Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany (Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine) [1st ed. 2021] 9783030828745, 3030828743

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN LITERATURE, SCIENCE AND MEDICINE

Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany Jerry Palmer

Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine Series Editors Sharon Ruston Department of English and Creative Writing Lancaster University Lancaster, UK Alice Jenkins School of Critical Studies University of Glasgow Glasgow, UK Jessica Howell Department of English Texas A&M University College Station, TX, USA

Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine is an exciting series that focuses on one of the most vibrant and interdisciplinary areas in literary studies: the intersection of literature, science and medicine. Comprised of academic monographs, essay collections, and Palgrave Pivot books, the series will emphasize a historical approach to its subjects, in conjunction with a range of other theoretical approaches. The series will cover all aspects of this rich and varied field and is open to new and emerging topics as well as established ones. Editorial board: Andrew M. Beresford, Professor in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University, UK Steven Connor, Professor of English, University of Cambridge, UK Lisa Diedrich, Associate Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies, Stony Brook University, USA Kate Hayles, Professor of English, Duke University, USA Jessica Howell, Associate Professor of English, Texas A&M University, USA Peter Middleton, Professor of English, University of Southampton, UK Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, Professor of English and Theatre Studies, University of Oxford, UK Sally Shuttleworth, Professorial Fellow in English, St Anne’s College, University of Oxford, UK Susan Squier, Professor of Women’s Studies and English, Pennsylvania State University, USA Martin Willis, Professor of English, University of Westminster, UK Karen A. Winstead, Professor of English, The Ohio State University, USA More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14613

Jerry Palmer

Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany

Jerry Palmer London, UK

ISSN 2634-6435     ISSN 2634-6443 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine ISBN 978-3-030-82874-5    ISBN 978-3-030-82875-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82875-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: CulturalEyes-DH / Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Emmy von Rüdgisch, Unterm Roten Kreuz (1916)

“This is not a ‘men’s war’, as wars have been hitherto, but one in which both sexes … must share the burden and responsibilities.” Lady Jellicoe, Preface to Women War Workers (1917). “One can see the war from many angles. The nurse sees it from a very special one.” A report of a conversation with a nurse in Vorwärts, 20.8.1915. “Soldiers and civilians … are two nations, not one. But there is a third nation, the nation of nurses. They are midway between us. Their point of view is unique.” Birmingham Daily Gazette (16.3.1918), review of Enid Bagnold, Diary Without Dates.

Writing this book during the Covid lockdowns in 2020–2021 I saw daily images of doctors and nurses working under exceptional, and exceptionally wearing, circumstances. All allowances made for the differences between a war and an epidemic, the echoes of what I was reading in nurse memoirs were loud and clear. I dedicate this book to doctors’ and nurses’ commitment to duty under circumstances whose difficulties others can only imagine.

Praise for Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany “Jerry Palmer’s book is the first to offer a sustained comparative analysis of published British, French and German First World War nurse memoirs. His wellinformed discussion of the political, socio-cultural and medical contexts in which the memoirs were written and read not only reveals fascinating similarities and differences between the nurses’ writings, but equally sheds light on lesser-known examples, particularly from Germany and Austria.” —Alison S. Fell, Dean of the School of Histories, Languages & Cultures, University of Liverpool, UK “The memoirs of nurses bring us closer to the challenges and trauma of the Great War as they do the increased involvement of women in conflict arenas and in writing about their experiences. Palmer’s book draws our gaze when we may wish to look away. Both frank and reassuring accounts reveal the core business of nursing—dealing with the blood and guts while sustaining optimism and hope. They also reveal the constraints of such writing to avoid criticism, negotiate political sensitivities about retaining morale, etc., and not letting personal narrative disrupt national priorities. As such, these memoirs offer a ‘limited revelation’, signalling the largely non-activist trajectory of nurses in their commitment to soldier-centred/patient-centred care. Stuck in a pandemic, we may all be grateful for this pivot to the individual over and beyond the political knockabout. Quietly, powerfully, with an eye to the wounds of others, the rise of nursing marked the rise of women.” —Paul Crawford, Professor of Health Humanities, University of Nottingham, UK “Jerry Palmer’s book on nurses’ writings on World War I – English, French and German – is a fascinating contribution to the scholarly work on war-memoirs. It is not so much about what has been done, but how this work is reflected upon, by the nurses themselves and by the reviewers of their books. Palmer places their work in multiple contexts: in time (written and/or published during or after the war); in ideology (feminism, nationalism, nazism), and geography (looking for international comparisons and national differences). It makes it a highly important contribution to the medical-history of war in general and World War I especially.” —Leo van Bergen, Leiden University Medical Centre, Netherlands, author of Before my Helpless Sight. Suffering, Dying and Military Medicine on the Western Front, 1914–1918; and editor of Medicine, Conflict and Survival

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Bibliography  17 2 Hospitals and Nursing Before the Great War 19 Great Britain  22 France  27 Germany  31 Summary  36 Reform and Wartime  37 Bibliography  43 3 Nurses and the Military Medical Services in the Great War 47 Medicine and War  48 Military Medical Systems  52 Bibliography  68 4 Women and War Work (1): Debates and Issues 73 Women’s Work and the War Effort  74 Women’s Rights  77 Women in the Labour Force: (1) Germany  82 Women in the Labour Force: (2) France  88 Women in the Labour Force: (3) Great Britain  92 Conclusion  97 Bibliography  98 xi

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Contents

5 Women and War Work (2): Nursing103 Conclusion 125 Bibliography 126 6 The Nurse Memoirs (1)129 The Narrative Strategies of Nurse Memoirs: The Generic Framework 129 The Narrative Strategies of Reassuring Texts 141 Bibliography 152 7 The Nurse Memoirs (2)155 The Narrative Strategies of Frank Texts 155 The Spectrum of Possibilities 169 Conclusion to Chaps. 6 and 7 178 Bibliography 180 8 The Nurse Memoirs (3): Nurse Memoirs in Nazi Germany183 The German Nurse Memoirs in the Context of Their Publication 189 Bibliography 206 9 The Rhetorical Strategies of Nurse Memoirs211 Bibliography 233 10 After the War: Nursing Reform and Collective Memory237 Bibliography 249 11 Conclusion253 Bibliography 264 Appendices267 Index283

List of Tables

Table B.1 Table B.2 Table B.3

Mentions of nurses and of soldiers in the omitted titles, combining the two search terms for soldiers 276 Mentions of nurses and soldiers, combining the search terms for soldiers, by title across the first post-war decade, measuring the disparity in numbers of mentions 278 Mentions of soldiers by search terms and by title, 1919 and 1928279

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Nurses’ memoirs from the Great War form a substantial body of literature, which offered their contemporaries a public record of something unprecedented: the experiences of large numbers of women directly involved in war. Each text is of course a unique record of personal experience, and this is the element that dominates these writings; it has the appeal and the authority that derive from the implicit statement “I was there, I saw it”. However, while each text is indeed the record of personal experience, the commonalities are massive, dictated as they are by the shared circumstances—circumstances, moreover, so dramatic and so demanding that they form the core and the overwhelming bulk of these texts. The experiences and the circumstances place these memoirs at the heart of a group of historical processes, or—to vary the metaphor—at the intersection point where these processes converge. Viewed from one perspective, they record the experiences of ordinary women directly caught up in the cataclysm of the Great War; in this respect, they take their place alongside soldiers’ memoirs, as both soldiers and nurses were ordinary people in these most extraordinary of circumstances. From a second perspective, the history of gender relations, they record some of the actions that brought the first wave of feminism to its culmination in the expansion of European women’s suffrage and their enlarged presence in the labour force. Thirdly, these nurses’ writings sit at the heart of a turning point in the development of the medical profession and public health systems, a point marked by the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Palmer, Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany, Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82875-2_1

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widespread recognition of the need for a skilled medical workforce alongside doctors. A playful parallel illustrates what is at stake here. A character in David Lodge’s academic novel Small World proposes a thesis on T.S.  Eliot’s influence on Shakespeare. Behind the historical absurdity lies a defensible position: that reading Shakespeare in the context of the twentieth century, mindful of the poetic innovations of modernism, may lead one to see different things in Shakespeare’s verse; the wilful quality of the proposition provokes reflection on the multiplicity of possible contexts in the act of reading. Similarly, the place that the nurses’ memoirs occupy in relation to processes with different dynamics implies that both their composition and their reception have multiple contexts. While it is beyond obvious to say that all writing implies some context or other, it is in the specification of context(s) that the interest lies: the choices of context for a reading of the nurse memoirs may lead to different interpretations of the texts themselves. This is the starting point of the analysis that follows, which examines them in the context of the conduct of the war, of women’s rights and roles in the war, and of the wartime nurses’ position in the history of the medical profession. We shall see that the focus on multiple contexts leads to an analysis attentive to the range of experiences that the authors record, and especially to symptomatic silences in the corpus—in other words, to what is not said, and not said for good reason. In such an analysis, the personal, subjective dimension of experience, which dominates the surface of the texts, is incorporated in attention to the themes of shared experience. In all the European combatant nations the Great War saw an unprecedented involvement of women in activities for which, according to contemporary norms, they were unsuited—unprecedented both in terms of types of activity and in terms of numbers; military nursing was only one among others.1 This new situation was widely commented at the time, both favourably and unfavourably; beneath the myriad detail was the perception that the scale of the involvement was such that the social order might be irretrievably altered. On the positive side, there was close to 1  More exactly, it was unprecedented in collective memory. Women in combat have a long history, but it was little known at the time, and war was seen as overwhelmingly if not exclusively masculine. There were in fact a number of women soldiers in the Great War, on the Eastern and Balkan Fronts; two wrote memoirs available in English (Bochkareva, 1919; Sandes, 1927; extracts of both are in Higonnet, 1999). Various British newspapers carried a eulogistic report of Marie Bochkareva on 28.7.1917 (e.g. Daily Telegraph, “Russia’s Joan of Arc”).

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universal recognition that women’s new roles were to be welcomed, given the scale of manpower loss to the armies. In reformist circles the changes were welcomed for the impetus they would give to female emancipation, both social and political; in conservative circles, these changes were viewed negatively, even if accepted as necessary in the circumstances. In the three nations with which this analysis is concerned, the war did indeed bring about lasting changes in some respects—women’s moves into jobs previously considered exclusively male, and voting rights (although not in France). Nursing, as we shall see, was one of the activities most affected by wartime and post-war innovation. In addition to the universal acceptance of the necessity of women’s new roles in wartime, there was widespread admiration for the way in which they adapted to these new roles. The nurse memoirs form part of the successive international waves of war literature that were published from 1915 onwards. There were two major waves (Palmer, 2018: 41–3); the first lasted until 1921, after which there was a trough until the second wave started in 1928; contemporaries ascribed the second to the outstanding success of Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (1928).2 War literature consists of disparate groups of texts, of which the most significant for our purposes are military histories (some of which were commercially very successful), the memoirs of military and political leaders, and the memoirs of ordinary people plunged (actively or passively) into the conflict; of the latter, memoirs by frontline soldiers are by far the most numerous and include the great majority of the best-selling war texts. Nurses’ memoirs form part of this third group: the authors’ status as nurses clearly locates them as ‘ordinary people’, even if some were women drawn from the ranks of the nobility.3 While their social status no doubt drew attention to their activities, as nurses the experiences they record in their memoirs are comparable to those of ordinary soldiers, with the important proviso that—unlike most of the soldiers—the overwhelming majority of the nurses were volunteers. Nurses’ memoirs are far less numerous than soldiers’, between 100 and 200 against several thousand. That there should have been large numbers of soldiers’ memoirs is unsurprising: there were some 20 million soldiers 2  It sold well in excess of 1 million copies in Germany alone before it was banned by the Nazis; domestic plus international sales in 1928–1930 amounted to 2 million copies (Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 6.7.30). 3  Among the authors, Baroness von Babo (1918), Madame de la Boulaye (1919), Lady Salmond (1935).

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in the three armies, and they were drawn from literate populations. The numbers of nurses involved in the war was only a fraction of this number—some 300,000 across the three nations, roughly pro rata by nation (see Chap. 3 for details). However, the number of texts by nurses appearing over a period of roughly 20 years is substantial, albeit that some were only published in extract form. The bulk of the French and British texts were by volunteer nurses; in the German case, many were by nurses who were members of the patriotic women’s associations that were the backbone of the German Red Cross; these women were not “professional” nurses in the usual sense, but were often trained and experienced. Since the focus of this study is nurse memoirs in their original context(s), the texts considered are those published before World War II.4 Nurse memoirs by date of publication and by language:

English French German

1914–1921

1922–1932

1933–1939

24a 15 9

2 2 3

2 2 80a

a These figures include edited collections of short texts. The German figure for 1933–1939 is an underestimate as it does not include the dozens of extracts from nurses’ correspondence in Senftleben et al. (1934)

The English-language figures include some by American authors, the French include one Belgian and the German memoirs include texts by Austrian and German-speaking Finnish and Swiss nurses.

The periodisation in this table is based on the external events that created the contexts in which the nurse memoirs were written and received. Up to around 1920–1921 war memoirs (both soldiers’ and nurses’) were essentially contemporary with the events they recorded and their publication is part of the first wave of war literature. This division, even if the exact date is arbitrary, shows two things. Firstly, that the first wave did indeed come to an end: although memoirs continued to be published, the quantities diminished substantially during the mid-1920s, in the case of both soldiers and nurses.5 Secondly, analysis of the texts will reveal significant differences based on the context of publication; these differences are 4  Many more manuscript diaries and memoirs have been published over the last three decades and I occasionally refer to them for purposes of comparison. 5  This may be partly because publishers were reluctant to publish war memoirs during the mid-1920s, in all three countries, on the (mistaken) grounds that the public had lost interest (Palmer, 2018: 95, 192–3, 208–10).

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strongly marked by both nationality and chronology, despite the many commonalities of the nursing experience which are clear in the texts themselves. This temporal division is seen also in public attention to nurse memoirs. Given their publication history, it is inevitable that most of the British and French attention appeared during the war years, in the form of reviews, of reprints of extracts, and of news items devoted to the nurses themselves. This attention was very unequally divided, with the bulk of it devoted to a few nurses.6 In Britain, the women of Pervyse (Reuss, 2012) received extended media coverage, and a few memoirs were widely reviewed. In France, only three nurse memoirs—out of 15 wartime publications— received extensive attention, in the form of both reviews and reprints. Reviewing of German nurse texts during the war years was extremely restricted, to the extent that it is unusable as an indicator of public opinion.7 After the war, the memoirs by Mary Borden, Henriette Riemann, Vera Brittain, and Monica Salmond were widely reviewed. Post-1920 French nurse texts were largely ignored, as indeed were most of the wartime texts. The second wave of war literature started around ten years after the Armistice and its massive success shows that the publishers’ estimate of public interest was wrong. At the time, it was said that the ten years’ gap allowed the possibility of retrospection and some analytic distance (Palmer, 2018: 96–7, 208–10). In the cases of both soldiers and nurses, there is some support for this theory. For example, Edmund Blunden wrote two versions of his memoirs, one in 1918 and one in the mid-20s, and the difference in tone is marked; Ernst Jünger re-edited his 1919 memoir, with many significant additions during the 1920s; and Ludwig Renn (1928) adopted a narrative structure which created a clear distance from his real wartime experience (Palmer, 2018: 113–6, 227, 241). Three nurses published two versions of their memoirs with around a decade’s separation

6  I have excluded Edith Cavell from this account, on the grounds that although she was a nurse, public attention to her was not based on this element of her activities. 7  I have found a total of four reviews of the wartime texts (three in small circulation journals) in a search based on the annual bibliography of book reviews and online searches of German media archives; however, the annual review bibliography is far from complete where newspaper reviews are concerned, and the amount of full-text searchable material in the online archives is limited.

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and with significant differences between the earlier and later versions.8 Maria Pöll-Naepflin only published in 1934 and her book is very different from the majority of nurse memoirs (see below). Vera Brittain made several unsuccessful attempts to write her memoirs before settling on the version published in 1933: the book is as much about the way in which the war changed her, especially her opinions about the war and women’s position in society, as it is about the experience of nursing, and there is clear evidence of retrospective re-evaluation of her experiences (Layton, 1987). Mary Borden found it impossible to publish her memoir (1929) during the war. In these cases, retrospection clearly played a role. German nurses who published belatedly wrote in an entirely different way about their experiences to the ones who published during the war or immediately after it. In Germany, only two published between 1920 and the Nazi period received any substantial public attention: Riemann (1930) and Brändström (1922/1929).9 The introduction of a second dividing line at 1932–1933 is dictated by the Nazi seizure of power. While there is no visible evidence of the change in Germany exerting an influence upon the few British and French nurses who published after this date, the difference in German nurses’ writings is dramatic; the numbers alone suggest that the existence of the new regime changed nurses’ understanding of their experiences; at the very least, the Nazi seizure of power provided new opportunities for nurses to publish. German nurses’ use of these opportunities created a set of memoirs that are distinctively different from the rest of the body of nurse literature, and will be analysed separately (see Chap. 8). Central to the analysis pursued here is the history of changes in the place of nursing within the medical profession during the decades that preceded and followed the Great War: these changes are part of the context in which wartime nurses wrote memoirs. Of particular significance is the role of volunteer nurses, who produced many of the memoirs. At the outbreak of war in 1914, the medical systems of the armies were rapidly shown to be inadequate. This recognition provoked many changes, among which was the enrolment of very large numbers of volunteer nurses—in 8  Kate Luard (Anon, 1915; Luard, 1930), Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire (1919, 1931), and Julie Crémieux (1918, 1934). 9  The Swedish nurse Elsa Brändström’s memoir (1922/1929) was very well received in Germany, and she became a folk hero. Hers is a special case: her status as a neutral allowed her to take care of German prisoners of war in Russia. See Appendix A.

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fact, the overwhelming majority of the nurses who served, of the order of 90%, were women with no previous experience of nursing; they either served on a voluntary basis, or were enrolled in the military health organisations, often with a minimum of training. In the decades preceding 1914, the status of nurse training had been a substantial issue within the medical professions and public health authorities of all three countries. As has been clearly established by historians of British nursing, there were tensions between volunteer nurses and professional nurses during the war, which were multi-dimensional. On the one hand, professional nurses had good reason to fear that widespread volunteer nursing would hinder their efforts to establish nursing as a distinct profession, with its own skills; in addition, they were outraged—at least some of them, some of the time— by what they saw as the unprofessional attitudes of volunteer nurses. The latter, on the other hand, accused professional nurses of an excessively rigid attitude towards hierarchical discipline and a lack of sympathy for patients’ suffering (Fell, 2011; Hallett, 2013). As Hallett points out elsewhere, professional nurses tended to adopt a different style in their writings, focussing on the facts of their activities rather than on the emotional impact that nursing wounded men had on them personally; whereas volunteer nurses—who were more likely to write with a view to publication— were also more likely to “reflect on the meaning of suffering, and to express their emotional responses to it”. There are no studies of French and German wartime nursing which systematically address this issue and despite contemporary doubts about the adequacy of volunteer nursing, there is little evidence of professional/volunteer tension, although there is certainly evidence of other tensions within their military health systems (see below). Nurse memoirs also form part of the medical history of the war—both Leo van Bergen (2009) and Ana Carden-Coyne (2014) draw on them as sources. While the clinical details lie beyond our scope, it is clear that the nurse experience was largely dictated by the medical systems in which they worked. As we shall see, wartime saw extensive innovation in medicine, which was also a significant element of the politics of wartime. In practice, nurses say little in their memoirs about the changes in practice which are the focus of medical history, perhaps because many of the memoirs were written by volunteer nurses with relatively little training. Nonetheless, the relationship between the nurse memoirs and the medical systems which framed them will indeed figure in our analysis.

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The literature about the nurses’ war memoirs considers them in the variety of contexts suggested here. In a wide-ranging analysis of women’s writings about the war, including nurse memoirs, Claire Tylee explores the ways in which the experiences of the war changed both women’s self-­ perception and their perception of the world around them. Her starting point is the difference between women’s contemporary writing about the war and men’s, which focussed overwhelmingly on the battlefield experience: women cast their net wider, to encompass “the social context of belligerence and its connection with personal relations and the quality of ordinary life. … The female dimension of the history of the First World War concerns politics, employment, national service. Women’s war literature reflects these concerns”. She notes the wide variety of ways in which the gendered experience was reflected in this literature. For example, contrasting Vera Brittain’s record of her war years with the poet May Cannon’s, she reflects on the similarity of their experience—both lost their fiancés— and the divergence of their conclusions. In May Cannon, we never sense a gulf that separates her generation from the previous one, whereas Vera Brittain’s account is marked by “the gap across which she regards the enthusiasms of her youth from an ironic distance”. While many of the interactions women record in their writings are certainly real, and with real effects, Tylee largely disregards the boundary between fiction and factual narratives in the interests of the flow of ideas about gender and how it is to be lived. From this point of view, the war is seen primarily as the ideological context of gendered experiences, which Tylee shows was subject to multiple interpretations because gender was inevitably a point of potential contention. In the present context, nurses’ gender had implications for the way in which they represented their experiences due to tensions surrounding the deployment of women in wartime. In a second way of considering the nurse memoirs, historians read them as the record of women negotiating the unprecedented experiences brought about by their employment. Even professional nurses with wartime experience were shocked by what they saw. The majority of the Great War nurses were volunteers, many from relatively privileged backgrounds— inevitably so, since volunteering was not easy for working class women, for economic reasons. The ubiquitous presence of damaged male bodies was way beyond the experience of the overwhelming majority of women. Some of the nurse memoirs can be read as an elaboration of coping strategies, designed to enable them to live through the terrible situations in which they found themselves (Panke-Kochinke, 2004; Acton & Potter,

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2015: 31–51). More precisely, the coping strategies may be seen as a response to the pressure caused by the contradiction between prescribed gender norms and the reality of war (Hämmerle, 2014: 91–5). According to both Hämmerle, and Acton and Potter, several nurse writers were clearly traumatised (2014: 95; 2015: 36–40). Alternatively, to take a more immediate focus, these strategies were designed to help in the process of mourning their own losses (Fell, 2011), or—to cast the net wider—to convey the personal experience of a unique situation, “the precipice between the exhilaration of service and the trauma of witnessing” (Santanu Das, quoted Hallett, 2016: 58). In this instance, the role of gender is less central than elsewhere, since male orderlies and doctors record similar nervous stress (Acton & Potter, 2015: 31–50). Here it is less the ideological significance of experience that is the focus than its lived quality. In addition, nurses’ experiences of the war varied greatly depending upon where they nursed: conditions for nurses on the Western Front were markedly better than on the other fronts; the majority of British and French memoirs are about the former, whereas the German nurse texts include a lot of attention to the Eastern Front, where conditions were often appalling. The role of shock in nurses’ experience is visible to different degrees in their memoirs. Often this is due to differences in previous medical experience. As Christine Hallett has shown in several texts, there are significant divergences between volunteer and professional nurses’ writings. She shows the different values incorporated in the act of nursing by the two; this turned around the question of professional detachment, to which some volunteer nurses opposed a form of commitment to and involvement with patients which she calls “emotional nursing” (Hallett, 2013).10 In particular, she considers the relationship between nurses’ motivation (doing a job versus making a contribution to the war) and their interpretation of their experiences in different circumstances. For example, the volunteer nurses who were able to work largely independently from military and political chains of command during the first part of the war, due to the inadequate planning of the military health services, were able to give accounts which are as close to adventure stories as to accounts of nursing 10  There is a telling instance in Pöll-Naepflin: her supervisor wants to remove her from care for a wounded officer, due to her obvious emotional attachment. The situation is resolved by the man’s death, and Pöll-Naepflin reflects that she did indeed probably love him (Pöll-­ Naepflin, 1934: 90–1).

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work (e.g. 2016: 29–47). As we shall see, “adventurism” was a criticism aimed at some nurses, especially in the early part of the war; this too is part of the context of their writings. At the same time, she compares the autobiographical accounts with public understandings of the war, especially propaganda. In approaching nurse memoirs in this way, Hallett shows the relationship between personal experience and the ideological dimension of the nurses’ writings. In a telling example, she takes four nurse memoirs based on the common experience of working in the same hospital, even nursing the same patients, and shows how the accounts vary in accordance with the writer’s overall interpretation of the wartime experience (2016: 87–92). The articulation of personal experience and the public meanings of the war is central to the analysis that follows, based on the difference between accounts which are largely reassuring to the reader and those which are unsettling, a difference which can be traced in contemporary responses to the texts. Nurses’ memoirs are only one of the ways in which women recorded their contribution to the war effort, or recorded their attitude towards the war. Among the myriad ways in which women wrote about the events of the war, two are of particular relevance here: women’s political stances, and their accounts of their contribution through work. While the details are certainly relevant to our analysis of the nurses’ memoirs, two common elements stand out beyond the detail. Firstly, in women’s political statements, two questions inevitably arose because of women’s previous involvement in campaigns: pacifism and the right to vote. Secondly, in women’s remarks about war work, discussion of women replacing men and women’s place in the social order could not be avoided. In both cases, women’s voices were varied, but what is immediately obvious, when reading the nurses’ memoirs, is the latter’s near-silence on both issues. It is not difficult to see why: firstly, nursing was already substantially a female occupation and here there was little question of women replacing men; secondly, involvement as a nurse bypassed the question of pacifism: by definition, the nurse was both a patriot and a humanitarian, which placed her outside the realm of this debate. However, this is not to say that any of these issues are irrelevant when analysing the nurse memoirs: they are indeed relevant, but as part of the context in which nurses wrote and were read, not as part of the content of their writings. It has been strongly argued that women’s involvement in war work constituted a transgression of gender boundaries. To quote a French source, writing in 1912: “It seems paradoxical to unite these two words:

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woman and war” (Darrow, 1996: 80). That it was transgressive was based on the distinction between the homeland and the front—women “naturally” belonged in the homeland. As many historians of wartime nursing have shown, the distinction was largely fictitious for nurses—many of them young and single—placed as they were in the immediate proximity of single men and involved in the pre-eminently masculine activity of war. Whatever the geographical separation, nurses were placed on the border between them by virtue of their job, where the “perpetual intersection” produced a “tension of prescribed gender norms and antagonistic experiences” (Hämmerle, 2014: 90–1). This tension, or transgression, may have been revealed between the lines of women’s writings rather than explicitly addressed; or it may have been explicit, showing that women were aware of this implication: the “political analysis of the boundary between battlefront and home front” in women war novelists and memoir writers “interrogate[s] the more enduring boundaries drawn between public and private, between men’s worlds and women’s worlds” (Higonnet, 1994: 155), revealing “a consciousness that women’s roles deviated from the ‘home front’ domesticity to which ideology consigned them” (Higonnet, 1999: 149). Another way of understanding this transgression is in terms of the new visibility thrust upon a group of women whose voices had previously been marginal in the public realm, a visibility deriving from the tension between their quite traditional role as carers and the toughness they were expected to display in this new version of it (Hallett, 2016: 7). Understood in these terms, transgression of gender boundaries may be seen in a very positive light, as is often explicit in German nurses’ diaries published after 1930. While the “hardening” demanded of a nurse by the dreadful experiences she necessarily undergoes does not “correspond to contemporary visions of womanhood”, it is presented as part of womanly care for the nation and thus transmuted into a virtue (Vollhardt, 2014: 601–2). Here the blurring of gender roles is arguably not transgressive, since the nurse is the representative of the homeland in her figuration as carer. The nurse memoirs are a form of autobiography.11 Specifically, memoirs are a sub-set of autobiography in that they are not concerned with a whole 11  The status of autobiography has been substantially debated in recent decades (e.g. Saunders, 2010). In particular, the “truthfulness” of autobiography is always subject to caution, since unconditional truthfulness depends upon the transparency of subjectivity. However, in practice, it is subject to the vagaries of memory, of retrospective evaluations of

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life, since they commonly show the author/narrator in a limited number of settings. This is especially true of the texts analysed here, as they all deal with only one set of the author’s experiences: war. To this extent, these nurse memoirs share something fundamental with soldiers’ memoirs. Not only do they substantially reduce the chronological span of the narrative in relation to life span, but they are also as much the history of this set of external events as they are a narrative of a life: while the nurse memoirs usually say little about the conduct of the war, they frequently say more about the soldier patients than they do about the nurses themselves (Acton & Potter, 2015: 34). In this respect, two nurse memoirs stand out from the corpus: Vera Brittain (1933) and Maria Pöll-Naepflin (1934). They stand out because their scope extends beyond an account of wartime experience alone; indeed, in both cases, this is the explicit intention. Vera Brittain starts her text with the assertion that she wants to “show what the whole War and post-war period … has meant to the men and women of my generation” (1933: xxv). Maria Pöll-Naepflin says that she only wrote about the war because it was unavoidable in writing an account of her life—although she insists that it is also a memorial to her fellow nurses, for whom no memorial nor honour book existed (1934: 3–4). The war memoirs fall largely into two fundamentally different categories: those written by military and political leaders, and those written by “ordinary” men and women such as junior officers, other ranks and nurses—in other words, memoirs written “from above” and “from below”. As I have shown elsewhere, these two types of texts display a range of features that make them entirely distinct from each other (Palmer, 2018: 1–2, 31–6). The memoirs written from above give accounts of the large-­ scale events which constitute the conduct of the war; they are largely objective in their approach, not in the sense of being dispassionate historical accounts, but in the sense of explaining the relationship between individual decision-making and the processes of which the decisions were part. The memoirs written from below, to the contrary, are universally characterised by their overwhelming focus on the experiences of the individual:

experience that overlay memory, and of the uncertainties of self-awareness—let alone the infinite possibilities of omission and distortion studied by psycho-analysts under the heading of repression.

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their prime characteristic is their authenticity, which serves as the basis of their authority.12 The nurses’ memoirs deliberately foreground their lived, personal dimension (see Chap. 6); in this respect they are similar to the soldiers’ memoirs: in both cases, the decision to speak only from lived experience is an authorial strategy which uses the fact of witness as a guarantee of authenticity, while satisfying the public’s desire to know “what it was really like over there”. While very few challenged the nurses’ right to speak from experience, the fact that it was indeed a significant and potentially contentious authorial decision is made visible in the debates about the soldiers’ memoirs. On the one hand, personal witness was widely accepted as a guarantee of truth. Reviewing one of the first of the soldiers’ memoirs, Patrick MacGill’s The Great Push (1916), the Times Literary Supplement says that we cannot “dismiss his narrative as overcharged”, and the reason is that we know that he saw these horrible things (29.6.16). In other words, first sight suggested to the reader in 1916 that MacGill was exaggerating, but the fact of witness annulled that response; that the balance swung in this direction was due to the accumulation of authentic detail. This judgement was absolutely commonplace in the response to soldiers’ memoirs at the time (Palmer, 2018: 98–9, 116–7, 163–4, 249–51). On the other hand, the Country Life review of MacGill argues that the focus upon personal experience leads him to ignore the aims of the war, which “would have lent dignity and purpose to a realism that becomes almost sordid without such a reinforcement” (1.7.16).13 This emphasis on the purpose of the war, counterposing it to personal experience, is another commonplace of contemporary arguments about the war memoirs. The primacy of personal experience was always potentially contentious because placing it in the foreground risked relegating the purpose of the war to the background; if the presentation of the war omits its purpose, then— according to this argument—soldiers’ experiences risk becoming close to incomprehensible and the focus on the purely personal becomes a lie about the war. In 1930 Douglas Jerrold condemned the negative books about the war on precisely this ground. The technique of the lie consisted 12  Leed (1979) made this case clearly. In my 2018 I added the proviso that the definition of what constituted authenticity was subject to substantial ideological variation, more so in France and Germany than in Great Britain (303–12). 13  Those with an acute memory for dates will note—and note the irony—that this comment was published on the first day of the battle of the Somme, the day on which the British army lost more men than on any other day in its history.

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of the simple device of “writing of the war always and continuously from the standpoint of the individual”. The lie is to use this device to divorce the experience of the individual from the purposes of the war: By the simple device of omitting from the book the relationship of the part to the whole, the writers of these books make every incident seem futile, purposeless and insignificant. This is the ultimate, dastardly lie. (Jerrold, 1930: 23)

This debate about the value of personal experience was widespread. It has a fundamental implication: that the focus on personal experience is not simply an authorial strategy, at least not where involvement in war is concerned; to the contrary, it is a choice that is loaded with ideology. If the contention it raises is sufficiently widespread, it becomes a directly political issue, as it did in France during the war and Germany in the Weimar years (Palmer, 2018: 161–9, 205–13, 304–5). That is to say: if it is a banality that autobiography is a textual strategy, the context of the nurses’ and soldiers’ memoirs gives the assertion a specific local value. Here, to insist upon the personal is to insist upon foregrounding one dimension of the war, it is therefore in and of itself an interpretation of the war. The extent to which this was contentious was a product of local political circumstances. In the case of the nurse’s memoirs, contention was largely absent, which in its turn constitutes a significant silence.14 The primary sources that are used in this analysis are the published writings of the nurses themselves, in the three languages. I have not tried to include the numerous American nurses who wrote about their experiences, as my analysis of the memoirs is heavily dependent upon the national contexts in question; including the United States would have excessively broadened the scope of the book. I have however used the memoirs of three American nurses—one Canadian and two from the United States— who worked throughout the war with French forces.15 Nurses moved extensively across national boundaries during the war. There were many American and Empire nurses with the British and French armies, also British nurses with the Belgian and Serbian armies; a few British nurses were with the Russian army; German and German-speaking Swiss nurses  The rare but significant exceptions are discussed in Chaps. 7 and 8.  Ellen LaMotte and Agnes Warner. Mary Borden was American by birth but married to a Briton. 14 15

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worked with the Austro-Hungarian army. The selection of texts is based on language, not on nationality; in particular, nurses’ mobility within the German-speaking services has led me to treat Germany and Austro-­ Hungary as if they were a monolithic block. Most of the texts in question were intended for publication, even if many originally took the form of diaries and correspondence; however, there were several German compilations which included substantial extracts from nurses’ correspondence— mainly with the headquarters of their organisations—where it is unclear whether the authors intended them for publication. In several French cases, the status of the authors as nurses is questionable; where contemporaries accepted them as factual accounts I have not queried their status and the analysis makes no distinction between texts on these grounds.16 The analysis consists of identifying recurrent themes in the memoirs and in public responses to them, primarily in the form of book reviews. The choice of material is dictated by the main purpose of the analysis: to see how nurses’ accounts of the war fitted into public opinion about their involvement in it—taking into account the multiple contexts surrounding their involvement and publication—and more broadly into public opinion about the war in general. Although this could not be predicted in advance, the recurrence in fact largely cuts across national boundaries, despite significant differences in the military health organisations and in the circumstances responsible for the nurses’ experiences. In particular, the analysis is directed at significant silences in the texts, in other words things that circumstances suggest could have been said but were not, or only rarely. The interpretation of both the recurrent themes and the silences depends directly upon an analysis of the circumstances in question. For this reason, the analysis includes extensive material about women’s involvement in the war in general, as well as about the history of nursing and its place in the medical profession during the period preceding and following the war. Central to the analysis of the background circumstances is an assessment of public opinion about the nurses, and more widely about women’s involvement in the war. Here the evidence will be what was publicly said, mostly in the form of reporting in news media. There is no attempt at an original interpretation of these background matters, although it is possible that the elements of international comparison may add 16  One of the striking features of Great War literature is the extent to which contemporaries ignored the distinction between fact and fiction in personalised accounts, often explicitly rejecting its relevance; see my 2018: 12, 98–9, 154–7, 199.

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something to existing knowledge of them. The background material is of central importance to the analysis of the texts because it alerts us to the range of issues that were considered of public importance in and around the war in relation to women’s involvement in the war itself. There is a small group of memoirs written by Great War nurses that is fundamentally different from the others and will only figure at the margins of the analysis that follows. They are the ones published after the end of the war by nurses who went to European Russia and Siberia to organise relief and inspect conditions in prisoner of war (PoW) camps. The women were German, Austrian, and Swedish. These memoirs are exceptional for two reasons. Firstly, these nurses did little actual nursing, in the sense of tending the sick and wounded, as their duties were overwhelmingly administrative: inspection of facilities, arranging the delivery of relief supplies from the homelands, collecting names and messages for transmission to homeland authorities and relatives. The Swedish nurse Elsa Brändström did perform nursing duties during some of the time she was in Russia but said little about it in her memoir. Secondly, these women saw soldiers under very different circumstances to the other nurses: the conditions under which the soldiers lived were controlled by the enemy. In particular, any denunciation of inadequate medical treatment would not be directed at their own military health service. What these women saw was known to contemporaries: their visits gave rise to press reporting about German and Austrian PoWs during the war, and two of their memoirs received publicity after 1918, in particular Elsa Brändström’s; she became a folk hero in Germany and Austria, reported widely in German-language media. The differences between their and other nurses’ relationships to soldiers makes most thematic comparison fruitless, at least in respect of the elements of the nurse writings which are central to this analysis, since their subject matter makes them predominantly part of public opinion about the enemy, not about the conduct of the war by the home nation or women’s part in it.17 These texts are analysed in Appendix A, and the implications of the analysis are spelt out in Chap. 8. All translations are mine unless otherwise stated in the bibliography. Where I have modified quotations in the interests of brevity the inserted words appear in square brackets. Works to which only passing reference is made have been omitted from the bibliography. 17  However, Vollhardt (2014) draws parallels between one Siberian memoir and other German nurse writings.

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Bibliography (1) Nurse Memoirs Anon. (1915) [Kate Luard]. Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front. Macmillan. Borden, M. (1929). Forbidden Zone. Heinemann. Brändström, E. (1922/1929). Among Prisoners of War in Russia and Siberia. Hutchinson, 1929 (original Swedish edition 1921, German translation 1922). Brittain, V. (1933). Testament of Youth. Gollancz; quoted in the Virago edition, 2014. Clemenceau-Jacquemaire, M. (1919). Les Hommes de Bonne Volonté. Calmann-Lévy. Clemenceau-Jacquemaire, M. (1931). Les Hommes de Mauvaise Volonté. Editions des Portiques. Crémieux, J. (1918). Souvenirs d’une Infirmière. Rauff. Crémieux, J. (1934). Croquis d’Heures Vécues. Imp. Bachy. La Boulaye, Mme de (1919). Croix et Cocarde. Plon-Nourrit. Luard, K. (1930). Unknown Warriors. Chatto and Windus. Cited in the History Press edition, 2014. Pöll-Naepflin, M. (1934). Fortgerungen-Durchgedrungen. Private edition (2nd impression) published under the name “Schwester Maria”. Cited in an undated edition with no publisher given, probably Meiringen: Loepthien. (1934 is the date of the earliest edition available in German libraries; however, according to the second volume of her autobiography (1948) she was selling her first book in Germany, acting as her own salesman, in 1933). Riemann, H. (1930). Schwester der Vierten Armee. Karl Vögels Verlag. Salmond, M. (1935). Bright Armour. Faber and Faber. von Babo, E. (1918). Aus dem Kriegstagebuch einer badischen Schwester. Braun.

(2) Other Contemporary Literature Bochkareva, M. (1919). Yaschka. My Year as Peasant, Officer and Exile. Constable. Jerrold, D. (1930). The Lie About the War. Faber and Faber. Renn, L. (1928). Krieg. Frankfurter Societäts Druckerei. Sandes, F. (1927). The Autobiography of a Woman Soldier. Witherby. Senftleben, E., Foerster, W., & Liesner, G. (1934). Unter dem Roten Kreuz im Weltkriege. Berlin: Vaterländischer Verlag C. A. Weller.

(3) Secondary Literature Acton, C., & Potter, J. (2015). Working in a World of Hurt: Trauma and Resilience in the Narratives of Medical Personnel in Warzones. Manchester University Press. Carden-Coyne, A. (2014). The Politics of Wounds. Oxford University Press.

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Darrow, M. (1996). French Volunteer Nursing in the First World War. American Historical Review, 101, 80–106. Fell, A. (2011). Myth, Countermyth and the Politics of Memory: Vera Brittain and Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire’s Interwar Nurse Memoirs. Synergies Royaume-Uni et Irlande, 4, 11–22. Hallett, C. (2013). Emotional Nursing. In A. Fell & C. Hallett (Eds.), First World War Nursing. New Perspectives (pp. 87–101). Routledge. Hallett, C. (2016). Nurse Writers of the Great War. Manchester University Press. Hämmerle, C. (2014). Mentally Broken, Physically a Wreck. Violence in War: Accounts of Nurses in Austro-Hungarian Service. In C. Hämmerle et al. (Eds.), Gender and the First World War (pp. 89–107). Palgrave Macmillan. Higonnet, M. (1994). Borderwork. Feminist Engagements with Comparative Literature. Cornell University Press. Higonnet, M. (1999). Lines of Fire. Penguin Plume Books. Layton, L. (1987). Vera Brittain’s Testament(s). In M.  Higonnet et  al. (Eds.), Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars (pp.  70–83). Yale University Press. Leed, E. (1979). No Man’s Land: Combat and Identity in World War 1. Cambridge University Press. Palmer, J. (2018). Memories from the Frontline. Memoirs and Meanings of the Great War from Britain, France and Germany. Palgrave Macmillan. Panke-Kochinke, B. (2004). Unterwegs und doch Daheim. Mabuse-Verlag. Reuss, T. (2012). Fighting for Fame. Women: A Cultural Review, 23(3), 302–322. Saunders, M. (2010). Self Impressions. Oxford University Press. van Bergen, L. (2009). Before My Helpless Sight. Suffering, Dying and Military Medicine on the Western Front 1914–18. Ashgate Press. (quoted in the 2016 edition, London: Routledge). Vollhardt, M. (2014). Es ist ein anständiger Beruf, Schwester zu sein. Zur Figuration der Krankenschwester in der Erinnerungsliteratur des Ersten Weltkrieges. Zeitschrift für Germanistik, 24(3), 597–608.

CHAPTER 2

Hospitals and Nursing Before the Great War

In the early nineteenth century, nurses had a bad reputation, summarised by the famous grotesque caricature in Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–4): Sairey Gamp, the lazy, drunken, cruel hypocrite happy to have benefited from murder. Victorian readers would have recognised her as the incarnation of all the worst rumours surrounding nurses at the time: “let us banish the Mrs Gamps … and substitute clean, intelligent, well-­ spoken Christian attendants”, wrote the reformer Edward Sieveking in 1852 (quoted Summers, 1989: 365); such was her fame—or infamy—that umbrellas became known as “gamps”, thanks to their association with her in the novel. Victorian reformers’ literature is replete with similar accusations; Florence Nightingale, for example, wrote that nursing had previously been done by those “who were too old, too weak, too drunken, too dirty, too stolid or too bad to do anything else” (quoted Abel-Smith, 1960: 5). Indeed, hospital archives from the early part of the century record many examples of drunken disorder and petty theft (Helmstadter & Godden, 2011: n.p.). The nurse’s reputation was no different in France and Germany. The author of an early textbook of nurse training, a doctor at the Charité hospital in Berlin, wrote in 1831: “People think that any old, boozy, bleary-­ eyed, blind, deaf, lame, bent, decrepit, no-good-for-anything will do as an attendant for the sick” (quoted Schweikardt, 2008: 44; see also Riesenberger, 2003: 23). This is not to say that the reputation was © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Palmer, Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany, Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82875-2_2

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deserved. In the words of a French historian talking about the relatively poorly trained men and women who worked in Parisian public hospitals in the late nineteenth century, “the absence of a recognised qualification doesn’t mean an absence of competence” (Chevandier, 2011: 69). Many untrained nurses were “clever and dutiful”, even though rates of pay were too low to attract educated women (Abel-Smith, 1960: 7). The case of Elizabeth Davis is exemplary: a former servant who then worked as a domiciliary nurse, and went to the Scutari Hospital with Florence Nightingale, who found her perfectly satisfactory. Indeed, the blanket condemnations of pre-reform nursing were suspiciously useful in the process of demanding change (Summers, 1989: 370, 382–3). An analysis of war memoirs is no place for a history of medicine. However, the context in which nurses published their accounts contains significant elements which derive from changes in the organisation of nursing. As is well known, the overall trajectory of these changes is from nursing in the form of domestic service or charity to its integration into the medical profession; this trajectory covers a period that runs from the early nineteenth century until well after 1918. We shall see that the majority of nurse memoirs are characterised by a limited thematic repertoire and our analysis will explore the possibility that this feature of the texts is related to the history of nursing in the preceding decades. If nurses had a bad reputation, so too did hospitals. Historically, hospitals evolved from charitable institutions for the shelter or isolation of the indigent sick to become institutions for the treatment of wounds and illness. It was this origin that lay behind their bad reputation: rather than the location of treatment and cure, they were places where people went to die. In France, in the mid-nineteenth century, the hospital was still marked by these mediaeval origins, “a place of asylum or a hospice, often founded by a religious congregation, whose management would fall more and more on the municipal authorities”, following the law of 1796; “this status only disappeared with the consolidation of its healthcare function during the nineteenth century” (Chauveau, 2011: 82). This purpose was incorporated in the public assistance law of 1851, which also distinguished between hospitals and hospices, the latter designated as shelters for the aged and the incurable (Chevandier, 2009: 37). In Germany, hospitals in the first half of the nineteenth century were “socially stigmatised care institutions for the lower classes, to whose care you only entrusted yourself in the absence of other alternatives. Well-to-do patients avoided the hospital like the plague” (quoted Schweikardt, 2008: 45). In England, both the

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“voluntary” hospitals and the infirmaries for the indigent sick in the workhouses suffered from the same poor reputation, and families who could afford it preferred domiciliary care (Abel-Smith, 1960: 2–3, 9–10). Although many nurses in the nineteenth century were male, care of the sick was thought to be “naturally” feminine.1 Florence Nightingale, although insistent on the need for nurse training, was also certain that only women would benefit from it, as it “could only be satisfactorily be done by a woman”, a position which she saw no need to defend as it was self-evident (Holton, 1984: 63). A German encyclopaedist, writing in 1789, had already argued for a natural affinity between women and nursing, a view which dominated thinking about recruitment throughout the nineteenth century. By the outbreak of the Great War, German nursing was virtually entirely a female employment, with the exception of psychiatric care and military nursing, which remained predominantly male (Bischoff, 1984: 66–134; Hähner-Rombach, 2012: 138–9); arguably, German male doctors’ insistence in the late nineteenth century on the femininity of nursing was also caused by fear of competition from women doctors (Schweikardt, 2008: 182). In France, hospital care had been evenly divided between men and women at the time of the Revolution; in the mid-nineteenth century, despite the continuing role of the female religious orders, still only a small majority of the personnel was feminine; but by the twentieth, female domination was clear (Chevandier, 2011: 138–42). Histories of nursing reform tend to focus on changes in hospital organisation and practice, which included changes in the recruitment and training of nurses; however, many other features of the organisation of the care of the sick also played a role: the registration of doctors, which restricted the practice to those who fulfilled the training regulations; public health legislation and insurance; the reorganisation of provision for the poor; scientific discoveries which affected medicine; and on the continent, the role of the churches continued to be a significant factor in the organisation of health care until 1914.

1  Using the word “nurse” (or its usual equivalents in other languages) in the context of mid-nineteenth-century medicine is rather anachronistic, as it was only one word among many used to designate various activities in the care of the sick; it only came to acquire its clear modern definition as a result of the reforms discussed here. I only distinguish between the historical variants where necessary to understand the process of reform.

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The history of nursing in the period before 1914 is the history of multiple moves to introduce elements of training and organisation into what had previously been a service supplied by an unregulated labour market, alongside religious orders which included care for the sick in their self-­ appointed tasks and which followed their own norms of practice.2 In Great Britain, this form of care was marginal, thanks to the marginalisation of the religious orders in public life from the Tudor period onwards, but in France and Germany the congregations continued to play a substantial, even dominant role until well into the twentieth century.3 Internationally, the moves for reform came from a number of individuals and organisations, in the context of very varied circumstances. Insofar as there was an overarching trajectory shared across national boundaries it was based on the establishment of training programmes largely but not exclusively dictated by the recognition of the public utility of scientific medicine; this could only be achieved by substantial reforms involving public bodies and ultimately the state. As a result, the national histories are substantially different in the period before 1914, and far from homogeneous after 1918.

Great Britain For reasons that will become apparent, the British history played a substantial international role. Although it was not a template, an outline of its main features can serve as a starting point. As is well known, Florence Nightingale took nurses to care for the wounded in the Crimean War (1853–6), where their attentions had a substantial impact on care. Their success and the publicity it attracted established her as a public figure: “an upper-class woman had saved the British Army. This was the first step towards making nursing respectable” (Abel-­ Smith, 1960: 20). She was not the only innovator in nursing in the mid-­ century and her initiatives in the Crimean War were not the starting point of nurse training: for example, Elizabeth Fry had already started a training 2  My analysis is anything but original; it is a summary of a number of works, primarily Schweikardt (2008), Schultheiss (2001), Knibiehler (1984), Abel-Smith (1960), and Rafferty (1996). It also marginalises the important relationship between public health reform in general and the development of nursing. My focus is on the question of nurse training, as it is this element that is relevant for an understanding of the nurse memoirs of the Great War. In the interests of sanity, I have reduced the references to a minimum. 3  To speak of “Germany” before unification (1871) is a misnomer, but the focus here is on the following period.

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school in 1840, and Florence Nightingale herself had spent some months in 1851 at Kaiserswerth—an early German nurse training initiative (see below). However, it was the success of the Crimean War nurses in reducing the mortality rate among wounded soldiers which gave her the authority to instigate reforms, notably the foundation of a school of nursing at Saint Thomas’ Hospital in London in 1860.4 In so doing, she also publicly established both the desirability of training and the skills that the trained nurse should have. The Nightingale programme placed a low level of importance on medical knowledge in nursing: hygiene—both personal and in the hospital in general, obedience to the doctor, discipline, and dedication to service were the main elements5; however, the nurse was also to be a skilled assistant who would constantly attend the patient and would “handle, supervise and treat each patient” as the doctor directed (Abel-Smith, 1960: 20). Nursing textbooks from the second half of the century continue to list these elements of her programme (Rafferty, 1996: 29–32), and her model was much cited in France and Germany. She also saw that morality and willingness to learn were more important than social status in recruitment. This was significant, because although charity was eminently respectable in Victorian Britain, in the mid-century nursing was still tainted with the aura of unrespectability, and recruiting educated women was difficult. On the other hand, she encouraged “lady nurses” to train for supervisory roles in hospital nursing, and her ex-students moved into hospitals elsewhere and became missionaries for the Nightingale programme; this led to a rapid expansion in the number of trained nurses. This complemented her insight that the administration of the hospital was central to medical success; the nurse “leaders” would become matrons and sisters, who would act as intermediaries between doctors and less trained nurses, and take on tasks previously done by doctors and lay hospital administrators (Abel-­ Smith, 1960: 23–8). The drivers of nursing reform at this time came largely from hospitals, especially the large urban ones and the teaching hospitals, even though the bulk of nursing was done elsewhere, in the home and in the workhouse 4  For the details of the public recognition of her efforts—the “Nightingale mania of 1855–6”—see Crawford et al., 2020: 87-95, 133. 5  Her reform efforts were by no means chiefly directed towards professional, hospital nursing, she was at least equally focussed on public health and health education for the home; indeed, her influential Notes on Nursing (1860) were not originally targeted at nurse training but at women at home (Crawford et al., 2020: 54–60).

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infirmaries. These forms of nursing stayed unreformed, uncontrolled, and indeed largely ignored until late in the century (Bullough and Bullough, 1979: 83; Abel-Smith, 1960: 12–16). Such reforms as there were of workhouse nursing came late in the cycle of reform and derived from changes in care for the poor rather than in care for the sick. Anne-Marie Rafferty lists the drivers of nursing reform in hospitals. Firstly, the need for competent surveillance of patients in the absence of the doctor in hospitals, where they were often only intermittently present; doctors needed assistants upon whose reports they could rely; this was also true of domiciliary care, for the same reason, as at this time most hospital doctors also had private practices involving care in the home. Secondly, the economics of health care: nurses were cheaper than doctors. Thirdly, hospitals still had a bad reputation as foyers of infection, and the presence of trained nurses helped to rehabilitate their reputation. Fourthly, training was integral to the smooth organisation of the hospital (1996: 24–5). In addition, another feature of Florence Nightingale’s reforms should be noted, as it is especially relevant in any international comparison: although she was personally pious, she rejected the involvement of religious organisations in nursing. She made a rigorous distinction between the care of the body and the care of the soul, a distinction which the religious congregations, especially Catholic ones, absolutely rejected; she considered that their involvement led to sectarian rivalries; and nuns tended to be prudish, which was counter-productive (Rafferty, 1996: 36–7; Abel-Smith, 1960: 19). The reforms instituted by Nightingale and others were successful in several respects. Firstly, by the 1870s, nursing came to be recommended as an occupation for respectable women; secondly, as a result, there were large numbers of recruits—although the drop-out rate during training was substantial, due to a frequent mismatch between motive and reality. By the end of the century, the training period had been extended to three years and even in the workhouses some care of the sick was being done by paid and trained nurses, even if in many cases it was still the pauper nurses who did it.6 In 1901, across all fields of nursing in England and Wales, there were 63,500 women and 57,000 men; of the women, perhaps half were actually trained and over half worked in domiciliary care. Moreover, because private domiciliary care was better paid and easier than hospital nursing, recruitment into hospitals was difficult, especially since they still  “Pauper nurses” were workhouse inmates who performed these duties.

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had the reputation of being primarily for the poor (Abel-Smith, 1960: 50–60). During the late century, hospitals throughout Europe had evolved under the impulse of scientific discovery. Medical histories usually cite a small number of principal discoveries of the mid-century that played a determining role in the creation of the modern hospital: Semmelweiss’ discovery of the role of contamination in spreading infection, Snow’s realisation that infection was transmitted by some organic agent, Lister’s introduction of anti-septic methods in surgery, Pasteur’s identification of bacteria as agents and Koch’s demonstration of a direct causal connection between the presence of bacteria and disease. In each of these cases, scientific analysis led to changes in practice as doctors became convinced of the soundness of the analysis. Semmelweiss is particularly instructive in this respect, as his success was very limited. He showed, convincingly, that post-birth fever among women in the maternity ward was far more prevalent among women attended by doctors than among those attended by midwives, and hypothesised that the difference was due to doctors carrying something from outside the maternity ward, in particular from autopsies. He insisted that they should wash their hands in an antiseptic solution before entering the ward, and the infection rates dropped. However, by coincidence, the hospital had recently adopted ventilation of wards as standard practice, and the hospital authorities preferred to believe that it was this that had caused the change, because it fitted the then-prevalent theory that diseases were carried by foul air. As Semmelweiss could not explain what happened because of hand-washing, due to lack of knowledge of germs, he was unable to prove his point. Snow, on the other hand, although also hampered by a lack of knowledge of germs, persuaded the authorities that his analysis of the spatial distribution of cholera infection showed there must be a common object involved. He suggested it was a public pump, and when the pump was disabled, the infections dropped—it later emerged that the water was contaminated by faeces. What Pasteur and Koch showed was that the agent could be seen and identified in the causal chain. In these two instances, laboratory experiments demonstrated the validity of the analysis. It was the elements of scientific method in the explanations that provided their persuasive power.7 7  In France and Germany, the success of infection control, driven by science, was decisive in establishing doctors’ authority within hospitals in the late century (Knibiehler, 1984: 44; Schweikardt, 2008: 183).

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In addition, the new emphasis on hygiene in hospitals could avoid both post-operative infection and cross-infection between patients and staff. In combination, these discoveries allowed practitioners to turn hospitals into centres of cure rather than the ante-chambers of death that they had been: epidemics could be controlled, or at least mitigated, and post-operative infection could be avoided. Crucially, these changes demanded trained staff: people who understood hygiene, who could reliably keep an eye on patients’ progress, who could be trusted to carry out doctors’ instructions and to administer medicine and other treatments correctly. At the very least, they had to be literate, which was far from assured in the nineteenth century. The Medical Act of 1858 had obliged doctors to demonstrate their competence and to register in order to be allowed to practise medicine.8 In the late century, nurses started to demand a similar basis for their profession. The process was politically fraught and slow: the Act establishing nurse registration only came in 1919. While the more intricate political details are not relevant for our purposes, that the process was so politicised derived in large measure from the fact that “nursing” was a far from unified occupation. By the late century, it was very divided by levels of training, from the highly trained nurses in the big metropolitan teaching hospitals to virtually untrained domiciliary nurses; in addition, training was uneven between institutions. Demands for registration came from qualified nurses, whose demands included forms of inspection which would certify correct training programmes; different groups of nurses had different interests and therefore interpreted the situation differently. Skilled nurses, and especially the “lady-nurses” who had been trained to be matrons and sisters, saw advantages in a regulatory framework that would certify their excellence; in that way, nursing could become a respectable, middle-class profession. Not all agreed, even among those with that background: some matrons opposed it on the grounds that it would reduce their authority; some doctors opposed registration, on the grounds that it would reduce recruitment without bringing any advantage in skill levels. Consultants were largely in favour, as they were dependent upon nursing assistance; general practitioners, on the other hand, were more 8  For a discussion of the ambiguities involved in the act, see Roberts, 2009. There were similar acts in France and Germany—see below. These laws, along with other public health legislation, mark the beginning of the recognition that the state has responsibility for the health of its citizens. See, for example, Crawford et al., 2020, n.p.

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likely to see qualified, registered nurses as a competitive threat. In 1887 two associations were formed to promote regulation and registration: the British Nurses’ Association (later the Royal British Nurses’ Association), whose most public figure was Mrs Bedford Fenwick, an ex-matron; and the Hospitals Association, which set up its own register of trained nurses— few of whom bothered to enter it. That the registers did not succeed in attracting large numbers of nurses suggests that the urgency of registration was a minority opinion at the time. These organisations, despite internecine rivalries and splits—some of them highly personalised—developed public pressure for registration and for standardisation of training programmes, with a three-year minimum, enshrined in law. The attempts at legislation failed, but the three-year minimum training period became policy by the end of the century. Subsequently, these organisations developed enough public pressure for the creation of a Select Committee to debate the issue of registration, and in 1904 it decided in favour. Of course, the Select Committee decision did not give force of law to registration; in the pre-war years there were repeated attempts to introduce this legislation, none of which succeeded in reaching the statute book; moreover, registration as envisaged by the Select Committee was not to lead to the exclusion of unlicensed practitioners, only to preventing them claiming to be qualified (Abel-Smith, 1960: 61–80).

France In France, the association of the hospital with religious orders was close to continuous from the middle ages until the late nineteenth century; this association also linked care for the sick with charity, rather than any form of payment or state action (Dufoy Fresney & Perrin, 1996: n.p.). Although the Revolution abolished religious orders and the sisters became paid public servants staffing hospitals, the orders were re-established in 1801. It was also Revolutionary legislation that established in law the obligation to demonstrate competence in order to practise medicine, in 1803—albeit with exemptions that lasted for nearly 100 years. The public assistance law of 1851 established hospitals as legal entities, thus reducing their dependence upon municipal authorities and religious orders. However, they still remained primarily places for the care of the indigent sick, and were still largely staffed by nuns supervising unskilled assistants recruited from among the poorest and least educated people in France; the pay was even lower than the pocket money received by the nuns. Supervision of nuns

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was dominated by their religious superiors. In 1878 there were still some 20,000 nuns in 225 religious orders engaged in nursing, and the move in the Third Republic to laicise the nursing corps only had a marginal impact upon the centrality of the religious orders, and then only in the major cities (Knibiehler, 1984: 9, 41–2). It was only with the legal separation of Church and state (1905) that hospitals started to recruit nurses primarily from among the lay population. The evolution of nursing and hospitals in late nineteenth-century France is inseparable from the final establishment of the Republic as the form of the French state, following the collapse of the Second Empire in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. Two particular political trends are important in this context: the move to make the state responsible for many elements of the welfare of the population, as the incarnation of social solidarity; and the secularisation of activities previously dominated by the Church. The welfare element was incorporated in the introduction of universal primary education (1882) and in various social insurance and health care acts of parliament, in particular the law on the national administration of public health (1886) and on “public assistance” (1888), which defined the responsibilities of the state towards things that had previously been the object of charity. The secularisation element was especially pronounced in education, where the law of 1882 effectively removed the churches from teaching. It was also central to health reforms, in an attempt to reduce the previous dependence upon the religious orders. Until then, doctors had little part in decision-making about how hospitals were run. This situation continued through the 1870s; in Paris at this time, 472 nuns supervised the work of some 2300 untrained orderlies. At the same time, the medical advances of the mid-century had given the medical profession the confidence to publicly demand the primacy of medical decision-making over the independence of the religious orders (Poisson, 1998: 35–7). The situation changed in 1880, when the Paris city council decided in principle to secularise the hospitals and the clergy lost their place on the oversight councils; the hospitals were actually secularised in 1881 and the new administration moved to replace nuns with a secular workforce, using public money to fund salaried staff and training programmes. The secularisation was largely driven by politics, but the new post-Pasteur medicine played a part. The nuns were seen by modernising doctors as incapable of providing the skilled assistance that the new medicine required: for example, as well as refusing instructions from anybody except their religious superiors, they opposed vaccination, they refused epidemiological

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measures and their dress made a mockery of asepsis (Knibiehler, 1984: 42–5). On the other hand, a section of the medical profession opposed the training of a reformed workforce. Some of these doctors were opposed to the post-Pasteur/Lister conception of antiseptic practice, still believing that festering wounds were proof that the immune system was doing the cure unaided (Poisson, 1998: 42–3), but many were convinced by the new medicine; what they shared was a conviction that the nun’s supervision of untrained assistants was adequate. Some of their argument was dictated by costs—by this time, nuns cost a fraction of the budget needed for nurses— and part was an ideological conviction of the superiority of charity over the “venality” of wages for care: a conservative doctor who was also a member of the French parliament went so far as to say that women working in hospitals were “either nuns or whores” (quoted Knibiehler, 1984: 45). Part of the argument was that the newly trained nurses would never be competent to supervise their juniors, and that nuns would do the job better (Poisson, 1998: 43–53). These arguments continued till the end of the century. In so far as the reforms produced changes in nursing, these were mainly confined to the major cities and in 1914 France was still a predominantly rural nation. In practice, the early attempts to replace the nuns with a skilled lay workforce were relatively unsuccessful, due to the poor educational standards of the section of the population from among whom nurses were recruited, in combination with poor conditions of employment. The attempts to create this new workforce were also driven by two competing models of nurse training, associated with the leading public personalities driving them: Desiré-Magloire Bourneville in Paris and Anna Hamilton in Bordeaux. Bourneville’s municipal training programmes started in Paris in 1878, followed by other cities (Knibiehler, 1984: 47–50; Poisson, 1998: 63–100). They were intended to produce “auxiliary” personnel by remodelling their essentially domestic duties into a programme of hygiene. This training was explicitly aimed at producing a non-congregational workforce whose loyalty would be to medical superiors, not to a religious hierarchy. However, most of his recruits had only a minimum of education, and preliminary programmes—effectively, primary school literacy teaching—were needed before training proper could begin. Critics of the Bourneville programme blamed him for taking on anyone and for awarding diplomas for what was essentially housework, with no element of actual care of patients; many doctors simply ignored Bourneville’s

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constant attempts to improve nurse training (Poisson, 1998: 26; Schultheiss, 2001: 90–1). Despite advances in the general educational level of the French working class in the Third Republic, thanks to universal primary education, these training courses ran largely unchanged until 1914. Anna Hamilton’s training school came later (Diebolt, 2017). She wanted a training programme that was neither congregational nor aggressively secular: one of her criticisms of the Bourneville model was that its anti-clericalism itself created factional disputes (Schultheiss, 2001: 86); her admission policy was independent of religion and based solely on aptitude and commitment. The programme was based on work experience along with medical training given by the doctors or professors of medicine at the hospital. She systematically recruited nursing teachers from Protestant countries which had imitated the Nightingale model. Like Florence Nightingale, she aimed to produce nurses who would be capable of becoming leaders of their profession in other institutions, and her recruitment preferred women with substantially more than primary educational achievement (Diebolt, 2012: 95). Lay visiting nurses were largely unknown in France before the beginning of the twentieth century. Two initiatives drove this innovation: Léonie Chaptal’s foundation of a school for nurses in 1905 in which the training was not tied to hospital work, but domiciliary; and the opening of a series of local “dispensaries” which were in effect centres for (usually male) district nurses to stem the spread of tuberculosis through hygiene education in the home. Indeed, the two initiatives were linked, and Léonie Chaptal set up one of these dispensaries herself (Diebolt, 2012). Until 1916 this network was limited and had a limited impact, but laws passed in 1916 and 1919 imposed the public obligation to set up such centres in all administrative areas of France; at the same time the personnel became largely female (Henry, 2012). In 1907, the International Council of Nurses held its third congress in Paris, attended by pioneers of the nursing reform movement from across Europe, the British diaspora and the United States (Diebolt, 2017: 89–91). All of the French nursing leaders discussed here—Hamilton, Bourneville, Chaptal, as well as leading figures from the French public welfare system—were in attendance, and the French were the first to admit that they had a lot to learn from the Anglo-Saxon models of nurse training and practice. In reality, little changed in France before 1914: the majority of nurses working in French hospitals never attended a professional

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training programme, and far from being organised in a professional association such as the British Royal Nurses’ Association or the other bodies affiliated to the International Council, the bulk of the hospital labour force was organised in a large number of trades unions and friendly societies. Between 1890 and 1914, 20 such trades unions registered with the Ministry of Labour; they acted as unions, not as professional associations and regarded professionalisation as a threat. These organisations tended to be dominated by male members, who were often opposed to domination of nursing by women; Bourneville feared that union militancy would lead employers to prefer nuns to trained nurses (Schultheiss, 2001: 119–25). Noticeably absent from the French history are two features of the British experience: the creation of a minimum training period, with an agreed skill set, which produced a substantial proportion of the nursing corps by 1914, even though it was not mandatory for employment; and the political drive to centralised registration, which would eventually lead to a legal monopoly. While neither of these features of what subsequently became the normal model for nursing in Europe was fully achieved in Britain before 1914, the process was well under way, whereas in France the conditions which would allow it were still in their infancy.

Germany In Germany—or more exactly, what later became Germany—there were moves in the eighteenth century to introduce formal training for nurses (Schweikardt, 2008: 47–50). A school for midwives existed in Mannheim from 1780 and the Berlin Charité Hospital attempted to create a nurse training school in 1800, with eventual success in 1832. The training period was three months, which stayed unchanged until 1904; the small numbers of recruits were of both sexes and the skill set was very limited. They were not trained for even the most rudimentary medical procedures, in order to avoid any possible competition with doctors (Schweikardt, 2008: 53–4). Indeed, when doctors’ monopoly of medical practice was later threatened by a reform in employment law which allowed non-­ doctors to practise some forms of medical care, their response included blocking attempts to extend nurse training (Hähner-Rombach, 2012: 141).9 Various other attempts at creating training centres for nurses 9  The Kurierfreiheit law, 1869–1871, only rescinded in 1939. In Prussia practising as a doctor had been limited by law in 1845 (with precursor laws dating back to the seventeenth

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f­ollowed in the first half of the century, of which the most successful was the Kaiserswerth institute, founded in 1836. It was set up as a Protestant equivalent of the Catholic religious nursing orders, reviving the long-­ disused position of deaconess.10 Florence Nightingale spent some time there before the Crimean War and she praised its culture of dedication to care.11 Inspection reports from the mid-century show how little impact the early attempts at training had had, in the sense that hospitals had only few trained care personnel. Moreover, the training in hospitals was less effective than the informal training done in the confessional nursing orders, there was no obligation to do it in order to find employment and there was no legal enforcement of minimum standards; in 1868, the director of the Charité was still complaining about the incompetence and lack of commitment of the care assistants. Nonetheless, the Charité school had an impact insofar as its training programme continued to be used, adapted for the new medicine after the mid-century (Schweikardt, 2008: 55–60). During the bulk of the nineteenth century little attempt was made by the state to encourage professionalisation of nursing, a situation which continued until the 1880s. In part, this was due to the perceived success of the congregational nursing orders, both Catholic and Protestant, which shared the same system of recruitment, training, and work, based around the convent-like “Mutterhaus” (mother-house); Protestant orders adopted the Charité training programme and Kaiserswerth deaconesses were working in that hospital by the mid-1840s; their training model included instruction by doctors. However, women recruited into the mother-house system were largely trained in the workplace, often by older nurses, lodged and fed and kept in care in old age—a level of security not shared by most elderly women in nineteenth-century Germany. The overwhelming bulk of nurse training was done within the religious congregations until the 1880s. As these organisations were charities, the cost to hospital authorities was low. Discipline in these orders was strict; nurses were entirely at the beck and call of their religious supervisor and worked when and where century) to those who could prove competence. The new law restricted the use of the title “doctor”, but allowed other health care workers to practise; from 1871 it applied to the newly unified nation (Schweikardt, 2008: 173–4). 10  Various other Protestant nursing orders were subsequently founded, some tied to a church, others independent but following the quasi-conventual model adopted at Kaiserswerth, for example, Viktoria Schwesternschaft and Erika Schwestern. 11  Her book on Kaiserswerth is a positive encomium (The Institution of Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, 1851).

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they were sent. Because of the faith-based discipline, the sisters set a standard of commitment to care and personal asceticism which lay organisations found difficult to emulate. The success of the system produced dependence upon the mother-houses among public authorities and acted as a disincentive to both professionalisation and science. Even in 1912 nurse numbers still showed massive domination by the religious orders: 26,000 Catholic nuns, 12,000 deaconesses and 1500 evangelical order sisters against 4500 secular Red Cross nurses and around 3000 independent practising nurses who were members of the new professional nurses’ union.12 In the period before 1914, the independent nurses were less well regarded by the general public than the congregational nurses: they were associated in the public mind with untrained nurses, in part because the term “sister” was not legally regulated and any woman could claim to be one. This association included the old belief that they were drunken slatterns, and those who worked in private homes were often rumoured to be prostitutes (Schmidbaur, 2002: 60–1; Hähner-­ Rombach, 2012: 132). Despite the continued numerical dominance of the congregational orders, there were other initiatives aimed at both secularising and professionalising nursing during the closing decades of the century. The Nightingale model of nursing inspired the anti-clerical reformer Rudolf Virchow, who in 1877 set up a nurse training school in the new Berlin communal hospital at Friedrichshain, with a six-month training programme (Schweikardt, 2008: 76–80). The second half of the century also saw the creation of two other linked institutions (Schweikardt, 2008: 81–9; Riesenberger, 2003): the Red Cross and the patriotic women’s associations, linked through nurse recruitment and training The associations gained great credit during the wars of the 1860s and 70s, and were successful both in giving impetus to the Red Cross and in recruiting upper-class women who were capable of taking supervisory roles in the Red Cross sisterhood “mother-houses”; the success was such that by 1913 there were 48 Red Cross sisterhoods, with 5500 trained nurses. This model of nursing was rigidly hierarchical and focussed more on discipline 12  Figures from Schmidbaur (2002: 65); an alternative set of figures, for 1909 (HähnerRombach, 2012: 136), gives a different proportion based on a different total figure, but still attributes over 50% to the congregations. Schweikardt comments that all pre-1914 statistics for nurses are bedevilled by uncertainties deriving from the ways in which they were collected. In particular, many non-congregational, non-hospital care assistants registered with the police, not with medical or public health authorities (2008: 101–5, 118–22).

