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The Great War 1914–1918 Changing lives – Nursing “Oh visitors, who come into the ward in the calm of the long afternoon, when the beds are neat and clean and the flowers out on the tables and the VAD’s sit sewing at splints and sandbags, when the men look like men again and smoke and talk and read ... if you could see what lies beneath the dressings!” When we began the First World War project, using the Internet as a research tool, there seemed to be a remarkable lack of detailed information describing the roll many women played during the war. Brief introductions could be found about the ‘housewife’ or women in domestic service and those working in industry i.e. engineering and munitions. Over a million women took on roles previously dominated by men, working on the buses, trams and trains, postal workers, police patrols, fire-fighters, bank cashiers and clerks. Yet, there was very little information on the heroic duties that many women undertook. The centenary commemorations has changed all this and now a wealth of information is available, especially accounts of a group of women who feature prominently in this tragic war, the nursing profession – women who volunteered to work in dangerous and horrific circumstances alongside the men. “If it was not for the dedication, care and sacrifice by these ladies who were often at the front end, the casualty rate would have been far greater”. Nurses found their way to every part of the Allied front lines, working in casualty clearing stations, field and base hospitals. The First World War was far bloodier than any that had gone before and brought with it devastation and the most horrific injuries that some of the most experienced nurses had seen. They undertook fundamental nursing care, ensuring the patients were made as comfortable as possible, preparing them for surgery and dressing their wounds. They combated illnesses caused by the squalor of trench life: trench foot, dysentery and typhus fever. “That these women worked their long hours among such surroundings without collapsing spoke volumes for their willpower and sense of duty. The place reeked with the odours of blood, antiseptic dressings and unwashed bodies. The nurses saw soldiers in their most pitiful state - wounded, blood-stained, dirty.” Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS) had only been established for 12 years when war began, and although larger than its predecessor (the Army Nursing Service), it had remained a small, intimate service. The military demanded that those working in their hospitals were ‘highly trained and educated women of impeccable social standing’. At the outbreak of war, there were just 298 QAIMNS nurses working in hospitals both at home and abroad. “We require an organisation of well educated and expertly trained gentlewomen, and as such considered fit to work alongside doctors of the Royal Army Medical Corps in military hospitals”.
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Thousands of untrained women were already working as midwives or nurses before the start of the war. Their status in society was little better than that of domestic servants and many had little or no experience of working with men. In 1909, the government had agreed to set up a voluntary medical service with the help of the Red Cross and the Order of St John of Jerusalem (best known through its service organisation St John Ambulance). Their aim was to provide ‘supplementary aid to the Territorial Forces Medical Service in the event of war’. The Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), was set up to provide field-nursing services in hospitals at home and abroad. The volunteers, both men and women, were trained in first aid, cookery, hygiene and sanitation. The majority of female VADs volunteered as nurses and were trained by the Red Cross. In 1914 there were 40,000 VAD volunteers, two-thirds of those were women and girls. When war broke out, VAD volunteers were eager to offer their service to the war effort. Yet the British Red Cross refused to allow women a role in overseas hospitals, and the War Office strongly opposed the use of any female nurses that did not come from QAIMNS. This led to some nurses enthusiastic to do their part, to go it alone – not with the British, but with French and Belgian forces.
The Madonnas of Pervyse In November 1914, Pervyse, a small village 17 miles north of Ypres, Belgium (and only yards from the trenches) had been abandoned by most of its residents and was now occupied by Belgian soldiers – and two British nurses. One month after the war began Elsie Knocker, aged 31 and Mairi Chisholm, just 18. travelled to Belgium as part of a small independent Ambulance Corps. Both spoke French and German and had a love for the open road, usually on motorcycles. The women worked tirelessly recovering wounded soldiers mid-way from the front line and taking them to the field hospital at the rear. “One sees the most hideous sights imaginable, men with their jaws blown off, arms and legs mutilated and when one goes into the room one is horrified at the suffering … which is ghastly … I could not believe that I could have stood these sights.” With so many soldiers dying due to base hospitals being far from the front lines, the women decided to set up their own dressing station in a run-down cellar-house in Pervyse. continued on page 10
Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm
