transferred to the Production Department. She now inspects aeroplane
firms and reports to her department with a view to an ever-increasing
output, chiefly obtainable by greater efficiency in the labour of
women, improved arrangements in the shops and in the methods of
teaching and supervision. This unique opportunity of studying the
types of machines and methods of construction, coupled with the help
of resident inspecting engineers, has given her an amount of technical
knowledge which, with her personal experience of factory conditions,
has helped her in the work of selecting suitable operations for female
labour.
Before the war, Miss Rolfe had no previous mechanical or scientific
training; she had always regretted the lack of opportunity which women
found in the industrial world, and especially in engineering trades.
Another pupil of the welding school, Miss Margaret Godsall, who became
charge-hand at an aircraft factory, has recently died from inflammatory
rheumatism. She contracted this illness as a result of staying on at
the factory during a rush of urgent work, though she was suffering
from influenza. This is a pathetic example of the keenness and the
self-sacrifice with which girls are throwing themselves into their
tasks, and their service to the country will always be remembered as
one of the finest records of the war.
[Illustration:
LADY LUGARD
_Russell_
_To face page 141_ ]
XXVIII
LADY LUGARD AND THE WAR REFUGEES COMMITTEE
In her work for the great population of Belgian refugees, who came
over to England in the first months of war, Lady Lugard has helped to
carry out one of the highest missions to suffering humanity. Quick to
grasp the significance of the German advance through Belgium, Lady
Lugard, in the first week of war, turned her thoughts to the plight of
the unfortunate women and children driven from their ruined homes with
nothing left to them save life itself. Where were they to go, and what
was to become of them? Obviously England offered the only safe refuge.
Lady Lugard knew of the complete and detailed arrangements which had
been worked out during the summer of 1914 for the reception of refugees
from Ulster, in the event of the anticipation of civil war being
realised. Understanding the importance of rapid action and the value of
a good organisation, Lady Lugard asked the help of the Ulster leaders,
who willingly placed their machinery at the disposal of workers in
such a worthy cause. After enlisting the support of Cardinal Bourne
and the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, and having obtained
the consent and advice both of the Foreign Office and of the Belgian
authorities, Lady Lugard, with the help of Mrs. Alfred Lyttelton,
formed a committee. But there was little time for deliberation or
arrangement before she and her helpers were rushed into action. Warned
on one day that a shipload of possibly a thousand refugees might be
with them on the next, they had immediately to arrange offices, raise
funds, and prepare accommodation. Mr. Norrie-Miller, the manager of the
General Accident Fire and Life Assurance Corporation, placed offices
at the committee’s disposal free of charge, and secured the nucleus
of a clerical staff. The organisation decided to be known as the War
Refugees Committee. Its non-political and non-sectarian character
was marked by the fact that Lord Hugh Cecil became chairman and Lord
Gladstone treasurer, while the Roman Catholic and Jewish Churches were
represented among its members. Lady Lugard and Mrs. Lyttelton at once
proceeded to issue an appeal through the newspapers. The response was
overwhelming. All England was burning with admiration and pride at the
great part which Belgium was playing. Throughout the country, from
homes humble and great, rich and poor, money and offers of help flowed
in on such a scale that, even with the best endeavours, it took many
days before they could be acknowledged and classified. Eagerness to
help the victims whose suffering was part of the price Belgium had to
pay in her fight for honour was England’s tribute of admiration.
The next question was the momentous one of temporary accommodation for
the refugees on arrival. With the assistance of an ever-increasing
group of willing volunteer workers, the War Refugees Committee soon
arranged for beds and food to be prepared in the buildings placed at
their disposal. These were hastily improvised as hostels, with the help
of generous loans of linen and crockery. If the accommodation at first
was sketchy, there were at least beds and food for all who came, and
eager sympathy and welcome.
They needed all the help and comfort which could be given to them,
these dazed and terrified people, with the haunted look of horror on
their faces. They had endured experiences which our civilisation could
have ascribed only to a bygone age, and which we little thought could
pollute the earth again.
During the next weeks the stream of refugees flowed into London in ever
greater numbers. The work of the War Refugees Committee soon classified
itself automatically into departments. The clerical department had to
cope with correspondence which, within a fortnight, had mounted to many
thousands of letters a day containing money contributions and placing
accommodation for 100,000 people at the disposal of the committee.
Refugees had to be received on arrival and temporarily housed. The
question then arose of their allocation to more permanent quarters
and of arranging that offers of hospitality from all over the country
should be responded to by suitable allotment of refugees. From the
first it was found advisable to decentralise as much as possible and to
allow the local committees formed throughout the country to make most
of the detailed arrangements for allocation. These committees numbered
before long between two and three thousand. Questions of transport and
clothing were in the hands of other rapidly organised departments.