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and commitment than on technical training; in addition, it was charitably funded and recruitment and training were very dependent upon the initiatives of local women’s association leaders. The Red Cross formed part of military planning following the military health law of 1878, and its overall direction was overseen by military personnel. The model of nursing created through the Red Cross and the patriotic women’s associations had repercussions on nursing in general. The role of charitable patriotic dedication associated nursing with nationalism; the rigid discipline, based on the convent and the barracks, and the insistence on moral character rather than knowledge, hindered the development of nursing as ordinary employment with associated rights as well as obligations; this influence continued long after the Great War (Grundhewer, 1987: 140; Riesenberger, 2003). The congregational orders fitted well into this model, as they too were based upon the religious duty of charity and upon a disciplined hierarchy. In the decade before 1914, the military health system opposed the introduction of extended training for nurses, preferring to concentrate on what they saw as the primary military needs (Schweikardt, 2008: 243–4). The Prussian state made some attempts at setting up secular nurse training, starting in the 1870s, driven partly by the demands of the wars and partly by cholera epidemics. However, the state was unwilling to shoulder the costs involved, and the training programmes that were introduced—in Dusseldorf and Silesia—attracted low numbers of recruits through the 1880s. From this point on, the presence of the new medicine increased the demand for trained nurses, as the discrepancy between what was needed and the existing levels of training started to become visible. For example, a Catholic doctor writing in the Catholic magazine Charitas in 1899 stressed that in modern medicine, the nun’s habit was not enough—“a mass of knowledge and preparation” was needed (quoted Schweikardt, 2008: 140). Confessional nurses began to take lessons from doctors, not just from older nuns. Doctors wrote new training manuals and from the 1880s these started to lay emphasis on the demands of the new medicine; for example, the Charité textbook of 1874 made little mention of disinfection, but it was a substantial theme in the 1889 edition. Doctors also set up private nurse training programmes, often to create specialised assistants for their own work and from 1902 the Berlin medical association issued its own centralised certificate of nursing competence; by 1914, 17,000 had been issued (Schweikardt, 2008: 131–5). In the 1900s, Catholic doctors

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started to demand that medical decisions in Catholic hospitals should be the province of the doctor, not the religious superior, in other words, demanded a reversal of Church policy. Similar tensions arose inside the Protestant orders, with a new Evangelical order that allowed women to undertake free one-year training as nurses without committing to the rigid discipline of the mother-house model, and paid a wage. Nonetheless, doctors’ authority inside hospitals was not clearly established until the closing years of the century and they continued to face strong opposition from religious institutions until the outbreak of war (Schweikardt, 2008: 144–54, 181–91). Paradoxically, the doctors’ demands for greater authority in hospitals in some respects hindered the development of professional nursing. Despite taking inspiration from Florence Nightingale’s reforms, and professing an interest in “scientific nursing”, they rejected the Anglo-Saxon model: it would lead to excessive responsibility for nurses, intruding upon the doctor’s domain. In general, Schweikardt argues, nursing was still a side-issue for German doctors at the turn of the century, preoccupied as they were with conflicts with unqualified practitioners—following the labour liberalisation law of 1869–1871—and with religious authorities. At the same time, care staff were either poorly organised or weak in numbers: untrained male staff were too easy to replace with confessional nurses; the new professional nurses’ union set up in 1903 was small in number and received little support from either doctors or the authorities (2008: 170, 192–207). From the turn of the century the state intervened, at first in the form of initiatives by individual politicians, subsequently in institutionally based reform proposals. The proposals recommended improved training under state control, leading to examination; a key figure was the official in charge of medical matters in the Ministry of Education and Health, who was himself a doctor; he insisted that doctors were in fact very dependent upon good nursing for their success (Schweikardt, 2008: 215–21). For some years these proposals met with failure, until a Social Democrat member of the Reichstag started making public criticisms of the working conditions in Berlin hospitals; his criticisms were recognised as justified and led to an inquiry, which revealed that the majority of care assistants were untrained, poorly paid and living in inadequate conditions. However, despite marginal improvements, this did not lead to any concerted move for reform as nobody in national government wanted to promote it (Schweikardt, 2008: 235–9). These attempts at reform were not led by nurses themselves but by a mixture of doctors and politicians.

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In 1906 a set of politically driven proposals for reform of nursing— based on plans drawn up earlier by the Prussian Ministry for Health and Education—started its passage through the institutions of both the Prussian and the national Parliaments.13 The plan centred on voluntary training and examination, which would benefit those who succeeded by improving wages and access to employment; the curriculum was relatively heavy on medical knowledge, but aimed deliberately to ensure that the nurse would be exclusively employed as assistant to the doctor. Already practising nurses were to be recognised as qualified. Although the reform was limited in scope by the voluntary element, and by its rejection by some provinces, it succeeded in its primary objective: in 1907 it was adopted in Prussia, the largest province, creating a number of nurses trained to a high level, using existing training provision in state-run hospitals in the big urban centres. A tally in 1909 showed that the majority of both confessional and Red Cross nurses were accepted as recognised, and all the provinces except Baden and Bavaria accepted the proposal. On the other hand, in practice, the one-year training was inadequate for the ambitious curriculum, hospital routines frequently did not allow sufficient time for study and many did not give student nurses the opportunity to acquire practical experience on the wards. Moreover, the new system made no effort to change the situation of the largely male work force of orderlies, and one of the results of the system was to make nursing close to entirely female.

Summary The course of reform was very different in the three nations, despite two clear common features: firstly, the development of nursing was part and parcel of wider public health reform; secondly, policy decisions about nurse training were politically fraught, because they impacted upon other interests. Churches feared secularisation, doctors feared competition, hospital authorities were concerned about costs, care personnel were divided among themselves in their interpretation of both the interests of patients and where their own interests lay. Of the national differences, one is of paramount importance: the role of the churches and the nature of the 13  Germany had, and still has, a more “federal” structure than France and Britain, with a larger measure of autonomy given to regional authorities. I have translated the German “Land” as either “province” or “region”.

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nursing orders they supported. Across the confessional divide, the role is similar where the internal nature of the nursing organisations is concerned, as the role of charity and religious discipline was common. In both France and Germany, the traditional reliance upon the congregational orders impeded professionalisation because the churches saw it as secularisation and therefore, as we have seen, used the state’s reliance upon the nuns’ cheap labour as a weapon in political confrontation. In Great Britain, despite the clear role of piety as a motivation, the marginalisation of congregational and conventual orders avoided this impediment.

Reform and Wartime The process of reform, and the political and social matters that accompanied them are significant for our purposes in so far as they were part of the context in which nurses wrote about their experiences. Of course, the overwhelmingly main element in that context is the fact of the war, with all that it entailed in human suffering and commitment, and it is indeed the war itself that dominates the nurses’ accounts. However, within this overriding set of circumstances, the way in which nursing was organised was a significant element in nurses’ experience; in particular, this turned on the relationship between inexperienced volunteer nurses—who were in a majority in wartime—and experienced nurses, many of whom were professionals. The role of previous experience—or its lack—impacted on the way of living their commitment as nurses. As Christine Hallett points out à propos Great Britain, the context of nurses’ experience in the war included the question of the recognition of professionalism and arguments about registration (2014: ix, 10–29; see also McEwen, 2014: 39); in particular, using untrained nurses alongside trained ones on the wards could be taken to imply that nurse professionalism was not really necessary (Watson, 2002: 493–4).14

14  In all three nations the volunteer nurses belonged to a range of different organisations; the differences in experience that resulted were sometimes significant for the women in question. They are rarely relevant in the context of this analysis, however Eveline Hrouda makes sharp comments on the differences in treatment between Red Cross volunteers and the nurses of the privileged (indeed, largely aristocratic) order that she succeeded in joining in 1915 (1935: 48, 56–8, 85–6). In the British case, many memoirs were written by members of two voluntary groups whose names appear at various points below: the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) and the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY).

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As we have seen, the same arguments about nursing reform had been taking place in France and Germany. However, the movement towards professionalism had brought far less pronounced results in these countries than in Britain, where the corps of trained nurses with a sense of professional identity was more established. While the distinction between professional nurses and charity workers was of relatively recent origin everywhere, its recency and numerical distribution were significantly different between Britain, on the one hand, and France and Germany, on the other. The situation in Britain led to tensions between professional and volunteer nurses, whereas in France and Germany such tensions are far less visible. In Britain, although a bad wartime relationship between trained nurses and volunteers is largely a myth (Hallett, 2014: 23), there is some evidence of strains between them. Kate Finzi comments that VADs were inevitably inefficient, due to lack of training and experience (1916: 51). A VAD nurse wrote to the British Journal of Nursing: “When a VAD enters a hospital she has to fight the antagonism of the trained staff, from the matron downwards, alone.”15 Helen Beale, an early VAD, wrote of a cool reception from trained nurses on arrival at her hospital in France—“we are made to feel rather like pariahs” (quoted Watson, 2002: 486). McEwen cites examples of professional nurses refusing to work with untrained volunteers in the military hospitals in northern France in the first months of the war, and comments: This was the reality of nursing politics. The volunteers, who were willing and available to bring succour, no matter how small, to the sick and wounded were not to be encouraged. Therefore, by not utilising the VADs’ basic skills, many casualties were left waiting, wanting and neglected. (2014: 56–7)

Hallett herself, elsewhere, speaks of VADs being “so often cold-­ shouldered by trained nurses” (2013: 99), and Watson says that professional nurses resented VADs and accepted them only out of necessity (2004: 84–5). There can be little doubt that volunteer nurses were well aware that their relative incompetence was noticeable, and we can expect that this awareness would be visible in memoirs. A lot of the friction between professional nurses and volunteer nurses in the early part of the war may well have derived from the utterly chaotic  v.57, number 1482, 25.8.16: 173.

15

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situation behind the lines in France and Belgium: lack of communication between military authorities and the volunteer organisations led to misallocation of resources on a massive scale and to complaints that well-­ connected society ladies were being given carte blanche to set up incompetently run facilities by using their personal wealth and connections (Hallett, 2014: 34–5; McEwen, 2014: 47–50). It is a frequent topic in the editorial pages of the British Journal of Nursing in 1914, and still reappears as an occasional topic in the later years of the war.16 That this was clearly understood at the time is explicit in an article about VAD work in the Nursing Times: In the early days of the war, when the nursing profession was greatly disturbed, if not embarrassed, by the attentions of untrained workers, there was necessarily some confusion and a tendency to clash, but things have long since righted themselves, and perfect order now prevails. (February 1917: 110)

A particularly egregious example of tension is to be found in the diary of Alice Slythe, a professional nurse, describing the behaviour of a newly arrived VAD nurse: Well, my lady walked into the operating theatre, took a chair, and settled herself down and crossed her feet – !!! The Captain turned and looked at her, anyone might have known what he meant, but she nodded and smiled at him. This was too much. He came across – he always walks very slowly— and said “Sister, please let me put your chair where you will have a better view,” and put it himself, beside the anaesthetist!! Anybody else would have gone out and died, but she said “Thank you so much”, and sat down, and he took off his gloves and scrubbed up again and put on another pair and started, and afterwards he said he had never met such nerve in his existence!!! (For even another surgeon coming to watch would never have dreamt of sitting!)17

Although her VAD’s behaviour may seem an offence against manners rather than against discipline or hygiene, it clearly grated. Christine Hallett suggests that professional nurses were particularly sensitive to details of  For example, v.53: 221–2, 243, 320, 337, 359; v.57: 105, 173, 290, 387.  Quoted Watson, 2002: 504. Other anecdotal examples are in Hallett, 2013: 93-4; Vera Brittain is critical of trained nurses, as is Enid Bagnold—see below. 16 17

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personal decorum at this time because the war years were crucial in the consolidation of nurse professionalisation. Not only was the lack of training a threat to the establishment of standards, but indiscipline was a threat to propriety at exactly the point where young women were engaged in the most intimate tasks involving the male body (2013: 97).18 Pay was also an issue among British nurses. Although volunteer nurses were not paid a wage, they were given allowances for board and lodging, and those serving abroad had other allowances too. Adding together all the allowances, VAD nurses were not paid much less than professional waged nurses, and this caused some resentment, which surfaces in unpublished diaries (but not the published ones).19 The nurses from the continental religious orders came from a background in which training meant something rather different to what it meant in the new secular training schools, as it was still tied to religious discipline as much if not more than to scientific medicine. Treating nursing as essentially charity potentially involved downgrading skill as its essential component. For the churches, the essential feature of the nun’s commitment was not the healing of the patient’s body but the love of God manifested in her devotion to the act of charity; this is the necessary emphasis that derives from charity as defined in theology.20 This principle was explicitly reiterated by the German Bishop’s conference in 1904, in debates about the Church’s response to the proposed nursing reforms that the bishops saw as a threat of secularisation (Schweikardt, 2008: 145). The emphasis deriving from charity was reinforced by the quasi-military discipline which prevailed in the patriotic women’s associations of the German Red Cross. Under these circumstances, tensions between volunteer nurses and the long-term nurses from the Red Cross and confessional orders were less likely to turn on issues of training and skill and more on character, personal behaviour and discipline. In France the separation of Church and state progressively enacted by the Third Republic had effectively settled this question in favour of the secular conception, but Catholic orders were still numerically important. In practice, France had so few professional nurses and was so dependent 18  Similar concerns occasionally surface in German memoirs: Eveline Hrouda twice underlines the importance of an “irreproachable reputation” (1935: 77, 86); see also HörnerHeintze, 1936: 38. 19  Edie Appleton’s diary mentions resentment, as does Dorothea’s War (www.fairestforce. uk/12html) 20  Encyclopaedia Britannica, article “Charity, Christian Concept”.

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upon volunteer nursing—including from overseas—that in wartime professional/volunteer tensions were likely to be less important than tensions deriving from other features of the military health care system. In particular, confusion and inefficiency arose from a dual system of control over nursing (Knibiehler, 1984: 98–103): the charitable organisations continued to control their own facilities, including many hospitals set up with their funds, in parallel with the military health care system.21 Competition, even rivalry, between charitable organisations was far from unknown.22 Indeed, quarrels between secular and religious nursing bodies still occasionally erupted, even in wartime, as in the case of the scandal in a hospital in Nogent-sur-Marne (Chap. 5).23 Into this contradictory situation came the thousands of volunteers, with little to no training. They included women who volunteered in the hope that they would at least get bed and board during the absence of their husbands at the front, although the majority of the volunteers came from more prosperous backgrounds. The military care system, to the contrary, enrolled working-class women, who were paid a wage. However, despite the dependence on volunteers, complaints about the inadequacy of French Red Cross nursing were common in the first part of the war, due to their lack of training combined with a desire to demonstrate their commitment (Schultheiss, 2001: 164). For the German Red Cross, tied as it was to the charitable patriotic women’s associations, nursing was essentially an act of patriotic commitment. Wartime necessity led to a reduction in training, to six months, despite criticisms from both doctors and nurses; criticisms of competence were frequent, and relationships between male medical orderlies and nurses were allegedly often “unedifying” (Schmidbaur, 2002: 99, 106). In a review of Charlotte von Caemmerer’s 1915 analysis of the professionalisation of nursing, the reviewer comments that she is quite right to insist that the social position of the nurse—in other words, recognition as a professional—is decisive for good performance of her task and therefore for public health. This is all the more striking for its place in a comment about failures in wartime nursing due to a reliance on the charity model, due—as we have seen—to the military insistence on it and the links with

21  Moreover, the organisation of the French military health care system was scandalously bad in the first year of the war—see Chap. 3. 22  See, for example, the acid comments in Juliet Martineau’s memoirs (1915: 2–3). 23  Much of Louise Perrin’s memoir (1920) is concerned with such conflicts.

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the Red Cross.24 Despite these criticisms, mentions of tensions are relatively rare in the memoirs. The young volunteer Helene Mierisch records in her diary, with evident happiness, that a senior nurse—presumably a long-term Red Cross nurse—invites her to use the familiar form “du” in conversation, instead of the polite “Sie”, “like the soldiers”, as she has shown herself to be a good “Comrade Sister”. Perhaps we can infer from the obvious significance that Mierisch attaches to the incident that not every senior nurse would be so favourably disposed to young volunteers. She herself—only a few months into service—is very critical of a group of nuns who refuse to start work despite desperate need until everything in this new hospital is correctly set up; one stops attending to a patient when it is time to say her prayers (1934: 41–2, 53). Both Ruth Munck and Eveline Hrouda refer to tensions surrounding volunteer nurses. Welcomed to her hospital with the comment that she is in the wrong place, because it is hard work starting in the early morning, Munck retorts that she is an experienced nurse, not a posh girl who isn’t up the job (1939: 77–8). Hrouda and her friends were criticised by other nurses for being killjoys, who wouldn’t join in the “dominant tone” of relationships between male and female carers or join in their fun; she concludes that her rose-tinted view of war enthusiasm led her to misunderstand others (1935: 18, 41). The nurses formed through the German Red Cross were inculcated with a rigid discipline that derived from both the military and the convent-­ like arrangements of the confessional orders. Some volunteer nurses were hurt and puzzled by this. Suse von Hörner-Heintze narrates incidents which encapsulate this tension. One of the young nurses falls over and makes a mess; the sister is angry with her, whereas the other young nurses just laugh and she herself cannot understand the anger; later she sympathises with one of her colleagues who runs away—in military terms, deserts— because she has been bullied by doctors and sisters. In another incident, a swallow builds a nest in the hospital building and sister orders it destroyed; a young nurse, in protest, smears the room with swallow’s excrement and the author celebrates this act of indiscipline (1936: 22–3, 26, 45–7). However, firstly, these incidents occurred in one hospital, and when she 24  In Deutscher Literaturzeitung der Internationaler Wissenschaft 36: 1811. Charlotte von Caemmerer was a leading member of the new professional nurses’ association, for whom professionalisation was the key issue (Prüfer, 1997). The reviewer points out that an earlier nurse memoirist had already made the same criticisms based on her experience of the nineteenth-century wars. I have been unable to access Caemmerer’s own text.

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and her friends moved to another, such things ceased; secondly, according to Astrid Stölzle’s analysis of nurses’ correspondence and unpublished diaries, bad relationships between nurses, or between nurses and doctors, were not usually related to organisational matters but to clashes of personality and petty jealousies (2012: 208–9, 212–4). In summary, volunteer nurses coming into military medicine in the war certainly created circumstances which could lead to tensions, due to the very different skill levels and attitudes towards nursing the wounded associated with different motivations and previous experience. The extent to which these tensions actually surfaced appears to have been very varied. The extent to which they were recorded is certainly irregular and what can be inferred from this is unclear. However, in the present context, what is important is that external circumstances, deriving from changes to nursing in the pre-war period, in combination with the need for volunteers, certainly created a situation fraught with potential tensions surrounding questions of competence and motivation. We shall see to what extent these issues surface in the memoirs.

Bibliography Crawford, P., Greenwood, A., Bates, R., & Memel, J. (2020). Florence Nightingale at Home. Palgrave Macmillan.

(1) Nurse Memoirs Finzi, K. (1916). Eighteen Months in the War Zone. Cassell. Hrouda, E. (1935). Barmherzigkeit. Als freiwillige Malteserschwester im Weltkrieg. Leykam-Verlag. Martineau, J. (1915). Journal d’une Infirmière. Private edition. Mierisch, H. (1934). Kamerad Schwester. Köhler und Amelang. Munck, R. (1939). Mit den finnischen Jägern an der Deutschen Ostfront, 1916–1918. Schwarzhäupter-Verlag. Original Finnish edition 1934. Perrin, L. (1920). Trois Ans de Guerre à Avallon. Impr. Vulliex.

(2) Other Contemporary Literature von Caemmerer, C. (1915). Berufskampf der Krankenpflegerin in Krieg und Frieden. Dunker und Humblot.

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(3) Secondary Literature Abel-Smith, B. (1960). A History of the Nursing Profession. Heinemann. Bischoff, C. (1984). Frauen in der Krankenpflege. Zur Entwickung von Frauenrolle und Frauenberufstätigkeit im 19 und 20 Jahrhundert. Campus Verlag. Bullough, V., & Bullough, B. (1979). The Care of the Sick. Croom Helm. Chauveau, S. (2011). Quelle histoire de l’hôpital aux xxe et xxie siècles? Presses de Sciences Po/ Les Tribunes de la santé, 81–89. Chevandier, C. (2009). L’Hôpital dans la France du XXème Siècle. Perrin. Chevandier, C. (2011). Infirmières parisiennes. Émergence d’une profession (1900–1950). Publications de la Sorbonne. Diebolt, E. (2012). Léonie Chaptal (1873–1937), architecte de la profession infirmière. Recherche en Soins Infirmiers, 109, 93–107. Diebolt, E. (2017). Anna Hamilton (1864–1935), l’excellence des soins infirmiers. Recherche en soins infirmiers, 131(4), 85–100. Dufoy Fresney, C., & Perrin, G. (1996). Le Métier d’Infirmière en France. Presses Universitaires de France. Cited in the Kindle edition. Grundhewer, H. (1987). Die Kriegskrankenpflege und das Bild der Krankenschwester im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. In J.  Bleker & H.-P. Schmiedebach (Eds.), Medizin und Krieg. Vom Dilemma der Heilberufe 1865 bis 1985 (pp. 136–152). Fischer. Hähner-Rombach, S. (2012). Probleme der Verberuflichung der Krankenpflege im deutschen Reich. Medizinhistorisches Journal, 47(2/3), 129–159. Hallett, C. (2013). Emotional Nursing. In A. Fell & C. Hallett (Eds.), First World War Nursing. New Perspectives (pp. 87–101). Routledge. Hallett, C. (2014). Veiled Warriors. University Press. Helmstadter, C., & Godden, J. (2011). Nursing Before Nightingale, 1815–1899. Routledge. Cited in the e-book edition. Henry, S. (2012). Histoire et témoignages d’infirmières visiteuses (1905–1938). Recherche en soins infirmiers, 109, 37–49. Holton, S. (1984). Feminine Authority and Social Order: Florence Nightingale’s Conception of Nursing and Health Care. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology, 15, 59–72. Knibiehler, Y. (1984). Cornettes et Blouses Blanches. Hachette. McEwen, Y. (2014). In the Company of Nurses. The History of the British Army Nursing Service in the Great War. Edinburgh University Press. Poisson, M. (1998). Origines Républicains d’un Modèle Infirmier 1870–1900. Editions Hospitalières. Prüfer, A. (1997). Vom Liebesdienst zur Profession? Krankenpfege als Weiblicher Beruf 1918–33. Kunz. Rafferty, A. M. (1996). The Politics of Nursing Knowledge. Routledge.

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Riesenberger, D. (2003). Im Dienst des Krieges  – im Dienst des Friedens. In D.  Eckart & C.  Gradmann (Eds.), Die Medizin und der Ersten Weltkrieg (pp. 23–43). Centaurus Verlag. Roberts. (2009). The Politics of Professionalization: MPs, Medical Men, and the 1858 Medical Act. Medical History, 53(1), 37–56. Schmidbaur, M. (2002). Vom Lazaruskreuz zu Pflege Aktuell. Ulrike Helmer Verlag. Schultheiss, K. (2001). Bodies and Souls. Politics and the Professionalisation of Nursing in France 1800–1922. Harvard University Press. Schweikardt, C. (2008). Die Entwicklung der Krankenpflege zur staatlich anerkannten Tätigkeit im 19. und fruhen 20. Jahrhundert. Martin Meidenbauer. Stölzle, A. (2012). Die freiwillige Krankenpflege im Erstern Weltkrieg. Medizinhistorisches Journal, 47(2/3), 176–220. Summers, A. (1989). The Mysterious Demise of Sarah Gamp: The Domiciliary Nurse and Her Detractors, c. 1830–1860. Victorian Studies, 32(3), 365–386. Watson, J. (2002). Wars in the Wards: The Social Construction of Medical Work in First World War Britain. Journal of British Studies, 41(4), 484–510. Watson, J. (2004). Fighting Different Wars. Experience, Memory and the First World War. University Press.

CHAPTER 3

Nurses and the Military Medical Services in the Great War

During the Great War, both volunteer and professional nurses were employed by various bodies, such as the Red Cross, the British Voluntary Aid Detachment, the religious orders and patriotic associations that provided the core of the German military nursing system, or the charitable associations that formed the French Red Cross (Hallett, 2016: 13–15; Schulte, 1998: 99–100; Thébaud, 1986: 84–5); in addition, the British and French military health services employed nurses directly. The command structures were not identical across the nations, and were not always unified within them; nonetheless, the national systems were fundamentally similar, especially in their relationship to the medical systems of the national armies into which the nursing organisations were largely integrated. It is these systems that set the framework for the women’s experiences, and thus provide one element of the context of the memoirs. This is not to say that the context was always the same, far from it. Firstly, the different theatres of conflict produced significantly different circumstances—for example, the incidence of epidemics such as cholera and typhus was more widespread in the East and Southeast than in Flanders and northern France.1 Secondly, working in hospital trains or treatment centres close to the front was fundamentally different to working in base hospitals far in the rear. Thirdly, circumstances and conditions changed as 1

 Harrison (2010) contains extensive discussion of these differences.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Palmer, Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany, Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82875-2_3

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the war changed. Nonetheless, the nurses’ experiences had basic fundamentally similar elements dictated ultimately by the nature of their employment, which was in its turn determined by the military medical services into which they were integrated.2

Medicine and War It has often been said that the Great War was the first industrialised war. The application of science to warfare in the preceding decades produced both increasingly lethal weapons and increasingly good medical care, a combination whose ambivalent potency was recognised at the time (Eckart, 2014: 74). On the one hand, the new rapid-fire rifles, machine guns, and explosive artillery massively multiplied the firepower of armies beyond that previously known: by 1914 “a company of 300 men could deploy firepower equivalent to that of the entire 60,000 strong [British] army” at Waterloo (van Bergen,  2009: 31). This produced casualties in vast, and unforeseen, numbers; in particular, the wounds produced by the new weaponry were far more damaging than anything military doctors had previously seen, as was the later introduction of gas. Moreover, the lethal effects of the new firepower were compounded by a long delay in military commanders’ understanding of its strategic implications. It fundamentally altered the balance of advantage between attack and defence, by making infantry attacks far more vulnerable to defensive fire and generals failed to understand the need to modify tactics to avoid mass losses, as Sir John French recognised in the introduction to his memoirs (French, 1919: n.p.).3 On the other hand, medical advances—for example, vaccination and the understanding of hygiene and disinfection—greatly increased the chances of avoiding illness and of survival after wounding. The efficacity of these scientific advances was multiplied by organisational reform, 2  With some partial exceptions: those military health systems which were so overwhelmed that they accepted independent groups of volunteers, who were able to operate more or less autonomously; the best-known examples were in Belgium and Serbia, partly because volunteers wrote about their experiences there (e.g. St. Clair Stobart, 1916; Sturzenegger, 1915; Mitton, 1916). 3  Sir John French was the first overall commander of British forces on the Western Front, in 1914–15. The mistake was further compounded by the belief, especially prevalent in the French military hierarchy, that all-out attack was the best strategy (Bertschy, 2018: 310–16); this was belatedly recognised by French commanders. The German army made the same mistake in the early months (Hartmann, 2014).

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primarily the introduction of permanent army medical corps in all major European nations (Gabriel & Metz, 1992: 204) and the creation of the Red Cross; wounded men would no longer be left to die on the battlefield but taken for treatment.4 In addition, the military medical corps and the Red Cross between them created the framework for the large-scale mobilisation of civilian medical personnel for war purposes. As a result, despite the increasingly lethal firepower, in the Great War a high percentage of wounded men recovered, at least in comparison with previous European wars: on the Western Front, between 75% and 85% of wounded men did not die, rising to over 90% of those who reached medical help (van Bergen, 2009: 287; comparable figures in Viet, 2015: n.p.).5 And for the first time in the history of major European wars less men were killed by disease than by enemy action (Gabriel & Metz, 1992: 243; Viet, 2015: n.p.; Eckart, 2014: 13; Harrison, 2010: 10).6 These arrangements and outcomes should be seen in a wider context: everybody recognised the necessity of a satisfactory medical system, if only—of course—because medicine was committed to the care of the patient, in theory regardless of circumstances. However, an army at war presents medicine with a set of circumstances with particular demands. At root, there were two factors, which existed in tension. Firstly, care of the wounded was an element of national solidarity. After the Napoleonic Wars, the common soldier came to be seen as a fellow citizen rather than a dispensable mercenary journeyman: certainly after the mid-century “medical care formed part of an unwritten contract … between the soldier and the state” (Harrison, 2010: 12).7 In France, the 4  Dunant had been moved to found the Red Cross after seeing the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino in 1859 (https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/feature/2010/ solferino-feature-240609.htm) 5  Some caution is needed in the interpretation of these figures. Each unit is a treatment admission and discharge, thus a soldier who was wounded four times and died after the fifth would count as four recoveries and one death. Many soldiers were wounded multiple times— Ernst Jünger was hit 14 times, on seven separate occasions (Segal & Ferrandis, 2012: 123). 6  However, as Harrison points out, rates of death by disease varied substantially between theatres, in part due to different levels of attention given to medical matters by local commanders (2010: 298–9). 7  See also Carden-Coyne, 2014: 11; Dwyer, 2017: 2. It is probably not a coincidence that the nineteenth century also sees the birth of soldiers’ memoirs as a literary genre; as Harari as shown, military memoirs moved from being the preserve of the elite to become also the property of the ordinary soldier recounting their personal experience (quoted Ramsey, 2017: 48).

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conscript army had, since the Revolution, been seen as “the nation under arms” (Crépin, 2009), in other words composed of citizens of the Republic. In the nineteenth century, French military authorities came to accept that they owed a duty of care to their soldiers, which was the counterpart of the citizen’s duty to bear arms and accept orders; this was made explicit in military planning. It was also accepted in Britain: James Notter, of the military hospital at Netley, wrote in his notes on military hygiene, that if the state imposed health-critical conditions upon its soldiers, it was only just that the state should do its utmost to avoid harming them (Rasmussen, 2016: 71–2). In Germany, it was written into military planning through the Kriegssanitätsordnung.8 It was also clearly accepted as a political necessity: we shall see that German planning was inadequate in this respect, which led to complaints about poor treatment of wounded soldiers, which in turn provoked apologetic statements by the military leadership, apologies clearly motivated by the recognition of the rights of the wounded soldier. In short, “all combatant nations now attached a great deal of importance to preventive medicine and arrangements for the care of the sick and wounded” (Harrison, 2010: 9). Secondly, medical care was a necessity: the sick or wounded soldier was militarily useless until sufficiently cured to fight again, and men were needed back at the front as quickly as possible due to the high number of deaths, the inevitable delays in recruitment and training, and the number of men temporarily incapacitated by sickness (van Bergen, 2014). The military purpose of the healthcare system was frequently explicit: The soldier’s duty is to obey orders. His body no longer belongs to him; he has given it to the nation. Given that, the doctors’ duty is to manage the wounded in the interests of the nation. (Cited Viet, 2012: n.p.)9

In the French army, over the course of the war, over 3 million men were wounded; on average they were wounded between two and three times, but over 300,000 were wounded four times or more, and returned to service (Viet, 2012: n.p.).

8  This document established the legal basis of the purpose and organisation of the military medical system in 1907 (earlier versions from 1874) (Zischek et al., 2018). 9  In law this was not entirely true: in France, soldiers had the same right as anyone else to refuse surgery. The same principle applied in Germany (Peske, 2012: 66–7).

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There was thus a potential tension at the heart of military medicine caused by the dual loyalty of the doctor, to the army and to the patient, where the doctor was “part of a military compliance system” (Reid, 2017: 13).10 Although, in theory, curing the wounded soldier served both purposes, in practice, the two were often difficult to reconcile with each other. Two examples show how the tensions played out in practice: triage, and the right to refuse treatment. Military efficiency demanded triage based upon the principle that medical effort should go where it was most likely to get a soldier back to the trenches. Although everyone knew that the sooner wounds were dealt with, the better the chances of survival,11 in practice, judgements about treatment also depended upon the availability of medical personnel and transport for cases too severe to deal with near the front but capable of surviving the displacement. This implied that the doctor had to balance the interests of the patient with the efficient use of resources: wounded men were categorised at the point of entry into the system as either “temporary or permanent losses” according to the likelihood of successful treatment under the prevailing circumstances (Carden-Coyne, 2014: 24; similar categorisation was used in the French army [Ferrandis et  al., 2014]); in other words, clinical judgement was influenced by concerns other than the best interests of the patient. In particular, because variations in circumstances played such a central role in initial triage, “selection according to sound criteria was a barely attainable ideal at the best of times, and the profusion of wounded and shortage of staff often stood in its way”; triage risked becoming guesswork (van Bergen,  2009:  329). However, some British doctors resisted subordinating triage to military priorities (Carden-Coyne, 2014: 27, 67–8), and it is clear from Ferrandis et  al. (2014) that practices changed with the evolution of military care during the war. Soldiers sometimes refused treatment in order to avoid or delay return to active service; in the French army, up to late 1916, 679 men refused treatment. While this figure should be seen in the context of the numbers who returned to the front—on average, 55,000 per month—the authorities feared the tactic would be contagious, especially because it was thought 10  This theme is at the heart of other texts about the medical history of the Great War, notably Carden-Coyne (2014). 11  More exactly, the disastrous experiences of the first months of the war made them realise this; see below.

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that many of the refusals were for treatment for conditions that were easily cured or even simulated (Viet, 2012). One instance has become famous because it ended up in a court case that was extensively reported. Although French law was clear that the treatment in question could not legally be refused, the soldier’s lawyer insisted that there was a larger civil liberties issue at stake: was it right that wounded men should be forced to accept treatment they didn’t want and be subjected to disciplinary proceedings? In law, it was clear that the refusal of treatment was not permissible; but politically the case was difficult because of public sympathy for the wounded, and the result was a compromise which strengthened soldiers’ rights as patients (Viet, 2012; see also van Bergen, 2009: 374–5). However, the tension between medical ethics and military efficiency was not a major concern of most doctors: “the self-conception of the majority of German doctors was marked by an overwhelming approval of the war. Ethical concerns … fell by the wayside” in a conscious subordination of medicine to war policy (Krödel, 2014); van Bergen argues that this was generally true across national boundaries (2009: 357–9).

Military Medical Systems At the outbreak of war, the military medical corps of the three armies consisted of full-time military doctors and a system for mobilising civilian doctors and nurses, plus stretcher-bearers, orderlies, and some trained military nurses. The number of personnel was calculated in advance, based on estimates of likely casualty rates and the duration of conflict. As is well known, the calculations made by military and political leaders in 1914 were to say the least substantial underestimates on both counts. Each nation had a national Red Cross. This was not usually a single unified organisation but typically an umbrella organisation for the mobilisation of other organisations. In Britain the Red Cross was in fact a single organisation, but it shared the responsibility for mobilisation with the Saint John’s and Saint Andrew’s Ambulance Brigades; in addition, Britain already had a military nursing corps, including volunteer units. The French Red Cross—founded in France in 1864 as the Société de Secours aux Blessés—set up training programmes for its volunteers; in 1881 and 1884 two other associations set up as Red Cross organisations; thus the Red Cross in France was in fact an umbrella for these three separate charitable organisations, which were divided by ideological differences; they were also often competitive rivals. After 1900 the three organisations created

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separate training programmes, as well as their own hospitals and associated training schools; since they were all charitable enterprises, the volunteers were primarily women from the propertied classes.12 In Germany, as we have seen, the Red Cross personnel was composed of the members of the religious and quasi-conventual nursing orders and of charitable women’s associations, and their mobilisation was integrated into national war planning from the 1870s.13 The numbers of medical personnel and equipment available to the armies at the outset of the war were utterly inadequate for the protracted and murderous warfare that ensued14; this was recognised during the first months of the war, and the results of this recognition are visible in the increases in the numbers of medical personnel over the course of the war. The numbers assembled by the combatant nations in their subsequent accounts are structured differently, for administrative reasons, and this makes detailed consistent comparisons between nations complicated. However, for our purposes the important consideration is the changes across time inside each nation, as these are indicators of the recognition of the inadequacy of pre-war planning. In 1914 the total medical personnel—doctors, orderlies, nurses, and stretcher-bearers—of the British army numbered 20,000, for an army of some 250,00015; by war’s end the overall medical enrolment had risen to 167,000, not including volunteer women nurses, who numbered some 100,000; of this total, some 13,000 were doctors (Macpherson, 1921: 153; Gabriel & Metz, 1992: 246); over the same time the army had increased in size to 3.5 million (Macpherson, 1921: xiii). In 1914 the French army—of roughly 1 million men—had just over 10,000 doctors, plus roughly 5000 pharmacists and administrators; by war’s end the number of doctors had risen to 20,000 and the total number of medical personnel had risen to 168,000 (Viet, 2015: n.p.).16 During these years the army had increased in size to just under 5 million. German figures are difficult to establish with any certainty, as the army medical service records  See Thébaud (1986: 84–93) for details.  See Schulte (1998: 99–100) for details. 14  Or, in an alternative formulation, “the manpower-intensive form of warfare” (Harrison, 2010: 65). 15  These figures include garrisons outside Europe, elsewhere in the Empire. 16  The total number of doctors is taken from the website of the military medical service https://www.defense.gouv.fr/sante/actualites/le-service-de-sante-des-armees-pendant-lapremiere-guerre-mondiale 12 13

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of the Great War were destroyed during the final assault on Berlin in 1945 and the best available source of details is a book published 15 years after the war, under the Nazis (Eckart, 2014: 100–1). However, the figures appearing in various sources are relatively consistent. Immediately before the outbreak of war, the military health service had just over 8000 doctors, which rose rapidly to around 20,000; over the war years, the number of doctors in military service averaged around 24,000, two thirds of which were in the occupied territories and a third in the homeland; this equates to roughly 70% of all German doctors (Eckart, 2014: 101).17 Total military health personnel in 1918 numbered 225,000, but the number of people who had been in the Germany military health system at one time or another was much higher. In 1916 the German army numbered around 4.5 million. Assuming these figures are roughly accurate for averages across the later war years, in the British army around 7% of military personnel were medical, in the French and German armies the figure was around 4–5%. These figures mean little by themselves as they take no account of how circumstances varied by time and by place. However, the massive increases indicated by the numerical comparisons show that the medical resources calculated in the pre-war planning of all three nations were inadequate for the needs of the armies. In addition to the inadequate numbers, relevant skills were in short supply. Both nurses and doctors enrolled under wartime conditions were not trained to the standards foreseen in pre-war planning. In particular, doctors with little to no military experience had to be brought in, often at short notice, to make up the deficits. The conditions of soldier patients were very different from the conditions most doctors would have seen in civil practice, since the overwhelming bulk of them suffered either from gunshot wounds or from epidemic diseases uncommon in the home countries. The gunshot wounds were in the majority caused by artillery, not rifle or machine gun bullets, and high explosive wounds were a severe test of medical competence: In the early stages of the war, especially within six weeks, 300,000 French soldiers were wounded—and as competent surgeons were not to be had for more than a minority, an appalling number of needless amputations were 17  This percentage was higher than the figures for Britain (around 45%) but lower than France (80%). The depletion of civilian health resources had an impact upon the health of the civilian populations (van Bergen, 2009: 24–5).

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made, … George Crile, a volunteer physician from Cleveland’s Lakeside Hospital, wrote in his diary in January 1915. (Hampton, 2017)

The German nurse Henriette Riemann notes that in the hospital where she worked in Belgium in the autumn of 1914, there were five doctors for around 200 severely wounded men, none of them surgeons: a neurologist, a gynaecologist, a spa doctor, an ear, nose and throat specialist and a young assistant who had at least been a surgeon’s assistant during his training; they had to perform complicated head, stomach, and facial operations knowing full well that they did not have the necessary skills. To make matters worse, the first nurse first assigned to help in the operating room had no idea of asepsis and handed them unsterilised instruments (1930: 61–3; see also van Bergen, 2009: 288). Indeed, most doctors had never had the experience of dealing with the level of mutilation caused by the new weaponry, nor had they seen the infections caused by delays in treatment of severe wounds inflicted under unhygienic conditions (Prüll, 2014: 28–9; van Bergen, 2009:  289–91); for example, in November 1914, a Dr Klemm wrote to his wife about the terrible impact of gas gangrene, adding “This kind of infection is unknown in peacetime” (quoted Hartmann, 2014: 427). On the other hand, the principle was well known: a British doctor writing an advice column for nurses in the British Journal of Nursing in the first weeks of the war, stressed wound infection as the principal risk for wounded men (v.53: 155–6). Van Bergen asserts that in the field hospitals there were never enough doctors, a shortage made worse by inadequate competence for the circumstances (2009: 316–8). The official British history of the medical services of the Great War (Macpherson, 1921) has a chapter on training, which devotes one sentence to the question of competence to deal with wounds; it says only that there was no room for medical specialisation in facilities near the front (1921: 150). In short, Problematically, the medical and surgical needs of the war outstripped the abilities of belligerents’ medical professions. The resulting personnel deficit left ill-prepared physicians treating the wounded. (Barr et al., 2019: n.p.)

The German medical press of the war years is replete with articles in which doctors near the front line share their practical experience of every kind of treatment (Zischek et  al., 2018: Appendix), presumably on the clear understanding that such extra knowledge was needed (Osten, 2015).

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Indeed, German doctors complained about lack of training for the special circumstances of wartime medicine (Peske, 2012: 60). An article in the Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift in early 1915 clearly indicates this element of the situation. Titled “Asepsis and Amputation in War”, it offers practical advice by a senior doctor in a military hospital near the front lines in France on how to avoid infection when amputating. He starts by stressing that what he has to say is a contribution to knowledge based on extensive recent practical experience; he gives the number of cases, insisting that they work under the constant pressure of a high daily throughput of patients, between 4 and 600; his team has handled at least 12,000 cases, and he has personally conducted around 50 amputations plus numerous less serious operations.18 His advice is that all operations under similar circumstances are dangerous for the patient, demanding extensive drainage and disinfection (they use a mixture of water and alcohol, plus iodine); they have managed to avoid post-operative infection, with the exception of some cases of tetanus that are not their fault. Infections derive from the size of wounds, which allow penetration of dirt; this might be avoided if soldiers knew how to use their dressings, or other medical personnel knew how to do the dressings, but many don’t. He then discusses when to use amputation. Two things are clear from what he says: firstly, he thinks many doctors will benefit from it; secondly, the advice is far from highly technical, in fact it seems rather basic. But perhaps most significantly, he implies that his team’s success in avoiding post-operative infection is sufficiently unusual to justify him giving this advice, stressing its basis in daily practice. The number of wounded men was on average equalled by the number of sick, especially caused by epidemics. The epidemics occurred under conditions where hygiene was at best problematic and often, on the Eastern, Balkan and Middle-Eastern Fronts, close to non-existent; the armies were largely successful in excluding them from the Western Front.19 In a letter home from Poland, a German doctor described a dressing station cum field hospital, including an operations room, as a collection of huts which they tried to sterilise without much success (cited Eckart, 18  Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift 41 (1), 7.1.15: 42. An editorial note explains that the article reproduces notes written in the previous October, that is, shortly after the defeat at the Marne and the retreat to the static positions that defined the Western Front. The figures therefore cover a period of roughly two months. From internal evidence, the doctor was stationed near Soissons. 19  See Harrison (2010) for detailed analyses of the British army’s medical record outside the Western Front.

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2014: 98). Another German doctor described his experiences in a field hospital in Poland in similar terms: his “team” of assistants consisted of one Polish nurse and a few Polish volunteer helpers; they were so overwhelmed by the numbers of arrivals, many sick with dysentery, that it was impossible to organise segregated accommodation for different categories of patient; this was made worse by hopeless hygiene in the hospital—the “nurses” didn’t wash their hands and all ate in the hospital. No sooner had they managed to get the place clean than the front shifted and they had to move the patients; the only transport he could find was a few horse-drawn carts to take everyone to the nearest railhead; under the circumstances he preferred to leave the most severely ill to the mercy of the enemy, as they would not survive the journey (Assistentarzt Dr S, 1916). The numbers of trained nurses available to the armies in 1914 varied enormously. According to the German Red Cross, the German army could call upon the services of 6000 fully trained nurses plus 8000 partly trained assistants; Eckart gives the slightly higher figure of 7000 fully trained nurses at the outset plus 12,000 partly trained assistant nurses (the difference may be due to his inclusion of nurses from the Ritterorden which were administratively separate from the Red Cross).20 In 1914 the French army, on the other hand, had only 96 trained military nurses (Thébaud, 1986: 90) and the British army had a trained women’s military nursing corps of some 400 plus a small reserve list of previous members (Macpherson, 1921: 45)21; in addition, it could call upon the Territorial Force Nursing Service, a force composed of trained nurses working in civilian hospitals who could be mobilised to help in military nursing as required; in 1914 they numbered around 2000 (National Archives, quoted www.scarletfinders.co.uk). The disproportion reflects the different military planning of the nations in question; in particular, Germany had incorporated civilian nursing organisations into its military planning, under the overall banner of the German Red Cross, within a long-standing legal framework (Eckart, 2014: 104–5). The German Red Cross had a little over 1 million members in 1914. During the first months of the war, the French and British Red Cross 20  Figures taken from the German Red Cross website: ww.drk.de/das-drk/geschichte; and Eckart, 2014: 104. The Ritterorden were semi-conventual nursing orders such as the Johanniter. According to Hrouda, conditions for Ritterorden nurses were very different to those in the Red Cross (1935: 85–6). 21  Hallett gives the total of enrolled nurses plus the reserve as 800 (2016: 13).

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organisations were able to mobilise volunteers into military nursing in variable numbers. France had 23,000 Red Cross volunteers available in 1914 (Thébaud, 1986: 85); Britain mobilised only 2000, but this figure must be seen in the context of overall military planning: while the French had an army of around 1 million, the British sent less than 100,000 men to the Western Front during the first phase of the war. British military planning included calculations of the medical personnel needed for an army of this size, and the official history of the medical services concluded that in the mobilisation phase the needs had been met, “whatever defects in the scale of units, or their equipment” subsequently became apparent (Macpherson, 1921: 47). That the mobilisation plan was indeed an underestimate is clear from a comment in one of the original reviews of Macpherson’s analysis: speaking of the volume of wounded treated during the Battle of the Somme, the reviewer says “that 26,675 wounded could be collected by field ambulances in the first twenty-four hours of a battle would have been considered impossible in 1914”.22 Despite their more extensive preparations, the German army also rapidly needed extra volunteer nursing staff, whom they enrolled through the Red Cross23; in the early phase of the war they were sufficiently convinced of their capacity that they refused volunteers from the body of professional nurses who were not enrolled in the various orders recognised by the German Red Cross (the so-called free sisters or wild sisters); however, subsequent shortages led them to accept them.24 From the 400-odd nurses available to the British army at the outbreak, the military nursing service came to number a little under 30,000 by war’s end and the additional voluntary nurses numbered 80,000 (Donner, 1997: 687; Hallett, 2016: 13). By 1918 the French nurses—a mixture of unpaid volunteers and newly trained military nurses—numbered between  British Medical Journal, 1.7.24: 71.  See the contemporary account excerpted in Panke-Kochinke & Schaidhammer-Placke, 2002: 42–4. 24  Schulte, 1998: 99–100. See also German press reports of complaints from the “free sisters”, for example, Vorwärts, 9.9.14; Berliner Tageblatt, 17.9.14. On 6.9.14 the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung printed a public letter from the Military Inspection asking Red Cross organisers to accept them when they were as qualified as others. The rejection was caused by the perception that the professional nurses were motivated by the desire to earn a living whereas the Red Cross nurses were motivated by ethics. This principle was already stressed in the war surgery handbook of 1882, according to which “all nursing is to be refused that is not done for the Lord’s sake” (quoted Grundhewer, 1987: 150); perhaps organisational rivalries were also present (Smith, 2010: 165; Eckart, 2014: 108). 22 23

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90 and 100,000.25 German nurses numbered 92,000 at war’s end (Vollhardt, 2014: 598; Schulte, 1996: 123–4); which was roughly 40% of all medical personnel.26 In short, over the duration of the war, overall nurse numbers were roughly equivalent across the three nations. The relative lack of training of the volunteer nurses certainly caused difficulties, including—as we have seen—tensions between professional and volunteer nurses. The inadequacy of the numbers of military medical staff at the beginning of the war was compounded by other factors. Clearly, a history of the activities of the medical services of the combatant nations far exceeds the scope of this analysis, and is moreover in itself controversial (Bertschy, 2020): however, all histories agree that medical practices changed during the course of the war, as doctors and administrators learned from experience, but what drove these changes is subject to interpretation, as is their adequacy. Leaving aside the shortages of personnel and equipment, what appears to be common terrain in these arguments is that military medicine in 1914 was not competent to deal with the wounds that the new weaponry inflicted; in addition, this was compounded by failures deriving from a basic misunderstanding, failures that were both clinical and logistical. The experience of recent wars had led to a fundamental error (Gabriel & Metz, 1992: 220; Barr et  al., 2019: n.p.; Hartmann, 2014: 427–8; Bertschy, 2018: 310–16). The ammunition used by the new generation of rifles that came into service at that time made wounds that were apparently far less damaging than previous weaponry, as the speed and calibre of the bullets created wounds that were relatively small in scale and clean—the so-called humanitarian bullet. It was assumed therefore that wounds in 1914 would be the same and could be dealt with in the same way: bandaging and onward transport for treatment. Military medical planning was based on this assumption and military doctors’ training before 1914 emphasised minimum intervention at the front—“the less, the better” in military surgery (Delaporte, 2004).27

 Thébaud gives the higher figure (1986: 85), Zacharini-Fournel the lower (2004: 35).  Gradmann (2004: 812–3) gives a higher figure for women involved in military health care, as the usual figure excludes some categories of auxiliary workers, many of whom were women. 27  Bertschy (loc. cit.) gives extensive details of French military medical observation of the Japanese wars of 1890 through 1905 and the Balkan wars of 1912–3 and how this was interpreted by the French military command. He argues that French military insistence on the 25 26

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The assumption turned out to be false because it ignored geography. The earlier wars had been fought in conditions which reduced the chances of wound infection: very or relatively dry climates, on land which had not been intensively farmed. The war in Europe was fought in a wet climate and on land that had received centuries of manure; the result was massive infection. In addition, the initial treatment of wounds did not include proper cleansing (“debridement”) and the bandaging effectively enclosed the infecting agents (soil and scraps of clothing) inside the wound. This basic misunderstanding was compounded by the vast numbers of casualties and the severity of the wounds caused by artillery fire.28 In addition, this assumption was the basis of the logistics for dealing with the wounded. This diagram of the German army’s arrangements shows the structure clearly:

primacy of rapid attack led them to prefer this interpretation of medical observations over alternatives. 28  Close to the beginning of the war, this fundamental untruth about the “humanitarian bullet” was publicly repeated in the French and German press. For example, on 5.8.14 the Freiburger Tagblatt sought to reassure its readership that “wounds are getting ever slighter and the new artillery weapons are by no means as dangerous as infantry” (quoted Hartmann, 2014: 428); Bertschy gives examples of similar reports in France (2018: 325–6).

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Key: (1) front line, (2) dressing station, (3) transport, (4) main dressing station, (5) ambulance, (6) field hospital (which “may have nurses, on an exceptional basis”); these six elements of the system are in the military “operational” area; (7) base hospital, (8) hospital trains, (9) the border; elements 7–9 are in the military “headquarters” area, in other words areas under military occupation but out of the combat zone; (10) is the homeland and various types of hospital. (Source: Introduction to Rüdgisch (1916), which sketches the Red Cross organisation.) This diagram is a simplified version of the German army’s medical service plan (Kriegssanitätsordnung, drawn up in 1907); a digital version of the original is available in the Appendix to Zischek et al. (2018)

This organisation was seen as the centrepiece of military medicine: “In fact, gentlemen, the core of military medicine in wartime lies in organisation and administration”, said the speaker at a German pre-war conference on medical military preparation, before laying out the details of the system represented in the diagram (quoted Osten, 2015). However, the system— already inadequate because of the false assumption which underpinned it—was dependent upon comprehensive logistics: if transport failed, the core of the system was at risk. The official history of the British medical services accepted that although the mobilisation of personnel and equipment had gone according to plan, transport facilities were a weak point in the early phase of the war (Macpherson, 1921: 52). The French case was especially inadequate (Gabriel & Metz, 1992: 245), indeed famously so, as its inadequacy was the basis of a major and protracted political scandal, which resulted in the command structure of the medical services being removed from the army and handed over to the Undersecretary of State for War in the autumn of 1915.29 The scandal arose from the fact that during the first year of the war ambulance trains were understaffed and frequently delayed, with wounded men left lying unattended in insanitary conditions. This was due to poor co-ordination between the military health care system and the public administration of the interior of France, and—arguably—a military high command that lost interest in soldiers once they were unable to fight (Viet, 2015).30 Additional delays were

29  It is sufficiently well known that the current (09.11.2018) French Ministry of Defence website notes that 1914–15 was a “sanitary disaster” (www.defense.gouv.fr/sante/actualites/le-service-de-sante-des-armees-pendant-la-premiere-guerre-mondiale) 30  As late as June 1915, Agnes Warner notes receiving a train of wounded direct from the front line at her hospital close to Geneva whose wounds have only been dressed once (1917: n.p.).

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incurred when other military traffic was given priority over transport for the wounded; at Verdun, the main road link to the interior was forbidden to ambulances to ensure that military priorities would be met first (van Bergen 2009:  353). Unusually—given wartime censorship—the scandal was highly public, with hundreds of press articles, many written by prominent political figures such as Clemenceau and Barrès (Bertschy, 2018: 332–70).31 The German system was relatively well organised (Gabriel & Metz, 1992: 243–4; Harrison, 2010: 19–20); however, there is evidence in the German press that there were complaints—of unspecified origin— of unacceptable delays in the treatment and/or repatriation of the wounded; while there is no evidence of a public scandal, articles by senior military sources adopt an apologetic tone, explaining that the advance of the German armies was so rapid that the care system could not keep up with it and that the front area was too dangerous to allow nurses anywhere near it (Vossische Zeitung, 28.9.14, 3.10.14; Berliner Tageblatt, 17.9.14).32 This may correspond to the recognition by German military doctors that by the autumn of 1914, 70% of wounds became infected (van Bergen, 2009: 334). Also, although the hospital trains were the core of the German system, there were not enough of them in the original planning, and the authorities were forced to depend upon charities to make up the deficit; there are many media reports of these trains in 1914–15, none indicating any problems (e.g. Vossische Zeitung, 21.9.14; Berliner Tageblatt, 18.1.15, 20.1.15, 22.1.15). Moreover, the emphasis upon organisation and logistics also implied that no special medical knowledge was required to be a doctor near the front line, since any treatment beyond the rudimentary was to be carried out elsewhere, preferably in the homeland. As we have seen, medical competence was indeed problematic. 31   See, for example, L’Homme Enchainé, 30.12.14; Libre Parole, 4.1.15; L’Oeuvre, 18.11.15. Clemenceau received the information either from his daughter, the nurse Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire (Fell, 2011: 16–17), or from his son Michel. 32  This was not entirely true: the diary of a nurse excerpted in von Hadeln shows that she was in the firing area during the campaign that led to the battle of Tannenberg in December 1914 (1934: 23–4)—indeed, she received the Iron Cross for her rescue of wounded under fire, as did a few other German nurses (see the list of awards on germannursesofthegreatwar. wordpress.com); Wenzel (1931) talks about nurses in field hospitals in Flanders in 1915 (in Altonaer Nachrichten, 24.2.32). Eckart quotes a letter from nurses near the front in Belgium in the first weeks of the war (2014: 110–1); however, Riemann says that only male nurses and orderlies were sent to the front when she arrived in Ghent in 1914 (1930: 53).

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This organisational perspective was shared by the combatant armies (van Bergen, 2009: 287–9). In the French army, this system had resulted in a separation of military medical services into two separate entities, with separate chains of command: the logistics were under military command and dealt only with transport, the medical teams dealt with treatment, under a separate command and located far away from the front (Viet, 2015: n.p.); the difficulties this caused were analysed by the first historian of the French medical services in the war, Mignon, who had been chief medical officer during the war; they are certainly a major element of the scandal that erupted in 1914–15. The infantry lieutenant and memoirist Maurice Genevoix (1923: 672–8) describes his journey from the battlefield, with three bullets in his arm and chest, in terms that conform exactly to the evacuation-based system of treatment: bandaged, stretchered off the battlefield and then a long journey by cart and train to a hospital in the interior of France, where treatment could begin; although he survived and lived into his 80s, he lost the use of the arm.33 Crémieux (1918: 5–6) describes her first nursing experience in terms that make it clear that Genevoix’s treatment was not an exception: she was sent to meet a train full of feverish wounded men lying on straw in cattle wagons. German newspapers in the early months of the war contain many descriptions of hospital trains, and specify that much of the “accommodation” was goods wagons filled with straw (e.g. Vossische Zeitung, 21.9.14). That this system had appalling results, notably amputation of limbs with infected wounds, was recognised in France during the first months of the war; while it was not the cause of the two sets of reforms undertaken in 1914 and 1915, the new administration of the health service ensured that the severity of wounds could be assessed close to the front and urgent cases dealt with in situ through the creation of mobile surgical units and setting up hospitals closer to the combat zones (Bilange, 1996: 47–8). The “well-oiled [British] medical machine” of the Western Front owed its success to similar changes of practice, notably better co-ordination within and between units, along with massively more efficient evacuation logistics (Harrison, 2010: 120, 295–6); together with better knowledge of wound treatment and improved or more widely distributed defences against disease, these changes allowed it to move comprehensively beyond the

33  Carden-Coyne quotes a similar experience by a British officer, whose wound was finally treated after four days’ travel (2014: 40).

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chaotic and inadequate arrangements of the first months of the war.34 A similar evaluation of the German medical system uses Ernst Jünger’s seven wounds to demonstrate the efficiency of its triage and evacuation procedures (Segal & Ferrandis, 2012). There is general agreement across the sources quoted here that the most important improvements were in logistics and disease prevention, especially wound infection, followed by improved surgical procedures. In fact, improvements in medical services were sufficiently extensive during the war to provoke the NATO Review (among others) to ask the question “Was World War I good for medicine?”35 The assertion was already made immediately after the war. Summarising the experience of the war years, the senior German military doctor Wilhelm Hoffmann wrote in 1919: “The medical art acquired a many-sided enrichment from this wealth of practical and scientific work” (quoted Eckart, 2014: 100). The head of the German military medical service during the war, Otto von Schjerning, wrote in the introduction to his summum of military medical experience in the war: “the war is lost, but this gigantic work was not done in vain” (quoted Eckart, 2014: 65), claiming that the war was a “glorious chapter in the history of medicine” and that praise of German military doctors “should be sung as were previously the Homeric heroes Machaon and Podilirius” (quoted Osten, 2015).36 Indeed, necessity is the mother of invention, and many medical innovations occurred as a result of the war—for example, prosthetics and rehabilitation; in fact, according to Eckart, the speed of medical adaptation and innovation during the war was extraordinary (2014: 13). In this list should be included the eventual, if tardy, recognition and treatment of shell-shock (Leese, 2002). On the other hand, such advances should perhaps be seen as a “meagre consolation” for the human losses (Vanwijk & Reding, 2015).37 34  Writing in the Preface to Kate Finzi’s (1916) memoir of the Western Front, General Arthur is frank about the inadequacy of the medical services near the front in 1914: “this was inseparable from the nature of things and has long since been righted” (Finzi, 1916: xvii). 35  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKjYSOwiHvc 36  In addition, many German doctors welcomed the war for Social Darwinist reasons, or saw it as a natural laboratory (Schmiedebach, 1987: 102; Eckart, 2014: 64). Machaon and Podilirius were the sons of Asclepius and were both skilled doctors and military leaders in the Trojan War. 37  There are detailed analyses of advances brought about by wartime needs in many medical histories, for example, Eckart, 2014. There are convenient summaries in Vanwijk and Reding (loc. cit.) and Barr et al., 2019. Van Bergen (2018) is a thorough discussion of the arguments.

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In the immediate aftermath of the war, it was the successes that were emphasised. Contemporary histories largely present the mistakes and the reforms as a positive process, stressing how medical advance led to more favourable outcomes. The official history of the British medical services perhaps wisely refrains from any attempt at an overall evaluation of their performance during the war, adopting a resolutely factual approach. However, the author notes that the pre-1914 reforms had made them far better placed than previously to deal with the new circumstances, and claims that this explains the “exceptional freedom from adverse criticism with which they stood the test of war”: When one scans the volumes of reports of Royal Commissions, of parliamentary and other enquiries, with their masses of printed evidence, to which breakdowns in the arrangements for the care of the sick and wounded in previous wars gave birth, a prominent contrast is afforded by the singular freedom of the Army Medical Service from adverse criticism during the years of the Great War. (Macpherson, 1921: 2, 41)

Similarly, the post-war assessment by Mignon, the chief medical officer of the French army, while accepting the massive shortcomings of the first year of the war, analysed the obstacles to effective service and insisted on the subsequent good performance. The Royal United Services Institute review of this history of their medical services summarises his argument: “This book sets out to relate how all these defects were eliminated, how treatment improved, how disease was prevented” (RUSI, 1929: 370). Bertschy’s description of how French post-war medical historians wrote this history is more generally applicable; in their version it was: A health service, plunged into a Dantesque world, that transformed itself, that adapted to war conditions – whether war of movement or trench warfare  – in order to improve its response to the needs of the army and the wounded. (2020: n.p.)

Modern assessments are more ambiguous. Leo van Bergen, for example, concludes from his study of the combatant nations’ medical records that the numbers of medical personnel were never sufficient for the vast numbers of wounded: “No matter how hard they worked and how extensive the medical services became, … the medical profession was

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powerless”, as the numbers of wounded constantly rose: a cumulative daily average across all the combatant armies of 15–20,000 wounded, rising to 100,000 on days of major engagements (van Bergen, 2009: 286–7; 2014: n.p.). Over the course of the war, across the combatant nations, 12.5% of all soldiers died and 25% were wounded (van Bergen, 2009: 27). When facilities were overwhelmed by numbers, triage was brutal—the most severely wounded were left to die (van Bergen, 2009: 290, 327–9), and even under normal circumstances head and stomach wounds were often not treated at all (Eckart, 2014: 96). Moreover, despite the medical advances, many men died from epidemic diseases—around 50% of soldiers in hospitals were there because of disease rather than wounds (van Bergen 2009: 140). In addition, many died from infected wounds, which were often the result of delays in treatment; many of these avoidable infections led to amputations (van Bergen, 2009: 289, 296–8, 328).38 While in each of these cases, mortality reduced during the course of the war, as doctors and administrators learnt from the mistakes of earlier years (Barr et  al., 2019), other factors prevented the medical gains from reducing losses as much as could have been possible. For example, typhus killed many soldiers in the French and German armies until a vaccination programme was introduced, whereas the British army had introduced it more quickly and kept losses down (van Bergen, 2009:  143). Gas gangrene continued to claim a high percentage of wounded victims throughout the war, due to the difficulties of rapid and appropriate surgery under the conditions that prevailed near the front (van Bergen, 2009: 335). Tetanus killed a significant number of soldiers until the prophylactic serum was brought into use, but death from the disease was never eradicated during the war, with varying death rates dependent upon the timeliness of prophylaxis (Gabriel & Metz, 1992: 243; Zischek et al., 2018: Appendix; van Bergen, 2009: 334). Others present a more positive account of the military medical services; despite all the inadequacies they note, Barr et al. conclude: Over the course of the war, nations developed effective military medical systems that instituted preventive strategies like vaccination, established efficient evacuation chains, and pioneered novel therapeutic interventions to treat the sick and injured. (Barr et al., 2019: n.p.) 38  The most thorough discussion of wounds and mortality across the combatant nations is van Bergen, 2009: 140–67.

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Harrison’s analysis of the British military medical services, despite being candid about failures where they occurred, largely concurs with earlier judgements of improvements on the Western Front (2010: 295–6). No doubt services were improved over the course of the war, especially clearly in the case of logistics and co-ordination of resources. Nonetheless, even here the results are ambiguous. Firstly, the effectiveness of evacuation procedures continued to be contentious throughout the war (Carden-­ Coyne, 2014: 27–37). Secondly, the effectiveness of the medical services could not be separated from the military calculations about what resources would be needed in individual battle plans. At the Somme (July 1916), the British planning indeed included massively increased medical facilities, and there was widespread praise for the evacuation of the wounded, especially when compared with earlier efforts (see above). Yet the numbers of wounded far exceeded the battle planners’ predictions and collection of the wounded from the battlefield did not go according to plan. The lengthy discussion in Harrison (2010: 70–7) concludes that on balance the medical services were relatively successful, and that in subsequent large battles evacuation plans worked better. A parallel case in the French army—the Nivelle offensive in April 1917—reveals a scandalously lower success rate, as the battle did not go at all according to plan and the numbers of casualties massively exceeded predictions, overwhelming the medical facilities predicated on a relatively low number of wounded; such was the chaos that it provoked mutinies (Castex, 1998). In this respect, perhaps the best summary of the medical war is van Bergen’s: “Given the circumstances, not the failures, but the successes were surprising” (2014: n.p.). Moreover, as Carden-Coyne points out, these discussions are doctorand system-oriented, not patient-oriented. The assertion that the system was efficient in treating large numbers of wounded says nothing about the experience seen from the point of view of the patient. As we have seen, it was not unknown for soldiers to refuse treatment, probably because they objected to being sent back to the front. And where they accepted it, grateful recognition was not the only response; some were “querulous and obnoxious”; Eveline Hrouda records an incident where a group of patients simply refused to obey her orders (1935: 63–6). Triage was often resented by wounded men, who felt powerless confronted with decisions about their treatment which were not explained (Carden-Coyne, 2014: 8, 10–11, 70, 184–9).

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It is important not to read history backwards and judge the medical systems of the Great War by the standards of the twenty-first century, a process which inevitably leads to horrified condemnation of processes which seem crude if not barbarous. Nonetheless, as we have seen, there were—to put it politely—clear points of difficulty, tension, and compromise in these systems which were recognised at the time, and which caused suffering. In the present context, these are relevant in so far as many nurses must have experienced these results on a daily basis, in particular those who worked near the front lines or in evacuation procedures. The majority of those who wrote memoirs spent at least some of their time under these circumstances and we shall see that many of the memoirs clearly demonstrate that the authors were well aware of the suffering involved. At this stage of the analysis, before giving any account of the memoir texts, the significance of this outline of salient elements of the history of the medical systems is that nurses could have brought an awareness of them to bear on the composition of their memoirs. This is not to prejudge what they might have chosen to say about them, only to note the possibility of their appearance in their texts. We shall return to this topic.

Bibliography (1) Nurse Memoirs Crémieux, J. (1918). Souvenirs d’une Infirmière. Rauff. Finzi, K. (1916). Eighteen Months in the War Zone. Cassell. Hrouda, E. (1935). Barmherzigkeit. Als freiwillige Malteserschwester im Weltkrieg. Leykam-Verlag. Mitton, G. (1916). The Cellar-House of Pervyse. A.C. Black. Riemann, H. (1930). Schwester der Vierten Armee. Karl Vögels Verlag. Sturzenegger, A. (1915). Serbien in europäischen Kriege 1914–1915. Orell Füssli. von Rüdgisch, E. (1916). Unterm Roten Kreuz. Heim und Herd. Warner, A. (1917). My Beloved Poilus. Barnes. Available online at Project Gutenberg.

(2) Other Contemporary Literature Assistentarzt Dr. S. (1916). Aus einem östlichen Kriegslazarett. Zeitschrift für Krankenpflege, 37(1), 17–20.

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French, V. J. (1919). 1914. Constable. Cited in the online edition at Project Gutenberg. Genevoix, M. (1923). Les Eparges. Flammarion. Cited in the Ceux de 14 edition, 1950. Paris: Flammarion. Macpherson, W. (1921). History of the Great War. Medical Services (Vol. 1). HMSO. RUSI. (1929). Journal of the Royal United Services Institute, 74(494), 370–372. St. Clair Stobart, M. (1916). The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere. Hodder and Stoughton.

(3) Secondary Literature Barr, J., Cancio, L., Smith, D., Bradley, M., & Elster, E. (2019). From Trench to Bedside: Military Surgery During World War I Upon Its Centennial. Military Medicine, 184 (11–12), 214–220. https://doi.org/10.1093/milmed/usz130 Bertschy, S. (2018) De la médecine de guerre à la médecine en guerre: administration des blessés et malades de guerre et métamorphoses du champ médical en 14–18. PhD Thesis, University of Montpellier. Bertschy, S. (2020). Guerre, médecine et santé en 14–18: retour sur un « moment » de l’historiographie. Lecture Sociale de la Guerre. Available at: https://lsg. hypotheses.org/420 Bilange, F. (1996). Justin Godart au Service de Santé Militaire durant la Première Guerre Mondiale. Histoire des Sciences Médicales, XXX (1), 47–52. Carden-Coyne, A. (2014). The Politics of Wounds. Oxford University Press. Castex, H. (1998). L’affaire du Chemin des Dames. Editions Imago. Crépin, A. (2009). Histoire de la conscription. Gallimard. Delaporte, S. (2004). Médecine et blessures de guerre. In S. Audoin-Rouzeau & J.-J. Becker (Eds.), Encyclopédie de la Grande Guerre (pp. 347–355). Bayard. Donner, H. (1997). Under the Cross: Why V.A.D.s Performed the Filthiest Task in the Dirtiest War: Red Cross Women Volunteers, 1914–1918. Journal of Social History, 30(3), 687–704. Dwyer, P. (2017). Making Sense of the Muddle. In P. Dwyer (Ed.), War Stories. The War Memoir in History and Literature (pp. 1–26). Berghahn. Eckart, W. (2014). Medizin und Krieg. Deutschland 1914–1918. Ferdinand Schöningh. Fell, A. (2011). Myth, Countermyth and the Politics of Memory: Vera Brittain and Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire’s Interwar Nurse Memoirs. Synergies Royaume-Uni et Irlande, 4, 11–22. Ferrandis, L., Lefort, H., Tabbagha, X., & Pons, F. (2014). Le triage des blessés pendant la Grande Guerre. Soins, 786, 41–45. Gabriel, R., & Metz, K. (1992). A History of Military Medicine (Vol. 2). Greenwood Press.

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Gradmann. (2004). Sanitätswesen. In G. Hirschfeld, G. Krummeich, & I. Renz (Eds.), Enzyklopädie Erster Weltkrieg (pp. 812–813). Schöningh. Grundhewer, H. (1987). Die Kriegskrankenpflege und das Bild der Krankenschwester im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. In J.  Bleker & H.-P. Schmiedebach (Eds.), Medizin und Krieg. Vom Dilemma der Heilberufe 1865 bis 1985 (pp. 136–152). Fischer. Hallett, C. (2016). Nurse Writers of the Great War. Manchester University Press. Hampton, E. (2017). How World War I Revolutionized Medicine. The Atlantic, 24(2), 17. Available at https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/ 02/world-­war-­i-­medicine/517656/ Harrison, M. (2010). The Medical War. British Military Medicine in the First World War. Oxford University Press. Hartmann, V. (2014). Kriegsverletzungen und ihre Behandlung im Ersten Weltkrieg anhand von Präparaten der Wehrpathologischen Lehrsammlung der Bundeswehr. Wehrmedizinische Monatsschrift, 58(12), 427–434. Krödel, A. (2014). Medizingeschichte: Der medikalisierte Krieg. Deutsch Ärzteblatt, 111(42), A-1816. Leese, P. (2002). Shell Shock. Traumatic Neurosis and the British Soldiers of the First World War. Palgrave Macmillan. Osten, P. (2015). Erster Weltkrieg 1914–1918: Militärmedizin – unvorbereitet in der Krise. Deutsche Ärtzeblatt, 112(9), A 370–A 372. Panke-Kochinke, B., & Schaidhammer-Placke, M. (Eds.). (2002). Frontschwestern und Friedensengel. Mabuse-Verlag. Peske, P. (2012). Ärzte, Pflegekräfte, Soldaten im Ersten Weltkrieg. In M.  Caumanns, U.  Dross, & A.  Magowska (Eds.), Medizin und Krieg in Historischer Perspective (pp. 59–68). P.Lang. Prüll, L. (2014). Die Kriegsversehrten. Körperliche und seelische Leiden und die Medizin im Ersten Weltkrieg. Zeitwenden. 100 Jahre Erste Weltkrieg, 27–46. Ramsey, N. (2017). A Lively School of Writing. In P. Dwyer (Ed.), War Stories. The War Memoir in History and Literature (pp. 48–71). Berghahn. Rasmussen, A. (2016). Expérimenter la santé des grands nombres: les hygiénistes militaires et l’armée française, 1850–1914. Le Mouvement Social, 257, 71–91. Reid, F. (2017). Medicine in First World War Europe. Soldiers, Medics, Pacifists. Bloomsbury Academic. Schmiedebach, H.-P. (1987). Im Dienst der Vaterlandische Sache. Deutsche Medizin im Ersten Weltkrieg. In J.  Bleker & H.-P.  Schmiedebach (Eds.), Medizin und Krieg. Vom Dilemma der Heilberufe 1865 bis 1985 (pp. 93–121). Fischer. Schulte, R. (1996). The Sick Warrior’s Sister. In L. Abrams & E. Harvey (Eds.), Gender Relations in Germany (pp. 121–141). UCL Press. Schulte, R. (1998). Die Verkehrte Welt des Krieges: Studien zu Geschlecht, Religion und Tod. Campus Verlag.

