Jennie Churchill Women's War Work - prepared by Kay Larson's

Introduction
by C. Kay Larson

Discovering Women's War Work

Ralph G. Martin's biography of Jennie Churchill, Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill's mother, was a best seller when it was published in 1971. I read it soon thereafter. In Volume II, Jennie: The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill, The Dramatic Years 1895-1921, Martin discussed the magazines, books, plays, and articles Churchill wrote and edited and he noted her edition of Women's War Work, published in 1916. At the time I read it, the title failed to make an impression on me, most likely for two reasons. First, Martin made no comments about the content. Secondly, I probably assumed that the only figures mentioned would be nurses and other female nurturers and "Lady Bountifuls," about whom every school girl receives plentiful doses of information.

During the 1980s, while researching information for my biography of Anna Ella Carroll, the political adviser to Pres. Abraham Lincoln, I began to encounter mention of the women Civil War soldiers. As a result, and to aid the publication of Carroll's biography, I wrote two articles on women in nontraditional roles in the Civil War. By the time the MINERVA: Quarterly Report on Women and the Military published my second Civil War article, it was 1992 and the debate about women serving in combat in the U.S. military was in full swing. More and more writers were taking Minerva's cue and doing research on women's military history, finding that it was a field with breadth and depth. Dorothy and Carl Schneider published Into the Breach: American Women Overseas in World War I, a fine, inspiring work. British authors, Gail Braybon and Penny Summerfield, published Out of the Cage: Women's Experiences in Two World Wars in 1987, and Julie Wheelwright weighed in with Amazons and Military Maids that contained a number of accounts of women soldiers in World War I. In the past few years many more books have been published on women in World War I, in English and other languages, so presently there is no dearth of information on the subject. Most of the British works cover the munitions factory workers.

Then in the year 2000, again, while searching the catalogues in the New York Public Library, I stumbled across the entry for Jennie Churchill's World War I book, having no memory of my initial knowledge of it. Now knowing that there was a possibility it contained groundbreaking information, I immediately went to the microform reader to see if it included women in nontraditional roles. Indeed it did and I surmised that most of the information was new in the respect that it had not been extant for more than eighty years. Now Churchill's book would get the reception it may have lacked during the war. By putting it on the web, foreign researchers could utilize it for their work..

Women's War Work is relatively short and, admittedly, is not a great scholarly endeavor. Jennie Churchill was a political/social writer and editor, as she occupied a prime position in upper class British society. However, this work contains information on, and insight into, events not included in other books. The information on women in Russia, Germany, and Austria is particularly important. The contributors seem to have furnished first-hand accounts. It is well-written and readable and a contribution to the field.

In order to understand how Churchill was able to collect these valuable stories and material, a short biographical sketch is in order.

Early Life: Jennie Jerome Churchill

Jennie Jerome Churchill was the daughter of Leonard and Clara Jerome of New York City. Her father's ancestors were French Huguenots who fled both France and England, arriving in America in 1710; his mother was a Scot. Isaac and Aurora Jerome had five sons; Leonard was the fifth. He was raised on their farm in upstate New York, but eventually turned to publishing and then the law as a career. Jennie's mother was the daughter of Ambrose and Clara Willcox Hall, a prominent Rochester, New York couple. In 1850, one year after they were married, the Jeromes moved to Brooklyn, then a thriving metropolis of 120,000 people. Leonard Jerome eventually became known as "the King of Wall Street," earning millions of dollars as a speculator specializing in "selling short." He was also known as a man who kept a number of mistresses, a music aficionado, and a great sportsman. Many of the aspiring singers he supported were also his paramours, including Jenny Lind after whom his daughter was named. Jerome promoted horseracing--he founded the Polo Grounds--and was a leading member of the prestigious New York Yacht Club. His wife, Clara, however, was more taken with the international social scene and moved to Paris with her three daughters. As a result of the Franco-Prussian War, the Jerome women were forced to evacuate to England. The three Jerome girls--Jennie, Clarissa, and Leonie--soon made a strong impression on London society. Jennie was known as the most attractive, outgoing, and outspoken. She eventually became the leader of Anglo-American society in England.

In the summer of 1873, the Jeromes rented a cottage on the Isle of Wight to take in the annual Cowes regatta. The Royal Yacht Squadron there was the most prestigious yacht club in England. In 1851, the New York Yacht Club's specially commissioned, America, had beaten seventeen Royal Yacht Squadron sailboats in a race around the island--a stunning blow to British prestige. Following the NYYC offered the America's Cup as the prize of an international competition. Leonard Jerome served as the banker for the 1866 transatlantic challenge. So the Jeromes had strong ties to this affair and would have known many people there. Thus, Mrs. and Misses Jerome were invited to a reception and dance on board the HMS Ariadne in the late afternoon of August 12, 1873, the guests of honor being future Czar Alexander III and Czarina Maria Feodorovna. While listening to the Royal Marine Band, Jennie Jerome was introduced to Lord Randolph Churchill whose ancestor John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, had led allied forces at the Battle of Blenheim to victory over the French in 1704. By the end of the August 1873 week, Jennie Jerome and Lord Randolph were talking of getting married. It took much persuasion on both their parts to get both families' assent. They were finally married in a private ceremony at the American Embassy in Paris on April 15, 1874.

Jennie Jerome was one of the first of a number of young, attractive, wealthy American women to marry into the British aristocracy during this time period. Others included Lady Arthur Paget, formerly Minnie Stevens; and the Duchess of Manchester, the former Consuelo Yznaga. Jennie and her two American friends, Mrs. Standish and Mrs. Sandys, became known socially as "The Pink, the White, and the Black Pearls," with Jennie being the Black Pearl as she was known for her raven tresses. Members of British society viewed these transatlantic matches on a continuum ranging from scorn to snobbish interest to welcome. On the whole the Americans were regarded as personages akin to feminine noble savages, "Anything of an outlandish nature might be expected of [Jennie]. If she talked, dressed, and conducted herself as any well-bred woman would, much astonishment was invariably evinced, and she was usually saluted with the tactful remark 'I should never have thought you were an American.' Which was regarded as a compliment."

Jennie Churchill's social acceptance initially stemmed from her gift for badinage. She was a quick draw with a quip and her lilting laugh made her well-liked by both men and women. She was no intellectual lightweight, however, ultimately operating well in both men's' and women's worlds. She became a keen political observer and an "insider" in the highest political circles. Eventually such notables as His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, Edward VII, came to rely on her to help meet his social obligations and for advice and company.

Jennie gave birth to her first son, Winston Leonard Spencer on November 30, 1874. John Strange Spencer Churchill (Jack) was born on February 4, 1880. The young father, Lord Randolph had begun a political career, having been elected a Conservative member of Parliament from the Woodstock District. During their twenties, the Churchills were somewhat neglectful of their boys who they ensconced in boarding schools while they maintained a full social and political schedule.

Jennie was one of the few women on either side of the Atlantic who took an active part in electoral politics. She was well-known for campaigning on behalf of her husband and was one of the organizers of the Primrose League, a Conservative grass-roots political organization. In 1895 when war with America threatened over the unsettled border between Venezuela and British Guiana, Jennie and other American women, including the wife of Secretary of State for the Colonies Joseph Chamberlain, used their influence in political and press circles to tamp down jingoism and war fever. A settlement was finally reached.

Jennie Churchill was also a popular social public figure. She was known as a "P.B." or professional beauty. Shops sold photographs of her and other socially prominent women, in the way that photographs of movie stars are sought after today.

During his early thirties Lord Randolph discovered he was infected with syphilis, contracted at age twenty-one during a drunken night on the town with his school chums. He had just begun to make his mark in Parliamentary circles, having become a leader of young Turk politicians on the issues of social reform and home rule for Ireland. Tragically, a period of mental illness preceded his death; bouts of insanity during this time caused Jennie and the boys much difficulty. Lord Randolph died at age thirty-eight. Jennie Churchill married two more times before her death: to a handsome young Army officer fifteen years her junior, George Cornwallis-West; and to Montagu Porch, a British colonial service officer who was younger than Winston. While married to Randolph, Jennie had been a consort of the Prince of Wales and other prominent men. In this age in these high-level social circles, marriages were often arranged for political and economic reasons, and, as a result, affairs of infatuation and love by married persons were common. Mrs. Patrick Campbell was quoted as saying, "It doesn't matter what you do in the bedroom, as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses." Moreover, Randolph's illness precluded normal marital relations. It appears that Jennie remained good friends with most of the men with whom she had liaisons and they served her, Randolph, and Winston well, in terms of the men's political careers.

For all practical purposes, Winston Churchill, did not have a father. When he was young, Randolph was busy, distant, and very critical of the boy. By the time Winston was older, his father's mental faculties had deteriorated. As a result Lady Randolph became her son's tutor, mentor, adviser, campaign manager, social companion, and best friend, until the end of her life. She used every political and social connection she had to promote his career. She mentored him intellectually recommending he read such classics as Lord Macaulay's History of England and Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. As she had done for Randolph, she went on the political hustings for Winston.

Lord Randolph's death only spurred Jennie on to more intensely advance her sons' careers and to make a mark in society in her own right. During the Boer War, Jack served in the Army and Winston became a renowned political reporter and prisoner of war. Jennie conceived the idea and chaired the fundraising committee that outfitted the Anglo-American hospital ship, Maine; she supervised its operation during its four months in South Africa. This venture had interrupted her new career as the publisher of the Anglo-American Review, a literary journal to which noted writers, journalists, and political figures submitted articles. The first issue included articles by the novelist Henry James; Whitelaw Reid, publisher of the New York Tribune; and Lord Roseberry, former prime minister. One of Churchill's later life projects was to produce Shakespearean plays.

World War I

When World War I erupted, Jennie Churchill was sixty and still the leader of the Anglo-American community in Britain. As a teenager she had known of the destruction of the Franco-Prussian War. Following his graduation from Sandhurst military academy, Winston had served in the army in India during which time he was engaged against local rebels. Partly due to Jennie's influence, Winston was attached to Lord Henry Kitchener's army in the Sudan. While on duty there he participated in the Battle of Omduran, the last great cavalry charge of the nineteenth century. At the outset of World War I, Winston held the position of First Lord of the Admiralty in the Liberal government of Prime Minister Lloyd George.

Two things can probably be said of World War I: it need not have happened and, at the same time, it was probably somewhat fated to occur. From the signing of the Versailles Treaty that ended the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, Pax Britannica ruled Europe. Great Britain's strategy of maintaining a balance of power on the continent had largely worked. Although the Crimean and Franco-Prussian Wars were significant, they had not embroiled every nation. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, Germany had been united under Otto von Bismarck and was a rising European and world power. Britain, France, and Germany competed for colonial possessions around the world. Russia's sphere of influence extended to her Slavic relatives in the Balkan peninsula that had been an ethnic tinderbox for centuries; Russia was also allied with France against Germany. Generally an arms race had begun that involved railroads to mass troops, machine guns to kill efficiently, airplanes to bomb, and massive battleships to threaten navies. The deadly combination of strong defensive positions of massed armies facing each other across hundreds of miles of trench lines created the slaughter of the war.

On June 28, 1914, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, were being driven through the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. Their driver took a wrong turn and, realizing his mistake, Ferdinand had the car stopped, fatefully, in front of a Serbian fanatic who shot him and Sophie dead. In response, the rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire issued an ultimatum to Serbia that Winston Churchill called "insolent". The Empire demanded censorship and arrests for anti-Austrian activities; Austrian officers would enter Serbia to see that the terms were enforced. As the weeks passed, the threat of a general European war became greater, but most still believed that someone would halt a general mobilization. Under their web of agreements, Russia was allied with Serbia and France and Germany with Austria-Hungary. Per the terms of the Entente Cordiale of 1904, Britain had promised to guarantee the security of Belgium from German troops transiting the country to invade France, although there was disagreement on how binding this might be. Shortly after the assassination, British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith wrote King George V that he thought there was no reason why England would be anything more than a spectator even if a conflict were to arise.