Every day the number of refugees increased, and members of the
committee worked almost without rest day and night. In the first week
of September a Government invitation was published offering refuge in
England to the Belgian civilian population. The magnitude of the task
thus became beyond the management of a group of private individuals,
and the committee was relieved of a certain amount of anxiety by the
provision of refuges on a big scale in London at Government expense.
Though the work was now extended and receiving Government assistance,
it was to the War Refugees Committee, which about this time was placed
by mutual consent under the general direction of Lord Gladstone, that
the authorities turned to carry on the great task. The committee has
continued to work throughout in close co-operation with the Government
Departments, particularly the Local Government Board. Large buildings,
such as the Alexandra Palace and the Earl’s Court Exhibition Buildings,
were taken over and prepared for the reception of the refugees, serving
as clearing-houses whence they could be sent on to the provinces,
where arrangements for hospitality were made both by local communities
and by private individuals. The staff of voluntary helpers in London
soon reached 500, who threw themselves with undaunted energy and
devotion into the task which Lady Lugard herself has described as “the
consolation of a nation by a nation.”
In all her personal intercourse with the Belgian refugees, especially
of the working class, Lady Lugard has said that what struck her most
was their pathetic fortitude and the way in which in their hour of
desperate need they clung to their religion. Chapels and oratories were
rapidly established wherever Belgians were received, and the Roman
Catholic Church and community worked unremittingly to comfort and
console them. “I don’t know how many thousand rosaries I distributed
in those days,” said Lady Lugard afterwards; “wherever I went the
Belgians seemed to clamour for them above everything.” It should also
be mentioned that the Jewish community in London took a very active
part in helping their co-religionists among the refugees.
From September till Christmas, 1914, the flow of refugees
continued--the fall of Antwerp in October bringing a tremendous rush
of work amid surging crowds. On one day in October the number of
refugees handled by the Committee amounted to 6621. By February, 1915,
their arrival in anything like large numbers had practically ceased;
but other problems sprang up. It became obvious that the war was to
last longer than the few months which optimists of the early days
prophesied. It was therefore decided, after considerable hesitation,
that it was better, both in their own interests and in those of
the community at large, that the Belgians, who had lived almost
entirely as guests, should be allowed to work and to become gradually
self-supporting.
In the two years which have elapsed, the working-class people who
formed the bulk of the refugees, while giving still some occasion for
pre-occupation and expense to their own and to the British Governments,
have become practically absorbed. In the ever-increasing demand for
labour, the Belgians, who are known to be among the best craftsmen and
labourers in Europe, have found a ready market for their work.
There has remained the comparatively small number of refugees of a
different class, unaccustomed to earn their own living, but rendered
destitute as the poorest artisans by the devastation of their country.
The great initial work accomplished, Lady Lugard and the many others
who had by this time become absorbed in the work of consolation turned
to making suitable provision for this group, which included families
of high social position, artists and professionals in many spheres of
work, men and women suddenly snatched from circumstances of prosperity
and ease and confronted with the problems of bare existence. To assist
these unfortunate people Lady Lugard organised a small hospitality
committee. She and her helpers proceeded to arrange a system in London,
and similar arrangements have been evolved on private initiative in
the great centres in the provinces. In London large houses were placed
one by one at the committee’s disposal, and social groups of Belgian
families were established in them. In these hostels, family life is
as far as possible reproduced, questions of education, health, and
clothing receive special care and attention, and the attempt has been
made to classify the houses in such a way as to bring friends and
potential friends into the same circles. The results have been most
satisfactory. The domestic management is undertaken in each house by
a competent manager, sometimes Belgian, sometimes English, appointed
by Lady Lugard’s committee. Many of the managers are lady volunteers,
who give the whole of their time to the promotion of happiness and
comfort in what one of the guests has described as “ces petits coins
de Belgique.” The one rule of the committee is to try and make the
Belgians happy. If their lives are necessarily restricted and limited
by circumstances, these Belgian guests are at any rate living in quiet
resting-places, recovering, it is hoped, from the shock of their
experiences, educating their children, and meanwhile possessing their
souls in patience till the day of their country’s liberation.
The numbers in which the Belgian population took refuge in England
from first to last have been so great, and the rush in the beginning
so bewildering, that it would have been impossible to carry out a work
of necessity hastily improvised without mistakes and difficulties.
Lady Lugard is the first to admit how far the schemes fell short of
the perfection which she had hoped to achieve. But when the story
of this flight of a nation is told, history will remember, not the
misunderstandings, the mistakes in detail, or the want of foresight,
which seem inevitable in all human undertakings, but the way in which
the English people opened their arms in welcome to the Belgians,
and their desire to comfort and to heal. To Lady Lugard personally
must be ascribed full recognition for a truly great service. By her
promptitude, her imagination and her unsparing gifts of energy and
devotion she stands out amongst the throng of splendid volunteers in
the service of Belgium.
