Using charm, bribery, and guile, Esmee and her fellow volunteers escaped to neutral Holland, and from there back to London. They made their way to a hospital full of wounded French soldiers near Charleroi, where they experienced “many exciting incidents and thrilling moments”. Some of Esmee Sartorius’ group left before the Germans occupied Brussels on August 16, but she and other nurses stayed, to give what help they could. Esmee’s group was one of 12 sent by the Red Cross to Belgium in these early days.īefore the war: Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland. The small, professional British army being shipped out to France was still ten days from seeing action at Mons. John Ambulance nurses of the Voluntary Aid Detachment, was in Brussels with a British Red Cross group. By 14 August 1914, she, together with four other St. The nurse, the duchess and the ambulanceĮsmee Sartorius was one young woman with three months’ training as a nurse who volunteered on the first day of the war, and was sent three days later to Belgium with a medical team. Several wrote accounts of their experiences. Some witnessed the most appalling scenes before medical services were equipped to deal with the consequences of modern warfare. But women who volunteered as nurses, or “dressers” in August 1914 were in the war zone within weeks, and were involved in the earliest actions of the war. Famously, many of the “Pals” battalions saw action first on July 1916 I, on the opening day of the Somme offensive. With very few exceptions the thousands of young men who volunteered early in the war faced months, even years, of training, waiting for uniforms and weapons, before they went out to different fronts. The King and Queen inspect the duchess’s hospital.
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