Call to Duty: Women and World War I

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Call to Duty: Women and World War I Call to Duty: Women and World War I

Jennifer D. Keene

Chapman University

, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation

Keene, Jennifer D. “Call to Duty: Women and World War I,”

Oklahoma HUMANITIES Magazine

, 7, no. 3

(2014): 22-25.

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Call to Duty: Women and World War I Call to Duty: Women and World War I

Comments Comments

This article was originally published in

Oklahoma HUMANITIES Magazine

, volume 7, issue 3, in fall 2014.

Oklahoma Humanities Council

This article is available at Chapman University Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/

history_articles/20

22 Fall 2014

aying good-bye to her ﬁancé Roland Leighton in London as he headed to the Western Front was an emotional experience

for Vera Brittain. Her fear for his safety bubbled forth as she angrily confronted him about why he had decided to ﬁght. In

her 1933 memoir, Testament of Youth, she recalled:

He replied that he hardly knew…. He neither hated the Germans nor loved the Belgians; the only possible motive for

going was “heroism in the abstract,” and that didn’t seem a very logical reason for risking one’s life.

Watching loved ones depart, uncertain if they would return—this was an experience that women around the world shared during

the Great War. The continual scene of women sending men off to ﬁght was troubling; paradoxically, it was also a familiar, traditional

ritual that reinforced gender roles within western societies.

Promoting Patriotism

A tremendous amount of wartime propaganda urged women to send their men off bravely. The exchange between Vera and

Roland helps explain why governments believed this propaganda was necessary—to ensure that enough men would agree to

leave their loved ones to ﬁght. British posters entreated men to enlist to protect family honor. Propaganda leaﬂets urged women

to ask their menfolk if “they were not worth ﬁghting for.” The poster captioned “Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?”

(displayed in sidebar at right) forecasts a future where children hold their fathers accountable for wartime actions—or inaction.

Admiral Charles Penrose Fitzgerald suggested that young British women hand out white feathers (a symbol of cowardice) to

publicly shame young able-bodied men in civilian dress.

U.S. propaganda posters pictured voluptuous women encouraging men to enlist, reﬂecting an emerging advertising culture

that relied on sex appeal to sell products. German posters took a more traditional stance, depicting women as dutiful mothers

and wives willing to serve the nation in any capacity. Consensus and unity were dominate German themes rather than American-

style sexual adventure and virility. French posters addressed the nation’s preoccupation with its declining birthrate. A French

woman’s patriotic duty did not end with sending her husband off to war. She was also instructed to procreate, safeguarding

France’s future by building the next generation of soldiers.

Women and World War I

Call to Duty

By Jennifer D. Keene

How women adapted to a world at war

Oklahoma Humanities 23

Danger and Deprivation

You love us when we’re heroes, home on leave

Or wounded in a mentionable place;

You worship decorations, and believe

That chivalry redeems the war’s disgrace.

These words from British poet Siegfried Sassoon’s poem “The Glory of

Women” reveal the dichotomy in wartime roles for men and women. Men ﬁght

and women support them. Men learn about the horrors of war; women on the

home front remain innocent and somewhat foolish by continuing to believe in

the glory of battle. Reality was more complicated.

For many women there was no distinction between battlefront and home

front. Either way, the war came to them. The German invasion and occupation

brought the very real danger of rape and death to the doorsteps of women

living in Belgium and northern France. Along the Eastern Front, large swaths of

territory changed hands frequently between Allied and Central Power forces.

To escape the paths of advancing armies, hundreds of thousands of civilians in

the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires ﬂed, often traveling far behind the

lines. This massive refugee crisis disproportionately affected women, who lost

their homes and livelihood and were left struggling to shelter, feed, and clothe

their children. The plight of women along both the Western and Eastern Fronts

aroused the sympathies

of aid societies (often run

by women) in the United

States and British Empire

who mobilized to send

humanitarian aid overseas.

The novel methods

used to wage war also

brought physical suffering

and even death into the

daily lives of many women.

German Zeppelin raids on

London and aerial attacks

on Paris killed women going to church or taking their children to school.

In Germany and Austria-Hungary, the ever-tightening Allied blockade forced

millions of women to spend hours each day waiting in bread lines. “Our

thoughts are chieﬂy taken up with wondering what our next meal will be,”

noted one woman in Berlin in 1917. Some lost patience. Food riots were

not uncommon. In Russia, where the war disrupted agricultural production,

authorities recognized the political implications of women’s rising desperation.

On the eve of the 1917 Russian Revolution, one ofﬁcial report warned: “The

mothers of families, who are exhausted by the endless standing in line at the

stores, who are worn out by the suffering of seeing their children half-starved

and sick, may be much closer to revolution.”

