly 70,000 people.
60 artillery pieces were deployed on Plevikhin Mountain, commanded by General Pilait under his command, and the remaining 40 guns were deployed between the north side of the mountain and another town.
After occupying the favorable terrain first, Morasso learned about the power of the Prussian striker rifle from Lamin, and soon let the Austrian soldiers understand how to make up for the gap in weapons.
In fact, it is not difficult to do it. You only need to change the individual shooting to a shooting group with one person shooting and one person loading. Whenever the shooter finished firing a shot, he handed the rifle to his comrade behind him to load, and he picked up another rifle that had been loaded and continued to fire.
Through this method of continuous firing, the Austrian army successfully withstood multiple charges of the Prussian army in the Battle of Kisschin three days later.
The 8th, 12th, and 48th Infantry Regiments of the Prussian Army, which were the main attackers, suffered casualties much faster in the battle than before, and the attack was quickly delayed. The Perth Chache Brigade under Morasso even launched multiple counterattacks against the Prussian troops who were attacking their own positions, which eventually turned into a fierce hand-to-hand battle.
The battle lasted for three days, with both sides suffering heavy casualties.
It was not until the Prussian general Timplin, who was responsible for the attack on Kisschin, was seriously injured that the battle ended with a temporary victory for the Austrian army.
The direction of the battlefield on the northern front of Silesia, which had been suspended for half a month, was also guessed by Morazo. After Moltke finished writing the letter to Prince Karl, he turned around and wrote a letter to the commander of the Second Army.
As early as the day before the Battle of Kischin, the Second Army began to move southward in two directions.
The left wing launched an attack on the Olmitz fortress, while the right wing bypassed Olmitz and advanced towards Trutenau.
Olmütz is an important barrier in the north. If you break it, you can drive straight into the central area of Austria. Trutenau is an important fulcrum between the northern front and the western front attack target Kischin. Capturing it will allow the two armies to join forces smoothly.
However, the Austrian defense and counterattack on the northern front far exceeded the Prussians' imagination.
There are nearly 150,000 garrison troops around Olmitz, backed by good material transportation.
Trutenau relied on a large number of ambushes along the road to wear down the opponent's patience, and semi-forced to let the right-wing commander Friedrich III (the only son of King William I of Prussia and later the second emperor of the German Empire) An extremely wrong decision was made.
Divide the troops.
He was on the right wing with General Bonin, and after encountering many ambushes he chose to split his forces again. General Bonin led the First Army around the ambush circle and continued to march towards Trutenau, while he led his Guards Corps in the middle of the left and right wings.
It seemed like a foolhardy choice, but it happened to avoid the Austrian defense deployment. Therefore, Bonin did not object. After all, he had two wings of protection, and the crown prince also had a highly capable Guards Corps, so there should be no security issues.
But the problem lay precisely on these two wings, which were the first to encounter several battles.
The attack on Olmitz was in vain, and Bonin's right wing had to retreat to the starting point under the resistance of the Austrian army.
This triggered a very strange thing, because good communication links were not maintained after the division of troops, and Frederick III did not know the defeat of the left and right wings. He just followed the original plan very resolutely, leading the Guards Corps to march straight into the Bohemian Plateau from the central open area.
Historically, this was the Prussian army's most serious mistake and Austria's only chance to counterattack. As long as the Crown Prince's Guards Corps is captured, the empire may force Prussia to make concessions.
But at the time, the old Marshal Ludwig was extremely stubborn and ignored this headless fly. The main reason was that the Western Front was tight. When Friedrich was sleepwalking there alone, the First Army had already captured Kisschin.
However, now that the commander-in-chief is Archduke Brecht, who is famous for his bravery, it is naturally impossible to give up this good opportunity.
The battlefield was turbulent, and the scale in the hands of the goddess of victory repeatedly swung between the two armies. But for Kawei, who has got rid of the entanglement, these are not important. What he is most concerned about now is the situation of Olmitz Fortress General Hospital.