World War I came about because a worst case scenario occurred. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on Tuesday, July 28, 1914. The next day Winston Churchill and Sir Edward Grey recommended to the British Cabinet that a great powers conference be called to prevent escalation. There was no response from the German Kaiser. Then France and Germany were requested to guarantee that they would respect Belgium's neutrality. France responded in the affirmative; Germany did not reply. As the crisis deepened, Asquith, Churchill, and Lord Henry Kitchener lunched together at which time Kitchener declared, "if we don't back France when she is in real danger, we shall never. . . exercise real power again." Many in the Cabinet, however, wanted England to remain aloof. On July 30, Germany demanded that Russia demobilize and shortly, thereafter, declared war. On Monday, August 3, Germany declared war on France and announced to the Belgian government that German troops would enter their country within twelve hours. Britain, thus, issued an ultimatum to Germany to halt the invasion, requesting a response by 11:00 p.m., August 4, 1914 (midnight German time).

That night Winston Churchill had dinner with his mother, Jennie, and brother, Jack, at Admiralty House. To date the First Lord had diligently prepared the fleet for war which Churchill had thought inevitable from the time Germany made demands on Russia. Sometime before the hour of no return, Winston left to prepare orders. Finally, 11:00 p.m. arrived, with no response from the Germans. The First Lord of the Admiralty issued the following communication: "COMMENCE HOSTILITIES AGAINST GERMANY."

During the war, Jennie Churchill had reason to worry like every other English mother and wife. Following the debacle of the Dardanelles campaign during which the Battle of Gallipoli resulted in 200,000 British casualties, Winston Churchill was forced to resign the Admiralty position. He then joined his old regiment in the trenches in France. His new wife, Clementine Hozier Churchill, became employed in a munitions factory. Jack Churchill was still in the army, also in France. Time found Jennie's sister, Leonie, washing dishes at a soldier's canteen to assuage grief over the death of her son. Jennie's soon-to-be-husband, Montagu Porch, became a lieutenant in the Nigerian Regiment of the Cameroon Expeditionary Force.

Given her boundless energy, Jennie Churchill immediately immersed herself in the patriotic cause. Although the exact date is unknown, early in the war an advertisement appeared in the press that announced the formation of the "American Women's War Relief Fund." The officers were Lady Arthur Paget, President; Mrs. [Nancy, Lady] Astor, Vice President; and Churchill, Chairman of the Hospital Committee. American women living abroad and their American sisters encouraged each other to engage fully in relief work.

Between 1914 and 1918, more than 25,000 American women traveled to Europe to serve in civilian and military capacities--as nurses; as Red Cross, YWCA, and Salvation Army workers; as drivers and mechanics in motor pools; as reporters; as telephone operators for the Army; as refugee and village workers; and more. The forty-seven women of the Smith College Relief Fund who were engaged in reconstruction work in fifteen French villages gallantly helped evacuate citizens, refugees, and wounded soldiers during a major German offensive in March 1918. There is no estimate of the number of American women living abroad involved in war work. Yet as Dorothy and Carl Schneider point out in Into the Breach, the Great War was an entrepreneurial war. Jennie Churchill became one of its leading entrepreneurs.

At Churchill's urging, Mr. Paris Singer offered his residence, Oldway House in Paignton in Devonshire, for use as a "perfectly equipped [250-bed] hospital,' that included an operating room. In letters Churchill noted the arrival of the first troop trains, the local villagers remarking, "then there really is a war going on." She loathed the "pseudo-benevolence" of Lady Bountifuls who pulled up in their carriages asking that soldiers with visible bandages be brought out to go on rides. Her grandson Peregrine Churchill remembered seeing Jennie box the ears of a Boy Scout who had abandoned his watch post to lounge elsewhere--the only time he had ever seen her strike anyone.

The women's fund which is fully discussed in the book text also provided motor-ambulances for the front, clothes for refugees, employment for women, and famine relief for Belgium. Churchill and her friend, Lady Maude Warrender, toured camps and hospitals, with Jennie playing the piano and Warrender singing. Churchill helped organize buffets at railroad stations for thousands of traveling troops. She became head matron at the Lancaster Gate hospital and worked tirelessly there.

In 1915, Churchill began to write a series of war-time essays for Pearson's magazine. They covered a variety of topics that included marriage and personal spending in wartime and the suffrage movement. Later she wrote articles for the Daily Chronicle on Irish politics, having visited her sister there on occasion. She translated a collection of articles titled, My Return to Paris, for the French Parliamentary Committee's relief fund. In 1916, she wrote the preface for and edited Women's War Work.

Perhaps as a result of these literary efforts in June 1916, a New York Times reporter interviewed Churchill about women and the war. Her main theme was that women understood what was at stake: everything "humanity values" could be lost to "brutal foreign forces," Moreover, the war would advance the position of women in society, not only by aiding the suffrage movement, but also by making many women unwilling to return to "a sense of uselessness", and "pleasure-loving" lives.

Churchill stated that a sea change had taken place in the British government concerning its attitudes toward women's war work. At first they were reluctant to even allow the women to set up canteens. But women's competence in many fields later was generally accepted. Churchill mentioned the work of one former "idle" woman who was in charge of the motor pool at the large Woolich arsenal. Addressing an issue that surrounded suffrage bills, "If these things are not answers to the men who argued in the House of Commons that women are not fit for serious, productive work then what could be? It is my opinion that after the war women will be given the vote without much opposition, and dozens of men who in the past opposed the idea agree with me upon this subject."

Churchill noted that relations had improved between the classes: "The so called 'lower classes' have felt a thrill of sheer amazement at the kindness and sympathy which the gentlewomen have shown for them through their ministrations to the 'common fighting man' while the women of the 'upper classes' have felt a thrill of not less genuine amazement as they have discovered how slight is the real difference between the poor woman's soldier son and their own." Agreeing with Braybon and Summerfield in Out of the Cage, Churchill said that war work had brought to an end, lower class women's tolerance for serving as domestics. After the war they would seek higher-paying factory work. Similarly veterans would have distaste for serving as personal attendants, after serving their country so valiantly. She noted the anguish experienced by all mothers who waited for word of vanished sons.

Churchill closed by saying that she hoped the war would bring about closer relations between Great Britain and the United States. Further she hoped such an Anglo-American bond and cooperation would help bring about international peace and security.

As the war went on Jennie spent more time with her family. She also earned income by becoming an interior decorator. Her social calendar still included dinner parties, but ones given under wartime circumstances that could include zeppelin attacks. Her new marriage to Montagu Porch in 1918 did not end her patriotic efforts.

Jennie Churchill was sixty-four years old when World War I ended. The war fought to "save the world for democracy" had exacted a staggering death toll: 60,000 British soldiers killed at the Battle of the Somme alone; a total of 750,000 British soldiers killed; 10 million European soldiers dead. The United States declared war in April 1917 and deployed approximately 2,000,000 troops. Although engaged in combat for only six months, there were 115,000 American deaths. After the war as Jennie predicted, the Victorian world had broken loose from its moorings and a new more lively, cynical, and hedonistic generation was adrift in a more modern world.

The social toll on the ancien regime has been described: "Graciousness was being supplanted by speed." The "grand style" was tromped on by a younger generation doing the "Turkey Trot" and speeding in ever-faster cars to new and different experiences. Indefatigable Jennie kept up with the new pace, even though many of her contemporaries were retiring or dead. She learned all the current dances and maintained her reading list. Her public activities included work for the Shakespeare Union and YWCA, among many others. She continued to aid Winston in his political career and traveled through Europe with Porch.

In the spring of 1921, Churchill had just returned from Italy and accepted an invitation to visit her friend, Lady Frances Horner, at Mells Manor in Glastonbury. Sporting a pair of new Italian shoes, she was descending the stairs to go down to tea, when she slipped and fell, breaking her ankle on both sides. Gangrene set in and her leg was amputated above the knee on June 10. A veteran amputee wrote Churchill while in the hospital that he hoped she would be tended as well as she had tended him during the war. Then on June 28, 1921, suddenly without warning, a main artery burst and Jennie slipped into a coma, dying later that day. Jack and Winston were at her side when she died. Black-bordered London newspaper headlines simply read: "Lady Randy." She was buried in a small country churchyard at Bladon, near Blenheim Palace, the Marlborough family mansion.

The New York Times obituary summed up Lady Randolph Churchill's life, "Jennie. . .was destined to play a brilliant, and almost unchallenged, a prominent and influential part in London court and political life for a generation." "The American girl who cast her lot in with [Lord Randolph Churchill] took her woman's place in the political fabric as deftly, as surely, as she had filled her social station. It has been said that she contributed to her husband, after the English fashion, three-fourths of the success of his career." She was credited also with advancing and inspiring Winston Churchill's career considered even more brilliant than his father's.

Lady Randolph Churchill, the former Jennie Jerome, probably achieved as much prominence and wielded as much political power as a woman of her time could have. Her interests were wide-ranging, although none were truly professional. In another era, she most likely could have focused on a professional career. Needless to say, however, her greatest contribution was the tutoring and mentoring of her son, Winston, Britain's World War II leader and England's greatest prime minister. With that said, American women can proudly look to her as a role model and be grateful, that amidst all her other demands, she took the time to collect and edit the stories of women's war work during World War I. As an astute operative, she understood what was politically significant and that it needed to be recorded.

Sources: Gail Braybon and Penny Summerfield, Out of the Cage: Women's Experiences in Two World Wars (London and New York: Pandora Press, 1987); "Lady Churchill Talks of Woman and the War," New York Times Magazine, 4 June 1916; William Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Visions of Glory, 1874-1932 (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1983); Ralph G. Martin, Jennie, Volume I, The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill, The Romantic Years, 1854-1895; Ralph G. Martin, Jennie, Volume II, The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill, The Dramatic Years, 1895-1921 (New York: Signet Books, New American Library, 1971, 1972); Obituary, The New York Times, 30 June 1921; Dorothy and Carl J. Schneider, Into the Breach: American Women Overseas in World War I (New York: Penguin Books, Viking Penguin, 1991)

C. Kay Larson

CONTRIBUTORS

JENNIE RANDOLPH CHURCHILL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preface
S. BEATRICE PEMBERTON. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Chapters 1, 4, 6
BEATRICE P. LESLIE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .Chapter 2
LOUISA THOMSON-PRICE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 3
AGNES MIALL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . Chapter 5-7, 14
GRACE CURNOCK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .Chapter 8
VICTOR MARSDEN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Chapter 9
CHARLES TIBBITS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .Chapter 10, 12
GERALDINE MAURIER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .Chapter 11
CHRISTOPHER ST. JOHN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Conclusion

PREFACE

WHEN the world is convulsed by war, the most violent of human activities it is only natural that the soldier, the embodiment of that activity, should occupy the foremost place in people’s minds, and that patriotism which takes the form of fighting should make the most direct and universal appeal to sympathy and help.

The following pages describe from various points of view another form of patriotism. Women, with a few rare and romantic exceptions, do not serve their country in the firing line, but their work in war time is all the same of the highest value to the State. This book has been compiled with the object of showing how that work has been done in the belligerent countries and in America. It should be interesting from the fact that each chapter represents the knowledge and opinions of different people, related in their own way.