XXIX
MISS CHRISTOBEL ELLIS
Since the early days of the war, the aspect of our streets has
undergone many changes; but there is no more certain sign of the times
than the sight of women in khaki uniforms and military badges driving
Army motors and lorries. Though these enterprising women excited
surprise some months ago, they are fast becoming as numerous as men
drivers.
The women drivers of the Army are under the management of a department
of the Women’s Legion, and form a part of the Women’s Auxiliary Army
Corps. At the head of the motor branch is Miss Christobel Ellis, who
has in her hands the development of a great new scope of activity
and usefulness for women workers. Miss Ellis, already an experienced
motorist, offered her services to the French Red Cross in September,
1914, and for some months she drove for them, and also for the British
Red Cross Society, in France. During the days of the battle of the
Marne and the heavy fighting near Paris, the shortage of ambulances and
drivers was so great that Miss Ellis sometimes drove for twenty hours
at a stretch. At the end of 1914 she went to Serbia, where she managed
the commissariat, storekeeping, and military returns for a group of
five Red Cross hospitals for over a year, till the final torrent of
invasion swept over that unhappy country.
[Illustration:
MISS CHRISTOBEL ELLIS
_To face page 148_ ]
On Miss Ellis’s return to England she found that the demand for trained
motor-drivers and mechanics was fast outpacing the supply. Her own
successful experience of motor work under the roughest conditions had
taught her how well the services of women might be used to supplement
men, especially in England, with the advantages of good roads and help
in difficulties usually to be had close at hand. Miss Ellis discussed
her ideas with Lady Londonderry, who had organised the Women’s Legion
for war service, and as a result of their representations they were
given permission to supply twenty women drivers as an experiment, to
take up work under the War Office in May, 1916.
The great value of women’s employment in motor work lies in the fact
that the men whom they are releasing are precisely the most valuable
class of workers--namely, trained mechanics, of whom there is an all
too limited supply, which can only be augmented by the slow process
of training others. Much of the work which the women drivers are
undertaking is work upon which highly skilled men were wasted; driving
cars, for instance, for staff officers involves many empty hours simply
spent in waiting. The women’s reception by the men whose work they
are taking over has been generous in the extreme. No trouble has been
spared to help the girls in every possible way, and to assist them to
maintain the high standard of Army efficiency.
The girl drivers work long hours, for they have to be on duty by 8 a.m.
and often do not put their cars away till late at night; but they stand
the strain of the life wonderfully well, and in spite of the bitter
cold of last winter there were few who dropped from the ranks.
It cannot, of course, be maintained that the women’s mechanical
knowledge equals that of some of the men they are replacing, but
the standard of care of their engines and cars increases with their
experience, and their capacity and skill in driving are undoubted.
Besides motor-driving there are other branches of women’s
work under the same department. There are corps of women
despatch-riders--motor-bicyclists whose services are proving most
valuable. Women are also taking over the charge of Army mechanical
stores. This is responsible work which requires great accuracy, for if
incorrect supplies are handed out, endless delay may be caused to the
convoys. In the delicate and intricate work of assembling aeroplane
engines, women also working under this department are proving more and
more efficient. The numbers of women employed in this dilution of men’s
labour will soon reach many thousands, and the way in which they have
succeeded in overcoming considerable prejudice against their employment
in the Army is in itself testimony to their efficiency.
To Miss Ellis belongs the recognition due to a woman who has been able
to give personal proof of women’s capacity in a comparatively new
field.
