THE WORLD WAR AND WOMEN'S WAR WORK
"What have I done for you,
England, my England?
What is there I would not do,
England, my own?
With your glorious eyes austere,
As if the Lord were walking near,
Whispering terrible things and dear
As the song on your bugles blown,
England—
Round the world on your bugles blown."
W. E. HENLEY.
In the midst of all the plans of organized work detailed in previous
chapters, which were certain, as we thought, to lead to speedy
victory for the suffrage cause, we were suddenly startled by the
trumpet call of war, the world war, the greatest which ever had been
waged, and our own country was to be a protagonist in it. The wanton
violation of Belgium neutrality by the Germans made this a certainty.
Very soon, too, we realized how right the socialists of the allied
countries—England, France, Belgium, and Russia—were when they agreed
that "a victory for German Imperialism would be the defeat and
destruction of democracy and liberty in Europe," and we recognized that
our cause, the political freedom of women, was but a special case of
the still greater cause for which the Allies were fighting. Clearly
as we began to perceive this, it will easily be recognized that the
time of the outbreak of war was a time of no little perplexity and
anguish of mind to nearly all of us. But from the first our duty was
quite clear—namely, to help our country and her allies to the utmost of
our ability; many of us, however, myself included, believed that the
great catastrophe of the world war would greatly hamper and retard the
movement to which we had dedicated our lives. It only very gradually
dawned upon us that one of the first results of the war would be the
emancipation of women in our own and many other countries.
It will be remembered that England entered the war against Germany at
midnight on Tuesday, August 4th, 1914. All that day and the previous
day the Executive Committee of the N.U.W.S.S. had sat in anxious
consultation. We were a tolerably large band of organized women—over
50,000 members, and about 500 societies—scattered all over the country,
accustomed to work together in a disciplined, orderly fashion for a
common end; we felt, therefore, that we had a special gift, such as
it was, to offer for our country's service—namely, our organizing and
money-raising power.
In my first message to our societies, published in the _Common Cause_
on August 7th, 1914, I had said:
"In the midst of this time of terrible anxiety and grief, it is some
little comfort to think that our large organization, which has been
carefully built up during past years to promote women's suffrage, can
be used now to help our country through this period of strain and
sorrow. 'He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth
his life for My sake shall find it.' Let us show ourselves worthy of
citizenship, whether our claim to it be recognized or not."
In the ordinary course of things we could not by the rules of our
union have made any change in our methods of work, and still less have
applied our organization to any other object than the gaining of the
parliamentary franchise for women, without calling our council together
and receiving its express authorization. The circumstances of the hour
rendered this impossible, and we took the only available alternative:
we consulted our societies by post. Even this was not quite simple,
as a large number of the officers of our societies were scattered, at
the beginning of August, in various holiday resorts. However, it was
the best we could do, and the Executive Committee intimated to all the
societies its opinion that the ordinary political work of the union
and all propaganda must be suspended; and that the best way of using
our staff and organizing capacity would be in initiating forms of work
designed to mitigate the suffering which the war would bring.
The alleviation of distress among women caused by the dislocation of
employment due to the war was our first object. When events rendered
efforts in this direction no longer necessary, we enlarged the scope
of our activities so as to include everything that was calculated
to "sustain the vital energies of the nation." But the preliminary
necessity in that first week of the war was to know that we had the
backing of our societies throughout the country. We had consulted them
by post on August 3rd, and we met again on August 6th to consider the
replies received. Ninety-nine per cent. of these acquiesced in our
suggestion. Two of them contained sketch plans of methods of work on
the new lines. We concentrated at first on using our whole organization
for the relief of distress caused by the war. We suggested to each
of our societies that it should formally offer the services of its
officers and members to the Lord Mayor, Mayor, or Chairman of the
Council in its own district, and should volunteer to take part in
the local relief committees which were being formed in every local
government area under directions issued by the Local Government Board.
Like almost everyone else in those troubled, anxious times, we expected
that there would be a great deal of distress owing to unemployment;
and there was temporarily great dislocation of industry and lack of
work, especially among women. On August 27th, 1914, we unanimously
adopted a resolution, moved and seconded by our hon. secretary and hon.
parliamentary secretary, urging the Government, long before anything
of the kind had been done, to adopt the principle in the Government
offices, and in all suitable occupations, of the substitution of
women's labour for men's. We pressed this on the Government with the
double motive—to increase the demand for women's labour, and to set
free a large number of men of military age who were keenly anxious to
join the newly forming armies. Our suggestion met with no response. But
I cannot but look back with gratification that we made it at that early
date.
