p. 10 | What Is Involved in Mobilization?

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 24, 1914

What Is Involved in Mobilization?

Those outside of the war zone have but a faint conception of all that is involved in the mobilization of the great armies of Europe which are now on the field of battle. We can never comprehend fully the suffering from wounds and exposure, from weariness and hunger and thirst; the sorrow which separation from loved ones entails; the anxious hearts of mothers, wives, sisters, and children; the bitter anguish which comes from broken family circles and desolated homes. These are known only to the participants and to the great Father above. The following newspaper clipping sent us by one of our readers describes the far-reaching effects of the orders for mobilization of the Old World armies:—

No American can appreciate what the mobilization of the armies of Europe must mean to practically every family in the nations involved in the great war. Not a household but has its home ties severed. Not a field but is stripped of men. Not an industry but flags. The usual occupations of the people cease. The fields of Normandy are so denuded of male labor that the women and children are reaping the harvests, and Maurice Maeterlinck is working beside them.

Practically every able-bodied man serves his term in the army. Every man is listed and card indexed, and unless he reports when summoned he is rated as a deserter. When the order for mobilization is issued, every listed man knows what he must do; and from the households, the factories, and the farms, the hotels and the shipyards, the railways and the river boats, the men flock to the barracks to which long before they were assigned. The levy of horses begins at the same time. Regiments of cavalry, artillery, and infantry double, treble, and quadruple in size almost overnight. Then every transportation agency is seized for the concentration of the forces assembled in the barracks. The railways, the telegraph, and the telephone are all taken charge of by the military authorities for the hurrying forward of the troops to the points assigned by the strategists of the army. In like manner the commissary department is developed and coordinated with the fighting forces. It is all done with the precision and the celerity with which a great machine begins operations.

The instant the men have left in response to the call, a blanket of gloom settles down upon the villages and the cities whence they have gone. Apprehension rules in the hearts of their mothers, wives, and children. Every hamlet awaits its dead. The call for mobilization means in Europe such a knell as the States of the North did not even know in the Civil War.