\n
<\/p>\n
An American
\ndoctor was one of the foreign volunteers that helped Romanians during the First
\nWorld War. Among Brits and other Europeans, naturally caught in the war, doctor
\nJoseph Breckinridge Bayne was a peculiar character, as nobody had expected,
\nback in 1916, to see an American coming to Bucharest and rendering a military
\nhospital functional. But, that’s exactly how it happened. J. Breckinridge Bayne
\nwas born in June 1880 in Washington DC, where he graduated from the School of
\nMedicine of Georgetown University. He was not a prominent historical or
\nscientific figure, so his biography was not easy to compile. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
One of his compatriots, however, Ernest H.
\nLatham Jr. managed to do that. In the 1980s, he was a cultural attach\u00e9 at the
\nUS Embassy in Bucharest. Here is Ernest Latham himself talking about his work
\non the book titled A strange destiny. J. Breckinridge Bayne, an American
\ndoctor on the Romanian front 1916-1919, published by the Vremea publishers:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The documentation was not easy to bring together, he was not a prominent
\nperson in the US. And probably the first thing I did was do a Google search of
\nhis name, and then I knew that he had gone to medical school at Georgetown
\nUniversity, so I contacted the university and I got a transcript of his
\ncurriculum. They revealed that he had attended a boarding school in New
\nEngland, in Massachusetts, for a year before he went to university; by
\ncoincidence the school that I also went to. Unfortunately, they only had a
\nrecord that he had been there, there was nothing on how well he had done or
\nwhat courses he had taken.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dr. Bayne was
\nextremely passionate about surgery, but, unfortunately, he did not manage to
\npractice it as he would have liked, because, after his father’s death, he took
\nover his general practitioner office. Both his passion for surgery and his
\naltruism prompted him to join the medical corps of the British Army, as a
\nvolunteer, after two years in which WWI had wreaked havoc in Europe. He arrived
\nin Bucharest on November 7th, 1916, together with a small group of
\nBritish medical staff, and, almost immediately, alongside General Alexandru
\nMarghiloman, the president of the Romanian Red Cross, decided he and his team
\nshould work in the 1st Ward of Queen Elisabeth Hospital. Dr. Bayne
\nwould stay there even after Bucharest’s evacuation, following the city’s
\ncapitulation in front of the Germany army, in December 1916. Due to the US’s
\nneutrality back then, Bayne was able to continue his activity at the hospital,
\nbut without the help of any skilled medical personnel, because all of them,
\nincluding the British, had taken refuge in Iasi. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The American doctor managed to
\ntrain those who remained as volunteers and tried to save the many wounded soldiers
\nwho would get to the hospital. Fighting against the hardships of a city under
\nsiege, he managed to operate and even make prosthetics to replace soldiers’
\namputated limbs. The situation, however, started changing in 1917, when the US
\nentered the war against the Germans. The doctor was forced to leave Bucharest,
\nafter 8 months of uninterrupted work and huge pressure. But he did not give up
\nworking as a doctor, because in the rural area where he settled, he treated
\nvillagers affected by poverty, malnutrition and various ailments and epidemics.
\nIn fact, during a cholera epidemic, Bayne himself got sick, but he eventually
\nmade it. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
His efforts were recognized, and king Ferdinand decided to decorate
\nhim with the ‘Star of Romania’ order in 1918. That summer, Dr. Bayne returned
\nto Washington, but not for long. In late October he left again, accompanied by
\nan entire Red Cross team, to help contain the typhus outbreaks in several
\nvillages south-west of Bucharest. In 1919, Dr. Bayne left to the US for good
\nand never returned to Romania. Today, his confessions, included in his 1944
\nmemoirs, titled Bugs and Bullets, make up an important document telling of
\nthe US presence in Romania during WWI, as Ernest Latham believes: <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The
\nbibliography of Romanians involved with Romania in the First World War is a
\nvery short list indeed. Dr. Bayne’s memoirs we’ve already discussed, the
\nmemoirs of the American minister of that time, Charles Vopicka, and a very
\nbrief mention in the writings of John Reed War in Eastern Europe. He as for a
\nvery short time in Bucharest. What was Dr. Bayne’s impression of the Romanians?
\nI think it was very deep and it was very positive. Primarily it was his memoirs
\nof Romanian soldiers . Contrasting with the Romanian soldiers were the Russians
\nhe came in contact with and the Germans. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bayne believes
\nthat the Romanian soldiers fought with more enthusiasm, not just because they
\nbelieved they were defending their country, but because they were on home ground,
\non the land that, as the American noticed, they were extremely attached to. <\/p>\n
(translated by Mihaela Ignatescu) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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