While out-of-work distress lasted among women, we opened, in various
parts of the country, forty workshops, and gave employment to over
2,000 women. I well remember the resentment and melancholy of some
able young women in our employment when they saw the advertisements
everywhere displayed calling upon young men to join the colours,
announcing in huge letters YOUR COUNTRY WANTS YOU, and reflected that
their country did not want them. We endeavoured, so far as lay in our
power, to check this feeling of discontent by not diminishing our own
demand for the services of women. We did not add to the volume of
unemployment by dismissing on account of the war any of our staff or
organizers. We paid the salaries and lent the services of nearly 150
trained workers all over the country to local relief committees and
other bodies responsible for carrying out new work connected with the
war.
The officers of our societies in many parts of the country showed great
initiative in finding out what the soldiers wanted, and doing it for
them. As an example, I may mention the case of the hon. secretary of
one of our Kentish societies. It was in the neighbourhood of a large
training camp where 12,000 men were congregated. The existing local
arrangements for their laundry were quite inadequate, and this lady,
of University education, ran a laundry for them most successfully and
efficiently. She appealed not only to the well-to-do, but also to
domestic servants and other working women in the neighbourhood, to give
time regularly in their afternoons to do the necessary mending. She
herself devoted her whole time to the work of the laundry, which was a
great success from the first.
The London society of the N.U.W.S.S. devoted its great powers and
wide experience of London conditions to sorting out efficient women
workers to positions where such services, paid or unpaid, were
urgently required. This work, under the name of Women's Service, it
has continued, with success and efficiency, to the present time. Its
energies have been remarkably varied. For instance, it provided the
London General Omnibus Company with a hundred women conductors when
first the need for them was felt; it was constantly applied to by the
War Office and other public departments for women fitted to carry out
all kinds of novel employments, such as the judging of the quality
and the forwarding of hay for the army. It registered the first great
rush of the Belgian refugees, and organized this so efficiently that,
when the numbers to be dealt with became so great that the work had
to be handed over to Government officials, no change in the system of
registration had to be introduced. The London society has from the
beginning of the war greatly extended the area of women's employment.
It opened a small workshop and taught women acetylene welding for
aeroplane work until this establishment was taken over by the
Government. H.M. the Queen honoured this workshop by a surprise visit
in the summer of 1916, and pleased the workers very much by taking a
workshop cup of tea seated on an overturned packing-case.
I believe all our societies, from Cornwall to Stornoway, except those
in the prohibited areas, did their part in providing hospitality for
the Belgian refugees. The London society opened nine hostels for them
in its area, and forwarded to the Government several hundred offers of
private hospitality.
Over sixty of our societies, immediately after the declaration of war,
devoted themselves to life-saving activities by the formation of
maternity centres, baby clinics, schools for mothers, and other similar
associations.
Forty-five of our societies became Red Cross centres. One of our
societies, within a very few weeks of the outbreak of war, offered to
staff and equip a hospital at a naval base in the North of Scotland,
but the chief medical officer and the C.O. rejected the offer, with the
remark that they did not wish to be troubled by "hysterical women."
The officers and members of our societies were extremely active in
establishing and providing the necessary funds and labour for keeping
up canteens for soldiers on railway-stations, also in starting clubs,
guest-rooms, and houses of rest for soldiers. At many of these
educational facilities were given, French classes being particularly
called for. We also did everything in our power to call attention to
and to check the terrible waste which at the outset was taking place in
the training camps for soldiers; and our organization was first in the
field, afterwards so well tilled by the war savings committees, to call
attention to the great national importance of personal and household
economy. Many of our most active societies initiated war savings
exhibitions and demonstrations in their own area, and by precept and
practice showed the great national importance of personal thrift. In
London, Liverpool, Cardiff, Brighton, and many other places, we held
these "patriotic housekeeping" exhibitions, where short addresses were
given, war economy recipes distributed, etc. To women of all classes
who constantly passed through them we did not fail to bring home the
importance of small daily savings, showing that if every one of us in
our domestic expenditure could save on an average twopence a head per
day, Sundays excepted, this would be a shilling a week, and a shilling
a week for 45,000,000 people, fifty-two weeks in the year, meant an
annual saving of £117,000,000. In this way we countered the so-called
"argument" so frequently heard: "What is the good of my saving my
poor little pence when the Government is throwing away millions in
absolute waste, for which no one is a farthing the better?" Women,
we reminded our audiences, everywhere and in all classes, were the
domestic Chancellors of the Exchequer: domestic expenditure was almost
wholly in their hands. Women had often been told in contempt that their
business was to "mind the kitchen"; and now they joyfully and proudly
determined they would mind the kitchen, and do their part in the
service of their country by saving hundreds of millions per year; and
they also determined to do this while seeing that by skilful management
the physical health of those under their charge was in no way impaired.
