The Bacterium Takes Hold

De Bacterium Volume I - Being a True Account of the Bacterium and the Undoing of Men Set Down in the Year of Our Lord, 1815, by One Who Watches, Nameless Among those who have examined the early records of the Bacterium, there remains a persistent question which no account has yet answered to general satisfaction: why was the contagion not extinguished in its first appearances, as similar disorders seem to have been in earlier years? The archives, as already noted, contain notices reaching back at least to the last decades of the previous century, and perhaps further, describing outbreaks of violence and delirium that bear every resemblance to the later affliction. In those instances the disturbance was local, brief, and soon suppressed. A handful of the sick were restrained or killed, the matter was entered in the parish register or the army rolls, and life continued. That such incidents occurred without consequence makes the later catastrophe more difficult to explain. If the Bacterium had shown itself before, why did it not then produce the same ruin? Why did it pass unnoticed for years, only to emerge at last with such force that whole provinces were lost before the authorities understood what they faced? The explanation most often given is that the wars of the Empire provided a state of affairs in which the contagion could no longer be contained. Never before had France, nor indeed the other powers of Europe, maintained armies of such size, nor kept them so constantly in motion. In earlier campaigns of the century, a field army of forty or fifty thousand men was thought considerable. By the first years of the nineteenth century it was no longer unusual for a single French army to number one hundred thousand men under arms, and in the great campaigns the Emperor assembled forces exceeding two hundred thousand, drawn from many nations and moved across enormous distances. Nor must one consider only the soldiers themselves. Every army of the period carried with it a second multitude, seldom entered in the lists submitted to the ministry but no less real. The baggage trains included artificers, drivers, sutlers, servants, laundresses, wives, children, and the innumerable invalids who gather wherever men live long in camp. Prisoners marched under guard, labourers were impressed along the road, merchants followed in search of profit, and refugees attached themselves to the columns for protection. Contemporary estimates suggest that for every ten thousand men under arms there might be several thousands more moving in their train, sometimes nearly as many as the troops themselves, especially in prolonged operations. When such numbers advanced across Europe, the distinction between army and town was often slight. A marching column might stretch for miles, its rear not yet departed when its vanguard had already reached the next district. Camps grew into vast encampments resembling towns, crowded, ill-drained, and full of men weakened by wounds, hunger, or fatigue. In such places, sickness found cover easily and spread before it was understood. If even one man among these numbers had been touched by the Bacterium in its earlier, uncertain form, he would not have been isolated in the manner once possible in a village or provincial garrison. He would have travelled among hundreds already exhausted, sleeping close, eating from the same stores, and sharing the same infirmaries. The weakest - the wounded, the fevered, the women and children of the train, the stragglers who could not keep pace - formed the easiest prey. What might once have ended with the death of a single sufferer could, under such circumstances, pass unnoticed until it had already taken hold among many. The fall of Brussels is frequently cited in support of this view. Though the full circumstances must be treated elsewhere, it is widely believed that the first true loss of the city began not with open assault, but with sickness among the remaining French garrison. The troops stationed there had been reduced in number, ill-supplied, and long confined within the walls after repeated movements of the army. Reports suggest that the force left to hold the city was small compared with the population it was meant to control, and that the hospitals were already crowded with men unfit for further service. When disorder appeared among these soldiers, it was at first treated as nothing more than fever and indiscipline, such as often followed a hard campaign. By the time the nature of the affliction became clear, the inhabitants themselves had already been exposed. Brussels, by its situation, proved an unfortunate place for such an outbreak. The crowded quarters, the constant movement through the gates, and the mixture of soldiers, civilians, and camp followers allowed the contagion to pass rapidly from one to another. Where earlier incidents had involved only a few individuals, here the numbers grew faster than they could be restrained. Once the sickness had taken hold among both garrison and townspeople, the means of suppression failed entirely. In former times, disturbances of this kind were usually met by the local militia, the watch, or by troops quartered nearby. A handful of men seized by frenzy could be overcome before the disorder extended further. During the great wars, however, such protection was often lacking. The strength of the state had been drawn away from the provinces. Troops that might once have remained within the kingdom were instead marching in Germany, in Italy, in Spain, or beyond. The gendarmerie, left without support, could manage ordinary crime, but not the kind of violence the Bacterium produced when it appeared in numbers. Once an outbreak passed beyond the reach of a few patrols, there were often no soldiers close enough to restore order before the contagion had already spread. A second theory, less often spoken openly but difficult to dismiss, concerns the conduct of the nations themselves during those same years. The wars of the Empire divided governments that might otherwise have acted in concert when faced with a common danger. In earlier times, the appearance of a strange pestilence in one port or province was quickly reported to neighbouring states, if only from fear that the disease might cross the frontier. Notices were exchanged, precautions taken, and each power had reason to prevent the misfortune of one from becoming the ruin of all. During the long struggle of the Empire, such understanding could not be relied upon. Reports of disorder in a rival’s territory were as likely to be welcomed as feared. If sickness weakened an enemy garrison, it was not always in the interest of his opponents to hasten its suppression. Messages travelled slowly, were intercepted, or dismissed as inventions. Thus it is conceivable that outbreaks which might once have been checked were allowed to grow simply because no nation wished to spare strength from the war in order to aid another. To this must be added the further consequence of the same conflict: the removal from the countryside of those very men most capable of enforcing the authority of the state. The able-bodied, the trained, the accustomed to violence - all were drawn into the armies. What remained in many districts were the old, the young, and those unfit for service. When the Bacterium appeared among such populations, there were too few who could meet force with force. Local officials might attempt restraint, but without soldiers to support them their efforts often ended in flight or death. These considerations do not wholly explain why the earlier appearances of the contagion passed without lasting effect while the later ones did not. They do, however, suggest how the extraordinary scale of the wars - the vast armies, the multitudes that followed them, the rivalry of nations, and the absence of troops within the provinces - may together have given the Bacterium the opportunity it had never before possessed. Once it gained that opportunity, the change was swift. What had once been a matter for a parish entry or a surgeon’s note became, within a few years, a disorder from which neither law, nor army, nor government could recover. From that point forward, the progress toward what we now call the End advanced with a force that could no longer be checked.