Veiled Warriors: Allied Nurses of the First World War

384 Pages·2014·3.22 MB·English

by  Christine E. Hallett

VEILED WARRIORS

veiled
WARRIORS
allied nurses of the
first world war
Christine E. Hallett
3
3
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© Christine E. Hallett 2014
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First Edition published in 2014
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To
Margaret D. Hallett
and Keith Brindle
with love and thanks

Preface
The nurses of the First World War came from a range of national
and cultural backgrounds; yet, they shared a common identity and
purpose. At the outbreak of the so-called ‘Great War’ they were
only just beginning to act in concert as a nascent global profession.
In 1899, a group of prominent nurse-leaders had founded the
International Council of Nurses, and in 1912 a meeting in Co-
logne, Germany, had brought nurses of many nations together in
an atmosphere of mutual support. Within two years, these same
nurses would be on opposing sides in the bitterest of conflicts. One
of the main limitations of this book is its failure to capture the lives
and work of nurses who cared for the wounded of the so-called
‘Central Powers’ (particularly Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria,
and Turkey). My own limitations have dictated the parameters of
the project. Even my attempt to fully capture the experiences and
contributions of ‘Allied’ nurses (focusing particularly on British,
French, Belgian, Russian, Romanian, Australian, New Zealand,
South African, Canadian, and US nurses) is affected by my lack of
skill in the Flemish, French, Russian, and Romanian languages.
The history presented here is a partial and distorted one, written
by an English-speaking historian from a highly Anglocentric
perspective.
And the partiality does not end there. When I began to research
this book, I believed it would be possible to capture the realities of
the lives and work of Allied nurses. I was conscious that powerful
ideas—or ideals—of First World War nurses pervaded the public
viii Preface
consciousness, and I wanted to push aside the distorting veil of
mythology and present a truer reality. Yet, even as I began to dis-
mantle the representations created by both memory and imagin-
ation, I realized that I was only unearthing new layers of mythology.
The project of separating myth from reality—a project I had be-
lieved would be so simple—came to resemble an attempt to pull
apart two strands of DNA, and I realized that, even if the realities
of nurses’ lives could be disengaged from the myths by which they
had been understood, the result would be so lacking in vitality that
it would hardly be a history of human beings.
The writing and teaching of History is a dangerous occupation.
As E. H. Carr pointed out, there really are no such things as histor-
ical ‘facts’—there is only a historical record, which is subject to
interpretation. But that does not mean we can do whatever we like
with it. There are so many reasons why our knowledge of the past
may be either deliberately or unconsciously distorted. Social and
political elites have always been tempted to promote propagandist
versions of past events. And media producers are under pressure to
achieve commercial success—a pressure which does not lend itself
to a detailed empirical unpicking of the historical record.
‘Human kind cannot bear very much reality’, wrote T. S. Eliot.
It is, in many ways, easier to construct a coherent mythology than
to grapple with an often-incoherent reality. But the most dangerous
make-beliefs are those which are unconsciously propagated in the
name of ‘History’. In the twenty-first century, media representa-
tions of nurses are proliferating at a confusing rate. And our col-
lective memory of the First World War is replete with distortions.
As I write this book, broadcasting companies, museums, and pub-
lishers are preparing themselves to offer centenary commemor-
ations of the First World War. Their aim is twofold: to honour the
dead whilst at the same time feeding the hunger of a public whose
consciousness has been blunted by a long-standing diet of soap op-
eras, reality shows and instant news. Steeped as they are in such
representations of human life, modern societies are ill-prepared to
Preface ix
commemorate a series of events which are no longer within the
reach of first-hand memory.
Twenty-first-century historians experience peculiar pressures.
They find themselves caught between their own desires for dis-
covery and creativity and external demands for ‘outputs’, ‘in-
come’, and ‘impact’. Such conflicts place integrity under strain,
and historians need to be as aware as possible of the ways in which
they may be feeding their own and others’ expectations and de-
sires. In my own case, I was attracted to the work of First World
War nurses because it seemed to encompass the broadest possible
range of healing practices. I could not help admiring the nurses’
capacity to offer both fundamental nursing care and highly tech-
nical and scientific treatments. I found myself comparing them to
modern nurses, who seem to struggle to express both the artistic
and the scientific elements of their work. This is, perhaps, un-
fair—it certainly is unhistorical. But I could not help wondering
how those who nursed the wounded of the First World War were
able to offer such scope of practice under such difficult and
stressful conditions. And I also wanted to offer a broad narrative
of their lives and work: to tell their collective ‘story’. In my attempt
to complete this project, I found my thinking constantly enmeshed
in the stories told by others: not just historians, novelists, and
film-makers but the nurses themselves, through their letters, diaries,
and semi-fictional accounts. Ultimately, my research was domin-
ated by nurses’ own personal testimonies, although it was comple-
mented and balanced by a study of other archive sources, as well
as a range of secondary materials. And, by immersing myself in
their own writings, I came to argue that Allied nurses believed
they were engaged in a multi-layered battle: for lives, for recogni-
tion, and for equality. I hope that it is, indeed, the voices of the
nurses themselves that are heard most clearly in this book, and
that I have been able to represent them in a way that openly and
honestly fuses the reality of their experiences with my own inter-
pretation of their lives and work.