"The response made by women, all over the world, to the great and increasing demands on their energies, has not been unrecognized. In France, in England, and in Russia alike, ministers have publicly declared that the women have been splendid. Mr. Asquith, referring in the House of Commons to what they had already accomplished, added that he believed they could do even more in the future by releasing thousands and tens of thousands of men, and undertaking their jobs. This the Prime Minister thought would mean gigantic, and at the same time rapid strides towards the solution of one of our most pressing problems. In Russia, State recognition of woman’s war work has gone so far as to secure special edicts from the Czar.

The Press in all countries has commented with pride on the way they have organized themselves for war service. It is one of the virtues of war that it puts the light, which in peace time is hid under a bushel, in such prominence that all can see it. Few seem to realize that women have only transferred their usual activities to new channels; the latent energy was there, but is now developed and extended. Yet I would not deny that there is a new spirit abroad. Take the work done by women in nursing the wounded, which naturally occupies a large space in these pages. If we recall the time sixty years ago--when Florence Nightingale’s efforts to organize war nursing were met, not only with opposition, but with abuse and contempt, we become conscious of the vast change which has taken place in the status of the "ministering angel." "No soldier she, yet not unused to war, nor fearful of its horror--death and wounds and pestilence." And the more that has been accepted of women in hospital work, the more they have been ready to give.

The traditional task of tending the wounded has been undertaken by thousands, and that is not all. The Board of Trade has recently made arrangements for women to serve under the War Office in certain departments of military hospitals, in order that men may be released for other work. And women are now employed as cooks, store-keepers, and dispensers, and in various clerical work. Apart from this development, another new epoch for women is undoubtedly at hand; women doctors are filling the gaps in the medical profession, and are certainly doing their work admirably. We are told the shortage will increase, and if the war continues still longer there will be an even greater need for women doctors.

In the sphere of science women have also done their part. In France Madame Curie, of radium fame, has put herself at the disposal of the French military authorities. Motoring from hospital to hospital, she organized the treatment her discovery has made possible. An Englishwoman, Miss Mary Davies, voluntarily inoculated herself with the bacillus of gas-gangrene, in order that doctors might be able to test fairly a new antidote. She undertook her heroic action with a full knowledge of the risk, as for some years she had been a bacteriologist at the Pasteur Institute. It is nothing new for women to show courage, devotion, and self-sacrifice, but this heroine of science is essentially a modern product.

The women who are working in the active zone as nurses, or in the many hospitals at home, are to be envied, for they have the exhilarating feeling that they are on active service; there is no doubt that where we can only imagine, the work is harder than when we have the actuality before our eyes.

1n considering the attitude and work of the majority of women in England, we should remember that their position is not quite the same as in other countries. It is essential to take into account that France and Russia have conscription, which simplifies the issue, helping women to see their duty in war time—and to do it. The French woman, for example, has only to face the inevitable bravely, whereas the English woman has to bear, in addition to separation, anxiety and possible loss, the cruel responsibility of influencing the man’s decision. Might not this be another plea for conscription--that word so many fight shy of, and yet which means nothing worse than summoning together. That the labour problem is also simplified by national service is fairly obvious. It stands to reason that whatever the feelings of men in

English women in munitions factory. Women and men working in storage shed for large shells. In most of the munitions centers the Young Womens' Christian Association has established cafeterias and shampoo parlors. , ca. 1918 - ca. 1919 Photo from the National Archives. Click on photo for a larger image.

reference to women’s competition in the labour market may be in peace time, in war time they know and expect that women will automatically take their places. One of the striking effects of war conditions has been the number of women employed in industrial occupations. But in this country under the voluntary system this is still a novelty and a surprise. Women in France and in Germany were making shells during the first month of the war, and were prepared to do so. Whereas in England women have only lately been employed, notwithstanding the great demand for female labour in the munitions factories.

English women certainly do not suffer by comparison with women of other nationalities in respect of physical courage. In France, in Flanders, in Serbia, there have been innumerable instances of bravery and endurance under fire in the field hospitals, and in the often-shelled hospitals at the base; and I have no doubt that if English nurses were allowed in the firing line as they are in Russia, we should hear of deeds of heroism equal to that glorious one recorded of the Russian nurse Mareya Ivanovna. She, it will be remembered, when all the officers of a battalion were killed and the men showed signs of being demoralized, rallied them, and leading a charge, fell, mortally wounded at the moment of victory, having earned the Cross of St. George, and undying glory.

Patriotism is not the property of any one nation, and probably there has been no factor in Germany’s organization of her resources more powerful than the spirit shown by her women. The chapter in this book dealing with German and Austrian women is necessarily short, but it indicates well enough that they are supporting the men in the field with a fervour and self-sacrifice which we ought to admire, since we can hardly take up the attitude that what is a virtue in us is a vice in the enemy.

It is a source of pride to me personally that the women of America have proved, as President [Ulysses S.] Grant said, "that their hearts are always ready to respond to the call of suffering humanity." The record of what they have done not only in England, but in other countries, speaks for itself.

It is perhaps premature to speculate on the effect the war will have on the position of women in the future. There can be no doubt that they have learned much through the services they have rendered—through their mistakes and failures as well as through their successful achievements, and that they will learn much more before Peace is restored.

Although this book does not profess to chronicle in its entirety of the work done by women in war time, it is an honest attempt to grapple with some of its issues, and therefore I hope the Public will welcome it.

JENNIE RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

CHAPTER ONE

THE QUEEN TAKES THE LEAD

"THE Queen held the women workers of England together in the early days of the War," said a prominent social worker who knows what there is to know about the world of philanthropy.

This is a big claim, but if you think for a minute what the Queen’s plan involved when she formed her Work for Women Fund, you will realize that it is a just and true statement.

At that time men were going off to the front, leaving many trades short-handed. In another direction, numbers of women who had devoted their skill to the claims of dress and fashion, or had helped to entertain us or provide us with luxuries, were flung down workless and helpless. In truth, when the harsh blast of the war bugle for recruits sounded through the land, it seemed as if working women everywhere were to be thrown out of employment to face misery, want, hardship, and despair. Briefly, in August, 1914, the whole industrial machinery of Great Britain may be said to have been cruelly jarred and shaken, and, to those who looked with seeing eyes, a great deal trembled in the balance. There was need for quick action.

Naturally many women came forward and offered to nurse the wounded, or hurried away to France to offer their services. This was noble work that to-day we can unreservedly admire, for courageous women left luxurious surroundings without one regretful sigh, and shirked no hardship to help their country and their country’s brave defenders in the sudden hour of need. But it was characteristic of the Queen that she thought at once of the women workers in the shadow and the silence. These poor women, upon whom not one single ray of limelight, fell, were to matter much to England’s future. Her warm sympathy prompted her to help them on the instant; the ordinary workaday world, she saw, must be quickly and skillfully readjusted. Women must be taught new trades. How could money be spent better than in "paying them to learn"? Miracles must not be asked or expected. Time must be given, and so must thought and money, if the women, who now shivered at the black darkness of a future that showed no opportunity for them, were to be put in the way of earning a living.

It was a queenly scheme, but patience, tenderness, and generosity are qualities that Queen Mary has always shown, yet never did she put these attributes to more splendid use in her country’s service than when the Queen’s Work for Women Fund was started.

Of this organization Lady Roxburghe was appointed Honorary Secretary and Mrs. C. Arthur Pearson the Honorary Treasurer, while Miss Mary Macarthur, with her intimate knowledge of the always difficult path of the industrial woman worker, came forward to advise and direct the Central Committee.

At 88, Portland Place, the house lent by Lord Blyth to Her Majesty for the Work for Women Fund Head-quarters there were gathered together numbers of capable women busy all day long in the work of organizing. To their untiring efforts and their keen, human interest the whole nation owes earnest thanks for the splendid work that was and is being done there with vigilance, and promptness.

The aims of the Fund are so numerous that it is impossible to describe them all here in detail. One thing is certain. No woman is turned away unheard, unhelped or unfed. To the seamstress and milliner, sewing is handed to be done at Trade Union rates. Typists, actresses, tea-shop girls, and any other worker who has lost her occupation through the war, can apply and be sure of help.

"I ‘ardly ‘ad the nerve to go," said a young girl who had been on the variety stage in a troupe of acrobats, "for I couldn’t do anything useful. But they smiled at me ever so kind, and one lady in furs sez, ‘Oh, we wants such as you to learn.’ So I felt all right after that."

The directors asked her in which direction her fancies lay, and she chose to be taught the mysteries of toy-making with excellent results.

Other women are anxious to learn the domesticated arts, cooking, washing, and laundering; while some hanker after open-air employment, and find a new joy in life out in the country, in working on the land, in some cases fruit-farming, in others devoting their time to nursery-garden work.

But wherever the occupation is new, the women and girls are "paid to learn." Three pence an hour is given with good meals and expert tuition! It reads like a fairy tale to the woman at close grips with real poverty, but it is sound common-sense and national economy. It means that the mothers of the next generation can become capable, dependable women—women who can train their families worthily and well, while those on the Fund who do not marry, will find the benefit of this training as workers in the future. Married or single, these trained women must prove a strength to their country long after the War is finished.

The colonies, too, recognize the value of this scheme, for the Central Committee puts the workers in touch with the British Women’s Emigration Association when this seems advisable.

Thus Australia invited Queen Mary to send over five hundred and fifty out-of-work girls. These girls had to promise to go into domestic service for a twelvemonth, and to pay the Association £2 out of wages received in the new country. Beyond this only £1 had to be paid, and this expense the Queen’s Fund met, giving each girl an outfit—made in the Guild sewing-rooms--and an extra sovereign for "cash in hand" on landing. These situations proved splendid chances for enterprising girls who were not afraid of hard work.

One of the triumphs of the Queen’s Work for Women Fund is that its band of organizers make everything clear as daylight to the women who have to be helped. No matter if a girl be stupid, helpless even, for all the applicants have not had equal educational advantages—there is always kindly patience ready, always a friendly desire to explain and to aid. The Work for Women Fund exhibits clearly the genius of the educated woman, who is quick to seize upon possible opportunities and to point the way to others of her sex less fortunately placed.

Before the war, Princess Mary was to have had a gay season in 1914, culminating in a Fancy Dress State Ball. When the war broke out all these social plans were cancelled, and the Princess entered heart and soul into her mother’s schemes for the relief of the women and girls who were plunged in dire and sudden distress. She interested herself at once in the suggested Princess Mary Gift Book, and gave more personal thought to its compilation than many of the reading public realize. It was said that, unlike the pattern girl of the improving story book, she never was "fond of her needle," but now she is always ready and eager to work for the men in the trenches, for their children at home, and for the Belgian refugees.

One of the things all women love in the Queen is that she is not content to organize, direct, and give "money from a well-filled store," but offers her personal service. And in this Princess Mary resembles the Queen. Every year Queen Mary knits woolen vests and other garments for the Needlework Guild, in addition to the work she pays to have done. And now, in these days of war, Her Majesty has a piece of work--in every one of the royal apartments, so that she may take up her work anywhere if she finds herself with an odd minute of leisure.

Princess Mary is said to have made "yards and yards of mufflers" since August 1914. It was entirely her own idea to send a Christmas present to every soldier and sailor fighting for our Empire. The brass box with her portrait embossed upon the lid, the wording of the Christmas card, the choice of the gifts--cigarettes, matches, tobacco or pipe--every little detail she thought out.

In the second month of 1915 Princess Mary had another very happy thought. Some of our broken warriors who could never hope to fight again, had been sent home to England in exchange for a like number of disabled Germans. The Princess remembered that these men would have received no gift from her at Christmas time, so she went herself to visit them in the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital, and gave them presents from her Christmas Fund.

"I like her serious smile," said one young officer afterwards, a lad who, although he had lost a leg and an arm, was still gay and debonair. "Princess Mary makes you feel she’s a girl who really cares!"