Their job was to see that every ounce of raw material passing through
their hands yielded its full food value.
I have already touched in an earlier chapter on the most important
of all the war activities of the N.U.W.S.S.—the Scottish Women's
Hospitals for Foreign Service, initiated and carried through by the
genius and devotion of the hon. secretary of our Scottish Federation,
Dr. Elsie Inglis. Her name and her great work are now known and
honoured throughout the world, and it is unnecessary here to dwell
upon them at any length. In the old days before the war Dr. Inglis
used to say she had two passions, "suffrage and surgery." Before the
end of her honoured life came she added to these two S's yet another,
"Serbia." How this came about is worth recalling, and can be studied in
detail in the "Life of Dr. Elsie Inglis," by Lady Frances Balfour. It
affords an example of "the soul of goodness in things evil would men
observingly distil it out." Her first wish in September, 1914, was to
place her services, her knowledge and skill in her profession, at the
service of her country. In an interview with a high official of the
R.A.M.C. at the War Office in that month, when she asked his advice
as to what course she should take, his reply was: "Dear lady, go home
and keep quiet"—in other words, her help was refused. The British Red
Cross adopted the same attitude. She was therefore compelled to place
her organization under the French Red Cross. The great hospital at
Royaumont was the first to be established. The N.U.W.S.S. Scottish
Women's Hospitals were complete hospital units, officered entirely
by women. The physicians and surgeons, nurses, dressers, orderlies,
motor drivers, and domestic staff were all women. The whole scheme was
initiated by Dr. Elsie Inglis, and was enthusiastically taken up by the
whole N.U.W.S.S. The work quickly grew to large proportions. I have
a letter from Dr. Inglis, dated October 13th, 1914, on the financial
aspect of her scheme. At that date she only had £213 in hand. At the
date of writing this, August 18th, 1919, the total collected for the
S.W.H. amounted to £428,905 1s. 3d. The total number of beds in France
and Serbia for which the organization was responsible exceeded 1,800.
Powerful committees were formed in Scotland, South Wales, and in London
to support the hospitals, and their membership was not confined to
the N.U.W.S.S.—indeed, especially in Scotland, several influential
non-suffragists joined in promoting the great work. It must not for a
moment be supposed that only suffragists were active and devoted. It
was recognized by the instinctive common sense of the great majority
of women throughout the whole country, suffragist and non-suffragist,
militant and non-militant, that their first duty was by every practical
means in their power to strengthen the resources of their country so
as to aid it to issue successfully from the great struggle. Those who
took a contrary view did exist, but their numbers were very small.
But it is a source of pride and thankfulness that the womanhood of
the whole country, quite irrespective of political party or creed,
were eager to do everything in their power to help their country. The
"militants" immediately abandoned militant tactics. Many of them took
part in what was known as the Women's Emergency Corps, which readily
undertook a large variety of patriotic activities. Several well-known
antisuffragists, among them Mrs. Humphry Ward and Miss Gladys Pott, did
patriotic work of a first-class kind. Among the former "militants,"
two, Dr. Flora Murray and Dr. Louisa Garrett Anderson, were, I believe,
the very first women doctors to take out a well-equipped hospital
unit, officered entirely by women, to France. The necessary funds were
privately subscribed. It was of these ladies that Surgeon-General Sir
Alfred Keogh, head of the R.A.M.C., afterwards said that they "were
worth their weight, not in gold, but in diamonds." He had by this time
had practical experience of their professional and personal work,
both in Paris and, later, in another hospital at Wimereux. Sir Alfred
Keogh's words were no empty compliment, for he very shortly afterwards
placed Dr. F. Murray and Dr. L. G. Anderson at the head of a large
military hospital of 520 beds in London, posts which carried the rank
of Major in the army.
Their first hospital was established in a spacious hotel in the Champs
Elysées, and was described as the best equipped in Paris. It became
quite a show place, and those who visited it were full of admiration
for the devotion, care, and skill with which the patients were tended.