Food shortages prompted ofﬁcials to regulate women’s shopping

and cooking activities. From London to New York and Africa to Australia,

propaganda urged women to readjust their families’ diets. Germany, France,

and Britain implemented rationing to limit supply. In the United States, a major

food producer for the Allies, the Food Administration launched a massive

campaign to stimulate food conservation. Women who signed a pledge card

agreeing to abide by Food Administration guidelines received a pamphlet with

suggested recipes. They also got a sign to hang in their windows to advertise

their compliance to neighbors. “If you have already signed, pass this on to a

friend,” the pledge card instructed. These peer-pressure tactics proved quite

effective. Enlisting women to monitor the housekeeping practices of their

neighbors, the Food Administration expanded its reach into kitchens across

the nation.

Vera Brittain’s ancé, Roland Leighton, and her brother,

Edward, volunteered for the British army and were dispatched

to ght at the Western Front. Wanting to join their efforts,

she left her studies at Oxford to become a nurse with the

Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD). Image courtesy The First

World War Poetry Digital Archive (oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit),

University of Oxford; © copyright Literary Executors, Vera

Brittain Estate and The Vera Brittain Fonds, McMaster Univ.

Library, Canada.

Governments used peer pressure, guilt, sex appeal, and

other tactics to compel citizens to fulll the needs of the war

effort. “Enlist!” was the major message to men. Women were

called to “duty” everywhere—at the ofce, in the elds, at

the war front, and at the family dinner table. Top row, left:

Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War? Parliamentary

Recruiting Committee, London, 1915. Right: I Want You for

The Navy, Howard Chandler Christy, 1917. Middle row, left:

Stenographers! Washington needs you!; Prudential Litho. Co.,

1917. Right: National Service, Women’s Land Army. God Speed

the Plough and the Woman Who Drives It, H.G. Gawthorn,

1917, London. Bottom row, left: Third Red Cross Roll Call,

Haskell Cofn, 1918. Right: Eat less, and let us be thankful

that we have enough to share with those who ﬁght for freedom,

A. Hendee, 1918. Courtesy Library of Congress.

“

For the first time I was

going to be someone,

I would have a personal

role to play, I would

count in the world.”

24 Fall 2014

Daring Discrimination

Rather than simply wait for loved ones to return

and normal routines to resume, many women chose

to put on uniforms. In the heroic spirit of Joan of

Arc and Florence Nightingale, women volunteered

to serve in medical units as nurses or ambulance

drivers. With no news as to the fate of her ﬁancé or

brother, Vera Brittain’s decision to become a nurse,

she said, brought “tranquility to exactly the extent that

it diverted my mind from the letter that had not come

or the telegram that might be coming.”

“A young girl in ordinary life is nothing or next to

nothing,” noted one young French woman, offering a

different reason to become a nurse. “For the ﬁrst time

I was going to be someone, I would have a personal

role to play, I would count in the world.” Women,

however, did not escape discrimination by joining

the nursing corps. Male doctors and orderlies refused

to recognize their authority, and it required constant

vigilance to deﬂect unwanted advances or physical

assaults from male patients. American nurses argued,

to no avail, that giving nurses military rank was one

way to solve these inter-connected problems.

A mixture of patriotism, hopes for adventure,

and the desire to share a male relative’s experiences

prompted some women to serve as soldiers, most

famously in Russia. Nearly ﬁve thousand Russian

women fought, some clandestinely by donning male

clothing and others after making a personal appeal

to the Tsar to serve in male units. The female Russian

soldier’s body was often violated by both the enemy

and male comrades. Maria Botchkareva, for instance,

suffered a spinal injury in combat—after already

serving in a male regiment where fellow soldiers

continuously pinched, jostled, and rubbed against her.

The government formed in the wake of the February

1917 revolution organized these women into all-

female battalions. Their exploits drew tremendous

press coverage. For the ﬂedgling democratic Russian

government (overthrown in the November 1917

Bolshevik Revolution), the propaganda value of these

female battalions was two-fold: the government hoped

both to shame male deserters into returning to the

line and to galvanize public support for continuing

the war.

The general loosening of morals during wartime

made it difﬁcult for authorities to tell the difference

between women who slept with men for money and

those embracing the opportunity for sexual liberty.

Row 1, left: Women’s regiment from Petrograd relaxing in front of their tents, Feb.

1918. Right: Navy girls on review, Washington, D.C., with three naval ofcers between

rows of Yeomanettes, c. 1918. Row 2, left: Members of the Woman’s Radio Corps

stand beside an Army car, Feb. 1919. Right: A woman activating the lter press

in a glucose factory, Lancashire, England. Row 3, left: Two young women operate

machinery, Armstrong Whitworth’s and Co., Elswick, England. Right: A woman carries

a hundredweight sack of coal, London, 1918. Row 4, left: Members of the Women’s

Land Army raise their hoes in salute. Right: A pupil at the Cheshire Agricultural

College at Holmes Chapel being taught how to handle cattle. Row 5, left: Members of

the Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF), based in Cologne, France, as part of occupying

forces, boarding Air Force tenders. Right: Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps at Etaples,

France, uniformed in heavy coats and sturdy boots. First three images courtesy Library

of Congress. Remaining images courtesy The First World War Poetry Digital Archive

(oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit), University of Oxford; © copyright The Imperial War Museum.