Queen Alexandra has also worked very hard. In our chapter about War-Nursing her name will occur again and again amongst those who with the Imperial Service Sisters, the Naval Nurses, and the Red Cross Legions, have ever been eager to alleviate the lot of the wounded.

Writing in a preface to a record of Red Cross work, the Queen Mother thanks every individual nurse, "I and the whole nation," she says, "owe them an undying and unfailing debt of gratitude."

"Queen Alexandra thinks of everything." Early in February, 1915, she ordered betimes a great quantity of shamrock sprigs for the Front, so that our Irish fighters should be cheered by this little remembrance from her when St. Patrick’s Day came round. Not long ago she stopped her motor so that she, with Princess Victoria, might watch a game of football which some khaki-clad Tommies were enjoying not far from the banks of the Serpentine. The same evening a subscription was sent by her to the fund for giving footballs to the boys in training. No one had recognized the two royal ladies, for the soldiers were intent upon their game.

Princess Victoria has been busy in war-time activities on her own account, cutting out garments and paying out-of-work dressmakers to make them up. With Queen Alexandra the Princess has interested herself in many other valuable war projects.

Early in the New Year of 1915, a charming little landscape painted by the Queen Mother was sold in aid of the War Relief Funds. At Queen Alexandra’s Field Force Fund, which has its headquarters in Knightsbridge, Society women are daily at work, packing parcels for the men at the Front. The idea of this Fund is to sort out the many and varied gifts sent in and to make up useful all-round parcels that shall meet every need of the recipient. Lady French, who is working in so many ways, is the President, and the Countess of Beetive, the Duchess of Portland, Lady Henry Cavendish-Bentinek, Lady Homer, Lady Baird and others, are also active helpers.

The grateful letters they receive make them feel that this sorting-out process is not wasted effort. One delighted soldier, after explaining in downright prose that up till then, though he’d had enough mufflers to clothe a regiment, he’d never been able to "catch hold of a pair of socks," was moved to burst into verse on the subject. This is how the grateful warrior sang his thanks:

"My parcel has come, and inside, oh, I say!

What soldier could wish for a better array?

There are gloves for the hands and socks for the feet.

And a soap and a towel to make one look neat."

Queen Alexandra is specially interested in the efforts that are being made on behalf of our blinded soldiers. The scheme originated with Mr. C. Arthur Pearson’s Committee for the Care of the Blind, and she wrote saying how glad she was to feel that the future welfare of the brave men, so cruelly disabled in this terrible war, was being provided and planned for with wisdom and every possible care.

Distressed variety artists have been helped by Queen Alexandra, who has shown practical interest in many branches of the work done by the Women’s Emergency Corps. Her Majesty gives so quietly that few people heard anything about her magnificent gift of £ 1000 to be divided at Christmas time amongst twenty of the poorest districts in London, or the generous help she has given to many literary men and women--artists, musicians, actors, and others of the creative professions who suddenly felt the pinch of want.

Princess Christian is another untiring war worker. For years she has shown the deepest interest in soldiers and sailors disabled in their country’s service, and has loyally supported the Soldier’s and Sailor’s Self-Help Society. In the South Africa war Princess did much hospital work, sending out an ambulance train; and since the outbreak of this war she has again been doing all in her power to help the sick and the wounded at the battle-front.

Princess Patricia, the Duke of Connaught’s sweet-faced daughter, made and presented the Colour borne by the Canadian regiment that has, in France, already carried her name to Glory’s Scroll of Honour. "Princess Pat’s Pets," they are called--these boys who have been mentioned in despatches and done so bravely in fight after fight, and they think the world of their "own Princess." She just suits the Canadian lad, with her love of sport and outdoor life.

"She can skate, sleigh, and ice-sail with the best," said one young officer in the regiment that bears her name. "She’s not a figure-head Princess, but a real bit of live inspiration. No wonder the other chaps envy us!"

Class distinction has gone for good from philanthropy work. Women have found in war-time usefulness a common platform on which they meet in friendly service.

Life can never be unreal if hearts are daily out-poured in loyal service, and nothing less than this outpouring, deep, free, and without measure, has been the answer of Great Britain’s women to the call of their Queen.

CHAPTER TWO

FRESH ACTIVITIES AT HOME

IN many an office and shop nowadays the female staff is bearing heavier burdens than ever before, because so much of the work which usually falls to the men must, in their absence, be carried on by the women. If our girls are to stand the extra strain without injury, their health must be built up to the highest possible point, and in this connection there is nothing more valuable than regular and carefully thought out exercise, which will brace up all the muscles grown flabby from much sitting, and give the general air of well-being which follows sound physical activities.

Yet how few girls ever have this necessary exercise, and how many round shoulders and white faces one sees among this class of worker. The teacher hurries to and from school, the business girl goes to her work by tube or tram, and home again in the evening. Nine out of ten workers sit about till bedtime, hardly using their muscles from one week’s end to the next.

For some hundreds of girls, at any rate, the war changed this unhealthy mode of living, for they joined the Women’s Volunteer Reserve, an organization that insisted sternly on physical culture. This branch of the varied activities of the Women’s Emergency Corps was founded in August, 1914, and did for girl workers roughly what the Boy Scout movement had long been doing for their schoolboy brothers. Though started in time of war, with a war motive behind it all, the Reserve soon showed that it is likely to live on long after peace is signed, as a permanent organization and club for young women workers.

The immediate object of the Reserve was to train a body of girls who, expert, disciplined, and efficient, could do much to stem panic in the event of a German raid by sky or sea. In the same way as the Boy Scouts, in time of need these feminine recruits agreed to act as messengers, despatch riders, signallers, first-aid workers, and generally make the old and helpless of any attacked locality their particular care. They were to see to the removal of the aged and invalids to places of safety, and undertook other necessary tasks which might be overlooked by the ordinary civilian population in the event of a sudden attack.

For responsible work of this sort it was evident that severe and systematic training was needed, and this was afforded to the members of the Volunteer Reserve by a series of evening classes and drills arranged at various local centres in London and provincial towns. The organization was worked on a strictly military basis, with the Marchioness of Londonderry as Colonel-in-Chief, and the Hon. Evelina Haverfield as Honorary Colonel. These two commanders, with the Staff Officers, formed the Head-quarters Committee in Baker Street, and had control of the whole movement. On Mrs. Haverfield’s departure for service with a nursing unit, she was succeeded in the Colonelcy by Mrs. Charlesworth.

The rank and file formed battalions, each of which was governed by a Lieutenant Colonel, with a Major as second in command. Each battalion was divided into eight companies with a Captain and two Lieutenants acting as the commissioned officers in each. Recruits paid an entrance fee of a shilling, and had to attend a certain number of drills before they were pronounced efficient and drafted into the various companies.

It must not be thought that drill was the only sort of training given to this little army of keen, intelligent workers. There were classes for every sort of information likely to be of use in an emergency. The girls learned several methods of signalling, for instance, and there were numerous lectures on first-aid and home nursing. Fencing was an exercise that was taken up with great vigour, and many girls were eager to practise shooting, though of course they would never, in any circumstance, carry fire-arms themselves. A park at Woking was generously lent for a summer camp, so classes on camp cookery attracted many and wonderful were the concoctions made over an open-air fire! They counted among their numbers not a few motor-cyclists and motor drivers, whose services in a time of sudden danger could be counted upon without doubt.

The enthusiasm of the girls showed how a real want was supplied by the Reserve. Many attended four or five nights a week, winning rapid promotion, which was always from the ranks, and what was more valuable, made wonderful gains in health and spirits. All over the country the movement spread, and soon there were branches in towns as far apart as Guildford and Gateshead, Brighton and Worcester. Birmingham had a specially high record, for Mrs. Haverfield’s first recruiting meeting held there brought in seven hundred members to the ranks.

It is interesting to note, from a health point of view, that the movement was warmly approved by women doctors, many of whom attended the evening classes in different districts. The efficiency of the training was vouched for by the fact that after the German raid on Scarborough, when the collecting of crowds in the streets resulted in so lamentably large a death-toll, the Mayor of Gateshead invited the local branch of the Women’s Volunteer Reserve to take charge of the civilian population in the event of a raid on his town.

Not the least important part of the Reserve work was its social side, which it is hoped to carry on in times of peace by the formation of a big guild for women workers, which should do much to break down the jealousy and class distinctions now existent in the ranks of girl wage-earners.

The war had not lasted many weeks, however, before it was seen that there were scores of directions in which women’s work could be utilized to the advantage of soldiers in training as well as for the benefit of the men at the Front. At an early date the Young Men’s Christian Association took hold of the problem of evening recreation in camps, but it was speedily found that it was not sufficient merely to erect a tent, or to provide services, newspapers, and refreshments and accommodation for writing letters for these men who came together in thousands.

These tents, to the number of 600 or more, grew, in the natural order of things, into the dimensions and usefulness of clubs; and clubs meant social intercourse and games. An appeal had therefore to be issued to English women to come to the rescue with at least 100,000 books and numberless sets of dominoes, bagatelle boards, gramophones, draughts, chess, and puzzles.

Luckily this need was quickly met by donors in all parts of the kingdom and the colonies. In fact, the scope of requirements was speedily widened as unframed pictures, chairs, tables, writing-desks, and pianos also made their appearance; and very quickly the Y.M.C.A. tents became the recognized centres of social work and service. Concerts were also frequently provided by singers who resided in the district.

This opening no doubt was more readily welcomed because by this time there had come a halt in the labours of thousands of work parties held in connection with churches, municipal bodies, and war institutions and associations. At first these parties, it is true, found that the need for sewn and knitted garments was overwhelming, but in an incredibly short space of time the demands of the Red Cross centres, hospitals and other quarters were overtaken. Hundreds of thousands of blankets were also collected in an emergency and forwarded to the trenches.

In this crisis an Emergency Voluntary Aid Committee was formed at the Empress Club. This body put themselves into touch with hospitals, hospital ships, nursing centres, and other kindred agencies, and soon were able not only to collate a guide to the requirements of the moment, but to advise work parties to the best advantage. It also secured special facilities for sending parcels of goods to the places where they were most needed.

Meanwhile, however, the pinch of war was making itself felt in another direction. In the autumn of 1914 it was noticed that an unexpected amount of unemployment was to be found amongst women engaged in dressmaking and trimming, and other similar trades. This did not decrease, but grew in volume until it attracted the notice of Lady Jane Gathorne Hardy and Lord Plunket, who courageously started various United Work-rooms in London. These rooms had two objects:

1. To employ women who, through no fault of their own, were rendered liable to destitution on account of the war.

2. To employ those women in such work as would compete with existing industries as little as possible.

The work undertaken at these rooms included bead chains woven in regimental colours; samplers, specially designed to commemorate the war; bags, cushions, muff-chains, neckwear, ear-rings, and embroidered children’s frocks. Orders were also executed for soldiers’ shirts, and every kind of fine and plain needlework.

No subscriptions were appealed for, but the committee made every effort to secure customers, and their efforts were so successful that they were able to devote a considerable sum, under the heading of profits, to various approved war charities.

More direct work, thanks to Lady Crewe, was also undertaken for the benefit of the woman artist, who quickly found herself enrolled in the ranks of war victims. Workrooms were established at 84, Park Street, W., in a house lent by Mrs. James de Rothschild, and there, every day, from ten to half-past four, with a brief interval for lunch, were employed a number of women artists making ornaments of various kinds. The chief distinction of their work was the application of the diamanté form of decoration to such things as coiffure ornaments, shoe-buckles, blotters, vanity bags, and letter cases.

Hitherto diamanté work had been furnished to England almost exclusively by workers in France, and it was particularly to Paris that women had to turn when they sought some of its most delightful examples. But Lady Crewe was very anxious that the form of work done in those workrooms should not enter into competition with any existing trade in England, and so diamanté was adopted as the staple feature with a particular view to wedding and; birthday gifts and Christmas and Easter presents. And the Queen and Princess Mary soon interested themselves in the project, which was quickly organized into profit and success.

