Cross nurses and tracing the wounded and missing. On Oct. 21 1914 the first V.A.D. unit, composed of 16 members and 2 trained nurses, under Dame Katharine Furse as officer in charge, arrived at Boulogne. On Oct. 26 they founded No. I V.A.D. rest station, Gare Centrale, Boulogne, in three French wagons and two passenger carriages and within 24 hours had given hot drinks to a thousand wounded from the first battle of Ypres. Under the Principal Com r mandant, Dame Rachel Crowdy, who succeeded Dame Katharine Furse in France, this work expanded in all directions until there were five rest stations for the feeding of patients on ambulance trains; two detention stations for the care of the personnel of veterinary hospitals and remount camps; six convalescent homes for nurses and W.A.A.C.s, and six motor convoys all run and staffed by V.A.D. s. In Holland and Switzerland they were able to work for prisoners of war. In Salonika, Malta, Egypt and Italy they started kitchens attached to hospitals for the supply of invalid diets, and organized and staffed canteens for ambulance trains and convalescent homes for army nurses. In Italy they staffed motor convoys. At the beginning of the Gallipoli campaign two military hospitals went to Egypt without female personnel, on the assumption that they were destined for the peninsula, and had to depend on voluntary women helpers of all nationalities till trained nurses and V.A.D.s. could arrive. Early in 1918 the British Section of the First Aid Nursing Yeo- manry affiliated to the British Red Cross Society. This earliest women's military corps had been founded in 1909, and reorganized by Mrs. McDougall, in 1910, to assist the R.A.M.C. in time of war by providing mounted detachments with horse ambulance wagons, to take over wounded at clearing stations and convey them to base hospitals. When war broke out the services of the corps were offered to the British authorities without success, but were accepted by the Belgian army in Oct. 1914. With the ideal of working for the ' British always before her, Mrs. McDougall asked the War Office j in July 1915 to reconsider the employment of women drivers of the I F. A. N.Y. for driving motor ambulances at any British base. Although | this was at first refused, renewed applications resulted in a I F.A.N.Y. motor convoy starting work at Calais under Miss Franklin I on Jan. I 1916, for the transport of all British sick and wounded in ! the district. The F.A.N.Y. drivers were voluntary workers and sup- plied their own uniforms and traveling expenses; the Army gave . rations; the British Red Cross Society kept up the ambulances, I and in Aug. undertook complete financial responsibility in connexion ' with the cars. As a result of the success of this experiment, V.A.D. motor convoys were instituted in six other bases, and on Jan. I 1918 the St. Omer convoy started work with 22 F.A.N.Y. drivers and 12 V.A.D. drivers under F.A.N.Y. officers. On May 18 1918 they worked through a particularly severe air raid and won 16 Military Medals in one night.
The great need for clubs where the army nurses and women workers could obtain rest and relaxation from hospital work was recognized by Princess Victoria early in 1.915, when she formed a committee in London to finance such clubs at all hospital centres. The first was opened at Wimereux in Feb. 1915, and 10 others fol- lowed at Etaples, Camiers, Rouen, Le Treport, Trouville, Calais, St. Omer, Abbeville and Paris. These clubs were a recognized unit under the administration of the Director-General Medical Services. In 1919 a club was also opened at Cologne. Lady Algernon Gordon- Lennox acted as Director in France and Germany.
The British army in France employed French labour for necessary industrial work such as the making of camouflage, repair of gas- masks and the salvage of clothing and war material. But in Jan. 1917 Messrs. Tarrants, who had a contract for building army huts, were allowed to send 100 trained women carpenters to Calais, where in collaboration with French female labour they made 37,000 huts. The women lived in a camp for two years under quasi-military dis- cipline and were to a certain extent the prototype of the W.A.A.C. On Nov. 4 1914 Lady Angela Forbes, who had a house at Etaples, started a free buffet for the wounded in the waiting-room of the Gare Maritime, Boulogne; this was the earliest of all the voluntary canteens provided for the British troops in France. In the following month Lady Mabelle Egerton opened her " Coffee Shop" at Rouen Station. From these individual efforts huts and canteens, maintained by authorized organizations, spread to every British camp in France. As time went on the authorities compelled the few privately con- ducted enterprises to affiliate to larger organizations. Lady Angela Forbes' original buffet became an Expeditionary Force canteen and her hut at Etaples was taken over by the Salvation Army; the Rouen Coffee Shop was affiliated to the Church Army in 1917; and in March 1918, by order of the Adjutant-General, only 10 voluntary organizations were authorized to work in the zone of the armies. These were the British Red Cross Society, the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A., the Salvation Army, the Church Army, the Scottish Churches Huts, the United Army and Navy Board, the Soldiers' Christian Association, the British Soldiers' Institute and the Wes- leyan Soldiers' Institute. All these organizations had huts for men at the bases very largely staffed by women ; but these were few in number compared to the huts and tents close behind the firing-line to which women could not go.
