When war was considered very much a male environment, why did women petition to be militarised on an unprecedented scale? Why did they take their own volunteer groups to the front?
There was no legal or moral obligation on women. They were not conscripted and they were not subjected to the white feather campaign, but there was a growing sense of duty to support their men and their country.
Following the declaration of war, it was not just men who rushed to volunteer. Red Cross Nurse, Violetta Thurstan saw queues of women waiting to register for war work in London. She feared that most of them had no medical training and would be of little use, yet their sense of patriotism was undeniable. Katharine Furse, Commandant of the Voluntary Aid Detachment scheme, said that she had to turn away numerous applicants, but rather than dampen their enthusiasm she organised first aid courses for them.
Beneath the patriotism, a deeper sentiment drove the women onward, even after early enthusiasm for the war began to wane. During the 19th century, a significant social movement had built up momentum; this was known as the ‘women’s movement’. In 1918 Great Britain granted women political suffrage and this major event is often used to illustrate the impact that the war had on women, a tangible reward for their hard-work. Much research has gone into the struggle for suffrage and the demonstrative Suffragettes who grabbed headlines, but the women’s movement was bigger than suffrage. Whilst groups like the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies created networks for like-minded women to meet together and gave them a public voice, they also provided launch-pads for new groups and societies such as the Women’s Sick and Wounded Convey Corps and the Scottish Women’s Hospital. Alongside political campaigns, women worked hard to improve their educational opportunities and towards the end of the 1800s, a growing number began to attend university. In 1849 Doctor Elizabeth Blackwell made history by becoming the first woman to be awarded an MD from an American medical school. Returning to Britain to practice, she inspired Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and a whole generation of women to follow her example. With the education gap closing, women began to look for gender equality in the workplace.
Not all women who volunteered in the Great War were campaigners for equality or political activists, but they all shared a new level of confidence, a belief in their own abilities which continued to grow even when the war dragged on and the large numbers of casualties and overwhelming levels of suffering tested their courage. The War gave the women the opportunity to demonstrate on a worldwide platform that they were able to take on new responsibilities and do the same jobs as men.
Doctor Flora Murray co-founder of the Women’s Hospital Corps in 1914 had been a Suffragette and declared her new organisation was politically motivated. For the majority of female doctors though - such as Australian Agnes Bennett, American Rosalie Morton and Frenchwoman Nicole Mangin - it was a chance to learn new skills, face new medical challenges and give help where it was most needed. For Mabel St Clair Stobart, war offered adventure and she longed to be in the middle of the action. She joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry in its formative years, but feeling it lacked direction she formed her own auxiliary medical group, the Women’s Sick and Wounded Convoy. The Convoy Corps succeeded in going out to Bulgaria during the Balkan Wars 1912-13, where they were sent to the front. When the First World War started, Stobart went straight to Belgium, only to be arrested as a spy by the invading Germans. Escaping prison Stobart then ran a hospital in Cherbourg, but she did not feel suitably challenged and so she joined the Serbian Relief Fund and arrived in Serbia in the midst of typhus epidemic. When the Austrians and Bulgarians invaded she offered her unit to the Serbian Army.
Whether or not it was compassion, ambition, patriotism, politics or a sense of adventure that made women want to contribute to war work, it was the women’s movement which gave an entire generation the impetus to take action and ultimately head to the front.
Elisabeth Shipton is the author of Female Tommies: The Frontline Women of the First World War, a book which tells the story of women in the First World War at the front line, under fire, and in combat. Through their diaries, letters and memoirs, meet the women who defied convention and followed their convictions to defend the less fortunate and fight for their country.