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Segal, A., & Ferrandis, J.-J. (2012). Les Sept Blessures d’Ernst Jünger dans la Grande Guerre. Histoire des Sciences Médicales, XLVI(2), 117–124. Smith, K. (2010). A Legacy of Care: Hesse and the Alice Frauenverein, 1867–1918. PhD Thesis, University of Alabama. Thébauld, F. (1986/2014) La Femme aux Temps de la Guerre de 1914. : Stock/ Payot et Rivages. van Bergen, L. (2009). Before My Helpless Sight. Suffering, Dying and Military Medicine on the Western Front 1914–18. Ashgate Press. (quoted in the 2016 edition, London: Routledge). van Bergen, L. (2014). Medicine and Medical Service. International Encyclopaedia of the First World War (online). van Bergen, L. (2018). Surgery and War: The Discussions About the Usefulness of War for Medical Progress. In T. Schich (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Surgery (pp. 389–408). Palgrave Macmillan. Vanwijk, R., & Reding, R. (2015). Les Leçons Médicales de la Grande Guerre. Louvain Médical, April, n.p. Available at: https://www.louvainmedical.be/fr/ article/les-­lecons-­medicales-­de-­la-­grande-­guerre Viet, V. (2012). Droit des blessés et intérêt de la nation: une casuistique de guerre (1914–1918). Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, 59(2), 85–107. Available at www.cairn.info/revue-­d-­histoire-­moderne-­et-­contemporaine-­ 2012-­2.htm Viet, V. (2015). La Santé en Guerre: 1914–1918: Une politique pionnière en univers incertain. Presses de Science Po. Vollhardt, M. (2014). Es ist ein anständiger Beruf, Schwester zu sein. Zur Figuration der Krankenschwester in der Erinnerungsliteratur des Ersten Weltkrieges. Zeitschrift für Germanistik, 24(3), 597–608. Zacharini-Fournel, M. (2004). Travailler pour la Patrie? In E.  Morin-Rotureau (Ed.), 1914–1918 Combats de Femmes (pp. 32–46). Editions Autrement. Zischek, C., Grunwald, E., & Engelhardt, E. (2018). Organization of the German Army Medical Service 1914–1918 and the Role of Academic Surgeons. Canadian Journal of Surgery, 61(4), 223–225.

CHAPTER 4

Women and War Work (1): Debates and Issues

As we have seen, the medical services of the combatant armies were ill-­ prepared for the scope and duration of the war, whence the enrolment of volunteer nurses. Although nursing was already defined as a female occupation, the situation was substantially new in that military nursing had previously been restricted to men and a relatively limited number of women. In 1914 it was not predictable how the publics of the combatant nations would respond to this break with traditional gender segregation. In the event, analysis of contemporary media suggests that few if any thought it was in principle wrong for women to nurse wounded soldiers (see Chap. 5). Indeed, the evidence largely suggests approval of their role, combined with gratitude and admiration for their dedication to duty. Nursing was not the only new workplace role that women filled during the Great War. In manufacturing, in transport, in public services, they replaced men absent in the army, and even, to a limited extent, in the armies themselves by taking over some support functions such as telephony and secretarial work. These roles were the subject of multiple controversies during the war years, in all the combatant nations. The source of these controversies was the erosion of gender roles, or the fear of this erosion, which came to the fore in three domains: the question of women’s civil and political rights, which had (as is well known) been a significant element of political life in the years before 1914; changes in women’s behaviour, especially sexual behaviour; and women replacing men in © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Palmer, Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany, Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82875-2_4

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various employment categories. Of these three, only the first two could apply directly to nurses, since in nursing replacement of men was not a concern; however, women’s employment and women’s rights converged in the understanding of social independence, which implied that any female presence in the workplace could not be entirely separated from the issue of rights. Both the gratitude and the controversy are important for our purposes, as they form an essential part of the context in which nurses’ memoirs were produced and received. Nurses cannot have failed to understand that the novelty of their role would be connected with public understanding of new women’s roles and women’s place in the social order, as these topics were widely aired in contemporary debate and reporting. In addition, nurses received substantial attention in press reporting of the war, some of which spoke directly to the relationship between the novelty of their situation and the wider social context.

Women’s Work and the War Effort In the Great War the need to release the maximum possible numbers of men for military service led to the mass mobilisation and self-mobilisation of women; the means used, and the timing of these innovations, varied across the combatant nations but it became a common feature of wartime. The similarities derive from the fact that the situation across the combatant nations was very similar at the outbreak of war, both in terms of the military medical facilities available (see above) and of the nature of the national workforce in general. As Gail Braybon has observed, before 1914 female participation in the workforce across the industrial world was largely limited to single women, doing mainly unskilled labour, who earned substantially less than men; a significant percentage were employed as servants, and—in Continental Europe, but not in Britain—a large percentage of working-age women worked in agriculture, on family smallholdings (Braybon, 2000: 150–1). As men—skilled and unskilled—left for the armies, women were sooner or later brought in to replace them. Across Europe, women’s contribution to the war effort fell into the two categories of voluntary work and employment through the labour market. This distinction is not absolute, especially in the case of nursing, since some work was a mixture of the two. It is important in the present context because women’s voluntary work was largely (but not entirely) devoid of

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controversy, whereas their participation in the labour market aroused substantial concerns. Military recruitment ensured that the necessity of the employment of women was publicly recognised. According to the Earl of Derby, placed in charge of the overall recruitment process in Britain, Women are now part and parcel of our great army. Without them it would be impossible for progress to be made, but with them I believe victory can be assured. (13 July 1916; quoted Fraser, 1918: 124)1

In France, Marshall Joffre said that if women factory workers stopped work for 20 minutes, the Allies would lose the war (quoted Thébaud, 1986: 182).2 While this recognition of necessity largely suppressed any fundamental opposition, the changes it brought about nonetheless prompted questions about women’s long-term place both in the labour force and more widely in the social order as a whole.3 In the absence of any state welfare system, or national system of task allocation outside the civil service and the armed forces, the dislocation of everyday life by war caused multiple problems whose solutions had to come from voluntary work. For example, throughout Europe military mobilisation led to an immediate contraction of the economy and thus unemployment, due to the absence of both workers and consumers; while governments instituted national payment systems for war wives, many other households fell into difficulties; here, alleviation became the responsibility of charities, many of which came into existence under this impulse— one estimate has 18,000 new charities coming into existence in Britain alone during the war (Harris, 2014: n.p.). Much of this activity was undertaken by women, and existing women’s organisations played a prominent 1  See also similar comments by Lloyd George and Sir Edward Montagu (cited Watson, 2000: 95). 2  I have been unable to find a parallel quote from Germany, but the extent to which women’s involvement was demanded implies the same judgement; in particular, Hindenburg’s demands combined with his fear of the results suggest an awareness of necessity (see below). 3  The wartime changes also led to the subsequent claim that the Great War brought about a long-term transformation in women’s social position, especially since both Germany and Britain gave women the vote at the end of the war, although not France. This claim has been strongly contested in recent historical writings, for example, Daniel 1989/1997; Thébaud 1986; Higonnet et al., 1987: Introduction; see Calvini-Lefevre, 2015, for a summary of the historiography in Britain. This question is beyond our scope here, except in respect of nursing; see Chap. 10.

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role; for example, in Britain the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies set up a co-ordinating organisation called the Women’s Emergency Corps (see 1914–18 Online) and in Germany the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine (BDF; the League of German Women’s Associations) was central to the national co-ordination of women’s activities in the homeland (Daniel, 1989/1997: 72–3). Women’s paid labour during the war aroused some controversy, as it involved substantial substitution of women for men at a period of history where occupational gender segregation was the norm, and one with strong ideological force. Overtly, the controversy was caused by doubts about the suitability of women for some categories of work, especially hard physical labour, and by trades unions’ fears about the impact of women’s employment upon wages, as women were typically taken on at lower wages than men. In reality it was often a question of prejudice; Gail Braybon cites a British example: The Women’s Institute approached the London Postal Service to suggest that women be used for sorting mail. The Controller wrote back, turning the idea down on the grounds that (1) women would need separate restrooms, which meant the building would need major structural alteration; (2) women would need separate offices, as they could not work next to men: (3) sorting mail was too arduous for them, and they would need seats —special seats, as the height of the sorting boxes was unusual; (4) women could not do night work, and much sorting was done at 4 or 5  a.m. Only five months later, labour shortages were such that the Post Office had to think again, and all these obstacles to women’s employment were easily overcome. (2000: 155)

Moreover, fears about the future of the family unit also featured strongly in arguments about women’s work, a clearly ideologically rooted concern. As Susan Grayzel says: Contemporary published accounts of women and the war emphasized women’s atypical occupations, and they also expressed concern that such new roles or new incomes could change their “essential” nature and that women must still place family, in particular childrearing, first. (Grayzel, 2014: n.p.)

Similarly, where there was controversy about women’s voluntary work, it derived from conservative political fears that women’s organisations

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would use the wartime changes to justify further measures of emancipation, and particularly the franchise. The factors discussed above were commonalities across the combatant nations. However, the actual discussions within which they are to be found were different in the various nations, depending upon the political configurations surrounding women’s position in society and especially the division of attitudes towards female emancipation and suffrage.

Women’s Rights As is well known, there was a strong movement in favour of women’s rights, and especially the vote, in the years preceding the Great War. The outbreak of war produced schisms in the movement across Europe (Fell & Sharp, 2007: 1). In part this was because many politically active women were also pacifists, and the women’s movement split into opposed factions broadly aligned with either nationalism or pacifism and socialism.4 In the present context, the more significant split concerned the extent to which women’s support for the nation at war involved abandoning their traditional focus on women’s rights. Across Europe, the majority, at least at the level of organisational commitment, opted to support the nations’ war efforts and suspend claims for emancipation (Fell & Sharp, 2007: 11). In Britain, there had already been some tactical division between different branches of the women’s movement, notably on the issue of militancy (Fell & Sharp, 2007: 5). Famously, the Pankhurst family, prominent in the leadership of the Women’s Political and Social Union, was divided on the issue of the relationship between feminism and socialism even before the war began. The division was exacerbated by the divergences about women’s contribution to the war effort; this was also true of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, whose most public figure—Millicent Fawcett—wholeheartedly backed the war effort, with some opposition from other members. In Britain the socialist and pacifist line adopted by Sylvia and Adela Pankhurst was minoritarian, and both the main women’s organisations backed the war effort (Purvis, 2007: 142–6; Higonnet, 1999: 12–12, 21). Emblematically, Emmeline Pankhurst changed the title of The Suffragette to Britannia (Smith, 2003). The suffrage movement abandoned direct demands for emancipation, largely suspending suffrage 4  In Germany, according to Higonnet (1999: 5), some 30% of socialist women refused to co-operate in the war effort.

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marches and meetings, arguing that there was no incompatibility between supporting the war effort and supporting women’s enfranchisement. In Christabel Pankhurst’s words: “To win votes for women a national victory was needed for … what would be the good of a vote without a country to vote in” (quoted Purvis, 2007: 143). Millicent Fawcett wrote in Common Cause (14.8.14): Women, your country needs you.5 As long as there was any hope for peace, most members of the National Union probably sought for peace, and endeavoured to support those who were trying to maintain it. But we have another duty now. Let us show ourselves worthy of citizenship, whether our claim to it be recognized or not.

The same division, with the same majority, is to be found in France and Germany. The main French feminist paper, La Française, put an article under the headline “The Mobilisation of Women” on the front page of its first issue after the outbreak of war; it declared: For as long as the ordeal our country is undergoing continues, no one will be allowed to speak of her rights [in these pages]. Towards the nation we only have duties. Concern with women’s rights will take second place in our programme. (14.11.14)6

In a subsequent article on women’s contributions to the war and their implications for the future, the editor, Jane Misme, confirmed the earlier stance with the statement that “Since the beginning of the war feminist societies have all but suspended their claims campaigns” (Revue de Paris, November 1916: 201). Writing in the Grande Revue, Léon Abensour commented that even pacifist, internationalist, socialist French feminists had supported the war effort out of a recognition that the war was caused by German aggression; they had become “warrior-like” out of necessity, in order to “make war on war” (Grande Revue 89, December 1915: 322–3).7 5  The date (14 August) may be significant, as Fawcett’s appeal uses the same phrase as the famous recruitment poster featuring Lord Kitchener, which first appeared in late September. 6  The older French feminist paper La Fronde issued a similar statement (quoted Thébaud, 2014: 36). 7  Abensour was the author of a well-known book on women’s contribution to the war effort (Les Vaillantes, 1917), which was sympathetic to equality and emancipation. “Make war on war” was an established political slogan made more famous by the massive success of Barbusse’s 1916 novel/memoir Le Feu (Under Fire) (Palmer, 2018: 153–71).

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Certainly some feminists refused to support the war effort: the journalist Marcelle Capy, for instance, adamantly refused any support, broke with organisations that lent support to the war and continued to work for international efforts to stop the war; her wartime publications and activism were all directed towards principled pacifism.8 The aim of her book Une Voix de Femme dans la Mêlée (1916) was clearly to argue for the immorality of the war. Others wavered—Hélène Brion, for example, supported the war effort in 1914 but reverted to principled pacifism in 1915 (Higonnet, 1999: 93).9 Marcelle Capy’s rejection of the war was grounded in political beliefs which were simultaneously socialist, feminist, and pacifist; however, it is telling that even someone with her activist record also argued that specifically feminist issues could be left aside until after the war (Cardinal, 1993; Thébaud, 2014: 15); other socialist feminists condemned the war on other grounds—notably Rosa Luxemburg (no pacifist), who followed Lenin’s argument that the war was an imperialist conflict in which the working class of all nations should not participate.10 However, the majority of the German women’s movement, incorporated in the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine, chose the nationalist route and became enthusiastic contributors to the war effort; in August the Women’s Secretariat of the Social Democratic Party executive and the Women Worker’s Secretariat of the General Commission of the Free Trade Unions had become members of the BDF, relinquishing for the first time the principle of strict separation between them and the latter (Hagemann, 2002: 9). Many believed—like patriotic men—that the war would bring about a regeneration of the nation, that women’s mobilisation in the war effort would show that they were responsible citizens, and that the war would by some process of osmosis naturally engender equality between women and men (Siebrecht, 2007: 40–2); male nationalists, on the other hand, thought—at least at the beginning of the war—that it would reassert the traditional gender divisions, as it would both reveal and create women’s dependence on men for the defence of the nation (Planert, 1998: 17).11 8  The lists of political meetings in the socialist newspaper L’Humanité show her continued activism. 9  See also Rochefort (2004: 22–3) for French pacifist women who refused the patriotic line. 10  See especially the “Junius pamphlet”, written in jail in early 1915 and smuggled out; available at www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1915/junius/ 11  The belief that war would be beneficial by sweeping away decadent values and replacing them with faith in patriotic, virile action was widespread across the combatant nations in the

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In short, across the combatant nations, splits inside the women’s movement and pacifist rejection did not bring about any substantial opposition to the broad support for the war effort organised by the women’s movements or with their consent. However, even if the question of women’s political rights was largely set aside to await the return of peacetime politics, this did not mean that the issue was absent from wartime concerns: it remained on the agenda because of the implications of women’s participation in the labour force. In particular, feminists saw in women’s participation in the workforce an opportunity to advance their cause, as it could be shown to demonstrate both women’s active citizenship and women’s competence. Jane Misme’s Revue de Paris claim about the suspension of women’s demands continues: If the militants were silent, it was because words were no longer useful to them. Facts spoke on their behalf: the turmoil inflicted on civilisation brought about women’s social equality with men on a large scale, … These provisional advances aroused polemics and press enquiries. (Revue de Paris, November 1916: 201)

Indeed, in parallel to the feminists’ claims of patriotic dedication, some opponents of women’s suffrage accused the women’s organisations of covertly using the war effort for this purpose; this claim was forcefully advanced by the German League for the Combat against Women’s Emancipation (see below). In the present context, although nursing had long been identified as a primarily—indeed, “naturally”—feminine occupation, and nobody raised any principled objection to women nursing soldiers, wartime nursing nonetheless involved a substantial extension of women’s participation in the work force. The links between nursing, citizenship, and women’s rights were not usually explicit, but there is one case where they were prominently underlined: the Scottish Women’s Hospital at Royaumont. In first weeks of the war, members of the Scottish Women’s Suffrage Federation raised money to set up medical facilities for the wounded; their offer of help was refused by the War Office, with the cynical and derogatory “Go home and keep quiet. The commanding officers [do] not want to be troubled with hysterical women” (Strachey, 1928: 338). They early months of the war. In most cases, it did not survive the stagnation and bloodbath of the trenches. However, it had some lasting side-effects in fears about sex (Le Naour, 2002: 11–16).

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transferred their offer to the French Red Cross, who accepted. The hospital they set up at the Abbey of Royaumont outside Paris became famous for its entirely female team—doctors, surgeons, nurses, orderlies, drivers— as well as its medical success: the survival rate of severely wounded men was exceptionally high (Figaro, 22.17.16; Revue Hebdomadaire 27 (15): 216; Crofton, 1997: ix, 121–2).12 The “Scottish Women” of Royaumont were absolutely explicit, in contemporary interviews, that the parallel purpose of the hospital was “to get all our rights so we can better do our duties”, or—in another formulation, perhaps a franker version—“do our duty in order to get our rights”. They were, according to contemporary French press reports, “the most advanced” or “the most modern of feminists”, or “feminists in the highest sense of the word”.13 This is not to say that all of the women at Royaumont were suffragists; some were motivated by the spirit of adventure, and at least one complained about being associated with the suffrage movement (Crofton, 1997: 15). While all these mentions—in conservative-leaning media—are entirely positive, it is obvious from an article in the Parisian daily Excelsior that their feminism was still far from unproblematic. Its issue of 10 November 1915 devoted a page to the women of Royaumont in conjunction with an opinion piece about feminism. Under the ironical headline “It’s alright, I’m not a feminist”, the writer argued that women’s achievements since the outbreak of war showed that even the many women who refused the feminist label (hence the ironical title) were in effect such because of the initiative and independence demonstrated in their contribution to the war effort.14

12  The Scottish Women’s organisation also had medical teams in the Balkans. There was at least one other hospital in France largely staffed by women, at Wimereux, and later the Endell Street Hospital in London was largely run by women. Royaumont was particularly famous in France because it took mostly French soldiers, unlike Wimereux. 13  Le Livre d’Or des Œuvres de Guerre (Chulliat, 1918); Revue Hebdomadaire 27 (15), 13.4.18: 214; Figaro, 22.7.16. There are a large number of French media mentions of the Scottish Women, especially around the time that President Poincaré visited the hospital on 20 June 1916. 14  Despite exceptions, women military doctors were a rarity in the Great War. Françoise Kern-Coquillat states bluntly that their marginalisation in France amounted to invisibility (2014: 48) and Germany mobilised limited numbers of women doctors into military hospitals inside Germany when no more male ones were available (Eckart, 2014: 103). However, the women of Royaumont were well known in both France and Great Britain, and the Austrian army accepted women military doctors (Domansky, 1996: 437).

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The work of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals in France and elsewhere was widely reported in Britain, especially in the Scottish press. They were the subject of a book exclusively devoted to Royaumont during the war itself, which stressed the role of the suffrage societies; a long review in the Times Literary Supplement points to the author’s “reverence and admiration for the women” of Royaumont (7.3.18); a second book on them (Maclaren, 1919) also stressed the role of the new spirit of female independence. Their fund-raising activities were regularly reported, and the honours the French government bestowed on them were noted in the national press. British press reporting lays less emphasis than the French on the feminist origins of the hospital and its potentially problematic nature, also less on the exclusively feminine workforce and at no point implies that this is problematic. Indeed, a long article in the Daily Telegraph, linked to the opening of the new women’s medical school in London, celebrates the role of women in medicine, naming the pioneer women doctors and pointing out just how normal women’s involvement in medicine has become, especially since the war started. By contrast, an article about the Scottish Women’s Hospital in Salonica in the Revue des Deux Mondes stresses the surprise an all-women team provoked in French soldiers—they were especially impressed by the driver-mechanic repairing an ambulance—and reflects that “the English are indifferent to these details. They accept that a woman can do a hard job and dress as she pleases” (Tinayre, 1917: 616).

Women in the Labour Force: (1) Germany After some hesitation about the extent to which women’s participation in the labour force was desirable, Germany used both the existing women’s organisations and newly formed government offices to bring women into a wide range of occupations; the women’s organisations co-operated with government to form the Frauendienst, the National Women’s Service (Daniel, 1989/1997: 72–3). This co-operation was sought by both the women’s organisations and the government and military authorities, even though there were certainly misgivings on the side of the authorities. Hindenburg, for example, feared that women’s participation would lead to demands for emancipation, to rivalry with men and to the long-term disruption of family life; yet at the same time he wanted to increase it in order to release more men for military service (Daniel, 1989/1997: 68–9). Nonetheless, the organisations were accepted as partners in civil

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administration and their membership tripled during wartime, from a quarter of a million to over three quarters (Planert, 1998: 178–9). The Social Democratic decision to co-operate with the “bourgeois women’s unions” in the BDF rapidly bore fruit: for example, even before the formal union, the Social Democrat daily Vorwärts reported that a Party representative had offered their co-­operation in a Berlin-wide initiative, expressing the hope that all parties could work together in this common aim (5.8.14).15 Women’s participation was publicly welcomed across the political spectrum: Ute Daniel refers to the frequent eulogies to women’s self-sacrificing service to the Fatherland (1989/1997: 101). As an example, the welcome can be seen in a long article—one among many—in the important national weekly die Woche, celebrating the participation of women’s organisations in the Hamburg region (1916: 1138–42), which included this entirely positive image:

15  The search term “Frauendienst” shows several dozen reports in this paper during the autumn of 1914 about these actions, all positive.

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A trawl through the issues of this journal from the outbreak of war to December 1915 shows that the majority of issues had at least one article devoted to some element of women’s war work, none of them negative. The League of German Women’s Associations (BDF)—the principal emancipation organisation before 1914—was prominently involved in the actual organisation of the Frauendienst, and their participation was well publicised: for example, in 1915 and 1916 they published substantial volumes describing all the sub-organisations and activities in which they were involved (Altmann-Gottheiner, 1915, 1916). The introduction to the second one stressed the impeccably patriotic credentials of these activities: “women’s performance is only one link in the great chain of the fatherland’s action” (1916: v). The prominent German feminist Helene Lange made the same point: “Wartime social care is women’s war performance”. However, the President of the National Union placed this commitment into a wider ideological frame: A different order than the materialistic, technical one of the nineteenth century prevailed and we felt an enormous feeling of liberation. An order not of achievement and reward, risk and profit, effort and advantage, but of life and death, blood and strength, effort as such, absolute, in every case. This is what we experienced then: being lifted into a totally different order, one that opposed the individualistic principle of achievement. It was, in a special form, the decisive antithesis of the industrial-capitalistic way of life. Public feeling was completely transformed, taken off the hinges of rational connections and transported up to the world of values such as: homeland, soil, family, camaraderie. New destinies awoke new feelings, of ancient ones that were frozen and faded. (Gertrud Bäumer, quoted in Daniel, 1989/1997: 74)

Beneath a vision of national community that transcended any division between the sexes, Bäumer (as Ute Daniel emphasises) is aligning her vision of what wartime Germany was with the women’s movement’s pre-­ war demands: in other words, in her analysis, it was possible for the women’s movement not to seek any political advantage from their participation in the wartime effort because the conduct of the war on the home front was achieving their aims for them anyway. The links between the two lay in the continuity between their pre-war activities and the new field of activity they were able to claim in the war: commitment to the maintenance of social welfare.

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Despite a large measure of institutional co-ordination, with all that this implies for public acceptance, their participation gave rise to controversy and political antagonism. In fact, the degree of political conflict was intense and protracted in Germany. No doubt this was due to the presence before 1914 of large and well-organised movements on both sides of this political divide which continued to pursue existing policies in wartime, albeit in modified forms. In particular, many working-class members of the women’s national union were also members of the Social Democratic Party, which supported emancipation; this led to permanent suspicions among conservatives, and especially the military hierarchy, that women’s involvement would be used as an excuse to demand emancipation (Planert, 1998: 97; Schönberger, 2002: 93). Doubts about the validity of women’s increased participation centred around the three themes that Hindenburg outlined: employment rivalry with men, family life, emancipation. In particular, Germany had a well-funded and powerful organisation dedicated entirely to fighting women’s emancipation, the Deutscher Bund zur Bekämpfung der Frauenemanzipation (German League for Combat against Women’s Emancipation). In 1914 they published an appeal for political mobilisation for the war years, in which they simultaneously accepted German women’s contribution to the war effort—in principle and with reservations—and condemned the trajectory towards emancipation that they feared might be the result: “The English Suffragettes and the Russian Women’s Battalions show the level of degeneracy reached by women who follow the political path.” Needless to say, they totally opposed the opening of traditionally male occupations to women. Such praise as there is for women’s war contribution is measured and precise: “Millions of women have done their best inside and outside the home, in the family and the community, their advice is listened to and their work for the rescue of the state is valued”; the praise is for work in the home and the community, not industry, let alone in any office or military or state establishment (Deutscher Bund, 1914: n.p.). Indeed, in a letter to local government in Baden-Wurttemburg, they wrote that it was entirely unacceptable that a male bureaucrat might become “fully and without any recourse” subordinate to a woman, which would be “unworthy of a German male office-holder” (cited Birn, 2014: 20). Underlying these positions was an entirely traditional view of woman as essentially homemaker, with the family as the foundational unit of a well-­ ordered society. Community support work was acceptable, out of necessity and provided it did not lead to any claim for political rights, as it was

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largely an extension of women’s traditional charitable role. Despite the recognition of the useful role women played, in 1915 they opposed the formation of the Women’s Service on the grounds that it amounted to a party-political takeover of women’s contribution, and strongly objected to the regional co-operation between the BDF and local administrations, as they feared this would easily lead to voting rights (Guido, 2010: 108, 111). For the National Women’s Service they had only criticism, as they feared that its demonstration of women’s competence would reveal the falsity of their assertions that women would never be able, physically or mentally, to replace men in the workplace (Planert, 1998: 179). The BDF was an umbrella organisation (as its name implies), drawing in women and organisations from both left and right. However, the political co-operation did not survive Germany’s defeat and the political changes it brought about: the patriotic, anti-democratic, and anti-emancipation organisations that had collaborated with pro-democracy and pro-­ emancipation organisations largely abandoned this co-operation after 1918. Indeed, the co-operation turned out to be a major catalyst for the development of right-wing women’s groups’ political activity in the aftermath of the war (Streubel, 2003: n.p.).16 The issue of rivalry was never resolved during wartime. Ute Daniel has shown that women’s move into male preserves was less than was supposed and that it had little impact upon women’s employment patterns in the long run. In particular, its impact was constrained by three factors: firstly, women were prevented from transferring out of agriculture to other occupations; secondly, the wartime labour market was a free market, not one based on state direction, and women chose the jobs with the highest wages; thirdly, women with dependent children were largely excluded from factory work (1989/1997: 87–9). Nonetheless, the move of women into men’s jobs was indeed substantial: for example, in Berlin the metalwork, chemicals, and machine tools industries—traditionally male preserves— came to have a work force over half of which was women, and in unskilled work close to a 100% (Proctor, 2010: 100). In agriculture, the traditional field/home division between men and women was largely abandoned; Gertrud Bäumer celebrated this in an article in die Frau (in Higonnet, 1999). The limited economic impact of these changes, however, did not constrain their visibility, nor prevent negative perceptions of them. A long and 16  We shall see that this is important for the history of the German nurses’ memoirs (see Chap. 8)

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positive article on the war effort and women’s education in die Woche opens with the assertion that few people now see the “woman question” as a matter of competition between men and women—the national system for enrolling women in war work has seen to that (Keyserlingk, 1916). It is clear that the assertion is rhetorical—at the very least the judgement that it is no longer an issue underlines the fact that it had been.17 The expression of fears that women would displace men in the long term was common, especially when women went into jobs in the army as secretaries and telephonists (Daniel, 1989/1997: 87; Planert, 1998: 180–1) and the German trades unions were clear in their commitment that men’s jobs should be returned to them after the war (Daniel, 1989/1997: 102–3). Soldiers were very aware of the threat to their future and army newspapers reassured them that women would return to their previous occupations after the war; a lot of press reporting featured stories about women who would prefer to be at home rather than doing a man’s job (Planert, 1998: 180–3). Especially controversial was the employment of women in military headquarters in the occupied territories; although these jobs were not close enough to the front lines to be physically dangerous, the direct participation of young women in military life caused public concerns. As Bianca Schönberger has shown, the young women who were employed as office personnel by the army were much better paid than either nurses or soldiers, did not come from the middle- and upper-class backgrounds that most volunteer nurses came from, and were accused of seeking sexual independence; their superior pay gave them the opportunity to provide for their families, thus undermining the traditional male role of breadwinner. She cites a long list of reports of “sexual adventures” between soldiers and women army auxiliaries, which damaged their collective reputation and which brought complaints from the women and their parent organisations (2002: 95–7). The war had a profound effect upon family life in Germany, especially after the wartime economy began to suffer from a basic lack of foodstuffs, thanks to the Allied blockade (Corni, 2004). There were fears that the prolonged absence of the fathers, in combination with women taking 17  The identity of the writer of this highly positive article about women’s contribution to the war effort is significant: Margarete von Keyserlingk was active in the women landowners’ organisations which in 1916 amalgamated to form the Reichsverband Landwirtschaflichen Hausfrauenvereine (RLHV); later she was its representative in the BDF, from 1920 (Lange, 1998: 73; Sveistrupp & Zahn-Harnack, 2016: 121). The RHLV was strongly anti-democratic and anti-emancipation (Streubel, 2003: n.p.).

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charge of the household, would weaken male authority; at its most extreme, this view expressed the fear that women would completely take over the male role in society. In the absence of men, women had to spend ever-increasing amounts of time working and trying to obtain food, which led to decreased supervision of children; at the same time, young men and women had increased opportunities for earning, and increased opportunities for leisure spending; public fears about the results—especially criminality—were frequent (Donson, 2010: 125–136). However mistaken, the fears were real and commonly linked to women’s mobilisation for the war effort.

Women in the Labour Force: (2) France Unlike Germany, France did not have a political grouping specifically to combat women’s emancipation. French anti-feminism of that period was an “ungraspable nebula”; with no organisation or newspaper, it was “everywhere and nowhere”, swimming in the multiple currents of anti-­ democratic politics such as clericalism and anti-Semitism (Chenut, 2012: n.p.). Even in the middle of the war, an article (by a woman) noting women’s achievements in wartime—including the first appointment of a woman as a military surgeon—bases its anti-feminism on nothing more than the supposition that women are by nature ill-equipped for public life; the author concludes that the traditional relationship between the sexes is the right one: men confronted with “pretentious and confrontational” women become their enemies (Nouvelles de France, 2.3.16). Nor was this opinion only a product of a traditionalism driven by Catholicism: an article in the very anti-clerical La Lanterne also argues in favour of a “natural” division of labour that gives absolute priority to women’s domestic role, albeit while giving them the same civil rights as men (19.4.16). Despite some argument along these lines, the vocal patriotism of the French women’s organisations, combined with abundant proof of service, largely marginalised such overt anti-feminism for the duration of the war; indeed, praise for women’s contribution to the war effort was universal (Thébaud, 2014: 48, 223). This summary of women’s activities, published at the mid-point of the war, is typical of the public response: Measuring the mass of efforts allows us to understand women’s activities in France. No doubt the initiative is not theirs alone. But it is their diligent hands, their untiring commitment, their patience, which have ensured that, from day to day, all the details have worked, without snags. To them fell the

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greatest burden, the daily care, and they accepted it joyfully. (La Renaissance Politique, Artistique et Litteraire, 8.7.16: 16)

While a lot of the praise for women’s contribution to the war effort celebrates their activities in traditionally feminine occupations, such as nursing and social care, the French press is nonetheless replete with articles reporting the many ways in which women replaced men. A random trawl through two French dailies in 1915 and 1916 gives these examples: waiters, tram conductors, drill and mill operators in machine workshops (Excelsior, 29.6.15), or munitions and car factories (L’Intransigeant,12.8.15, 26.11.15; Excelsior, 7.7.15, 12.8.15). Women were even replacing male military cooks in the barracks (Excelsior, 19.2.16); and clerical personnel in the Ministries (Le Monde Illustré, 13.1.17). L’Intransigeant campaigned for better wages for women doing men’s jobs (e.g. 4.10.15; 23.11.15). There are frequent photographs of women doing these jobs, as in this example of women railway workers at work on the signals at the Gare du Nord18:

18  From Le Miroir de l’Histoire, 3.6.17, the weekly photographic supplement to the daily Petit Parisien. Similar photographs, in double page spreads, in Excelsior, 4.8.15, 8.3.16, and 24.06.17 (front page).

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While the direct celebration of feminism implied by the caption to this image did not always accompany the praise of women’s work, none of the reports quoted here show any hint of disapproval and often contain praise—in other words, women’s work is reported as one element of the war effort among others. However, despite this recognition, women’s new roles gave rise to some criticism and fears about their implications and effects. At the national level, French women’s organisations were not institutionally involved in mobilising women for the war effort, with the exception of their involvement in nurse recruitment and training through their membership of the Red Cross; however, they were responsible for a mass of local and partial initiatives. The mass mobilisation of men in 1914 caused a significant contraction in economic activity and led to female unemployment, as the contraction disproportionately affected women’s jobs such as textiles (Hause, 1987: 104); Paris alone had 400,000 unemployed in the autumn of 1914, half of them women19; however, this was temporary. Members of the women’s organisations created support networks, often as small-scale, local, largely private initiatives such as care organisation and the “ouvroirs”, charity workshops using women’s skills such as sewing. On the other hand, munitions manufacture expanded very rapidly and factories took on women workers: the number of women employed in armaments factories rose from 15,000  in June 1915 to 684,000  in May 1918. There was no formal national organisation of women’s work at all until late 1916, when government took two separate initiatives to bring women into the workforce; however, these organisations only accounted for the employment of a minority of women workers (Thébaud, 2014: 36–43). Women’s overall participation in the workforce did not greatly increase during the war. Before 1914, 7.7 million French women were economically active, which equals 36% of the workforce, mostly employed in agriculture; during the war this rose to 40%; however, these increases were not distributed evenly across the economy and there were big rises in the number of women employed in particular sectors, notably rubber, printing, munitions, metalwork and shops, occupations that were better paid than traditional women’s jobs (Thébaud, 2014: 265). Although the overall female economic participation rate did not massively change, it was highly visible where transfers into male occupations occurred, such as arms  Le Correspondant, 10.09.15: 920.

19

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manufacture and transport; it is no doubt this visibility rather than the overall quantitative shift which explains the level of public attention. Aside from the mobilisation of nurses, the women who most attracted public attention during wartime were those working in armaments, who were given the affectionate nickname of “munitionnettes”.20 An article in the daily Le Journal (2.11.16) opens with the generalisation that while all women are involved in the war as wives and mothers, there are categories of women who are in direct collaboration with soldiers: they are the nurses and the munitions workers; the latter’s collaboration is valued, and mutual good will between them and the experienced male workers ensures that the snags that were feared have not occurred. Indeed, numerous press articles celebrate their commitment and marvel at their newfound capacity for such hard labour. The French press also features many reports about the use of women workers in the British defence industry, stressing how well the system works. Nonetheless, the munitionnettes—and other working-­ class women—also incurred negative comment, blamed for thriftless spending of excessive wages or state benefits on luxury items (Paris-Midi, 11.4.16; Thébaud, 2014: 235–7), or drinking and gambling (Excelsior, 28.2.16); an article in Le Correspondant even reports upper-­ class women blaming well-paid munitionnettes for pushing up food prices because they don’t bother to haggle (25.12.16: 1009). In a long article about war and morality the traditionalist Catholic daily L’Univers addresses the risks of women workers being corrupted by a mixture of money and unregulated entertainment: What has been done to protect working women and girls? The State has arranged high wages for most of them. Have these wages strengthened the family? The opposite has come about. … In the industrial areas a social milieu has been allowed to develop which made [the damage to the family] worse: drink shops, pleasure establishments, the false luxury trade. (23.12.17: 266)

A long article in the journal Automobilia opens with the recognition of their commitment and the necessity of their contribution, but quickly switches to a thoroughgoing attack: what is this work doing to women? Will it create a new asexual creature? The work is so hard it is beyond women’s physical capacities, so they seek solace in “debauchery and  The same term as in Great Britain, but with different spelling.

20

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alcohol”: “drunk on freedom itself … how many allow themselves to be corrupted by their companions in the workshop, who have done all types of work, including the worst” (September 1917: 36–8). Male-dominated trades unions expressed concerns about the long-term effects of women’s employment in traditionally male occupations. Françoise Thébaud quotes at length a resolution passed by the metal workers union in September 1917 which absolutely opposes the integration of women into the work force, while also agreeing to represent women workers (presumably to reduce the risk of them working for lower wages) (2014: 262–3). The great majority of the media mentions of women’s war work are unproblematically positive. Their work in the defence industries and public services was clearly understood as essential and difficult (e.g. La Lanterne, 12.8.17) and the hard conditions under which they worked in general evokes strong praise (e.g. Le Journal, 3.6.17). However, as Françoise  Thébaud has argued, while it was seen as both essential and praiseworthy, the other fundamental element of public perception was that it was temporary (2014: 224). Indeed, one of the striking features of this journalism is the relative rarity with which discussion turns to the future of women’s employment. Le Monde Illustré gave most of a page to women’s wartime employment on 13 January 1917; the writer is explicit that women’s role in the labour force must expand rather than contract, owing to the number of war dead; but once the point is made, the article turns back to examples of how successful women have been in men’s jobs. Even this limited focus on the future should be contrasted with a long article in Le Correspondant about the women’s “ouvroirs” set up to create work for unemployed seamstresses in 1914–1915 (10.9.15: 920–35). The article focusses on the inventive ways in which the women who set up the “ouvroirs” managed to make them function in challenging conditions, displaying a level of business initiative for which they had no previous experience. However, even with this focus, the workplaces only appear in the guise of temporary palliatives for an unusual set of circumstances and there is no suggestion that there is any longer-term lesson to be learnt from the experience.

Women in the Labour Force: (3) Great Britain On the outbreak of war, as we have already seen, the majority of the women’s movement chose to support the war effort. For example, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst actively promoted military recruitment as well as

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women’s role in war production by organising and addressing rallies; in contemporary reporting they were praised for their active patriotism (Noakes, 2008b: 48). When it became clear that the supply of ammunition for the British army was inadequate, in 1915, the Pankhurst’s organisation, the Women’s Social and Political Union, organised the Great Procession of Women or the Right to Serve March (17.7.15) in support of recruiting women into the munitions factories (Smith, 2003: 112). As well as contributing to the military and production recruitment drive, elements of the women’s movement assumed responsibility for a wide range of relief work and supplementary supplies for the army, primarily in the form of extra clothing, medical supplies and rations. However, there was no overall national co-ordination and although there was no objection in principle to such involvement, in practice disagreements arose over various elements of it. For example, it was accepted from the beginning of the war that soldiers’ families had a right to financial support—in any event, military volunteering was in effect dependent upon the assurance of such support. However, the implementation depended upon charities, and in particular the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families Association; by 1915 this had 900 branches and 50,000 voluntary workers. This manner of implementation led to disagreements caused by the incompatibility between dependence on charity and the universal right to such support. This was reflected in political disagreements about how the relief was done in practice; among other disputed elements was the charity workers’ role in “policing” behaviour—payments were sometimes made conditional on proof of non-promiscuity and sobriety (Pedersen, 1990: 992–5).21 If women’s voluntary work was largely viewed as positive, the changes in women’s roles within the labour market were the subject of some disagreements, despite the widespread recognition that their new roles were unavoidably necessary. Women’s employment rates increased substantially during the war, from 23.6% of the working-age population in 1914 to between 37.7% and 46.7% in 1918. The figures are imprecise because many women moved out of domestic employment, for which there were no figures, into the newly available work, which was usually better paid and gave greater independence (Braybon, 1981: 49). Moreover, the average hides large 21  The policing of women’s behaviour is an important element of their social position in wartime (Grayzel, 1999: 122–39), and a significant part of the context of nurses’ memoirs; see below.

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variations in different sectors; in engineering, for example, women’s employment increased over six-fold during the war. These increases involved government-led negotiations with employers and trades unions to overcome resistance and mitigate discontent at the changes; the negotiations created agreed rates of pay and conditions, with tribunals to control them (Wrigley, 2015). The changes in women’s employment in munitions brought women’s war work to the forefront of public attention. The nature of the war demanded a rapid increase in armaments production, especially munitions. This became especially visible after the British Commander on the Western Front, Sir John French, said that the army was being hampered by lack of artillery ammunition; the result was a scandal of major political proportions.22 In part as a result of this, the nature of ammunition production was publicised, and it became well known that a significant part of the work-force was women, doing work that was traditionally male and both heavy labour and dangerous. Indeed, the “munitionettes” provided one of the most well-established public faces of women in the war effort.23 When H.G. Wells sought examples of women’s work showing that the suffrage movement was justified, it was in the armaments industry that he found his proof: And in the munitions factories, in the handling of heavy and often difficult machinery, and in adaptability and inventiveness and enthusiasm and steadfastness, their achievement has been astonishing . . . The girls who have faced death and wounds so gallantly in our cordite factories—there is a not inconsiderable loss of dead and wounded from these places—have killed forever the poor argument that women should not vote because they had no military value. Indeed, they have killed every argument against their subjection. (Wells, 1916: 60)24

However, despite such praise and the recognition of the necessity, the women involved were subjected to criticism. They had wages that were 22  The same problem hit other armies too, and all the combatant nations tried various measures to counter-act the difficulty, which arose from an initial false understanding of how the war would develop (Strachan, 2016). The British example is famous because it caused the government to fall. 23  See, for example, the poem “On Her Their Lives Depend” (quoted Woollacott, 1994: 188). 24  See similar press comments in Gullace, 2016: 165.

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well above the traditional women’s wage and many of them were young and single; war time manners allowed young women to go about in public without a chaperone and these women were accused of spending their wages inappropriately; wearing fur coats was a common accusation which provoked popular outrage (e.g. The Globe, 20.4.18). There is a much-­ quoted poem by Madeline Ida Bedford titled “Munition Wages” which satirises the spending habits allowed by an alleged wage of £5 a week: I spends the whole racket On good times and clothes … For years I wore tatters Now – silk stockings, mi (sic) friend.25

The sum was probably mythological: the munitions worker Peggy Hamilton responded to this accusation with the straightforward rejection: “No one I knew owned a fur coat, … we worked 7 till 7 six days a week for £1 a week and what kind of fur coat did she think she could buy” for that money (quoted Jackson, 2017: n.p.).26 Nevertheless, after the war the author Catherine Gasquoine-Hartley echoed the same accusation: Who has altered the fashions about every three months? and this has been going on in war time. Why, the munition workers and the forty-shilling-a-­ week girls. No longer was finery always bought out of men’s earnings, but out of their own; put on to give some man a treat or to fire the envy of other girls. The factory girl has taken to silk stockings and fine lingerie and the lady to Balbriggan and calico. (Gasquoine-Hartley, 1920: 39)

Such indications demonstrate the widespread nature of the comments. More fundamental were male fears about the results of female employment in male jobs, some of which were shared by conservative women. In the first place, men feared the long-term results of the “dilution” of skilled labour. Skilled workers and craftsmen had traditionally been paid at higher rates than unskilled and women’s work had largely come into the latter category, even though some women’s work, such as sewing, clearly involved skill and experience. This photograph captures male workers’ attitudes:

 https://allpoetry.com/Munition-Wages  See also Watson, 2004: 136.

25 26

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The message on the board behind the women reads: “When the boys come we are not going to keep you any longer girls”. (Crown copyright. National Records of Scotland, UCS1/118/GEN/393/10)

The dilution process involved not only employing less-skilled women workers in skilled jobs, sometimes under the supervision of a male worker, but also changing the nature of the production process by breaking tasks down into simplified components that demanded less skill and were more easily mechanised; the resultant deskilling, unionists feared, would marginalise the traditional skilled worker (Winter, 2005: 142–5). They also feared that employers would find that they could permanently employ women at a lower rate than men. Indeed, women were sometime very unwelcome additions to the workforce, as in the case of the “serious dispute” reported in Croydon in 1917 when “two women were being taught to drive tramcars, resulting in a cessation from work for many weeks”, followed by a case

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where “upon women being appointed as mail drivers the men ceased work immediately, and as a result the women have since been withdrawn”.27 Another fear was that women would be changed by the experience of the workplace, that they would be less “womanly”, in particular that women would acquire such a taste for independence that they would be unwilling to be wives and mothers. The soldier George Wilby, serving in Africa, wrote to his fiancée, “don’t take on a man’s job or go into a factory. I think it disgusting the way women are going on at home. When us chaps come home we shan’t know the women from the men” (quoted Jackson, 2017: n.p.). Writing after the war, and blaming the feminists for encouraging women’s desire for independent self-realisation, Catherine Gasquoine-­Hartley clearly indicates the role that wartime employment has played in the changes she deplores: What has been going on is a continuance of the process by which women are led more and more to escape from any specialization of function and are brought into competition with men in every kind of occupation. Now, let us be clear about it: this is a process which makes the excitement and experience and possible good of the individual woman outweigh in importance the safeguarding of the perpetual stream of man. A confusion of values has led women astray. (Gasquoine-Hartley, 1920: 21)

Conclusion The pattern of women’s employment in wartime was broadly similar in the three nations, and the longer-term outcome was the same: despite hesitations and some opposition—stronger in Germany than elsewhere—their wartime participation was accepted as a matter of necessity, but after 1918 they left the parts of the labour market that had been male-dominated, albeit with exceptions. Criticisms of their role derived from fears of the erosion of the traditional gender distinctions, and—in some quarters—the fear that this would be the thin end of the emancipation wedge. As is well known, this in fact happened: in Britain and Germany women got the vote. However, two things should be noted. Firstly, in Germany they got the vote because the Social Democratic Party became the party of government, and they had supported women’s emancipation for many years; had Germany not been defeated, it is unlikely that government would have changed hands and that women would have got the vote. Secondly, they did not get the vote in France, despite the widespread public support for emancipation. 27  Letter from the President of the London and Provincial Union of Licensed Vehicle Workers to the Home Secretary, 13 February 1917; cited Noakes, 2014.

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It is the link between the erosion of gender differences and objections to women’s employment that is significant for a contextual understanding of the nurses’ memoirs. Despite the clear and uncontroversial allocation of nursing to women, any expansion of women’s place in the work force was potentially linked to changes in women’s place in the social order. The implication is that any claims nurses made to public support could always, in theory, be linked to the wider drive towards emancipation and the extension of women’s rights. In practice, this was rarely explicit—in this respect the Scottish Women of Royaumont were the exception—yet the implication must have been clear: as Ruth Amossy says of the French nurse memoirs, these authors portray nurses as “valiant citizenesses”, in other words women whose commitment to their duty makes them worthy of the full panoply of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic, thus validating the claims made by English feminists like Millicent Fawcett (Amossy, 2005: 276).

Bibliography (2) Other Contemporary Literature Altmann-Gottheiner, E. (1915). Kriegsjahrbuch des Bundes Deutscher Frauenvereine 1915. Teubner. Altmann-Gottheiner, E. (1916). Heimatdienst im Ersten Kriegsjahr. Teubner. Barbusse, H. (1916). Le Feu. Flammarion. Chulliat, M. (1918). Le Livre d’Or des Oeuvres de Guerre. Private edition. Deutscher Bund. (1914). Aufruf an die Frauen und Männer Deutschlands zur Erhaltung deutscher Frauenart und zum Kampfe gegen das Frauenstimmrecht. Available at: http://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/book/view/nn_fraueneman zipation_1914?p=1 Fraser, H. (1918). Women and War Work. G. Arnold Shaw. Gasquoine-Hartley, C. (1920). Women’s Wild Oats. Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards. Laurie. Keyserlingk, M. von. (1916). Kriegsarbeit und Frauenerziehung. Die Woche, 27, 940–943. Maclaren, E. (1919). A History of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals. Hodder and Stoughton. Strachey, R. (1928). The Cause. A Short History of the Women’s Movement in Great Britain. Bell. Available online at HeinOnLine. Tinayre, M. (1917). Un été à Salonique. Revue des Deux Mondes, 39, 606–635. Wells, H. G. (1916, June). The Women and the War. Ladies Home Journal, 60.

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(3) Secondary Literature Amossy, R. (2005). L’Image de l’Infirmière de la Grande Guerre de 1914 à 2004. In Lasserra et al. (Eds.), Mémoires et Anti-Mémoires Littéraires au XX Siècle. La Première Guerre Mondiale (pp. 273–296). Peter Lang. Birn, M. (2014). Krieg als Chance? Der Aufstieg der Frauen im Erwerbsleben. Archivnachrichten 48, Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg. https://www.landesarchiv-­bw.de/sixcms/media.php/120/56336/Archivnachrichten_48.pdf Braybon, G. (1981/2012). Women Workers in the First World War: The British Experience. Croom Helm. Braybon, G. (2000). Women, War and Work. In H. Strachan (Ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (pp. 150–162). Oxford University Press. Calvini-Lefevre, M. (2015). The Great War in the History of British Feminism: Debates and Controversies, 1914 to the Present. Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique [Online], XX-1. Cardinal, A. (1993). Women on the Other Side. In D. Goldman (Ed.), Women and World War One (pp. 31–50). St. Martin’s Press. Chenut, H. (2012). L’esprit antiféministe et la campagne pour le suffrage en France, 1880–1914. Cahiers du Genre, 52, 51–73. Corni, G. (2004). Ernährung. In G.  Hirschfeld (Ed.), Enzyklopädie Erster Weltkrieg (pp. 461–464). Schöningh. Crofton, E. (1997). The Women of Royaumont. Tuckwell Press. Daniel, U. (1989/1997). Arbeiterfrauen in der Kriegsgesellschaft. Göttingen: Vanderhoek & Rupprecht. Cited in the 1997 English translation German Working-Class Women in the First World War. Oxford: Berg. Domansky. (1996). Militarization and Reproduction in World War I. In G. Eley (Ed.), Society, Culture, and the State in Germany, 1870–1930 (pp. 427–464). University of Michigan Press. Donson, A. (2010). Youth in the Fatherless Land. War Pedagogy, Nationalism and Authority in Germany, 1914–1918. Harvard University Press. Eckart, W. (2014). Medizin und Krieg. Deutschland 1914–1918. Ferdinand Schöningh. Fell, A., & Sharp, I. (Eds.). (2007). The Women’s Movement in Wartime. Palgrave Macmillan. Grayzel, S. (1999). Women’s Identities at War. University of North Carolina Press. Grayzel, S. (2014). Women’s Mobilization for War. In 1914–18 Online. Guido, D. (2010). The German League for the Prevention of Women’s Emancipation: Antifeminism in Germany, 1912–1920. Peter Lang. Gullace, N. (2016). The Blood of Our Sons: Men, Women and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War. Springer. Hagemann, K. (2002). Home/Front. The Military, Violence and Gender Relations in the Age of the World Wars. In K.  Hagemann & S.  Schüler-­

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Springorum (Eds.), Home/Front. The Military, War and Gender in Twentieth-­ Century Germany (pp. 1–32). Berg Publications. Harris, C. (2014). 1914–1918: How Charities Helped to Win WW1. Third Sector. Available at: 19141918:%20How%20charities%20helped%20to%20win%20 WW1%20%7C%20Third%20Sector.webarchive. Consulted 10.4.2020. Hause, S. (1987). More Minerva than Mars: the French Women’s Rights Campaign and the First World War. In M. Higonnet et al. (Eds.), Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars (pp. 99–113). Yale University Press. Higonnet, M. (1999). Lines of Fire. Penguin Plume Books. Higonnet, M., et al. (Eds.). (1987). Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars. Yale University Press. Jackson, L. (2017). Women and Work Culture: Britain c.1850–1950. Routledge. Cited in the non-paginated online edition. Kern-Coquillat, F. (2014). Les Femmes Médecins dans le Service de Santé en France 1914–1918. DEP, 24, 48–75. Lange, S. (1998). Protestantische Frauen auf dem Weg in den Nationalsozialismus. Metzler. Le Naour, J.-Y. (2002). Misères et Tourments de la Chair durant la Grande Guerre. Les mœurs sexuelles des Français, 1914–1918. Aubier. Noakes, L. (2008b). Women in the British Army: War and the Gentle Sex, 1907–1948. Routledge. Noakes, L. (2014). Women’s Mobilisation (Great Britain and Ireland). International Encyclopaedia of the First World War. Palmer, J. (2018). Memories from the Frontline. Memoirs and Meanings of the Great War from Britain, France and Germany. Palgrave Macmillan. Pedersen, S. (1990). Gender, Welfare, and Citizenship in Britain During the Great War. The American Historical Review, 95(4), 983–1006. Planert, U. (1998). Antifeminismus im Kaiserreich. Vanderhoek and Ruprecht. Proctor, T. (2010). Civilians in a World at War, 1914–1918. New  York University Press. Purvis, J. (2007). The Pankhursts and the Great War. In A. Fell & I. Sharp (Eds.), The Women’s Movement in Wartime (pp. 141–157). Palgrave Macmillan. Rochefort, F. (2004). Les Féministes en guerre. In Morin-Rotureau (Ed.), 1914–1918 Combats de Femmes (pp. 17–31). Editions Autrement. Schönberger, B. (2002). Motherly Heroines and Adventurous Girls. Red Cross Nurses and Women Army Auxiliaries in the First World War. In K. Hagemann & S. Schuler-Springorum (Eds.), Home/Front (pp. 87–113). Berg Publications. Siebrecht, C. (2007). Martial Spirit and Mobilization Myths: Bourgeois Women and the ‘Ideas of 1914’ in Germany. In A. Fell & I. Sharp (Eds.), The Women’s Movement in Wartime (pp. 38–52). Palgrave Macmillan. Smith, A. (2003). The Pankhursts and the War: Suffrage Magazines and First World War Propaganda. Women’s History Review, 12(1), 103–118.

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Strachan, H. (2016). Shells Crisis of 1915. International Encyclopaedia of the First World War (online). Streubel, C. (2003). Literaturbericht: Frauen der politischen Rechten. H-Soz-­ Kult. www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-­3523 Sveistrupp, H., & Zahn-Harnack, A. (2016). 1790–1930 Die Frauenfrage in Deutschland. De Gruyter. Thébauld, F. (1986/2014) La Femme aux Temps de la Guerre de 1914. : Stock/ Payot et Rivages. Watson, J. (2000). The Paradox of Working Heroines: Conflict Over the Changing Social Order in Wartime Britain, 1914–1918. In M.  Mays & D.  Mackaman (Eds.), World War I and the Cultures of Modernity. University of Mississippi Press. Watson, J. (2004). Fighting Different Wars. Experience, Memory and the First World War. Cambridge University Press. Winter, J. (2005). The Great War in History: Debates and Controversies, 1914 to the Present. Cambridge University Press. Woollacott, A. (1994). On Her Their Lives Depend. University of California Press. Wrigley, C. (2015). Labour, Labour Movements Trades Unions and Strikes. International Encyclopaedia 1914–18 (online, n.p.).

CHAPTER 5

Women and War Work (2): Nursing

Wartime media coverage of nurses shows both enthusiasm and gratitude as well as some criticism. While there was no objection in principle to women military nurses, some elements of this new situation provoked controversy. Since there were no fundamental objections to their role, such criticism was inevitably marginal, and some of it, in retrospect, seems like petty carping. Nonetheless, it should be taken seriously, for it is part of the context in which nurses wrote. Where media coverage is concerned, there is a significant difference between Britain and France on the one hand, and Germany on the other: the wartime nurses were far less visible in Germany than elsewhere. An article by the general in charge of German military health inspection gives a clear indication. It starts by stating that so little is said about army nurses that people would not even know they existed if they didn’t happen to see one in the street (Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 5.1.16). Even when they did, it was easy to ignore them: a photograph in the Berliner Tageblatt (24.1.15) shows wounded soldiers walking in the street, accompanied by nurses; the caption only mentions the soldiers. Quantitative analysis of German newspapers suggests the general was right: a search of online word-searchable German newspapers from 1914 to the end of the war gives a comparatively limited corpus of articles mentioning nurses. The eight titles that are available in this format produce a total of 1126 mentions of the words commonly used for women nurses at the time © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Palmer, Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany, Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82875-2_5

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(Krankenschwester, Krankenpflegerin, Hilfspflegerin).1 Indeed, after 1916, even the medical weekly press more or less stopped any reports about war nurses (Buchholz, 2004). Even the publications of the League of German Women’s Associations say little on the subject: the substantial volumes of their reports have only one article on the subject (Gaebel, 1915), which largely reproduces the military plan for incorporating nurses into the military health service, while noting the modifications introduced in the autumn of 1914. A search for “nurse” in a sample of six national British press titles, plus two Sunday equivalents, for the entire duration of the war gave just over 14,000 results in news and editorial pages, excluding adverts. A small sample manual inspection (n  =  100) revealed a significant number of false positives, in which “nurse” was used as a verb in a metaphorical sense, or in which “nurse” appeared in a context not connected to the war; the false positives amounted to approximately 40% of the results, which suggests a total of around 8000 valid results.2 A search for “infirmière” in any major French daily during the war produces substantial numbers of examples each year—between 50 and 300 per title per year—most of which are small items of news reporting; many of the others are in pieces of fiction published in serial form; there were few false positives. A random choice of eight national daily titles produced a total of 7200 mentions.3 This brief quantitative comparison suggests that the role of women nurses in the war aroused substantially less public interest in Germany than in Britain and France. This difference is also visible through analysis of two thematic elements of the German reporting. The first is to be found in

1  The titles are: Berliner Tageblatt, Berliner Volkszeitung, Berliner Börsenblatt, Altonaer Nachrichten, Hamburgischer Anzeiger, Börsenhalle, Neue Hamburger Zeitung, and Vorwärts. Using these search terms misses mentions where “Krankenschwester” is abbreviated to Schwester; however, the same omission would occur in English or French where “sister/ soeur” was used and therefore should not affect the comparability. The term “Schwesterndienst” only produced one extra article, on wartime training regulations (Berliner Tageblatt, 20.05.15). 2  The titles are Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Times, Daily Mirror, Daily Express, Guardian, Sunday Times, and Observer. 3  The titles are Excelsior, Le Gaulois, L’Intransigeant, Le Journal, La Lanterne, Le Matin, Le Petit Parisien, and Le Temps.

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stories about the military health care system, detailed examination of which shows the relative marginalisation of nurses in them.4 In the winter of 1914–15, the German authorities created a substantial public exhibition of the arrangements for the care of war wounded and sick. Housed initially in the parliament buildings in Berlin, it circulated around German cities through 1915. The opening venue alone indicates its public importance, and it was widely reported. The purpose of the exhibition, in the words of its organiser, was “to show to the widest circles what is done to ease the lot of those who are wounded or ill at the front, and bring them a rapid cure; to show how the army and volunteer nurses were already preparing in peacetime to be fit for their needs”5 (quoted Funke, 2014: 89); and “to bring comfort to the public about the care of the sick and wounded” (quoted Posen, 1996: 129). On 17 December 1914 the Berliner Volkszeitung reported its opening on the front page, stressing that it corresponded to the “hundred-­ thousand-­ times-asked question, how is the wounded German soldier cared for?” The lengthy report describes the massive set of exhibits and illustrations, which show how well modern medicine is able to care for, cure and rehabilitate the wounded. As well as an exhibition of equipment and historical artefacts, the exhibition was used for a series of public lectures on themes related to the care arrangements, substantially reported in press summaries (e.g. Berliner Tageblatt and Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 10.1.15). The ongoing activities associated with it—for example, a display of food designed for the wounded in the Parliament tearoom— continued to figure in reporting (e.g. Berliner Börsenzeitung, 20.1.15). Subsequently the exhibition was installed elsewhere during the course of 1915—Dresden, Danzig, Magdeburg, Budapest, Kassel, Breslau (Funke, 2014: 89). However, in the mass of reporting of the exhibition, of the reported lectures, in the many assertions about the excellence of care, there is a significant absence: nursing. It is not a total absence, as the exhibition organiser does refer to the role of nurses, and in a lecture about women’s contribution, the speaker notes that there is a distinction between trained 4  In the eight online titles in Note 1 plus the Vossische Zeitung and Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung for 1914–1915. 5  Here the reference to volunteer nurses cannot refer to the wartime volunteers, and must refer to the role of the women’s unions in preparing women for Red Cross nursing; see, for example, Smith, 2010.

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nurses and their less-trained assistants (Berliner Tageblatt, 10.1.15); but otherwise, silence. This marginalisation appears to be systematic. For example, even in the mass of brief news reports of Red Cross activities, nurses are rarely mentioned; the articles are overwhelmingly about fundraising and administration. In the early months of the war, German newspapers published numerous articles about the military health care system; some were very generalised administrative accounts clearly written by senior officers, some were personalised accounts written by journalists or doctors, and based on visits to hospitals to talk to patients and staff. For example, during the first 12 months of the war, the Berliner Tageblatt published 15 accounts of visits to hospitals and hospital trains.6 In all of these accounts, nurses are either not mentioned at all, or mentioned briefly and anonymously: typically, the report simply states that there are nurses there, but gives the bulk of the space to the soldiers, the doctors and the care facilities. Articles by senior military care personnel7 show the same characteristic. On 20 September 1914, the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung published a long front-page article (1.5 columns) about the military health care system, explaining why there are relatively few care personnel close to the fighting, which had produced complaints about wounds not being treated fast enough; in the final paragraph the article asserts that fully qualified nurses have been sent to the occupied territories, although not to the front, and this is the first mention of nurses. A similar article by the general in charge of the military health care system (Vossische Zeitung, 3.10.14) explains in the final paragraph that it is not possible to send nurses to the front area.8 Three other brief indications of marginalisation are provided by paucity of coverage, especially in publications that might be expected to promote favourable material about women’s war work. Vorwärts, which supported the women’s rights movement and had a regular column headed “From 6  On 1.9.14, 16.9.14, 21.9.14, 29.9.14, 4.11.14, 7.1.15, 10.1.15, 18.1.15, 19.1.15, 20.1.15, 22.1.15, 26.1.15, 10.3.15, 30.3.15, 24.7.15. 7  Or presumed to have been written by them. Most news reports in German newspapers were anonymous and unsourced; authorship or substantial briefing can be inferred by the range of organisational detail contained in the article. 8  Although nurse diaries show that they were in fact sent there during 1914—see, for example, von Hadeln, 1934: 23–4; von Üxküll, 1956: 10. Their presence at the front is also explicit in the many extracts of correspondence in Senftleben et al. (1934). There was a protracted political conflict in wartime Germany about whether or not to send nurses to the front area (Domansky, 1996: 437).

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the Women’s Movement” through the war years, had only one interview with a nurse in the entire war; it had only 50 mentions of “nurse” from the beginning of 1915 to the end of the war, mostly short news items about medical care in which nurses were briefly mentioned. The principle German feminist monthly, Die Frau, judging by a manual search of the war years’ indexes, produced not a single article which mentioned anything in which a nurse might figure. A final indication is the lack of attention paid to German nurse memoirs published during and immediately after the war: eight German-speaking nurses published memoirs during these years, and searches in word-searchable online files and the Bibliographie der Rezensionen produced a total of four reviews of these titles.9 We shall see below that many British and French nurse memoirs from these years attracted substantial numbers of reviews or reprints of extracts. Lastly, during the war German nurses from the religious and quasi-­ conventual nursing orders regularly corresponded with their “mother-­ houses”; selections of these letters appeared in the house magazines. However, unlike letters from soldiers, they were not widely circulated. Whereas soldiers’ letters home are regularly to be found in mass circulation newspapers, and were published in edited collections, the nurses’ correspondence was not used in the same way (Panke-Kochinke & Schaidhammer-Placke, 2002: 49). Unlike German media, both French and British media devoted substantial attention to the activities of nurses. Indeed, Kate Finzi’s memoir complains about an aristocratic lady who turns up frequently at hospitals in Belgium and northern France, with her press photographer, and is quoted as a nurse, despite never doing a day’s work on the wards (Finzi, 1916: 7). In particular, British media promoted two nurses to substantial, if temporary, celebrity: the “women of Pervyse”, Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm.10 9  Albrecht, 1917; von Babo, 1918; Glock, 1920; Mordtmann, 1916; von Rüdgisch, 1916; Sonnenthal-Scherer, 1918; Voss, 1915; von Walsleben, 1919. The searches found three reviews of Rüdgisch and one of Babo. The greater prominence of Rüdgisch is probably because her account is part of a presentation of the work of the Red Cross put out by a youth and educational publisher. This emphasis is clear in the reviews, for example, Altonaer Nachrichten, 31.5.16. This list omits Sturzenegger (1915): she was Swiss and worked for the enemy (Serbia). 10  If we leave aside military and political leaders, whose reputations follow trajectories largely defined by power, the number of men and women who achieved lasting fame from

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In 1914 the two women joined the group of doctors, nurses and others led by Dr Hector Munro who offered their services to the Belgian Red Cross. During the autumn of 1914, they drove ambulances between the front lines and the treatment centres, often a few hours’ drive away from the front, over roads damaged by shell fire, as well as providing first aid and refreshments to the wounded. During this time they acquired a local reputation for great bravery, often retrieving wounded men from the front line itself, without relying on the stretcher-bearers to bring them through the first stage of evacuation. From this experience Elsie Knocker drew the conclusion that the wounded would be better served by first aid attention in the immediate proximity of the front lines. She realised that even rudimentary further treatment would reduce the impact of shock and thereby increase the chances of survival: just washing the wound, putting on a clean dressing, giving a hot drink and a blanket made a substantial difference; it was the time factor that was critical, and any delay was medically significant. She suggested to Munro that the group should establish a first aid station close to the front lines, but he refused funding for it, saying that if she and Mairi Chisholm insisted they were on their own (Mitton, 1916: 115–6). They chose to insist; with the help of a few others, and permission from the Belgian authorities, they set up a first aid station in a bomb-damaged house in the village of Pervyse, which was close enough to the front lines to be frequently shelled—there are photographs of them driving their ambulance between rows of houses reduced to rubble—and they had to put the first aid post in the cellar. Subsequently, they were given formal status as part of the Belgian army’s 3rd Division, and became completely independent of the Munro group.11 Their actions were widely reported during the war itself, in part because the need for fund raising forced them to seek publicity. The activities of the Munro group were well known, since two of the group were Lady their wartime activities is limited. Probably the only soldiers who achieved really lasting fame are Lawrence of Arabia and the Red Baron. The only woman, tragically, is Edith Cavell, although the Swedish nurse Elsa Brändström, the “Angel of Siberia”, achieved lasting fame through the inter-war years in Scandinavia and Germany; see Appendix A. 11  The sources for this account of their actions are Reuss (2012), Gleason and Gleason (1915: 168–233), Mitton (1916) and the newspaper reports cited below. Although not all the details are consistent in these reports, the outline as sketched here is consistent with the common elements in them.

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Dorothy Feilding, daughter of the Earl of Denbigh, and May Sinclair, a well-known writer. Dr Munro’s Flying Ambulance Corps figures in press reporting from early September 1914 onwards; Lady Feilding’s nursing in Belgium is reported soon after (e.g. Daily Sketch, 7.10.14) and her presence continues to be reported through the autumn. May Sinclair subsequently gave various accounts of her time there and of the women of Pervyse (e.g. Daily Chronicle, 2.2.15; Daily Telegraph, 16.2.18; Sinclair, 1915).12 The first mention of the two Pervyse women themselves comes in a brief report that Elsie Knocker has received an award for ambulance driving (Dover Express, 6.11.14), closely followed by a letter from her about fund-raising in the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette (12.11.14)); as her family came from that area, her activities were followed in the local press. However, several reports in the national press in the first half of 1915 imply that their names are still not as well known as the Munro group and in particular Lady Feilding; a report in the Times (4.2.15) and another in the Sunday Times (14.2.15) mention them briefly in pieces about the latter. In June, the weekly glossy The Sphere (26.6.15) published a substantial article by Arthur Gleason, an American who had been part of the Munro group, and whose wife had been at Pervyse. After general points about women at war, he mentions various women who had worked with him and his wife—a Miss Smith, Sarah Macnaughtan and Lady Feilding—and then narrates a journey in an ambulance with Elsie Knocker and describes the new situation in Pervyse; clearly he thinks that the women of Pervyse are not yet sufficiently well known to be the first names to be mentioned. The war correspondent Philip Gibbs, who reported from Belgium in the autumn of 1914, talks about meeting Munro and Gleason in the first weeks of the war, and mentions nurses who are probably the women of Pervyse (they are wearing men’s clothes and are absolutely unafraid of artillery fire) but does not name them (Gibbs, 1915: 173–6). However, from this point onwards they appear frequently. Over the entire period of the war they received a large number of press mentions, in both the national and the provincial press—the total runs into the hundreds. Many of the reports are concerned with their fund-raising efforts, for example, a letter they wrote to the Lord Mayor of London (e.g. Daily Mail, 28.5.15); in April 1916 and again in June, the provincial press has many reports of public meetings they addressed. In 1915 they were made 12  In her 1915 memoir May Sinclair gives the women false names (Mrs Torrence, Janet McNeil) but from their descriptions it is obvious who they are.

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Knights of the Order of Leopold, a major Belgian honorific title—among other things, it entitled them to be saluted by Belgian soldiers—which is frequently mentioned in British press reports, as was their subsequent award of the Military Medal. Later in the year Elsie Knocker became engaged to the Baron de T’Serclaes, a Belgian fighter pilot, and they were married in January 1916. This too figures in press reporting; the Daily Mirror has a picture of the two women, with the Baron, on a motor cycle combination, with text explaining that they are returning to the front line (15.5.16). In April 1918, they were the cover story of the woman’s weekly magazine Home Chat, with a brief text that stresses their awards and their bravery. By the later years of the war they were sufficiently famous that their everyday movements featured in press reporting: photographs of them were put on display at the Grafton Gallery and appeared on the front page of the Daily Mirror (11.4.18), to report the fact that they were in London for a memorial service at Saint Paul’s for nurses killed during the war. Their fame was sufficient that even their absence was reported: the Pall Mall Gazette (12.2.17) noted that they were unable to attend a fund-­ raising event. Publicity attached to names in this way suggests such a degree of celebrity that any act becomes newsworthy; indeed, many years later the Baroness said that during the war she was so famous that pavement artists drew her portrait (Birmingham Daily Post, 16.6.64). Their celebrity even extended to the United States. Mary Roberts Rinehart devoted three of her Saturday Evening Post columns to them in 1915 (Rinehart, 1915: 230–54). The New York Times had pieces on them on 27.3.15 and 14.1.17, and the Chicago Tribune on 23.4.18. In 1916 their actions formed the basis of a book, The Cellar House of Pervyse (Mitton, 1916). Written in the third person, with extensive quotation from the two women, it purports to be based upon their diaries and correspondence. It was widely reviewed. The narrative follows the path they took in Belgium, concentrating on detail about their adventures while driving ambulances, often under fire, and rescuing soldiers under often very difficult conditions.13 At roughly the mid-point of the narrative, Elsie Knocker has the idea of a forward dressing station, and shortly afterwards Dr Munro withholds his agreement (1916: 13  Pp.27–8, 34–5, 38–41 all narrate picking up wounded in the front line; pp. 68 ff narrate horrendous ambulance journeys taking wounded back from the intense fighting at Dixmude to the British hospital at Furnes.