Another interesting change in our social life was observed about this time. The patriotic idea gained currency that it was not expedient to employ a large number of able-bodied young men in domestic service when their King and Country needed them; and many society women took the lead in advising their grooms, gardeners, and footmen to enlist, and in employing women in their places. At the same time the English waitress established herself in quarters that three months previous would have none of her. Coincidentally with the internment of German and Austrian aliens an agitation sprang up against the employment of any foreign waiters, and soon trim, well-clad English waitresses were to be seen in clubs and large residential hotels in London and many establishments up and down the country that had hitherto scorned this type of feminine aid.

Nevertheless, the war did not affect one phase of the domestic servant question that for many years had defied solution. Cook-generals became no more plentiful, although many influential families cut down their staff of domestic servants to the lowest point of efficiency. Experience showed that the discharged maids took the places of the discharged aliens; and the old balance between the supply and demand of domestic help was never seriously affected after the first fortnight of the war, and good servants remained as rare and as difficult to secure as before the war.

It should be noted, however, that women took hold of some most thorny problems in the early months of the war. For instance, some of the most distinguished women in the kingdom early in November, 1914, issued a manifesto "to women of the Empire" in which they did some uncommonly plain speaking about morals of the race.

"Will the women of England unite in a great movement towards a finer and higher ideal of national duty?," they asked. "This is the moment to begin. We are called upon to help our soldiers to fight the enemies of demoralization and drink at home; we are called upon to crush these enemies in our own lives and homes and we are called upon so to live as to bequeath a heritage of health and happiness to the children we shall eventually give to the nation."

A mass meeting of women in support of this point of view was held in the London Guildhall under the presidency of Lady Jellicoe; and the Young Women’s Christian Association inaugurated a Girl’s Welfare movement to prevent dangers to girls from the presence of crowded military camps. Amongst others, it had the approval of Lady Smith-Dorrien, who gave to a large meeting of women the following message from her distinguished husband: "Tell the women and girls that they can serve their country by leading quiet lives, thus setting an example of self-restraint and uprightness at home, which, equally with the bravery of their dear ones in the war, is necessary to bring this country through this great national crisis with credit to those who have the good fortune to live under the Union Jack." On this occasion a Central Committee was formed with the object of uniting all those women who were working in some phase or another for the welfare of young girls, and of taking action in conjunction with the military and municipal authorities to prevent girls hanging around the camps or tempting the soldiers away from the obvious paths of duty and self-discipline.

Much good’work was done in this direction, and for a time these efforts were supplemented by a number of volunteer women constables who adopted a special uniform in London and several large provincial cities, and did a certain amount of patrol work that was permitted, but not recognized officially, by the authorities.

Surveying the whole situation of women’s activities at this juncture, it can be seen that women have quietly and resolutely taken their share of the national responsibilities. There is no fuss, no flurry, no friction. Women have volunteered, organized and laboured, and nothing that is calculated to help British arms and success has suffered from lack of a woman’s brain or hand.

CHAPTER THREE

FEMINISTS AID IN THE WAR

TO give anything like an adequate representation of the work undertaken by the various Women’s Suffrage Organizations of Great Britain during the progress of the war would probably fill three or four volumes, and would, necessarily, be almost of an encyclopædic nature. The activities of women suffragists in every direction, for their country’s benefit, have been a revelation and, perhaps, an object lesson to many who have hitherto ventured to doubt the single-heartedness and patriotic spirit of those members of the feminine community who, for the last half-century, have been working in various ways for political enfranchisement.

Immediately [after] war was declared there was a call throughout the kingdom, and every suffrage association gathered its members together. The militants immediately called a truce; the non-militant societies suspended much of their active suffrage work. All decided to put the needs of their country in its hour of peril before all other considerations, and while still keeping the suffrage flag flying, to devote their time and energies and money to the alleviation of distress and to the support of the Government, wherever and whenever possible.

"Let us show ourselves worthy of citizenship, whether our claim to it be recognized or not," said Mrs. Fawcett, President of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. There were 500 societies in that Union. All responded magnificently to the call made upon them, and within a few days of the declaration of the war adapted themselves to the new conditions.

The National Union determined not to add to the volume of unemployment by dismissing a single member of its staff, either at Head-quarters or among the organizers. It paid the salaries of nearly 150 workers all over the country who were lent to the local relief committees and other bodies responsible for carrying out the special schemes devised for meeting the conditions caused by the war.

The relief work of the National Union spread in many directions, but each direction pointed to one aim—the support of life, moral and physical. The care of the child was given special importance, and, in conjunction with the Women’s Co-operation Guild, an active part has been taken in organizing Maternity centres throughout the country. "Babies’ Welcomes" and day nurseries were opened, and mothers were given instruction at these centres in the feeding and nursing of the children.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the work of this Union was the establishment of the Active Service League which was initiated by Mrs. Harley, a sister of Viscount French. This organization mobilized 58,000 subscribers within a few days, and the League opened offices at 50 Parliament Street. Here some two thousand women volunteers were registered, classified, and passed on to organizations needing their services, while from 20 to 100 women in distress—refugees, unemployed, etc.—were helped daily.

Here, too, was a workroom where sewing was done, an emergency measure for the absolutely destitute whom the Union could not turn from its doors to starve in the streets. The women were employed there until permanent work could be found for them, and they visited the Labour Exchange in search of it daily, the Union in the meantime doing its best to help in the search, as also to collect funds for the women’s wages and orders for their work.

Some of the garments made in the workrooms are both artistic and ingenious. That the work is also practical was recently proved by a rather amusing experience. A gentleman appeared in the shop one morning, and challenged the suftragists to show what they could do in the way of making shirts for which he needed a special method of tucking, and particular buttonholes. Nowhere had he been able to get this done to his satisfaction in London. Could the suffragettes step into the breach? The shop accepted the challenge, and so satisfactory was the result that an order was immediately given.

A splendid piece of work of the Active Service League was the organization of a scheme to economize the national food supply. Suffragists who had been salving the fruit crops and making jam for the winter, received every help and encouragement from their local County Council, and practical demonstrations in bottling and preserving were given and trained cookery instructresses supplied: In some instances, these efforts may result in the birth of a new local industry in the district.

The relief of professional women in distress has been one of the latest developments of the National Union, the services of trained women being supplied free to various philanthropic and national institutions. The Professional Women’s Patriotic Service Fund, initiated by the Union, undertook to pay these salaries, thus proving an excellent means of helping in a practical way educated and competent women workers, and of serving the needs of the country in a variety of directions.

In the early days of the war it was recognized that the Red Cross Societies of the Allies would be likely to need all the trained help they could obtain, and the Scottish Federation of the N.U.W.S.S. came forward with offers of assistance. A committee was formed, with Dr. Elsie Inglis (the well-known Edinburgh doctor) at its head, and three hospitals were equipped and staffed for the French, Belgian, and Serbian Red Cross Societies. Gifts and funds came in rapidly, as well as doctors, nurses, orderlies, X-ray experts, secretaries, clerks, cooks, and chauffeurs, so that it was possible to staff the hospitals, from doctor to cook, with women only. In the Serbian Unit, however, there were two men motor-drivers.

The French hospital is carrying on its work in the beautiful old Abbaye of Royaumont. Ten years ago the French Government ejected the nuns, and since then the place had been deserted, so that when the Scottish hospital staff arrived they found an apparently impossible task before them. But all had come prepared for difficulties and prepared to overcome them, so they set to work to clean down walls and floors.

One girl orderly who was an excellent carpenter, made tables, and in a surprisingly short time the hospital was ready to be inspected by the French Military Hospital Authorities, who gave it their cordial approval. Four wards have been fitted up, and an enormous amount of work has been done for the aid of wounded soldiers. The Girton and Newnham unit at Troyes, which is working under the French Military Authorities, was ordered to Salonica, where it formed part of a thousand-bed French hospital working with the French Expeditionary Force. The Serbian Unit was originally installed at Kragienwatz, twenty-five miles from Belgrade. The total cost of equipping this hospital amounted to £ 3000, and the first consignment of wounded consisted of 250 men.

Part of the great work of the Women’s Freedom League, of which Mrs. Despard is president, was helping the wounded at home. The Women’s Suffrage National Service Corps was organized by this League, and one of its first efforts was to provide a hospital for the women and children who would in ordinary times have been taken into the London hospitals. Mrs. Harvey lent her beautiful house "Brackenhill," at Bromley, for this purpose, and its spacious rooms were soon converted into sick wards; "Brackenhill" accommodates forty patients, and there are surgical, maternity, and children’s wards. The first baby born in the hospital was a Belgian. Some very distressing cases were received, especially in the children’s ward, and it has been recognized that Mrs. Harvey’s work was one of the finest pieces of practical patriotism which has been carried out during the progress of the war.

Mrs. Despard’s idea to start a cost price restaurant for the very poor at Currie Street, Nine Elms, was an excellent one, and met with instant success, It is locally known as "The Suffragettes’ Cook House," and from 170 to 200 women, children, and old people daily sit down to a substantial meal which costs from a halfpenny to twopence. Mrs. Tippett, the novelist, presides over this excellent and much-needed institution, and has organized a children’s play club in connection with it for children of from four to ten years of age. A children’s "Guest House" was also opened next door to the restaurant, and children whose mothers are ill and unable to look after them are here entertained, a small charge being made in cases where the parents are able to pay.

The Women’s Suffrage National Service Corps, under the auspices of the Women’s Freedom League, opened a workroom at Kensington for factory hands and needlewomen out of work, where all kinds of garments were made. Their training centre in South Hackney for the manufacture of soft toys proved a big success. It provided unskilled women with a trade which may later be the nucleus of a home industry hitherto widely practised in Germany. A Bureau of Employment has been opened in connection with this society for getting employment for women in Government departments, and for obtaining other appointments for working women, and for those suited for business and professional careers.

An interesting and useful development, which owes its origin to Miss Nina Boyle of the Women’s Freedom League, was the women’s police force, now known as the Women’s Police Volunteers, which looks after the interests of women and children in big crowded places, stations, and police courts. Its work is distinct from the Police Patrols organized by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, and concentrates on permanent rather than emergency work.

The babies of East London in the early days of the war were crying for milk. The East London Federation or Suffragettes heard the cry and supplied their need in an incredibly short space of time. Within a week of the commencement of the war, Miss Sylvia Pankhurst started in Bow a daily free distribution of milk to the babies of necessitous mothers. Milk depots were also opened simultaneously at Brondey and Canning Town. To provide milk only for the nursing and expectant mothers and the babies was not enough while entire families were in urgent need of daily food, so "cost price" restaurants were opened in Bow, Poplar, and Bromley, where two-course meals might be bought at 1d. for children and 2d. for adults, while free meals, especially in the case of nursing and expectant mothers, might be given when necessary.

Clothing stalls have been opened at the various centres; new and second-hand clothes may be bought at low prices, and, in urgent cases, clothes are given away. The Co-operative Boot Factory is another industry started by the East London Federation of Suffragettes. Trade Union rates are paid and the profits go to the workers. From the toy factory, rag and china-headed dolls of original and artistic design are supplied, while East End girls are engaged in making dolls’ furniture, wooden houses, carts and barrows, and flat wooden toys. In the garment-making factory women are employed at 5d. an hour to make clothes for those who arc destitute.

The war suddenly deprived many thousands of women in the East End of London of their occupation in all forms of garment-making and as shoemakers, brush-makers, box-makers, flower-makers, and also in sweet and food preserving factories and in other branches of industry. What these women wanted was work, not charity, and the fine resources and inventive abilities of the East London Federation of Suffragettes have gone far to solve that tragic problem of distress.