The men were most grateful and appreciative of the skill of the women
surgeons, dressers, and nurses. "There was a wonderful atmosphere of
sympathy and home about the wards, and the men were not slow to respond
to it," wrote a visitor. Another visitor asked one of the wounded men:
"Is it possible there are no men surgeons in this place?" The man, a
Highlander, replied by another question: "And what would we be wanting
men for?" Other hospitals officered by women were taken out to Belgium
and the North of France quite independently of the N.U.W.S.S.; but the
Scottish Women's Hospitals were the only ones which were originated
and run, as one of their main pieces of war work, by a suffrage
organization.
Our first unit arrived at the Abbaye de Royaumont in December, 1914.
The building had then been uninhabited for about ten years, and was
a bare shell, without water, light, or heating; magnificent indeed
architecturally, but almost incredibly forbidding, icy cold, dark, and
comfortless.
The forerunners will not easily forget the first few weeks in the
Abbaye, when they had to cope with the difficulties of converting this
dark ice-house into warm and comfortable wards for sick and wounded
soldiers. But it was done cheerfully, and even gaily. Outside labour
was practically impossible to get, and the whole staff turned to and
did the work themselves: charing and scrubbing went on; electric light
and electric stoves were procured; the equipment arrived; the pioneers
after a time had the pleasure of sleeping in beds instead of on the
floors, and by the middle of January, 1915, the huge vaulted halls were
all white and spotless, and were transformed into comfortable wards,
with rows of cosy beds covered with cheery red blankets. There were 100
beds to begin with, but this number quickly grew to 200; then to 400;
and eventually, in the very last months of the war, to 600.
The Medical Department of the French Army, probably a little sceptical
at first, visited the hospital, examined it thoroughly, and expressed
their warm approval, especially of the X-ray apparatus which was the
only one for many miles round, and of the very practical character of
the whole equipment.
Gradually the most difficult and serious cases among French soldiers
gravitated to this hospital. General Joffre showed a very kindly
interest in it, and on one occasion sent an aide-de-camp with a gift
of money for distribution among the patients as they left. The medical
and surgical work done has been of the very highest excellence, and was
warmly appreciated by the patients. The women surgeons made a great
study of conservative surgery, and many a wounded man left Royaumont
with limbs intact, saved by the skill and patience of the Scottish
Women's unit.
The second hospital to be opened in France was at Troyes. It was
financed by the students of Newnham and Girton, a fact which is said
to have made a deep impression on the French soldiers. This hospital
was directly under the French military authorities, and when the
complications in the Balkans became acute it was ordered to Salonica.
An enlargement of this hospital, financed by our Manchester society,
was under the medical direction of Dr. Mary Blair. When Serbia was
overrun by the Austrians her unit was transferred to Corsica, where she
had control of a hospital for Serbian refugees at Ajaccio.
The N.U.W.S.S. eventually had five units in Serbia. One of the most
magnificent pieces of work they did was the successful grappling,
under Dr. Inglis's guidance, with the typhus epidemic in 1915, which
threatened the very existence of the Serbian Army. It may be said
that twice Dr. Inglis saved the Serbian nation from despair—once when
she stamped out the typhus epidemic, and once when the country was
overrun by the then victorious Germans and Austrians. This compelled
the withdrawal of most of our units. The papers told of their wonderful
tramp of 300 miles across ice-bound mountains. Dr. Elsie Inglis and
Dr. Alice Hutchinson, with their respective staffs, did not leave
Serbia when the other units left. They stayed on and continued their
work until they were taken prisoners by the Austrians. They were
prisoners for three months. Dr. Alice Hutchinson told how she and her
unit kept Christmas, 1915:
"In the evening we sang carols and drank toasts. We even ventured
to sing 'God save the King' under our breath.... It cheered us
wonderfully. We had our British flag with us, too. I wound it round
my body under my clothes when we evacuated our hospital, so that it
should not be trampled on and insulted." (_The Common Cause_, February
18th, 1916).
She refused to give up her hospital equipment without a receipt, and
on being ordered to send her unit to a cholera hospital, she refused,
except on condition that her nurses were first inoculated, and also
paid for their work, and their proper rank accorded to the doctors.
"At this," she said, "there was a terrible scene. I was sworn at and
cursed, and told I was a coward; but I would not give in." She was
willing to work herself for cholera patients, but would not allow her
nurses to do so without inoculation.
Dr. Elsie Inglis also showed the same fine spirit. They both said that
the Germans, officers and men alike, behaved like brutes, the latter
using disgusting and insulting language. The Austrians, officers and
men, were kind and polite. But the hardships of the imprisonment were
shortage of food and gross overcrowding. Our doctors were enthusiastic
in all they said of the courage and devotion of the Serbians. They
reached home safe and sound, and made an appeal for additional
subscriptions to continue their splendid work.