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115–6). The rest of the book narrates events at Pervyse, the Order of Leopold award and ends with her marriage. The months at Pervyse stress the dangers, and the benefits they bring to the wounded. Throughout the narrative there is very little mention of the actual details of nursing, although it does not hide the fact that they had to deal with horrific wounds; the focus is overwhelmingly on the danger and sense of comradeship in adventure, their indomitable cheerfulness and willingness—indeed, enthusiasm—to keep going at any cost to themselves; it also stresses their keen sense of independence. The focus is overwhelmingly on the two of them; while the presence of co-workers is noted, it is entirely marginal; neither Lady Feilding nor Mrs Gleason appear in the account of the dressing station at Pervyse, although the presence of both is well established.14 The reviews emphasise the same elements of the narrative. Despite being repeatedly shelled out of buildings, they refuse to give up their presence in Pervyse (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 18.11.16). The Daily Mail stresses their initiative in setting up the dressing station at Pervyse despite the danger and the horrific wounds they have to deal with (21.11.16). According to the Daily Telegraph, the book is a plain record of “strenuous courage and daring unsurpassed”, only to be endured by “those inspired by the highest sense of duty” (13.12.16). The Scotsman focusses on the level of danger they endured, concluding that the book has “all the interest of a romantic novel [with] much more serious purpose” (13.11.16). The Illustrated War News summarises several of the situations in which they found themselves, concluding that they show the “sheer romance and heroism” of working in the firing line, something previously considered totally unsuitable for women (5.12.17: 34, 36). The Saturday Review (2.12.16: 534) and the Bookman (December 1916: 78) also focus on the danger, the appalling conditions and their “fortitude and devotion”. The Times Literary Supplement says it is a “fine adventure”, a good example of audacity and self-imposed duty (16.11.16). A particular detail which caught many journalists’ attention was that one day some Belgian soldiers stopped their ambulance and asked them to take six German prisoners, without any escort, back to base; the journey passed off without incident. However, in her substantial Daily Chronicle article May Sinclair stresses 14  See Gleason and Gleason (1915) and the photograph “The Madonnas of Pervyse” in the Imperial War Museum (www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205348829), which includes both. They are prominently mentioned by May Sinclair in the Daily Chronicle (2.2.15) and again in the New York Times (27.3.15).

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that what the women did was far from just adventure, since their nursing knowledge was as important as their bravery, while still underlining the latter. Even the British Journal of Nursing, which was often critical of volunteer efforts at war nursing, gave over four pages to an entirely uncritical review and summary of the book, stressing the adventurous qualities of what they did (v.57: 426–8 and 443–5). All the reviews, as well as the news reporting, stress the fact that these are the actions of women; in this respect, the journey with the German prisoners was especially striking. Although all the reports are unstinting in their praise, their presence in the front line was initially problematic; indeed, after they were transferred into the Belgian army, women were forbidden to go to the front line—with the express exception of themselves (1916: 220). In addition, it was the reason for Munro’s refusal of funding: Ambulance work had the cachet of respectability; everyone knew what it was, and approved of it; but this other – whoever in their senses had heard of women living right up among the actual fighting soldiers, miles from any hospital! (Mitton, 1916: 115).

The phrase “cachet of respectability” is telling: it is less danger than the risk of the taint of immorality that is the key here; although elsewhere soldiers are quoted as saying that their protection is an additional burden (Rinehart, 1915: 234). In the reviews and reports the question of suitability is occasionally foregrounded, but it is not a frequent theme; what is stressed is how unusual the circumstances are. While this emphasis contains a masked reference to the question of suitability—the circumstances are only unusual because of their gender—it also settles the question of suitability by avoiding it. In addition, the constant reference to their courage must contain a covert reference to their gender, since courage under fire was considered normal in soldiers. Most of the reporting does not draw overt conclusions about the implications of the women’s involvement in frontline work. However, some of the reviews, and other reports, stress that their performance demonstrates that women are capable of participation in the (eminently masculine) activity of warfare.15 The Sphere article by Arthur Gleason is an extended illustration of the principle, 15  For example, The Broad Arrow, 15.11.16, May Sinclair in the Daily Chronicle, 2.1.15 and the Daily Telegraph, 16.2.18.

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announced in his opening paragraph, that “women have stepped into the foreground” in this war, refusing their traditional place and proving that it is “equally proper for women to be present” at the front (26.6.15: 308–9). Announcing their award, Modern Woman (4.12.15: 95) stresses that other women have performed heroic acts too; the Leeds Mercury (19.11.15) includes them in an overview of women’s war work, and their activities are reported in Jus Suffragii (1.11.15) and Votes for Women (26.11.15)—both of them primarily political opinion and action journals. Two reviews of the book are in part unfavourable. Both comment on the feminine nature of the text. According to Country Life, the account is excessively personal, because it is by and about women: the “intrusion of personalities [comes from] the eternal difference between the labours of men and women”; the Times Literary Supplement makes the accusation that the tone of the book is too “kittenish” and too self-conscious: “we seem to hear the writer going off into a giggle whenever a handsome man comes into the story” (Country Life 41 (1044), 6.1.17: 16; Times Literary Supplement, 16.11.16). Now it is important that these accusations are aimed at the author, not at the women of Pervyse themselves, and both reviews stress the wonderful work they did, along with their quality of audacity. However, the Country Life review makes an additional point of analytic importance, to which we shall return in the analysis of the main corpus of nurse texts: the “intrusion of personalities” makes the book “more of a call for admiration for two charming ladies than of the Belgian soldiers”. In this emphasis on the focus of admiration, the author reveals that (s)he clearly thinks that the focus of memoirs by or about nurses should not be themselves, but their patients. We shall see that this is a significant element of the nurse memoirs. The fame that the women of Pervyse acquired during the war was clearly due to the contradiction between their actions and then-­ commonplace gender definitions. While nursing was a pre-eminently female occupation, as we have seen, such direct exposure to danger, and close proximity to fighting men, were not: they were masculine traits, as was their short hair, and their costume: heavy boots, long leather overcoats and tin hats; they are more often photographed in this attire than in nurse’s uniform.16 However, none of this is presented as reprehensible; on the contrary, it is overwhelmingly presented as proof of their commitment 16  Mary Roberts Rinehart commented on their costume—they are “very attractive but strangely attired” (1915: 231). Mitton (1916: 113–4) makes their short hair an act of com-

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to the war effort and more broadly—sometimes explicitly, more often implicitly—as emblematic of women’s participation in it. Although the women of Pervyse were far from typical of British volunteer nurses, and their treatment in the media is clearly exceptional, the nature of their fame may be considered emblematic of the support, even admiration, of British nurses in the War; the hint of doubt in the reviews is rare. During the autumn of 1914, any random trawl through French dailies brings up frequent news reports about nurses’ recruitment and deployment. Also regularly noted was the presence of British and American nurses working alongside the French Red Cross—for example, in the rapid creation of a hospital in Neuilly by a committee representing the Anglo-­ American community in Paris, enthusiastically reported in (among others) the daily Le Petit Parisien (8.10.14); such reports were clearly intended to show that France was not alone in the world, and by implication women volunteers were a valued element of this reassurance.17 After the first few months of the war, reports of new activities such as these falls away as the nurses were integrated into the wartime medical services.18 Thereafter, news reporting of nurses follows a familiar pattern dictated by events, such as administrative appointments, awards of medals, exceptional casualties or famous women’s activities as nurses; also reported were marriages between nurses and patients or soldiers. In short, nurses are treated, in news reports, as not substantially different from any other category of person caught up in the war, with the proviso that their status as nurses is central to the news value of the incidents reported. In these reports it is impossible to find any expression of disapproval in principle, probably because the politics of wartime—in particular, the “Union Sacrée”—meant that any patriotic gesture would be met with

mitment, as they cut it off in a pact to keep on doing whatever was needed, saying “we became soldiers in that hour.” 17  The French Ministry of Education subsequently published an entire book about English women in the war, which gives prime attention to their contribution to French efforts (Mespoulet, 1918). 18  Also, after October 1914, the war became trench warfare from more or less fixed positions and the threat of further German advance was lifted; this had the effect of decreasing the nurses’ eminently newsworthy exposure to capture and enabling their main deployment at a safe distance from the front line.

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approval.19 Indeed, even ultra-conservative titles like Action Française and La Croix follow this pattern: for example, La Croix denounced as infamy a report in a Spanish newspaper which accused French women of lack of commitment (16.10.15). This news reporting implies approval of nurses’ activities insofar as it is marked by the absence of any alternative, let alone opposing, frame of reference; nurses become part and parcel of the war effort and are reported as such. Moreover, alongside this type of reporting we find a mass of enthusiastic and admiring writing about nurses’ devotion to duty. In a famous front-page article for Le Figaro, the well-known writer Emile Bergerat named them the Fourth Army and the “white angels”: What we will have to tell the children in school is that the fourth army mobilised itself, with no call from the State, nor conscription nor any preaching of a Crusade, through free and spontaneous enrolment … When they didn’t receive enough opportunities for devotion [in the voluntary hospitals] they went to look for them in the hail of machine gun fire. (29.12.15)

Days later the paper opened an article about nurse memoirs with a celebration of their commitment under extreme danger, evoking women who are “the Providence of sick and wounded soldiers”, some of whom have died at their posts (2.1.16). Most of a 20-page-long article in the Revue Hebdomadaire (vol.45, 15.4.16: 281–304) about the “women of France” is devoted to a protracted paean of praise to the nurses of the Red Cross: “We never saw her cry”, said a badly wounded man who had been nursed by a woman whose only son had just been killed. A few moments later, she herself pointed to them, in response to my emotional homage, saying, “Now they are all my son” (292).

Many other pieces of journalism have the same flavour: “It is impossible to avoid emotion on seeing the departure of these volunteers dressed in blue, their long veils floating down their backs, the Red Cross on their 19  The Union Sacrée was an agreement to suspend partisan party politics from the start of the war. Among other things, this muted the anti-feminism which was commonplace on the French right (see Chap. 4), and which under other circumstances could easily have led to major disagreements about women’s roles in the war. As we have seen, it did not entirely silence quibbles on the subject.

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breast” (Les Annales Politiques et Littéraires, 16.8.14). L’Intransigeant reports a court case where a volunteer nurse has been refused financial support by her husband, and the court has taken his side; while accepting that the decision is legally sound, the paper argues the decision should be altered for the benefit of someone who is unable to earn her living because she is volunteering “to help our wounded” (11.4.16). Or this brief death announcement of a nurse killed by a shell fragment while tending a wounded man: “How beautiful is this simple death on the field of honour, after so many months of self-denial and daily heroism” (L’Intransigeant, 31.10.15). Extracts from nurses’ diaries and letters were often published (e.g. Combarieu, 1916: 136–70; Le Journal, 13.3.16; Revue Hebdomadaire, 12.2.16); the soldiers’ weekly La Baïonnette did a special, highly laudatory (if fantasy-laden) issue on nurses on 21.10.15. Particularly patriotic versions are eulogies of women killed during the invasion of northern France while staying at their posts (e.g. Lespine, 1915). As Françoise Thébaud says, praise for nurses was more or less universal, and the nurse became— at least symbolically—one of the central figures of the war (1986: 95). As we have seen, across the three nations public principled opposition to women’s involvement as nurses was non-existent; such opposition as there was took the form of carping about details of their role, or attacks on women who were accused of false motives and being unfit for the task. For example, General Arthur’s preface to Kate Finzi’s memoir refers in passing to false nurses: praising Finzi for her modesty and commitment, he says “we know that she and all the genuine nurses and helpers worked devotedly and well” (Finzi, 1916: xviii); no doubt the others whose presence is implied were guilty of what the British Journal of Nursing called “spurious nursing” (v.53, no.1388, 7.11.14: 359). These objections were mostly phrased in three sets of terms: firstly, false claims of competence; secondly, service motivated by snobbery and social ambition or a simple desire for adventure; thirdly, promiscuity. Clearly, these fears were focussed on the volunteer nurses, not on professional nurses and especially not on those from the religious nursing orders. Snobbery was an occasional accusation. As Madame de la Boulaye says in her memoir, women (she means upper class women who were rich enough to volunteer) needed to show devotion to the wounded, for after the war it would be essential to social survival (1919: 76); she praises the head nurse in her hospital who is very severe towards society women “looking for a pious entertainment” (1919: 42). An example of this accusation appears in an ironical article about a rich woman who advertises her

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devotion by travelling on the Metro in nurses’ uniform and knitting – it turns out she is knitting a wall hanging for her salon (L’Intransigeant, 15.1.15). A German nurse, writing in 1915, complains about the Red Cross badge being used as a fashion accessory (von Zimmermann, 1915: 1–2). Kate Finzi complains in her memoir about Lady X—name omitted—who turns up regularly at hospitals with her press man and camera: “She’s never done a day’s work in the wards; we’re fed up with her picture in the papers” (1916: 7). The question of competence is discussed openly, if only because it was obvious that volunteers were unable to lay claim to professional standards; Vera Brittain candidly admits that when she started nurse training she did not even know how to boil an egg (1933: 142) and an article in Die Woche says that many new nurses couldn’t even make soup for the wounded (Keyserlingk, 1916: 941). Juliette Martineau is scathing about the personal shortcomings of some of the Red Cross volunteers she meets, and is grateful for their absence when she moves from a Red Cross hospital to a French military one (1915: 5, 12). L’Intransigeant attacks the use of temporary unqualified nurses, who have used recommendations from their “social connections” to get a place (23 and 30.12.16), as does the British Journal of Nursing, attacking “untrained influential ladies” (v.53, no.1389, 14.11.14: 372). Jane de Launoy says some of the volunteers’ incompetence made men’s wounds worse, adding that a high social status and commitment to charity are not a good enough excuse (1936: 28). The British Red Cross journal reports difficulties over the acceptance of volunteers in military nursing during the first 12–18 months of the war, on the grounds of competence, but thereafter such comments disappear from its pages. A book review of two nurse memoirs says in passing that “everyone knows” there were some nurses not worthy of the name, but many were (Revue Hebdomadaire, 17.7.15: 385). A retrospective article by a French nurse in 1917 says that at the beginning of the war, voluntary nursing was not always up to standard; but nowadays nurses, even part-time volunteers, “know their job” (Revue Hebdomadaire, July 1917: 459–74). Alleged incompetence could also be used for political purposes. In the winter of 1915–16 a series of articles in La Lanterne (an anti-clerical paper) alleged that competent secular doctors and nurses at a hospital in Nogent-sur-Marne had been ousted from their posts by harassment by nun nurses and their clerical supporters in the administration; the political dimension was given added force by allegations of nursing incompetence on the part of the nuns. The scandal appears to have been launched by

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questions to the War Minister in Parliament and La Lanterne published articles detailing the harassment and incompetence through December 1915, and again in March 1916.20 However, this “scandal” is scarcely mentioned in other titles, perhaps out of a desire to avoid causing tension in the Union Sacrée. On the other hand, in the first wartime issue of the French feminist weekly La Française (14.11.14), a volunteer nurse discusses what is demanded: not “science”, since most of what they do is common sense; but you certainly need spiritual strength to be able to cope with the stresses involved—there is little point in volunteering unless you can take it, and those who only volunteer in order to make a display of dedication disappear as soon as things get hard. At this point, the discussion of competence has given way to an argument about what is needed for commitment. Lack of commitment was a common criticism of women who allegedly only did some nursing because it was fashionable to do so. For example, on 28 June 1915, the Countess of Warwick published a long article in the Daily Chronicle attacking the “sisterhood of impostors”, the “society nurses”, or “butterfly nurses”, who use the minimum of training to get permission to go to France, to “sit at the end of a bed and smoke cigarettes with a wounded officer”. Such behaviour “does not develop the efficiency of a hospital” and risks obscuring the “brilliant in the extreme” record of the “real nursing sisterhood”. Eveline Hrouda says she would prefer nursing other ranks rather than officers, to show that “not all volunteer nurses are only there to sit on officers’ beds comforting them” (1935: 18). Similar criticisms are to be found in the French press, condemning women who like to be photographed in nurses’ uniform but only like lightly wounded men and run away to the seaside if really badly wounded men arrive. For example, this article, dripping with sarcasm: Red Cross nursing, of course, or the Dames de France.21 The others are small fry that don’t count. Universal fraternity hasn’t abolished all the nuances, has it? The nurse took up this career with all the ardour natural to a person attracted by a new outfit. It’s so becoming. (La Vie Parisienne, 20.2.15) 20  13, 14, 17, 23, 30.12.15; 20, 28.3.16. As we have already seen, relationships between religious nursing organisations and the lay organisations preferred by the French state had made the organisation of nursing politically fraught throughout the pre-war decades. 21  The Dames de France was the most upper class of the voluntary associations that constituted the Red Cross.

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Such ladies like “just enough [wounded men], not too many and only polite ones who don’t die: ladies’ wounded” (Masson, 1915: 19). Vera Brittain comments in her memoir that some VADs only turned up briefly to hold patients’ hands and smooth their pillows (1933: 144). In a later article she attacks the type of woman who “confined her activities to arranging flowers and smoothing pillows [without] the slightest intention of tying herself to duties that were either permanent or unpleasant”, who “donned a uniform chiefly because they thought it becoming”; VADs like herself, who did the full gamut of nursing duties in military hospitals, “had  – not without occasional justification  – considerable contempt for [them]” (Manchester Guardian, 22.5.30). An article in the German Red Cross journal narrates an incident where two young women go to the War Ministry to volunteer as nurses; they are told there are no vacancies for nurses, only for kitchen assistants: “clearly horrified by this unreasonable demand”, they walk away without saying a word (Der Rote Kreuz 23 (1914): 436). Frédéric Masson, who was an influential figure in the French network of Catholic charities, is very severe towards women whose supposed vocation for nursing is only a disguise for snobbery, who want to make a display of their supposed science, who end up hurting and even killing men through their carelessness and ignorance; for them nursing is just a game that has taken the place of flirting at 5 o’clock tea parties (Masson, 1915: 11–15). Elsa Brändström makes the same criticism of Russian society ladies who only want to wipe the fevered brow and run away at the first sight of blood (1929: 40); and Eveline Hrouda comments that the Bulgarian lady volunteers who assist her in the hospital in Sofia don’t take the work seriously and unfortunately only see it as a fashionable pastime (1935: 87). The accusations of desire for adventure were frequent and certainly not entirely misplaced. The author of Nursing Adventures (the title is surely no accident) says explicitly: Here we were, girls of the twentieth century in this atmosphere of storm and war living what surely few women ever dreamt in their wildest fancies until this war began. This was life! (FANY, 1917: 132).

Even the journal of the German Professional Nurses’ organisation emphasises the “liberating” element in volunteering: “One is free of the narrowness of home, can try one’s hand at a great task” (Unterm

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Lazaruskreuz, 1.12.14, quoted Schulte, 1996: 128).22 Schulte indeed argues that many women enrolled in order to “break out and away from the obstacles and disappointments of everyday life into something that seemed more real” (1996: 127). Nicole Girard-Mangin—the only woman military doctor in the French army—had to fire nurse assistants “whose taste for adventure had aroused their sense of vocation” (L’Humanité, 6.3.17). The British Red Cross journal reports complaints about British women doing a lot of travelling in Belgium and France for very little nursing—they should be kept away from the front (December 1914: 389). Violetta Thurstan is scathing on the subject of amateurish volunteer nurses who are “anxious for adventure” and “clamouring to go to the front at once”; they are just a nuisance, “sitting on patients’ beds, meddling with dressings, doing all kinds of things they shouldn’t” (1915: 3, 28). However, the taste for adventure was not in itself discrediting; competence and willing commitment were sufficient for it to be discounted: despite her condemnation of amateurish adventurers, Violetta Thurstan immediately makes an exception for the VAD nurses who are willing to do what they’re told and presumably excludes herself, since she admits that her experiences were “a vision of the High Adventure of the War” (1915: 3, 174–5). In the long article that May Sinclair devoted to the women of Pervyse (Daily Chronicle, 2.2.15) she confronts the criticism of thrill-­ seeking women, saying that any woman working near the front is easy to criticise on these grounds; but—she insists—women such as Mrs St Clair Stobart’s team and the women who were part of the Munro Motor Ambulance deserve better than this, for their work is truly useful. Indeed, the media treatment of the women of Pervyse (see above) stresses their adventurousness (allied to bravery and commitment) very strongly, with very little moral reservation, almost certainly because it was impossible to fault their competence and commitment.23 Philip Gibbs comments that 22  Berufsorganisation der Krankenpflegerinnen Deutschlands. This was the organisation set up in 1903 for nurses who wanted to practise professionally outside the network of the conventual and quasi-conventual Mutterhaus system. It was created to help nurses be independent professionals; no doubt the point made here is related to its long-term goals. During the war—as we have seen—these nurses were not taken on by the German military heath care system until shortages compelled it; many of them worked for the Austro-Hungarian system instead (Schmidbaur, 2002: 98–9). Suse von Hörner-Heintze followed this path (1934: 18). 23  Hallett comments that a lot of the British nurse writing about the early part of the war, where British nurses were working in quasi-freelance units in Belgium, presents their experiences as adventurous (2016: 32).

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some of the nurses he met in Belgium in 1914 were probably motivated by a sense of adventure but most were driven by the desire to help (1915: 210). Female promiscuity was an issue in wartime debates.24 Indeed, public fears about it came to the surface with some regularity during these years. These fears were manifested in a kaleidoscope of moral panics, public discussions and policy initiatives. In some cases policy initiatives provoked public discussion, in others the cause-effect chain was inverted. It is rarely a question of direct relevance to nurses: no one thought their employment was inappropriate, and accusations of nurse promiscuity were few, moreover often based in soldiers’ fantasy. One of the rare cases comes in a long article in Die Woche about women’s education and the war effort, referring to women whose motive for nursing was “ideas from sentimental novels or selfish expectations”, who were unable to cope with the hard reality of nursing (Keyserlingk, 1916: 941).25 However, this issue forms a background against which nurse memoirs could be read, and any reading of the texts should be alert to hints and audible silences in the memoirs that link to this element of the overall context of production and reception. Wartime conditions inevitably led to emotional insecurity and sexual frustration, due to prolonged enforced gender segregation; in combination with the lionising of frontline soldiers, this led to false male expectations of easy romance on leave, which readily turned to bitterness directed at women (Le Naour, 2002: 322–6); under these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that nurses easily became the subject of soldiers’ fantasies: even having a dressing changed by a nurse could give rise to unaccustomed feelings.26 The history of the Great War contains many examples of debates, fears, and policies focussed around the issue of lax morality due to wartime conditions (Barry, 2019; Le Naour, 2002: passim). Such fears included a relaxation of parental control over youth, due to the prolonged absence of fathers and mothers’ commitment to work; this was exacerbated by patterns of youth employment which gave young men and 24  But not male promiscuity. It was widely accepted that soldiers would consort with prostitutes. Despite occasional moral condemnation, this practice was primarily condemned insofar as it risked venereal infections, which took men out of active service. A French general said he preferred to have prostitutes available in the rest areas, rather than family visits, as prostitution was better for soldiers’ morale (quoted Morin-Rotureau, 2004: 10). 25  For more explicit denunciations, especially in the Austrian army, see Chap. 9. 26  Le Naour quotes a soldier’s memoir which explicitly mentions arousal from this experience (2002: 78).

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women independent incomes, and at the same time—especially in the Central Powers—caused impoverishment due to shortages and prices. Both led to behaviour which was reprehensible by pre-war standards— everything from unchaperoned courtship and increased alcohol to organised theft.27 Sexual promiscuity takes its place among these fears, all of which are based in uncertainty about gendered conduct. Its presence in the background of attitudes towards nursing stands out clearly in an incident in Paris. Henri Bataille’s play L’Amazone opened in Paris on 10 November 1916. It was the first play in French which dealt directly with how the war touched the lives of ordinary French people, and it was conceived as a tragedy—the author himself wrote a long piece justifying what he was doing and explaining his purpose (Le Journal, 8.11.16). The motor force of the narrative is the enthusiastic admiration for soldiers that drives the “Amazon” of the title. The critical reception was mixed, some praising the play as magnificent (Le Journal, 10.11.16; Le Matin, 11.11.16), while others condemned it as pretentious and/or tasteless (Le Radical, 19.11.16; Le Temps, 10.11.16); others were circumspect, summarising the story and noting the disagreements (Excelsior, 11.11.16; Les Hommes du Jour, 19.11.16). However, what was special about it in the present context is that it caused a small explosion of rage among part of the audience—and a few critics—and the rage was aroused by something that was said by one of the characters about nurses. The remark in question is almost incidental to the overall story, and the speech in which it occurred was removed from the text after the first performance (Le Cri de Paris, 19.11.16). In the third act of the play, which takes place after the end of the war (and the defeat of Germany), a “woman of the people”—the current phrase for working class women—complains bitterly about the behaviour of the rich and pretty young nurses who have looked after her husband. In particular, she is clearly motivated by jealousy caused by the excessive gratitude the wounded have shown to such women, and talks specifically about the bodily contact involved in nursing, phrased here in terms of

 A random example: on 2.2.16, the Daily Chronicle reported that a gang of child thieves were in court in London; the existence of the gang and their career as thieves was blamed on the absence of their fathers in the army. Similar German examples in Donson, 2010: 164–6. 27

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dressing their wounds. At this point, cries of “Shame” erupted in the audience (Paris-Midi, 10.11.16; Le Cri de Paris, 19.11.16). The critics are mostly circumspect in the language they use, but it is clear that the reference point is sexual. La Vie Parisienne—not the most trustworthy of sources where fact is concerned, but a good barometer of some elements of popular feeling—comments that the critics have been too polite to be frank, but the truth is that the play offends our modesty (26.11.16). L’Intransigeant is brutally frank in its attack: the playwright “has sought to drag the admirable devotion of our nurses down to the level of base sensuality”; this provoked a letter from a nurse—on sick leave from the Battle of the Somme—supporting the condemnation on the grounds that “even the most frivolous” nurses had done their duty (L’Intransigeant, 16.11.16); “frivolous” was often a code word for badly behaved and/or flirty. While it is unwise to base any generalisation about public opinion upon such a small-scale incident, the fact is that the row did occur, and attracted a certain amount of attention; it suggests that something sensitive had been irritated. For example, an article on French women’s behaviour during the war in the French feminist newspaper La Française accuses women war workers of serious lapses in morality—even women who were previously happy with domestic life have become whores (14.10.16); there were many similar accusations in the British press (Grayzel, 1999: 122, 136). In particular, these fears became evident in various scandals, for example, in the case of “khaki fever” in Britain or the revelations in Germany and Austria that some women were taking prisoners of war as lovers (Woollacott, 1994; Cree, 2016; Todd, 2011; Rollinek, 2014: 102). A scandal which was even closer to the reality of military nursing was the widely reported rumours in 1917 that young British women army auxiliaries were leading very immoral lives while on duty in France. The publicity caused a reduction in recruitment, and the rumours were sufficiently tenacious and politically sensitive to provoke an official enquiry, which asserted they were unfounded (Noakes, 2008a). The ease with which limited circumstances readily turned into a widespread scandal, provoking official responses, suggests that there was some underlying concern which flared up when triggered by an incident or set of incidents; indeed, Lisa Todd argues that the response to the prisoner of war lovers revelations implied that “for many Germans, female promiscuity became one of the worst

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consequences” of the war (2011: 258).28 As Susan Grayzel argues à propos France and Britain, generalised fears were expressed in public arguments about wartime freedom as an encouragement to immorality, for example, in accusations that young women are “loitering” and tempting men; such fears readily attached themselves to anecdotally reported incidents (1999: 122–39). In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, judgements about nurses were conducted not only in terms of competence, but also in terms dictated by the definition of the female gender role; central to this was the notion of “respectability”. Because army nursing necessarily brought women into direct contact with men, and with men who were at least temporarily single, it was inevitable that the question of respectability would arise, and specifically with regard to relationships with men.29 Even where there is no direct accusation of promiscuity, its fear is apparent in comments about nurses’ behaviour: a volunteer nurse, writing in La Française, recommends that there should be nothing “troubling” in the relationship between soldiers and nurses, who should take care to be “very simple” in their manners and above all avoid any “romantic thoughts or flirtatiousness” (28.11.14); these recommendations were “far from being followed” and hospitals took precautions to reduce the likelihood of romance (Le Naour, 2002: 77–9). The French Red Cross did not allow their nurses to work on hospital trains, for fear of putting them in compromising situations (Thébaud, 2014: 124). In Britain, all volunteer nurses serving abroad were given a letter enjoining “unimpeachable morality” and warning against “being too friendly” (quoted Watson, 2004: 91). Certainly it was said that women volunteered as nurses in order to find lovers or husbands. Archbishop Baudrillart was scathing on the subject of nurses’ immorality in his Carnets (quoted Alary, 2013: n.p.). Bianca Schönberger quotes a Catholic priest who accuses women of volunteering “to make a pretence or for selfish reasons” and then quotes the Bible to make it clear that he is referring to the search for men (2002: 93); the phrase “selfish reasons” also occurs in the criticisms of women’s preparation for war work quoted above (Keyserlingk, 1916: 941).

 See also the examples of German public fears in Eckart, 2014: 219–20.  In 1914, at least in Britain, this was not a new discussion. Nurses had been sent to South Africa during the Second Boer War (1899–1902), and their conduct was much discussed (Dale, 2015: 63–70). 28 29

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Conclusion In the last two chapters we have seen a range of expressions of gratitude for and criticisms of the nurses and other women contributing to the war effort, as well as a substantial difference in the public expression of attitudes towards the nurses that separates Germany from Britain and France. Whereas in Britain and France the full range of possible attitudes towards them was given expression, in Germany any expression of attitudes seems to have been limited to the barest record of their activities, giving little space for either admiration or criticism in general interest media; in France, as we saw above, there was no shortage of criticism of the military health care system in general and recognition of quite scandalous shortcomings, which is largely lacking in Germany. The marginalisation of public opinion about the nurses in Germany—including the very restricted number of memoir reviews published during the war—severely limits the possibility of contextual analysis, and it will be restricted to the nurse memoirs published long after the war years; as we have already seen, the overwhelming majority of the German nurse memoirs were in fact published at this time, unlike the British and French ones. Both gratitude and criticisms form part of the context within which nurses wrote and their writings were received by the public. The publicly expressed gratitude provided nurses with a frame within which they could portray their activities that would be discursively consistent with publicly expressed feelings; for this reason it is important to recognise the nature of the gratitude that was expressed—what elements of what the nurses did are apt to evoke this feeling? We have seen that the important elements are their devotion to duty and their bravery. While this is scarcely contentious, we should note a glaring omission: medical skill. By the same token, one of the criticisms aimed at volunteer or untrained nurses was their lack of competence. Clearly, this is likely to be a sensitive area which nurses needed to negotiate in their writings. The other sensitive area is sexuality. While nurses themselves were largely free of accusations of immorality (although not free from projected fantasies), the extent of public fears about the erosion of gender boundaries, coupled with recurrent scandals linked to it, implied that this too was something that nurses would have to take into account in their writings. In particular, it will be important to see whether there are signs in the texts themselves of attention towards the elements of public opinion outlined here. In anticipation, it will become

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clear that the signs consist primarily of symptomatic silences and marginalisation rather than overt reference. The public attitudes towards women’s war work and the nurses should also be placed in the longer-term context of reform of health systems. Here, as we have seen, divisions between different elements of the body of nurses and divergent interpretations of their interests provided ground for discord between wartime nurses, especially where the role of volunteers was concerned. In the analysis of nurses’ memoirs, we should be alert to potential indicators of any tension surrounding this issue, including any significant silences.

Bibliography (1) Nurse Memoirs Albrecht, E. (1917). Aus meinem Kriegstagebuch. Wolff. Brändström, E. (1922/1929). Among Prisoners of War in Russia and Siberia. Hutchinson, 1929 (original Swedish edition 1921, German translation 1922). Brittain, V. (1933). Testament of Youth. Gollancz; quoted in the Virago edition, 2014. de Launoy, J. (1936). Infirmières de Guerre en Service Commandé. L’Edition universelle. Cited in the edition Memogrammes, 2015. FANY. (1917). Nursing Adventures. A FANY in France. Heinemann. Finzi, K. (1916). Eighteen Months in the War Zone. Cassell. Glock, H. (1920). Schwesterdienst. Burkhardthaus Verlag. Hrouda, E. (1935). Barmherzigkeit. Als freiwillige Malteserschwester im Weltkrieg. Leykam-Verlag. La Boulaye, Mme de (1919). Croix et Cocarde. Plon-Nourrit. Martineau, J. (1915). Journal d’une Infirmière. Private edition. Mitton, G. (1916). The Cellar-House of Pervyse. A.C. Black. Mordtmann, H. (1916). Wie ich die Türken pflegte. Kiepenhauer. Sonnenthal-Scherer, M. (1918). Ein Frauen-Schicksal im Kriege. Ullstein. Sturzenegger, A. (1915). Serbien in europäischen Kriege 1914–1915. Orell Füssli. Thurstan, V. (1915). Field Hospital and Flying Column. Putnams. von Babo, E. (1918). Aus dem Kriegstagebuch einer badischen Schwester. Braun. von Hadeln, C. (1934). Deutsche Frauen, Deutsche Treue. Traditions Verlag Kolk. von Hörner-Heintze, S. (1934). Mädels in Kriegsdienst. Köhler & Amelang. Cited in the 1936 edition: Munich: Verlag Hermann Wiechmann. von Rüdgisch, E. (1916). Unterm Roten Kreuz. Heim und Herd. von Üxküll, A. (1956). Aus einem Schwesternleben. Kohlhammer.

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von Walsleben, M. (1919). Die deutsche Schwester in Sibirien. Furche Verlag. Voss, H. (1915). Im Dienste des Roten Kreuzes. Seifert.

(2) Other Contemporary Literature Combarieu, J. (1916). Les jeunes filles françaises et la guerre. A. Colin. Gaebel, K. (1915). Die Beteiligung der Frau an die Kriegskrankenpflege. In E. Altmann-Gottheiner (Ed.), pp. 41–49. Gibbs, P. (1915). The Soul of the War. Heinemann. Gleason, A., & Gleason, H. (1915). Golden Boys. Curtis Publishing; available at archive.org. Keyserlingk, M. von. (1916). Kriegsarbeit und Frauenerziehung. Die Woche, 27, 940–943. Lespine, L. (1915). Une Infirmière au Cœur du ‘Grand Couronné’. Berger-Levrault. Masson, F. (1915). Les Femmes et la Guerre de 1914. Bloud et Gay. Mespoulet, M. (1918). L’Effort des Femmes Britanniques pendant la Guerre. Ministère de l’Instruction Publique et des Beaux Arts. Rinehart, M. R. (1915). Kings, Queens and Pawns. Doran. Senftleben, E., Foerster, W., & Liesner, G. (1934). Unter dem Roten Kreuz im Weltkriege. Vaterländischer Verlag C. A. Weller. Sinclair, M. (1915). A Journal of Impressions in Belgium. Hutchinson. von Zimmermann, A. (1915). Die Hilfsschwester vom Roten Kreuz. Springer.

(3) Secondary Literature Alary, E. (2013). La Grande Guerre des Civils. Tempus Perrin (cited in unpaginated online edition). Barry, G. (2019). Moral Norms and Values, n.p. In 1914–18 Online. Buchholz, A. (2004). Die deutsche freiwillige Krankenpflege im Ersten Weltkrieg und ihre Spiegelung in der Deutschen und Münchener Medizinischen Wochenschrift. PhD thesis, Heidelberg University (abstract). Available at: http://archiv.ub.uni-­heidelberg.de/volltextserver/4710/1/zusdisk.pdf Cree, V. (2016). Khaki Fever During the First World War: A Historical Case Study of Social Work’s Approach Towards Young Women, Sex and Moral Danger. The British Journal of Social Work, 46, 1839–1854. Dale, C. (2015). The Social Exploits and Behaviour of Nurses During the Anglo-­ Boer War 1899–1902. In H. Sweet & S. Hawkins (Eds.), Colonial Caring: A History of Colonial and Post-Colonial Nursing (pp.  60–84). Manchester University Press.

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Domansky. (1996). Militarization and Reproduction in World War I. In G. Eley (Ed.), Society, Culture, and the State in Germany, 1870–1930 (pp. 427–464). University of Michigan Press. Donson, A. (2010). Youth in the Fatherless Land. War Pedagogy, Nationalism and Authority in Germany, 1914–1918. Harvard University Press. Eckart, W. (2014). Medizin und Krieg. Deutschland 1914–1918. Ferdinand Schöningh. Funke, U.-N. (2014). Leben und Wirken von Karl August Lingner: Lingners Weg vom Handlungsgehilfen zum Großindustriellen. Diplomica Verlag. Grayzel, S. (1999). Women’s Identities at War. University of North Carolina Press. Hallett, C. (2016). Nurse Writers of the Great War. Manchester University Press. Le Naour, J.-Y. (2002). Misères et Tourments de la Chair durant la Grande Guerre. Les mœurs sexuelles des Français, 1914–1918. Aubier. Morin-Rotureau, E. (Ed.). (2004). 1914–1918 Combats de Femmes. Editions Autrement. Noakes, L. (2008a). “A Disgrace to the Country They Belong To”: The Sexualisation of Female Soldiers in First World War Britain. LISA, 6(4), 11–26. Panke-Kochinke, B., & Schaidhammer-Placke, M. (Eds.). (2002). Frontschwestern und Friedensengel. Mabuse-Verlag. Posen, S. (1996). Museum der Gefahren. Waxmann Verlag. Reuss, T. (2012). Fighting for Fame. Women: A Cultural Review, 23(3), 302–322. Rollinek, S. (2014). Soldatinnen der Heimatfront. Frauen im Ersten Weltkrieg. In T. Mitterecker & O. Dohle (Eds.), Salzburg im Ersten Weltkrieg: Fernab der Front – Dennoch im Krieg (pp. 91–105). Böhlau Verlag. Schmidbaur, M. (2002). Vom Lazaruskreuz zu Pflege Aktuell. Ulrike Helmer Verlag. Schulte, R. (1996). The Sick Warrior’s Sister. In L. Abrams & E. Harvey (Eds.), Gender Relations in Germany (pp. 121–141). UCL Press. Smith, K. (2010). A Legacy of Care: Hesse and the Alice Frauenverein, 1867–1918. PhD Thesis, University of Alabama. Thébaud, F. (1986/2014) La Femme aux Temps de la Guerre de 1914. : Stock/ Payot et Rivages. Todd, L. (2011). ‘The Soldiers’ Wife Who Ran Away with the Russian: Sexual Infidelities in World War I Germany. Central European History, 44, 157–178. Watson, J. (2004). Fighting Different Wars. Experience, Memory and the First World War. University Press. Woollacott, A. (1994). On Her Their Lives Depend. University of California Press.

CHAPTER 6

The Nurse Memoirs (1)

The Narrative Strategies of Nurse Memoirs: The Generic Framework The defining characteristic of the nurse memoirs is the immediacy of the lived experience of their situation: Good-byes and handshakes are over, and they troop out in charge of an orderly who takes them to the point. I stand at the tent door half a minute, and wave to them as they look back. … I turn to help stretcher bearers and orderly move the lying cases on to the stretchers, and to see blankets tucked snugly round feet and throat, treasure bag tucked under the pillow. The priest kneels. And everyone takes their place, … Heads bowed, even those one can’t see, lost as they are in the dark. There are faces caught full on in the light, emaciated masks, yellowing, but full of energy. There is dignity in their bearing, despite the threadbare uniforms. (d’Antelme, 1916: 22) I tremble inwardly when, as today, the arrival of parents from Berlin is announced shortly before the burial. … This time it was a comfort to the poor parents, who had already lost their first son in the Argonne, that death was a release for the second. He had cerebral meningitis. (Mierisch, 1934: 107)

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Palmer, Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany, Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82875-2_6

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Here we see in a wealth of detail what the writer has seen, and the author’s presence at the event is clearly written into the text, constructing a personal experience presented with a minimum of mediation. This characteristic is shared with the soldiers’ memoirs, typically in the evocation of the battlefield experience: Clack! Clack! Pebbles leap up, clods of dry earth, clouds of dust; we’ve been seen, and targeted. Forward! I run in front, looking for a fold in the ground, a bank of earth, a ditch where I can shelter my men after the leap forward, or just the edge of a field which will make them less visible to the Huns. An arm gesture sets off half the line; I hear the thud of the footsteps, the crunch of the ears of corn crushed by their movement. While they run, the comrades still in the line fire quickly, without rushing. (Genevoix, 1916: 40)

Soldiers’ memoirs contain many thousands of pages of fundamentally similar incidents. It is this strategy, more than any other, that distinguishes war writing “from below” and identifies the writer as an ordinary person in the extraordinary circumstances of wartime. As we have seen, placing the personal at the heart of the narrative is an authorial strategy, clearly recognised and often denounced by contemporaries. In the next three chapters, our focus is the nurse memoirs themselves and especially the material which constitutes their characteristics. The personal experience, the narration of which is their core, is defined by the contexts within which it took place: the war and the unprecedented involvement of women. With rare exceptions, they say little about circumstances outside the immediate experiences in question, and especially little about the issues reported in the preceding chapters. Nonetheless, these issues form part of the context in which the memoirs were written and read, and absence of reference to them is potentially a significant silence, as significant as discussion of them. In particular, the analysis considers the extent to which these texts either provided reassurance to their readers about the quality of care that wounded men received, or—to the contrary—would have been unsettlingly frank about what military medicine was like. Indeed, this contrast is central to what follows, as it is arguably the most important element in the relationship between the nurse memoirs, their context(s) and public opinion. For example, wartime publication was largely dominated by reassuring texts, while the frank and unsettling ones were more prominent later. Moreover, these themes spread across the three bodies of texts analysed, with little variation by nation and language. Here there is one

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exception: as we have seen, the majority of the German memoirs were published after the Nazi seizure of power, and this context in some respects changes their meaning.1 However, as we shall see, the contrast between reassurance and frankness is not absolute: some texts show both traits, and our analysis will pay attention to their distribution. Much of these texts consists of narrations of daily experience similar to those quoted above, usually without much linkage between them, as if “caught on the hop”, in a diary format; indeed, this is another central feature, which bears several layers of meaning. Firstly, it is the guarantee of authenticity by establishing the act of witness. As Mme Eydoux-Demians says, her text’s only merit is its “sincerity, giving only the impressions produced by things seen and heard” (1915: 1). Gwendolyn Brodrick, a YMCA canteen organiser, disclaims any literary merit, as the book is nothing but “a faithful account of the work done” (1920: Preface, n.p.).2 According to the preface, by General Arthur, Kate Finzi’s memoir is “unpretentious … a simple record of facts” (Finzi, 1916: xvi). Henriette Riemann introduces her memoir with the statement “This book is not poetry, it is experience”, followed by the Red Cross telegram summoning her for service (1930: n.p.). Jane de Launoy comments at some length on the implication of the role of authenticity in her introduction: In the face of serious things, where feelings are violently aroused, words render them badly … you look for words afterwards, but in the moment itself these excesses lead to total silence. My style is affected by this, and all the more because I have stopped myself – it would be an error – making it more literary by embroidering the truth! (1936: 9)

In another instance of explicit insistence upon this element of the text, Julie Crémieux apologises to the reader for the “hard truths” of her text, explaining that the incidents were noted down at the time of the experiences and therefore “taken from life” (Crémieux, 1934: preface, n.p.). The insistence on the authenticity of personal experience features prominently in the public response. Reviewing Violetta Thurstan (1915), the Times Literary Supplement says that the first thought provoked by any war book is that the author was there, and saw these things (2.9.15). The 1  See Chap. 8. The three bodies of texts are defined by language, not nationality, as nurses moved across national and military boundaries. 2  She was not a nurse; however, many nurses were employed in essentially the same role, especially at the beginning of the war (see, e.g., Voss, 1915).

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long Figaro review of Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire’s first memoir (1919) stresses that the realism of her account creates for the reader a sense of being present at the events (18.5.19). Nursing Adventures (FANY, 1917) is a “simple account of the vicissitudes [of war]”, which has the “merit of unadorned fact”, the Diary of a Nursing Sister (Anon, 1915) is a “first hand” “simple record of personal experience” and “unpretentious and exactly detailed”, Olive Dent’s VAD in France is a “simple and unsophisticated” record of her experiences, Monica Salmond’s Bright Armour (1935) is a “modestly written record” and “effectively frank and simple”.3 Mme Colombel’s memoir of Arras (1916) is written with “simplicity … and clarity”. Mme Eydoux-Demians’ (1915) memoir is a “sketch taken from life … without unnecessary literary flourishes”, marked by “care to see clearly and tell it right, without unnecessary elaboration”, “filled with elements of very simply narrated heroism … [in an] excellent plain style”; Noëlle Roger’s (1915) pamphlets are “plain writing” full of love and charity, an act of witness which avoids using the writer’s talent as a novelist by “submitting to reality”, written in a style which tells the “humble, terrible truth without elaboration”.4 The second feature of the centrality of personal experience is the insistence on their work—although the extent to which this is true is an important variable differentiating the texts—and we shall see that the account of their work bears the central moral value of the texts: their commitment to the care of soldiers. In the third place, the narration of successive incidents of daily experience carries a further meaning by virtue of what it excludes from the account. By focussing on the immediacy of personal experience, this version of the war largely excludes general considerations of an administrative or political nature. There is little in these writings about hospital organisation, let alone about the politics of wartime nursing associations, or negotiations about military medical priorities—all of which were in fact 3  British Journal of Nursing 57: 372; Aberdeen Daily Journal, 9.4.17; Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 12.6.17; Daily Mail, 27.11.16; Times Literary Supplement, 16.12.15; Liverpool Daily Post, 17.4.18; Times, 13.9.35; Daily Telegraph, 8.10.35; and Times Literary Supplement, 12.9.35. 4  Nouvelles de France, 18.5.16; Le Mois Pittoresque et Littéraire 32 (May, 1915): 177; Annales Africaines, 1.4.16; Le Temps, 13.3.15; L’Image de la Guerre, 1.4.15; Revue des Deux Mondes 28 (July 1915), Bulletin Bibliographique: n.p.; Le Figaro, 2.1.16; and Excelsior, 23.10.15. Under her real name, Hélène Pittard, Noëlle Roger was a prolific novelist and essayist.

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problematic, as we have already seen. These would be the equivalent of the strategic analysis that forms the backbone of military leaders’ memoirs. Such considerations are largely absent from the writings of nurses, with two small sets of exceptions: firstly, those whose role was primarily to act as administrators and facilitators, such as Elsa Brändström or the Duchess of Sutherland5; secondly, nurses whose experiences led them to be critical of the organisational framework of which they were part. Where such considerations do appear, it is in so far as they form part of daily experience. The main narrative thread of the nurse memoirs is the succession of work-based episodes. These sequences are typical. On the first page of Juliette Martineau’s Journal d’une Infirmière (1915), the nurses are given a talk by a doctor about hygiene; then some volunteer nurses engage in a conversation full of gossip; the nurses of her Red Cross society complain that their hospital is empty, accusing another society of “stealing” their patients6; they are told there is a train full of wounded arriving shortly and they are pleased; they go to meet the train and the author is appalled at the conditions the wounded men have had to endure; she notes that many of the wounds are very severe (Martineau, 1915: 1–8). A sequence from Suse von Hörner-Heintze’s Mädels im Kriegsdienst shows the same variety of everyday experiences. A mass of wounded men arrive at the Austrian hospital where she is working and she describes the scene in detail and at length; once the pressure is off, senior trained nurses start to complain about minor acts of bad discipline on the part of the less trained auxiliary nurses; she notes that the soldiers don’t want to say anything about their frontline experiences; a Czech nurse who has become her friend says that Czech soldiers don’t want to fight for the Empire, as they feel closer to the Russians, which leads her to reflect upon Europe and its various nationalities; some wounded officers give her flowers, which her superior says is improper (1934: 33–8). In some cases, the accumulation of personal experiences leads the writer to make a generalisation about some aspect of the war, where she spells out to the reader how the experiences have led to the discovery of some principle. 5  It is difficult to tell from Elsa Brändström’s (1922/1929) book how much nursing she did; the Duchess of Sutherland certainly did some in the opening weeks of the war in Belgium, but gives little detail. Other examples of attention to administration are Taudière (1915) and Perrin (1920). 6  The French Red Cross was an umbrella organisation for several voluntary groups, and there was some competition between private charity hospitals.

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Ellen Klatt’s Die Deutsche Frau im Weltkrieg (1934) is less about her own experiences as a nurse than a narration of what she saw other women do. Her text is prefaced with a clear statement of intent, to show “what German women gave to the Fatherland through their great love for its men and its children”. She does this by narrating a series of scenes that she has witnessed. For example, a soldier who has been blinded and fears his fiancée will desert him; he dictates a letter to the author, the girl comes to the hospital and they get married. A cavalry officer who has only been lightly wounded has a premonition that he will die when he returns to the front, and gives the author a series of messages to give to his mother if he is right, as he thinks it will be easier on her if she gets them by word of mouth rather than by letter; his premonition is correct and his mother comes to the hospital to learn what he said. In her conclusion Klatt spells out the moral of what the many incidents she narrates have shown: “Silent and true and joyful in sacrifice, the German woman did what had to be done”, but nobody thanked them for it: “No one thought to portray their heroism” (1934: 295–6). Sarah Macnaughtan was primarily an administrator. She joined Mrs Stobart’s fund-raising committee in 1914 and accompanied her group to Belgium as the organiser of the orderlies. In her memoir she notes the unselfishness and team-work of both soldiers and nurses: All round the stoves on the floor the stretchers are lying closely packed. A hurrying nurse covers a man’s face as she passes, and the brancardiers [stretcher-bearers] carry him out. A doctor enters with disinfectants, and sprinkles the floor where he can, for nearly all of it is covered with stretchers. A half-starved boy with both his hands in bandages is unable to hold a spoon, and when he is fed with a bowl of porridge and milk, he stops before it is half finished and says, “I’m afraid there won’t be enough for the others.” (1915: 63–4)

She concludes, on the basis of countless similar examples, that the war taught a lesson: “We have been finding out something about national honour and other beautiful things … how much sacrifice courage demands” (1915: 167–8). Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire clearly thought that bureaucratic hospital procedures were the result of masculine mental rigidity and inability to give priority to the alleviation of suffering above the formality of official procedures. This is implied at various points in her narrative (e.g. 1919: 88–90). An explicit condemnation comes at the end of a detailed

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description of the procedure for the admission of wounded soldiers to the hospital. The process of formal identification alone is time-consuming and is followed by packing soldiers’ belongings and removing their uniforms, a process prolonged by the lack of personnel and their low level of training. The soldiers receive no treatment before the completion of the process, and the problem is compounded by the absence of doctors during admission, which means nurses are forced to make a diagnosis, something often beyond their competence. Doctors—exclusively male—do not complain about the delays, and “don’t let’s talk about the sentimental feminine point of view, which is negligible and quite ridiculous, as everyone knows” (1919: 229–30). In her second volume of memoirs, her experience at Verdun leads her to the conclusion that the male personnel in her hospital objected to the presence of women, as they did everything in their power to countermand her initiatives; this leads her to question the overall commitment of the French military health services to the deployment of women (1931: 135–44). Drawing generalised conclusions in this manner is far from universal in these memoirs, indeed it is a marginal element of the overall body of literature; however, where it does occur it underlines the centrality of lived personal experience in the formation of attitude. Close to universal in these texts is the commitment, implicit or explicit, to the care of soldiers. Marie de Sardent, for example, states explicitly “the wounded man is the sacred being for the love of whom the nurse does everything, accepts everything” (1918: 20), and Mme de la Boulaye says that wounded soldiers are a nurse’s salvation: “we save our saviours” (1919: 108). According to Emilie Albrecht, the hospital is a place where nurses can “give love to the poor sick or wounded soldier” and where they are “always fresh and cheerful in their work, giving love to our wounded and cosy comfort to our passing guests” (1917: 15, 27). “There is always a comfort for a nurse: seeing the arrival of the wounded. In their company she regains strength” (Clemenceau-Jacquemaire, 1919: 44). According to an English nurse, “Comfort was a mere detail … never a grumble betrayed its absence. All we could spare went to our blessés” (FANY, 1917: 110). Olive Dent insists that commitment to care is “our privilege, our pleasure and our pride”. The Baroness von Babo admits that dealing with the aftermath of a Russian offensive in the Carpathians was “full of sadness, of unspeakable misery, and yet also of a deep feeling of happiness because here we could and should help soldiers back to strength” (1918: 28). Even Ellen LaMotte—in one of the most consistently negative texts by a nurse—says, “It was a joy to nurse them. This was the Salle of the Grands

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Blessés, those most seriously wounded. By expert surgery, by expert nursing, some of these were to be returned to their homes again, … others were to be nursed back to health, … It was a pleasure to nurse such as these. It called forth all one’s skill, all one’s humanity”; however, her positive feelings are tempered by the ironical observation that those who are nursed back to health will be sent back to the front, “to be torn to pieces again on the firing line” (1916: n.p.). One way in which this commitment is expressed is in the image of the nurse as a ministering angel, as in the frontispiece to Emmy von Rüdgisch’s Unterm Roten Kreuz (1916):

Or in this publicity poster for the Belgian Red Cross

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Elsewhere, images which make less explicit reference to angels nonetheless clearly imply it, as in this text and illustration from Julie Crémieux’ Journal d’une Infirmière: When he saw me lean down and give him a drink like a child, he looked at me intently, with a look of gratitude, his blue eyes bright with fever … then in a very emotional voice he said these simple words: “You are kind!” (Crémieux, 1918: 6)

Renée d’Ulmes’ description of a ward evokes a similar image: The rooms are cheerful. There are flowers on the tables and the nurses pass by in white, veiled, almost like nuns. They blithely carry out the humblest tasks, surrounding the wounded with care and attention. They are reproached with doing too much. As for them, they think it is not enough. (1916: 7)7

And Julie Crémieux, in a second memoir, quotes one of her patients who says that seeing the nurses moving quietly around when he was badly ill made him think of angels in Heaven (1934: 115–6). Such explicit references are less common in the British memoirs, perhaps because—according to Olive Dent—the Tommies preferred “joviality to the ministering angel stunt”. However, beneath the relative reticence the fundamental attitude is no different to their Continental counterparts.

7  See similar images in van Bergen (2017) and Bing (1917). The “ministering angel” reference is also visible in reviews of the nurse memoirs: “in the communion of stoically born pain, the white silhouettes of the nurses appear as peaceful and comforting visions” (L’Image de la Guerre, 25.12.15, review of Roger, 1915).

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Although such explicit references to commitment to the care of the soldiers are frequent in these texts, the most important way in which it is manifested is in the details of the nurses’ work. Every time a nurse describes what she does in the course of her daily tasks, she demonstrates what that commitment consists of, even if the attitude of commitment is not directly expressed in the text. For example, the anonymous author of A War Nurse’s Diary narrates her on-going relationship with an individual patient, a Belgian soldier whose name is so difficult to pronounce he is nicknamed Ragtime by the British nurses. His wounds are so severe that the dressings and bedclothes have to be changed every two hours; he is operated successfully but her hospital is unable to do the kidney operation he needs, so he is transferred to another hospital, where the nurses are Catholic nuns. However, they refuse to change his dressings as they are not allowed to touch a man below the waist. The narrator asks to take him back to her hospital, but the permission is refused; she goes directly to the General in command, and he countermands the refusal; subsequently she loses touch with Ragtime, but for some time they exchange letters (Anon, 1918: 14–17). In Poland in 1915, Emilie Albrecht nurses a man who is so severely wounded there is no possibility of sending him back to Germany; they want to send for his wife but he asks them not to, as the town is full of epidemics and he doesn’t want to expose her to them; they send for her anyway, but she arrives too late, due to the length of the journey; the author accompanies the widow to his grave and together they put flowers on it (1917: 51). Julie Crémieux devotes two pages to the small details of the daily hospital round: disinfecting the reception area—she’s proud of the fact that the hospital was entirely clear of fleas—taking temperatures and noting pulse rates, washing men whose mobility is so limited they are unable to do it for themselves (1918: 11, 14–15). Olive Dent gives several pages to a description of the arrangements made for the departure of a hospital train taking the severely wounded back to England, which includes details of how best to lie a wounded man down so that he is protected as much as possible from the pain caused by jolting on the journey. In a similar vein, Madeleine Clémenceau-Jacquemaire describes in detail the measures that can be taken to reduce the pain that follows an amputation (1919: 48, 221). A frequent reference point in nurse memoirs is comforting patients. There are many references to sitting with dying men, ensuring that they

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don’t die alone.8 Some of the descriptions of comfort are purely psychological, and heavy with emotion, such as this example taken from a German collection of reminiscences: Then she took the heavy fist and cradled it in her hand like a small child. She stroked and caressed it and spoke good, soft words to it. Constantly she stroked her soft fingers over the hard hand, and her entire being, dissolved in motherly compassion, streamed out into this furrowed hand. (von Pflugk-­ Harttung, 1936: 65)

Other examples, while no less dictated by sympathy, are less overtly emotional and more oriented towards moral encouragement. One of Helene Glock’s patients tries to kill himself after a leg amputation, as he thinks his wife will be unable to cope with the situation—she hasn’t written to him about it. She comforts him, he is able to cry and becomes more peaceful, then gets the reassuring letter from his wife that he wanted (1920: 32–3). One of Julie Crémieux’ patients is depressed because his family are in the invaded part of France, and he has been unable to have any news of them; she encourages him by reminding him that the hospital secretary has promised to do everything possible to get information on his behalf (1918: 14–15). Noëlle Roger narrates the case of a soldier who is so depressed by his wounds that he wants to die, and his health gets worse as a result of his depression; one of her colleagues persuades him to see the future in a more positive light, and his health rapidly improves (1915, II: 12). Madeleine Clémenceau-Jacquemaire explains that working-class men are worried that amputation will prevent them from earning a living; one of her colleagues, who “understands the material concerns of workers”, arranges for the authorities to pay for the wife of a stonemason who needs a leg amputation to come and visit him, and talks to him at length about how wonderful it will be to see her (1919: 213). This analysis has outlined the narrative strategies that are common to all the nurse memoirs. At their core lies personal experience, especially in the form of work and the commitment to care for the soldiers this implies. However, the insistence on the centrality of personal experience and commitment to care only covers a part of the nurses’ attitudes towards their engagement in the war. Interwoven in this overarching narrative framework is a wide range of attitudes, from enthusiastic, militaristic patriotism

8  For example, la Boulaye, 1919: 10–11; Russner, 1936: 72–3; d’Antelme, 1916: 36–7; von Pflugk-Harttung, 1936: 16; Crémieux, 1934: 51–2, 63, 117–9; and FANY, 1917: 107–9.

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to frank disgust at what war does to men.9 It is the details of this range of attitudes that create the single most basic distinction between two groups of texts within this literature: firstly, the texts whose overwhelming purpose is to reassure the reader about the treatment and morale of the wounded; and secondly, those texts whose commitment to a frank account of what the writer has seen leads them to be far less reassuring. This distinction between reassurance and frankness does not however constitute so much a binary pair as a spectrum of possibilities, consisting of the choice of details of experience to be revealed. At one end of the spectrum there are texts which present military medical services as an efficient, well-­ organised, caring organisation dedicated to the alleviation of suffering in so far as it is possible. At the other end are texts which show the horrors of what modern weapons do to the human body, and what constant, exhausting attention to shattered bodies does to those who care for them; such texts are also frank about the deficiencies of organisation which result in unnecessary suffering. At the outer limits of the two ends of this spectrum of possibilities lie those texts which—at one end—are little more than patriotic, militaristic propaganda, saying an absolute minimum about suffering; and—at the opposite end—texts which foreground the suffering and suggest it is either pointless or excessive or the result of incompetence. Two brief examples can illustrate these extremes. The first is taken from a German memoir published early in the war: They bring in a man with a severe head wound. All our love, all our care can’t save him. A last spark of this young life and he slips peacefully towards death. Certainly it is strangers’ hands that dress you in flowers for eternal rest, but they are the soft hands of a mother. Autumn roses between your hands, violets in the form of a cross on the white linen that surrounds you, flowers all round and dark laurel  – rest in peace, young warrior! (Voss, 1915: 62)10

In this narration, everything that happens before death, such as the details of the wound and of whatever medical intervention was carried out, let alone the question of whether the man was suffering—all this detail is omitted in favour of trite metaphors (“last spark … slips 9  In this respect, as in the insistence on personal experience, the nurse texts are similar to the frontline soldiers’ memoirs, which vary from the enthusiastically bellicose to the pacifist. 10  There is a very similar passage in de Sardent (1918: 23). In reality, severe headwounds often went untreated—see Chap. 3.

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peacefully”) and the ceremonious evocation of mourning and the preparations for burial—phrased, as is often the case in these texts, as “eternal rest”. It is clear that some selection has taken place in order to create a narration whose reassurance is undisturbed by anything untoward. At the other end of the spectrum of possibilities is a scene in Ellen La Motte’s (1916) Backwash of War, which is less a memoir than a series of sketches of episodes she witnessed during her time in French military hospitals. A man dying of gas gangrene is alternately delirious with pain and fever, and mad with rage, insulting and winding up another patient, cursing the male nurses as shirkers, trying to kiss a woman nurse, all secure in the knowledge that he’s untouchable as he’s been decorated and anyway is close to death. His death takes three days and eventually he dies screaming “Filthy shirkers! A grateful nation! Long live the Kaiser!” (1916: n.p.). The entire text portrays events that are largely devoid of any redeeming features; published in the United States, its negativity was so great that it was banned in France and Britain until after the Armistice, although it certainly was known, as there are references to it in soldiers’ newspapers.11 According to the author’s preface to the second edition (1934), the US authorities tried to ban it after the United States entered the war, but without success.

The Narrative Strategies of Reassuring Texts The features of nurse memoirs outlined above amount to a common narrative strategy, a shared set of decisions about how to construct the narrative of their memories: out of the totality of their lives in the period covered by the narrative, they choose to focus primarily on sequences of events they have witnessed in the course of their work, thus demonstrating their commitment to care of the soldiers. This common overarching strategy is to be found in both reassuring and frank texts. The features that distinguish the two types of texts result from a different centre of gravity in the two cases: the reassuring texts emphasise the elements of nurses’ experience which point to unswerving commitment to the war effort, good morale and a delivery of service which is as efficient as can be expected under the circumstances. The frank texts, on the other hand, place far more emphasis on the suffering of

 For example, in a review of Bagnold (1918) in The Outpost VII (1), 1.6.1918.

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wounded soldiers and less emphasis on morale and efficiency, if not directly undermining these claims. The reassuring texts are marked by a robust, unswerving patriotism, in many cases associated with a thoroughgoing militarism. Mme de la Boulaye recounts a New Years’ Day celebration: one of her colleagues says to a soldier, as she kisses him on both cheeks, “In one wounded man I am kissing them all! I am kissing France!” and the author concludes: “It really is France that binds us together, it is truly her heart that beats in us” (la Boulaye, 1919: 275). Elsewhere she narrates discussions with soldiers about their commitment to the war; they are indeed committed, even if they complain about conditions in the trenches (1919: 39, 51–4, 56–60); on one occasion she succeeds in convincing a recalcitrant socialist anti-­ militarist to change his mind (1919: 27). She goes further, concluding from her experience that “the best friends of the common people are the disciples of Jesus and the people of old France”, in other words, the aristocracy (1919: 46).12 The Introduction to Hedwig Voss’ memoir includes a comment on the popular reaction to the declaration of war: the entire people at prayer commit themselves to God, “obedient unto Death”: “a massive, powerful commitment to war thunders through the world. A new world history will be written with blood and iron” (1915: 5). When she considers the accusation that the German army has committed acts of barbarism, she counters that one German soldier is worth ten churches, and Germany must win, whatever the cost (1915: 33); the bad news of the loss of the Emden and of the territory of Tsingtao evoke the response of revenge: “We have learnt how to hate” (1915: 46). Sarah Macnaughtan comments that while the patriotic optimism of 1914 was obviously misplaced, nonetheless it was “fine”, because “we meant it should be true some day, and if seventeen of our lads never came back and many times seventeen times seven had still to go, we felt big enough for the job in front of us” (1915: 15). At the military cemetery at Wimereux, Olive Dent thinks of the dead and recognises that “Our age has paid its price for the nation and the race. Those are the dead who won our freedom. May we cheat Time and ever retain the thought”. The death of a colleague evokes the same response:

12  In a similar analysis of political commitment, Alison Fell argues that ClemenceauJacquemaire (1919) implicitly supports her father’s (Georges Clemenceau) wartime policies.

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And what a magnificent end to one’s life, to lie there among those splendidly brave boys in the little strip of land which the French Government has given over in perpetuity to our dead. Thousands of the children that are to be, will come to such cemeteries, and will be hushed to reverence by the spirits of those who are not, by the spirits of the fallen that will for ever inhabit the scene. (1917: 203–4)

Praising an old soldier who has re-enlisted, she chooses to see his commitment in terms of patriotism: “It is men of your breed who has (sic) won and will keep for England her proud fame, eminence and power” (1917: 238). Mme Eydoux-Demians notes that even if many people have eloquently described the heroism of the wounded, “we will never tire of hearing the return, like a Leitmotiv, of this incomparable homage to the moral qualities of the French nation” (1915: 6–7). One of her colleagues, comforting a young man in severe pain and wishing him strength, says “All this is for France” (1915: 33). Discussing the relationship between officers and men, based on mutual admiration, she says it is a “fruitful feeling – a guarantee of success for France – a feeling which must, on both sides, exalt the feelings of endurance and courage” (1915: 129–30). For Emmy von Rüdgisch, her period of war service offers her “a fullness of experience, a richness of feeling upon which the soul could nourish itself had it hungered for the highest values and consciousness of belonging to the people”13 (1916: 43); a singsong around a camp fire on a railway station is given a directly patriotic turn: “like a sacrifice of thanks and pleading from beseeching, hopeful, trusting hearts, the night bore German songs over the enemy land” (1916: 65). Similarly, Emilie Albrecht makes Christmas songs an example of “pure, proud love of the Fatherland” (1917: 29). In these texts, such passages are anything but the exception, in each case they form a significant percentage of the overall text. Closely allied to the theme of patriotism is the theme of morale, the commitment to duty, whether enthusiastic or stoical. Wounded soldiers are happy and co-operative in their treatment, uncomplaining and stoical in their suffering. Baroness von Babo says that her severely wounded patients are peaceful and content in their beds and the mood is “fresh and jolly”, soldierly and comradely, more so than in the 13  “Consciousness of belonging to the people” translates “Volksbewusstsein”; “Volk” is difficult to render adequately in texts of the early twentieth century as it is heavy with nationalistic connotations; in the Nazi period it became overtly, indeed murderously, racist.

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homeland (1918: 7).14 According to Mme Eydoux-Demians, even if pain sometimes causes a wounded man to cry out, there is no complaining; when newly wounded soldiers arrive, the first question other wounded men put to them is always about military progress (1915: 18–20). Emmy von Rüdgisch reports a wounded officer commenting on the “beneficent good humour of the military hospital” (1916: 44). Looking after severely wounded men who have had limbs amputated, Ellen Reibold notes: “Their morale is extraordinarily good”; in the following pages she gives several examples, naming each man and telling some anecdote about him (1915: 14, 19–2115). According to Mme de la Boulaye, “the sick are treated with such devotion that they respond with the greatest good will in their cure” (1919: 7). Chapter 13 of Olive Dent’s memoir is a litany of individual cases: a young patient has a minor operation on his leg, in the course of which complications were found and amputation was necessary after he was sedated; she has the job of telling him what has happened and is dreading it; however, the man had woken up during the night and realised what had been done: it is “a great grief to me”, however he says he knows “it is for the best”. She generalises, affectionately: They will silently endure agonies from wounds and dressings, and yet groan and even howl when one removes a little adhesive plaster. They will tolerate stoically a shrapnel-ridden leg, and yell from the further end of the ward to have a pillow.

Emilie Albrecht is assigned to a train full of 300 wounded, lying on straw in cattle wagons; they make no complaints, despite the pain; all they ask for is tea or coffee (1917: 12–13). Kate Luard’s text abounds in expressions of admiration for soldiers’ stoicism; this passage is typical: a man with a severe head wound says, after the operation is over, “This leg is a beast”; he had a compound fracture of the thigh which he had not even 14  In German, the phrase “fresh and jolly” (frisch-fröhlich) is heavy with implications, as it had a sufficiently substantial pedigree to appear in a collection of popular sayings. Although it has its origin in an older popular saying, it was the historian Heinrich Leo who coined its application to war, in 1853, in the course of an argument about the beneficial effects of war: “May God deliver us from the European popular putrefaction and send us a fresh, jolly war that rages through Europe, that winnows the population and tramples the scrofulous rabble underfoot” (Buchman, 1989: 545). It appears in various German war memoirs (e.g. von Richthofen, 1917: 203); Emilie Albrecht describes the atmosphere in the streets near the front as “fresh, jolly, warlike” (1917: 34). 15  See also similar moments in Mordtmann, 1916: 12; and Munck, 1939: 82–4.

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mentioned (Anon, 1915: 92). Elsewhere she summarises her experience: “the patients are extraordinarily good and take everything as it comes” (1915: 76). Julie Crémieux’ narration of a typical day on the wards paints a picture of men contented with their lot: they have invented a nickname for her—“Capitaine”—and teasingly affectionate nicknames for each other; new arrivals are greeted with co-operative instructions about the do’s and don’ts of ward life; the lieutenant whom she has already met narrates excellent care and a surgical intervention which has saved his leg (1918: 15–18, 28). Soldiers express their gratitude for the care they receive. Despite “shrapnel and torn limbs … they smiled and said ‘Thank you!’ when a painful dressing was finished” (FANY, 1917: 133; see also Mitton, 1916: 173). Maria Pöll-Naepflin notes that soldiers are always grateful for treatment (1934: 16). Madame de la Boulaye gets a letter from a former patient, saying “I’ll never forget you” (1919: 283–4).16 Chapter 22 of Olive Dent’s memoirs consist entirely of such letters; this passage summarises their tone of voice: Just before the stretcher-bearers came for me I wrote in your album. I don’t know whether you saw it, but I wrote: “There’s gladness in remembrance.” It is a very hackneyed phrase but, sister, I do mean it. (1917: 251)

According to Mme Eydoux-Demians, soldiers’ faces light up “with a special joy when they see the white caps waiting for them” (1915: 2). Noëlle Roger notes that soldiers often say, in gratitude, “We’re giving you a lot of trouble”, and that “We’re in Paradise here!” (quoted Revue des Deux Mondes, July 1916: 919; similar comments in Warner, 1917: n.p.). The nameless VAD nurse of the collective volume Women War Workers says the same: the men’s “help and gratitude make up for any of the good things the nurse sacrifices” (Stone, 1917: 194). Wounded soldiers are willing, even impatient, to return to the front line. Louise Perrin notes in her diary the departure of Lieutenant Laffrat, wounds healed, “eager to return to the front” (1920: 11). Renée d’Ulmes tells stories of soldiers’ readiness to return to the front, because “You defend your country, don’cha?” (1916: 13). Noëlle Roger says the recovering wounded are always “ready to go back there. Because you have to,

 See similar passages in Crémieux, 1934: 31, 115–6; and Munck, 1939: 99–102.

