British Women of the Eastern Front - by Angela Smith (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book explores the experiences and contributions of British women performing active service across the Eastern Front in Serbia, Russia and Romania during the First World War, focusing on representation of that experience though a range of written records.

Book Synopsis

This book explores the experiences of a range of women from the early days of 1914, through the big events of the war on the Eastern Front. Their diaries, letters, memoirs and journalism are used to investigate the extraordinary role played by British women during the fall of Serbia, the Russian Revolution and the final push, and their role in reconstruction following the Armistice. These women, and their writings, are examined through the multiple lenses of gender, nationality, patriotism, imperialism and legacy, but the book also tells the stories of individuals, and will appeal across audiences to students, researchers and general readers. This is the first book to examine the war in the East through the eyes of British women and as such makes an important contribution to First World War Studies.

From the Back Cover

This book explores the experiences of British women who worked on the Eastern Front in Serbia and Russia during the First World War. It tracks their adventures from the early days of 1914 through the big events of the war in the East, the fall of Serbia, the Russian Revolution and the final push, to their role in reconstruction following the Armistice. This is the first time the war in the East has been examined through the eyes of British women and as such makes an important contribution to First World War Studies.

Upon the outbreak of the War in 1914, rejected by the British military, surprising numbers of British women went to work for the allied armies in the East. Some of their names have become familiar. Women such as Dr Elsie Inglis with her Scottish Women's Hospitals Units, born of the Women's Suffrage movement; Mabel St Clair Stobart, a pioneer and individualist determined to prove that women too deserved full citizenship; Flora Sandes the only British woman to see active military service and Florence Farmborough whose detailed diaries of life in wartime Russia are second to none. These women and their writings are examined through the multiple lenses of gender, nationality, patriotism, imperialism and legacy, but are studied alongside the individual stories of many others drawn from diaries, letters, memoirs and journalism. Together these shape the extraordinary role played by British women in the East and their subsequent legacy.

British women of the Eastern Front will have a wide audience, appealing to students and researchers in women's, gender and war studies and to the general reader.

Review Quotes

'Smith presents an inspiring book, which is the first to be published on the work of British Women focused on the Eastern Front.'
Angelique Leszczawski-Schwerk (Technical University Dresden/Germany), L'Homme. Z.F.G." vol. 29, no. 2/2018

About the Author

Angela K. Smith is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Plymouth