I was
very pleased to see that Kate Luard’s First World War letters have been published
in paperback form in time for the centenary commemorations of the Battle
Passchendaele (Third Battle of Ypres, 31st July – 12th
November 1917). Chapter 5, pages 129 –
158 have Kate’s description of treating the wounded of Passchendaele. This is a
timely reminder for me of Kate Luard’s work during the Battle and I have
included Kate among the panels of an exhibition featuring people involved in the Battles of
Messines (Mesen), Passchendaele and after – 1917 which will be on display at
The Wilfred Owen Story Museum in Birkenhead, Wirral from the end of July 2017.
The
paperback has exactly the same format as the hardback version published in 2014
and when I reviewed the book in 2014, I wrote the following:
‘If
you think that the women who were nurses on the Western Front during the First
World War were all safely tucked up well behind the lines and out of the line
of fire, think again! Many of them were
awarded the Military Medal only 'earned under fire' as Kate Luard's book of her
WW1 experiences tells us.
Field
Marshal Viscount Allenby, who wrote the preface to the first edition, met Kate
on a visit to her Casualty Clearing Station during the later stages of the
Battle of Arras. The Arras account
(Chapter4) is of particular interest to me because my Great Uncle was killed
there on Easter Monday, 9th April 1917.
In the
introduction to the new edition of the book written specially by Christine
Hallett and Tim Luard, we learn that Kate, who attended Croydon High School, was
already a decorated war nurse by 1914, having trained in the 1890s at The East
London Hospital for Children and King's College Hospital in London, joined the
Army Nursing Service in 1900 and served for two years in South Africa during
the Second Boer War (1899 - 1902). Kate was in her 40s and Matron of the Berks
and Bucks County Sanatorium when she joined the Queen Alexandra's Imperial
Military Nursing Service on 6th August 1914.
She was mobilised and sent to France.
The
book begins with a letter dated 17th October 1915, when Kate was with the British 1st Army commanded
by Sir Douglas Haig. The first letter in the book was sent from a Casualty
Clearing Station Lillers of which Kate was placed in charge after four months
at a Base Hospital. All of Kate's
letters contain a great deal of information about what it was like for the
soldiers and the nurses of the Western Front.
There is not one word of complaint and one cannot help but admire those
nurses and the wonderful job they did saving lives under terrible conditions,
without many resources. It is
interesting to contrast today's NHS with all our modern equipment, medication,
hygiene and safety laws with what Kate and her fellow nurses had to put up with
during WW1.
During
moments of relative calm and occasional well-earned breaks from nursing, Kate
describes picnics, tea parties and trips to visit the surrounding countryside
and mentions the variety of flora and fauna (snowdrops, fly orchis, ferns,
ox-eye daisies, birds, mosquitos) that provide welcome relief to the
"waste of life and suffering" and "the mud that out-muds itself
everywhere" that Kate dealt with daily.
Wherever
they went "les Dames Anglaises" (the English women) in their nurses'
uniform caused a stir - whether among the local population - the children
following them about - or with the soldiers serving at the front who invited
them to tea, showed them round, filled them in about the progress of the war
and took them flowers.
Caroline
and John Stevens have done a wonderful job putting together the letters Kate
Luard wrote to her family while she was on the Western Front and preparing them
to be read in the 21st Century. This
book is fantastic - it is as though Kate is with us today as we commemorate the
centenary of the first global conflict ('insane and immoral' as Kate calls it)
t that changed the world for ever. I
cannot help but agree with Kate's feeling on the war - she was after all called
upon to try to help repair the damage done to many of the humans involved.’
Dipping
into the book again, on page 39 you will find a description of the problems of
Gas Gangrene in wounds (not to be confused with ‘Poison Gas’ as Kate
explains). The Canadian poet, doctor
and artilleryman Colonel John McCrae suggested that the microbes that caused
the problem were probably caused by the generous use of manure for agricultural
purposes in the fields of northern France and Belgium. (GRAVES, Diane. “A Crown
of Life The World of John McCrae” (Spellmount Ltd., Staplehurst, Kent, 1997).
And a
snippet for my friend Elena Branca of the Italian Red Cross is in the Postscript
Chapter at the end of the book on page 205, dated 8th February 1918:
“…There is a large Labour Battalion of Italian soldiers working here, also
Chinese and Indians…The Italian officer was horrified because I go about in a
Trench Coat & Sou’Wester instead of white robes with large Croix Rouges
(Red Crosses) on them as ladies of the Red Cross do in Italy…”
If you
haven’t yet read “Unknown Warriors” I urge you to do so - it has a map of the
Western Front drawn by Kate and lots of notes to help the reader to greater
understanding. It is outstanding and
answered many of my own questions regarding conditions on the Western
Front. Her family must be very proud of
Kate.
"Unknown
Warriors The Letters of Kate Luard RRC and Bar, Nursing Sister in France 1914 -
1918", edited by Caroline and John Stevens, including the Preface to
the1930 edition written by Field Marshall Viscount Allenby and an introduction
to the modern version by Christine Hallett and Tim Luard, published by The History
Press, Stroud, Glos, 2014 in hardback and in 2017 in paperback form.