The scientific work done by the women doctors at Royaumont received an
unsolicited testimonial in 1916 from a leading French man of science,
Dr. Weinberg, who held the office of Chef de Laboratoire at the Pasteur
Institute, Paris.
Lecturing to members of the medical profession in Glasgow on gas
gangrene, he paid a splendid tribute to the work of the Scottish
Women's Hospital at Royaumont. He had, he said, seen hundreds and
hundreds of military hospitals, but none the organization and
direction of which won his admiration so completely. Every duty in
the hospital, from those of the chief surgeon to the chauffeur of
the motor ambulance, was performed by women. He was impelled to
express his admiration of the manner in which cases were treated. The
military authorities had such confidence in the hospital that they
were ready to trust to its care the most severe class of cases. Of the
bacteriological department of the hospital, which was arranged by Dr.
Elizabeth Butler, Dr. Weinberg was equally enthusiastic. He was struck
with the most perfect order which prevailed, notwithstanding the
apparent entire absence of anything in the form of rigid disciplinary
measures. He attributed this order to the fact that the patients
recognized how devoted were the staff to their care and interests.
It was the soldier's natural recognition of the excellent services
and attention given by all the staff, and particularly by the chief
surgeon, Miss Ivens, who was ably assisted by numerous colleagues all
inspired by the same devotion. Incidentally, Dr. Weinberg expressed the
opinion that he could not imagine any activity on the part of women
that would more effectively further the cause of the women's movement
than the institutions carried on by the Scottish Women's Hospitals.
The work of the hospital at Royaumont was particularly heavy in the
spring of 1918. The place was frequently exposed to bombardment. The
three operating theatres were kept busy night and day, the surgeons
having frequently to work by candle-light and under shell-fire. In July
the hospital was taken over by the French military authorities, when
the number of beds was brought up to 600. Down to the very end of the
war the work of the Scottish Women's Hospitals was continued in France
and Serbia undiminished in vigour and extent. In October and November,
1918, the organization was maintaining 1,885 beds. Many of the doctors
and nurses have received decorations and other honours from the French
and Serbian nations; but, so far as I know, no national honour has been
conferred on them by the country of their birth. In recognition of her
splendid work, the chief medical officer at Royaumont, Dr. Frances
Ivens, received the Croix de Guerre avec Palme, and twenty-three of
her staff the Croix de Guerre avec Étoiles from the French Army. In
February, 1919, the hospital was closed; but the organization of the
Scottish Women's Hospitals still exists. The committee at headquarters
in Edinburgh are raising a fund to establish a training school for
Serbian nurses in Belgrade as a memorial to Dr. Elsie Inglis; while
the London committee, with the same object in view, are in process of
endowing a chair of medicine in the University of Belgrade. The name of
Elsie Inglis will live for ever in Serbian history. Her works do follow
her, and her memory will be cherished by the gallant nation to which
she devoted her great powers.
Late in the autumn of 1915 the N.U.W.S.S. resolved to send some units
of women doctors and nurses to Russia to aid the civil population, more
especially women and children, who had become refugees in consequence
of the German advance over the western provinces of Russia. The
accounts which reached us of the sufferings of these refugees were
terrible. The roads by which they had travelled were marked by the
graves of those who had fallen by the wayside. A maternity hospital
was opened in Petrograd as well as "barak" hospitals for all kinds of
infectious diseases. Our units were warmly welcomed by the suffering
population and by the Zemstvos. They co-operated with the Britain to
Poland Fund Committee, and also with the Moscow Union of Zemstvos.
Eight hospitals were equipped and opened. Our doctors and their staffs
on their arrival immediately began a fierce fight with diphtheria,
scarlet fever, smallpox, typhus, and scabies; and skilled treatment
saved many hundreds of lives. Over £11,000 was raised, and we were
served by most able and devoted staffs, several of whom laid down their
lives in the work in which they had engaged. The work was brought
to a premature end by the chaos which quickly supervened upon the
Russian Revolution of March, 1917. The N.U.W.S.S. did me the honour of
naming the Russian units after me. The doctors and nurses of the M.F.
Hospitals returned finally to England in August, 1917. The welcome our
units received from the Zemstvos and the students, male and female, of
the University of Kazan made us feel that they were appreciated, and we
can only trust that, like other good seed, the work of our units will
bring forth fruit in due season.