Women at War

In 1914, a popular poster posed this question to British women: “Is your best boy wearing khaki? . . . If your young man neglects his duty to King and Country, the time may come when he will neglect you.” In response to such appeals, girls commonly presented white feathers—symbols of cowardice—to boys not in uniform. But as the war dragged on, women did far more than goad their men into service. Both at home and on the front,
they contributed their sweat and blood to the conflict.

Women served most traditionally as nurses. Over 15,000 volunteered for the American Expeditionary Forces and the Red Cross, tending the wounded and dying under often deplorable conditions. By the war’s end, 235 American nurses had died serving in Europe; 200 more had earned decorations for bravery. And they didn’t serve alone: British forces included 38,000 female nurses and nurse’s aides; France had 63,000; and in Germany, they numbered more than 90,000.

As casualties mounted and manpower diminished, the military turned to women to fill nontraditional roles. In 1917, Britain formed the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps, in which volunteers not only served as clerks and typists, but also drove trucks, worked as mechanics, and maintained supply lines. The U.S. Navy began conferring military rank on female enlistees in 1917, and the marines accepted hundreds of female volunteers. But only the Russian troops saw combat against the Germans. During the Kerensky Offensive of July 1917, hundreds of female soldiers fought in the Battalion of Death—so named because its members carried cyanide capsules to swallow if they were captured.