Angels of Mercy: Nurses on the Western Front

Drawing on their diaries and letters, this is the little-known story of the gritty and free-spirited women who, in 1914, put aside their fight for the vote to set up a hospital in an abandoned French abbey to treat the appalling injuries sustained on the Western Front. The Scottish Women’s Hospitals unit offered their services to France and opened a hospital in the ancient Abbey of Royaumont, near Paris. Uniquely, the hospital was staffed entirely by women—from the doctors, surgeons, nurses, bacteriologists, and radiographers to the orderlies and ambulance drivers. The hospital operated from 1915 to 1919 and became famous for its nursing care, cleanliness, and efficiency, recognized by the French authorities as a key wartime hospital.