The United Suffragists (men and women), whose supporters include Mrs. Hertha Ayrton, Sir Harry Johnston, Lady Muir Mackenzie, and Major-General Sir Alfred Turner, inaugurated, through Miss Evelyn Sharp, Editor of "Votes for Women," and Mrs. Ayrton Gould, Honorary Secretary of the Society, a much-needed club for working women in Southwark, There the mothers and wives of the men at the Front went for help, advice, recreation, and comfort.

One poor soul—a typical case—came in a few hours after her husband had departed for France. "She was ‘feelin’ so lonesome,’" said the secretary, "so she came round to tell us ail about it." Ten minutes later, with a cup of hot tea in her hand, sitting in one of the new cosy arm-chairs, she "warmed up" and confessed that she began to feel a different woman. Before the club started, she would probably have had to go to the public-house for the sympathy she wanted.

Miss Evelyn Sharp reports that one of the women expressed herself in the warmest terms of approval: "What I like about it," said she, "is that it’s just like a West End gentleman’s club!"

"Then," says Miss Sharp, "I knew we were all right. I do not know whether West End gentlemen’s clubs really have white-painted doors and beautiful wall-paper with bunches of pink roses all over it, and blue plush curtains, and padded basket chairs, and upholstered inglenooks —and a baby’s bottle (this, I admit, was an incident nobody ever explained, but it made us feel all at home), and brand new gas-cooking stoves, and purple and white and orange flags, and copies of ‘Votes for Women’--but our club is like that, and the lady who drew the comparison gave us exactly the assurance we needed—that we did not look like a charitable venture, tempered with instruction."

One poor mother was brought to the club by a friend, to be cheered up because her husband had just enlisted in Ireland. "I didn’t mind so much at first," said she, "but when all his clothes came home to me to-day—it fairly got me! There they all were, looking so like him—his coat and his weskit, and his blue tie—it made me cry, it did. It’s worse than a death, that’s what I say, coz you never know, in this war, what’s happenin’ to ‘em."

From East to West is not a far cry when love and service bind women together. The New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage discovered that much could be done at Knightsbridge for the alleviation of distress among working women, and they concentrated their energies upon finding paid employment for skilled dressmakers thrown out of work by the war, realizing that this class of women worker would be among the most severely hit by the changed economic conditions. They specialized in Red Cross dresses, aprons, clothing for soldiers, refugees, and work which would otherwise have been done by customers and their friends to the detriment of the paid worker. The girls in the beautiful airy workroom opened by the Society quickly became expert at the new trade and also learnt machine-knitting, so that they are enabled to take large orders for belts, socks, mufflers, mittens, and helmets. The New Constitutional Society has also opened a club for soldiers’ and sailors’ wives at Camberwell and girls’ clubs at Dover and Ashford.

The need for hostels for educated women thrown out of employment by the war, was early recognized by the Conservative and Unionist Women’s Franchise Association, the President of which is the Countess of Selborne, and the Chairman Winifred, Countess of Arran. The members rose splendidly to the call made upon them, and a house in South Kensington was opened for the benefit of ladies who were in distress. Many governesses have been stranded owing to the war, and, perhaps, still more difficult has been the position of the "companion" who, in most cases, is of gentle birth and used to refined surroundings. To these the hostel has been of real assistance. The guests are admitted temporarily and, while there, are helped to find work or make other plans.

The Conservative and Unionist Franchise Association has also been busy in various other directions, opening depôts for giving out needlework, sending an ambulance to the Front, and rendering valuable help to the War Refugees Committees.

The International Women Suffrage Alliance has taken a world-wide view of the needs of humanity. and refugees from all the countries engaged in the war, who have come to their hospitable doors in Adam Street, Strand, have received practical help. French, German, Austrian, Russian, and Hungarian women have alike benefited from the kind ministrations of this admirable body of workers. Bohemians have been in a particularly difficult position. The condition of Bohemia has prevented their return to their own country, while here they are claimed as alien enemies. One lady, a Bohemian, who had come over to study the woman’s movement before the war, suddenly found herself penniless as the supplies from home had ceased. Hospitality was at once found for her--first in Hampstead, then in Cumberland, whence she wrote: "It is a miracle—all that happens to me in England!"

Actresses have always been known to be generous to their co-workers in trouble, and the Actresses’ Franchise League lost no time in arranging concerts and entertainments in order to give work to actors, actresses, concert artistes, and variety artistes who had been thrown out of employment. Twice a week the League has been giving entertainments in the Church Army Hut in Hyde Park, and has collaborated with Mr. Barnard of "The Era" War Distress Fund. It organized its offices and the work of its committee so that its relief work should not overlap, and an enormous amount of work has been done in giving employment, providing hospitality, and supplying funds for food, medical aid, and clothing. The latest indication of the activity of this Society is the granting of the use of its offices to the British Women’s Hospital Fund for the purpose of raising £ 50,000 to build the Star and Garter House for totally disabled soldiers and sailors.

The Women’s Emergency Corps is perhaps the largest of all the Women’s Organizations for the relief of war distress. It was started within two days of the declaration of war by some members the Actresses’ Franchise League, and was at first worked from the offices of this Society. In one week, however, it became too big for the rooms of the A.F.L. and migrated to the Little Theatre lent by Miss Gertrude Kingston. Here, however, it soon outgrew its accommodation and has now, through the generosity of the Duchess of Marlborough found permanent head-quarters in Baker Street.

The work, the membership, and the ramifications of the Women’s Emergency Corps are so extensive that it cannot, in fact, be identified with Suffragist organization. Some of its most ardent workers are non-Suffragists, and it works in association with other great bodies, such as the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families’ Association, the National Union of Women Workers, the Charity Organization Society, the Young Women’s Christian Association War Clubs, the Children’s Care Committees, and the Women’s League of Service and Schools for Mothers.

The Kitchen Department, aided by supplies from the National Food Fund, distributed in four months 28,378 meals, and 1065 lbs. of plum puddings were made before Christmas. In co-operation with the National Guild of Housecraft, unemployed girls have been given training in domestic work; thousands of handy women have been sent as helpers to various benevolent agencies, and paid employment has been found for women in almost every professional trade and industry.

The Women’s Emergency Corps Toy-Making industry soon outgrew the accommodation at head-quarters, and Lord Postman came to the help, lending them a disused chapel on his estate where the girls are now at work. Ten branches of this big undertaking are establishing in different parts of the country, and some of the largest London firms, besides two in Natal and Cape Town, have given important orders for toys.

The interpreting department of the W. E. C. was the first organized body to assist those from Belgium. Hundreds of interpreters were enrolled; they met the continental trains at all the stations, and ships at the various docks; they provided carefully compiled lists of hotels, boarding houses, and lodgings of all kinds, and investigated and arranged accommodation. In those early days before the Belgian Relief centre in Kingsway was opened, many hundreds of refugees would have fared very badly without the help of this able band.

The Women’s Emergency Corps were the first to start teaching elementary French and German to the soldiers in training, and held classes in nearly fifty military centres. Their hospitality department has also done colossal work for Belgian and French refugees in supplying both homes and clothing to those who were homeless and destitute. Some hundreds of women motor-cyclists and motorists who run their own cars and are capable of doing running repairs, have registered in the Motor Department. These cars rendered invaluable service in the early days of the war, meeting trains of refugees, and they have also led the War Refugee Committee, private hospitals officers, and various societies.

There are branches of the Women’s Emergency Corps all over Great Britain; Edinburgh and Glasgow now have done yeoman service in every direction, and each branch throughout the country is managed independently by its own committee raises its own funds.

Space prevents a recital in this chapter of the manifold activities of all women’s societies, but as with many others which are engaged in benevolent work of various kinds, may be mentioned the National Political League, which has initiated an agricultural movement for women, the Women Writer’s Suffrage League, the Forward [illegible] Union, the National Industrial and Pro[illegible]tonal Women’s Suffrage Society, the Catholic Men’s Suffrage Society, the Liberal Women’s Suffrage Union, the Church League fur Women’s Suffrage, the Free Church League, the Dublin Suffragists’ Emergency Council, and the Jewish League for Woman Suffrage.

CHAPTER FOUR

AMONGST THE WOUNDED

BEFORE the first fortnight of August, 1914, was over there appeared in the morning paper a modest little paragraph announcing that first Army Nursing Unit had left for the Front. Ten surgeons, ten dressers, and twenty nurses garbed in grey with that dash of red upon the shoulder capes, formed the detachment which under Sir Alfred Keogh, left London for Belgium "for general service with the Allied troops."

Since then the Red Cross Society has been sending detachments to the Front, grappling with all the horrors that spring upon an army in modern warfare.

Not one of the nurses of the Red Cross Society and St. John Ambulance Corps, or a member of any War-Nursing Community, asked in such time of the nation’s need for a tribute of gratitude from anyone—least of all from the wounded warrior himself! Lady Norman, writing from Auxiliary Base Hospital under the British Cross in Northern France, put it in this way: "one thing we cannot stand is their gratitude. Fancy being grateful for what is, after all, an absolute right—to be looked after when they fall. And they never complain, they are never anything but good and patient and thankful. I do not know how a man can be good and patient and thankful with only one leg for the rest of his life and all that this crippled condition means. Yet they are, and one learns to know from them what bravery is."

"What we do is nothing," said a Red Cross worker the other day, and the ring in her voicc was almost fierce. "You begin to know just a little of what war means when you see those heroes brought in and laid on the grey receiving blanket, their clothes all torn and muddy and covered with smears and splashes of blood; when you hear them call to each other in semi-delirium, as if they were still in the trenches; when you see how they smile and thank you while they are twisted by cruel pain. Is not this the very least we can do for these wonderful men who are doing much more than laying down their lives for us? Why, the horrors of war are unspeakable, and those brave fellows romp through it all as if it were a picnic."

The speaker was a young girl, and her outlook on life had assumed a new and marvellous focus. For one of the first lessons the Red Cross worker learns is that Courage and Gaiety have a way of travelling hand in hand, and this lesson well learnt does much to relieve the inevitable tension of hospital work.

Take, for example, the description written by Miss Cicely Hamilton, the authoress. Nothing could be more amusing reading than her account of her experiences in the making of a Red Cross Hospital. With entire good humour she tells first of countless skirmishes with red tape officials down on both sides of the Channel. Then she racily narrates how one numbers, packs, and registers in bales and cases the entire hospital equipment and resignedly says good-bye to it while it certainly makes the "Grand Tour," finally arriving when and how it feels inclined, and not in the least when you arranged or expected it! The bales are then checked off and search parties sent out after the "missing," for items such as bedsteads, drugs, and instruments will be found still to be enjoying the pleasures of the "Grand Tour."

Miss Hamilton goes on to tell how the hospital staff finds the plumbing incomplete, and how many other inconveniences, not usually thought trifling, crop up to hinder the great work. And which the ordinary householder would be holding up hands of horror, these brave women work away, with smiles and joking comments, establishing a thoroughly efficient hospital in the midst of what seemed to the mere onlooker only hopeless chaos.

There are some who hold that only fully trained professional nurses should be allowed to assist in the care of the wounded, and we gladly pay our tribute to women like Dr. Mary Garrett Anderson, Dr. Flora Murray, Dr. Elsie Inglis, and many other splendid women surgeons and doctors, and fully qualified and certificated nurses. At the same time, we must recognize that the Red Cross Societies of the Allied Nations have found it possible to make use of personal service from girls and women of the leisured classes who have worked sufficiently to form an invaluable National Nursing Service.

"What a marvellous sisterhood this Red Cross makes!" exclaimed a Japanese nurse, through her interpreter, on her arrival at Liverpool with the Japanese Red Cross Unit; and this remark has been frequently echoed during the later phases of the war.