Oklahoma Humanities 25

EXTRA! | READ | THINK | TALK | LINK

➤ The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford.

An extraordinary resource. The Vera Brittain Collection contains

correspondence, images, and extracts from her war diary. Other

collections include biographies, photos, and verse by major poets

of the period; a wide network of lm and audio clips; and WWI-

period photographs linked to Google Maps to pinpoint locations.

oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit

➤ First World War collection, Imperial War Museums. Online exhibits

of wartime photos, art, and propaganda, including sections on “The

Women War Workers of the North West” and “The Women’s Land

Army in Pictures.” iwm.org.uk/history/rst-world-war-home-front

➤ American Women Rebuilding France, 1917-1924, National World

War I Museum at Liberty Memorial. Online exhibit follows 350

American women volunteers who traveled and worked to restore

war-ravaged areas in northeastern France. theworldwar.org

(click on the Explore tab; select Exhibitions, then select Online

Exhibitions)

Female nurses and soldiers took pains to distinguish themselves

from prostitutes, and this often involved an explicit disavowal

of any sexual impulses. The chastity of the uniformed female

participant stood in stark contrast. Female soldiers dressed like

men, while nurses wore white starched uniforms that resembled

nuns’ habits.

Women’s Work

Very few women could vote, so they found other means for

voicing political views. The international ties that western female

suffragists had created to share ideas and tactics in the pre-

war era laid the foundation for an international women’s peace

movement. In April 1915, female activists from most warring

nations and many neutral ones, including American Jane Addams,

met at The Hague to hold the Women’s Peace Congress. Claiming

to speak on behalf of mothers whose children perished in the

war, the Women’s Peace Congress urged world leaders to seek

a negotiated peace settlement. Most delegates received a hostile

reception when they returned home. Even in the neutral United

States (which had not yet entered the war), the press viliﬁed

Addams as an ignorant, naïve old maid for venturing into the

male domain of diplomatic relations.

Women also stepped into new economic roles during the

war. How would a family survive if the male breadwinner left to

ﬁght? Governments tried to allay this fear by providing ﬁnancial

support for soldiers’ dependents. For reasons of both necessity

and opportunity, many women took on traditionally male jobs

during the war. In rural areas women had to harvest crops and

feed livestock. In urban areas, burgeoning orders for guns and

artillery shells created a surplus of high-paying, skilled jobs.

By 1917, Russian women were forty-three percent of the

industrial workforce; French women ﬁlled one-third of the

positions in munitions factories. Women’s labor was so important

to the war effort that British and German ofﬁcials even discussed

the possibility of conscripting women to work in war-related

industries. Some women entered the workplace for the ﬁrst time,

but most were already working. The war gave them a chance

to move into better paying, higher prestige jobs. The shift from

domestic, clerical, or agricultural work to factory jobs was only

temporary, however. After the war, laws in many nations returned

those jobs to male veterans.

The reliance on female labor and support for the war begged

the question of why western societies continued to deny women

the vote. Radical suffragists saw the war as a moment to press

forward, while moderate activists counseled restraint lest women

be seen as unpatriotic. End results were mixed. Revolutionary

Russia granted women suffrage, as did postwar governments in

the United States and Germany. Britain granted women over 30

the vote, essentially ignoring the fact that young women in their

twenties had provided the bulk of wartime military and industrial

service to the state. The French Parliament brieﬂy debated

granting female survivors of fallen soldiers the vote, but in the

end French women remained disenfranchised until 1944.

Forever Changed

The war produced nearly three million widows: 600,000 in

France and Germany; 239,000 in Britain; and 33,000 in the United

States. These women faced numerous challenges, including

single-parenthood, economic insecurity, and grief. Mourning,

however, evolved into a carefully scripted public ritual. Widows

were expected to exhibit stoic acceptance of their fate, modeling

how entire nations should accept personal loss as necessary for

the community’s survival. Grieving took place in private.

Reuniting with a loved one who survived brought joy and

relief to many families. For others, the years of separation or

the lingering effects of battle became permanent scars. Women

had balanced the household budget, tilled the ﬁelds, and made

decisions about schooling the children. Relinquishing these

responsibilities was difﬁcult when the family patriarch returned

from war. Most governments offered some aid to disabled soldiers.

Nonetheless, many veterans convalesced at home, out of public

view, where women remained the primary caregivers.

After reluctantly seeing her brother and ﬁancé off to war,

Vera Brittain had become a nurse in hopes of staying close to

them in body and spirit. She received the news of Roland’s death

in 1915. Her brother, Edward, was killed in 1918, just a few

months before the Armistice ended hostilities. Walking amid the

cheering crowds in London at war’s end, she recalled:

For the ﬁrst time I realized, with all that full realization

meant, how completely everything that had hitherto

made up my life had vanished with Edward and

Roland…. The War was over; a new age was beginning;

but the dead were dead and would never return.

These words aptly note the sweeping change brought to women’s

lives and the lingering shadow of The Great War.

JENNIFER D. KEENE is professor and chair of the History Department at

Chapman University. She is the author of three books on World War I,

including Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America (2001).