The war on the Northern Front has begun, and casualties have increased exponentially. Whether the hospital can operate under the command of Hills is still a question mark.
However, this trip to the Western Front was not "in vain". The experiences in the small towns of Gablenz and Otaka planted seeds in his heart. In addition to making him realize the limitations of military doctors, he also understood that doctors on the front line cannot solve any substantive problems.
The original surgical emergency, where every second counts, cannot be compared with a military hospital under artillery fire.
On the one hand, he was responsible for the Fortress General Hospital, and on the other hand, he wanted to leave the battlefield and return to normal life as soon as possible. Kawei was very conflicted. When he left the small town of Otaka, he considered sending a letter to the headquarters in Vienna, stating his experience in a suggestive tone, hoping that the other party would make a decision for him.
However, to his surprise, he received a letter from the command two days ago before he even started writing. 【1】
The headquarters did not know that Kawei was in trouble. They only speculated that Kawei had arrived in Kissim based on the news from the Western Front. Now that Vienna needed him, Kawei said goodbye to Morasso on the 17th and left Kissin. First he took a carriage to Prague and then took him back to Vienna by train.
As for the position of director of the Fortress General Hospital, Ingenac will temporarily take over the position.
...
Vienna Railway Station carries the heavy burden of Austrian rail transportation, which is especially serious during the heat of the war. A large amount of war preparation materials will be transported from here to the two battlefields.
】
At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, a military train with only five carriages briefly stopped at the platform during a busy period of transportation. After putting down a few people in military uniforms, they blew the whistle, rolled on their wheels and hurriedly left Vienna.
The military uniforms of the visitors seemed to be different from ordinary soldiers, not only their noble military rank insignia, but also the cluster of white feathers on the brim of their hats.
And when they just stepped on the stone steps of the platform, a guard of honor came from a distance.
The person at the forefront of the ceremony was none other than Archduke Brecht, the commander-in-chief of the Austrian army.
In addition, there were some familiar faces on both sides of him, including Foreign Minister Karl, French Ambassador to Austria Edouard, Giustina who had just undergone breast cancer surgery, Massimov, director of surgery at St. Mary's Hospital, and the man who followed Edward. Surgeon Mosier.
"Welcome back, Dr. Kawei is back." Brecht said with a smile, "We received the telegram message from Prague, and we will be here to wait for you after lunch."
"Why is the Marshal here in person?" Kawei greeted him.
"You are an excellent surgeon who was recommended by Countess Justina, and you are also the director of the Northern Front Hospital. I am just here to take care of you." Archduke Brecht said a bunch of meaningless questions. Cliché, “How have you been resting these past few days?”
"Fortunately, the sleeper in the train is quite comfortable." Kawei saw Justina and couldn't help but glance at her chest. "How do you feel now, Your Majesty the Countess?"
Justina smiled and said: "It's a bit strange, but Kami Yin is very satisfied."
"That's good."
Kawei shook hands with the people behind him one by one. The seriousness of the situation could be judged by the people's formation: "It seems that the patient's condition is not optimistic."
"Ahem..." Brecht coughed twice, then lowered his voice, "It's not convenient to talk here. Let's just get in the carriage and talk while walking."
The description in the letter does not have much substantive content. It mainly praises Kavi's heroic performance and his status in surgical academics, and then exalts the patient's identity and importance to this war.
But when Kawei listened carefully to the descriptions of Massimov and Mosier, he realized that the problem was serious.
The patient is a 63-year-old French male who has had continuous hematuria for more than two months and has no other discomforts. I sought help from many doctors in France, but finally gave up because of poor treatment results.
"He is my uncle." Giustina said. "He wrote to me three weeks ago to complain, so I told him that the surgical skills in Vienna were good and that he could try it here [2]. I didn't see him replying to the letter, so I thought The matter was over, but I didn’t expect that on the afternoon of the 14th, he got off the train alone and secretly ran to the embassy.”