The President of the British Red Cross Society, as everyone knows, is Queen Alexandra, and magnificent devotion is being shown not only by Japansese Red Cross nurses, but by Her Majesty’s Imperial Service Sisters and Naval Nurses. For in days of peace, as ardently as now, the Queen Mother has given to the nursing efforts of England’s Women an earnest, sincere, and whole-hearted interest. Nothing that Her Majesty could do to further the growth of this public service has been left undone.

When the new King George V Red Cross Hospital was fitting up a mortuary chapel, Queen Alexandra sent a brass cross and two beautiful vases for the altar, with a few tender words as an accompanying message. It is these little watchful kindnesses which so endear the Queen to the hearts of the people. She never needs to be told what is wanted.

"How did she know? " is not an uncommon exclamation where Queen Alexandra is concerned; committees and private individuals are alike astonished. "A heart at leisure from itself" gives true intuition.

Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland, has rendered splendid service to the nation during the war. In August, 1914, the "Millicent Sutherland Ambulance" began its work at Namur in Belgium. It consisted of only eight trained nurses and one surgeon, Mr. Oswald Morgan, of Guy’s Hospital, who has remained as head of the Unit ever since.

During six weeks of German occupation one hundred wounded French and Belgian soldiers were tended in the Convent of Notre Dame. In time the wounded were removed to Germany, and the Ambulance was sent by the German Director of Medical Services to Maubeuge, and after many vicissitudes passed safely to England through Holland at the end of September, 1914.

At the end of October the Duchess went to Dunkirk with some Ambulance cars. She arrived at the height of the Yser fighting, when thousands of wounded French and Belgians were pouring through the town. The hospitals were filled to overflowing, and the Duchess was asked to start an auxiliary hospital in a building at Malo-les-Bains, close to the sea. This she consented to do, and, after many difficulties and owing entirely to the generosity of British and American friends, funds were secured to run a hospital of 100 beds which was added to the convoy of seven Ambulance cars, already at work day and night.

The whole Unit retained its original name of the "Millicent Sutherland Ambulance," and hospital continued its work at Malo until the third bombardment of Dunkirk in the spring of 1915, when it was considered wise to move wounded to Bourbourg, some twelve miles outside of Dunkirk.

At Bourbourg the hospital became a Tent Unit, was well known as the Camp in the Oat Field " It excited a great deal of interest, as the wounded were largely treated in the open air and so remarkably well.

During a whole year leading members of the British Army Medical Service have visited the hospital, and British physicians have occasionally come from the Front in consultation. All have expressed great approval of its organization and efficiency.

The Duchess herself has acted as Directress in station to all matters of supplies and the pecuniary import of the hospital, which has been recognized by the British Red Cross since last April.

The Duchess of Westminster, another hard-working Duchess, started a hospital at Le Touquet in October, 1914, where it has been running ever since in the Casino. Originally equipped for 250 men and 10 officers in May, 1915, the officers’ accommodation was increased to forty beds, and in August, by request of the Army Medical Authority, it was converted entirely into an officers’ hospital. Up to the time of the conversion 8800 men and 286 officers passed through, and since then 985 officers have been tended there. This hospital is thought to be one of the best in France, and the Duchess has superintended it entirely herself.

Lady Wimborne’s house in Arlington Street is made the first Head-quarters of the Allies’ Field Ambulance Corps.. The new Viceroy of Ireland and his beautiful young wife are very interested in ambulance work. Before they [left] to take up their duties in Ireland, fleets of these wagons of mercy, each with its Red Cross sign on the grey canvas cover, could be seen daily in the courtyard before their house.

The leaders of the nursing service do not forget the kitchen in these days of sound, practical common sense. The new "flying kitchen" goes on to the field of battle with each ambulance convoy. Hot beef-tea, soup, coffee, cocoa, and milk are given to the wounded and exhausted men, and the huge water tank and boiler that form part of each "kitchen" are invaluable when new dressings are needed on the way to the clearing hospital. These kitchens are of necessity costly things. The car must be prepared to face near unceasing work and very hard wear, and consequently the cost of each works out at £ 600. Lady Wantage presented one such car to the Red Cross Society, and the Duchess of Devonshire gave another. The women of various counties clubbed together to meet the expense of providing others, Hampshire and Shropshire being among the first to lend help in this very practical direction.

It was Lady Limerick who had the brilliant idea of planning a Free Refreshment Buffet for travelling soldiers and sailors at London’s Brid Station, and helped to start the Buffet with funds raised on Shamrock Day. Here the travelling soldier or sailor can get a free meal at any hour between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m.—hot tea, coffee, or cocoa, sandwiches, cake, and cigarettes, and for those who are going to the Front letter paper and pencils are provided. An average of 1200 men or more are thus fed per day. The authorities are immensely pleased with this scheme, as the men are kept away from the public-house, and the men also greatly appreciate the interest shown in them by the thirty or forty lady workers.

These canteens arc now being established at most of our big railway stations, and are doing invaluable work.

CHAPTER FIVE

HEROINES OF THE WAR ZONE

THOUGH women play so large a part in every war, and one instinctively thinks of them as nurses for the wounded, one does not associate them with the actual horrible work of fire and slaughter. Yet there is no more interesting phase of the women’s part in this war than that which relates to their activity in the actual firing line. The world, which has hitherto regarded battle as essentially a man’s business, has lately learnt with something of a shock that in Belgium women have come to look upon it with supreme indifference. Familiarity has bred such stoicism in the face of danger that women have been known to milk their few remaining cows within range of constantly-dropping shells, and to trudge miles along dangerous roads, bearing baskets of provisions for the husbands, sons or brothers they expected to find in every trench they passed.

One British war correspondent, indeed, told how here and there he had seen family parties sitting on newly turned earth at the bottom of the trenches—father, mother and children, some mites in arms, talking earnestly to each other and sharing the scantiest of meals. Even during the raging battle of Mona women and girls found their way fearlessly into the trenches with food and fruit for the fighting men. One girl, hardly more than seventeen, faced the terrific noise of conflict at the peril of shell and bullet quite undismayed.

There is a pathetic story of an old woman, seventy years of age, who arriving at Antwerp at the eve of its fall, approached one of the outposts, and told how she had come on foot from Liège to see her son. And she found him, poor devoted soul—a son who had acted as orderly to General Leman, the gallant defender of Liège, and, when he thought his master was dead, had posted off to Antwerp to strike another blow to the enemy.

In Russia, many of the peasant women, used in times of peace to the hardest physical labour in the fields, have an enduring strength which is uncommon among Western races, and quite large numbers of them have not only helped to dig trenches, but have, under various disguises and pretexts joined the fighting forces. A Petrograd writer assures us that the most successful conspirators were the masculine-looking peasant women of the northern provinces. Surely the veteran of them all must be Nadezlda Ornatsky, woman of Archangel, who posed as a man during a large part of the Russo-Japanese war of ten years ago, and so had little difficulty in reassuming the part of a private in August, 1914. Only after the battle of Lubin-Krasnik was her sex discovered.

Another Russian named Linba Uglicki was actually present at four different East Prussia or Polish engagements, and was slightly wounded. It is said she feared nothing but the ordeal of crossing bayonets with the foe. Pride of family is a strong emotion among all Russian peasantry and it drove another woman to take up arms when her husband shirked his military summons. She impersonated the coward to preserve the family reputation from tarnish, and at Gumbinnen the action cost her her life.

Perhaps the most thrilling story of this nature relates to the adventures of Lyubov Ouglitsky, called the "Augustovo Amazon," a twenty-one year old girl from Smolensk. Lyubov--whose name means love--has taken part in four big battles, in her masculine disguise, and had not sickness intervened, she no doubt would still be on the firing-line.

Her rôle as a man is made more astonishing by the fact that she is described as "pretty, with expressive gazelle eyes, but somewhat too strongly built." When war was declared she went boldly to Smolensk, where she impersonated her reservist brother, who had died a few days previously. She enrolled in the 7th Army Corps and finally found herself in Rennenkampf’s army. When Rennenkampf first inspected his men he spoke among others to Lyubov, asked the name of her village, and said, "Well, you’re a fine lad!"

This "Augustovo Amazon’s" first battle was Gumbinnen when the Germans were driven back. After General Rennenkampf evacuated East Prussia he fought a rearguard action at Kalwarja Ille. Ouglitski’s battalion here lost half its men in killed and wounded. The girl warrior took part in a fierce fight for a village, which ended in the village being destroyed. She says she was not terrified as long as the Germans were on the offensive. But when her shattered battalion was ordered to charge with the bayonet a fearful dread seized her.

"I was terribly afraid of having to kill a man. To shoot I did not mind," she said. "I may have shot several men, but the idea of using my bayonet overwhelmed and horrified me. I realized that if I now killed a man in this way I should know it, and I should remember it to my last day. I prayed that I myself might be shot."

Mlle. Ouglitski fought at Augustovo in September, 1914, also shortly afterwards in a desperate struggle the Niemen. After the last fight she thought of deserting, but feared she would be captured or shot. She kept the secret of her sex by pretending to be particularly rough and callous.

"At times my heart bled with compassion which I could not express," she said. Finally her solitary career was ended by a slight wound front a shell splinter.

"There are at least a score of women fighting on our side," declared this undaunted soldier, and the many other instances of which one has heard certainly seem to bear out her statement. A woman who passed as Private Norman Nesmetooft was killed outside Suvalki. On the day before her death she made a forced march with her battalion of 42 versts (about twenty-six miles).

It is given to few women to don male attire and fight side by side with their brothers, but since the war began many have shown in more legitimate fields a quiet heroism, a staunch cleaving to duty, for which no praise is too high. What of the two Belgian girls who were on duty at the telephone switch-board when Louvain’s day of terror began? Similar cases have been related in peace as well as in conflict, but no records of war heroism can rank above this tale of duty well done.

Nearer and nearer, it is recorded, came the thunder of the German guns. Shells began to burst on the outskirts of the town, then in the very streets. Ominous flames crackled, leaping around the houses. Shrapnel bullets were raining on all sides of the telephone exchange, tiIl the two operators stayed unflinchingly at their posts. Whatever peril might threaten from s[illegible] or flames, they never thought of seeking safety in flight, for well they knew that along the line which they were serving were passing the orders the Belgian staff directing the safe retreat of the Belgian forces. It was only when they could do no more good, when the wires had been cut or, carried away by shells, and their building threatened to collapse, that Valerie di Martinelli and Léonie Van Lindt crept out of the exchange.

Antwerp yielded an equally striking example of the war heroine in two sisters who had only had a week’s training as nurses, but must have been exceptionally well endowed by nature with iron nerves, They were English, and it often happened in the hospital in which they served that there was no time to give anesthetics, and that all that could be done was to hold the patients’ hands under the most excruciating operations. The men in their agony would crush their fingers harder and harder, but they never uttered a sound.

Other British women, in breeches and great boots, went out under heavy fire near Nieuport, we are told, with the equanimity that one would associate with an afternoon drive in the park. They moved about among the great holes which the shells were tearing in the ground, seeking and caring for the wounded with as much ease as if taking tea in their own drawing-rooms. Lady Dorothie Fielding, the daughter of the Earl of Denbigh, worked at a small cottage hospital with her motor ambulance with shells flying round; and Miss Jessie Borthwick, a niece of the late Lord Glenesk, nursed the wounded in Belgium under conditions that would make the stoutest heart quail, with the result that at Oudecappelle she herself was wounded. Later, at Dixmude, she tells us she came across some German soldiers who from cellars fired on her and her companions as they rushed about with stretchers!