XXX
MADAME BRUNOT AND MISS MARION MOLE
The experiences of Madame Brunot and her sister, Miss Mole, who lived
at Cambrai for over two years under German rule, provide an example of
patient and unselfish work, carried on in the most trying circumstances
with splendid courage and devotion. Madame Brunot is of English birth,
married to a Frenchman resident in Cambrai. On the outbreak of war
she telegraphed to her sister, Miss Mole, to come and help her in an
ambulance station which she was establishing in her house, affiliated
to the Union des Femmes de France. Miss Mole left for Cambrai at once,
arriving on August 13, 1914. There followed a few days of suspense
during which the French and English armies were retreating day by day
nearer to Paris, and then, on August 26, the German army poured through
Cambrai. A battle raged in the streets in front of Madame Brunot’s
house and in the trenches behind her garden. Beds for twenty-two had
been prepared, but in a very short time fifty wounded were picked
up and laid on mattresses provided by people of the quarter. While
Miss Mole was tending the wounded whom the French and German soldiers
dragged inside their gates, Madame Brunot went out under fire with her
man-servant to rescue a French soldier who had been overlooked. The
first dressings were done at once, but not until late at night was even
a German doctor available. The next day the worst cases were sent to
the civil hospital for operation, and then returned to the ambulance
station to be cared for. During the following days and nights work was
incessant, but after a fortnight all the wounded were transported as
prisoners to Germany and the ambulance station practically closed. Miss
Mole then went to one of the big hospitals in the town and was allowed
to work for a time in the English wards, where she described the men as
being “in an incredible state of neglect.” She was afterwards asked to
take over the case of an Irish officer said to be dying of tetanus. By
courageously begging some serum from the German authorities, in spite
of a hostile reception, and then by her devoted nursing, she won the
officer back to life, and was able to set him on the road to health
before he was transported to Germany for internment. Madame Brunot,
meanwhile, had been doing all she could for the English wounded in the
hospitals, visiting them constantly with gifts of fruit, eggs, milk,
and puddings, and all the time doing her utmost to be allowed to reopen
her ambulance station. In October, 1914, the German permission was
obtained. Madame Brunot and Miss Mole were therefore able to continue
their nursing till the Germans again closed the ambulance station in
March, 1915. During these months the work was terribly hard, for the
staff was shorthanded and the patients were practically helpless,
being mostly cases of paralysis or men with amputated limbs. Miss Mole
narrowly escaped losing her arm from blood-poisoning, contracted while
dressing a very septic case. It was only after several operations and
six months of painful and anxious treatment that Miss Mole recovered
the use of her arm. After the closing of the ambulance station for the
second time, the sisters did all they could for the English and French
prisoners in Cambrai, arranging to send them food, gifts, and messages
by every means they could devise.
Early in 1916 they took up this work for the prisoners in a more
organised way, working under the Mairie of the town, and using their
house as a depôt for garments and food. “Being very short of money,”
wrote Miss Mole, “I also gave lessons in English, by which means I was
able to buy bread. This meant self-denial on the part of the people who
sold it to me, as we were all on bread rations. Food was very scarce,
and without the American _ravitaillement_ we should certainly have
starved.”
As time went on life grew increasingly difficult, and the German
_régime_ became daily more severe. Many of their friends were arrested,
some evacuated from their houses, and others sent as hostages to
Germany. In November, 1916, Madame Brunot and Miss Mole were turned out
of their house, and were thankful to take refuge in a tiny dwelling
half shattered by aeroplane bombs. At last, all hope of further service
being gone, they applied to join a train of refugees, and were allowed
to leave Cambrai in December, 1916.
No women could have worked harder than these sisters during more than
two years for the wounded, the prisoners, the desolate and poor of the
forlorn city--cooking, sewing, giving without thought for themselves,
uttering no complaints, forgetting their own need in the bitter need
around them. A terrible journey home, preceded by the inevitable
internment in Germany, might have seemed the finishing stroke; but,
undaunted by all they have seen and suffered, the sisters have gathered
their courage to build up life afresh, and to restore something of all
that was so suddenly crushed for them and for thousands more, in the
world-wide disaster of the war.
XXXI
SOME ARMY NURSES
The noble host of Army nurses contains few names which are known to
the general public; but for those who scan the _Gazette_ with care
there stand out women whose deeds swell the ever-lengthening list of
heroines, not only by shining acts of gallantry but by month after
month of patient, devoted work. The wonderful Army Medical organisation
has covered a vast field, and the endeavour has been throughout the war
that in any place, in any region, where sick and wounded soldiers are
likely to be congregated, there should always be a supply of nurses to
minister to them. Soldiers removed from the battlefield are handed over
from the ambulances directly to nurses, and are never from that time
onwards, whether in trains, ships, or hospitals, at home, in France,
or in the remotest of the battle zones, away from the care of trained
nurses.
The short accounts of work which follow have been received from typical
nurses, who, following the traditions of their service, specially ask
to remain anonymous.
The first type of hospital nearest to the battlefield where nurses are
allowed to work is the casualty clearing station. An idea of the work
can be gained from a sentence in a nurse’s letter home: “Fights in the
air are very common, but we are so busy we rarely have time to look.”
The casualty clearing stations have frequently been under bombardment,
and bomb-dropping from aeroplanes is so usual an occurrence as to be
hardly worth mentioning. Among the many reports of nurses under shell
fire is that of a staff nurse who, “although knocked down by the
explosion of a shell, resumed her work until all the patients were
evacuated.” Another nursing sister was present in the operating theatre
when it was wrecked by the explosion of a 15-inch shell, which wounded
her. In spite of her wound she remained at work for five hours, and
displayed great courage in continuing to attend to patients.