In Dec. 1914 Princess Helena Victoria formed the Ladies Auxil- iary Committee of the Y.M.C.A., to assist in providing recreation huts and reading-rooms for the troops in France and to send out
concert parties. The Committee, under the chairmanship of Princess Helena Victoria, with the Countess of Bessborough (d. 1919) as hon. sec., selected the ladies to take charge of these huts, voluntary workers living at their own expense and signing on for four months' service. The work grew rapidly, until there were Y.M.C.A. huts, largely staffed by women, in all the bases in France, providing for the spiritual, material and educational needs of the men. Women workers were sent to Italy and Malta, and huts in Egypt and in . Palestine as far north as Aleppo were also partly staffed by women. In 1918 the War Office gave permission for Y.M.C.A. huts to be opened in Holland for interned officers and men, and these were entirely staffed by the female relatives of the prisoners of war, a special fund being raised by the Association to pay the expenses of those who could not afford to travel and live at their own cost. Sixteen hostels for relatives of wounded in France were also staffed by women workers, of whom more than 1,860 passed through the Committee's hands for service abroad as canteen helpers, secretaries, librarians, motor-drivers, storekeepers, lecturers and teachers. In 19189 a certain number had their expenses paid, and the secretaries and motor-drivers received salaries.
The provision of entertainments was under the direction of Miss Lena Ashwell, the first concert being given at Harfleur on Feb. 8 1915; at one time there were 25 parties in France, giving concerts at the rate of 14,000 a year. In addition permanent concert parties worked continuously at 12 bases, and 6 theatrical parties were stationed at Paris, Havre, Abbeville, Dieppe and Etaples. Two concert parties went to Malta and a third to Egypt. 108,000 was raised for the work.
Although the hardships of camp conditions were ameliorated as much as possible for the W.A.A.C., the unaccustomed military discipline in a foreign country was trying in many ways, and the women badly needed the friendly help of an outside organization. In May 1917 Miss Ethel Knight of the Y.W.C.A. went to France under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A. to establish huts for them on the same lines as those which had proved so great a boon to the men. By the middle of 1918 there were 23 Blue Triangle huts in all the chief Q.M.A.A.C. camps, where the women could behave as though they were at home, and forget the discipline of army and camp life. Adjoining each there was a chapel or quiet room, but in the hut itself everything possible was done for the entertainment and recreation of the girls. Central clubs were also established in seven towns, and there was a rest-house at Le Treport, a tea-garden at Havre and the Lady Carisbrooke marquee in the Q.M.A.A.C. rest camp.
Within 24 hours of the declaration of war Lady Bagot propounded her scheme that a hospital should be sent to the front manned and equipped by the Church Army. It was established at Caen under the French Red Cross. In Feb. 1915 the first of the Church Army recreation huts in France was opened at Rouen; these were staffed by voluntary workers, mostly women, who also paid their own expenses. About 500 altogether worked in Church Army huts in France and Germany.
A recreation hut for convalescent soldiers at the Colomn Camp, Boulogne, was opened by the Catholic Women's League under Mrs. Baynes in March 1915 and remained open until after the Armistice. Other huts in France followed. This was the only society which undertook concerted Catholic work on an organized plan during the war, though the Catholic Club, which had no organization or society behind it, maintained eight huts in the war zone staffed by 100 women and 18 men.
The Church of Scotland and the United Free Church of Scotland acted jointly, under the name of the Scottish Churches Huts, to carry on work similar to that of the Y.M.C.A. at the bases in France, up the line, in Malta and Egypt and in the Army of Occupation. The Salvation Army had a large organization to work among the troops, and women Salvationists laboured among Australian and American troops in huts in France, besides carrying on extensive hospital visitation and work amongst the homes of the bereaved in the United Kingdom.
The Women's Emergency Canteens, formed early in 1915 under Mrs. Wilkie with the idea of working for the French only, catered for the British also in the canteen opened at the Gare du Nord, Paris, in April 1915, which was a rendezvous for all Allied nationali- ties on leave. Early in 1917, when the Australians and Canadians visited Paris on leave in very large numbers, Miss Lily Butler opened a " Corner of Blighty," the pioneer leave club in Paris, to help them to spend their time as pleasantly and profitably as possible. Every- thing was given free of charge, and a staff of 45 voluntary women workers entertained 44,000 men in the first 10 months of the 2% years for which the club was open.
Six months later the British Army and Navy Leave Club was opened and was the pioneer residential club in Paris for soldiers and sailors on leave. Baron D'Erlanger lent the house, and Miss Decima Moore and the Rev. A. S. V. Blunt were hon. secretaries. In the two years that it was open 59,102 men were registered and 701,546 meals were served. A body of uniformed Women Guides looked after the comfort of the men, and free entertainments on a large scale were organized.
As a result of the success of this club, the British Empire Leave Club at Cologne was originated and organized on the same lines by Miss Decima Moore, Hon. Director-General, who raised the funds