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don’t you” (1915 (I): 2117; see also Voss, 1915: 67–8). Mme Eydoux-­ Demians nurses a soldier back to health after he has demanded to be sent back to the front “as soon as possible”, only soon to find him back with her with another wound, still just as enthusiastic (1915: 132); another has been wounded 17 times and is always in a hurry to get back to the front (1915: 79). Juliette Martineau praises a young officer who can’t wait to get back to the trenches—but notes that he is killed as soon as he gets there (1915: 21). Emmy von Rüdgisch notes the cases of two officers who are keen to return to the front: one dies of his wounds, regretting that he can’t go back; the other doesn’t care that his wounds are ugly, he just wants to get back to the fighting to take revenge for them (1916: 54). The Ottoman soldiers that Helen Mordtmann nurses back to health want to return to active service to fight the British hand-to-hand at Gallipoli, as that is their traditional way of fighting (1916: 25–6). According to Mme de la Boulaye, soldiers want to go back to the trenches because some “obscure instinct” tells them that there they are valued by France; even if they complain about the conditions, they will go back and do their duty (1919: 70–1, 75).18 At the end of a chapter about how cheerful wounded men are, Olive Dent comments that provided they get a “Blighty ticket” and a bit of leave they are happy to return to the front and “take up the game”. The young lieutenant who has just proposed to Julie Crémieux refuses the offer of permanent invalidity so that he can go back to the front, as she has already said that her work as a nurse means they can’t get married until after the war (1918: 31). Kate Finzi reports a more stoical response: “Any man who says he wants to go back is a liar, say most. It isn’t fighting, it’s murder. But they march off again to fight in good spirits.” She comments that a wounded Scot is the first she’s met “who has signified his longing to get back to the firing line” (1916: 28, 50). In general, the reassuring texts narrate many uplifting anecdotes. Nurses often emphasise their participation in funerals, and these are presented as ceremonies of admiration and mourning, with due attention paid to detail: closing the dead man’s eyelids, covering his face, the military honours, the decoration of the coffin and the grave (Eydoux-Demians, 1915: 52–7; Voss, 1915: 60–62; Albrecht, 1917: 51). Mme EydouxDemians reports a wounded man’s admiration for one of his officers who 17  The point is stressed in a long review of her memoir in the Revue des Deux Mondes (July 1916: 922). 18  Similar passages at 1919: 17, 34, 47, 54, 60.

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has refused a transfer to a staff position, away from the front line, as he cannot accept quitting active service and the opportunity to bring honour to his unit; he then tells a story about a raiding party under fire after being trapped near the German trenches at night. Since they have nothing to lose, they decide to sing the Marseillaise; the other soldiers of their division hear them singing and go out to rescue them; as a result they are able to attack and take the German trench (1915: 133–7). Elsewhere she tells the story of a group of soldiers who have been without a food delivery to the front line for days. Their lieutenant asks them to pool their reserves and to share them out between them; he goes and sits apart, to avoid watching them eat; the man who is telling the story goes over to him and says he will not eat unless the lieutenant shares the food; the lieutenant starts to cry, and joins them (1915: 58–61). Helene Glock reports the case of a soldier who has been blinded; despite his wound, he manages to help another wounded man back to the German lines; the second man turns out to be an officer, but they have been talking as equals; she is moved by the simple nobility of his tale (1920: 28–31). Olive Dent’s text abounds with stories of good-humoured teasing and fake complaining, clearly intended to demonstrate good morale; these stories feature prominently in reviews and reprinted extracts of her book.19 The reassuring texts show us nurses who are committed to the good care of soldiers, a commitment that is shown in a mass of detail about their daily working lives. This detail, typically, does not only show what they do, but narrates it in terms of individual cases, often named and with brief descriptions of their actions or their characters—soldiers, that is, are not just cases, but people. While these texts do not hide the fact that wounded soldiers suffer, they stress such positive elements as can be found in the situation: the men are stoical if not cheerful, the treatment they receive is appropriate and given with care; it produces such alleviation of suffering as is possible, and nurses show that they are happy when suffering is reduced and sad when it is not, and especially when patients die. The dying receive care until the last, and onwards into the grave. By the same token, soldiers co-operate in their treatment and they are ready and willing to return to duty at the front. This picture of army medical services functioning as they should do is placed within the envelope of a robust patriotism shared by all.

19  For example: South Wales Gazette, 22.1.18; Ormskirk Advertiser, 17.10.17; Yorkshire Evening Post, 18.12.17; Dalkeith Advertiser, 31.1.18; Liverpool Daily Post, 17.4.18.

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The care and comfort described in the reassuring texts are evoked by the reviews. “In the communion of stoically born pain, the white silhouettes of the nurses are peaceful and comforting visions” (L’Image de la Guerre, 1.4.15). Noëlle Roger seems “never to have left hospital … beside them all the time, she never stops looking at them, listening to them, helping them” (Le Figaro, 2.1.16). “Thanks to [nurses] … those arms which reached out into absence will be linked tomorrow in caresses around beloved necks” (Le Souvenir, May, 1916: 76).20 More prosaically, Kate Luard’s Diary of a Nursing Sister (Anon, 1915) shows “what the wounded suffer and the great efforts … made on their behalf” (Belfast Newsletter, 16.2.16). Many reviews comment on heroic devotion to duty in general, without specifying any details: “many of the girls are as noble as the boys” (Sheffield Independent, 21.12.17). However, the overwhelming emphasis in the reviews of these texts is on the soldiers themselves rather than the care they receive. After the war, Noëlle Roger was made a member of the Légion d’Honneur, under her real name, Hélène Pittard. Although the award derived from her overall literary career, the citation singles out the Carnets for especial mention, but in terms which stress the presence of the soldiers in the text: A work of pious admiration … which for the first time brought us the voices of our wounded men, and it was to give us courage and confidence. (Journal Officiel, 19.12.25)

A comment in a review of her Carnets, which typifies both the theme and the style in which such comments are written, underlines the judgment in the official citation: These men, whose torment we follow, confront unspeakable suffering with bravery, with commitment, with a heroic effort at good humour to try to overcome it and often succeed. (La Liberté, 15.4.15)

There are many similar passages in other French reviews.21 In comments such as these, the nurse and the care she gives disappear behind the 20  Le Souvenir was a soldiers’ journal edited by Jean des Vignes-Rouges, himself the author of a well-known war novel. 21  For example: reviews of Noëlle Roger in Revue des Deux Mondes, July 1916: 918–20; Le Temps, 28.12.15; Le Figaro, 2.1.16; Journal des Débats, 14.6.15; Excelsior, 23.10 15; reviews of Mme Eydoux-Demians in Annales Africaines, 15.3.15; Le Temps, 13.3.15; La Croix,

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profile of the suffering patient. English reviews, while using less fulsome language, say essentially the same. Kate Luard’s first memoir (Anon, 1915) shows us “sad stories and gallant records of brave deeds” (Manchester Courier, 20.12.15), full of fine spirit and true grit; these “vivid pictures of our wounded soldiers all testify to their wonderful spirit” (Daily Graphic22), with “repetition on almost every page of those virtues of high courage, of patience, of self-sacrifice” (Burton Daily Mail, 14.5.17). The “gallant soldiers” described by Sarah Macnaughtan cheer her with their “gay spirit”, “as cheerful as [they are] brave” (Aberdeen Press and Journal, 13.9.15). Olive Dent’s memoir shows her “abiding admiration for the wounded” (Army and Navy Gazette, 2.3.18); as we have seen, the reviews quote her cheerful stories that demonstrate courage and good morale among the wounded. This common emphasis in the reviews of the reassuring nurse texts points to a significant element of the texts themselves. The overwhelming focus on nurses’ work with soldiers, which embodies their commitment to care, commonly demands continued and explicit attention to the soldiers themselves, as individuals or in groups. For these nurses, according to a recent analysis of the German texts, “service is not felt as a burden, but as a thankfully–perceived possibility to stand beside the soldier as his helper in the war” (Vollhardt, 2014: 599–600). The result is a continuous displacement of the reader’s attention away from the nurse and towards the patient. After describing their gratitude for painful dressings on wounds, the author of Nursing Adventures concludes: These were the men of the Yser – shorn of romance and poetry, pitiful and human and noble beyond all words; heroes indeed, and heroes of the world. (FANY, 1917: 133)

Mme Eydoux-Demians says to a soldier with a badly fractured right arm “You’ve given a lot to France”, to which he replies, “It’s the least, I was so clumsy, that’ll teach me to be better with my hands” (1915: 6): it is his 13.3.15; Revue Hebdomadaire, 17.7.15: 385–7; Journal des Débats, 16.4.15; Eglise d’Albi: la Semaine Religieuse, 7.8.15: 392–3; reviews of Clemenceau-Jacquemaire in Le Figaro, 18.5.19; le Grand Echo du Nord de la France, 29.8.19; Les Annales Politiques et Litteraires, 1.6.19; a note about Juliette Martineau in Le Journal, 10.6.15. 22  Quoted in the publishers’ advertisement in the daily press in November and December 1915; that the publishers choose to emphasise this aspect of the text is itself significant as a relay in the construction of meaning.

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acceptance of the situation that is the focus, not the treatment he has received. Kate Luard’s first memoir has many examples of the men’s responses to treatment, which commonly lead to expressions of admiration: “some of the men, with their eyes, noses or jaws shattered, are so extraordinarily good and uncomplaining” or later: “The patients are so extraordinarily good and take everything as it comes” (Anon, 1915: 47, 76). While the work of the nurse is by no means invisible, the focus constantly shifts away from her to the wounded soldier. Indeed, reviewers are sometimes tempted to praise nurses for disappearing in the process of praising their patients. In a review of Mme Eydoux-Demians, the Journal des Débats praises the “virtue of simplicity” in war writing, as it should be based on “renunciation and anonymity” by the author, who—like Eydoux-­ Demians—“effaces herself between [the wounded] and us”. While in this instance it is primarily a matter of authorial presence, it easily becomes a question of the nurse herself disappearing behind her admirable patients: Noëlle Roger’s admiration for her patients is so boundless that the Excelsior reviewer has to remember to note that “some of the admiration [we feel] goes to the author” (23.10.15). There is an exception to these generalisations about the reassuring texts: several achieve this purpose by saying as little as possible about what nursing was actually like. Jeanne d’Antelme (1916) says far more about the scenery and stories told to her about battles than she does about nursing. Emmy von Rüdgisch says little about soldiers—as Panke-Kochinke and Schaidhammer-Placke note, the war might as well not be happening, and her text is more like a schoolgirl’s diary (2002: 58). Baroness von Babo’s text (1918) rarely mentions wounded soldiers; it is full of descriptions of journeys, of the companionship of other nurses, of landscapes in the snow, of the exotica of visiting a synagogue in Poland and a concert in a country house near Warsaw. As to her work, there is plenty of detail of how hard it was to make the buildings they used suitable for medical purposes, but next to nothing about actually nursing anyone. Helene Glock’s (1920) memoir is similarly short on detail—there are few mentions of wounded men, and they focus not on the treatment but on psychological comfort and uplifting anecdotes. The last two authors were members of nursing orders, and it is possible that the texts were intended for other members, who would need little reminder of what the work was like (although Babo’s went through 4 editions in 1918).23 The authors of the 23  Similarly, many of the hundreds of nurses’ letters in Senftleben et al. (1934) are addressed to their Mother Superior and are longer on details of travel and hospital organisation than on the treatment of the wounded.

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Queen Alexandra Reminiscent Sketches, Mme Taudière and Marie de Sardent concentrate largely on organisational matters; Mme Jean Leune, Violetta Thurstan and Sister Martin-Nicholson say little about medical treatment, concentrating on organisational matters and the authors’ experiences with Germans, as all three were trapped behind the German advance in Belgium and worked in German military hospitals before being repatriated. The majority of these authors were professional nurses, and it is possible that professional detachment led them to say little about their patients and even about work: as Hallett says, professional nurses distrusted any emotional attachment to patients; indeed, the unpublished memoir by an English professional nurse analysed by Watson “all but erased both wards and warriors from her account” (Hallett, 2013: 96–7; Watson, 2013: 105). Especially limited attention to the details of nursing characterises the memoir about the “women of Pervyse” (Mitton, 1916). Of the 200 pages of the narrative of their activities, only a small minority are given to this topic; the narrative focusses instead on their initiative and their bravery in rescuing wounded men directly from the front line, frequently under fire. As we have already seen, the fact that they were women played a large part in their well-established reputation. In particular, many pages of the narrative are given to descriptions of their dashes across shell-strewn terrain, presented as action-oriented adventure akin to soldiers’ stories, summarised in this comparison by the author: “The nearer to the trenches, the gayer we are!” she exclaimed one day, and indeed it is not only at Pervyse this truth is apparent. It is in the intervals of great crises that men let themselves go with light-heartedness; the heights are proportionate to the depths. Into no humdrum life has ever entered the utter abandonment of gaiety felt at times by those who have faced incredible danger and hardship. (Mitton, 1916: 142–3)

While the sufferings of the wounded are frequently mentioned, with occasional focus on horrific details, it is the bravery and initiative of the two women that is the epicentre of everything. The press reviews of the book abound with phrases such as “war adventures”, “heroine”, “strange perils”, and “indomitable”. In summary, the reassuring texts focus on commitment and good care, often in the framework of a robust patriotism; the nurses’ own actions are interlaced with edifying stories and comments about the soldiers

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themselves, whose sufferings are portrayed in as positive a light as the circumstances allow; the patients are in the main stoical and uncomplaining. Morale is good both among soldiers and nurses. Whether this emphasis is due to the nature of the women’s experiences, or to authorial choice about what to foreground and what to de-emphasise or even omit, must remain an open question until some comparison with other texts provides a basis for analysis.

Bibliography (1) Nurse Memoirs Albrecht, E. (1917). Aus meinem Kriegstagebuch. Wolff. Anon. (1915) [Kate Luard]. Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front. Macmillan. Anon. (1918). A War Nurse’s Diary. Macmillan. Bagnold, E. (1918). Diary Without Dates. Heinemann. Brändström, E. (1922/1929). Among Prisoners of War in Russia and Siberia. Hutchinson, 1929 (original Swedish edition 1921, German translation 1922). Brodrick, G. (1920) Au Front. Private edition: Coed Côch. Buchman, G. (1989). Geflügelte Worte. Der Citationsschatz des deutschen Volkes. Hande und Spener’sche Buchhandlung. Clemenceau-Jacquemaire, M. (1919). Les Hommes de Bonne Volonté. Calmann-Lévy. Clemenceau-Jacquemaire, M. (1931). Les Hommes de Mauvaise Volonté. Editions des Portiques. Crémieux, J. (1918). Souvenirs d’une Infirmière. Rauff. Crémieux, J. (1934). Croquis d’Heures Vécues. Imp. Bachy. D’Ulmes, R. (1916). Auprès des Blessés. Librairie Alphonse Lemerre. d’Antelme, J. (1916). Avec l’Armée d’Orient à Moudros. Notes d’une Infirmière. Emile-Paul Frères. de Launoy, J. (1936). Infirmières de Guerre en Service Commandé. L’Edition universelle. Cited in the edition Memogrammes, 2015. de Sardent, M. (1918). Les Infirmières. Notes et Souvenirs. L’Eclaireur. Eydoux-Demians, Mme (1915). Notes d’une Infirmière 1914. Plon. FANY. (1917). Nursing Adventures. A FANY in France. Heinemann. Finzi, K. (1916). Eighteen Months in the War Zone. Cassell. Glock, H. (1920). Schwesterdienst. Burkhardthaus Verlag. Klatt, E. (1934). Die Deutsche Frau im Weltkrieg. Köhler Verlag. La Boulaye, Mme de (1919). Croix et Cocarde. Plon-Nourrit. LaMotte, E. (1916). The Backwash of War. Putnams.

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Macnaughtan, S. (1915). A Woman’s Diary of the War. Nelson. Martineau, J. (1915). Journal d’une Infirmière. Private edition. Mierisch, H. (1934). Kamerad Schwester. Köhler und Amelang. Mitton, G. (1916). The Cellar-House of Pervyse. A.C. Black. Mordtmann, H. (1916). Wie ich die Türken pflegte. Kiepenhauer. Munck, R. (1939). Mit den finnischen Jägern an der Deutschen Ostfront, 1916–1918. Schwarzhäupter-Verlag. Original Finnish edition 1934. Perrin, L. (1920). Trois Ans de Guerre à Avallon. Impr. Vulliex. Pöll-Naepflin, M. (1934). Fortgerungen-Durchgedrungen. Private edition (2nd impression) published under the name “Schwester Maria”. Cited in an undated edition with no publisher given, probably Meiringen: Loepthien. (1934 is the date of the earliest edition available in German libraries; however, according to the second volume of her autobiography (1948) she was selling her first book in Germany, acting as her own salesman, in 1933). Reibold, E. (1915). Quatre Mois dans un Hôpital Militaire de Lyon. Atar/ Fischbacher. Riemann, H. (1930). Schwester der Vierten Armee. Karl Vögels Verlag. Roger, N. (1915). (pseud., i.e. Pittard, H.) Les Carnets d’une Infirmière. 5 vv. Attinger Frères. Russner, K. (1936). Schwesterndienst im Weltkriege. Breitkopf und Härtel. Taudière, Mme H. (1915). En Pensant aux Absents. Histoire de l’Ambulance de l’Absie. Plon-Nourrit. Thurstan, V. (1915). Field Hospital and Flying Column. Putnams. von Babo, E. (1918). Aus dem Kriegstagebuch einer badischen Schwester. Braun. von Hörner-Heintze, S. (1934). Mädels in Kriegsdienst. Köhler & Amelang. Cited in the 1936 edition: Munich: Verlag Hermann Wiechmann. von Pflugk-Harttung, E. (1936). Frontschwestern. Ein deutsches Ehrenbuch. Verlag Bernard und Graefe. von Rüdgisch, E. (1916). Unterm Roten Kreuz. Heim und Herd. Voss, H. (1915). Im Dienste des Roten Kreuzes. Seifert. Warner, A. (1917). My Beloved Poilus. Barnes. Available online at Project Gutenberg.

(2) Other Contemporary Literature Bing, O. (1917). Gestes d’Infirmières. L.Marotte. Genevoix, M. (1916). Sous Verdun. Hachette. Senftleben, E., Foerster, W., & Liesner, G. (1934). Unter dem Roten Kreuz im Weltkriege. Vaterländischer Verlag C. A. Weller. Stone, G. (Ed.). (1917). Women War Workers. Harrap. von Richthofen, M. (1917). Der Rote Kampfflieger. Ullstein.

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(3) Secondary Literature Hallett, C. (2013). Emotional Nursing. In A. Fell & C. Hallett (Eds.), First World War Nursing. New Perspectives (pp. 87–101). Routledge. Panke-Kochinke, B., & Schaidhammer-Placke, M. (Eds.). (2002). Frontschwestern und Friedensengel. Mabuse-Verlag. van Bergen, L. (2017). Tussen Heilige en Hoer. Nederlandse Militair Geneeskundig Tijdschrift, 9, 110–120. Vollhardt, M. (2014). Es ist ein anständiger Beruf, Schwester zu sein. Zur Figuration der Krankenschwester in der Erinnerungsliteratur des Ersten Weltkrieges. Zeitschrift für Germanistik, 24(3), 597–608. Watson, J. (2013). A Sister’s War. In A. Fell & C. Hallett (Eds.), First World War Nursing. New Perspectives (pp. 103–120). Routledge.

CHAPTER 7

The Nurse Memoirs (2)

The Narrative Strategies of Frank Texts The frank texts differ from the reassuring texts by selecting different elements of the experiences of the nurses as the recurrent features of their narratives.1 The immediately visible distinguishing characteristic is explicit attention to the sufferings of the wounded, notably gruesome details of diseases, wounds, and operations. Moreover, this emphasis leads to revelations about other elements of the military health system which magnify the horrors of disease, wounds, and their treatment: poor care and lack of commitment, organisational deficiencies, and the sheer inadequacy of the military medical care system to cope with the overwhelming numbers of sick and wounded produced by industrialised warfare. These texts also regularly point out the hardships the nurses themselves endured. It can be no accident that the great majority of the frank texts were published after the war was finished; however, the timing should not lead us to assume that their motives were opposition to the war or its conduct. Although some authors clearly set out to denounce what they saw as 1  This analytic strategy does not allow for differences in individual nurse experience. If we take extremes of difference—for example, distributing hot drinks on railway stations vs a field hospital on the Eastern Front—the differences would be so great that the memoirs would have little in common. However, in practice, the majority of memoirists in fact worked in military hospitals or clearing stations and had comparable experiences.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Palmer, Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany, Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82875-2_7

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inadequacies, we shall see that many of the frank texts are not driven by a negative perception of the nursing experience. Most were published in Germany during the Nazi regime. In particular, there were two large collections of essays and edited extracts: Frontschwestern, Ein Deutsches Ehrenbuch (von Pflugk-Harttung, 1936); and Deutsche Frauen, Deutsche Treue (von Hadeln, 1934).2 In the German case, the timing is anything but a coincidence, and we will return to the significance of the context later. The others are spread across the post-war period; however, they are relatively few in number: the total of frank, post-war, non-Nazi texts is in single figures. The most striking element of the frankness is the revelation of what wounds could be like. While the great majority of nurse memoirs clearly indicate that wounded men suffered, with varying levels of detail, the franker texts are more explicit about details, and refer to them more frequently, which fundamentally changes the overall impact of the texts. Jane de Launoy refers to this in her introduction: “Horrible impressions will appear crude … but there were many other things that were much cruder which are impossible to publish!” (1936: 9). That these differences were clearly visible to contemporaries is clear in reviews. Already during the war, a review of Mme Colombel (1916) noted that the narrative was “tempered by feminine reticence” (Nouvelles de France, 18.5.16). Reviewing Mary Borden’s Forbidden Zone (1929)—one of the most systematically negative texts—Cyril Falls says that while it is no doubt right that the public should be made aware of the nastier side of the war, there is a risk that it will appear that the hospital was a place of horror for the soldier, not a place of relief. His later review of Monica Salmond’s Bright Armour (1935) says that while she notes the gruesome elements of work in a military hospital, “it is … the tone and the attitude which make such accounts offensive or the contrary, and there is here never any deliberate attempt to shock” (Times Literary Supplement, 5.12.29 and 12.9.1935).3 Field Marshall Allenby makes the same point in his Preface to Luard (1930).

2  Front Sisters. A German Book of Honour; and German Women, German Loyalty. Front Sisters is a collection of texts by nurses from the Great War, whereas German Women contains 20 texts by wartime nurses plus some texts by other women. A third compilation (Schickedanz, 1936, v.2) is reprints from earlier published texts. 3  Cyril Falls was an authority on war memoirs, as he had written an annotated bibliography of them (Falls, 1930) as well as working on the official history of the war. It is apparent from passages in his bibliography and his many articles on memoirs that he regarded gruesome

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While there is little point in multiplying gruesome examples, it is difficult to demonstrate what the frank memoirs revealed without some detail. On 21 October 1915, Kate Luard wrote in a letter home that a soldier had torn off his head bandage and threw “half his brains on to the floor. This is literally true and he was talking all the time. He will not get better” (1930: 27)4; Mary Borden laconically records a similar incident, in which she removed a bandage from a soldier’s head and his brain fell out (1929: n.p.). Suse von Hörner-Heintze describes what she saw when a wounded soldier’s rags were cut off him: “big scraps of skin and flesh, a broken up body, bowels hanging out, blood, a lot of stinking excrement” (1934: 122) and Eveline Hrouda was confronted one morning with an entire goods waggon full of week-old stinking, maggot-infested body parts (1935: 147–8). Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire summarises what it felt like: “She felt drunk with horror at the repeated sight of arms cut off, legs, eyes pulled out, looking at smashed faces, skulls losing the brain” (1919: 45). Jane de Launoy is haunted by nightmarish visions of the memory of a row of eyes on an operating table (1936: 101). Incidents such as these are a feature of the memoirs of nurses who served either near the front lines or as assistants to surgeons in operating theatres; nurses who served in other capacities, such as recovery and convalescent wards, were less exposed to the most gruesome scenes, but nonetheless certainly saw suffering, since recovery from wounds as severe as those caused by shrapnel was far from easy. Particularly distressing was death from tetanus, which was slow and agonising (see, e.g., de Launoy, 1936: 59, 63). Enid Bagnold, who served in a hospital in London, notes at one point that a recovering patient is obviously in great pain; she asks if he can be given more anaesthetic (as a VAD nurse, she had to take instructions from qualified nurses) and permission is refused, as it is too early (1918: 25–7). Her description of the scene is calm and devoid of commentary, but it is not difficult to infer that she thinks the decision is cruel. All these examples illustrate the same basic point: nurses in military hospitals were regularly confronted with the gruesome spectacle of what modern weapons, and especially shrapnel, did to the human body and accounts of wartime experience as pacifist propaganda (Palmer, 2018: 99–102). He was subsequently the Oxford Chichele Professor of Military History. 4  Her later memoir (Luard, 1930) is franker in tone than the earlier diary (Anon, 1915). This may not be due to self-censorship: her earlier memoir stops before the date of this letter home, and her circumstances changed in the interim.

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what was necessary to try to save lives. Inevitably, the details are distressing, and especially so if recorded bluntly, as these women do. Even when a nurse is being reassuring, the reassurance may be accompanied by disturbing details. Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire describes how it is possible to alleviate the pain that follows amputation; this passage was quoted above as an example of the demonstration of commitment to care, and it is indeed exactly that; however, the emphasis on what is needed to alleviate pain—which is not anaesthetics, in this case—follows a clear statement of what the suffering was (1919: 48). Elsewhere, it is easy to infer that the nurse is omitting distressing details: Violetta Thurstan rarely says anything about the details of nursing but on one occasion she briefly refers to helping at the amputation of a gangrenous arm; her only comment is “he stood the operation very well” (1915: 26); one can only guess at what lies behind this laconic summary. Alongside the narration of what the wounds were like is explicit reference to the pain that was their inevitable accompaniment. Even the reassuring texts admit that pain occurred, as we have seen; however, here the men’s response to the pain is either not presented in any detail, or it is stoical. In the frank texts, suffering is often vocal. Käthe Russner describes a man screaming with pain for three days, even though he has been given morphine (1936: 109).5 The chapter in Borden (1929: n.p.) entitled ‘In the operating room’ is a litany of screams as wounds are cleaned, apparently without anaesthetic. Ellen LaMotte narrates many scenes of suffering, including one where an embittered, angry man dies very slowly: He struggled hard to hold on. He wanted very much to live, but he could not do it. He said: “Je ne tiens plus.” Which was true. He couldn’t hold on. The pain was too great. He clenched his hands and writhed, and cried out for mercy. But what mercy had we? We gave him morphia, but it did not help. So he continued to cry to us for mercy, he cried to us and to God. Between us, we let him suffer eight hours more like that, us and God (1916: n.p.).

In these instances, it is clear that pain was unavoidable, not the result of lack of care. However, while the reassuring texts imply that men received care as necessary, the frank ones show that this was not always the case: 5  Similar incidents in Clemenceau-Jacquemaire (1919: 121–4, 130) and Pöll-Naepflin (1934: 208).

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severely wounded men were abandoned, at best with a shot of morphine, because there was nothing that anyone could do to help them.6 On arrival at a casualty clearing station in Galicia, Suse von Hörner-Heintze is shocked to see soldiers left dying; she asks if they could at least be put in a separate building (1934: 279). The anonymous author of Nursing Adventures notes that men with septic pneumonia had not had their wounds dressed for two days “because there was not much hope for them” (FANY, 1917: 102). In her second, post-war memoir, Julie Crémieux says they had coded phrases to refer to those who would be left to die, and twice refers explicitly to occasions on which she herself abandoned dying men (1934: 17–19, 51, 62–3). Mary Borden explains the process: It was my business to sort out the wounded as they were brought in from the ambulances and to keep them from dying before they got to the operating rooms: it was my business to sort out the nearly dying from the dying. I was there to sort them out and tell how fast life was ebbing in them. (1929: n.p.)

She gives explicit details of how she made these decisions. The nurse memoirs imply two reasons why this occurred: the first is a medical judgement that nothing could be done except to give anaesthetics, when they were available; the second is that on many occasions, the numbers of wounded were so great that treatment centres were simply overwhelmed, and had to prioritise. Anna Bahr-Mildenburg records (in the unpublished version of her diary) that doctors would not come to see men who were clearly dying, and even one who was shell-shocked (Martensen, 2013: 241–3). In the case of Mary Borden, while it is clear that the volume of wounded was an intrinsic part of the triage process, it is also clear that she only abandoned those who were actually on the point of death. Kate Luard regularly refers to severely wounded men being put off the trains taking the wounded back to Britain, but without saying anything about why or what would be done for them (e.g. Anon, 1915: 41). Suse von Hörner-Heintze explains that men were simply left to die because both her field hospital, and the trains meant to take the severely wounded on to a larger hospital, were overwhelmed by the number of casualties 6  Helping the wounded is frequently mentioned in soldiers’ memoirs, including helping enemy wounded stranded in No Man’s Land; on occasions where it was unsuccessful, or where soldiers realised nothing could be done to help the wounded, they were clearly shocked; for example, Blunden, 1928: 159.

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(1934: 279): her small team received 1800 casualties in three days.7 Käthe Russner describes several scenes in hospitals near the Western Front where they received large numbers of wounded in improvised temporary wards with little food, no beds or mattresses, minimal equipment and no transport to fetch in what was missing; one morning she is shocked to find an entire room full of new arrivals who have been left without any attention because no one told the medical staff they had arrived; while she does not say that these men were being abandoned to die, it is clear by implication that this would in effect be true in some cases (1936: 69, 75, 83–5, 95, 111–2). These passages date from 1918, when the German army on the Western Front was nearing a state of collapse; however, Henriette Riemann records a conversation with a doctor in the early months of the war, in which he says that the field hospitals lack both equipment and nurses, which is dangerous for the patients (1930: 73). Nurses comment on the difficulties they themselves faced as a result of dealing with horrific wounds. Monica Salmond and Ellen Reibold nearly fainted the first time they had to help in the operating theatre; the latter ran out and drank a glass of Chartreuse (Salmond, 1935: 46–7; Reibold, 1915: 30–1). Henriette Riemann recalls one of her colleagues being unable to cope: the operations are so horrible she keeps on bursting into tears, which drop on the operating instruments (Riemann, 1930: 77). Suse von Hörner-Heintze, who also nearly fainted, quotes the doctor’s words to her and the others after a difficult night in the operating theatre: “Get used to it. Today was the first shit on the table. Going pale, rolling your eyes, spilling iodine  – not on. So get used to this bloody dump: there’ll be a lot more of this” (1934: 123). Mary Borden says that she simply does not recognise the woman who did what she did: “I think that woman, myself, must have been in a trance, or under some horrid spell” (1929: n.p.). Marianne Jarka, author of an unpublished memoir, was clearly traumatised by her experiences as a nurse; Hämmerle argues, on the 7  The unpublished nurses’ correspondence analysed by Stölzle records similar numbers (2012: 193), with triage resulting in men left to die, as does a letter from a nurse quoted in de Sardent—during the Nivelle Offensive a field hospital with 2500 beds received 35,000 wounded in three days. Sardent’s text says nothing about abandoning men to die; however, this text is for the most part highly reassuring (1918: 26). In fact, the treatment of the wounded during the Nivelle offensive was sufficiently appalling to lead to a Parliamentary enquiry (Castex, 1998). Even a very reassuring text such as Albrecht (1917) refers to a journey on a hospital train where she is the only nurse accompanying 300 wounded soldiers (1917: 11).

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basis of this and other unpublished and self-published Austrian nurse memoirs, that traumatisation must have been more frequent than subsequent accounts have allowed (2014: 91, 102). Maria Pöll-Naepflin, who abused morphine to cope with her situation, is candid in her admission of traumatisation (1934: 113–16, 124–35).8 In each of these cases, the nurse was a volunteer, not a professional; professional nurses often note horrific scenes, but in an objective tone of voice. Kate Luard’s diary notes that many of the cases she dealt with were “more ghastly than anything I have ever seen or smelt” but without recording any further response (1915: 41) and Kate Finzi notes that “the worst part of the wounds is the fearful sepsis” (1916: 29).9 In addition to gunfire wounds, disease was rampant in the armies. Although the Great War was the first war where fewer men died of disease than died on the battlefield or from their wounds, nonetheless death from disease was a common feature of military hospitals: cholera, typhus, dysentery, and tetanus were the most frequent diseases that caused death (e.g. Gabriel & Metz, 1992: 243). Although some of those deaths may not have been avoidable, it is clear from the frank nurse memoirs that chronically unhygienic conditions were a part of the problem.10 Disease-bearing lice and fleas were as endemic in the trenches and the field hospitals as the rats which are often mentioned in soldiers’ memoirs, and nurses regularly mention them—we have already seen that Julie Crémieux, in her very reassuring first text (1918), is proud of the fact that her hospital is kept clear of them. Even fundamentally optimistic and patriotic, reassuring texts such as Luard, Babo, and Albrecht mention them. In general, the frank texts show just how hard conditions could be for nurses—dealing with horrific wounds in vermin-infested buildings in sub-zero temperatures was commonplace on the Eastern Front and would be a burden for even the most robust of spirits and constitutions. On all fronts other than 8  She was apparently the innocent victim of a case of some mixture of malpractice and/or corruption in a hospital, which led to her first abuse of morphine (1934: 77–86). Thereafter, the reasons for continued abuse are unclear. 9  Astrid Stölzle analysed the correspondence of nurses and other care personnel working in frontline hospitals to construct typical patterns of everyday activity, from which it would appear that horrific things recorded in these memoirs were far from untypical (2012: 193–8). 10  It is repeatedly emphasised in German nurses’ letters to their mother-houses from the Eastern Front, for example, Senftleben et  al., 1934: 167–79; see also the diary of Rosa Bendit, 10.3.16 (http://www.hfjs.eu/md/hfjs/juedische_emanzipation/juedische_krankenschwester_erster_weltkrieg.pdf)

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the Western, epidemics of typhoid and cholera were a real threat to medical staff as well as soldiers: of the 11 Swiss nurses who travelled with Maria Pöll-Naepflin to join the Austrian army in 1914, four died of disease, as did both Emmy von Rüdgisch and Maria Sonnenthal-Scherer. A soldier dies of tetanus; due to carelessness the room is not sterilised after his death, despite a warning; an amputee is moved into the room and as a result dies of septicaemia, a case that was clearly avoidable (Clemenceau-­ Jacquemaire, 1919: 39–49). Helene Mierisch describes the situation in a hospital where she is part of a small team that has set up a typhus unit, as a whole regiment in that part of the front has become infected. A large number of seriously ill men arrive—she says it is a whole battalion—and are left on their stretchers, as they lack personnel to deal with them; there is one doctor, two nurses and some Polish porters who speak little German. The men are incontinent and delirious; the smell is so dreadful that she vomits frequently, but this is immaterial as the ward is filthy and infested with rats. Typhus makes wounds septic, so that they re-open; many men die (Mierisch, 1934: 28–34). Reassuring texts either state or imply that morale is good in the hospitals: medical staff are competent and work as a team, patients are well behaved and co-operate in their treatment, treatments are appropriate, as timely as possible under the circumstances, and performed with skill. Frank texts give many details of hospital life that undermine this impression, one of which is the lack of hygiene noted above. Riemann assists an inexperienced surgeon in a brain operation that goes horribly wrong; he insists on operating without anaesthetic, he makes an ill-judged incision which opens an artery and they are both splattered with the blood that pumps out in an arc (1930: 65). Helene Mierisch is suspicious of a patient who is apparently suffering from dysentery; she discovers that he is faking it by cutting his faeces into small pieces, then mixing them with water for repeated visits to the toilet (1934: 88). In LaMotte’s memoir, a wounded man is sent a parcel of pears from home; despite envious glances from the men in neighbouring beds, he eats the entire packet and is violently sick (1916: n.p.). Elisabeth de Gramont records taking a bandage off a wounded man’s face as gently as possible, using hot soapy water; a doctor says to her “You’re not here to do watercolours” and rips the bandage off, leaving the man groaning with pain (1932: 57); later her brother is wounded and the wound becomes gangrenous; the medical officer in charge is a dentist, and her brother would have died if they hadn’t managed to get him transferred to decent care (1932: 71). She also records an

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instance of a soldier’s cynical response to a nurse who tries to encourage him with a patriotic cliché (1932: 62). Similarly, on arrival at a new posting, Jacqueline Clemenceau-Jacquemaire notices that the wounded won’t meet her eye and are taciturn and unresponsive—the attitude of men who will no longer accept “skull-stuffing” (the French soldier slang for naïve propaganda) (1931: 25). As the review in the Red Cross Journal notes (April, 1918: 47), Enid Bagnold complains that wounded other ranks resent the fact that they get no explanation of the procedures they are undergoing, whereas officers are told what to expect. Käthe Russner notes that a group of wounded men are in an evil mood—“real hooligans” (1936: 84). The Polish porters in Helene Mierisch’s hospital are often drunk while on duty—they regard alcohol as a good defence against infection, she says laconically (1934: 30, 38). A group of nurses sent to join them refuse to work until the hospital is properly prepared, despite the urgency; one stops looking after a patient, again despite the urgency of the case, so that she can say her prayers (1934:  40–2). Juliette Martineau realises that men hate her when she says they are fit to return to the front; in dreadful February weather she sometimes invents illnesses to keep them in hospital (1915: 15, 24). Maria Pöll-Naepflin notes on several occasions that soldiers are unwilling to leave hospital to return to the front and even infect themselves with trachoma to avoid it. In an especially telling incident, when she intervenes to protect some wounded men from an officer who wants them to do drill—outside, in bad weather—she is told they are happy to be mistreated, as it prolongs their time away from active service (1934: 108, 178, 118–9). Such incidents may be regarded as small-scale matters dependent upon individual circumstances; however, their accumulation changes the overall tonality of texts. More significantly, frank nurses also reveal fundamental problems. Maria Sonnenthal-Scherer’s (1918) text reveals a care system which struggles to cope. She was attached to the Austrian army in Serbia, working alongside one of the few women military surgeons, Dr Desfours-­ Walderode (Biwald, 2002: 90–1); her text consists entirely of her letters home, published as a memorial after her death by her mother. Although she describes a medical team that is clearly committed and skilful, conditions are dreadful: they are close to the firing line, sometimes working in shell-damaged buildings, the wounded are full of lice and ill with dysentery and typhus, as are the nurses; wounds fester, they only have primitive medical equipment, packs of wild dogs are clearly well fed on corpses; they

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have to move an entire hospital in horse-drawn wagons, spending days with little to eat (1918: 31, 38–40, 44, 46, 80). Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire’s second memoir is a litany of inadequate care caused by poor organisation, ignorance, stupidity, or an un-cooperative attitude. In the field hospital at Verdun, the male nurses are a positive threat to good care: they re-use soiled cotton wadding when giving injections, which causes abscesses; they drink the surgical strength alcohol supplied for sterilisation; the wards are filthy; wounded men are clearly undernourished and not washed, their wounds are cleaned and dressings changed only every few days. There is only one wash basin for 80 beds, the male nurse in charge of taking patients’ temperature does it at midday, as it’s easier to fit into routine, instead of at the correct time, in the evening; if a soldier looks alright he doesn’t bother to take his temperature and just repeats the previous day’s figure (1931: 24–5, 27, 29, 31, 50). The army medical service has many men in it who are basically shirkers: they have managed to find a place which ensures that they do nothing but paper-work and keeps them out of the front line; they are un-­ cooperative because they want nothing to disturb their comfortable routines (1931: 63; cf. LaMotte, 1916: n.p.). Even worse, any attempt to improve practice is met with resistance: an orderly tells her that some equipment she has been looking for has in fact always been available, and is in a store-room; she goes to look, she is ordered out and the whistle-­ blower threated with military jail (1931: 48). At one point, all the nurses under her command are so fed up with the lack of co-operation that they want to leave; a high-ranking officer threatens them with the accusation of breach of military discipline; she finds out that the lack of co-operation was part of a conspiracy organised by the chief nurse at a neighbouring hospital who wanted to get control of a second hospital (1931: 135–40). Clemenceau-Jacquemaire’s text makes the most fundamental critique of military hospital management, probably because she was in a position to know: she was the senior nursing officer, and was responsible for relations between the nurses and the military chain of command. However, even reassuring texts by ordinary French nurses occasionally note lack of co-operation and uncaring laziness on the part of male nurses and orderlies (la Boulaye, 1919: 90, 102–3); Mme Eydoux-Demians notes that their inadequacies are infamous (“The male nurse corps is not always nice”), but says that the ones she knows are an exception, probably because they are thoroughly supervised (1915: 29–30). As we have seen, both Mierisch and Hörner-Heintze are critical about orderlies—however, in

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both cases the men in question were local conscripts from a subject population. They and other German volunteer nurses note lack of co-operation between the nurses from the religious orders and the secular volunteers (Mierisch, 1934: 40–2; Riemann, 1930: 12–14, 20). Suse von Hörner-­ Heintze and her friends ask to move to a different hospital because the hierarchical attitude of the sisters from the conventual orders makes the working atmosphere very difficult (1934: 48–55). German nurses writing after the war complain that the military organisation of their work was inadequate. Henriette Riemann records an incident where her company of nurses are on the way to the Western Front and have to wait in a railway station for some time. Beside them is a train full of badly wounded men, with only a pitifully small medical staff—one doctor, two nurses and some orderlies; they ask the nurses for help, which they are more than willing to do, but they are refused permission to leave their train (1930: 47–50). She, Suse von Hörner-Heintze and Käthe Russner all find themselves kicking their heels because they have been sent to places where they are not needed (Russner, 1936: 63–7, 95–6; Riemann, 1930: 30–2, 56–7; Hörner-Heintze, 1934: 100–1).11 In 1914, French nurses complain about petty jealousies between members of different organisations competing for the right to look after the wounded and complaining about unfair ‘theft’ of their patients (Martineau, 1915: 1–3, 11). Elisabeth de Gramont records that her sister intervened in the organisation of military medical services because she was shocked at the disparity between the facilities available at the well-endowed Red Cross hospitals and those in the penurious military ones (de Gramont, 1932: 72).12 Some frank memoirs query patriotic commitment, even while maintaining commitment to care. In a letter home, Vera Brittain comments that personal loss erodes patriotism (1933: 307). Käthe Russner, visiting the hospital cemetery in the early days of her service, reflects “How terribly the war rages” but the dead sleep well here, as they died in the belief they were doing the right thing. A month before the end of the war, she asks whether the sacrifice was worth it, but still recognises that the 11  These complaints are also in letters from nurses to their motherhouses in Senftleben et al. (1934: 155–60) and mentioned in Gaebel, 1915. 12  Frankness leading to criticism is relatively rare, probably because it must have seemed close to disloyalty. The small group of texts written by nurses who inspected PoW facilities for German and Austrian prisoners in Russia is scathing on the medical shortcomings; here, because the facilities are enemy ones, the criticism has a different meaning. The texts are analysed in Appendix A.

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soldiers’ sacrifice demands her commitment to their care (1936: 13–14, 100). Some German nurses writing long after the war are intensely critical of the military authorities in the Headquarters area: they are lazy and inefficient, corruption is rife, they live a life of luxury in comparison with the men at the front—this complaint is frequently repeated in Riemann (1930: 29–30, 43, 97, 129, 144) and Pöll-Naepflin (1934: 68). In this they echo some soldiers’ complaints (Palmer, 2018: 206). We saw that in the reassuring texts, and the reviews of them, the focus often slipped away from the nurse and her role in treatment and towards the soldiers’ response to it, and especially to recognition of their stoicism and cheerful endurance. In the frank texts, what the nurse does is more at the forefront of the narrative: this is inevitable, because of the frankness with which they narrate what they have seen and done. By the same token, their judgements on what they see are integral to the text and inevitably ensure that the focus is firmly on the nurse herself. Reviews of the frank texts are fewer in number than those of the reassuring texts. There are no reviews of LaMotte in the British press during the war (presumably because of the ban),13 and four brief positive post-war comments. Of the frank post-war, pre-Nazi texts, only Mary Borden, Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire and Henriette Riemann received any substantial attention.14 Mary Borden’s text was well received, although not widely reviewed: “one of the finest books about the war”, the “terrible, the inevitable truth of her record of courage”, her writings “describe to perfection one of the most appalling aspects of the Great War”. No reviews accused it of being untrue, and several stress that she was writing about what she had seen with her own eyes; although some—including Vera Brittain—carped at the level of horror she revealed, others said she wrote “with feeling and yet with restraint”.15

 Labour Leader (19.9.18) notes it had a wide readership in the United States.  Some 60 pages of Clemenceau-Jacquemaire’s memoir were reprinted in the influential Revue de Paris (1919: 226–54 and 523–54). Elisabeth de Gramont’s memoirs (1932) were widely reviewed, but there is little mention of her time as a nurse. I have been unable to find any reviews of Sonnenthal-Scherer (1918) or of Julie Crémieux (1934). For the Nazi period memoirs, see Chap. 8. 15  Morecombe Guardian, 8.2.30; Daily Herald, 22.11.29; Aberdeen Press and Journal, 8.5.30; Dundee Courier, 5.11.29; Yorkshire Post, 19.3.30; Times Literary Supplement, 13 14

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Reviews of Clemenceau-Jacquemaire stress her realism, which is a counterweight to previous unrealistic war literature, especially texts featuring immaculately dressed pretty nurses—the “unreal sister inflicted on nurses by our imagination” (L’Homme Libre, 21.5.19; Le Figaro, 18.5.19; Excelsior, 20.5.19). They note her critical attitude towards the military health services, and especially her dislike of uncharitable nuns (Excelsior, Grand Echo du Nord de la France, 29.8.19); however, the review in the Annales Politiques et Littéraires severely downplays her criticism, dismissing it as a “most picturesque” narrative of the “inevitable little blunders” of wartime (1.6.19). Her later memoir (1931) was largely ignored. Henriette Riemann’s book attracted more reviews than any previous book by a German nurse; indeed, the review in the Frankfurter Zeitung states that it is the first German book of war experiences by a woman, which implies that the earlier texts by nurses were little known (11.11.30); sales analysis by the German booksellers’ association in 1931 estimate sales of 10–15,000, a substantial figure for the period (Linzner Tagespost, 18.5.31). All the reviews praise her both as a nurse and as a writer—her book is a lively portrait of helpful work by a noble woman (Deutschlands Erneuerung 14 [1930]: 700), full of clear, sharp words of sympathy for the sufferings of the soldiers (Hamburger Nachrichten, 12.7.30). Her account is accepted as accurate—none of the reviews challenge her account in any way—and all the more disturbing for being narrated calmly by someone who is not a pacifist (Friedenswarte (1931: 172), Neue Freie Presse, 10.8.30). The disturbing elements are foregrounded in several reviews— you need strong nerves to read her account of things better forgotten (Frankfurter Zeitung), it is a nightmarish account which overburdens us with an unbearable truth (Vossische Zeitung, 21.11.30), comparable in its “shattering objectivity” to Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (Neue Frei Presse). All of the reviews accept that her account amounts to a damning indictment of elements of the German war effort, and in particular to the “crippling bureaucracy” of military headquarters (Deutschlands Erneuerung) shown at it most foolish (Friedenswarte); anyone who was at the front will recognise the distinction between those who actually fight war and those who allow it to be done for them, preferably out of sight (Kölnische Volkszeitung, 24.10.30). Nonetheless, she recognises the heroism of her patients in their service to the Fatherland and this compensates 5.12.29; Sunday Times, 24.11.29; Dundee Evening Telegraph, 10.1.30. Vera Brittain’s criticism is in an article about the VAD experience in the Guardian, 22.5.30.

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for the negativity of the other elements of her portrait of the war (der Gral 26: 78; Friedenswarte; Kölnische Volkszeitung; Vossische Zeitung; Hamburger Nachrichten). The reviews of Riemann are the fullest account we have of German public response to a text that is thoroughly frank about the ghastly features of war nursing. It is especially significant in the German context as it is the only public record published after the first wave of war literature and before the Nazi seizure of power,16 and therefore the only one where it is possible to see responses from both left and right in a society which was very polarised by the memory of the war and where all war memoirs risked divergent responses (Palmer, 2018: 203–14). Left and liberal papers stress the negative elements in her account, whereas the nationalist press stresses her focus on the heroism of her patients; both accept her criticism of military headquarters (it was a commonplace of post-war German analysis) and the overall value of her work and her account of it. Common to the reviews of the frank texts is an absence: with rare exceptions, their frankness is not accused of defeatism. This is significant because the most negative soldiers’ memoirs—and occasionally even enthusiastic ones—were often accused of relaying authentic details in order to undermine the will to fight.17 However, the accusation occasionally surfaces in nurses’ reviews: a right-wing reviewer blames Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire for failing to bring out “the noble vision evoked by soldiers’ pain” (Libre Parole, 29.6.19); one of the rare reviews of Maria Pöll-Naepflin accuses her of being unenthusiastic and not up to the demands of the job (An Häuslichen Herd 42 [13], 1.4.39). This was not a common response to nurses’ frankness.18 In summary, the chief distinguishing elements of the frank texts are an emphasis on the extent of soldiers’ suffering together with recognition of inadequacies in the care system; some, but not all, are marked by the absence of patriotic enthusiasm and a recognition that commitment and morale were far from always what they were meant to be. While Mary Borden and Ellen LaMotte clearly thought that men’s suffering was unjustifiable—which implies a fundamental critique of the war—the others are 16  Elsa Brändström (1922/1929) and Wenzel (1931) are about their experiences with PoWs in Siberia; see below and Appendix A. 17  see Chaps. 1 and 11. The accusation is especially clear in the cases of Barbusse and Remarque, but even the enthusiastic patriot Maurice Genevoix was on the receiving end of a similar criticism (Palmer, 2018: 166–7, 187, 293). 18  See also the negative reviews of Vera Brittain, discussed below.

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clearly committed to the conduct of the war while insisting that its sacrifices should not be underplayed (see Chaps. 9 and 11).

The Spectrum of Possibilities The features of frank texts noted here suggest a clear distinction between the frank and the reassuring, and we have seen that it is indeed possible to find groups of texts, in all three countries, which are as far apart in this respect as it is possible to be. However, the reassurance/frankness distinction is in fact a spectrum of possibilities, on which individual texts can occupy various positions, depending on the ‘dosage’ of frank or reassuring elements to be found in each case; indeed, this is clear from the reviews of Henriette Riemann, which note earnest commitment to the welfare of soldiers alongside frank disgust at the behaviour of staff officers in Belgium and the recognition of shortcomings in medical organisation.19 Conducting the analysis of these texts in terms that emphasise the characteristics that distinguish the frank from the reassuring risks oversimplification both of the texts themselves and of the attitudes towards the war and the nursing experience, as many texts have features typical of both halves of the spectrum of possibilities. Emphasis on the horrific nature of what happened to soldiers is inevitably less than reassuring. Nonetheless, nurses whose accounts overflow with cheerful, enthusiastic commitment both to the war and to the care of soldiers also sometimes note horrendous details of what they saw. Kate Finzi leaves no doubt that in the early autumn of 1914 the care of wounded in Boulogne was inadequate; at the same time, her boundless energy and commitment to their welfare are equally visible (Finzi, 1916: 26–38). The enthusiastic patriot Emmy von Rüdgisch briefly notes the terrible wounds she sees (1916: 47–9). The cheerful and committed Canadian Red Cross nurse Agnes Warner regularly notes the terrible wounds she deals with, but balances these details with optimistic accounts of the good care soldiers receive at the hands of skilled doctors (1917: n.p.). The anonymous War Nurse’s Diary (Anon, 1918) was quoted earlier to give an example of commitment to care, and the overall tone of the text is indeed cheerful resolution, while accepting the great difficulties involved. These 19  As we shall see, a similar mixture is to be found in the nurse memoirs published in the Nazi period. However, Henriette Riemann’s was banned (Reichssschrifttumskammer, 1936: 10); see Chap. 8.

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difficulties derive primarily from the nature of this woman’s experience, tending to the wounded during the chaotic retreat from Antwerp in the early weeks of the war, using requisitioned transport of every kind and improvised treatment centres as buildings became available. It is the picture of the chaos of war which is far from reassuring, while the portrait of committed care delivered to the best of her abilities under difficult circumstances helps to reassure the reader. Thus the bulk of the text strikes a balance between a frank acceptance of dreadful circumstances and determined commitment. Nonetheless, towards the end of her narrative she describes distressing circumstances without any attempt at mitigation. During the fighting on the Yser in October 1914 she was in the hospital set up by the Duchess of Sutherland and they received a number of men for whom they were unable to do anything: We were used to death and dying at our hospital, but here we were in despair. Most … were in extremis. It is dreadful to be impotent, to stand by grievously stricken men it is impossible to help, to see the death-sweat gathering on young faces, to have no means of easing their last moments. This is the nearest to Hell I have yet been. (Anon, 1918: 67)

Here we see a mixture of elements of frankness and of reassurance.20 Kate Luard’s two volumes of memoir and correspondence (Anon, 1915; Luard, 1930) both show the same combination. A large percentage of her earlier text is given over to anecdotes of wounded who are cheerful—or if not, at least stoical and uncomplaining—alongside narrations of what she has seen, what the countryside is like, clear statements of the organisation of the medical facilities, even if they are sometimes minimal, praise of the efforts she sees around her—reassuring features of her experience, in short. There are also passages of positive warlike ardour, as in a celebration of the storming of German trenches by the Guards (Anon, 1915: 203). But alongside such positive elements she notes terrible things, albeit briefly and objectively, without excessive detail: “Last night the rush began to abate; no one died and only one came in – a general smash-up; he died tonight” (1915: 294). On occasions she herself is clearly shocked by what she has seen, as in the example of a man with a severe head wound, quoted above, where she says “This is literally true”, as if she has difficulty in 20  Nursing Adventures (FANY, 1917) is essentially the same mixture: cheerfulness mitigated by horror.

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believing her own eyes (1930: 27). On balance, the 1930 volume is franker than the 1915 one. There are two possible reasons for this: firstly, because the circumstances in which she worked changed fundamentally in 1915; secondly, the later volume consists of her letters home and her diary rather than a text edited for public consumption during the war. Nonetheless, there are moments of less than reassuring frankness in the earlier one too. Julie Crémieux’ two volumes of memoirs form a striking contrast. The wartime publication is among the most reassuring of the texts, without a single negative feature: men are grateful and co-operative, morale is good, nurses are cheerfully committed, care is appropriate and compassionate. In the later volume there is a lot of distressing detail, although no suggestion of lack of commitment to care, and no criticism of morale or lack of co-­ operation. During the early weeks of the war she is in a casualty clearing station at Le Bourget; the wounded arrive in cattle wagons, lying on straw, groaning in pain; those who will clearly die are left to one side (1934: 17–19). Later, near the front at Verdun, where shelling and bombing of medical facilities are frequent, she is in a casualty clearing station when it is hit by a bomb: dying soldiers are immediately abandoned, it is “a vision of terror and horror”, she carries on but in retrospect cannot understand how she managed (1934: 62–3). It is certainly Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire’s second volume of memoirs that contains the frankest and most extensive criticism of military medical services in the whole of this literature; the only reassuring element in it is the author’s own commitment to care and to improving the situation.21 Other texts that contain a mixture of frankness and reassurance are more ambiguous about organisational matters. Dorothy Cator is scathing about French medical auxiliaries but seems to think the hospital functions normally thanks to her interventions in their discipline, helped by competent doctors (e.g. 1915: 25, 32–4). The author of Nursing Adventures also nursed during the 1914 retreat in Belgium and narrates chaotic scenes. She admits to disillusion: “To me in the past War had meant romance and heroic deeds, not the awful hell of agony it was” and later she says that war was no “romance or triumph”, but “this dreary reality of gaping wounds and quivering flesh”. She narrates rescuing a man whom the doctors have totally abandoned—“never treated him, never examined 21  Her earlier memoir (1919) is far less scathing than the second, while containing acerbic notes about bad organisation and lazy and incompetent male personnel. The reviews note her sharp tongue (Excelsior, 20.5.19; Les Annales Politiques et Littéraires, 1.6.19).

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him even” (FANY, 1917: 55, 110, 132); however, this is a rare criticism in a text which is overall reassuring because of her cheerful commitment to dealing with any situation. Henriette Riemann frequently expresses her commitment to care and she is also critical of organisation—indeed, on occasions it is clear that it is her commitment to care that leads her to criticism of its organisation, as we have seen. Kate Luard—who was a professional nurse—writes extensively about organisation, even more in the second volume than in the first. What she says is either objective description or praise—but with an important reservation: she is clearly aware of what is possible in wartime, as she explicitly says at one point that her new post at a casualty clearing station is “quite as well done as it could be in existing circumstances” (1930: 26–7). On many occasions in the first volume she says that severely wounded men were taken off her hospital train at various points along its route, but says no more; it is likely that they were taken off because it was clearly not worth trying to get them back to England and they would occupy places that could be given to more hopeful cases; if this deduction is correct, the decision would be a recognition of the limits imposed by wartime conditions. Enid Bagnold’s Diary Without Dates (1918) is a text that is thoroughly ambivalent. Its publication led to her being sacked from her VAD post at the Royal Herbert military hospital at Woolwich. This has usually been ascribed to her frankness: reviewing an American reprint in 1935 the New York Times commented that it was “too clear-headed and realistic to please contemporary patriots” (24.11.35), a judgement echoed in a recent analysis: her truth is “too fierce” (Hallett, 2016: 200). Bagnold’s text is ambiguous in relationship to reassurance because although there is no doubt that she is committed to care and refrains from narrating anything horrific, she is sharp in her judgements of others. Patients, lady visitors and nurses all get the rough edge of her tongue at one time or another; in particular, it is clear that she thinks that hospital routines are harsh and do not make enough allowance for patients’ suffering; like Vera Brittain (1933: 197), she thinks that professional detachment leads to lack of sympathy. Moreover, there is a marked absence of enthusiasm for the war, especially when compared with what other nurses had written; for example, she notes laconically that stretchers are stored with a blanket and a flag—the blanket for arrival, the flag for exit to the mortuary (1918: 14–15). She never expresses the level of enthusiastic commitment to a common cause that is a feature of most wartime texts; indeed, as Claire Tylee says, the

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book is probably best understood “when set against the blaring wartime propaganda about devoted nurses and the heroic wounded”. In her autobiography, Bagnold says that she was fired because a leader in the Daily Mail compared some comments in her book to recent complaints about a British military hospital in France (Bagnold, 1969: 128–9). Taken at face value, this clearly lends credibility to the thesis of excessive frankness. However, her reviews were very favourable, while recognising her candidness. In a retrospective round-up of war literature, the Aberdeen Daily Journal (12.11.18) praised it as the best thing by a woman writer about the war, “realism touched with sympathy and emotion”, if also containing “unflinching and stern pictures”. According to the Daily News, she is easily irritated and easily touched, the book is “realistic and brilliant”, amusing, impatient and heart-breaking, a “clever page from the history of the war” (28.1.18). According to the Daily Mail, it is one of the most moving books of the war (26.1.18).22 In reality, it was not her frankness that got her sacked, it was a comment in the Daily Mail review that compared an incident in her book with “the Smallwood episode”. Some days before the publication of Diary Without Dates, the newly elected MP for Islington East, Mr. Smallwood, had made a speech in the Commons in which he complained bitterly about being prevented by military hospital staff from spending the night at his wounded son’s bedside, an especially poignant complaint as his son died during the night. His speech was widely reported in the national and provincial press, and reprinted verbatim in the Daily Mail on 19 January, accompanied by a leader about military incompetence in general; the paper returned to the topic on the 21st and 22nd. This was a potent attack, as it came on the back of accusations of official attempts to hide news about an incompetently planned attack on the Western Front at Cambrai earlier in the winter, and other criticism of the military leadership. It was the comparison in the Daily Mail review on the 26th that led to her sacking; her frankness was unexceptionable, but its politicisation was sufficient to get rid of her. The ambiguities typical of such texts are noted in the reviews. Kate Luard’s first memoir (Anon, 1915) makes for sad reading, “inevitably”, 22  The Mail article was a book review, not a leader. See also other favourable reviews in The Guardian (24.1.18), The Outpost VII (1.6.18), the Saturday Review (9.2.18), The Bookman 53 (318; March, 1918, p.173); Aberdeen Daily Journal, 29.3.18; Birmingham Daily Gazette, 19.3.18; Red Cross Journal, April, 1918: 47. There is a more ambiguous review in the British Journal of Nursing 60 (1918: 131–2).

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yet it is not “a mere catalogue of gruesome sights and harrowing incidents” because of the portrait of “courage and self-sacrifice” (Burton Daily Mail, 14.5.17); while it is certainly “vivid and painful” it is also “buoyantly cheerful” (Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 29.12.15); while it will certainly make the reader cry, it also records “silent heroism [and] glorious fortitude” (British Journal of Nursing 57, 12.8.16: 141). Sarah Macnaughtan’s Woman’s Diary of the War (1915) may show us “dreadful things”, but it does so “with sympathy, humour and perception of the greatness of the sacrifice” (Army and Navy Gazette, 2.10.15). These ambiguities are less noted in the French reviews, partly because the texts are less ambiguous than the British ones, and partly because reviewers choose to emphasise the positive aspects of the nurses’ writings. Even a text as negative as Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire (1919) attracts the comment “a hard and noble life, a life of dedication, initiative and sacrifice” (Annales Politiques et Littéraires, 1.6.19). Patriotism is no less a feature of many of the frank texts than of the reassuring ones; indeed, it is close to universal in the nurses’ writings—Borden and Bagnold are partial exceptions, by omission, and LaMotte’s text contains only negative comments about it. The criticisms of military care to be found in Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire’s two volumes are not anti-­ patriotic; they are accusations of insufficient dedication to duty. No more are the evocations of horrific scenes in Sonnenthal-Scherer (1918): despite the primitive conditions, she says :“We are really content in a warlike mood” (1918: 92), and although she constantly describes appalling circumstances, the only negative comments she makes about the conduct of the war are regrets at Austro-Hungarian losses, notably the fall of Przemysl (1918: 78). She is offered the opportunity to leave and accompany her husband back to the homeland, but refuses—it would make a mockery of her commitment, she says (1918: 65–6). The hard things noted by Jane de Launoy or Kate Luard also imply no lack of commitment to the war: they represent an acceptance that war involves suffering, coupled with the belief that their readers should know it too.23 Henriette Riemann, who is frank about both soldiers’ suffering and the shortcomings of the military

23  In addition, Kate Luard was a professional nurse, not a volunteer; and SonnenthalScherer’s text consists of her diary and letters home, which were not intended for publication; no month of publication is given in the publication details and I have not been able find any contemporary reviews, so it is possible that it was published after the Armistice.

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health care system, experiences a profound sense of unity of purpose with her colleagues, “like all soldiers”: [T]he feeling that this war is a pilgrimage out of the narrowness of personal destiny and into an event that replaces life and death with something more powerful: sacrifice. (1930: 85)

Ruth Munck describes a period of horrific conditions on the Baltic Front, with frank details of soldiers’ sufferings in a battle fought at ˗25 °C; she concludes with a paean of praise for heroic death: Despite all, despite disfigured bodies, …, despite bloated limbs and distorted faces, the warrior’s death is beautiful and moving. … Is there a more sublime death than his? (1939: 107)

Patriotism is especially apparent in the texts published in Germany during the Nazi period. A clear example is the title of the collection of women’s memoirs of the Great War published by the prominent nationalist activist Charlotte von Hadeln: Deutsche Frauen, deutsche Treue (1934), which is a quotation from the Deutschlandlied, a song closely associated since the mid-nineteenth century with German nationalism, and which had become the national anthem in 1922. The editor’s Foreword presents the book as a set of examples for the younger generation to see how the co-operation of men and women makes a contribution “when it is matter of the fate of a people” (1934: n.p.). Elfriede von Pflugk-Harttung closes her preface to the edited collection Frontschwestern with the claim that pride in what the nurses did is part of the “proud regeneration” of Germany (1936: n.p.). In her own contribution to the collection, she says that she decided to volunteer for a hospital close to the front line despite her brother’s advice not to: “duty calls, and the inner drive to help” (1936: 98). Helene Mierisch opens her memoir with repeated evocations of patriotism, recalling the feelings of joyful national unity in August, 1914; crossing the Rhine, on 5 October, she writes: “O homeland, how beautiful you are. No wonder your sons are ready to give their lives for you” (1934: 16). When one of her patients dies, she gets a letter from his brother about continuing the fight, which “faithfully mirrors the spirit of our Feldgrauen (Tommies)” (1934: 31–2). On 11 November 1918, accepting defeat, she still thinks of the war as Germany’s achievements (1934: 274). Käthe Russner, visiting a German military cemetery in Galicia

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in the winter of 1917/18, comes to realise “how hideously the war is raging”, but concludes that the dead “are at peace, they died in the belief in the good and right thing” (1936: 13–14). The characteristics of the Nazi texts produce a literature which is intensely patriotic, which insists on the value of comradeship, both inside the medical team and between soldiers and nurses, and which is extremely frank about the conditions that affected them. When viewed in the context of the nurse literature as a whole, this combination is paradoxical. We have seen that elsewhere insistence on suffering, on the hardships shared by nurses and soldiers, is a feature of nurse texts that are not reassuring or—at best—is an element of ambiguity in relationship to a portrayal of the nurse experience that is fundamentally positive. And yet in the Nazi texts it goes hand in hand with an attitude towards the war and towards nursing which is totally positive—indeed, enthusiastic if not exuberant, especially in the evocation of comradeship between soldiers and nurses and the equivalence of their experiences. While it is true that frankness is more associated with post-war texts that wartime ones, the particular combination of narrative strategies found in the Nazi texts is unique. To explain it, we will have to look beyond the characteristics of the texts themselves, and refer to their context of publication (see Chap. 8). Two memoirs are exceptions to the analysis in the last two chapters, as the accounts they offer exceed the limits of the war memoir (Brittain, 1933; Pöll-Naepflin, 1934).24 The divergence in intention is clearly visible in the balance between what the authors say about the war and what they say about the impact of the war upon their own lives. For Vera Brittain, her personal tragedy—losing her fiancé, her brother and two close friends—helped drive her disillusion with the war. It is clear from her original diaries that her attitude towards the war in its opening phase was no different to other patriotic Englishmen’s and women’s stance (Layton, 1987), and as she herself said in a letter to her brother in 1917: “one’s personal interest wear’s one’s patriotism rather threadbare by this time” (1933: 307). A large part of the book is concerned with her time at Oxford—she was in the first generation of women who were able to graduate with a degree—and it is possible to see both her war service and her 24  Their intentions are explicit—see Chap. 1. They were also both, perhaps coincidentally, commercial successes: Brittain sold out the initial print run on the first day of sales (Bostridge, 2014: ix); Pöll-Naepflin ran to seven editions, with alleged sales of 20,000 (Pöll-Naepflin, 1946: 8).

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study years as a single process of disengagement from the well-to-do provincial life into which she had been born. Maria Pöll-Naepflin abused morphine as a way of coping with the stresses of wartime nursing, and substantial parts of her narrative are given over to both the practicalities of illegal drug use and to the difficulties it brought about in her relationships with colleagues. In addition, she was a devoted Catholic who underwent a real crisis of conscience as she realised that the Church was far from infallible. She inveighs against military priests who are unconscionably inadequate in their attention to their duties—her garrison priest in Galicia she dismisses as “spiritually as hollow as an empty barrel” (1934: 70; see also 122). In particular, she gets embroiled in an obscure and scandalous incident in which she is put under great pressure by a priest to help hush up the death of a woman patient; in the course of this incident she is imprisoned and has a breakdown; it is at this point that she first talks about morphine abuse (1934: 77–86). Where the majority of nurse memoirs concentrate on their work and their relationships with patients and colleagues, both Brittain and Pöll-­ Naepflin displace the centre of their text towards an account of their lives in general.25 In both cases, substantial portions of the texts narrate elements of life which extend far beyond the experience of wartime service to open up a spiritual history of involvement in the war.26 As a result, the amount of detail about their actual work is relatively restricted. This displacement of the centre of gravity of the text makes these texts exceptional (in relation to our corpus) in two respects: firstly, the frank/reassuring distinction is less relevant here, to the extent that the focus shifts away from the war and their contribution to it and towards its impact upon personal histories27; secondly—as a result—it underlines the extent to which the majority of the nurse memoirs do indeed focus on the immediate experience of their work. Vera Brittain’s memoir is doubly an exception, as it is one of the rare nurse texts to be explicitly criticised for the author’s representation of her experiences; and in particular because the attack in part reproduces the 25  The same is true of Gramont (1932); however, nursing occupies such a small place in her narrative that it is difficult to make a meaningful comparison with other nurse memoirs. In addition, the 1932 text is one volume in a five-volume series. 26  Storm Jameson and Naomi Mitchison both emphasise this aspect of Brittain’s text in reviews in the Yorkshire Post (28.8.33) and the Week-End Review (26.8.33). 27  Although Pöll-Naepflin’s accounts of bad organisation and morale make for a less than reassuring account of the conduct of the war.

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criticisms aimed at soldiers’ memoirs by nationalist critics (see above, Introduction). The reviews in Country Life (2.9.33), the Daily Express (31.8.33) and the New English Weekly (12.10.33) are all hostile, albeit in differing degrees. Country Life criticises her, despite the good service she gave, for complaining too much about her personal sufferings, on the grounds that many others suffered at least as much, as does the Daily Express, for whom the memoir’s fault is her “inability to be content with the tragic and to refrain from fussing about it”, this despite recognising that the emotion is genuine and the account authentic. These criticisms are based in the perception that the individual’s experience must be seen in the light of the ‘normal’ stoicism about wartime suffering. The most outspoken attack—written by a woman—is in the long review in the New English Weekly, accusing her of everything from snobbery and an outmoded feminism to hypocrisy and self-pity. Vera Brittain sees “the common experiences [of the war] as one who stands in isolation (and – as she would have it – in superior isolation)”. Her claim to speak for the “doomed generation” is self-pitying bitterness, typical of “the windbags and sentimentalists who pursue the ghoulish trade of making capital out of a tragic memory”, whereas “To honour our dead, the most fitting memorial is silence.” Underneath these personalised attacks lies a more central and politically charged point: Vera Brittain cannot “see the essential behind the accidental”, which is particularly reprehensible in someone who wishes to show the experience of a generation through a personal account. This is exactly the criticism commonly aimed at soldiers’ memoirs by nationalist critics and it is very rare to see it or anything similar aimed at nurses.28

Conclusion to Chaps. 6 and 7 This analysis aimed to show the major narrative strategies of the corpus of nurse texts, both those that are common to all the texts and those that divide them into contrasting groups. The contrasts consist of the place that texts occupy on the spectrum of possibilities that runs from entirely reassuring to frankly unsettling. At the reassuring end of this spectrum there are texts such as Olive Dent or Mme Eydoux-Demians; at the other end there are those that are anything but reassuring, such as Ellen LaMotte, Mary Borden and Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire’s second text 28  The only other examples I have found are in a Nazi review (see Chap. 8) and in an attack on Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire in a nationalist paper (see above and Chap. 9).

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(1931); in between are those that have some elements of ambivalence in this respect. In some cases the ambivalence is marginal: texts such as the franker English wartime ones (e.g. Anon 1915; FANY, 1917; Anon, 1918) are fundamentally reassuring while presenting the reader with unsettling moments. In other cases, ambivalence is more evenly balanced, as in Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire’s first memoir (1919), where her obvious commitment to care is shown not to be universally shared by other members of medical teams and where soldiers sometimes suffer unnecessarily. Similarly, Henriette Riemann is clearly a committed nurse, but is very frank about the horrors of war and about the shortcomings of organisation that she saw. We have already seen in Chaps. 4 and 5 that women’s involvement in war work, including nursing, attracted public comment. While there was no principled objection to women’s involvement in military nursing, fears about the corrosive effects of this involvement on traditional gender roles surfaced in oblique forms. Clearly nurse memoirs cannot be entirely separated from this context, and it can be argued that the narrative structures of the memoirs are predicated on the writers’ understanding of the context and the ways in which their writings might play into it. In an analysis of the French memoirs, Amossy argues that through the proximate purpose of informing the public about the efforts made by women, the nurse writers set the tone by constructing an ethos of valiant citizenesses but also of witnesses of the war capable of making a contribution to an edifying history of the Great War. In the same spirit, all their writings of the war years legitimate the act of publication through which women  – so often confined to the private sphere – speak out in public. (Amossy, 2005: 276)

In this passage Amossy underlines the relationship between the narrative strategies of the memoirists and the more general purpose of carving out a public space in which women have access to the public sphere by speaking of their contribution to the war effort. No doubt the act of publication is always an implicit claim to the right to speak out in public as well as an intervention on a particular topic; however, in this instance, a double claim was made: the right to speech in the public sphere in general, and female participation in the public sphere where the subject is the conduct of war. Certainly this analysis of an implicit claim is uncontentious, given the carping opposition to women’s participation in war; the examples we

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have seen suggest that her analysis holds good for the other two nations as well. The analysis so far has interpreted the narrative strategies of the nurse memoirs in terms of the authors’ attitudes towards their own experiences. However, Amossy’s analysis shows that there is a second way of interpreting these strategies, which is to see them as rhetorical; here, they are to be interpreted as interventions in the ongoing debate about the conduct of the war and about women’s involvement in it. Seeing them in this light involves understanding their narrative strategies in terms of the nurses’ conception of the context and the ways in which their writings might play into it. We will return to this in Chap. 9.