"Mr. Edem is an excellent painter and the brother of Marshal McMahon." Minister Karl pointed out the key point of this matter. "Mr. Richard and Earl Giustina both care about him." In good health......"
Kawei nodded and looked at the other doctor in the same car: "Dr. Mosier, hasn't he been studying the prostate? He should be more familiar with the symptoms of hematuria than I am."
"Actually, there is little relationship between prostate disease and hematuria. I rarely see patients with hematuria." Mosier expressed his point of view and suddenly felt that he was at a disadvantage. He quickly added, "I also asked Mr. Edem , he urinates smoothly, and there is no pain or soreness, and there seems to be only a color change."
"You think there's nothing wrong with the patient?"
"Not really."
Mosier explained: "The main reason is that bloodletting itself has certain benefits for the body. He is now in good spirits and his daily life has not been affected. He can even come to Vienna from Paris alone. Even if the hematuria is really behind If there is a cause, it’s not too bad... Of course, there are no absolutes in medicine, so this is just a guess on my part.”
If this passage were placed in modern times, the previous large part of the description might be a delaying tactic by the doctor to take care of the relatives' mood as much as possible before the examination. The last sentence "There is no absolute" is the finishing touch.
As the examination continues to deepen, the results become clearer and clearer, and the words they say will become more and more serious. They are gradually increasing the information and gradually increasing the tolerance of the patients and their families.
But now it was clear to Carvey that Dr. Mosier believed this statement. The supplementary "no absolutes" are just nonsense for colleagues to hear and have no substantive meaning.
Hematuria is less common in emergency surgery. What Kawei sees more often is hematuria caused by trauma. This type of hematuria contains more blood than urine and is accompanied by severe pain and a history of trauma. In fact, it is more appropriately called hemorrhage.
Edem's symptoms are called asymptomatic hematuria in modern medicine.
This type of hematuria is not as easy as Mosier described, and is often accompanied by complex urinary system diseases.
If you encounter such a patient in the emergency department, the doctor will definitely give corresponding examinations according to the diagnostic thinking of modern medicine [3]. From urine tests to cystoscopy, it is not difficult to make a clear diagnosis as long as a series of examinations are in place.
But it might have been more troublesome in the 19th century when inspections were lacking.
The first thing Carvey had to do was to imagine several possible diagnoses and then slowly narrow them down by asking: "Does Mr. Edem smoke?"
"Of course, his pipe is inseparable, and he smokes almost all the time for so-called inspiration." Justina said, "I have been to his studio before, and I can only describe it as smoky. Even the letters he sent were full of smoke. There was a smell of burnt tobacco.”
"Have you ever had bladder stones before?"
"I remember... maybe twice. Both operations should be considered successful." Giustina glanced at Mosier beside her and recalled, "It was just many years ago. Oh my god, I was young at that time and forgot about it, I wasn’t under anesthesia at that time.”
At this time, Mosier took over: "The previous lithotripsy was done by my teacher, and the latter lithotomy was done by me. They were both operations more than ten or twenty years ago. I only remember his recovery after the operation. They were all pretty good, and it didn’t take long for them to feel like normal people.”
He is over 60 years old, male, smokes every day, and has a history of bladder stones twice... Most of the high-risk factors are present, which would make him highly suspicious in modern clinical practice. However, Kawei knew that the patient was related to the two countries and did not dare to draw conclusions easily for the time being. He just said: "I still need to do further examinations."
Mosier was a little curious: "What test?"
Kawei thought for a while, and listed the examination instruments that can confirm the diagnosis next. After clarifying their feasibility, he said: "They are all relatively advanced examinations that are not usually needed. They should be able to determine the location of the old gentleman's lesions. But the inspection itself requires a lot of equipment and takes some time.”
"It doesn't matter." Justina said, "Go to the embassy to meet my uncle first, and then..."
"No, no need." Kawei declined her arrangement and said, "In order to get a clear diagnosis for him as soon as possible, I will go directly to the Medical School of the University of Vienna and let my experimental team help."