"It was a full moon and the country was flat with very few trees, so we had to lie flat and crawl along till we got to the trenches. The rifle fire was incessant, but we picked out all the men it was possible to move. That night, too, we had to burn piles of the German dead, for they had been throwing them into the river and spoiling water." Little cause for wonder after this that in an outburst of admiration the colonel of the Belgian Carbineers made Miss Borthwick a corporal, another corporal cutting off the stripes from his own coat for her adornment and honour.

Side by side with this is the story of Mrs. St. Clair Stobart, who went to Belgium with a complete hospital equipment and who, while endeavouring to get to Holland from Brussels, was imprisoned by the Germans and searched six times, narrowly escaping from being shot as a spy. In Antwerp Mrs. Stobart nursed the wounded amid a rain of shells, and when this fire endangered the lives of her ninety odd patients, Mrs. Stobart and her assistants, who included Miss S. Macnaughten, the novelist, carried their charges down into the cellars on their backs. This gallant band of twenty eventually rode out of Antwerp, through blazing streets, in London omnibuses laden with ammunition and driven by British soldiers.

Since then the merciful work has been carried on untiringly under more peaceful conditions near Cherbourg, where a beautiful château, lent by the owner, has been turned into a large hospital for French wounded. More recently Mrs. Stobart has organised relief expeditions to nurse the Serbian wounded.

Even the doubtful excitements of trench work and actual "under fire" experiences were denied to Miss Margaret C. Ryle, the young daughter of an English bishop, who at the outbreak of war was in Russia, acting as coach to a girl preparing for Cambridge. Miss Ryle offered herself to the authorities for hospital work, passed the necessary examination, of course in Russian, and, after a probationary period in a base hospital at Moscow, was transferred to the hospital train service running to and from the front and Moscow--most trying and exhausting work, consisting as it did of tending wounded straight from the battlefield, hampered by the restrictions of a long journey. A hospital train was being fitted up for Serbia, where the condition of the wounded was at that time truly appalling, and Miss Ryle accompanied it to Nish. A few days later she died from the effects of a mountain fall while going about her duties.

Serbian hospital work claimed another gallant victim last July, when Mrs. Percy Dearmer died of enteric contracted while nursing the wounded. She was a woman writer who had made a name for herself by her delightful children’s books, plays, and novels. Three months later her younger son, of the R.N.V.A., gave his life also for his country.

Like Serbia, France has claimed an English victim. In the soldiers’ cemetery at Le Mans lies a nineteen-year-old girl, Miss Bell, who was tending the wounded in the firing line when a shell broke both her legs.

Chief among British nurses, however stands the heroic figure of Miss Edith Cavell, who for many years was head of a nurses’ training establishment in the Rue de la Culture at Brussels. When the capital of Belgium fell into German hands, Miss Cavell remained at her post, tending the enemy’s wounded with the same care bestowed upon those of the Allies. It was while she was actually engaged in bandaging a German’s injuries that the Kaiser’s soldiers rushed into the house and arrested her on a charge of sheltering English and Belgian soldiers and enabling them to get safely over the frontier. Despite the most persistent efforts made to save her by the American and Spanish ministers in Brussels, Miss Cavell languished ten weeks in prison, and was then tried by court-martial and executed in the middle of the night, within nine hours of her conviction.

Fortified by a life spent in ministering to others, the doomed nurse behaved throughout with a fine, quiet courage that never failed.

"I have seen death so often," she said to the clergyman who prayed with her during the last hours, "that it is not strange or fearful to me." And again, shortly before the end: "I realize that it is not enough to be patriotic. I must also bear my enemies no resentment for their treatment of me."

The news of her heroic death evoked wild outbursts of indignation not only in this country, but among neutrals, and even in the breasts of the Germans themselves. It is said that the firing party visibly trembled, and with one accord fired over her head, so that their officer had to do the deadly work himself by means of a revolver held to her ear. A memorial service, attended by Queen Alexandra in person was held at St. Paul’s Cathedral on October 29th, 1915, and the public subscribed lavishly to the Cavell Memorial Fund which was at once opened.

"What Jeanne d’Arc has been for centuries to France," said one writer in the press, that will Edith Cavell become to the future generations of Britons."

Another English nurse who deserves mention is Miss Violetta Thurston, who was ordered by the Germans to leave Brussels, where she had been doing excellent work. She was sent across Germany, having a tedious and uncomfortable journey, and when at Copenhagen she offered her services to the Russian Red Cross. Her offer was accepted, and she went to Lodz, where she was posted to a hospital in what was once a girls’ day school. Writing home, she said:

"It is crammed with wounded men, lying on stone floors, either on filthy mattresses or on straw, with no sheets and only one blanket each. There is no heating, as there is no coal, and it is frightfully cold . . . .For a week we have been heavily bombarded; shells are bursting all round us, most of our windows are broken. The cannons stopped for a bit yesterday, but have now begun again with renewed force. We have had to move all our wounded from the top floor on account of the shells. A shell burst in front of us in the street to-day, but neither of us was hurt. It is extraordinary how one gets used to it." Subsequently Miss Thurston went to Warsaw, making her journey in an ambulance wagon, with shells continually bursting near and bombs being dropped from aeroplanes.

Miss May Sinclair, the novelist, has published a glowing tribute to the work of the women of the Motor Field Ambulance, in which she states:

"When we were in Ghent I have known them to work all day and half the night among the refugees at Termonde, on the ambulance trains as they arrived loaded from Antwerp, in our last appalling week; in the dressing-stations at Alost, at Quartrecht, at Zeele and Lokeren and Melle, wherever and whenever the wounded were brought in. They have gone out with the stretchers over the great open battlefield at Melle and brought in the wounded with their own hands; for hours and days and nights at a time, under rifle-fire and shrapnel, they have done this. I saw them, after such a hard day’s work, start off at twilight to bring in two wounded Germans whom the last ambulance had left there on that horrible field, and they brought them in under the German fire.

"At Fumes and Dixmude they have worked all night looking after their wounded, sometimes sleeping on straw in a room shared by the Belgian troops when there was no other shelter for them in the bombarded towns. Mrs. Knocker has driven a heavy ambulance car in a pitch-black night, along a road raked by shell-fire and broken here and there into great pits, to fetch a load of wounded, a performance that would have racked the nerves of any male chauffeur ever born. She has driven the same car, alone, with five German prisoners for her passengers. The four women are serving regularly now at Pervyse, the town nearest to the firing line. It is more than two months since Mrs. Knocker established her dressing-station there in a cellar only twenty yards behind the Belgian trenches. In that cellar, eight feet square and lighted and ventilated only by a slit in the wall, she and Miss Chisholm (a girl of eighteen) lived for three weeks, sleeping on straw, eating what they could get, drinking water that had passed through a cemetery where 900 Germans are buried. They had to burn candles night and day. Here the wounded were brought as they fell in the trenches, and were tended until the time ambulance[s] came to take them to the base hospital at Fumes."

The Bretons were also said to be wonderful. "I want to thank the little Breton nurse who has been so good to us," writes a grateful private of the Leicesters of the lady who attended to him and his wounded comrades at a hospital in the north of France. "Never," he says, "was a woman born kinder, tenderer, or more patient and lovable. I saw her first in a field hospital, singing a wounded Highlander to sleep rather than that he should disturb the rest of us with his bagpipes. The next moment she would be hunting for a priest to come and comfort a lad who had been shot to pieces, but was still conscious, and was crying for the padre, and when the chaplain had gone she continued to soothe him with those Christian phrases which a good woman can employ with far better effect than any minister. He was lying next to me, and I heard her speaking of loved ones he was about to rejoin in the other world when he died in her arms. Later she had to hasten to another bed where a young lieutenant is dying—a shell has torn part of his head away. He is just able to utter one word—’ Mother.’ At once an inspiration comes to the nurse’s fine soul; she searches the pockets of the dying boy, finds the photograph of that loved one, puts it gently in his hands. Though blind, he realizes what it is, gives one last cry of’ Mother,’ and dies."

Another French heroine was Marie Masson, who belonged to a village, the inhabitants of which, though only civilians, had resisted the German advance. The Germans were driven off, but they came back. They returned on November 9th, "drove all of us into the church"—said the informant—and an officer, standing by the altar, announced in guttural French that the village was to be punished. "A woman," said he, "betrayed us by telling us there were no French troops in the place, whereas the houses must have been full of them; if she doesn’t confess we shall kill every inhabitant." Groans filled the church. Cries were raised that if the "piou-pious" were in the village they certainly were not hiding in the houses. The officer would not believe them, and proceeded to announce that as an example and a warning he would have a man and a woman shot in the presence of the population.

At this point up stepped Madame Marie Masson, twenty-eight years old, who had a husband and two brothers with the colours. She turned her face to the German officer and the altar, and said, "There were no French in the houses, but here am I; take me, and do your worst." The German soldiers thereupon seized her and an old man who stood by her. Everybody was ordered out of church. The couple were marched away and placed against a wall, while the German troops surrounded the inhabitants and compelled them to witness the double execution.

The German officer in a loud voice asked if the father and mother of the young woman were in the crowd. They came forward and were forced to remain in the forefront of the populace so that they might miss nothing of their daughter’s last moments. Eight constituted the firing party, and in all sixteen shots were fired. The pair died, unbandaged, facing death without flinching.

A happier story is that told in relation to the work performed by the English Yeomanry Corps of Nurses in France. The Belgian nurses were being continually shelled, but one of them went steadily backwards and forwards–even after a shell had burst within twenty yards of her, killing three men and wounding several others. Finally the officer in charge of the section was so touched, that, lacking any other way of showing his gratitude, he picked a few snowdrops which were growing on a little ledge in the trench, and, making up a bouquet, gravely presented them to her.

No doubt most, if not all, of these stories are common knowledge to our readers; the facts have certainly been set out in the newspapers, but linked together here they revive our recollections of women’s gallant deeds. They also serve as proof that the warring nations have good reason to be proud of their "heroines of the firing-line."

British and French women defense workers. National Archives.

British women navy shipyard workers. National Archives.

American Army civilian contract telephone operators on arrival for "hello" duty in France. All could speak both English and French., 03/1918. National Archives.

Shattered church in the ruins of Neuvilly furnished a temporary shelter for American wounded being treated by the 110th Sanitary Train, 4th Ambulance Corps. France, September 20, 1918. National Archives.

Group of Polish nurses who were recruited by the president of the Polish White Cross, Madame Helena Paderewski. These 37 nurses were the first unit of Polish nurses to go overseas. Underwood and Underwood. 06/1918

CHAPTER SIX

MOTHERING THE BRITISH SOLDIER

THERE are many ways of mothering our soldiers, and the women of England soon made up their minds that not one of these ways should remain untried. "It’s enough for me if a soldier wants them. I don’t care whether they’re cigarettes or mouth-organs!" Thus spoke a committee member, who owns a very illustrious name, when challenged one day by a worker who wished to concentrate on woolly comforts and thought tobacco and musical instruments rather a waste of public money. The kindlier idea, however, has found general support since the war broke out.

In the main, women have a vey generous and friendly idea of setting about this work of mothering. The soldier is not to be given only what he ought to appreciate and require. He is to have, so far as it is in their power to give it, whatever will help to make him happy and to keep him content.

The Prince of Wales’ Fund and the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families’ Association, two Funds that have been working hand in hand since August, 1914, have been doing a big share of the "mothering" of the wives and families left behind.

The Prince of Wales’ Fund from the first knew no restrictions. It sought to look after the home interests of the fighting men in whatever way seemed most necessary, and it insisted that hardship was not to be thought of for the people left behind in a soldier’s home.

With the sudden coming of war an unbearable strain was put upon the War Office pay-machinery and staff. It was a sheer impossibility to meet the requirements of our soldiers’ dependents through the ordinary channels. Consequently there would have been seri