Bibliography (1) Nurse Memoirs Albrecht, E. (1917). Aus meinem Kriegstagebuch. Wolff. Anon. (1915) [Kate Luard]. Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front. Macmillan. Anon. (1918). A War Nurse’s Diary. Macmillan. Bagnold, E. (1918). Diary Without Dates. Heinemann. Borden, M. (1929). Forbidden Zone. Heinemann. Brändström, E. (1922/1929). Among Prisoners of War in Russia and Siberia. Hutchinson, 1929 (original Swedish edition 1921, German translation 1922). Brittain, V. (1933). Testament of Youth. Gollancz; quoted in the Virago edition, 2014. Cator, D. (1915). In a French Military Hospital. Longmans, Green and Co. Clemenceau-Jacquemaire, M. (1919). Les Hommes de Bonne Volonté. Calmann-Lévy. Clemenceau-Jacquemaire, M. (1931). Les Hommes de Mauvaise Volonté. Editions des Portiques. Colombel, M. E. (1916). Journal d’une infirmière d’Arras. Bloud et Gay. Crémieux, J. (1918). Souvenirs d’une Infirmière. Rauff. Crémieux, J. (1934). Croquis d’Heures Vécues. Imp. Bachy. de Gramont, E. (1932). Clair de Lune et Taxi. Grasset. de Launoy, J. (1936). Infirmières de Guerre en Service Commandé. L’Edition universelle. Cited in the edition Memogrammes, 2015. de Sardent, M. (1918). Les Infirmières. Notes et Souvenirs. L’Eclaireur. Eydoux-Demians, Mme (1915). Notes d’une Infirmière 1914. Plon. FANY. (1917). Nursing Adventures. A FANY in France. Heinemann. Finzi, K. (1916). Eighteen Months in the War Zone. Cassell.

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Hrouda, E. (1935). Barmherzigkeit. Als freiwillige Malteserschwester im Weltkrieg. Leykam-Verlag. La Boulaye, Mme de (1919). Croix et Cocarde. Plon-Nourrit. LaMotte, E. (1916). The Backwash of War. Putnams. Luard, K. (1930). Unknown Warriors. Chatto and Windus. Cited in the History Press edition, 2014. Martineau, J. (1915). Journal d’une Infirmière. Private edition. Mierisch, H. (1934). Kamerad Schwester. Köhler und Amelang. Munck, R. (1939). Mit den finnischen Jägern an der Deutschen Ostfront, 1916–1918. Schwarzhäupter-Verlag. Original Finnish edition 1934. Pöll-Naepflin, M. (1934). Fortgerungen-Durchgedrungen. Private edition (2nd impression) published under the name “Schwester Maria”. Cited in an undated edition with no publisher given, probably Meiringen: Loepthien. (1934 is the date of the earliest edition available in German libraries; however, according to the second volume of her autobiography (1948) she was selling her first book in Germany, acting as her own salesman, in 1933). Pöll-Naepflin, M. (1946). Heimatlos, Staatenlos. Zürich: Splügenverlag; published under the name ‘Schwester Maria’. Reibold, E. (1915). Quatre Mois dans un Hôpital Militaire de Lyon. Atar/ Fischbacher. Riemann, H. (1930). Schwester der Vierten Armee. Karl Vögels Verlag. Russner, K. (1936). Schwesterndienst im Weltkriege. Breitkopf und Härtel. Salmond, M. (1935). Bright Armour. Faber and Faber. Schickedanz, M. (Ed.). (1936). Das Heimatheer der deutschen Frauen im Weltkrieg. 4vv. Teubner. Sonnenthal-Scherer, M. (1918). Ein Frauen-Schicksal im Kriege. Ullstein. Thurstan, V. (1915). Field Hospital and Flying Column. Putnams. von Hadeln, C. (1934). Deutsche Frauen, Deutsche Treue. Traditions Verlag Kolk. von Hörner-Heintze, S. (1934). Mädels in Kriegsdienst. Köhler & Amelang. Cited in the 1936 edition: Munich: Verlag Hermann Wiechmann. von Pflugk-Harttung, E. (1936). Frontschwestern. Ein deutsches Ehrenbuch. Verlag Bernard und Graefe. von Rüdgisch, E. (1916). Unterm Roten Kreuz. Heim und Herd. Warner, A. (1917). My Beloved Poilus. Barnes. Available online at Project Gutenberg. Wenzel, A.  M. (1931). Deutsche Kraft in Fesseln. Fünf Jahr Schwesterndienst in Sibirien. Ernte-Verlag.

(2) Other Contemporary Literature Blunden, E. (1928). Undertones of War. Cobden-Sanderson. Falls, C. (1930). War Books. P. Davies. Cited in the Greenhill Books, 1989 edition.

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Gaebel, K. (1915). Die Beteiligung der Frau an die Kriegskrankenpflege. In E. Altmann-Gottheiner (Ed.), pp. 41–49. Reichsschrifttstumskammer. (1936). Nachträge 1–3 zur Liste der schädlichen und unerwünschten Schrifttums. Gestapa. Senftleben, E., Foerster, W., & Liesner, G. (1934). Unter dem Roten Kreuz im Weltkriege. Vaterländischer Verlag C. A. Weller.

(3) Secondary Literature Amossy, R. (2005). L’Image de l’Infirmière de la Grande Guerre de 1914–2004. In Lasserra et al. (Eds.), Mémoires et Anti-Mémoires Littéraires au XX Siècle. La Première Guerre Mondiale (pp. 273–296). Peter Lang. Biwald, B. (2002). Von Helden und Krüppeln. Öbv & Hpt. Bostridge, M. (2014). ‘Preface’ to Brittain, 1933. Castex, H. (1998). L’affaire du Chemin des Dames. Editions Imago. Gabriel, R., & Metz, K. (1992). A History of Military Medicine (Vol. 2). Greenwood Press. Hallett, C. (2016). Nurse Writers of the Great War. Manchester University Press. Hämmerle, C. (2014). Mentally Broken, Physically a Wreck. Violence in War: Accounts of Nurses in Austro-Hungarian Service. In C. Hämmerle et al. (Eds.), Gender and the First World War (pp. 89–107). Palgrave Macmillan. Layton, L. (1987). Vera Brittain’s Testament(s). In M.  Higonnet et  al. (Eds.), Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars (pp.  70–83). Yale University Press. Martensen, K. (2013). Weiblicher Kriegsdienst im Ersten Weltkrieg: Nur singen und Verbände wechseln? Oder: Eine Opernsängerin, die nicht singt, sondern Skandale aufdeckt. BIOS, 2, 230–248. Palmer, J. (2018). Memories from the Frontline. Memoirs and Meanings of the Great War from Britain, France and Germany. Palgrave Macmillan. Stölzle, A. (2012). Die freiwillige Krankenpflege im Erstern Weltkrieg. Medizinhistorisches Journal, 47(2/3), 176–220.

CHAPTER 8

The Nurse Memoirs (3): Nurse Memoirs in Nazi Germany

We have seen that the pattern of publication of German nurse memoirs was different to other nations’: the great majority of the German texts were published after the Nazis took power (1933), whereas in Britain and France the great majority were published during or immediately after the war. Up to this point the analysis has sought out only thematic recurrence across the entire range of texts, both reassuring and frank, with no attention paid to any elements of context which would lead to a differentiation of the German texts published during the Nazi period. However, the quantity of texts alone, in combination with the time lag, should alert us to the significance of the context, as it goes without saying that any text published after the Nazi take-over was either written from a nationalist, if not Nazi, point of view and/or written in a way that made it compatible with Nazi ideology. There are two elements of the culture of Weimar Germany (1918–1933) and the early years of the Nazi regime that are particularly relevant features of the context in which these texts were published. Firstly, the meaning of the war continued to play a significant part in politics throughout the Weimar years, and war literature was a substantial element of post-1918 culture, producing a far larger number of best-­selling texts than elsewhere.1 Moreover, despite the massive success 1

 Schneider (2011) includes a list, with sales figures.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Palmer, Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany, Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82875-2_8

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of Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (1928), which was an entirely negative account of the war, cumulative sales of war literature were dominated by nationalist, positive accounts (Schneider, 2011); in part this was due to a concerted effort, maintained over many years by the army, to produce a literature which would restore German popular morale by demonstrating the moral fibre of the German armed forces during the war (Bruckner, 2017). While there can be no doubt that a substantial proportion of the German population did not retain a favourable image of the war,2 there were many who did and in particular there was an organised body of nationalist opinion which worked tirelessly to maintain it, continued through the Nazi period. Typical is this comment from a nationalist monthly, in an attack on Remarque’s novel: the new wave of war books reveals “life-feeling forcing its way up from the depths of the people” because the war was “the most powerful topic of the manly people of all walks of life” (Süddeutsche Monatshefte 26 (2): 694–5).3 Nationalist interpretation of the Great War is well summarised in this quotation from a Nazi-period history of women’s contribution to the war effort: the war was the first time Germans had consciously felt themselves as a people, “caught up in this never before experienced becoming-one of a single national will” (Lüders, 1936: 3). Secondly, the nurse memoirs form part of a wider literature produced by women about the position of women in Nazi society, which includes a number of texts about women’s contribution to the 1914–1918 war effort in all fields; this literature was the extension, under new circumstances, of an already well-established debate about women’s position in society. In addition to the single author nurse memoirs, several of the Nazi period texts include contributions by or about nurses alongside surveys of other women’s activities. Despite the apparently monolithic domination of opinion in Nazi Germany, in the early years there was still room for public discussion of variations in ideology and policy within the overall framework of the Nazi movement, even if much of the space for potential disagreements was abruptly shut down by the murders of Ernst Röhm and other Brownshirt  On the struggle to dominate public memory, see Ziemann, 2013.  This element of Weimar politics and culture was summarised by Ernst Jünger in the aphorism “The peace is the war continued by other means”, a witty inversion of Clausewitz’ wellknown dictum; it was in an essay in the paramilitary Stahlhelm weekly Die Standarte (Schlossberger, 2002: n.p.). 2 3

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leaders in June/July 1934.4 This margin is of central importance when considering the nurse texts: both the editorial decisions to publish and the response to the texts were partly a product of this feature of the early years of the Nazi regime. In fact, the hypothesis underlying the analysis that follows is that the memoirs formed part of a debate about the position of women within the Nazi movement and more widely within the new German social order the Nazis were intent on creating. Although given a specifically Nazi inflection, this debate was far from new: it was a continuation of debates within and around the women’s movement in Germany which dated from before World War One. As elsewhere, women’s demands for emancipation—both civil and political— faced substantial entrenched conservative opposition. As we have seen, the German women’s movement split in 1914, with the majority supporting the national war effort and postponing agitation for other political issues; in Germany, more than elsewhere, although no one doubted the necessity of women’s contribution, this did not prevent extensive and profound doubts about its implications, which surfaced in both policy arguments and moral fears. Moreover, although women’s organisations of most political complexions supported women’s contribution to the war effort, they did so for reasons that were not really compatible with each other, even if the differences could be largely ignored under the pressure of the war years, and the coalition broke up after 1918. While the conservative opposition was powerless to prevent women’s political emancipation in the new Republic, throughout the Weimar time conservatives largely wanted to restrict, if not reverse, the impact of women’s emancipation in the workplace and civil society (Boak, 2013). In the present context, the most significant part of this process is the establishment, as a distinct set of political identities, of right-wing, nationalist women’s organisations whose existence was a substantial feature of politics throughout the Weimar period. These organisations derived from the “patriotic women’s associations” formed in the late nineteenth century, under imperial auspices, with charitable—primarily health care— aims; first and foremost these included the provision of a body of trained 4  The murders of the SA (Brownshirt, stormtrooper) leaders were intended to end factional disputes, which threatened party unity, by eliminating a principal group. While abruptly curbing action and silencing a significant debate about the future direction of Nazism, the murders also made clear the potential price to be paid for political disagreement in Germany.

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nurses as part of military planning, through linkage to the German Red Cross. Along with smaller, subsequent nationalist and conservative women’s organisations, they shared a commitment to the war effort motivated by nationalism; they also shared opposition to democracy, especially in its socialist manifestations; the majority were opposed to women’s emancipation, both political and civil.5 These commitments underwent profound changes as a result of the defeat in 1918 and the constitutional changes introduced by the formation of the Republic, in particular women’s suffrage: organisations which had opposed it were confronted with the fact of women’s voting rights in combination with a large and well-organised women’s rights organisation as well as the women in the socialist parties. The new Parliamentary parties of the Right understood that they had to fight for women’s votes and built women’s political activism into their political programmes, albeit sometimes reluctantly and within limits imposed by the male leadership. At the same time, the existing “patriotic” women’s organisations took on new roles by developing programmes which were more explicitly political while retaining their roots in traditional voluntary and charitable activities; in some cases they dissolved and were replaced by new organisations with similar ideological commitments alongside a more activist and overtly nationalist profile. These organisations, in combination, mobilised a substantial number of women: from some tens of thousands around 1900, they grew to nearly 1 million in 1914 and over 1 million in 1918; by the mid-1920s they numbered around 3 million and by the early 1930s around 4 million.6 Their membership was overwhelmingly drawn from the middle and upper classes. In the context of our analysis, two features of these organisations stand out: firstly, the nature of their ideological commitments; secondly, their record of female activism in a society in which conservative women had traditionally not played public roles, at least outside of charity work. The common ideological commitments which ran through the organisations after 1918 were: nationalism; religious commitment, especially in the form of Protestant evangelism; opposition to socialism and hence to 5  There is a substantial literature about these organisations, conveniently summarised in Streubel, 2003, upon which this brief overview is based. 6  These figures are calculated from the figures for individual organisations in Streubel, 2003, in their turn based on case studies of individual organisations; Streubel warns that the figures may be over-estimates as they derive from the internal records of the organisations in question.

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the Weimar Constitution; the family (understood as the moral core of the nation); and anti-Semitism. In particular, the combination of nationalism and anti-socialism was linked to an elitism based on racial identity: a master-­race led by an authoritarian elite.7 Their activism took many forms, often in interlinked organisations and arenas where commitment to a Parliamentary party overlapped with membership of church-based or civil society groups. Conservative women were particularly successful in attracting votes to the German National People’s Party (DNVP) and the German People’s Party (DVP) (Scheck, 2004). Here the traditional view of the family and the “community of the nation” (Volksgemeinschaft)8 enabled women to forge links between traditional women’s activities and the racially driven conception of a Germany freed of socialism and the fractious individualism supposedly engendered by capitalism. For example, the organisation of markets for local produce linked to campaigns to buy German products and nationalist propaganda; opposition to the unionisation of household servants fitted with the protection of the traditional paternalistic household. Opposition to women’s move into traditionally male occupations in the cities could be linked to condemnation of the morals of the big city driven to degeneration by socialism. This combination of social and political activism, which was organised around themes that were both rooted in daily life and linked to traditional conservative political action, gave the women’s organisations solid links to political life while preserving their existing claim to authority as the representatives of the domestic sphere; they became the “representatives of private life in the public sphere” (Süchting-Hänger, 2003: 149). In the words of one of them: “One should not say: being political is unwomanly, but must say: not being political is unmotherly” (Marie Diers, quoted Streubel, 2006: 386). On this basis, despite concerted efforts to ensure that they were not able to exercise any control over the other political activities of the parties,9 they were able to establish a solid presence in political and 7  Studies of individual activists point to the same ideological set; see, for example, Ziege, 1997; Schirmacher Project (n.d.). 8  The word “Volk” as used in nationalist politics in the 1920s is notoriously difficult to translate; it means “the people“ united by language and race into nationhood; despite populist rhetoric, it has next to nothing in common with the sense of the “people” as opposed to “the elite” or “the state”. “Gemeinschaft” means community. 9  In Streubel’s words, creating women’s political space in the nationalist parties was “a Sisyphean task” because of the constant restrictions imposed by the male leadership (2006: 406).

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cultural life; in particular, they were able to use the women’s press and the women’s pages in conservative newspapers to give analyses of current events and issues in line with their dominant ideological themes (Streubel, 2006: 293). A number of—but far from all—nationalist women activists were also feminists. In particular, prominent among them were women who had been active in campaigns for women’s emancipation since well before 1914. For example, the DNVP Parliamentarian Paula Mueller-Otfried had already written before the war: “The higher the cultural development of a people, the higher is women’s position.”10 In numerous pre-war publications, Käthe Schirmacher had maintained that men and women were different but equal (Schirmacher Project, n.p.). In 1920 the DVP activist and journalist Else Frobenius wrote: “We haven’t got as far as a woman Minister, but we have several women senior civil servants who may be headed in that direction”, and in 1926 that while women political candidates were mostly only in junior positions, an increase in women’s presence in Parliament would be possible if women voted “in a solid phalanx” (quoted Helling, 2012: 67–8). Importantly, for these women, there was no contradiction between feminism and nationalism: for Käthe Schirmacher, for example, women’s inclusion in the political sphere was to be based on the higher value of “Germanness”, so that together men and women could protect their national being (Volkstum). In a survey of the right-wing women’s movements, Karen Heinsohn underlines the significance of this point: This credo marked a fundamental break with the bourgeois women’s movement, which wanted to bring specific female interests and cultural tasks into politics. Conservative women and their völkisch colleagues did not recognise any particularly female interests. They saw only specifically German cultural tasks which both genders had to pursue. Schirmacher outlined a völkisch order founded on the principle of race, which determined equality and difference in the gender order. (Heinsohn, 2003: 43)

The presence of this strand of political thought and activism ensured that at the point of the Nazi take-over of power in 1933 there were a 10  Quoted by the online archive of the institute of the German Women’s Movement: https://www.addf-kassel.de/dossiers-und-links/dossiers/dossiers-personen/ paula-mueller-otfried/

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number of women who were both racist nationalists and in favour of the basic feminist demands; indeed, some of them had already left other parties and joined the Nazis—for example, Charlotte von Hadeln, the leader of the Königin Luise Bund, and Guida Diehl, leader of the Neulandbewegung. Crucially, given the circumstances in 1933, these women did not base demands for gender equality on any form of universal human rights, but on a supposed history of the Teutonic peoples, in which gender equality was part of the strength which would enable them to dominate other races and occupy the place they deserved in world history.11 To this extent their feminism was not a priori incompatible with Nazi ideology.

The German Nurse Memoirs in the Context of Their Publication The majority of these memoirs were published in 1934 to 1936. In most cases the texts appear to date from the war years, as they take the form of diaries and/or letters home. In her foreword, Mierisch (1934) says that the text was not originally intended for publication, but does not say why she has changed her mind; Rüssner (1936) says that she had great difficulty in sharing her experiences with anyone outside her closest family and friends, and is publishing now so that the new generation may understand the heroism of the “Feldgrauen” (Tommies), both in the trenches and in the hospitals. Other texts are extracts from correspondence with the headquarters of the nursing organisations—many of the brief texts in von PflugkHarttung’s compilation (1936) take this form; a substantial part (in excess of 100 pages) of the history of the German Red Cross published in 1934 consists of nurses’ letters to their motherhouses (Senftleben et al., 1934). Others are of uncertain provenance, as they may be diary extracts but may equally be retrospective accounts—some of the longer texts in von PflugkHarttung and von Hadeln fit this description. Von Hörner-Heintze (1934) is clearly not a diary but an edited narrative; at the end she says that she based it on her diaries, letters, and memory, implying that it was written 11  Whether this belief excludes them from the category “feminist” involves analysis which far exceeds the limits of the present context. Some historians of this movement have categorised them as “anti-feminist” (e.g. Johnson, 1976; Rupp, 1977) but the German historians quoted here prefer to regard them as a historical variant of feminism (e.g. Streubel, 2003, 2006; Jung, 2010).

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close to the date of publication (1934: 410).12 The author’s Preface to Klatt (1934) says that she had wanted to write it for many years, but only now has the demand arrived—whether this is literally an invitation to publish, or simply a sense of changed circumstances, is left unstated.13 In some cases, it is clear that either the composition of the texts or their editorial selection dates from the Nazi period; in others the relationship is less overt. However, while the relationship between historical change and authorial motive is unclear, the editorial process, to the contrary, was certainly not independent of the existence of the Nazi regime. By the same token, it is clear that the public reception of the texts was inseparable from the regime: oppositional media in Germany had been silenced by the publication dates of these texts. This chapter explores the possible ideological links between the nurse texts and strands in Nazi politics. On 8 September 1935 Hitler made a speech at the annual party congress to the Nazi women’s organisation, which is a clear statement of the ideological basis of Nazi policy towards women.14 In October the official Nazi women’s magazine N.S. Frauen-Warte reported it, in a mixture of summary and quotation.15 His speech opens with a rejection of the argument that Nazis do not value women, and that other political traditions— liberalism and Marxism—place a higher value on them. There is indeed a difference—Nazis value women more than liberals and Marxists, because for Nazis, woman is “the eternal mother of our people and man’s companion in life, work and struggle”; indeed, it is women who at times have been the backbone of the Party. The equality that the Marxists seek is not real equality, but a deprivation of rights for women, as it drags woman into a zone where she will inevitably be inferior, by bringing her into situations 12  The catalogue of the German National Library classes it as a novel. This is probably a mistake. It is subtitled “a slice of life”, it is written in the first person and uses the author’s real first name in the narrative; she later wrote two avowedly fictionalised versions of her experiences. The catalogue of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin does not classify it as a novel. 13  In addition to the autobiographical materials, the early years of the Nazi regime saw numerous third party hagiographical and patriotic accounts of nurses’ war service; see the sources extracted in Panke-Kochinke and Schaidhammer-Placke, 2002: 49–55. 14  He had already spoken on the subject a year before, saying that woman’s place was in the home because the home was the kernel of the nation, and that women was man’s helper and man was woman’s protector; reprinted in the N.S. Frauenbuch (Semmelroth & von Stieda, 1934: 9–13). 15  N.S.  Frauen-Warte 4 (18): 238. https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/frauenwarte1935_1936. The following summary outlines the points in the speech, as reported in the journal, that are most relevant in the present context.

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which cannot strengthen her position but only weaken it, in relation to both men and society. Among Germanic peoples, there has never been anything but equality for women; each sex had its rights, its tasks, and these tasks were completely of equal worth and therefore equal. Men and women represent two different intrinsic qualities. In men, reason is dominant. In women, feeling is more prominent and more stable than reason. Our opponents,  he says, accuse us of degrading women by relegating them to the role of bearing children, but there is nothing more noble than being the mother of the sons and daughters of our people. The “equal but different” principle underpinned Nazi policy towards women’s position in society; they accepted women’s employment, and indeed encouraged women—at least unmarried women—to seek employment in recognised female activities (Reese, 2006).16 However, women were barred from taking up senior positions within the Party and were largely excluded from senior positions in civil life, such as University professors, judges, etc. Specifically, Hitler’s 1935 speech categorically rejects the possibility of women soldiers. The “equal” part of the equation was obviously false anyway, since Hitler’s rejection of liberal and Marxist theory is based on the assumption that women are unable to cope with male occupations. No doubt a speech by Hitler himself was intended to resolve any ambiguities deriving from lack of clarity in policy. Already in 1926 there had been a controversy about the place of women in the Nazi Party, conducted in the pages of the Party daily paper, the Völkischer Beobachter,17 launched by an article which argued that all children should be educated irrespective of sex to be German citizens. It no longer sufficed to hold up motherhood and marriage before a German girl as the sole ideal worth striving for. A woman must be accorded the right to occupy responsible positions in every department of public life. (Heiden, 2010: 115)

The many critical responses, including from Alfred Rosenberg, the Party philosopher, accused the author of parroting the liberal version of 16  Cf. Goebbels in 1933: “No one who understands the modern age would have the crazy idea of driving women from public life, from work, profession, and breadwinning. But it must also be said that those things that belong to the man must remain his.” https://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/joseph-goebbels-on-women/ 17  This episode and subsequent controversies are analysed in Rupp (1977, 2015: 24–9); my summary here is indebted to her analysis.

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feminism, thus of abandoning Nazi ideas. As Rupp comments (2015: 23), the argument was notable for a lack of ideological rigidity; Rosenberg even commented on the divergence and suggested it was good to have a public discussion. The issue again became prominent in nationalist circles in the early 1930s, and especially in 1933 when a feminist text, Deutsche Frauen an Adolf Hitler, gave it new life inside the Nazi Party. This collective work argued for an expanded role for women inside the new Nazi order, essentially looking for political and civil equality between (Aryan) men and women—women of “inferior races” were not of course included in the equation (any more than the men). Especially outspoken was the contribution by the editor of the collection, Irmgard Reichenau; in an essay on “gifted” women, she defended career women from charges of causing unemployment, preferring to remain single, and the absence of desire for children. She accused men of seeking only comfort in marriage and therefore avoiding strong and intelligent women. She insisted that talented women with careers would make better mothers than full-time mothers. (Rupp, 2015: 22)

While these arguments were unusually feminist for a Nazi writer, all the essays in this collection argued—in one way or another—for greater access to the public realm for women than leadership policy allowed. Equally outspoken was a long group book review in Die Neue Literatur by Marie Joachimi-Dege (v.36 [1935]: 261–75). Although this journal was not a Party publication—and was in fact a long-established literary journal under a new title—its editor, Will Vesper, was well established in Nazi circles at the time. All the books Joachimi-Dege reviews have a common theme, she says: to tell men the truth about woman’s “true being”, as opposed to the false image to be found in men’s writings about them. Attacking male arrogance in presuming to write about “the specifically feminine”, she argues that that is the one thing that is closed to them, by nature; here lies the chasm that makes male thoughts on the subject inadequate. In particular, she attacks a new book on German youth which claims that what women want is male leadership; such ideas shame Germany abroad, where woman’s position is taken as a measure of the cultural level of the nation. Woman’s part in world history is equal to man’s, and she has earned her place in the new order through her heroism in the Great War.

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That her argument was to be taken seriously is shown by the refutation it received in the official weekly of the SS, Das Schwarze Korps (16, 19.6.35: 10). The author takes as the central point in Joachimi-Dege’s argument the validation of girlhood/virginity, which she advances as a counter-weight to the patriarchal insistence that womanhood is only valuable because of childbirth, insisting that women can be more than “just-­ mother”. What is this “more-than-just-mother”, asks the SS author—the prostitute and the demi-mondaine? There is no higher cultural value than motherhood. Joachimi-Dege is the “classic example of a spiritually disrupted humanity”; that there is widespread uncertainty over this matter is shown by the fact that she was published in a journal committed to combatting foreign infiltration of German culture. However, even after this apparent assertion of central Party authority, Das Schwarze Korps published replies by other women attacking central elements of the original condemnation of Joachimi-Dege (18, 3.7.35: 10; 20, 17.7.35: 10). These essays were part of a far larger body of literature by nationalist feminists aligned with or members of the Nazi Party, and presenting feminist arguments in a framework based in Nazi principles. The arguments of two prolific writers, Lydia Gottschewski and Sophie Rogge-Börner, show the range of ideas advanced by the protagonists of Nazi feminism. While they were not always aligned with each other in these discussions, they had in common a commitment to a vision of woman’s place in society that was at or beyond the limits of what the Nazi leadership found acceptable. Gottschewski was well integrated into the Nazi Party in 1932–1934, as a leader of the Nazi women’s organisation: an essay by her appears alongside a speech by Hitler in the 1934 N.S. Frauenbuch (Semmelroth and von Sieda, 1934); subsequently she was side-lined in internal Party disputes where her views on women may have played a part (Stephenson, 2013: 97–103). The 1934 essay, titled “On Nordic Womanhood”, advances the “equal but different” thesis while energetically repudiating the paternalist vision of woman as a mere homemaker. Nordic culture is “achievement oriented” in both men and women, men and women are equal bearers of the same “race will” and therefore necessarily have “essential commonalities” (1934a: 43), but their manifestation is not in the same form. While some women experience the need to express it in work outside the home— and nobody should be prevented from doing so—this is rare, and not an intrinsic female need; whereas it is intrinsic in men: “Men’s creative will is directed towards work, women’s towards people.” Certainly women can run businesses and operate machinery, but they do not essentially need to;

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what they do essentially need to do is to form human beings, which is just as worthy an occupation as any other. In a well-ordered society none of these features of Nordic life should lead to any conflict or competition between the sexes: “Only a time which has almost lost the instinct for race and blood could see men and women’s life as divergent” (1934a: 43–4). While none of these points diverge from Nazi orthodoxy, the potential for political discord becomes apparent at the end of her essay, where she quotes from two contrasting documents. One is an eighteenth-century sermon, the other a letter to his fiancée from a dead German soldier (1934a: 46). The soldier’s letter is a model of an egalitarian relationship, whereas the former celebrates the pretty servant-like homemaker; in particular, the soldier’s letter is taken from a famous wartime collection of letters.18 The condemnation of the celebration of the pretty homemaker is unequivocal: it shows how the Nordic element in national life had been suppressed. While the insistence on race as the overwhelming driving force in nationhood is entirely in line with Nazi ideology, it is used in an assertive egalitarianism which runs counter to the spirit, if not the letter, of what the leadership of the party believed. If the opening statement of her essay says that the Nordic woman “stands beside” the Nordic man, the condemnation of the pretty homemaker makes it clear that “beside” is not a politically correct understatement for “behind”. In a second essay dating from 1934 Gottschewski attacks the view that it is the “male union” of the fighting unit that is the foundation of the new order.19 The insistence on the primacy of the “male union” view led to belittling the role of the family in communal life, which is a risk for the people and the nation. While the arguments are often obscure, the names of the Nazi ideologists she criticises (especially Rosenberg and Gunther) are a clear indication of her aim: to suggest that the ideas of the “male dominance” tendency in the Party are incompatible with the centrality of the family to Hitler’s vision of the new Germany. A brief review in N.S. Frauen-Warte praises it for its attitude and for confronting the views of the earlier women’s movement.20 18  Kriegsbriefe gefallenen Studenten. This was one of a small series of publications, under varying titles, with successive editions from 1916 to 1928; the latter edition became very successful, selling 25,000 copies per annum for many years; see Hetling, 2003. It formed a significant part of the nationalist war literature of the late 1920s. 19  Männerbund und Frauenfrage, an 88-page pamphlet (Gottschewski, 1934b). 20  Vol.8 (13) [1935]: 417.

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Rogge-Börner was never a member of the Nazi Party but she was a long-term member of various nationalist organisations before 1933 and an enthusiastic fascist; she was the editor of the monthly Die Deutsche Kämpferin from its foundation in 1932.21 The key to her analysis is the belief that ancient Germanic or Nordic peoples lived in a state of gender equality, where mastery was not practised internally, but only externally, over inferior races: “A Volksgemeinschaft of Germanic blood cannot in the long run be unilaterally led and directed through male dominance” (in Die Deutsche Kämpferin 2, May 1933; quoted Johnson, 1976: 57). This state was corrupted by a paternalism that derived from Jewish and Catholic influence on German culture and from “race mixing”, which corrupted German life “in its most protected core, the family”; “racial awakening” is thus essential, since “race service is a religion for the Aryan” (quoted Crips, 1990: 130): The further and the faster race mixing developed, the more sex harmony broke up; the un-Nordic gender dimorphism develops and gives rise to one-­ sided male domination which has brought about decline and decay in the essence of all the affected Nordic peoples and states. (Quoted Jung, 2010: 3–4)

This approach was a commonplace among nationalists (Spilker, 2009; Ziege, 2005) but Rogge-Börner used it as the basis of a series of propositions which went far beyond what most nationalist women found acceptable, and certainly beyond what the Nazi leadership accepted. Firstly, she insisted that marriage laws effectively made women into second-class citizens, since women only had full citizenship through marriage, and German women should refuse to recognise the legitimacy of any state that divided German people into two classes in this way. Secondly, although it was legitimate to see the mass of Nordic women as primarily mothers, “the most noble women, strong female personalities” should play a prominent role in the future race-based state (this was written in 1932), since such a state needs both masculine and feminine leadership; this meant women in all Ministries and authorities. She even makes a special plea for a privileged role for women, as the “sixth sense attributed to the Germanic woman … 21  The German Woman Warrior. On her career, ideas, and interactions with nationalist organisations, see Ziege, 1997. Her ideas are summarised and discussed in Crips (1990) and Jung (2010); I am indebted to these analyses for my summary.

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is a reality whose fateful importance we do not know today but which is the organ that senses the imponderabilities that above all in foreign relations nearly always play the most decisive role” (cited Crips, 1990: 132); mass man is just as unsuited to such matters as mass woman. Thirdly, she went further: implicitly rejecting Hitler’s emphasis on family life and motherhood, she argues for women’s access to the military, citing the new defence law of May 1935 which made war service compulsory for both men and women; she interprets this to mean that women should be in the armed forces, something that Hitler had explicitly rejected in his 1934 speech to the Nazi women’s movement (Die Deutsche Kämpferin 3 (4): 1). Despite the explicit foundation of her ideas in an impeccably Nazi conception of racial purity and superiority, proposals such as these went far beyond what most Nazis would accept, and she received substantial criticism from Nazi women, accusing her of following the line of the Weimar woman’s movement, promoting “feminist, Jewish/Roman freemason world-pacifist” ideas to the detriment of the German people (quoted Ziege, 1997: 67). Finally, in May 1937, the Gestapo shut down her journal. According to the Pariser Tagezeitung (2.6.37)—the German exile newspaper—the reasons were unknown; however, her writings had attracted the attention of the foreign press, which had interpreted them as a sign of dissension within the Nazi Party; it is also possible that the process of Gleichschaltung had finally caught up with her and the other Nazi women who were suspected of excessive zeal for German womanhood (Ziege, 1997: 68). These summaries of the ideas of prominent members of the Nazi feminist tendency show the extent to which there was a debate, within the Nazi Party itself, about what women’s position in the new Germany should be. No doubt the room for manoeuvre was limited, and in the end the clearly feminist side of the debate was foreclosed. Nonetheless, for a limited period the debate was openly conducted, including in official Party literature, and the divergences were none the less real for being aired within the central parameters of Nazi beliefs—racial superiority. Part of this debate within the Nazi party about women’s place in society was a literature about women’s contribution to the 1914–1918 war effort, of which the nurse memoirs form a substantial part. While war literature22 was a significant element of Weimar culture, it was 22  That is, histories, memoirs, and novels about the experience of war. On German women’s war literature, see Cardinal, 1993. Panke-Kochinke and Schaidammer-Placke note the relative absence of nurse literature under Weimar (2002: 25–6).

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overwhelmingly masculine in character, especially on the nationalist side of the debate; it is no accident that Lydia Gottschewski chose as her exemplary text a passage from an unimpeachable and masculine war literature source. As we have seen, before 1933 nurses’ writings about the war did not achieve any prominence in Germany and the nurses were largely forgotten during the Weimar years.23 The comparison with the flood of soldiers’ memoirs and the substantial attention paid to them is telling (Palmer, 2018: 35–42, 203–12; Schneider, 2011). Even during the war years themselves, outside specialist periodicals relatively little attention was paid to the nurses, despite the substantial attention paid to women’s role in the war effort on the home front. Women’s literature during the early years of the Nazi regime set out to rectify this silence.24 In February 1936, the official Nazi women’s journal, N.S.  Frauen-­ Warte, started a series of five substantial articles under the general heading “German Women in the War”, all written by Irmgard von Maltzahn, who was the principal writer for the official party magazine for girls, Das Deutsche Mädel.25 The first and the last in the series were devoted to memoirs, predominantly by nurses, reviewing Klatt (1934),  von  Hadeln (1934), memoirs by German nurses in Siberia, and reprinting an extract from von Hörner-Heintze (1934); other pieces were about other elements of women’s war service.26 The first piece opens with general considerations about women and war. The opening section is entirely devoted to soldiers’ memoirs and war novels by and about them, stressing the differences between men and women’s contribution to the war effort. This contextualisation of course only mentions the nationalist texts, stressing their importance as part of the communal heritage of the German people through their portrait of soldierly qualities and selfless devotion to the nation. Women’s 23  With the exception of Elsa Brändström, who became something of a household name in Germany and Austria (see Brändström, 1922/1929, and Appendix A). 24  Was this part of an early attempt to mobilise for war? The “Dedication” in the Schickedanz compilation of extracts of nurse memoirs stresses that the 1935 Defence Law allocates tasks to women and talks about future enemy air raids on Germany (1936 [2]: 5). This purpose would not contradict the line of analysis taken here. 25  von Maltzahn, 1936. She had also contributed a short story titled “War” to the official N.S. Frauenbuch in 1934. 26  See Appendix A for details of the German nurses in Siberia.

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contribution to the war was not sufficiently represented, she says; inevitably less arduous, but nonetheless important, it has no overall representation. The accounts that have now appeared are only documentary accounts of personal experience, the most lively and exemplary of which are by women in the colonies and the nurses. However, they do not rise to the level of overall representations of the spiritual experience of the war, nor do they show war as “new demands on women or a high and hard law” for them. Here the author is repeating the well-established nationalist claim about the war’s “inner coherence”, which takes precedence over mere individual experience.27 In the reviews themselves, while praising the texts for giving voice to women’s contribution to the war effort, she attacks any deviation from Nazi orthodoxy. In a later article, she attacks Mathilde Lüders’ history of the “national women’s service” in the war years: while the text usefully shows the great contribution that women made, it is mistaken in its political conclusions. The leadership of the service, which was drawn from the upper classes, was out of touch with the membership, demanding inappropriate reforms such as access to higher education; they had no “blutvoll”28 relationship to those layers of society who had “the most care-­ laden and tribulation-full life” and thus could not bring women to a sense of self-worth independent of comparison with men—in other words, based in women’s traditional role. Because Lüders is excessively focussed on women’s rights she misunderstands the post-war period: she blames post-war youth for being unwilling to remember the war, which ignores the enthusiastic part of that generation—in other words, young Nazis. For the same reason, her praise for women’s new sense of self-confidence when confronted with paternalism fails to understand the triumph of the war, its “metaphysical and sense-making demands”, in other words the sense of 27  The expression is taken from the best-selling nationalist author Werner Beumelberg; see Palmer, 2018: 211; for more detail, see Brückner, 2017: 102–5. It is the German version of the nationalist claim about the purpose of the war analysed earlier (Chap. 1). This element of the nationalist conception of the war was particularly clear in a series of books commissioned by the Reichsarchiv, which portrayed the major battles of the war in all their gruesomeness and heroism, and some of which were best sellers (Palmer, 2018: 35–6; 41, 207–8). Von Maltzahn repeats the theme in a mention of Beumelburg’s best-selling Douaumont, stressing that his gruesome account has a higher meaning by showing how these conditions were born and how this becomes a “law-giving figuration” (N.S. Frauen-Warte 8 [18]: 612). 28  Literally, “blood-full” (or blood-infused); “blood” in nationalist language means ethnically pure biologically inherited culture.

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national pride and renewal that was central to extreme-right policy under Weimar. However, she does not attack a central contention of Lüders’ argument, that the 1914 mobilisation for war included no planning for the continuation of economic and social life in the homeland, which was central to the war effort; it was the women’s movement, in the form of the National Women’s Service, that made up the deficiency (Lüders, 1936: 5–6). In these texts we can see what claims based on the wartime experience were being made during the early years of the Nazi regime about women’s place in society. Nationalist women were able to advance claims which were at the edge of or beyond what the Nazi leadership was prepared to accept, and the claims were debated. Where the claims were substantially beyond the politically correct limits, criticism and political marginalisation followed: none of the women named above had long-term prosperous careers in the new order, even if they were able to survive and continue to publish. At this point we can turn to the nurses’ texts themselves, to consider the relationship between them and the new context in which they appeared.29 Firstly, the relationship between the nurse memoirs and Nazi orthodoxy: the compilation edited by Margareta Schickedanz (1936), Volume 2 of which consists of reprints from earlier nurse texts, was published under the aegis of Himmler’s Deutsche Ahnenerbe institute in a series intended for use in schools. The series was edited by Auguste Reder-­ Gruber; she was one of the most highly placed women in the Nazi women’s movement, as well as being a dogmatically convinced Nazi (Bierl, 2009): this pedigree guarantees compatibility. The prefaces to the compilations give reasons for publication. It is to rescue from oblivion the sense of duty and sacrifice manifest in German 29  While not all of the texts in the compilations are by nurses, the number that are is disproportionate: all of the texts in von Pflugk-Harttung are by or about nurses, and a substantial proportion of those in  von  Hadeln and Klatt. In the last chapter the Nazi texts were quoted as examples of frankness; however, not all are equally frank, as many are positive and reassuring. The history of the German Red Cross by Senftleben et al. (1934) contains many hundreds of letters from nurses, mostly addressed to their Mother Superior, some of which are frank about horrific conditions. Hrouda (1935) should probably not count as a Nazi-era publication, since she published in Austria before the Anschluss; although the earliest edition is 1935, its publication was announced as forthcoming in 1931 (die Stunde, 20.9.31). PöllNaepflin (1934) is ambiguous in this respect: the author was Swiss by birth but stateless in 1934, due to her Nazi affiliation; the book was self-published in Germany (PöllNaepflin, 1948).

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women’s dedication to soldiers and to the Fatherland.30 It is to show “the great silent heroism” of German women, to “snatch it away from forgetfulness” (von Hadeln, 1934: cover text). The “brightly flaming enthusiasm” that drove German youth into the army drove women to help them; they learnt the horror of war as the glint of romance disappeared. “True comrades” of the soldiers, their names are not in any “hero book”; like the unknown soldiers, they did their duty. After the war, like the soldiers, they were “mocked and abused”, but now Germany has been healed and stands proud again (von Pflugk-Harttung, 1936: Foreword). In the preface to her text, which is a mixture of diary entries and letters home, Käthe Russner is absolutely explicit on the relationship between the two: she had great difficulty in sharing her experiences with anyone outside her family circle, she says, but has decided to publish in order to show the younger generation the heroism of ordinary German soldiers, both on the battlefield and in hospital (1936: Foreword, n.p.). The collection of memoirs of other women that compose Klatt’s text is to show German women’s heroism, which had been ignored, despite the mass of war literature. “Consciously or unconsciously they created a new social basis for themselves and their descendants”; they did so without complaint, for the Fatherland: “quiet and true and joyful in sacrifice [they] did what had to be done” but nobody thought to portray their heroism or thank them (1934: Preface, 7–8; Postface, 295–6). Similar flowery statements of patriotic dedication to duty are also found in the nurses’ own texts (see Chap. 7). As we have already seen, the foundation of the nurse texts in unmediated everyday experience serves as a guarantee of their authenticity. For example, if Elfriede Scherhans, who was one of the few nurses to be awarded the Iron Cross, stresses the need for discipline, the aptness of her judgement is borne out by the details of the situation: near Tannenberg in 1914 she was in a frontline dressing station which not only came under artillery fire but was nearly overrun by Russian troops; the wounded she was tending were in a state of acute anxiety; it is at this point that she insists on discipline (von Hadeln, 1934: 25). The details she gives also add depth to a patriotic generalisation that she makes; the authorities tried to prevent her working close to the front line, but she insisted and won the argument: “to me it was self-evident that in war not only men but also 30  Or in the Schickedanz case to enable the next generation of German women to learn from it (1936 [2]: 5).

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women must be ready for the utmost fulfilment of duty to the fatherland” (von Hadeln, 1934: 23); while such statements could evoke derision, the details she has given act as their justification.31 By contrast, when Suse von Hörner-Heintze and her colleagues are on the receiving end of a speech about duty and the virtue of obedience, she is frankly irritated—not because she disagrees with the sentiments but because it was unnecessary to say such things to women who were already practising what was being preached (1934: 30); this is part of her litany of complaints about old-­ fashioned convent-like discipline imposed by sisters who are hostile towards the new volunteer nurses (1934: 21–6). We have already seen that the 1930s German texts were among the frankest about the conditions that sick and wounded soldiers endured and under which nurses worked. Certainly other nurses are frank about the severity of the wounds they saw and do not hide the fact that men suffered. Although it is difficult to quantify, 1930s German nurse accounts are often tales of unmitigated horror, in which it is difficult to find any of the hopefulness given by emphasis on soldiers’ bravery under pain and on the nurses’ attempts at mitigation of suffering, such as one finds in the franker passages of British narratives. Von Hadeln (1934) contains a series of letters home from a nurse on the Eastern Front working in an epidemic hospital full of men with typhus: the only bedding is sacks of straw, they only have one thermometer, the staffing levels are so poor there is no sustained attention to individual patients, many of whom are delirious, there is no electricity and no lighting for the night shift beyond a candle stump (1934: 40–3). Mierisch narrates some days in a Polish epidemic hospital full of men who are delirious, who have sepsis in wounds gaping so far open she can see the intestines move in the hole; a man dies from a septic ulcer in his neck, vomiting blood and pus for days on end; they are overwhelmed, as there are only two nurses for 100 patients and the buildings are infested with rats (1934: 32–4). The concatenation of horrors may be due to the fact that many of the texts published in the 1930s narrate extensive experiences close to the front line on the Eastern and Southern Fronts; here conditions appear to have been worse than elsewhere, due to the primitive conditions and prevalence of epidemic disease, which made the sufferings of the wounded far worse than they might otherwise have been. 31  Panke-Kochinke and Schaidhammer-Placke dismiss her as “archaic-seeming” (2002: 53). Some sources give her surname as Scherhaus.

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However, these litanies do not turn into condemnations of organisational inadequacy, unlike Riemann and Clemenceau-Jacquemaire. Indeed, the letters home in Hadeln conclude with a plea to her family to remember the good things in the war—the soldiers’ willing self-sacrifice and the sense of striving for worthwhile goals (1934: 46). Frankness does not necessarily amount to a condemnation of war and in post-1918 Germany the capacity to endure was often seen as a badge of courage and commitment, part of the nationalists’ “inner coherence” of the war. Seen in this light, the nurses’ frankness is entirely compatible with the patriotic commitment which is also a prominent feature both of the texts and of their editorial presentation.32 Reviews of the Nazi period memoirs are largely positive; in particular the nurses’ frankness is singled out for praise. Suse von Hörner-­ Heintze, who maintains her belief in a “new time” through all the misery, shows how nurses’ “dreadful work” led them to risk their lives “in the heroic defence of the Fatherland”; her “bold, life-affirming” account does not prettify the horror of hard days (Schlesische Monatshefte, 1936: 613; Illustriertes Familienblatt 5: 18; Salzburger Volksblatt, 10.10.36). The “factual accounts” in Frontschwestern show the “full misery of the overflowing field hospitals” (Militär Wochenblatt, 1936: 2033) and the “admirable spiritual strength” of the women (Soldatentum 3: 155). The reception of Maria Pöll-Naepflin’s memoir may be an exception. According to the second volume of her memoirs, the book sold well and was well received among the Nazi leadership in 1933–1934 (1948: 6, 36); however, at some point later—probably in 1935, but her memoir gives no date—she was warned that Goebbels had denounced the book as “insufficiently Aryan, pious”, with pacifist tendencies, and she subsequently narrowly avoided being imprisoned in a concentration camp, fleeing to Switzerland just in time (1948: 359, 415, 497–8). However, she does not say that the failed arrest was linked to the book, and her connections to Evangelical and refugee circles might have been the cause; moreover, the 1934 memoir does not appear on any of the Nazi lists of banned books (Reichsschrifttumskammer, 1936). If the success and denunciation did 32  Henriette Riemann (1930) is also frank about conditions and does not hide the shortcomings of organisation which (she implies) were responsible for unnecessary  suffering. Despite frequent statements of patriotic commitment, it contains many passages which imply that the sacrifice is disproportionate to the results. It was banned by the Nazis, along with its companion volume Wie Schwester Emma den Krieg Erlebte; see Reichsschrifttumskammer 1935: 99; 1936: 10. This is the list of banned books and authors published by the Nazi regime; it does not give the reasons for the decisions; however, Riemann is a Jewish surname.

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indeed occur as she alleges, this would indicate that there was a limit to the frankness about wartime experiences that was acceptable to the Nazis. The other feature of the texts which is central to an analysis of the circumstances in 1933 is their insistence on comradeship between nurses and soldiers, encapsulated in the term “Frontschwestern” (front-sisters, or sisters of/at the front). Claiming comradeship is not the same as the proclamations of devotion to soldiers’ wellbeing, a commonplace feature of the great majority of the nurse texts. It is a claim to a measure of equivalence to them which goes beyond the fellow-feeling manifest in devotion to wellbeing. This element of the texts includes both a subjective element—the feeling of comradeship—and the objective element of a similarity of circumstances. Adda von Königsegg says—in an unsupported generalisation—“the nurses stare horror in the face … their souls struggle to master it” (von Hadeln, 1934: 20). Confronted with a room full of stinking, badly wounded, dying Russian soldiers, Suse von Hörner-Heintze wonders if this is hell on earth (1934: 42–3). In such instances, it is probably legitimate to interpret the emphasis on the appalling conditions and the suffering of the soldiers as part of the implied parallel between soldiers and nurses (Steiner, n.d.: 24). Historians have cast doubt on the authenticity of this claim, on the grounds that most German women nurses were not allowed in field hospitals (i.e. those in the immediate vicinity of the front) and that the closest they got to the fighting line was the hospitals in the Headquarters Area (Etappengebiet), the zone outside Germany under military occupation (Panke-Kochinke & Schaidhammer-Placke, 2002: 11). Henriette Riemann made repeated attempts to be transferred from there to a field hospital, all unsuccessful; this suggests that proximity to the front lines was indeed exceptional, but also underscores the ideological and motivational value of the soldier/nurse parallel; as she herself says, “I want to help, to give of myself, to work. I will hold on like every soldier” (1930: 243). On the other hand, several extracts in  von Pflugk-Harttung and in von Hadeln narrate being in hospitals sufficiently close to the front to receive incoming artillery and machine gun fire (von Hadeln, 1934: 24–5, 39; von Pflugk-Harttung, 1936: 26–9, 44–5, 98–100; see also von Hörner-Heintze, 1934: 233; Mierisch, 1934: 84; an unpublished MS in Panke-Kochinke & Schaidhammer-Placke, 2002: 83). Panke-Kochinke and Schaidhammer-Placke argue that texts arguing for the similarity of experience between nurses and soldiers base the claim on texts by nurses

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with untypical experience, such as Elfriede Scherhans (2002: 53);  von Pflugk-Harttung’s editorial “Foreword” indeed stresses the most dangerous and demanding postings that nurses occupied. Nonetheless, whether or not it was really a significant element of the nurses’ experience, it is certainly the case that some nurses refer to a sense of comradeship shared with soldiers: Elfriede Scherhans said that her best memory is men and officers calling her “unsere Schwester” (“our sister”; von Hadeln, 1934: 26); Helene Mierisch calls soldiers “Kamerad” (1934: 32), Käthe Russner is moved when her patients give her flowers for her birthday and sing for her (1936: 27). At the beginning of her narrative Suse von Hörner-Heintze draws a parallel between her commitment to service as a nurse and her brother’s commitment as a soldier; later she says that when nurses “have to clench their teeth on night shift to avoid falling asleep, in some inexplicable way they feel bound to the soldiers” (1934: 10, 74). Käthe Russner evokes the “togetherness-feeling that stamps itself on everything and rules everywhere out here” (1936: 24; also 59, 70). Adda von Königsegg’s emphasis on the sense of service among nurses includes the argument that they were “shoved around the place just like the soldiers” (von Hadeln, 1934: 21). However, it is impossible to know how widespread this understanding of the relationship was; more frequent are references to a feeling of comradeship with other nurses, and sometimes doctors (e.g. von Hörner-Heintze, 1934: 275; Mierisch, 1934: 53). There is some evidence in the reviews of the 1930s memoirs to support the comradeship claims. The reviews of Suse von Hörner-Heintze say that “our sisters at the front  do their duty like the soldiers (Illustriertes Familienblatt 5 [1935]: 18; Schlesische Monatshefte 1936: 613; Innsbrucker Nachrichten, 2.10.36); a review of von Pflugk-Harttung calls it a memorial to the quiet heroism of German women who stood beside the fighters in their own way (Soldatentum 3: 155) and another quotes the story of a general saying to von Pflugk-Harttung (she herself was a nurse) that she will ride beside him through the Brandenburg Gate in the victory parade (Die Deutsche Kämpferin 4: 398). The same journal’s review of Mierisch (vol. 2: 350) repeats her own words about being called ‘Kamerad Schwester’, and the review in the Altonaer Nachrichten says that these words constitute the “most beautiful title of honour” that “feldgraue Kameraden” (Tommy comrades) can give to a nurse (10.12.34). A 1939 group review of Mierisch, von Pflugk-Harttung, and von Hörner-Heintze praises them all as “real comrades … up to self-sacrifice” (Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift 89: 27–8). In her article about women and the

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war, Irmgard von Maltzahn (see above) refers to wartime nurses’ Kameradschaft in danger (N.S. Frauenwarte 18 [1935]: 611). A history of the Kaiserswerth nurses published in 1934 makes similar claims (Panke-­ Kochinke & Schaidhammer-Placke, 2002: 53–4). If these comments do not literally repeat the “Frontschwester” claim, they certainly suggest a view of the nurses which is akin to it; regardless of whether the claim was justified, it would appear that there was some public acceptance of it. It can be argued that it was contrary to Nazi orthodoxy: Margareta Schickedanz opens her second book about women’s wartime contribution with a statement, quoting Hitler, underlining the incompatibility between womanhood and frontline fighting, which implicitly rejects the “front-­ sister” claim (Panke-Kochinke and Schaidhammer-Placke, 2002: 54). Yet the Nazi-era volume of essays devoted to thanking Elsa Brändström makes a point of quoting her desire to be considered the Kamerad of the PoWs she helped (Panke-Kochinke and Schaidhammer-Placke, 2002: 54)33 and a later compilation was titled Frontkämpferinnen Erzählen (Becker, 1938). Even during the Second World War the claim reappears: a 1942 article in N.S. Frauen-Warte 10 about nurse-soldier camaraderie is titled “Kamerad Schwester”; an article about the Red Cross nurses uses “Kamerad Schwester” as the headline (Hamburger Anzeiger, 22.6.42); an article in Das Deutsche Rote Kreuz 6 (August 1942) about military nurses in North Africa is titled “Wüstenkameraden” (“desert comrades”). There is thus some support for the claims about German women’s role in the war which suggest an equivalence with the soldiers: devotion to duty, acceptance of hardship and danger, and comradeship. The nurse memoirs of the other nations do not make this claim, even if it is sometimes possible to infer that the authors might like to, at points where there is great emphasis on the difficulties and hardships involved. Even where the German memoirs do not directly make this claim, it is abundantly clear that the descriptions of what they and the soldiers endured are implicitly making a claim to a status which demands recognition. While this is no doubt true of all the nurse memoirs, this is particularly significant in Germany in 1934–1936, in the context of the substantial debate about women’s status within the Nazi Party. The 1930s German nurse memoirs do not make the same ideological claims about women’s position in society as the Nazi feminist texts; indeed, it would scarcely be 33  Originally published in 1932, it went through six successive editions during the Nazi period.

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credible to do so, as the texts’ claim to respect derives from their authenticity as unmediated accounts of personal experience. The ideological dimension derives from their place in the context of the early Nazi years: regardless of authorial motive and date of composition, the context of publication makes some ideological link to Nazi politics inevitable. In particular, (auto) biographical narrative had a privileged place in the Nazi literature of political education, providing exemplification; living as a good Nazi was essential to the realisation of the “Volk” community that was the ideological commitment of the movement: the “community must be lived” (Steuwer, 2015: 104–9). Although this is not explicit in the texts of the nurses themselves (obviously, given the time lag) it is editorially explicit: “We do not wish to read this book as something from former times – we want to model our lives on it!” (von Pflugk-Harttung, 1936: 338).

Bibliography (1) Nurse Memoirs Brändström, E. (1922/1929). Among Prisoners of War in Russia and Siberia. Hutchinson, 1929 (original Swedish edition 1921, German translation 1922). Hrouda, E. (1935). Barmherzigkeit. Als freiwillige Malteserschwester im Weltkrieg. Leykam-Verlag. Klatt, E. (1934). Die Deutsche Frau im Weltkrieg. Köhler Verlag. Mierisch, H. (1934). Kamerad Schwester. Köhler und Amelang. Pöll-Naepflin, M. (1934). Fortgerungen-Durchgedrungen. Private edition (2nd impression) published under the name “Schwester Maria”. Cited in an undated edition with no publisher given, probably Meiringen: Loepthien. (1934 is the date of the earliest edition available in German libraries; however, according to the second volume of her autobiography (1948) she was selling her first book in Germany, acting as her own salesman, in 1933). Riemann, H. (1930). Schwester der Vierten Armee. Karl Vögels Verlag. Russner, K. (1936). Schwesterndienst im Weltkriege. Breitkopf und Härtel. Schickedanz, M. (Ed.). (1936). Das Heimatheer der deutschen Frauen im Weltkrieg. 4vv. Teubner. von Hadeln, C. (1934). Deutsche Frauen, Deutsche Treue. Traditions Verlag Kolk.

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von Hörner-Heintze, S. (1934). Mädels in Kriegsdienst. Köhler & Amelang. Cited in the 1936 edition: Munich: Verlag Hermann Wiechmann. von Pflugk-Harttung, E. (1936). Frontschwestern. Ein deutsches Ehrenbuch. Verlag Bernard und Graefe.

(2) Other Contemporary Literature Becker, K.-H. (1938). Frontkämpferinnen Erzählen. Bagel. Gottschewski, L. (1934b). Männerbund und Frauenfrage. Die Frau im neuen Staat. Lehmanns Verlag. Lüders, M.-E. (1936). Das Unbekannte Heer. Frauen Kämpfen für Deutschland 1914–1918. Mittler. Pöll-Naepflin, M. (1948). Heimatlos, Staatenlos. Splügenverlag; published under the name ‘Schwester Maria’. Reichsschrifttstumskammer. (1935). Liste 1 der schädlichen und unerwünschten Schrifttums. Reichskulturkammer. An updated edition was published in 1938. Reichsschrifttstumskammer. (1936). Nachträge 1–3 zur Liste der schädlichen und unerwünschten Schrifttums. Gestapa. Semmelroth, E., & von Stieda, R. (1934). N.S.Frauenbuch. Lehmanns Verlag. Senftleben, E., Foerster, W., & Liesner, G. (1934). Unter dem Roten Kreuz im Weltkriege. Vaterländischer Verlag C. A. Weller. von Maltzahn, I. (1936). Die deutsche Frau im Weltkrieg. N.S. Frauen-Warte 4, 577–580, 611–613, 644–666, 669–671, 784–786.

(3) Secondary Literature Boak, H. (2013). Women in the Weimar Republic. Manchester University Press. Bierl, P. (2009). Die Erziehung von Mädchen und Frauen im Nationalsozialismus. https://jungle.world/artikel/2009/25/die-­reichsgustl-­nordet-­auf Brückner, F. (2017). In der Literatur unbesiegt: Werner Beumelburg. LIT Verlag. Cardinal, A. (1993). Women on the Other Side. In D. Goldman (Ed.), Women and World War One (pp. 31–50). St. Martin’s Press. Crips, L. (1990). National-feministische Utopien: Pia Sophie Rogge-Börner und Die deutsche Kämpferin 1933–1937. Feministische Studien, 8(1), 128–137. Heiden, K. (2010). A History of National Socialism (Responding to Fascism, Vol. 2). Routledge (original edition 1934). Heinsohn, K. (2003). Germany. In K.  Passmore (Ed.), Women, Gender, and Fascism in Europe, 1919–4 (pp. 533–555). Manchester University Press. Helling, S. (2012). Frauen als Staatsbürgerinnen. Perspektiven der Berliner Publizistin Else Frobenius (1875–1952). In S.  Krammer, M.  Löffler, & M.  Weidinger (Eds.), Staat in Unordnung? Geschlechterperspektiven auf Deutschland und Österreich zwischen den Weltkriegen (pp.  141–156). Transcript Verlag.

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Hetling, M. (2003). Arrangierte Authentizität: Philipp Witkop, Kriegsbriefe gefallenen Studenten. In T.  Schneider & H.  Wagener (Eds.), Von Richthofen bis Remarque (pp. 51–69). Rodopi. Johnson, R. (1976). Nazi Feminists: A Contradiction in Terms. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 1(3), 55–62. Jung, A. (2010). Faschistische Feministinnen, n.p. Available at www.klapperfeld.de Palmer, J. (2018). Memories from the Frontline. Memoirs and Meanings of the Great War from Britain, France and Germany. Palgrave Macmillan. Panke-Kochinke, B., & Schaidhammer-Placke, M. (Eds.). (2002). Frontschwestern und Friedensengel. Mabuse-Verlag. Reese, D. (2006). Growing Up Female in Nazi Germany. University of Michigan Press. Rupp, L. (1977). Mother of the “Volk”: The Image of Women in Nazi Ideology. Signs, 3(2), 362–379. Rupp, L. (2015). Mobilizing Women for War: German and American Propaganda, 1939–1945. Princeton University Press. Scheck, R. (2004). Mothers of the Nation. Right-Wing Women in Weimar Germany. Berg. Schirmacher Project. (n.d.). https://schirmacherproject.univie.ac.at/en/ Schlossberger, M. (2002). Ernst Jünger und die ‘Konservative Revolution’. Überlegungen aus Anlaß der Edition seiner politischen Schriften. Available at: www.iaslonline.lmu.de/index.php?vorgang_id=2382 Schneider, T. (2011). Die Wiederkehr der Weltkriege in der Literatur. Available at: www.staatsgalerie.de/download.Staatsgalerie_Vortrag_Thomas_Schneider. pdf. Consulted 23.11.2014. Spilker, A. (2009). Geschlechterverhältnisse und Zukunftsvorstellungen bei der Ärztin und völkischen Aktivistin Mathilde Ludendorff (1877–1966). Feministische Studien, 27(2), 210–224. Stephenson, J. (2013). The Nazi Organisation of Women. Routledge. Steuwer, J. (2015). “Weltanschauung mit meinem Ich verbinden”. Tagebücher und das nationalsozialistische Erziehungsprojekt. In R.  Graf & J.  Steuwer (Eds.), Selbstreflexionen und Weltdeutungen. Tagebücher in der Geschichte und der Geschichtsschreibung des 20. Jahrhunderts (pp. 100–123). Wallstein. Streubel, C. (2003). Literaturbericht: Frauen der politischen Rechten. H-Soz-­ Kult. www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-­3523 Streubel, C. (2006). Radikale Nationalistinnen. Campus Verlag. Süchting-Hänger, A. (2003). Das ‘Gewissen der Nation’: nationales Engagement und politisches Handeln konservativer Frauenorganisationen 1900 bis 1937. Droste.

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Ziege, E.-M. (1997). Sophie Rogge-Börner-Wegbereiterin der Nazidiktatur und völkische Sektiererin im Abseits. In K. Heinsohn & B. Vogel (Eds.), Zwischen Karriere und Verfolgung: Handlungsräume von Frauen im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland (pp. 44–75). Campus Verlag. Ziege, E.-M. (2005). In A.  G. Gender-Killer (Ed.), Die Bedeutung des Antisemitismus in der Rezeption der Mutterrechtstheorie. Antisemitismus und Geschlecht, Unrast Verlag. Ziemann, B. (2013). Contested Commemorations. Republican War Veterans and Weimar Political Culture. Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 9

The Rhetorical Strategies of Nurse Memoirs

When we are confronted with any manifestation which someone has permitted us to see, we may ask: what is it meant to conceal? What is it meant to draw our attention from? (Nietzsche, Dawn, Book IV, fragment 523) Silence is the loudest noise in the world. (Thelonious Monk)

In 1923, Anna von Revertera published her memoir, in the nationalist monthly Süddeutsche Monatshefte. It narrates her experiences as a representative of the Austrian Red Cross sent to inspect the conditions of German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war in camps in Russia.1 In the opening paragraph she says that what follows is her diary, which was not originally intended for publication, but which may serve as an act of witness to the sufferings of these men. In an introductory note the editors stress that while her memoir is entirely unpolitical and based exclusively on her personal experience, it nonetheless has a political dimension, as it shows that Central and Eastern Europe would benefit from German leadership (von Revertera, 1923: 251). While they do not cite any details of her text in support, her account easily allows the inference that both the Habsburg and Russian empires were hopelessly inadequate: the Russian 1

 See Appendix A for an analysis of the nurse memoirs about PoWs in Russia.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Palmer, Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany, Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82875-2_9

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because of the appalling state of the camps, the Habsburg because of the evidence in the camps of renegade Slav Habsburg subjects who preferred the Russians (e.g. von Revertera, 1923: 258, 261). Nurses commonly say—as we saw in Chap. 6—that they are just offering a record of personal experiences and nothing more; even when this is not explicit, their authorial strategy invites the reader to see the text in this light; a few used their experiences to justify the expression of opinions. In the instance of von Revertera, it was an editorial decision to spell out an implication of the author’s experience which she herself does not make. However, unusual though it is, it indicates what is always a latent possibility in these memoirs, that the nurses’ experience is presented through the filter of a set of values whose presence may be only implicit.2 Clearly those who did express a direct political opinion—usually in the form of patriotism—were well aware that they were offering an account of their experiences that would become part of the public profile of the war and women’s part in it; and no doubt those who did not do so were equally well aware that the act of publication meant that their personal experiences would also enter this divided—or potentially divided—discursive field. The analysis so far has interpreted the narrative strategies of the nurse memoirs in terms of the authors’ attitudes towards their own experiences. However, placing them in relation to the discursive field locked on to the war, and especially women’s involvement in it, involves seeing them as rhetorical; here, they are to be interpreted as interventions in the evolution of public opinion about the purpose and the conduct of the war, and about women’s involvement in it. Seeing them in this light involves understanding their narrative strategies in terms of the conception of the context that they imply and the ways in which their writings might play into it. As we have seen, positive acceptance of women’s roles turned around their dedication to duty under the new circumstances dictated by mass mobilisation. For example, a French survey of women’s work in the military health services concludes that women have shown themselves worthy of the soldiers by their force of character and their spirit of sacrifice and

2

 See also Hallett, 2016: 103–6.

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dedication (Zeys, 1916: 204).3 The nurse memoirs show exactly this collective, willing sharing of the burden and responsibilities through the demonstration of commitment to care of the wounded; this is true of both the reassuring and the franks texts, since the commitment is common to both. As we have seen, the reviews of these texts also accept the nurses’ claim to commitment to the welfare of soldiers. In this respect, the reception of the texts mirrors their strategies: their rhetoric has been successful where the demonstration of commitment is concerned. Here the nurse texts successfully create a match between their activities and public expectations; and even those who were clearly uneasy about women’s involvement in the war felt obliged to accept the real benefits of nurses’ commitment.4 Nurse memoirs are rarely explicitly feminist, but the context of debates about suffrage inevitably raised the possibility of feminist motivation, as we saw in the case of the Scottish Women at Royaumont. But regardless of the virtual absence of explicit feminism, in their presentation of dedication to the wellbeing of soldiers they implicitly present a claim to respect that neutralises any question of political motivation; as Jane Misme said, the facts speak for themselves. It is impossible to say whether this narrative strategy was designed to further feminism without incurring the risk of being accused of partisan politics, or whether it was exactly what it appears to be and nothing more. In this respect, the Nazi period nurse memoirs stand out, not because they are overtly feminist but because the context makes the feminist implications unmistakeable. In the case of the memoirs published in the compilations, the feminist dimension is explicit in the editorial comments; in the single-author texts, the claims are implicit in the same way as they are in all nurse memoirs: dedication to duty—with the specifically Nazi-era additional claim of a commonality of experience with the  Some German nurses’ memoirs record private expressions of gratitude by authority figures—for example, Albrecht, 1917: 21—but public expressions are rare. See the article in Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung quoted in ch. 4. 4  See for example Masson, 1915. This text loses no opportunity to criticise alleged flaws in nurses yet accepts their involvement in principle. The 1914 programme of the German Association for Combatting Female Emancipation is a protracted attack on the implications of women’s involvement in the war, but is completely silent on the subject of nurses (Deutscher Bund, 1914). 3

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soldiers—is the fact that speaks for itself. But making this claim in the context of Britain or France during the war is very different from making this claim in Nazi Germany, in the midst of a relatively protracted and sometimes rancorous dispute about what women could demand and expect in the new order.5 The politicisation of debate about women’s position ensured that the implications of any such claims would not escape political interpretation. On the other hand, negative comments about individual nurses’ accounts of their personal experience are rare, implying that the strategy of the purely personal and devotion to soldiers’ welfare was a successful insulation.6 While there was no principled opposition to women’s involvement as nurses, there was criticism of details of their role, or of women who were accused of false motives and being unfit for the task. These objections were phrased in two sets of terms: firstly, false claims of competence motivated by social snobbery or ambition, and secondly, a simple desire for adventure. Beyond the domain of these explicit criticisms there was a further public concern, in which nurses rarely figured explicitly, but where their gender allowed for potential criticism: female promiscuity. To what extent were the nurses’ texts rhetorical accounts intended to counter these fears and accusations? The accusations of desire for adventure were frequent and certainly not entirely misplaced. As we have seen, several nurse memoirs explicitly accept this motivation, perhaps because they believed—as May Sinclair argued in a long article devoted to the women of Pervyse (Daily Chronicle, 2.2.15)— there was no necessary incompatibility between a desire for adventure and competent commitment as a nurse. Henriette Riemann says she can’t wait to escape from the wasteful bureaucracy of the headquarters area and get to the front, but this is because she and her colleagues have been sitting around for days, with nothing to do. Later, when she asks to be transferred 5  That this was not without risks to feminist authors is implied in the criticism of Marie Joachimi-Dege in the SS weekly Das Schwarze Korps (see above): having argued, citing Party leaders, that she is making illegitimate claims, the SS writer says that “we” (the SS, the Nazi Party) will not attack her with all the weapons available—out of respect for her status as a mother. Given that the available weapons included a period of ‘re-education’ in a concentration camp, the risk is clear. 6  The ban on Henriette Riemann’s memoir was probably because she was Jewish, not because of her view of the war.

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to a field hospital near the front, the staff officer she speaks to says, “Did you come here for the experience?” She replies: “I didn’t deserve that question, I want to work”. However, she has previously characterised the front as the place where “one is either everything or nothing” (1930: 52, 93); the implication of proving herself through exposure to danger is clear.7 When Helene Mierisch says that she was so keen to get to the front that she falsified the birth date on her school certificate so that she could enrol a year below the legal limit, she is not admitting anything shameful, she is demonstrating commitment (1934: 3, 62); whether there was anything further involved is not said. Occasional direct rebuttals of the accusation confirm that it was made: “The war saw our sisters mobilise, not to “experience” something, but to serve”.8 For the most part the nurse memoirs do not talk about a desire for adventure as a motive and concentrate on commitment to duty and to the soldiers. Whether silence about adventure is a rhetorical device or simply marks the absence of this motive is impossible to decide. If the question of competence is discussed openly in the media, it is less regularly addressed in nurse memoirs. As we have seen, Vera Brittain is candid in her admission, as is Monica Salmond—she doesn’t know how to clean things (1935: 29); Jane de Launoy was scathing about goodwill not being an excuse for incompetence; but these are all memoirs published many years after the end of the war. Memoirs published during the war years are usually reticent on the subject. Competence was potentially an especially difficult topic for German nurses, because the official policy (at least in the first year of the war) was that only fully-trained Red Cross nurses were allowed to go anywhere near the front, where competence would be crucial (see above). Helene Mierisch narrates, with visible pride, an incident where her medical knowledge turns out to be more than adequate: confronted with a case where doing nothing would kill the man, and there is no doctor to be found, she makes a decision despite some uncertainty; then a medical student non-commissioned officer orders her to do the opposite; she 7  On the mentality of adventure and self-discovery, see Stéphane, 1950. All his examples are male but there is no a priori reason to exclude the application of his analysis to women. 8  From a history of the Henriettenstift nurses, cited in Panke-Kochinke and SchaidhammerPlacke, 2002: 49. See also Hrouda, 1935: 17, quoted above.

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refuses, the doctor arrives and agrees with her, the man survives (1934: 43–5). On two occasions, nurses say that they succeeded in saving patients’ lives after the doctors had abandoned them (see above). Suse von Hörner-­ Heintze narrates swapping knowledge with an inexperienced surgeon in a field hospital (1934: 160). However, these examples are exceptional: in general, the nurse memoirs do not try to make claims to medical judgement, and insist instead—in the ways we have seen—on good will and commitment, in combination with a willingness to do what they’re told; most frequently, in fact, they simply make no mention of the question of standards of competence, even of nursing competence, let alone medical.9 The reviews of their texts suggest the same: while praise of their commitment is widespread, discussion of professional competence is conspicuous by its absence.10 Although discussion of the shortcomings of volunteer nurses is to be found in nursing journals, it is marginal in the literature by and about them.11 Indeed, any public emphasis on the inadequacies of volunteer nurses would risk undermining public confidence in the military care system. Mierisch’s mention of her competence and its validation by a doctor is a rarity in these texts. Indeed, in general, doctors’ presence in nurse memoirs is relatively marginalised. Freiin von Babo, for example, makes not a single mention of a doctor in her entire memoir, and in many others their presence is at best occasional. Monica Salmond ironises briefly about surgeons’ self-importance but also expresses admiration for a particularly skilled surgeon whom she assisted at Wimereux (1935: 89, 132–3). Emilie Albrecht notes that visiting dignitaries say that doctors speak well of their nurses, and that good care has reduced the incidence of typhus deaths (1917: 21, 23). Eveline Hrouda has arguments with doctors about the assignments she is given and mentions other doctors’ praise of her work (1935: 48–50). Juliette Martineau is rude about an elderly doctor who has 9  Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire is an exception, extensively discussing nursing standards in her second memoir; the standards of the male military nurses were so low that she felt obliged to intervene. 10  With the exception of a review of Enid Bagnold in the British Journal of Nursing (1918, v.60, 131–2): it says that her accusations of uncharitable sisters show a failure to understand nursing professionalism; however, the review in the Red Cross is unambiguous in its praise (April 1918: 47). 11  Françoise Kern-Coquillat argues that the praise of the French nurses as ‘white angels’ effectively made their professionalism invisible (2014: 51).

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been brought in to teach them hygiene, and later notes that a doctor she is assisting has no idea how to dress wounds—he’s a gynaecologist—but learns fast (1915:1, 12). These instances are typical: doctors occasionally impinge upon the writers’ world and their presence is noted. The only memoir with extensive and frequent mentions of doctors is von Hörner-­ Heintze (1936), who clearly both liked and admired the doctor she assisted in difficult conditions in field hospitals on the Isonzo and in Galicia.12 This marginalisation and near-silence is difficult to explain (since there are no comments on it in the memoirs), and it invites speculation. The first possibility is the degree of segregation that occurred. Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire comments that in her hospital at Verdun the doctors and nurses led virtually separate existences, despite their proximity: “they lived apart while being face-to-face” (1931: 21). In the same vein, Enid Bagnold notes, with some irony, that being allowed to accompany a doctor on ward rounds was a rare privilege—“dizzy splendour” (1918: 35)—and doctors are clearly treated as a different class of being: when she notes that a doctor has forgotten to do something he promised for a patient she doesn’t dare to remind him (1918: 97). A VAD nurse notes with amazement that a surgeon speaks to her: “I would never have dared to speak to Him (sic), because to look at a doctor above his feet was unheard of familiarity” (quoted Hallett, 2016: 190). Clearly, if this segregation did occur, it would not apply to nurses working alongside surgeons in the operating theatre; indeed, Suse von Hörner-Heintze narrates many conversations with the doctor she assists. The second possibility derives from nurse training. Nurses were trained to be the unquestioning assistants of doctors, a fortiori wartime volunteer nurses whose training was curtailed. Even if, as we have seen, nurses were called upon to make decisions beyond their competence in triage, due to circumstances, the clear difference in status must have weighed on nurses’ awareness of doctors’ presence. Reviewing Madame Eydoux-Demians’ memoir, the reviewer comments that the nurse needs both knowledge and tact: she is a helper and should not forget it; in their enthusiasm, volunteer nurses may occasionally forget this and “we should smile at these acts of immoderation, especially when they have no bad effect upon the wounded” (Etudes 12  Maria Sonnenthal-Scherer is also an exception, but this is primarily because she worked alongside her husband, who was one of the doctors in her team; her ‘memoir’ is in fact her letters to her mother, who published them after her daughter’s death.

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142/3, January–June 1915: 119). Jane de Launoy indignantly recalls a conversation with a (male) chief medical officer who tells her it is possible “to make a perfect (female) nurse out of a complete idiot” (1936: 85). Is the absence of doctors in nurse memoirs a deliberate omission? Or simply a reflection of the reality of a volunteer nurse’s life? One can only speculate. If competence is largely left aside in the nurse memoirs, the question of commitment is to say the least directly addressed—indeed, repeatedly and emphatically, as we have seen. In the context of criticisms about competence and motive, it is legitimate to interpret the nurse memoirs’ insistence on commitment to the welfare of soldiers as—among other things—a counter-argument. They could hardly make a strong argument in favour of technical competence as a ground for approval because of its implausibility and because it would risk conflict with professional nurses; good-­ will, on the other hand, was largely incontrovertible, especially if presented alongside proof of difficult conditions. Nurses’ emphasis in their memoirs on commitment and dedication to the wellbeing of soldiers certainly was—intentionally or otherwise—a strong counter-argument against the accusations of false claims and motives that were aimed at some nurses. We have seen that fears of female promiscuity were a feature of wartime debate about women and the war effort, where it occasionally took centre stage because circumstances provoked a scandalised reaction; the ease with which limited circumstances readily turned into a widespread scandal suggests that there was some underlying concern. There can be little doubt that nurses were the subject of men’s sexual fantasies. Henriette Riemann says the men have gone mad and “every sexstarved bloke thinks the nurses are a kind of sexual need institute” (1930: 215). Hirschfeld’s sexual history of the war has an entire chapter devoted to this theme, and recent historians have commented on the bifurcated image of the nurse, simultaneously angel and whore (van Bergen, 2017; Kern-Coquillat, 2014: 51). La Baïonnette—a cartoon magazine—did a special issue on nurses (21.10.15), which consisted of two fulsomely uplifting short stories and a collection of cartoons, all featuring pretty young nurses in becoming uniforms13; the relationships implied by the cartoons go beyond the purely professional, as in this ­example: 13  The ‘becoming uniform’ was the subject of an acerbic front-page article in the daily Le Matin (28.8.14, ‘Propos d’une Parisienne’), which—according to Le Naour—set the tone for a commonplace theme (2002: 75); the article has clear implications of promiscuity: “the charming body of a flirtatious women” whose hair is in “a tasteful, semi-nocturnal disorder”.

“Yes, he took two bullets to the head.” “And how many arrows in the heart?”

A set of post-war cartoons in the Social Democrat daily Vorwärts satirising reactionary opinions and desire for another war includes one which directly implicates war nurses in seeking sexual partners:

The caption reads: “If there isn’t a war soon and we can be nurses, l’ll end up dying a virgin!” Vorwärts 3.8.24. (by permission of the Bibliothek der FriedrichEbert-Stiftung). Here the fantasy is politicised, presumably because it is linked to the left-wing denunciation of militarism.

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However, on reading most nurse memoirs, the reader gets the impression of a life of positively monastic chastity. Enid Bagnold—whose later autobiography (1969) is frank about her sexual experiences—says: Women are left behind when one goes into hospital. Such women as are in a hospital should be cool, gentle; anything else becomes a torment to the ‘prisoner’ (1918: 79).

Is this silence a genuine mark of an absence in nurses’ lives? Or is it self-censorship? No doubt the reticence about sexuality that was still normal at that time could constitute an explanation of the silence in the nurse memoirs. However, the silence was not absolute, and several do indeed indicate that sexual abstinence was certainly not universal. Vera Brittain, in an article attacking the mythology of the promiscuous nurse, nonetheless says “That indiscretions did occur it is, of course, impossible to doubt; now and again we were catechised by an embarrassed Matron” (Guardian, 2.5.30). She also refers to nurses and orderlies “found in compromising positions” on the voyage to Malta, and “sex-incidents”: a naval officer and a nurse surprised in a disused tent beside the sea (1933: 267, 297). According to Stölzle, the nurses’ correspondence and diaries she analysed talk of love affairs that had to be hidden, as they were forbidden (2012: 205); the correspondence of Australian nurses analysed by Holmes clearly indicates sexualised relationships between nurses and patients (1995: 53–5). Elisabeth de Gramont is scathing on the subject of lady volunteer hospital visitors: “trollops drawn in by fresh flesh, they descended on these young men they could decently grope when they felt like it” (1932: 43). Later, working at the clearing station at Aubervilliers, she comments acidly, “not all the acts of dedication are of the same stamp. Officers and nurses use some of the abandoned railway carriages for sex” (1932: 58). According to the review in Paris-Midi, “We knew this, but nobody dared say it” (13.4.32). An unpublished nurse MS quoted in Panke-Kochinke and Schaidhammer-Placke (2002: 94–5) makes a similar assertion. Henriette Riemann comments that the nurse who shared her room in Ostend was rarely in her own bed in the morning and that she was equally “irrepressible” in work and in love (1930: 106, 116); quoting these passages, the Friedenswarte reviewer generalises and says that the nurses were “man-­ mad”. Jane de Launoy notes that Mlle X—who was “too pretty”—had had a male visitor in her room at night, who was made to leave; on a train

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to Paris with a French officer she comments “another one who thinks I’m an easy woman” (because a nurse) (1936: 87, 114). In the hospital that she quit because of the bad atmosphere, Suse von Hörner-Heintze records the hostility of Czech soldiers; her Czech nurse friend says that this is because the German nurses have replaced Czech nurses who used to spend the night with their wounded patients (1936: 36). Helene Mierisch was confronted by a grieving relative who said, “We know what you lot have got up to” (1934: 268) and Käthe Russner was shocked when a group of soldiers called her and her colleagues whores (1936: 115). Of course, such fragmentary indications prove little, and le Naour comments that it is difficult to know how common such behaviour was (2002: 77). However, indications from other sources suggest that these incidents were not isolated. Duhamel said in a retrospective analysis that the presence of nurses in field hospitals “caused certain sentimental and sexual problems”, which he clearly regarded as trivial in comparison with their service.14 Brigadier General Crozier records a conversation in Boulogne with a woman friend, talking candidly about the many very temporary couples there are in the town: “the morals of many of the men have disappeared, while the girls have become war-mad and sex-mad”, she says (1930: 160); while this comment is not specifically about nurses, it does not exclude them. Hans Magnus Hirschfeld’s Sexual History of the World War reproduces a satirical soldiers’ document that circulated in the Austrian army, which purports to be the army regulations for the establishment of field brothels; it includes the statement that if there is a Red Cross hospital nearby, there is no point in setting up a brothel (Hirschfeld, 1930 (1): 206–7); there is no way of knowing whether this joke is founded in experience, rumour, or plain fantasy. Whichever it is, there can be little doubt that, even if it had some foundation in reality, it is an exaggeration: according to German army medical statistics, 0.1% of venereal disease infections were among Red Cross nurses, which is a fraction of those recorded among (for example) waitresses and servants (van Bergen, 2017: 118).15 On the other hand, these figures are for the German army, not the Austro-Hungarian one; an Austrian army doctor’s diary records that when his hospital in the besieged  In La Pesée des Ames (1949), quoted in Soins 786 (2014): 57.  French and British medical statistics from the war do not record these figures, even though they do record infectious disease statistics, including venereal diseases, among soldiers; Archives de l’Assistance Publique, 1922: 113; Macpherson, 1921: 202. 14 15

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fortress town of Przemysl enrolled new nurses, they were absolutely useless for medical purposes and appeared to be there only to have sex with the officers—and with some of his medical colleagues, which he thinks is shameful (Palmer and Wallis, 2003: 78).16 Reports of the Berlin and Vienna police arresting whores in nurses’ uniform led to rumours that some had signed up as nurses in order to continue their trade (repeated in a 1919 book quoted in Panke-Kochinke & Schaidhammer-Placke, 2002: 77–8). While the rumours of prostitutes actually signing on as nurses in order to ply their trade are not plausible, an Austrian Interior Ministry call for more women volunteers for the war effort referred to “throwing out the dubious elements” among the assistant nurses in the first months of the war, albeit without specifying what was dubious about them (quoted Bregenzer/Vorarlberger Tagblatt, 16.12.15). Maria Pöll-Naepflin says that among the “nymphs and pretty little things” in her garrison town in Galicia are some disguised as Red Cross nurses, and says she is glad that she and her colleagues were given medals for services in an isolation hospital in Serbia in 1915 because otherwise they risked being confused with the “demi-monde and underworld” of prostitution “that was so numerous here” because encouraged by the military authorities. Many of the untrained assistant nurses were “man-mad adventuresses”, and the big increase in their numbers in the second half of the war led to a sharp rise in sexually transmitted diseases; working in a hospital where most of the medical staff were Slavs, she comments that the Czech nurses were more interested in “entertaining” officers than in attending to patients (1934: 68, 102, 121, 177). Eveline Hrouda was advised by a senior officer in the Austrian army to be careful, when applying for nursing posts, to only take one where her reputation would stay irreproachable, for “the Red Cross has been abused by many so-called ladies in a way that is a scandal”; she makes no comment (1935: 75–6). The most overt, explicit, and developed attack on the morality of nurses during wartime is a long article in the Austrian military medicine monthly by a military surgeon (Stiassny, 1918). There are “black sheep in the flock” of assistant nurses, whose “inconstancy and self-abandonment in the service of sexual licence turns them into prostitutes”; they have to be expelled from “a profession which cannot tolerate such unbridled behaviour”. Civilians imagine that it is the horrors of war which cause this “devaluation 16  Another doctor at Przemysl notes the enrolment of useless young nurses who were substantially overpaid—but without saying what for (quoted Biwald, 2002 [1]: 92).

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of womanliness”, but in his experience women who serve close to the front are marked by bravery and dedication to duty—he gives several extended examples—and the only women who behave badly are weak women, brought up as dolls and not in a way suited to the seriousness of life. The discipline of the front prevents the devaluation, and it is only behind the front that immorality becomes normal: The further from the front and the less the danger, the bigger are the hospitals and the more numerous the women health workers. Admittedly, there things may happen that would not have happened without the war. … Nurses simply leave off their uniform when they leave the hospital and it is the uniform that brings about what their status demands. Naturally, the eleventh commandment is observed, according to which “Thou shalt not be caught”.

Unfortunately, this leads to the devaluation of their status, and the “better elements among them” get tarred with the same brush (1918: 18–19). Most French sources—with the noteworthy exception of Elisabeth de Gramont—are less explicit than the German; we have already seen how indirect the references were in the row about Bataille’s L’Amazone. In a public lecture given over to praise of French women in the war, the speaker says that we should not be surprised if “feelings” arise between nurses and wounded; some complain, others joke about it but he understands it. These feelings are a mixture of coquetry and French gallantry (Donnay, 1916: 173–4). At the end of her first memoir, Julie Crémieux (1918) is engaged to the young officer she met and later nursed; but there is no mention of them even kissing. La Vie Parisienne has several stories in the first year of the war about volunteer nurses who have lovers at home and husbands at the front (for example, 9.1.15, 20.3.15); it is unclear whether these are news stories, rumours, or fantasies. The Socialist daily l’Oeuvre printed an article by Captain Z (the author of a frontline memoir) about nurses: young officers whose imaginations are fired by articles in La Vie Parisienne may imagine that nurses will fall in love with them; it’s not going to happen, but if it does, where’s the harm? (10.11.16). At the end of the war, a news item in the daily Le Gaulois concerns a nurse friend of the writer whose husband had died in action and who fell in love with one of her patients; she admitted her feelings and felt guilty; but perhaps it would be better to see this as Providence compensating her for her loss (27.12.18).

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On the assumption that the silence in the majority of nurse memoirs was selective, it is also rhetorical: portraying nurses as asexual corresponded to the fear of accusations of promiscuity, as well as to the picture of women committed to care and welfare. One way of understanding these criticisms of nurses—snobbery, vanity, promiscuity—is to see them as the obvious manifestations of a more generalised fear of transgression of women’s traditional roles among those suspicious of any element of female emancipation. In this reading, the very act of nursing wounded men and collectively establishing a substantial presence in public space is in itself transgressive.17 But this was difficult to state publicly thanks to gratitude and admiration for what they were doing; carping at marginal elements of their commitment could be seen as a rhetorical device whose purpose was to avoid the obstacles posed by public gratitude. In this framework, the nurses’ insistence on their dedication and commitment is also a rhetorical device, corresponding to the gratitude and setting up a formidable barrier against any fundamental criticism of their role. There is one final way in which the nurse memoirs might be considered selective in their portrayal of the war: what they say—and more importantly don’t say—about the wounds and illnesses that they treated. Claire Tylee analyses a point Vera Brittain makes in this respect. Vera Brittain argues that women in England were unable to understand what the front was like, and Tylee ascribes this to the way the front was “constructed” in propaganda; in particular, “plain descriptions” of soldiers’ sufferings were incompatible with this construction, as they not only “implied the futility of men’s deaths but the utter degradation of the civilised values which men were supposedly dying to preserve”. In our context, it is the centrality of “plain descriptions” which is significant: would the act of describing, objectively, what weapons do to the human body undermine the insistence on soldiers’ heroic commitment? We have seen that discussion of wounds and suffering was one of the key distinctions between frank and reassuring nurse texts. Industrialised warfare produced wounds that were far more extensive and far more dangerous than the wounds produced by previous forms of warfare, a danger which was compounded by the initial mistaken interpretation of bullet wounds based on the experience of recent wars (see above). Here the  We have already seen this argument in secondary literature, for example, Darrow, 1996.

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question is what use nurses make of their experience of the horrific spectacle caused by them. Selectivity on this issue would constitute a rhetorical strategy.18 Kate Luard was a professional nurse who had been in the Boer War; she commented in the first of her two memoirs that the majority of the wounds that she saw in 1914–15 were caused by “shrapnel – more ghastly than anything I have ever seen or smelt”; the smell was due to gas-gangrene, which was the result of infection compounded by delays in treatment (Anon, 1915: 41). The nature of the wounds meant that casualty clearing stations and hospitals were full of horrendous sights which are not a central focus of the majority of the texts, especially those produced in wartime, but which are brought to the fore in the frank texts, as we have seen. Nurses working anywhere near the front lines, or in any setting through which recently wounded men were passing, must have seen, repeatedly, what modern weapons do to the human body, and it is possible that memoirs were self-censored; comparison with passages quoted by van Bergen (2009:166–202), or with Duhamel’s (1917) Vie des Martyrs, instantly reveals what could have been said. In the frank memoirs, especially those published in the Nazi period, there is a strong link between the awful experiences they underwent and their commitment to the soldiers: it is this link which underpins the claim to equivalence to the soldiers expressed in the terms ‘Kamerad Schwester’ and ‘Frontschwester’. However, in a minority of cases, the revelations of horrific experiences can also play a role in the denunciation of the military health care system, particularly in Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire’s memoirs. German nurses’ private diaries (as opposed to their correspondence, which was censored) reveal that they were aware of many shortcomings (Stölzle, 2012: 181, 190–1); in particular, they felt forced to make decisions beyond their competence in the absence of doctors, especially in the admission of large numbers of wounded (see also Clemenceau-­ Jacquemaire, 1919: 177). In these instances, authorial or editorial choices about what to say about wounds, illnesses, and their treatments are clearly part of a developed argument. Of course, it is not necessarily the case that the horrific experiences were universally shared: the circumstances in which nurses worked varied, and conditions in medical facilities improved during the war. Nonetheless, 18  An alternative explanation, given by Acton and Potter, is that it was a defensive strategy, designed to avoid reliving trauma and/or maintain professional detachment (2015: 42).

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there are sufficient indications in the texts that even those who wrote reassuringly about their experience had their share of exposure to horror.19 However, recognising suffering does not necessarily lead to an analysis of its causes. We have seen that some contemporaries were aware of the shortcomings in the military medical systems—indeed, in France it would have been difficult not to be aware, such was the publicity attached to them. In particular, the inadequacy of the care became public because doctors and nurses (among others) wrote personal letters to politicians complaining about what they had seen; and yet there is next to no trace of this process in the French nurse memoirs: while the hospital trains full of wounded men lying on straw for days on end appear in some memoirs (Martineau, 1915: 6–7, 10; Crémieux, 1918: 5–6), the recognition of such suffering does not become grounds for overt, let alone systematic criticism. We have seen that nurses’ dedication to their patients is shown, in their memoirs, to evoke gratitude. However, in practice, this gratitude was not universal, as patients were not always co-operative, let alone grateful. “There were no mutinies or major rebellions in the hospitals, but non-co-­ operation that might best be described as passive resistance was fairly common” (van Bergen, 2009: 313). References to such behaviour are rare in nurse memoirs. Henriette Riemann comments that soldiers saw her as either an angel or “an unfeeling illusion with a devil’s heart” (1930: 190). Käthe Russner describes one group of wounded soldiers as “real hooligans” (1936: 84) and Eveline Hrouda records an instance of a group refusing to obey her orders (1935: 63–6). While non-cooperation might not have figured in individual nurses’ experience, it is likely that such systematic marginalisation was a rhetorical attempt to avoid sullying the record of nurse-patient relations. We have seen indications in the frank nurse memoirs that the authors were aware that things were not always done right; there are occasions on which nurses blame doctors for abandoning patients who they think could be saved, and several nurses clearly saw the problems associated with inadequate care and poor hygiene. However, it is rare that these perceptions become part of any generalised criticism of the system. Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire was clearly scandalised by the behaviour of male nurses, and by some doctors’ personal behaviour. Henriette Riemann 19  Hallett analyses four nurse writers who all worked at the same hospital at the same time and presented their experiences (sometimes even the same cases) in very different lights, according to their overall interpretation of their experiences of the war (2016: 87–92).

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reports a conversation with a doctor who says that resources are dangerously inadequate in field hospitals in general (1930: 73). Maria Pöll-­ Naepflin is in general frank about bad conditions in military hospitals and says that towards the end of the war the doctors working there were only half-trained and the nurses very uncommitted to care (1934: 182–4). Otherwise, comments about the horrors of war wounds and medicine are not generalised in this way; they do not amount to comment on the clinical and organisational factors which may have played a role. This near-silence can be interpreted in two ways. It may be taken to imply self-censorship, perhaps in the interests of wartime morale; Hallett argues that nurse texts are probably marked by this reticence: In the case of nurses’ trauma narratives, it is likely that the writers sought to protect their families, particularly their parents, from the worst of their experiences. Indeed, the letter writers may have been torn between the need to tell someone about their experiences and a fear of causing too much anxiety for their readers.

But the silence may equally suggest that nurses saw the suffering of their soldier patients as the inevitable result of war rather than something that could have been avoided. Indeed, British professional nurses sometimes comment that the arrangements for the care of the wounded are “as good as they could be under the circumstances” (Luard, 1930: 26–7; similar comments in QUAIMNS, 1922: 4, 36). For example, if nurses realised that wound infections were the result of avoidable delays, they do not say so. If they objected to triage, this does not appear in their memoirs as a criticism of the system.20 However, more commonly the more brutal elements of triage only appear in frank texts; given its centrality to the system—as we have seen (Chap. 3)—it is likely that its absence from the reassuring texts was often the product of self-censorship. Texts that place emphasis on the sufferings of the wounded are clearly less reassuring than those that minimise it. It is possible that the more optimistic texts came to lack credibility as public knowledge of what the front was like increased, in part because of the denunciation of optimistic propaganda found in some of the best-selling soldiers’ memoirs (Palmer, 20  Florence Farmborough wrote, after not treating a ‘hopeless’ case: “What it cost me to turn away without aiding him, I cannot describe, but we could not waste time and material on hopeless cases, and there were so many others”. While she is clearly hurt by her professional decision, she does not question its necessity.

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2018: 306–7). For example, Alison Fell argues that both Vera Brittain and Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire used unsettling details about their experiences to undermine the optimistic accounts and increase the authenticity of their own (2011: 12). The journalism about the reassuring nurse memoirs shows no signs of low credibility, but the majority of this journalism dates from before 1918. Reviews of the frank texts give inconsistent information on this issue. Bagnold’s (1918) was characterised by the lack of sentimentality in its “stark and simple truthfulness”, and its “unflinching realism” (The Bookman 53 (318): 3.18) about “terrible things” (Daily Mail, 26.1.18); yet it is not treated as a revelation about a hidden truth and is mostly praised for its candidness about the author’s own emotions and perceptions of others (Saturday Review, 9.2.18; Aberdeen Daily Journal, 29.3.18; Birmingham Daily Gazette, 19.3.18). Indeed, in so far as reviewers stress her commitment to her patients, comments such as these are similar to the comments reviewers made about other British nurse texts which were relatively frank about what the authors saw (see above). Reviews of Clemenceau-Jacquemaire’s first (1919) memoir do not suggest that it was thought to undermine the earlier, reassuring ones. Indeed, the reviews are striking for underplaying the harshness of her views: the long review in Figaro (18.5.19) stresses her humanity and dedication and downplays her criticisms; the review in Les Annales Politiques et Littéraires (1.6.19) dismisses them as the “picturesque” description of “the little disappointments” of wartime nursing care; if Excelsior (20.5.19) is surprised the book wasn’t censored, and indeed notes the severity of her remarks about nuns and male nurses, it restores the balance by quoting in extenso her description of a nurse kissing a dying man. The only review which emphasises her negativity certainly does not praise her authenticity, but blames her for ignoring the inspiration to be derived from soldiers’ courage in suffering (Libre Parole, 29.6.19). Reviews of Mary Borden, on the other hand, suggest that her descriptions were an appalling revelation: only ten years after the war could the truth be shown in this way (Daily Herald, 22.11.29) and “she writes of [the war’s] horrors so that we feel and quiver under the weight of them”. It is striking that several reviews say that this is the first book about the war by a woman, suggesting that the others were overlooked or had been forgotten.21 Where reviewers focus on the horrific elements of the frank nurse memoirs in Britain and France, they 21  Aberdeen Press and Journal, 8.5.30. See also Times Literary Supplement, 5.12.29; Sunday Times, 24.11.29; Dundee Evening Telegraph and Post, 10.1.30; Dundee Courier, 5.10.29;

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are seen as a revelation. It is likely that the French reviews downplayed the negativity of Clemenceau-Jacquemaire’s views because the war was still so recent, whereas Borden’s book appeared in 1929.22 It is difficult to imagine that nurses were not aware of the implications of being frank about what they saw, and this must have played a role in their decisions about what to publish; the issue is occasionally explicit in reviews (see above). As we have seen, their memoirs show great variation in their degrees of frankness about wounds and suffering, including some degree of frankness within texts which are fundamentally reassuring. This is because such frankness does not necessarily contradict the ethos of sharing the burden of war. Judging by the nurse texts and their reviews, the core of public attitudes towards the nursing experience was the relationship between care for patients and commitment to the war, and frank recognition of suffering does not necessarily imply a different articulation of this relationship to the one implied by the reassuring texts. Where a nurse demonstrates clear commitment to the war effort and is reassuring about the quality of care that she and others deliver, then frankness about the horrors of what she has to do does not in itself undermine her attempt to reassure the reader about what she and others are doing to help wounded men. Indeed, it may underline the commitment she seeks to convey and also reassure the reader about the morale of the soldiers. When Maria Sonnenthal-Scherer (1918: 83) asks “How many more will die in this wretched war?”, this does not lead her to reduce her commitment, a commitment which led to her own death on active service; indeed, her other comments about the conduct of the war are all unswervingly patriotic. In fact, frankness about hardship and suffering—whether by soldiers or nurses—does not necessarily imply any fundamental criticism of the war and its conduct, let alone any commitment to pacifism; as a review of Sarah Macnaughtan’s Woman’s Diary says: it provides “helpful answers to those who do not see the fullness of the issues of the war, but whose whole sky is clouded by their personal griefs or fears” (Liverpool Daily Post, 29.10.15), a commonplace patriotic trope. Such frankness only amounts Yorkshire Post, 19.3.30; Derby Daily Telegraph, 25.10.29; Daily Mail Atlantic edition, 18.11.29. 22  Short articles which were early drafts of parts of the book appeared in periodicals in 1917, but she abandoned an attempt to publish in book form due to cuts demanded by the censor (Hallett, 2016: 56).

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to fundamental criticism if it constitutes a contention that the suffering is unjustified, in other words (by implication) disproportionate to the aims of the war. The clearest and best-known versions of this thesis are to be found in frankly pacifist or near-pacifist texts produced by soldiers, notably Barbusse’s Under Fire (1916), Unruh’s The Way of Sacrifice (1919), or Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (1928), and it is clear from their reviews that this was understood (Palmer, 2018: 163–9, 292–8). Here the ironical ending of Remarque’s text may stand in for this interpretation of the war: “He fell … on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front.”23 The irony underlines the disproportion in question. In these texts nothing is shown to make any sense of the war and its suffering, and nothing implies any justification of it, especially not patriotic enthusiasm. Occasional remarks in nurse writings suggest the same conclusion: the Swiss nurse Catarina Sturzenegger—who nursed for the Serbian army— reflects on the sad story of an avoidable death with the thought that shattered lives are “the real tragedy [of war], as it is only the individual who knows how really horrendous war is” (1915: 130). Henriette Riemann comments that success or failure in storming French positions both lead to more dead and wounded—in other words, she cannot distinguish between success and failure (1930: 192).24 In these passages, suffering is presented in such an unmitigated way that it easily appears senseless. To quote Vera Brittain, “One’s personal interest wears one’s patriotism rather threadbare by this time” (1933: 307): she—like Catarina Sturzenegger— has reached exactly the conclusion that the reviewer of Macnaughtan’s text wanted to avoid. However, among the nurse texts this level of negativity, this disillusioned interpretation of personal experience, is relatively rare: only Maria Pöll-Naepflin, Ellen LaMotte, Mary Borden and Vera Brittain are fundamentally marked by it. On the other hand, nationalist 23  The words echo the German title: Im Westen Nichts Neues (literally: In the West Nothing New), a form of words which sounds like an army communiqué even though it was not in fact a quotation (Wagener, 1991: 29). 24  This reaction to events does not mean she is unpatriotic or not committed to the war. Indeed, on publication she sent a copy to Ernst Jünger, with a cover note stressing her commitment to the memory of dead comrades, with no political line in her recollections of her service; the choice of Jünger suggests she was confident that what she said could not be understood in an unpatriotic way (Deutsches Literatur Archiv, Nachlass Jünger, HS.1994.0009; dated 21.8.30; quoted by permission).

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critics who only wanted to see positive images of warfare—including noble suffering—could blame a nurse for excessive attention to the negative side of care, as we have seen in the review of Madeleine Clemenceau-­ Jacquemaire in Libre Parole. In this respect, the corpus of the nurse memoirs has a similar ideological profile to the soldiers’ memoirs.25 In both cases, the insistence upon the lived quality of everyday experience combines with the act of witness to provide a guarantee of authenticity. This then serves to offer to the reader a portrait of the war conceived in terms of lived experience. These portraits cumulatively build an ideological profile of the war. More exactly, these portraits build a set of diverse ideological profiles of the war, which are more clearly distinguishable in the soldiers’ memoirs than in the nurses’. In one version of the profiles, the war is essentially a heroic endeavour carried out by dedicated comrades in arms; in another, it is a duty to be stoically born until it reaches its conclusion; and in a third it is a senseless concatenation of horrors. In these profiles, it is first and foremost the horrific nature of warfare that is the major ideological stake. This is necessarily so, since—once the horrific nature was publicly admitted and widely known—it brought about a public focus on the balance to be struck between the human cost of the war and the reasons for fighting it. The horrors of combat in industrialised warfare, as experienced by participants, are capable of more than one interpretation, which ultimately come down to two possibilities: they are to be seen either as the test of commitment or as the random infliction of blind chance.26 What ultimately distinguishes these two interpretations is the point succinctly made in the review of Sarah Macnaughtan’s memoir quoted above: does one consider the war from the point of view of its purpose (usually phrased in terms of devotion to the nation), or from the point of view of the immediate experience of living it, in other words the experience unmediated by reference to its purpose? If it is seen in terms of the war’s purpose, soldiers’ suffering is indeed understandable as a necessary sacrifice and a test of commitment; if it is experienced as nothing more than suffering inflicted at random, then the purpose of the war becomes irrelevant. It is the latter interpretation which leads to the denunciation of war seen in writers like Barbusse, which 25  The analysis that follows is based on the core argument of my 2018, summarised at pp.303–8. 26  The texts which most thoroughly represent these two versions of the war are no doubt Jünger’s (1920) Storm of Steel and Barbusse’s (1916) Under Fire.

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is in its turn denounced by nationalist writers as wilful blindness, as in this attack by a French critic directed at Barbusse, accused of “peddling so-­ called authentic details, which always turn out to be defeatist” (Nouvelle Revue Nationale, 25.7.17). A small group of German nurse memoirs provide an a contrario demonstration of what is at stake in these accounts of wounds, sickness, and morale: the texts narrating Red Cross inspection visits to prisoner of war camps in European Russia and Siberia.27 These writers give a scathing account of suffering inflicted on PoWs by a mixture of incompetence, persecution, and negligence on the part of the Russian authorities; where they find it, they report low morale among prisoners. Under these circumstances, nurses feel no compunction in talking at length and in detail about soldiers’ suffering and despair, as it is due to enemy incompetence and negligence, not to shortcomings on their own side. Imprisonment and suffering inflicted by the enemy eliminate the ideological significance of the balance between the purpose of the war and the soldiers’ experience of it, whereas in accounts of their own facilities such questions always lurk in the background. That this was indeed what was at stake is clearly shown by the original contemporary reviews of the war memoirs, which regularly insist on the ideological dimension of the interpretation of personal experience. It is clearer in the case of the soldiers’ memoirs than the nurses’. There are various reasons for this. Firstly, as has often been said, the Great War was quickly defined as ‘the soldiers’ war’—neither the leaders’ war nor the civilians’ war28—and understanding their experiences became more central to public understanding of the war than anybody else’s. Secondly, interest in the nurses’ experiences waned rapidly after 1918 (as evidenced by the history of their publications, reviews, and other comments29), whereas there was a substantial ‘second wave’ of interest in soldiers’ memoirs around ten years after the war, a point at which ideological divergence became instated as a significant element in the public understanding of the war (Palmer, 2018: 41–3, 94–103, 193–9, 203–12). Thirdly—with the exception of Ellen LaMotte’s Backwash of War, published in 1916 but banned in Britain and France until after the war—the negative texts by British and French nurses long post-date the war and are far from numerous. Thus, although  See Appendix A for the details and references.  See, for example, Watson, 2004: 186–7. 29  See Chap. 10. In this respect, the German texts published during the Nazi period are a significant exception. 27 28

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these arguments are occasionally present in the corpus of nurse memoirs, and there are clear traces of them in some responses to the texts,30 the overwhelming bulk of response to them took their emphasis on dedication to care for soldiers at face value, without reservations, establishing it as the central meaning of these texts. In the case of the Nazi period memoirs, this commitment acquired a second layer of meaning by virtue of the context of publication amid the debate about women’s position. Nonetheless, despite the marginalisation of ideology in most cases except the Nazi one, the response to the nurse texts was part of the overall profile of the war, and the balance between frankness and silence on the subject of what they saw in hospitals, trains, and casualty clearing stations cannot be separated from the public meanings of soldiers’ sufferings. In the majority of cases, the nurses refrained from representing this in a way that would undermine the interpretation of the war that depended upon stressing its purpose as the central determination of its meaning. The rare negative texts are all the more striking for their scarcity. This chapter has considered the nurses’ texts as pieces of rhetoric, as texts designed as interventions in a context. The context is dominated by women’s roles in the war, by their motives in carrying out their part, by criticism of women’s roles and by public fears—real or potential—about the human cost of the war. In each of these cases it has been possible to identify symptomatic silences in the corpus of texts. The silences are not simple absences, but silence on matters of  which nurses must have had knowledge and where they could have narrated relevant material drawn from their experiences; it is this feature which makes the silences symptomatic, and which allows the attribution of rhetorical intent.

Bibliography (1) Nurse Memoirs Albrecht, E. (1917). Aus meinem Kriegstagebuch. Wolff. Anon. (1915) [Kate Luard]. Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front. Macmillan. Bagnold, E. (1918). Diary Without Dates. Heinemann. 30  For example, the review of Clemenceau-Jacquemaire quoted above; and the reviews of Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth in ch. 8; she herself was surprised by the hostility her text aroused in some quarters (Bostridge, 2014).

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Brittain, V. (1933). Testament of Youth. Gollancz; quoted in the Virago edition, 2014. Clemenceau-Jacquemaire, M. (1919). Les Hommes de Bonne Volonté. Calmann-Lévy. Clemenceau-Jacquemaire, M. (1931). Les Hommes de Mauvaise Volonté. Editions des Portiques. Crémieux, J. (1918). Souvenirs d’une Infirmière. Rauff. de Gramont, E. (1932). Clair de Lune et Taxi. Grasset. de Launoy, J. (1936). Infirmières de Guerre en Service Commandé. L’Edition universelle. Cited in the edition Memogrammes, 2015. Donnay, M. (1916). La Parisienne et la Guerre. G.Crès. Hrouda, E. (1935). Barmherzigkeit. Als freiwillige Malteserschwester im Weltkrieg. Leykam-Verlag. Luard, K. (1930). Unknown Warriors. Chatto and Windus. Cited in the History Press edition, 2014. Martineau, J. (1915). Journal d’une Infirmière. Private edition. Mierisch, H. (1934). Kamerad Schwester. Köhler und Amelang. Pöll-Naepflin, M. (1934). Fortgerungen-Durchgedrungen. Private edition (2nd impression) published under the name “Schwester Maria”. Cited in an undated edition with no publisher given, probably Meiringen: Loepthien. (1934 is the date of the earliest edition available in German libraries; however, according to the second volume of her autobiography (1948) she was selling her first book in Germany, acting as her own salesman, in 1933). QUAIMNS. (1922). Reminiscent Sketches by Members of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Corps. J. Bale. Riemann, H. (1930). Schwester der Vierten Armee. Karl Vögels Verlag. Russner, K. (1936). Schwesterndienst im Weltkriege. Breitkopf und Härtel. Salmond, M. (1935). Bright Armour. Faber and Faber. Sonnenthal-Scherer, M. (1918). Ein Frauen-Schicksal im Kriege. Ullstein. Sturzenegger, A. (1915). Serbien im europäischen Kriege 1914–1915. Orell Füssli. von Hörner-Heintze, S. (1934). Mädels in Kriegsdienst. Köhler & Amelang. Cited in the 1936 edition: Munich: Verlag Hermann Wiechmann. von Revertera, A. (1923). Als österreichische Rotekreuzschwester in Russland. Süddeutsche Monatshefte, 20(2), 251–281.

(2) Other Contemporary Literature Archives de l’Assistance Publique. (1922). Statistique Médicale: Données Relatives à la Guerre 1914–18. Imprimerie Nationale. Barbusse, H. (1916). Le Feu. Flammarion. Deutscher Bund. (1914). Aufruf an die Frauen und Männer Deutschlands zur Erhaltung deutscher Frauenart und zum Kampfe gegen das Frauenstimmrecht. Available at: http://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/book/view/nn_fraueneman zipation_1914?p=1

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Duhamel, G. (1917). La Vie des Martyrs. Mercure de France. Hirschfeld, M. (1930). Sittengeschichte des Weltkrieges (2vv). Schneider. Macpherson, W. (1921). History of the Great War. Medical Services (Vol. 1). HMSO. Masson, F. (1915). Les Femmes et la Guerre de 1914. Bloud et Gay. Stiassny, S. (1918). Über die angebliche Verrohung und Verwilderung im Kriege und durch denselben. Der Militärarzt, 52(1), 15–21. Zeys, L. (1916). ‘Les Femmes et la Guerre’, Revue des Deux Mondes, 35(1), 175–204.

(3) Secondary Literature Acton, C., & Potter, J. (2015). Working in a World of Hurt: Trauma and Resilience in the Narratives of Medical Personnel in Warzones. Manchester University Press. Biwald, B. (2002). Von Helden und Krüppeln. Öbv & Hpt. Bostridge, M. (2014). ‘Preface’ to Brittain, 1933. Darrow, M. (1996). French Volunteer Nursing in the First World War. American Historical Review, 101, 80–106. Fell, A. (2011). Myth, Countermyth and the Politics of Memory: Vera Brittain and Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire’s Interwar Nurse Memoirs. Synergies Royaume-Uni et Irlande, 4, 11–22. Hallett, C. (2016). Nurse Writers of the Great War. Manchester University Press. Holmes, K. (1995). Day Mothers and Night Sisters. In J. Damousi & M. Lake (Eds.), Gender and War (pp. 43–59). Cambridge University Press. Kern-Coquillat, F. (2014). Les Femmes Médecins dans le Service de Santé en France 1914–1918. DEP, 24, 48–75. Le Naour, J.-Y. (2002). Misères et Tourments de la Chair durant la Grande Guerre. Les mœurs sexuelles des Français, 1914–1918. Aubier. Palmer, J. (2018). Memories from the Frontline. Memoirs and Meanings of the Great War from Britain, France and Germany. Palgrave Macmillan. Palmer, S., & Wallis, S. (2003). Intimate Voices from the First World War. Morrow. Panke-Kochinke, B., & Schaidhammer-Placke, M. (Eds.). (2002). Frontschwestern und Friedensengel. Mabuse-Verlag. Stéphane, R. (1950). Portrait de l’Aventurier. Sagittaire. Stölzle, A. (2012). Die freiwillige Krankenpflege im Erstern Weltkrieg. Medizinhistorisches Journal, 47(2/3), 176–220. van Bergen, L. (2009). Before My Helpless Sight. Suffering, Dying and Military Medicine on the Western Front 1914–18. Ashgate Press. (quoted in the 2016 edition, London: Routledge). van Bergen, L. (2017). Tussen Heilige en Hoer. Nederlandse Militair Geneeskundig Tijdschrift, 9, 110–120. Wagener, H. (1991). Understanding Erich Maria Remarque. University of South Carolina Press. Watson, J. (2004). Fighting Different Wars. Experience, Memory and the First World War. University Press.

CHAPTER 10

After the War: Nursing Reform and Collective Memory

Our account of the nurse memoirs finishes with an analysis of how the efforts of the wartime nurses were remembered in the post-war period. The collective memory of the Great War was created in a number of processes, from the informal sharing of personal experiences in conversation to the formal ceremonies of Remembrance and the public monuments such as the Cenotaph and the Arc de Triomphe.1 Among the building blocks are the innumerable written accounts, from the journalism to the substantial literary achievements of novelists and memoir writers. Governments produced massively voluminous official histories—the French one runs to 100 volumes—and political and military leaders gave lengthy accounts of their actions.2 However, of all the participant accounts, it is those by frontline soldiers that have become the most prominent part of our collective heritage. In this respect, the Great War marks a radical break with the earlier history of warfare. Whereas public memories of earlier wars were largely associated with the purposes of the war and the names of the great military leaders, the Great War was the ordinary 1  There is a substantial literature about the memorialisation of the Great War; for example, Sherman (1999), Prost (1997) and Ziemann (2013); but little about memorialisation of the nurses; see Fell, 2013. 2  Of military leaders’ memoirs, only those by the German commanders Hindenburg and Ludendorff had substantial readerships—both were best-sellers during the post-war decade (Schneider, 2011).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Palmer, Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany, Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82875-2_10

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soldier’s war. In this respect, two London memorials are emblematic: Nelson’s column and the Cenotaph. Separated by only a few minutes’ walk, but by 100 years of history, they are emblems of totally different conceptions of war. Nelson’s column, indeed the whole layout of Trafalgar Square, encapsulates the traditional, leader-oriented, heroic vision of war; the Cenotaph and the associated tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey define the war in terms of the masses of men on the front lines. In particular, in the present context, one of the side-effects of this primary definition was to marginalise the contribution of women to the war (Watson, 2004: 186). Here, the exclusion of nurses from the Allied victory parade on the Champs Elysées serves as a convenient synecdoche; by the same token, whereas every village in England, France, and Germany has a memorial to the soldiers, war memorials devoted to nurses are rare.3 Does this account of the process of memorialisation imply that the nurses were simply forgotten? Certainly the marginalisation of women in public collective memory was not inevitable, as during the war a great deal of attention was paid to their role and their war service was widely appreciated. To what extent did this appreciation and its memory extend beyond 1918? The pattern of nurses’ memoir publication and reviewing suggests restricted post-war attention. In France these texts were largely ignored after 1918. In Britain, Vera Brittain (1933) and Monica Salmond (1935) were widely reviewed, perhaps because of the renewed interest in war literature that started in 1928, but Mary Borden (1929) attracted less comment. In Germany, despite Elsa Brändström’s personal fame, the nurse literature was largely invisible until Henriette Riemann published in 1930 and was widely reviewed; no doubt the level of attention was partly due to the massive post-1928 wave of war literature and the extensive debate that accompanied it. Of course, reviews only appear at the time of publication and their absence is a fallible indicator of collective memory. However, what is most striking about this pattern is the contrast between the few nurse publications and the massive output of soldiers’ memoirs during the same period, with the extensive attendant public attention (Palmer, 2018).4

 See below and Fell, 2013.  As we have seen, the pattern of nurse publication in Nazi Germany needs a different contextual explanation. 3 4

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On the other hand, attention to memoirs is only one indicator of public attention among several. Two other features of the decade following the war are relevant here: the reform of nursing and the role of wartime experience in it; and nurses’ media presence and other forms of commemoration, such as monuments, ceremonies, and medals. Few monuments to British and French nurses were constructed in the aftermath of the war, and most are in France; in this respect, the contrast with the memorialisation of soldiers is striking. The principal monument, dedicated to the nurses of all the allied nations, is in Reims, dedicated on 11 November 1924; the fund-raising initiative to construct it was taken by the President of the Union des Femmes Françaises, one of the constituent organisations of the French Red Cross, in conjunction with the soldiers’ newspaper Le Poilu (L’Oeuvre, 2.11.19; L’Intransigeant, 3.11.19). The Ossuary at Douaumont, one of the principal French monuments to the war dead of the Great War, includes stained glass windows dedicated to nurses, orderlies, and stretcher bearers.5 There is also a monument to nurses at Berck-sur-Mer, built by subscriptions from soldiers from the north-west of France (Grand Echo du Nord de la France, 9.10.24). In 1922 and 1923, there were extensive discussions about creating a national monument specifically for French nurses (Le Matin, 7.12.22, reports the formation of a committee to seek funds) but it came to nothing, due to opposition (e.g. Figaro, 24.4.23, Le Gaulois, 9.3.24). However, there is a monument at Pierrefonds (Oise) dedicated to French nurses killed in action, which was originally dedicated to a nurse nominated to the Légion d’Honneur who died because she refused to quit her patients under incoming artillery fire (www.mairie-­pierrefonds.fr; Fell, 2013: 181). Many local war memorials in France include the names of nurses killed in the line of duty (e.g. Petit Parisien, 12.11.24), and the Headquarters of the Union des Femmes Françaises has a plaque commemorating the service of the French Red Cross (Fell, 2013: 174). The only contemporary monuments in Britain are a plaque dedicated to Scottish nurses in St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, unveiled in 1921, and another in Darwen, Lancashire.6 To my knowledge, there are none in Germany; indeed, there is not even a national monument to the memory of the German soldiers of the Great War,  http://www.georgedesvallieres.com/actualite2018_09.html  See Fell, 2013. The statues commemorating Edith Cavell are not really monuments to nursing. There are other monuments to nurses elsewhere, e.g. the ANZAC memorial in Sydney, Australia. 5 6

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although this was a product of political discord, not of refusal to remember.7 The memorials to Elsa Brändström all date from after the Second World War. Nurses were excluded from the Allied victory parade of 14 July 1919 on the Champs Elysées (Le Matin, 13.07.19; Crémieux, 1934: 121–2),8 although representatives of the nurse organisations had seats among the official spectators; on the other hand, the nurses Yolande de Baye and Mme Guérin de Belliet accompanied the body of the French Unknown Soldier from the lying-in-state at the Panthéon to the final interment at the Arc de Triomphe on 11 November 1920 (Jagielski, 2005: n.p). In London, on the other hand, a peace day parade on 19 July 1919 included nurses among representatives of all the armed forces of the allies.9 The awards given to British and Empire nurses are too numerous to list—British newspapers in 1919 alone carry numerous and extensive lists of awards, including many nurses. A random trawl through Nursing Times in the war years reveals many pages devoted to lists of awards. Most of the nurses’ awards are either campaign awards given to all who served or civilian awards such as the OBE and MBE. Military medals for women are less frequent: the website “Scarletfinders” lists by name, and with citation, 135 nurses who were awarded the Military Medal for service in the Great War. In this respect, France was more generous: out of a total of approximately 10,000 nurses who received awards other than campaign medals, 373 were nominated to the Légion d’Honneur and 950 received the military Croix de Guerre.10 The Journal Officiel for July 1919 has pages of lists of awards to nurses. In both nations, the Red Cross itself gave its own awards, omitted from this account. Germany appears to have been less generous; however, any estimation is subject to caution, as the records of the both 7  The monument to celebrate the victory at Tannenberg in 1914, which was the nearest thing Germany achieved by way of a national memorial, was destroyed in 1945. On the failure to construct a monument see Ziemann, 2013: 172–97. 8  According to the programme of the day in Le Matin (14.7.19) there was a section of male military nurses and stretcher bearers in the parade. L’Ouest-Eclair (15.7.19) noted that a group of nurses accompanied the parade of war wounded—to care for them. A study of local acts of commemoration in the Puy-de-Dôme region makes no mention of nurses’ presence in parades and other official acts on 14 July. 9  See https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/world-war-i-articles/19th-july-1919peace-day-in-britain/ for a detailed description and an account of the negotiations that created it. 10  Figures from https://www.croix-rouge.fr/La-Croix-Rouge/La-Croix-Rouge-francaise/ Historique/Premiere-guerre-mondiale/Premiere-Guerre-mondiale

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the Red Cross and the War Ministry were largely destroyed in the fall of Berlin in 1945.11 Various websites give different figures for women recipients of the principal military award, the Iron Cross, but the total across the various records is seven; all are nurses, including Elfriede Scherhans, whose memoirs are quoted above. A contemporary book on the Iron Cross (Boerschel, 1915) lists only three but says they are representative of many more; this may be due to the publication date and the author’s assumption that more would follow; however, by Imperial Decree, after 1915 the Iron Cross was only awarded to soldiers. The Nazis awarded the “Honour Cross”—created in 1934 as a retrospective award for frontline service—to both soldiers and nurses (Panke-Kochinke & Schaidhammer-Placke, 2002: 52; Salm-Reifferscheidt, 2010: 89). I have been unable to trace further records of medals given to German nurses. The German Red Cross gave its own awards; however, it had a federal structure with a Red Cross Association in each province, and each one had its own system of awards, with records maintained in provincial archives. Commemoration is no doubt the principal public form of collective memory. However, collective memory consists also of commonalities of remembered experience, to which representation in news media is a guide, since media content is dictated by editorial decisions about what is publicly relevant. Nurses’ presence in media space over the decade following 1918 can therefore be used as an indicator of the extent to which they entered collective memory. Our analysis uses samples from the national press of the three nations and measures numbers of mentions of nurses in the context of the war; this contextualisation is important because, as we shall see shortly, the decade following 1918 involved substantial reforms of nursing, and therefore much of the media space devoted to nurses has no link to their wartime service. However, a commonplace of news reporting of the actions of individual nurses in the aftermath of the war involves passing mentions of wartime service, and this certainly counts as public attention to the matter. The sample of titles is dictated by the availability of word searchable files. In Britain, war nurses appear to have become marginalised in media space relatively rapidly. A small-scale indication is given by the women of Pervyse, who achieved celebrity status during the war. In the immediate aftermath of the war, in 1919, Elsie Knocker (by then Baroness T’Serclaes, 11  Personal communication from Claudia Bourcevet, archivist at the German Red Cross, Berlin; Eckart, 2014: 100–1.

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but separated) was reported giving speeches at local meetings. By 1920 she had become largely invisible in both the national and the local press, only appearing when things went wrong—the failure of a charity she helped set up, and a prosecution under the Aliens Registration Act for not registering her residence. Mairi Chisholm appeared alongside her in speeches in 1919 but then disappeared. A sample analysis of mentions of nurses in the context of the war in four national and large regional dailies shows a reduction of mentions to zero over the decade from 1919–28.12 In 1919 the Daily Telegraph, the Manchester Guardian and the Daily Mail all had between 130 and 150 stories about nurses in which their wartime service figured, and the Times had 380; in each case these papers had no such stories about nurses in 1928. On the other hand, the local press continued for many years after the war to mention nurses’ war service in news stories about other matters. Although the nature of the sampling reduces the reliability of the data, the difference is so great that it justifies the conclusion that nurses’ war service ceased to have sufficient public interest after ten years to arouse more than occasional interest in the national press; the local press, whose news values are more attuned to everyday matters of purely local significance, continued to find their war service sufficiently relevant to mention. The sheer volume of attention given to soldiers’ memoirs over the same period, peaking in the late 1920s (Palmer, 2018: 39–43, 93–104), emphasises the relative lack of attention given to the wartime nurses a decade after the war in Britain.13 The situation in France is somewhat different, in several respects. Firstly, the Gallica search engine—which gives access to the overwhelming bulk of the French national and Parisian press for the period—allows proximity searching, which greatly increases the reliability of the data (see Appendix B); the proportion of major titles available in word searchable form is also greater than in the United Kingdom, but the sample of local press available for the post-war years is too fragmentary to be useful here. Secondly, 12  The analysis used “nurse*” and “war” as the search terms. Manual inspection of a 10% sample eliminated the false positives, of which there were many due to the way in which the search engines assemble the data; unlike the French data base (see below and Appendix B), the British press data bases do not allow a proximity filter, which would increase the reliability and validity of the data. 13  An attempt to assess the presence of wartime soldiers in post-war media space foundered on difficulties in establishing useful data: the search produced tens of thousands of reports and I found no reliable way of eliminating false positives in a reasonable time frame.

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the public memory of wartime service was more politicised in France than in Great Britain, as the ex-soldiers’ organisations were very militant and— especially in the late 1920s—very well organised on a national level (Prost, 1997). These characteristics of public life and of the data base allow a more extended analysis of the attention given to nurses over the decade following 1918 than in Britain. In particular they allow a detailed comparison with mentions of soldiers in the context of the war; the material about the soldiers is available because the slang word for soldier in French is close to unambiguous in its usage at that time and the politics of the period led to the creation of a fixed phrase for former soldiers which was not used in any other context; English does not provide such a convenient set of search terms.14 In the immediate aftermath of the war, the efficacity of the Red Cross nurses was publicly recognised (Guillermand, 1994: 321). However, the analysis shows that over the post-war decade French media attention to the wartime nurses declined sharply (by 50%) whereas it stayed steady for soldiers (for details, see Appendix B); this allows us to infer that declining attention to the war nurses was not due to declining attention to the war in general. On the other hand, national media attention to the wartime nurses remained substantial in France; it did not dwindle to zero, as was the case in Great Britain. French nursing historians have emphasised the post-war disregard for the volunteer nurses’ wartime experience: “post-war public opinion tended to overlook the significant contribution the nurses made in the war” (Knibiehler 1984: 98) and If the spectacle of a hundred thousand women from all social classes flocking to serve as nurses for la Patrie demonstrated that women’s special aptitudes could be attached fruitfully to the state, it also demonstrated that this attachment was based not on nursing as a skilled medical profession, but rather as charity work or patriotic motherhood. (Schultheiss, 2001: 147)

Kern-Coquillat argues, in the same vein, that the emphasis upon the nurses’ commitment, encapsulated in the phrase “white angels”, disguised the true nature of their service (2014), and especially their skill. However, none of these arguments necessarily implies oblivion. 14  See Appendix B for the details. The terms are “poilu” (literally: hairy) and “ancien combattant” (former combatant/soldier).

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We have already seen that German media paid far less attention to nurses during the war itself than was the case in Britain and France, and it would be surprising if the post-war situation was substantially different. Searches for the words for “nurse” in the eight titles available via the Europeana website plus those available on the data base of the Ebert Stiftung gave a small number of hits in total: around 200  in 1919 and somewhat more in 1928. The numbers scarcely varied when the word for “war” was added to the search. However, the word searchable media files for the German press in this period are very limited and the search engines have no proximity device, thus hits only indicate that the word “nurse” and the word “war” appear in the same issue of the paper, not necessarily in the same article. In fact, the co-incidence of the two terms should not be taken to mean that the mentions in fact referred to the wartime nurses, as manual inspection of a small sample showed little to no reference to the war.15 For example, several reports concerned a knife attack in a Hamburg street on Elfriede von Pflugk-Harttung, who had indeed been a wartime nurse; but the reason for the attack, and probably for the extent of the attention to her name, was that her brother was implicated in the recent murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht; her war service is not mentioned in the reports. As is well known, the soldiers’ memories and their public representation continued to command massive attention in Germany throughout the period that preceded the Nazi take-over of power—for example, Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front was only one among a substantial number of best-selling war books during the closing years of the Weimar Republic (Schneider, 2011). The indicators of public attention suggest that the nurses’ war service was appreciated differently in the three nations, with more appreciation in France than elsewhere. However, what is probably more telling is the contrast with the continued attention paid to the soldiers, across all three nations. The reviews of the nurse memoirs indeed show how much their efforts—indeed, sacrifices—were appreciated, as do the honours they received; but in comparison with the attention paid to the soldiers’ accounts of their experiences, the attention paid to the nurses appears to have been relatively short-lived. The post-war period was also the time at which nursing underwent a series of changes which, in combination and over time, moved it definitively into the category of profession. Our analysis closes with a  With the exception of Elsa Brändström, due to special circumstances (see Appendix A).

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consideration of the role that wartime nursing, especially volunteer nursing, played in this process. We have seen how training and registration were central to the professionalisation process in the pre-war period; the issue continued to be a significant part of the post-war reforms, but in different ways across the three nations. The British government introduced legislation to create the registration of nurses in 1919 (Abel-Smith, 1960: 94–7; Rafferty, 1996: 79–89). The process was complicated by the fact that there were two bodies which represented nurses, which came up with different proposals to frame the legislation; the difference turned primarily on the degree of training to be required for a nurse to be entered in the register, amid allegations that insistence on the highest standards would make it difficult for hospitals to recruit a sufficient number of trained nurses. Attempts at compromise failed and the government drafted its own bill. The Register provided for all nurses to be entitled to register who had completed the three-year training programme or who could demonstrate three years’ practical nursing experience. The process had in fact already begun in wartime, in part driven by the administrative chaos produced by the existence of too many organisations trying to provide the same services. This had led to a degree of centralisation and the creation of the College of Nursing, whose membership grew strongly, from 2553 in 1917 to 13,000 in 1919. In addition, the influx of VADs into wartime nursing had produced a dilution of skills in nursing, which both professional nurses and doctors wanted to avoid; hospital managements, on the other hand, wanted to avoid losing the cheap labour that untrained nurses had provided. The drive for a new centralised organisation was motivated not only by rationalisation and control over skill levels, but also by the creation of a new Ministry of Health. Indeed, the aftermath of the war consolidated the view that health was indeed a public matter, for which government ultimately bore the responsibility. Although this belief in effect underpinned many of the reforms of the late nineteenth century, it was the ravages of the war that drove it decisively forward after 1918: the vast numbers of severely wounded, of widows and orphans, all of whom had health needs which demanded collective solutions, along with epidemics such as Spanish flu and TB. The creation of a nation-wide system implied some standardisation of practices, especially of recognised standards of training, although in practice the proposed standard training syllabus was only adopted on the basis that it was not mandatory (Rafferty, 1996: 114–33).

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Into this situation came the demobilisation of tens of thousands of nurses from the military health services, many of whom sought employment as nurses. One of the drivers of the registration process was explicitly to ensure that VADs could not claim to be trained nurses on the basis of their wartime experience alone; on the other hand, some efforts were made to organise training so that they could use their experience to make it easier for them to get on to the register (Abel-Smith, 1960: 99–101). However, it is clear that the central thrust of their marginalisation was the desire to avoid dilution of standards, and probably to reduce competition for nursing jobs. On the other hand, wartime nursing must have revealed the possibilities created by mass enrolment of women as well as the limitations of using untrained volunteers. In France too government recognised the need for the rapid development of public health provision—indeed, the idea of public health is essentially a post-1918 invention in France, despite limited pre-war initiatives such as the TB dispensaries. The number of widows and orphans living in poverty added to endemic health problems. France had suffered from outbreaks of TB before the war, as we have seen, and many features of the war increased the risk: for example, soldiers who contracted TB in the trenches were sent home, despite the risks of transmission. The poverty caused by war damage and deaths increased health risks in general. In 1921 the body responsible for public welfare had already commissioned a report into the role of nursing, which concluded that medical developments demanded improvements in nurse training. Subsequent decisions to create an overall public health policy led to the awareness of how much nurses would be needed: for childbirth, for schools—especially nursery schools—for sanitoria, for domiciliary visits and especially for prevention campaigns, which were to be based on mass education programmes using district nurses (Knibiehler, 1984: 95, 112, 137–41). As in Britain, the mass mobilisation of women as nurses revealed possibilities as well as limitations. The 1921 report included consideration of nurse registration. It largely took over the demands advanced by professional nurses in the pre-war years, but gave it the weight of official support. It led to a 1922 decree giving legal status to a certificate of competence following a two-year training programme; Léonie Chaptal, who had been active in nurse training before the war, played a significant part in formulating the role of nurses in public health and framing the decree. Red Cross nurses were encouraged to undergo a supplementary training that would enable them

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to enter the register in the same way as professional nurses who had followed the full training. Subsequently, in 1925, the government created a central nursing office, attached to the national office of public health. However, at this stage, the diploma, training, and recognition as a nurse were not compulsory in order to practise as a nurse. In 1924 Chaptal created an association of qualified nurses, and in 1925 a Catholic association of nurses was created, building on the wartime commitment. In Germany, demobilised nurses faced large-scale unemployment—the economic crisis that followed defeat was made worse for nurses by the competition caused by the relaxation of training requirements allowed during the war, during which a six-month training programme followed by an examination led to state recognition (Prüfer, 1997: 34); Agnes Karll, the founder of the German professional nurses’ association, said in 1925 that the war had wrecked German nursing (quoted Schmidbaur, 2002: 100). As in Britain and France, the post-war period saw the introduction or extension of public health schemes. The new Republican government introduced a national insurance scheme and existing schemes of sick pay and accident insurance were extended (Prüfer, 1997: 35–7). This was part of a generalised attempt to introduce a national public health policy for the republic. However, in Germany conceptions of public health were highly politicised and many liberal and socialist measures—such as district nursing and health visiting—met with opposition in which such measures were denounced as intrusions into the private sphere of the family (Crew, 1996: 326–33). In addition, many health professionals held to the Social Darwinist notion of “race hygiene”, according to which not all citizens’ lives were equally worthy of care: a key 1920 text promoting this view was entitled “Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Living” (Binding and Hoche, 1920). The presence of a strong current of opinion influenced by such thinking meant that any public health programme aimed at improving health for all citizens was politically fraught. Secondly, although the new Republic in theory created a unified national framework for various innovations, including some health arrangements, in practise the federal provincial structure meant that nationwide innovation was a patchwork. In Berlin and other big cities in Prussia, liberal and socialist authorities were able to realise a host of public health measures, many of them involving new employment for nurses, in nurseries and in factories, for example (Schmidbaur, 2002: 123). Throughout the Weimar time, such measures met with resistance from right-wing doctors’ groups backed

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by conservative and later Nazi organisations, and they were abruptly cancelled by the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 (Eckart, 1991: 224–31). These reforms did not lead to a nationally agreed training programme for nurses and anyway training was largely optional, as untrained nurses were allowed to practise; only in Hamburg and Berlin was training obligatory, from 1922 onwards. The federal structure of the republic meant that any law regulating nursing had to be passed by the individual provinces, not at national level. On the other hand, in Prussia from 1921 onwards, training and examination were regulated, with a two-year training period for nurses; other care assistants, such as social care and nursery school care were regulated separately, with shorter training periods. But while professional nurses wanted to see training as the norm for all the new care occupations, employers were still able to employ nurses from the confessional orders, which undermined the nurses’ attempts at universal professionalisation (Schmidbaur, 2002: 113–5). There was little consensus over the development of regulation of training for nurses during the Weimar period. Doctors were opposed to anything that would raise the status of nursing, seeing it as a threat to their own authority and status at a time when insurance schemes were restricting their fees and limiting the extent of private practice. Moreover, nursing organisations were utterly divided over fundamental issues. The confessional organisations still insisted on the mother-house model and the centrality of charity, whereas the secular organisations wanted a market-based model of contracts of employment. In addition, there were fundamental disagreements about other basic issues: notably wage negotiation and the length of the working day, which had not been regulated until 1918. Before then, 14-hour working days were far from unknown in nursing, but when the eight-hour day became the norm for employment in general after the war, both the confessional and professional nursing organisations opposed it as excessively restrictive and unfavourable for a “calling-­ centred” approach to patient care; behind the stress on “calling” as a central feature of nursing commitment lay both the confessional insistence on charity and a secular concern for status. The only health-care organisations that favoured the eight-hour day in health care were the manual workers unions (Prüfer, 1997: 38, 54–7). In 1924 the nursing unions and the confessional orders accepted a compromise based around a 10-hour day and a 60-hour  week (Schmidbaur, 2002: 101). In general, the disunity among health workers weakened attempts to introduce regulation, training, and improved conditions.

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It is difficult to see what, if anything, changed in German nursing as a result of the wartime experience: all the nursing organisations retained the main lines of their earlier policies, and although the introduction of public health schemes in the big cities certainly brought about new employment opportunities for nurses, they do not appear to have modified the conditions under which nurses trained and worked, with the exception of the working day rules which were largely forced upon both the professional and confessional organisations. At no point in these processes is there any indication that the wartime volunteer nurses were able to use their experience for employment; but on the other hand, given the lack of regulation, there was probably little hindrance to them either. The international differences in these matters during the decade that followed the Great War make generalisation difficult. Certainly nurse professionalism was advanced in Britain and France, albeit to different degrees, by the development of more comprehensive public health policies and agreed training programmes; by the same token, employment opportunities for women as nurses expanded. Making nurse professionalism central to these developments led to decisions about how to handle those former volunteer nurses who wanted to use their experience as the basis of a career. The degree to which the experience was respected as the basis of a future career was greater in France than in Britain. Perhaps there is some connection between this and the greater presence of the wartime nurses in public space in France; but if there is, it is not to be found in the details of how they were represented in media, and must lie in some generalised awareness of the importance of their wartime role and the need for nurses in the new public health arrangements. In Germany, there is nothing to indicate any continuity between the wartime experience and decisions about the role of nurses in the new arrangements introduced under Weimar.

Bibliography (1) Nurse Memoirs Borden, M. (1929). Forbidden Zone. Heinemann. Brittain, V. (1933). Testament of Youth. Gollancz; quoted in the Virago edition, 2014. Crémieux, J. (1934). Croquis d’Heures Vécues. Imp. Bachy. Salmond, M. (1935). Bright Armour. Faber and Faber.

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(2) Other Contemporary Literature Binding, K., & Hoche, A. (1920). Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens: ihr Mass und ihre Form. Meiner. Boerschel, E. (1915). Unser Eisernes Kreuz: ein deutsches Heldenbuch. Spamer.

(3) Secondary Literature Abel-Smith, B. (1960). A History of the Nursing Profession. Heinemann. Crew, D. (1996). The Ambiguities of Modernity: Welfare and the German State from Wilhelm to Hitler. In G.  Eley (Ed.), Society, Culture and the State in Germany 1870–1933 (pp. 319–444). University of Michigan Press. Eckart, W. (1991). Öffentliche Gesundheitspflege in der Weimarer Republik und in der Frühgeschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. In F.  W. Schwartz, W. Hofmann, B. Badura, J. G. Brecht, K.-H. Jöckel, & A. Trojan (Eds.), Public Health. Gesundheitssystemforschung (pp. 221–237). Springer. Eckart, W. (2014). Medizin und Krieg. Deutschland 1914–1918. Ferdinand Schöningh. Fell, A. (2013). Remembering the First World War Nurse in Britain and France. In A.  Fell & C.  Hallett (Eds.), First World War Nursing. New Perspectives (pp. 173–192). Routledge. Guillermand, J. (1994). La vocation médico-sociale de la Croix-Rouge française. International Review of the Red Cross, 807, 315–323. Jagielski, J.-F. (2005). Le Soldat inconnu  – Invention et postérité d’un symbole. Editions Imago. Kern-Coquillat, F. (2014). Les Femmes Médecins dans le Service de Santé en France 1914–1918. DEP, 24, 48–75. Knibiehler, Y. (1984). Cornettes et Blouses Blanches. Hachette. Palmer, J. (2018). Memories from the Frontline. Memoirs and Meanings of the Great War from Britain, France and Germany. Palgrave Macmillan. Panke-Kochinke, B., & Schaidhammer-Placke, M. (Eds.). (2002). Frontschwestern und Friedensengel. Mabuse-Verlag. Prost, A. (1997). Les Anciens Combattants et la Société Française 1914–39. Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. Prüfer, A. (1997). Vom Liebesdienst zur Profession? Krankenpfege als Weiblicher Beruf 1918–33. Kunz. Rafferty, A. M. (1996). The Politics of Nursing Knowledge. Routledge. Salm-Reifferscheidt, F. (2010). Frauen in der Kriegskrankenpflege im Ersten Weltkrieg am Beispiel der Rotkreuzschwester Marianne Jarka. MA Thesis, University of Vienna. Schmidbaur, M. (2002). Vom Lazaruskreuz zu Pflege Aktuell. Ulrike Helmer Verlag.

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Schneider, T. (2011). Die Wiederkehr der Weltkriege in der Literatur. Available at: www.staatsgalerie.de/download.Staatsgalerie_Vortrag_Thomas_Schneider. pdf. Consulted 23.11.2014. Schultheiss, K. (2001). Bodies and Souls. Politics and the Professionalisation of Nursing in France 1800–1922. Harvard University Press. Sherman, D. (1999). The Construction of Memory in Interwar France. Chicago University Press. Watson, J. (2004). Fighting Different Wars. Experience, Memory and the First World War. Cambridge University Press. Ziemann, B. (2013). Contested Commemorations. Republican War Veterans and Weimar Political Culture. Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 11

Conclusion

The nurses’ memoirs from the Great War form a large and manifold corpus, evoking a world which is detailed and varied, stretching across Europe and beyond, encompassing conditions of work which run from hard and demanding to what must have been close to unbearable. Near the front lines, both the working conditions and the emotional toll exacted by the constant attention to extreme suffering would try the most robust constitution. Women’s individual responses to their experiences, reported in myriad details, run the gamut from exhilarated enthusiasm to traumatisation. While it is this accumulation of detail that is responsible for the texts’ impact, beneath it lies substantial commonality, since this literature is a record both of personal experience and of the objective conditions imposed by the war. Inevitably, it is a partial record: differences in experience derived from the conditions of nurses’ deployment; and beyond these local differences, personal experiences are by definition limited, necessarily subject to filtration in the process of recording. As a result, at the margins of what is said lies what is not said, and the choices lead the texts to become interpretations of the war as well as records of personal experience.1 The interpretations, as we have seen, are primarily defined by the balance between reassurance and frankness. 1  This is arguably the precondition of all narrative (Macherey, 1966: 105–10; also in Easthope and MacGowan, 1992). The role Macherey attributes to silence is grounded in the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Palmer, Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany, Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82875-2_11

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At the heart of the corpus lies the gender of its authors, for two reasons. Firstly, because women’s involvement in war on such a scale was unprecedented, at least in European collective memory. And secondly, because viewed in the wider frame of the overall social order, women’s mobilisation for the war effort brought changes to gender roles whose short-term results provoked public concerns and whose potential long-term effects were variously promoted and feared. Both promotion and fear stemmed from a common source, the stretching of gender boundaries: viewed positively, this was rectification of the imbalance in women’s rights; viewed negatively, it was transgression of a supposedly natural boundary. No doubt it was the transgressive element which fuelled the intensity of opposition where it occurred and we could expect concerns to intensify in proportion to the proximity of the transgression to the core of gender differentiation. Non-professional women nursing soldiers certainly could be regarded as pushing the limits of modesty, yet it was also in line with the well-established gender attribution of nursing care; women in uniform behaving promiscuously, on the other hand, unquestionably broke taboos. While nurses were less directly implicated than other women in these concerns, they constituted a permanent backdrop whose dominant feature was the problematisation of gender. Their gender-based role simultaneously protected nurses from direct implication in most of the concerns yet by the same token assigned them to a place defined by the very feature identified as the core of the problem. The clear contextualisation invites attention to those features of nurses’ writing that stand out in relief against this backdrop; in other words, to features of this writing that acquire a profile defined by their relationship to the context. The corpus is constituted first and foremost by a record of the everyday details of an extraordinary life. However, beneath and behind the mass of detail lies a feature of the corpus as a whole which is one of its major unstated implications: the fact of writing and publishing these memoirs, regardless of the detail, is an assertion of women’s place in public space and in particular an assertion of their right to speak in public about that pre-eminently masculine activity, war; the ideological context makes this especially clear in the case of German nurses publishing in the Nazi period. No doubt women had already come to participate in the public domain ontology of the utterance. The silences observed in our analysis, to the contrary, are not a necessary feature of narrative and are empirically observable; they correspond to what Macherey says is the more superficial and less interesting feature of the not-said (1966: 106).

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well before 1914—their presence in the debates about nursing and health care alone show that—but participating and writing about war with as much authority as the soldiers was something new, a significant extension of their existing participation in public matters. Nonetheless, despite the central significance of gender, it would be an oversimplification to say that the corpus is entirely composed of a record of women’s activities and experiences, since the texts bring to life a world which existed alongside the world of the soldiers, intersecting with it while also partially independent of it. The intersection follows a logic dictated by medicine and nursing practice, military exigency and the personal commitment that brought these women into war nursing. Thus, although this literature is gender-­ specific by virtue of its authorship, it is a record of a world some of whose determinants lie outside the domain defined by the authors’ gender. In particular, the chief determinant—the soldiers—was at the heart of public interest in the conduct of the war. By virtue of the centrality of personal experience of the war the nurse memoirs form a parallel to the memoirs of the frontline soldiers. This is significant because the insistence on personal experience was permanently fraught with the possibility of contention. The contention arose from a countervailing insistence on the primacy of the purpose of the war. The degree of this contention might be limited, as in the comment that the realism of MacGill’s account of the battle of Loos was “sordid” in the absence of reference to purpose; or it might be fundamental, as in French nationalist insistence that “authentic details” always turned out to be defeatist (see above; Palmer, 2018: 94, 192). Frequent in the reception of the soldiers’ memoirs, it lurks around the margins of the public response to the nurses: Sarah Macnaughtan’s memoir was praised for reminding her readers that the fate of the individual should not be paramount in thinking about the war (see above) and Vera Brittain faced criticism for placing excessive emphasis on personal suffering, some of it vitriolic (see Chap. 7).2 The scarcity and the marginality of such comments suggests that fundamentally nobody objected to the nurses—unlike the soldiers—speaking from and about their personal experiences, and it was only raised to the point of contention when it seemed excessive, or excessively central. The overall marginalisation of the nationalist critique no doubt derives from one of the fundamental elements of the nurses’ writings—their 2  See also the response to Clemenceau-Jacquemaire and Pöll-Naepflin, also the Nazi analysis (above).

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unswerving commitment to the welfare of soldiers, which we have seen was shared by the frank memoirs as much as by the reassuring ones. This dedication, spelt out repeatedly in all the intricate detail of daily work and personal interactions, acts as a guarantee that the nurse was in practice committed to the prosecution of the war and therefore what some said about suffering or harsh conditions could not fall foul of the accusation levelled at some soldiers’ writings that the focus on personal detail was in itself demoralising, defeatist, or pacifist.3 Frank texts place more emphasis on soldiers’ sufferings than do reassuring texts, of course, but dedication to their welfare trumps it—as Käthe Russner said in the Foreword to her memoir, writing in this way shows the heroism of the soldiers in the hospital as well as in the trenches (1936: n.p.); that it also shows what nurses themselves had to endure no doubt seemed secondary in comparison with their dedication, indeed constituted an additional proof of their commitment. In either case, the visible demonstration of personal presence as the basis of the narrative of experience is the source of its authority: “I was there” trumps most attempts at criticism. There is an ironical proof of this principle in the case of Noëlle Roger’s Carnets d’une Infirmière (1915). Under her real name of Hélène Pittard, she was a well-established French-­ Swiss writer, who was later awarded the Légion d’Honneur for her contribution to French culture. The Preface to the Carnets says that ‘Noëlle Roger’ was the editor of the text, not the author, who was a nurse friend who died of flu during the war; Noëlle Roger’s contribution consisted only of taking diary entries and turning them into a coherent narrative. However, this is likely to be a polite fiction, designed to counter the fact that Hélène Pittard’s experience of nursing was limited: the official citation for her award of the Légion d’Honneur credits her with the authorship of the Carnets (Journal Officiel, 19.12.25), as does a contemporary review in the Revue des Deux Mondes (July 1916: 904), which explicitly says the Preface is a fiction. In other words, the author’s real presence was questionable, but the verisimilitude of the account was enough to establish authority—indeed, the Carnets were among the most widely reviewed and praised French accounts.

3  The nationalist critique of authentic detail was anyway either hypocritical or inconsistent since they valued the rare nationalist texts which accumulated personal detail in enthusiastic accounts of warrior-like commitment, for example, Georges Gaudy (1921) and Ernst Jünger (1919) (Palmer, 2018: 192, 220).

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So central is dedication to the care of soldiers that nurses risk effacing themselves from their own texts: they elide themselves in their accounts of the work being done and of soldiers’ cheerful stoicism.4 There is always enough detail about their own thoughts and actions to make the account credible as autobiography, but the thoughts and deeds are overwhelmingly directed towards the soldiers, or at least towards the organisation of the work they are doing for their benefit. For example, Julie Crémieux falls in love at first sight with a wounded soldier (to whom she gets engaged at the end of her narrative) and talks briefly about her emotions; she immediately switches to generalisations about how nurses learnt to control the expression of their emotions without becoming hardened at the sight of suffering (1918: 8–9). It is not that the nurses are invisible, far from it, since the work is narrated as their accomplishment; yet theirs is a visibility which is displaced by the emphasis on the beneficiaries, so that often they are visible at the margins rather than centre and foreground. Emblematic is a photograph of nurses with wounded soldiers walking in the streets of Brussels: the caption reads “German wounded in Brussels. The first excursion” (Berliner Tageblatt, Supplement, 24.1.15: 8)5; the elision is resounding. On the other hand, this elision is far from absolute across the corpus. Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire makes her opinions about uncharitable nuns and lazy soldier-priests abundantly clear and both Jane de Launoy and Juliette Martineau are scathing about some of their volunteer colleagues. Maria Pöll-Naepflin makes it clear that she is so disgusted by the prevalence of prostitution in garrison towns that she feels sullied by the proximity. Helene Mierisch is shocked when a nun breaks off attending to a wounded patient to say her prayers, in the middle of an influx of new wounded. These are texts which are also marked by their frankness. It is another of their central characteristics that the narrators are more foregrounded: their own responses to situations—especially shock—their initiatives, their own hopes and fears, occupy places in the text which are largely absent from the reassuring accounts. As a rule, the more reassuring the text, the less visible the nurse.6 4  As we have seen, some reviews praised nurses for appropriate modesty in this respect, and the account of the women of Pervyse was blamed for focussing too much on them and not enough on the Belgian soldiers they were tending. See also Acton and Potter, 2015: 34. 5  Available at www.zefys.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de 6  Nurses are also visible in reassuring texts at points where their narratives resemble travel diaries. The German nurses who published in wartime give a lot of space to descriptions of

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Authority derives from authenticity, from the incontrovertible “I was there”. We have seen that the nurses’ presence in the text was protected in a way sometimes denied to soldiers. Moreover, its centrality has a further implication: behind it lies the feminist interpretation of women’s contribution to the war effort, the relationship between rights and duties. For the Scottish women of Royaumont the assertion of rights was the pathway to the fulfilment of duty: the duty depended upon the rights; less philosophically phrased, in Jane Misme’s words, the facts spoke for them. Women’s contribution to the war effort was clearly established, and nowhere more clearly than in the nurses’ case. And yet the nurse memoirs are close to silent on the question of emancipation. Is this because they did not see any relationship between what they did and the larger question of women’s place in society? It is likely that many of them shared the views of the Royaumont women—Vera Brittain certainly did, but even she makes relatively little of the equation between nursing as a duty and emancipation. Is this silence a simple absence, needing no explanation? Or is it a rhetorical silence, a deliberate reticence? The overwhelming thrust of the nurse memoirs is to show dedication to the welfare of soldiers; to stress the link between these acts of dedication and the gains of emancipation risked sullying the dedication by suggesting it was self-interested. Political commentary by a third party such as Jane Misme is not the same as a nurse herself showing partisan motivation in her account of tending to the wounded (patriotism did not count as a partisan motive under these circumstances).7 Seen in this light, the insistence on work and dedication, accompanied by reticence, is indeed rhetorical through the omission of the emancipatory implications. The reticence about emancipation has a potential implication for our understanding of the place of frankness in the memoirs. The distribution of frankness and its opposite across the corpus largely follows national and chronological lines: the overwhelming bulk of the frank material was published after the war was over, and more in Germany than elsewhere. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that frankness about suffering, and buildings and landscapes (and say relatively little about actual nursing duties), and British nurses whose texts are full of copious, dutiful accounts of their work also devote pages to what they have seen on their days off; it is easy to forget how restricted foreign travel was 100 years ago, and how interesting descriptions of foreign places must have been. 7  References to Royaumont and feminism are more frequent in French media that British; on the other hand, the role of the Scottish Women’s Suffrage Society was sufficiently well known in Britain for the link to be obvious.

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especially any suffering that might derive from deficiency of service, was deliberately marginalised in wartime accounts—it is largely absent in German and French versions, and in British ones is balanced by emphasis on commitment and on soldiers’ stoicism.8 This implication is also clear in another relative silence in the corpus of memoirs: evidence of poor morale among their patients. Certainly, as we have seen, they insist on good morale where they find it and narrate incidents where they succeed in improving patients’ morale, for example through acceptance of the lifechanging nature of their wounds. It is clear from the historical record and from some soldiers’ memoirs that many became profoundly sceptical about both the conduct and the justification of the war: the mutinies in the French Army in 1917 are just the most dramatic version of this evidence; other evidence is found in texts such as Barbusse’s Under Fire and poets such as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, or in the records of patients’ refusal of treatment. Yet mentions of poor morale in the nurse memoirs are extremely rare. Ironically, it is present by implication in the ultra-patriotic account given by Mme de la Boulaye, who narrates—with obvious pride—occasions where she persuades soldiers to give up their scepticism. Direct indications are to be found in Madeleine ClemenceauJacquemaire, who says that patients at Verdun refuse to meet her eye, clear proof of disengagement; and in Maria Pöll-Naepflin, who reports a conversation with patients who are happy to accept bad treatment because it keeps them in hospital longer. Such indications are few and far between. As to the motives, one can only speculate, and the obvious explanation is a desire to avoid demoralisation. However, there are two caveats, one about frankness in general, the other specific to Germany. Frankness about conditions foregrounds the nurse, and any supposed attempt to move into the limelight risked the accusation of insufficient dedication to the patient and therefore to the nation’s effort. Secondly, the issue of demoralisation is ambiguous in the German case, as the German authorities did not discourage frank accounts of what frontline life was like—they thought it showed the soldiers’ heroism and commitment (Schneider, 1997: 103).9 Why did German nurses not take this line in the memoirs published in 8  With the exceptions of Ellen LaMotte, who was banned during the war, and Maria Sonnenthal-Scherer, who was not writing for publication. 9  But within limits. The portrayal of the hell of Verdun in Fritz von Unruh’s Way of Sacrifice is celebrated as a pacifist text, yet the original version was intended as a patriotic celebration of soldiers’ dedication under the most extreme circumstances. Nonetheless, it was suppressed during the war because of its excessive frankness (Grabolle, 2004: 27–8).

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wartime, which are among the most reticent in the corpus? The German nurses’ wartime correspondence—which only became known later—is extremely frank (Sentfleben et al., 1934; Stölzle, 2012). We have seen that the German nurses received far less public attention than the French and British during the war, and it is likely that the reticence typical of that generation of German nurse memoirs is related to this overall marginalisation. Perhaps the issue of wounded German soldiers’ sufferings was sufficiently sensitive to discourage even factual accounts of selfless dedication to their wellbeing. In this interpretation, therefore, frankness is to be seen as a rhetorical equivalent to arguing for emancipation: both break with the reassuring narrative of care and commitment, in which—to use Jane Misme’s words— “facts spoke on [feminists’] behalf”. It is not that frankness is necessarily motivated by the author’s feminism; the equivalence to argument for emancipation is implied by foregrounding the nurse and emphasising her claim to respect. This implication is especially clear in the case of the German nurses who published during the Nazi period. Nurses rarely comment on the quality of care of their patients. Clearly, to do so would constitute a claim to a level of knowledge that might be contestable. If volunteer nurses sometimes felt that professionalism verged upon unfeeling detachment, this does not necessarily equate with criticism of care. Where criticism does occur, in frank texts, it mostly takes the form of the observation of obvious shortcomings, such as doctors simply failing to attend to patients. Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire notices that a room has not been disinfected after a tetanus death, despite a warning, which leads to a second, avoidable death; Käthe Russner is shocked, on coming on duty one morning, to find a room full of wounded men left completely unattended—no one had notified the medical staff of their arrival during the night. In rare directly professional criticisms, Henriette Riemann and Marianne Jarka accuse inexperienced surgeons of bad mistakes (Riemann, 1930: 65: Jarka quoted in Salm-Reifferscheidt, 2010: 80). On the other hand, even most reassuring texts leave the reader in little doubt that soldiers are in appalling conditions, and suffering. As we have seen, such accounts do not necessarily imply any criticism of the conduct of the war, and the narrative of commitment and dedication to welfare generally implies that the suffering is no more than unavoidable, perhaps with exceptions. In the absence of any direct statement to the effect that suffering was indeed avoidable, or that it was disproportionate to the purpose of the war, any inference about its justifiability or

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unjustifiability is the product of the degree of emphasis in the text. To take an obvious benchmark: Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est is an explicit and passionate condemnation, since the poet uses the wrenching experience of seeing men dying from a gas attack to denounce the cliché of the title as a straightforward lie. Duhamel’s Vie des Martyrs comes close, so intense and so heartfelt are the descriptions of his patients, but nurses rarely allow this inference, even when they leave the reader in no doubt that they are shocked by what they witness. Judged against these benchmarks, the nurses’ memoirs—with some exceptions—refrain from drawing pacifist or near-pacifist conclusions from their account of soldiers’ suffering; while the exceptions are not explicitly pacifist, they accumulate so much negative detail (Borden, LaMotte, perhaps Pöll-Naepflin10) that the suffering comes to seem disproportionate to the aims of the war. In the absence of such emphasis, in other words in the majority of cases, the reticence of the nurse memoirs also insulates the writers from the potential criticism of failing to understand that personal experience of war should be subordinate to a sense of purpose. Nursing was pre-defined as primarily women’s work, and this definition held good when war began, even though in 1914—across the three nations—men still bore substantial responsibility in military health care; the war ensured that military nursing care, as opposed to simple fetching and carrying, was increasingly feminine. Nobody, not even diehard anti-­ feminists, raised principled, a priori objections to women’s involvement, even if there was frequent carping at the margins, especially in the first year of the war. Where gender remained problematic was in the matter of sexuality. Male promiscuity was largely tolerated, even if there were complaints about the morality involved and eminently realistic fears of sexually transmitted disease; female promiscuity, on the other hand, was the subject of extensive fears, surfacing in scandals and preventive policing. Nurses were certainly the subject of male fantasies and—at least in some places—probably wildly inaccurate rumour-mongering. Under these circumstances it is no surprise to find that nurse memoirs are distinctly reticent on the subject. The silence is not absolute: there is enough explicit reference to make it clear that a nurse’s life was not necessarily one of monastic chastity. In this sense, the silence about sexuality which marks the bulk of the corpus 10  Pöll-Naepflin is highly ambiguous: her observations of chaos, failure, and suffering leave little room for illusion; yet despite disillusion and seeing collapsing morale around her, she makes it clear that she never wavers in her commitment to the Austro-Hungarian cause.

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is empirically observable, just as it is in the famous case of the Sherlock Holmes story about the guard dog that did not bark: Gregory: “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” Holmes: “That was the curious incident.” (Silver Blaze)

The dog’s silence was empirically observable: a guard dog barks when strangers approach. In the same way, the limited evidence about nurses’ behaviour justifies the inference made. That it is significant as well as justified is another matter. It is significant because gender was such a central component of debates about, and attitudes to, women in the war; in the absence of this framework, the silence would not be significant, it would merely be modest reticence. The role of the gender debates makes it something more; whence the repetitive and often-commented imagery of the nurse as mother, sister, and ministering angel—anything other than a sexualised being. It is no accident that many of the significant themes in the nurse memoirs involve silence or marginalisation: the limited revelation of the sometimes harsh and risky conditions of nurses’ work; the terrible reality of soldiers’ suffering; the sometimes questionable quality of care, especially the often brutal triage; sexuality. In each of these cases, we learn from the frank texts that such things were far from unknown, even if it is difficult to estimate how close to normal they were. In the absence of evidence it is impossible to know to what extent silence was self-censorship or simply the mark of absence of experience. Moreover, these acts of marginalisation are related to the dominant theme of the nurses’ writings—their commitment to care, shared across frank and reassuring texts—by virtue of being its obverse: to foreground the things which are marginalised would imply that the care was either not as good or not as successful as the reassuring texts indicate; or—perhaps especially in the case of sexuality—that nurses were not the selflessly dedicated creatures that the idealised ‘ministering angel’ image suggested. As Cyril Falls said in his review of Mary Borden, foregrounding the suffering that she reveals risks making the hospital appear a place of horror for the soldier rather than a place of relief (Times Literary Supplement, 5.12.29).

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263

We have seen how contemporary feminists understood women’s contribution to the war effort: the facts would speak for themselves, bare factual records would make the case for equal rights, and especially the vote. Where the vote was concerned, the British and German feminists were right, the French ones not. Where opportunities in the labour market were concerned, the record was more ambiguous in all three countries. However, the one place in which women’s rights and opportunities in the labour market were thoroughly asserted in the aftermath of the war was nursing. The war and the volunteer nurses came at a point in medical history where nurse training had been an important element of the public agenda for some time. Nurse training was still overwhelmingly oriented towards casting them as assistants to doctors, and there is some evidence— despite this precaution—that some doctors feared competition from them; on the other hand, changes in medical practice had ensured that there was a role for nurses with a high degree of training, some of which enabled them to replace doctors in some functions. Military doctors seemed to think that a high level of nurse training was unnecessary, and at least before 1914 preferred a training programme which concentrated on the most basic elements of care. This was particularly visible in Germany because of the tight links between the Red Cross and the military high command (Schweikardt, 2008: 243–4), but it was not restricted to Germany: Jane de Launoy indignantly quotes a military doctor who says one can turn a perfect idiot into a good nurse and ironises about a visiting general who seems to think that “how kind” is enough praise for nurses—no one ever saved a life with good will alone, she says; technique is essential (1936: 85, 80). Professional nurses, on the other hand, were concerned that the dilution of standards in wartime would subsequently threaten their livelihood and/or status and we have seen tensions within the wartime nursing corps arising from differences in training and attitude. After the war, in all three nations, some volunteer nurses were assimilated into the profession and the ways in which this was done varied with the degree of insistence upon training. Reading the nurses’ memoirs leaves little doubt that the volunteer nurses proved themselves—in Ruth Amossy’s words—to be valiant citizenesses, in other words people deserving recognition, gratitude, and full citizen’s rights (Amossy, 2005: 276). The risks that they ran, the sometimes appalling conditions, the wearing, even traumatising, exposure to men’s suffering—all receive ample testimony in the memoirs even when they are not emphasised. The reviews leave little doubt that readers were

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alert to all these features of a nurse’s life. However, the nurse memoirs for the most part emphasised the soldiers more than their own role, and emphasised commitment far more than competence, even if competence could be seen to be implied by the insistence upon the details of work. Given the history of the post-war period, it seems unlikely that the memoirs made much difference to the later treatment of the nurses, although it is certainly the case that their contribution was well remembered in the post-war years. To put it bluntly, the emphasis on commitment did little to recommend the volunteers in the post-war world, except in terms of gratitude.

Bibliography (1) Nurse Memoirs Crémieux, J. (1918). Souvenirs d’une Infirmière. Rauff. de Launoy, J. (1936). Infirmières de Guerre en Service Commandé. L’Edition universelle. Cited in the edition Memogrammes, 2015. Riemann, H. (1930). Schwester der Vierten Armee. Karl Vögels Verlag. Russner, K. (1936). Schwesterndienst im Weltkriege. Breitkopf und Härtel.

(2) Other Contemporary Literature Gaudy, G. (1921). Souvenirs d’un poilu du 57e régiment d’infanterie. Plon-Nourrit. Jünger, E. (1919). Im Stahlgewitter (self-published); 1920 edn: Berlin: Mittler. Senftleben, E., Foerster, W., & Liesner, G. (1934). Unter dem Roten Kreuz im Weltkriege. Vaterländischer Verlag C. A. Weller.

(3) Secondary Literature Acton, C., & Potter, J. (2015). Working in a World of Hurt: Trauma and Resilience in the Narratives of Medical Personnel in Warzones. Manchester University Press. Amossy, R. (2005). L’Image de l’Infirmière de la Grande Guerre de 1914–2004. In Lasserra et al. (Eds.), Mémoires et Anti-Mémoires Littéraires au XX Siècle. La Première Guerre Mondiale (pp. 273–296). Peter Lang. Easthope, A., & MacGowan, K. (1992). A Critical and Cultural Studies Reader. Blackwell. Grabolle, H. (2004). Verdun and the Somme. Akademiai Kiado. Macherey, P. (1966). Pour une Théorie de la Production Littéraire. Maspero.

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Palmer, J. (2018). Memories from the Frontline. Memoirs and Meanings of the Great War from Britain, France and Germany. Palgrave Macmillan. Salm-Reifferscheidt, F. (2010). Frauen in der Kriegskrankenpflege im Ersten Weltkrieg am Beispiel der Rotkreuzschwester Marianne Jarka. MA Thesis, University of Vienna. Schneider, T. (Ed.). (1997). Kriegserlebnis und Legendbildung (Vol. 1). Universiteitsverlag Rausch. Schweikardt, C. (2008). Die Entwicklung der Krankenpflege zur staatlich anerkannten Tätigkeit im 19. und fruhen 20. Jahrhundert. Martin Meidenbauer. Stölzle, A. (2012). Die freiwillige Krankenpflege im Erstern Weltkrieg. Medizinhistorisches Journal, 47(2/3), 176–220.



Appendices

Appendix A: Nurse Memoirs and German and AustroHungarian Prisoners of War in Russia This appendix analyses the memoirs of German and Austro-Hungarian Red Cross nurses sent to inspect prisoner of war (PoW) camps in European Russia and Siberia. It supports and extends the brief analysis of them in Chap. 9, where they were used as an a contrario demonstration of the meaning of reticence about soldiers’ suffering. The Russian army took large numbers of German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners. Conditions in the PoW camps were poor—indeed, in many cases appalling—and the death rate among prisoners was exceptionally high, mainly from epidemic diseases: around 40% of the roughly 2.5 million prisoners and internees died or were declared missing (Davis, 1982: 37). Many remained after the Soviet revolution and peace with Germany and Austro-Hungary, due to the civil war. The history of this part of the Great War is now well known.1 Less well known is what was publicly known about it in Germany and Austro-­ Hungary during the war and in the inter-war years.

1  See the article on ‘Prisoners of War (Russian Empire)’, and the sources cited, in 1914–18 Online.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Palmer, Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany, Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82875-2

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During the war, Red Cross delegations visited the camps and reported to their national Red Cross societies; there are traces of these reports in the contemporary press. In addition, Elsa Brändström—the daughter of a Swedish diplomat in Russia—set up a relief organisation, independent in its origins but later incorporated into the Swedish Red Cross; she stayed in Siberia until July 1920. Her reports and memoirs made her internationally famous (Brändström, 1920, 1929). In accounts of her actions by ex-PoWs she acquired the nickname the “Angel of Siberia”, a reputation publicly maintained in Germany through the whole inter-war period (see e.g. Lieker-Wentzlau, 1932)2, even though she herself shunned contact with the Nazi Party and emigrated to the United States in 1933. After the war, three nurses published substantial accounts of their inspections of the camps (von Walsleben, 1919; von Revertera, 1923; Wenzel, 19313) and two others after World War II (von Üxküll, 1956; Kinsky, 1976). In the inter-­war years many ex-PoWs published accounts of their experiences.4 Extracts from other nurse reports were published in von Hadeln (1934) and von Pflugk-­Harttung (1936). The Nazi-era history of the German Red Cross includes a summary of the nurses’ visits (Senftleben et  al., 1934: 133–43). Aside from the details, the mere fact of this level of attention to this element of the war is itself striking. According to Davis (1982: 40), the Red Cross sisters passed their information to the German and Austrian authorities during the war. Although these reports were not officially made public at the time, the information they contained found its way into the press.5 According to the editorial presentation of extracts from Wenzel (1931) in Altonaer Nachrichten (24.2.32), little was known in Germany about what happened to the PoWs in Russia, and even less about what nurses did for them, before the 1928 wave of new war literature, and especially Dwinger’s Siberian trilogy. However, the fate of PoWs figured frequently in German language news reporting during the war: a search for “Kriegsgefangene” (prisoners of  This text went through 5 editions between 1933 and 1945.  Wenzel’s memoir was also published in substantial extracts in Altonaer Nachrichten, 24.2. to 12.3.32; extracts from both German authors (von Revertera was Austrian) were reprinted in Schickedanz (1936). 4  See the two volume collection edited by Weiland and Kern (1931), see also Wurzer, 2000. In addition, Edwin Dwinger turned his experiences as a PoW in Siberia into a best-­ selling novel trilogy (Dwinger, 1929, 1930, 1932). 5  For example, Berliner Volkszeitung, 28.12.15; Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 30.8.16; see Davis, 1993: 35. 2 3

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269

war) produces 40,000 hits on the Austrian National Library digital collection of newspapers in conjunction with the limited selection of German media available via the Europeana website—the figure is probably an underestimate, and is massively skewed towards Austrian media.6 The sources of information consist of government statements, interviews with returned prisoners—the result of prisoner exchanges and the repatriation of invalids, plus a few escaped prisoners who successfully made their way home—foreign media, material supplied by relief organisations (principally the Red Cross) and correspondence from prisoners in the camps. Many statements are not sourced, and the origin of the information must be inferred; others are deliberately misattributed, to protect the source.7 Conditions of imprisonment are a significant element of this reporting. According to Davis, Russian and German accusations of bad treatment of PoWs were a well-developed element of wartime propaganda: both sides accused the enemy of mistreating their own prisoners, while claiming to treat the enemy’s better (1982: 39); however, these claims do not usually dwell on the details. A well-publicised example concerns the alleged Russian mistreatment of German sailors; the German government retaliated by placing restrictive conditions on Russian prisoners of war in Germany (see, e.g., Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 1.9.16). Wartime news reports are extremely varied in this respect: both ex-PoW interviews and Red Cross reports give conflicting pictures of conditions. For example, the American report that appeared in the German press in late 1915 (e.g. Berliner Volkszeitung, 28.12.15) was entirely reassuring: all prisoners were treated equally and carefully, food was mostly adequate to good, and if the housing was primitive, it was normal for the Russian provinces and clean and pest-free. Prisoners said they were well treated and the interviews produced little in the way of complaints. To the contrary, the widely 6  Only a small selection of German-language media from this period are available in word-­ searchable format. Not only does the Austrian National Library website have a very large selection of titles, in contrast to the very limited German selection available via Europeana, but the latter also includes the German-language titles from the Tyrol, which during the Great War was still Austrian. 7  For example, the report in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung on 30.8.16 (which was widely reprinted in the following days) is attributed to escaped prisoners, whereas in fact it was released without attribution by the Danish Red Cross to the Wolff news agency (Davis, 1993: 35). Similarly, a report based on an interview with an escaped Hungarian officer changes his name and other details to protect those whom the Russian authorities might suspect of helping him escape (Berliner Tageblatt, 5.7.15).

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reprinted report in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (30.8.16) is headlined “Dante’s Hell Russia”; it recounts a litany of horror: half-­ starved prisoners, forced to work in utterly inadequate conditions, building a railway line through frozen marshes in the Arctic circle, are regularly beaten, sometimes to death, by brutal guards employed by private contractors. Attributed reports from and about the Red Cross are largely reassuring. If governments had an incentive to accuse the enemy of inhumanity, soldiers had good reason to hide their sufferings from their families, to avoid causing them unnecessary distress, in the same way that soldiers at the front often hid conditions in the trenches from their families.8 This, in its turn, impacted upon governments: accounts of enemy atrocities easily became a “double-edged sword: it was not always advisable to paint an exaggerated picture of the misery of their compatriots in the brutal hands of the enemy” (Davis, 1982: 39). These factors make generalisations about what was known about PoWs in Russia suspect. In addition, conditions varied greatly between camps in Siberia and in European Russia, and varied according to Russian opinions about the nationality of the prisoners. Certainly not all PoWs had a disastrous experience: after 1918, some 4000 chose to stay in Soviet Russia with their Russian wives and children and others brought their Russian wives back to the homeland with them.9 The choice of destination for prisoners—Siberia or European Russia— was partly based on Russian political calculations about how to deal with an ethnically and politically diverse group. Of the overall prisoner population, the great majority were from the Austro-Hungarian army. This army included many men who were non-Germanic and non-German speaking: Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Bosnians and Croatians, as well as men from smaller populations elsewhere in the empire. The loyalty of many of these peoples was far from assured, as they had political movements 8  See the article ‘War Letters: Communication between Front and Home Front’ in 1914–18 Online. Censorship also played a role here. Soldiers were often more forthcoming to friends than to family. Walsleben notes an officer kept in solitary confinement for months in Siberia who writes only comforting cards home (1919: 67). 9  Nachtigal & Radauer, 2014; Radauer (2015) citing contemporary press reports and Beck (1919), which is a lengthy celebration of sexual relationships between German PoWs and Russian women; the Soviet authorities allowed the legitimation of these relationships. Elsa Brändström’s memoir includes the hilarious story of a German PoW who fathered a child while working on an absent Russian soldier’s farm. On his return, the farmer declared himself absolutely delighted with the prisoner’s farm work – and with his new son (1920: 131–2).

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demanding liberation from the Empire—indeed, the assassination that was the immediate cause of the war derived from Serbian nationalist demands.10 Slavs constituted about half of all Austro-Hungarian prisoners in Russia, and many contemporary reports state that the Russian authorities tried to split them from the rest by giving them better treatment and physically separating them from German-speaking officers; many of them were put in camps in European Russia rather than sent to Siberia, where conditions were notably worse (Nachtigal & Radauer, 2014). The policy of differentiation led to “sharp nationality tensions” and frequent clashes between Slav and non-Slav prisoners (Volgyes, 1973: 57). This was made public during the war by the testimony of a Hungarian officer who escaped.11 In short, conditions for prisoners varied, according to many factors: Russian policy, the vagaries of local administration and the camp commanders, delivery of Red Cross aid, opportunities for work and leisure activities within the camps, medical facilities, and climate. It is against this background that we should read the nurse memoirs. Of the six nurses who published between the wars, five were sent to Russia as official Red Cross delegates; they were received by Russian officials and accompanied by an official “minder”/translator; the sixth was Elsa Brändström.12 They carefully note the circumstances under which they meet prisoners and inspect the camps: they are always accompanied by the minder/translator and have to insist on their right to speak to prisoners alone. They are suspicious of spies placed alongside them (Wenzel in Altonaer Nachrichten, 24.2.32): von Walsleben suddenly discovers that the servant of her Russian interpreter, who appeared to speak no German, had been living in Berlin and spoke it well (1919: 37); von Revertera realises that a man who claimed to speak only English in fact spoke it badly and had fluent Russian (1923: 254). They note that sometimes prisoners say that all is well and that they have no complaints, and that circumstances appear to bear them out; but a whispered aside or frightened looks and gestures show that they are afraid to speak out. They note that anyone who has unofficial dealings with them, or is nice to the prisoners, 10  Although Serbia was already an independent nation (since 1878), Serb nationalists demanded annexation of further territories still controlled by the Empire, and Serb policy towards the Empire was a constant bone of contention in Serbian politics. 11  Reprinted from a Hungarian language newspaper in Berliner Tageblatt, 5.7.15 and Berliner Volkszeitung, 13.7.15. 12  Details of the visits in Davis (1993), Wurzer (2000: 388–95).

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immediately comes under suspicion (von Walsleben, 1919: 41, 57; von Revertera, 1923: 254–6, 261). The conditions they note are as varied as what appeared in the wartime reporting: if one camp is a “vision of hell” (von Revertera, 1923: 260), others—in both European Russia and Siberia—are in relatively good order, at least by Russian standards (von Walsleben, 1919: 16, 26; von Üxküll, 1956: 20–2). Clothing is often inadequate and housing is primitive and they suspect that some of what they see is for show only, even when prisoners do not indicate this (von Revertera, 1923: 256–7).13 Despite the variation, however, basically these diaries note appallingly bad standards of both care and administration: a group of civilian deportees from East Prussia in a camp in Siberia are only there because the military authorities couldn’t think what else to do with them (von Walsleben, 1919: 36); men lack clothing and footwear, the beds are plank platforms, without even any straw, let alone covers; men are so little protected from the cold that their limbs freeze and have to be amputated (von Revertera, 1923: 258, 265; von Walsleben, 1919: 29, 41, 68; von Üxküll, 1956: 24). The death rate from disease is appalling: in one camp, 1500 out of 5000 men died of typhus (von Walsleben, 1919: 31), in another 17,000 out of 25,000 (Wenzel in Altonaer Nachrichten, 26.2.32). Where they see attempts to organise imprisonment correctly and treat prisoners well, they note it, along with improvements they hear have resulted from their complaints (e.g. von Walsleben, 1919: 70; von Revertera, 1923: 260, 266). No doubt von Üxküll’s summary of their experience is right: “Need and misery everywhere” (1956: 27). The nurses also comment on morale and discipline. Von Revertera is appalled to find that there are “renegade” Slav officers and men; at one point, a Bosnian officer steps forward and loudly proclaims his loyalty to the Habsburgs; the next day she discovers he has disappeared—he has “not yet come back from his walk”, says another Slav soldier. She assumes this means that he has been murdered for his expression of loyalty. Elsewhere she notes the mutual hatred between groups of “Kaiser-loyal” and Slav nationalist officers and sees that Russian policy is to separate Slavs from loyalists, to remove political influence, and to actively try to recruit Slav soldiers (1923: 258, 261–2, 267). Von Walsleben makes similar 13  A recently published prisoner diary confirms that his camp was rapidly improved to accommodate Wenzel’s visit, and the facilities were removed once the inspection was over (Wentzler, 2018: n.p.).

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observations about the preservation of morale despite the circumstances, while noting that sometimes morale is poor—which she interprets as due to the impossibility of fighting (1919: 23, 39, 48). The question of morale is especially important because prisoners are afraid that they will be thought cowards for having surrendered (von Üxküll, 1956: 22). That this fear had a basis in reality is attested by its refutation elsewhere. In reviews of a collection of prison camp memoirs (Weiland and Kern, 1931), the reviewers comment that it is all too easy to “associate a certain aftertaste” with the prisoners, insisting that they were captured in the front lines, not in the rear echelons, and that they too were true heroes (Reichspost, 13.10.31; Danzers Armee Zeitung, 22.7.32; Innsbrucker Nachrichten, 11.6.32). Von Walsleben makes the same point in her Foreword (1919: 5). The German nurses’ accounts of their inspection visits remained largely invisible. Although their information is certainly behind some of the wartime reporting, they are not cited; Anna von Revertera, on the other hand, is much cited in Austrian press reports during wartime. I have found no reviews of their memoirs in the pre-Nazi German press (although Wenzel was excerpted—see above). Under the Nazis, these documents were rediscovered and extracted in the compilations quoted in Chap. 9 (see also von Maltzahn, 1936). Elsa Brändström’s memoir was well reviewed and she was personally well received. Her memoir has a different emphasis: her status as a neutral—and a diplomat’s daughter—enabled her to do much more relief work than the German and Austrian nurses; to this extent, her memoir has more stress on the positive than the others. Her report to the International Committee of the Red Cross (Brändström, 1920), which is concerned with the situation post-1918, is a litany of horror, which was briefly summarised in news reporting. She returned to Europe from the USSR in July, 1920 and was immediately in contact with the German Red Cross. Her name is rarely mentioned in press reports before 1920, but her Red Cross report, published in August, appears in news reports during the second half of that year, along with reports of her fund-raising activities in Sweden and subsequent public appearances in Germany and Austria in 1922. It is at this time that her personal reputation is established—in the Hamburger Anzeiger she is “the good angel of German prisoners of war” (20.6.22) and the Volkszeitung and the Berliner Tageblatt have the headline “Sister Elsa Brändström in Berlin”, a clear indication of an established reputation (5.4.22, 6.4.22). The German translation of her memoir appeared in 1922.

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It is difficult to interpret the glaring difference between her public reception and the near-silence which greeted the other nurse accounts of PoWs in the pre-Nazi period. One possibility is that the aristocratic ladies of the Red Cross were somewhat discredited in the post-war years. One of the striking features of the delegate nurses’ memoirs is the extent of reference to the Russian officials and other public figures they met, under what circumstances and how well they were received (e.g. von Walsleben, 1919: 16–18, 50; von Revertera, 1923: 253). They assiduously note the travel arrangements made for them, and in particular the status indications attached to them—private railway carriages, who has been sent to greet them on arrival, whether they were accommodated in the best available place; Magdalena von Walsleben complains at one point that she has only been given a sleeping compartment, not a full lounge car (1919: 35) and Anna von Revertera notes the unexpected luxury of an individual sleeping compartment, wondering who has been pulling strings (1923: 257). As Davis comments, these were aristocratic ladies, accustomed to dealing with Imperial officials as equals or inferiors, and very aware of the importance of society contacts as a means of getting things done; they were also multi-lingual, which enabled them to deal with circumstances far better than their monolingual American counterparts, who were regarded as social inferiors in Russian society as they did not have titles (1993: 38).14 The notes of the niceties of travel and contact occupy a substantial part of their memoirs, as they are part of the “savoir-faire” that enabled them to conduct the activities that constituted their profession: charity. It is easy to imagine that their priorities did not sit well with the concerns of PoW families. The Nazi revalidation of their visits stress their patriotism and dedication to the well-being of the troops. If one compares the German and Austrian nurse memoirs with the wartime reporting, the differences of emphasis are clear. Firstly, there is strong emphasis in the memoirs on the nurses’ own successes in negotiating the intricacies of Imperial military bureaucracy, which is absent from wartime news (and must have seemed irrelevant after 1918). Secondly, wartime reporting—despite some “hell on earth” articles—tends to accentuate the positive, especially the relief efforts, and report good morale among prisoners despite the conditions; questions of political loyalty are conspicuous by their absence, especially in the many Austrian reports referring to Anna 14  According to Walsleben (1919: 10–11), the US delegate had only second-hand knowledge of the camps, as he never got out of the train.

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von Revertera’s visits.15 It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that wartime reporting was calculated to avoid a negative impact on civilian morale, whereas after 1918 the nurses no longer felt constrained by such considerations. Their memoirs are largely catalogues of mistreatment, alleviated by accounts of soldiers’ gratitude at not being forgotten by the homeland. Their Nazi-era rediscovery is part of their generalised validation of the Great War, leavened no doubt by anti-Russian and anti-Communist politics.

Appendix B: Nurses in Post-War French Media The purpose of this analysis is to measure the presence of nurses in French public memory after 1918, as indicated by media mentions in the post-war period: comparison across the first post-war decade will establish to what extent they remained in public memory; comparison with mentions of soldiers will test whether any decline is attributable to decline in interest in the war in general. The method used is quantitative content analysis. Search Terms/Coding Devices  (a) “infirmière* AND guerre” within 100-­ word proximity, (b) “anciens AND combattants” with one-word proximity, and “poilu*”; spelling variants produced no additional reliable data.  Each unit (n = 1) is an issue of a newspaper in which the search term is mentioned at least once; each cell in the results tables gives the total issue/mentions per title per year. The unitisation does not include multiple mentions of the search term within the same issue. This is due to the way in which the search engine assembles the data. Including the extra mentions would certainly increase the n’s, but there is no reason to suppose that the increases would be asymmetric between the sets of search terms. Media Sample  The coverage is the majority of the French daily national press of the period. Four major titles have been omitted: Le Radical, Le Rappel, La Presse and La Lanterne. They largely gave up talking about both nurses and soldiers at some point between 1919 and 1928 (Table B.1). While this is certainly significant, the shift in editorial policy makes the data useless for the purposes of this contrast. 15  The Austrian National Library website delivers 134 issues of newspapers in 1916–17 featuring both ‘Revertera’ and ‘Siberia’; some are false positives, but the majority do refer to her visits and related activities.

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Table B.1  Mentions of nurses and of soldiers in the omitted titles, combining the two search terms for soldiers

Le Radical La Lanterne Le Rappel La Presse Average per-title mentions across other titles

1919

1919

1928

1928

Nurses

Soldiers

Nurses

Soldiers

19 19 11 30 40

194 311 247 266 253

1 1 1 1 19

34 32 28 37 250

Validity and Reliability  The selection of the combination of “nurse” and “war” seemed the most likely set of terms to capture the reality of media mentions of the wartime nurses. Specialist software would have allowed the construction of a more flexible vocabulary, however the Gallica search engine does not allow this. The proximity limit was selected through experimentation: higher limits allowed a mass of false positives and a lower one created too many false exclusions. Nonetheless, the mentions of infirmiere* AND guerre are likely to create an overestimate of the presence of wartime nurses in media space, as the proximity still fails to completely exclude false positives. A small manual sample analysis of actual hits shows a false positive rate of around 25%, partly due to the proximity value and partly to inconsistencies in the search engine. Some hits are missed by the coding device, as there are stories which are absolutely relevant but where the word “guerre” does not appear—for example, a review of Clemenceau-­Jacquemaire’s memoir in Excelsior in 1919. I have no way of estimating the number of missed hits. The term “poilu*” was very commonly used to designate soldiers of the Great War. Although it risks false positives through its literal meaning (hairy), a manual inspection of 10% of hits showed none; on the other hand, there was a racehorse called “Poilu” in 1919, which accounted for a small percentage of hits, and which should probably be considered a false positive, even though the choice of name is arguably significant as a marker of respect. The validity of “anciens combattants” as a fixed phrase is high, as it is unequivocal; its reliability is also high except that it does miss some mentions in the singular. A manual examination of a small sample suggests the underestimate is small.

 APPENDICES 

277

Moreover, the Gallica search engine does not allow the exclusion of advertisements from the data. A random trawl through the papers in that period shows a large number of advertisements for nurses’ employment, both offered and sought, especially in the immediate post-war period, when demobilisation of the nurse organisations produced a large number of women looking for work. The terms “anciens combattants” and “poilu*”, on the other hand, do not appear frequently in advertisements, although the singular variant of the former is occasionally present; however, this singular variant was not used in this data set, as explained above. The implication is that the inclusion of advertisements leads to over-­ estimation of the presence of wartime nurses in media space, at least in 1919. The Data Interpretation Table B.2 shows various features of collective memory in France. Firstly, nurses are dramatically less mentioned than soldiers, but this is not surprising as there were far fewer of them and what they did occupied a lower place in public estimation than what the soldiers did—as we have already seen, the war was defined as “the soldiers’ war”. In any event, it is not important in the present context since the purpose of these measurements is to estimate the (dis)continuity of memory across the decade. Secondly, the absolute number of mentions by title is very varied. This is due to two main factors. Firstly, the size of the paper in question—ceteris paribus, the greater the number of pages, the greater of number of mentions of all themes. Secondly, editorial policy: for example, in two titles (Figaro and Le Gaulois) nurses were mentioned more often in 1919 than were “anciens combattants” (although far less than “poilus”). It is clear from reading these titles that they gave ample space to reporting “society” events, and in 1919 there were many such which featured upper-class women who had been nurses or nurse organisers during the war. Thirdly, the figures show that attention to nurses reduced over the ten-­ year period whereas attention to soldiers did not. In most cases (14 out of 16) the number of mentions of nurses declined, whereas in most cases the numbers of mentions of soldiers either stayed more or less steady or increased; the only dramatic decreases are in Le Populaire, L’Oeuvre and

278 

APPENDICES

Table B.2  Mentions of nurses and soldiers, combining the search terms for soldiers, by title across the first post-war decade, measuring the disparity in numbers of mentions Year

1919

1919

1919

1928

1928

1928

Infirmières Anciens Disparity Infirmières Anciens Disparity combattants combattants and poilu* and poilu* Le Matin Petit Parisien Le Populaire Le Temps La Croix Excelsior L’Homme Libre Paris-Midi Action Française Figaro Le Gaulois L’Intransigeant Le Journal L’Oeuvre L’Humanité* Le Petit Journal Totals Averages

35 43 12 39 55 52 10 23 27

239 238 364 224 169 197 136 237 345

204 195 352 185 114 145 126 214 318

21 27 8 24 11 17 12 11 17

330 399 115 295 150 244 105 150 272

309 372 107 271 139 227 93 139 255

97 117 23 41 24 16 33 647 40

197 260 291 252 332 321 245 4047 253

100 143 268 211 308 305 212

20 26 25 29 17 11 22 298 19

186 253 363 397 289 103 346 3997 250

166 227 338 368 272 92 324

212.5

231

Changed from Socialist to Communist in 1920

*

l’Humanité.16 In particular, the cumulative figures across the titles support this interpretation. The total number of mentions of soldiers shows only a small decrease across the ten years, whereas the mentions of nurses drop by around 50%; the averages tell the same story. The average disparity between the mentions of nurses and those of soldiers increases correspondingly.

16  L’Humanité had become the official organ of the Communist Party in 1920, which changed its editorial policy. L’Oeuvre was pacifist in its orientation during the post-war period, which may have led it to reduce coverage of soldiers. From 1920 Le Populaire was the official organ of the SFIO socialist party, following the break by l’Humanité; this may have led to a change in editorial policy.

 APPENDICES 

279

One explanation of this shift lies in the institutional history of the period. This is made visible in the disaggregation of the two search terms used for mentions of soldiers (Table B.3). Interpretation In 1919, in every case except one, soldiers are mentioned as “poilus” far more often than they are mentioned as “anciens combattants”; in 1928, the inverse is the case—the term “anciens combattants” is consistently more frequent than “poilus”, and by substantial margins. The reason for this is to be found in the evolution of French politics during this decade. The veterans’ associations, which used the phrase “anciens combattants”, were started before the war ended, as self-help groups for wounded soldiers who had been discharged from military duties. In the first years of their existence they were largely locally based, relatively informally structured groups, with little connection between the groups. From the mid-­ 1920s they increasingly adopted a nationwide federal structure, which enabled them to campaign more effectively on a national level. The Table B.3  Mentions of soldiers by search terms and by title, 1919 and 1928

Le Matin Petit Parisien Le Populaire Le Temps La Croix Excelsior L’Homme Libre Paris-Midi Action Française Figaro Le Gaulois L’Intransigeant Le Journal L’Oeuvre L’Humanité Le Petit Journal

1919

1919

Anciens combattants

1919

1928

1928

1928

Poilu* Total soldiers

Anciens combattants

Poilu* Total soldiers

66 41 198 52 38 27 31 53 103

173 197 166 172 131 170 105 184 242

239 238 364 224 169 197 136 237 345

255 310 91 241 116 190 90 108 223

75 89 24 54 34 54 15 42 49

330 399 115 295 150 244 105 150 272

44 44 82 59 83 106 49

153 216 209 193 249 215 196

197 260 291 252 332 321 245

145 195 264 309 218 61 285

41 58 99 88 71 42 61

186 253 363 397 289 103 346

280 

Appendices

period during which they had the greatest leverage was the late 1920s (Prost, 1997: 53–8, 94–111). One of the avowed principal purposes of these associations was to prolong the national memory of the soldiers, a purpose substantially buttressed by the campaigns for special treatment for ex-servicemen, especially pensions for the wounded. Nurses did not have parallel organisations, as the organisations that constituted the French Red Cross had multiple purposes, and in the post-war period the reforms of nursing in France ensured that public focus was more on the changes than on the preservation of memory (see Chap. 10).

Bibliography Beck, C. (1919). Die Frau und die Kriegsgefangenen. Döllinger, 2vv. Brändström, E. (1920). La détresse des prisonniers de guerre en Sibérie. Revue Internationale de la Croix Rouge, 20, 937–941. Brändström, E. (1922/1929). Among Prisoners of War in Russia and Siberia. Hutchinson, 1929 (original Swedish edition 1921, German translation 1922). Davis, G. (1982). Deutsche Kriegsgefangene im Ersten Weltkrieg in Rußland. Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 31, 37–49. Available at: www.degruyter.com Davis, G. (1993). National Red Cross Societies and Prisoners of War in Russia 1914–18. Journal of Contemporary History, 28(1), 31–52. Dwinger, E. (1929). Die Armee hinter Stacheldraht. Diederichs. Dwinger, E. (1930). Zwischen Weiss und Rot. Diederichs. Dwinger, E. (1932). Wir rufen Deutschland. Diederichs. Kinsky, N. (1976). Russisches Tagebuch. 1916–1918. Seewald. Lieker-Wentzlau, H. (Ed.). (1932). Elsa Brändström-Dank. Koch. Nachtigal, R., & Radauer, L. (2014). Prisoners of War (Russian Empire). In 1914–18 Online. Prost, A. (1997). Les Anciens Combattants et la Société Française 1914–39. Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. Radauer, L. (2015). “Returning as a Family Men”. WW1 Prisoners and Their Relationships with Russian Women. Paper given at the German Historical Institute, Paris, 11.12.2015. Summary available at https://grenzenlos.hypotheses.org/106 Schickedanz, M. (Ed.). (1936). Das Heimatheer der deutschen Frauen im Weltkrieg. 4vv. Teubner. Senftleben, E., Foerster, W., & Liesner, G. (1934). Unter dem Roten Kreuz im Weltkriege. Vaterländischer Verlag C. A. Weller. Volgyes, I. (1973). Hungarian Prisoners of War in Russia, 1916–1919. Cahiers du Monde Russe, 14, 54–85. Available at: https://www.persee.fr/doc/ cmr_0008-­0160_1973_num_14_1_1171

 Appendices 

281

von Hadeln, C. (1934). Deutsche Frauen, Deutsche Treue. Traditions Verlag Kolk. von Maltzahn, I. (1936). Die deutsche Frau im Weltkrieg. N.S. Frauen-Warte 4, 577–580, 611–613, 644–666, 669–671, 784–786. von Pflugk-Harttung, E. (1936). Frontschwestern. Ein deutsches Ehrenbuch. Verlag Bernard und Graefe. von Revertera, A. (1923). Als österreichische Rotekreuzschwester in Russland. Süddeutsche Monatshefte, 20(2), 251–281. von Üxküll, A. (1956). Aus einem Schwesternleben. Kohlhammer. von Walsleben, M. (1919). Die deutsche Schwester in Sibirien. Furche Verlag. Weiland, H., & Kern, L. (Eds.). (1931). In Feindeshand. Die Gefangenschaft im Weltkriege in Einzeldarstellungen. Bundesvereinigung der ehemaligen österreichischen Kriegsgefangenen. Wentzler, F. (2018, October 12). Flucht aus Sibirien. Süddeutsche Zeitung. Available at: Tagebuch aus dem Ersten Weltkrieg  – Flucht aus Sibirien  – Gesellschaft – SZ.de. Wenzel, A.  M. (1931). Deutsche Kraft in Fesseln. Fünf Jahr Schwesterndienst in Sibirien. Ernte-Verlag. Wurzer, G. (2000). Die Kriegsgefangenen der Mittelmächte in Rußland im Ersten Weltkrieg. PhD thesis, University of Tuebingen.

Index1

A Admiration (for nurses and women’s war work), 3, 73, 82, 113, 114, 122, 125, 143, 144, 146, 148, 150, 216, 224 Adventurism, 10 Albrecht, E., 135, 138, 143, 144, 144n14, 146, 160n7, 161, 213n3, 216 Altmann-Gottheiner, E., see Women, and war work Antelme, J. de, 129, 150 Authenticity, 13, 13n12, 131, 200, 203, 206, 228, 231, 258 Autobiography, 11, 11n11, 14, 173, 220, 257 B Babo, E., 3n3, 135, 143, 150, 161, 216 Bagnold, E., 157, 163, 172–174, 216n10, 217, 220, 228 Diary without Dates, 172, 173

Balkans, see Theatre of war Barbusse, H., 78n7, 230–232, 231n26 Le Feu/Under Fire, 78n7 Bäumer, G., 84, 86 Beck, C., 270n9 Bing, O., 137n7 Blunden, E., 5, 159n6 Bochkareva, M. (1919), 2n1 Borden, M., 5, 6, 14n15, 156–160, 166, 168, 174, 178, 228–230, 238, 261, 262 Forbidden Zone, 156 Brändström, E., 6, 6n9, 16, 108n10, 119, 133, 133n5, 168n16, 197n23, 205, 238, 240, 244n15, 268, 270n9, 271, 273 Brittain, V., 5, 6, 8, 12, 117, 119, 165, 166, 167n15, 172, 176–178, 176n24, 177n26, 215, 220, 224, 228, 230, 233n30, 238, 255, 258 Testament of Youth, 233n30 Brodrick, G., 131

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 J. Palmer, Nurse Memoirs from the Great War in Britain, France, and Germany, Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82875-2

283

284 

INDEX

C Capy, M., 79 Une Voix de Femme dans la Melée, 79 Cator, D., 171 Charity, role of in nursing, 20, 21, 23, 27–30, 32, 32n10, 34–38, 40, 41, 62, 75, 88, 90, 93, 117, 119, 132, 133n6, 177, 186, 242, 243, 248, 274 Churches, role of in nursing, see Charity, role of in nursing Clemenceau-Jacquemaire, M., 132, 134, 135, 138, 139, 142n12, 157, 158, 158n5, 162–164, 166–168, 166n14, 171, 174, 178, 178n28, 179, 202, 216n9, 217, 225, 226, 228, 229, 231, 233n30, 255n2, 257, 260, 276 Collective memory, 2n1, 237–249, 254, 277 Colombel, E., 132, 156 Commemoration, 12, 110, 132, 163, 178, 204, 237–241, 239n6, 240n7, 240n8 Commitment (to patient care and/or duty), 9, 32, 98, 132, 135, 138, 139, 141, 143, 147, 149, 151, 158, 165, 166, 169, 171, 172, 179, 213, 228, 233, 257, 262 Commitment (to war), 84, 87, 114, 141, 142, 169, 174, 186, 229 Contention, see Controversy Context, implications of, 14, 98, 213, 214, 254 Controversy, 8, 14, 73–76, 85, 103, 191, 191n17, 199, 230, 255, 271n10 Co-operation and non-co-operation of patients, 52 Crémieux, J., 131, 137, 161, 226, 240

D Das Schwarze Korps, 193, 214n5 Dedication (to care), see Commitment (to patient care and/or duty) Deutscher Bund zur Bekämpfung der Frauenemanzipation, 85 Die Deutsche Kämpferin, 195, 196, 204 Disease, 25, 26, 34, 47, 49, 49n6, 54, 56, 63–66, 138, 155, 161, 162, 201, 221, 221n15, 222, 245, 261, 267, 272 Duhamel, G., 221, 225, 261 D’Ulmes, R., 137, 145 Dwinger, E., 268, 268n4 E Eastern Front, see Theatre of war Emancipation, see Women, rights of Epidemics, see Disease Ethics, 52, 58n24 Experience, personal, 1, 9, 10, 13, 14, 49n7, 130–133, 135, 139, 140n9, 198, 206, 211, 212, 214, 230, 232, 237, 253, 255, 261 Eydoux-Demians, M., 131, 132, 143–146, 149, 150, 164, 178, 217 F Falls, C., 156, 156n3, 262 Fawcett, M., 77, 78, 78n5, 98 Feminism, 1, 77, 81, 90, 178, 188, 189, 189n11, 192, 213, 258n7, 260 Nazis and feminism, 193 Finzi, K., 38, 64n34, 107, 116, 117, 131, 146, 161, 169

 INDEX 

First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), 37n14, 119, 132, 135, 145, 149, 159, 170n20, 172, 179 France, 3, 5, 13n12, 14, 19–23, 25n7, 26n8, 27–31, 36n13, 37–40, 47, 49, 50n9, 52, 54n17, 56, 58, 60n28, 61, 63, 75, 75n3, 78, 81n12, 81n14, 82, 88–92, 97, 103, 104, 107, 114, 116, 118, 120, 123–125, 139, 141–143, 146, 149, 173, 183, 214, 226, 228, 232, 238–240, 242–244, 246, 247, 249, 277, 280 Franchise, see Emancipation Frankness, 10, 130, 131, 140, 156, 165n12, 166, 168–173, 176, 178, 179, 199n29, 202, 203, 228, 229, 233, 253, 257–260, 259n9 G Gender, 1, 8, 10, 11, 73, 76, 79, 97, 98, 112, 113, 121, 125, 188, 189, 195, 214, 254, 255, 261, 262 norms and roles, 9, 11, 73, 124, 179, 254, 262 Genevoix, M., 63, 130, 168n17 Germany, 3n2, 6, 6n9, 13n12, 14–16, 19, 20, 22, 22n3, 23, 25n7, 26n8, 31–38, 36n13, 50, 50n9, 53, 54, 57, 75n2, 75n3, 76, 77n4, 78, 81n14, 82–88, 97, 103, 104, 106n8, 108n10, 122, 123, 125, 138, 142, 156, 175, 183–206, 214, 238–240, 238n4, 240n7, 244, 247, 249, 258, 259, 263, 267–269, 273 Goebbels, J., see Nazi, Nazi period Gottschewski, L., 193, 194, 194n19, 197

285

Gramont, E. de, 162, 165, 166n14, 177n25, 220, 223 Gratitude (to nurses), 103, 125, 226 Great Britain, 13n12, 22–27, 37, 81n14, 91n20, 92–95, 243 H Hadeln, C. von, 62n32, 156, 175, 189, 197, 199n29, 200–204, 268 Deutsche Frauen, Deutsche Treue, 156, 175 Heroism, 111, 116, 132, 134, 143, 167, 168, 174, 189, 192, 198n27, 200, 204, 256, 259 Hirschfeld, M., 218, 221 Hitler, A., see Nazi, Nazi period Hörner-Heintze, S. von, 42, 120n22, 133, 157, 159, 160, 164, 165, 189, 197, 201–204, 216, 217, 221 Hospitals, see Medical profession; Military medical systems Hrouda, E., 37n14, 40n18, 42, 57n20, 67, 118, 119, 157, 199n29, 216, 222, 226 Hygiene, 23, 26, 29, 30, 39, 48, 50, 56, 57, 133, 162, 217, 226 I Ideology, 11, 14, 183, 184, 189, 194, 233 Impropriety, see Sex J Jerrold, D., 13, 14 Joachimi-Dege, M., 192, 193, 214n5 Jünger, E., 5, 49n5, 64, 184n3, 230n24, 256n3

286 

INDEX

K Kern, L., 273 Kinsky, N., 268 Klatt, E., 134, 190, 197, 199n29, 200 Die Deutsche Frau im Weltkrieg, 134 L La Boulaye, M. de, 116, 135, 142, 144–146, 164 La Motte, E., 14n15, 135, 141, 158, 162, 164, 166, 168, 174, 178, 230, 232, 259n8, 261 The Backwash of War, 141, 232 Launoy, J. de, 117, 131, 156, 157, 174, 215, 218, 220, 257, 263 Leune, Mme J., 151 Logistics (transport of wounded), 60, 61, 63, 64 Luard, K., 144, 148–150, 156, 157, 157n4, 159, 161, 170, 172–174, 174n23, 225, 227 Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 132, 148 Lüders, M., 184, 198, 199 M Macnaughtan, S., 109, 134, 142, 149, 174, 229–231, 255 A Woman’s Diary of the War, 174, 229 Macpherson, Sir W., 53, 55, 57, 58, 61, 65, 221n15 Maltzahn, I. von, 197, 198n27, 205, 273 Martin-Nicholson, S., 151 Martineau, J., 117, 133, 146, 163, 165, 216, 226, 257 Journal d’une Infirmière, 133 Masson, F., 119

Media mentions (of nurses), 2n1, 5n7, 63, 79n8, 81n13, 87, 88, 92, 103, 106, 106n7, 107, 108n11, 115, 123, 141, 188, 196, 239, 240, 269, 271n11, 275, 275n15, 276 Medical history, see Medical profession; Military medical systems Medical profession, 1, 2, 6, 7, 10, 15, 19–43, 47, 50, 51n10, 53, 55–57, 61–63, 61n30, 62n32, 64n37, 65, 66, 80–82, 81n12, 81n13, 81n14, 106, 107, 110n13, 112, 114–119, 124, 132–135, 133n6, 138, 139, 141, 144, 148, 150n23, 151, 155n1, 156, 157, 159–165, 160n7, 161n8, 161n9, 170–173, 175, 189, 200–203, 215–217, 220–223, 225–227, 226n19, 233, 243, 245, 256, 262, 263 Memorials, see Commemoration Mierisch, H., 42, 129, 162–165, 175, 189, 201, 203, 204, 215, 216, 221, 257 Military medical systems, 7, 10, 19–43, 47, 50, 50n8, 51n10, 52–68, 61n30, 62n32, 64n37, 80–82, 81n12, 81n13, 81n14, 106, 107, 110n13, 112, 114–119, 124, 132–135, 133n6, 138, 139, 141, 144, 148, 150n23, 151, 155n1, 156, 157, 159–165, 160n7, 161n8, 161n9, 170–173, 175, 189, 200–203, 215–217, 220–223, 225–227, 226n19, 233, 245, 256, 262, 263 Misme, J., 78, 80, 213, 258, 260 Mitton, G., 48n2, 108, 108n11, 110, 112, 113n16, 145, 151 The Cellar-House of Pervyse, 110

 INDEX 

Mobilisation, 49, 52, 53, 58, 61, 74, 75, 79, 85, 88, 90, 91, 199, 212, 246, 254 Monuments, see Commemoration Morale, 121n24, 140–144, 147, 149, 152, 162, 168, 171, 177n27, 184, 227, 229, 232, 261n10, 272–275 Mordtmann, H., 146 Munck, R., 42, 175 N Nazi, Nazi period, 3n2, 6, 54, 131, 143n13, 156, 168, 169n19, 175, 176, 178n28, 183–206, 213, 214, 225, 232n29, 233, 238n4, 241, 244, 248, 254, 260, 268, 273, 274 and women’s position in society, 6, 184, 191, 196, 205, 214, 233 Newspapers, see Media mentions (of nurses); Reviews of memoirs Nightingale, Florence, 19–24, 30, 32, 33, 35 N.S. Frauenbuch, 190n14, 193, 197n25 N.S. FrauenWarte, 190, 194, 197, 205 Nursing numbers of nurses, 4, 6, 27 professional/volunteer, 7, 35, 41, 58, 245 reform of, 21, 23, 24, 26, 30, 36–38, 40, 216n10, 237–249 training, 7, 19, 21–23, 22n2, 23n5, 26, 29–36, 117, 217, 246, 248, 263 Nursing Adventures. A FANY in France, 119, 132, 149, 159, 170n20, 171

287

P Pacifism, 10, 77, 79, 229 Pankhurst family, 77 Patriotism, 88, 93, 139, 142, 143, 147, 151, 165, 174–176, 212, 230, 258, 274 Perrin, Laure, 41n23, 133n5 Pervyse, women of, 5, 107, 109, 113, 114, 120, 151, 214, 241, 257n4 Pflugk-Harttung, E. von, 139, 156, 175, 189, 199n29, 200, 203, 204, 206, 244, 268 Frontschwestern, 156, 175, 202 Pittard, H, see Roger, N. Pöll-Naepflin, M., 6, 9n10, 12, 145, 158n5, 161–163, 166, 168, 176, 176n24, 177, 177n27, 199n29, 202, 222, 227, 230, 257, 261 Prisoners of war (PoW), see Siberia, German prisoners of war in, nurses’ visits Professionalism in nursing, see Nursing, reform of Propriety, see Sex Public health, 1, 7, 21, 22n2, 23n5, 26n8, 28, 33n12, 36, 41, 246, 247, 249 Public opinion, 5, 15, 16, 123, 125, 130, 212, 243 Q Quality of care, 130, 229, 260, 262 See also Wounds Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Corps (QUAIMNS), 227 Reibold, E., 144, 160 R Reassurance, 114, 130, 131, 140, 141, 158, 169–172, 253

288 

INDEX

Reception, 2, 38, 121, 122, 138, 190, 202, 213, 255, 274 See also Reviews of memoirs Red Cross, 33, 34, 36, 37n14, 40, 42, 47, 49, 49n4, 52, 53, 57, 57n20, 58, 58n24, 61, 90, 105n5, 106, 107n9, 115, 117, 118, 118n21, 131, 133, 165, 205, 215, 216n10, 221, 222, 232, 240, 241, 243, 246, 263, 268–271, 273, 274 Refusal of treatment, see Co-operation and non-co-operation of patients Registration (of nurses), see Nursing, reform of; Nursing, training Religion, role in nursing, see Charity, role of in nursing Remarque, E., 3, 167, 168n17, 184, 230, 244 Im Westen Nichts Neues/All Quiet on the Western Front, 3, 167, 184, 230, 230n23, 244 Renn, L., 5 Revertera, A. von, 211, 212, 268, 268n3, 272–275, 275n15 Reviews of memoirs, 2n1, 5n7, 63, 79n8, 87, 88, 103, 106, 106n7, 107, 108n11, 115, 123, 137n7, 141, 146n17, 188, 196, 202, 204, 239, 240, 244, 269, 271n11, 273, 275, 275n15 See also Reception Rhetoric, 187n8, 213, 233 Riemann, H., 5, 6, 55, 62n32, 131, 160, 162, 165–169, 169n19, 172, 174, 179, 202, 202n32, 203, 214, 214n6, 218, 220, 226, 230, 238, 260 Rights, see Women, rights of Roger, N., 132, 132n4, 137n7, 139, 145, 148, 150, 256 Les Carnets d’une Infirmière, 256

Rogge-Börner, S., 193, 195 See also Die Deutsche Kämpferin Royaumont, 80–82, 81n12, 81n13, 81n14, 98, 213, 258, 258n7 Rüdgisch, E., 61, 107n9, 136, 143, 144, 146, 150, 162, 169 Unterm Roten Kreuz, 136 Russner, K., 158, 160, 163, 165, 175, 189, 200, 204, 221, 226, 256, 260 S St. Clair Stobart, M., 48n2, 120 Salmond, M., 3n3, 5, 132, 156, 160, 215, 216, 238 Bright Armour, 132, 156 Sandes, F., 2n1 Sardent, M. de, 135, 140n10, 151, 160n7 Schickedanz, M, 156n2, 197n24, 199, 200n30, 205, 268n3 Scottish Women, see Royaumont Senftleben, E., 4, 106n8, 150n23, 161n10, 165n11, 189, 199n29, 268 Sex, 40, 80n11, 191, 195, 220, 222 Siberia, German prisoners of war in, nurses’ visits, 6n9, 16, 123, 165n12, 168n16, 205, 211, 232, 267–275, 268n4 Silence, 2, 14, 15, 106, 115n19, 121, 126, 130, 131, 178, 197, 211, 215, 220, 224, 227, 233, 253–254n1, 258, 261, 262 Sinclair, M., 109, 109n12, 111, 120, 214 Soldiers, 1, 23, 49, 73, 103, 132, 156, 191, 212, 237, 254, 267 soldiers’ memoirs, 1, 3, 12–14, 49n7, 130, 140n9, 159n6, 168, 178, 197, 227, 231, 232, 238, 242, 255

 INDEX 

Sonnenthal-Scherer, M., 162, 163, 166n14, 174, 174n23, 217n12, 229, 259n8 Stiassny, S., 222 Strategy, authorial or narrative, 13, 14, 129–152, 155–180, 212, 213 Sturzenegger, A., 48n2, 107n9 Suffragettes, see Women, rights of Sutherland, M. Duchess of, 133, 133n5, 170 T Taudière, H., 133n5, 151 Theatre of war, 9, 48n3, 49, 56, 56n18, 58, 59n27, 63, 64n34, 67, 81n12, 94, 155n1, 160, 161, 161n10, 165, 173, 201, 230 Thurstan, V., 120, 131, 151, 158 Transgression, 10, 11, 224, 254 Triage, 51, 64, 66, 67, 159, 160n7, 217, 227, 262 U Unsettling, see Frankness Üxküll, A. von, 268, 272, 273 V Voluntary Auxiliary Detachment (VAD), 37n14, 38–40, 119, 120, 145, 157, 167n15, 172, 217, 245, 246

289

Voluntary work, 74–76, 93 See also Nursing, professional/ volunteer Voss, H., 140, 142, 146 W Walsleben, M. von, 268, 270n8, 271–274, 274n14 War literature, 3–5, 8, 167, 168, 173, 183, 184, 194n18, 196, 196n22, 197, 200, 238, 268 A War Nurse’s Diary, 138, 169 Warner, A., 14n15, 61n30, 145, 169 Weaponry and medicine, 48, 55, 59 the ‘humanitarian bullet,’ 59, 60n28 Weiland, H., 273 Weimar period, 185, 248 Wells, H.G., 94 Wenzel, A.M., 62n32, 168n16, 268, 268n3, 271–273, 272n13 Western Front, see Theatre of war Women rights of, 2, 3, 34, 50, 52, 73, 74, 77–82, 78n7, 84–86, 88, 97, 98, 106, 185, 186, 188–191, 198, 224, 254, 258, 260, 263 and war work, 10, 73–98, 103–126, 179 Wounds, 20, 29, 48, 51, 54–56, 59, 60, 60n28, 61n30, 62–64, 63n33, 66, 66n38, 94, 106, 108, 111, 117, 123, 133, 138–140, 144–147, 149, 155–164, 169–171, 201, 217, 224, 225, 227, 229, 232