World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals; World War, 1914-1918 -- Women
At Marcelline Miss Thurstan was in charge of a hospital under the
German military command, where she nursed Belgian, French, and German
wounded for some weeks under very trying conditions, aggravated by the
brutality of the German system of discipline even as regards her own
wounded. After a period of work, Miss Thurstan was granted leave of
absence from the Marcelline hospital in order to look after the nurses
she had left in and near Brussels. She had some exciting adventures,
particularly when trying to find a nurse in an outlying village, where
she actually got into the German lines and became involved in an
outpost action. By this time the Germans had decided that no English
nurses were to be allowed to continue nursing in Belgium; so instead
of returning, as she had expected, to the hospital at Marcelline,
Miss Thurstan was obliged to spend some weeks of painful and anxious
suspense waiting in Brussels, not knowing what fate was in store for
her nurses and herself. Finally, together with about one hundred other
nurses from different contingents, and some medical men, she was taken
by train through Germany to the Danish frontier. During the journey
the nurses were subjected to constant insult and humiliation. At
Copenhagen, however, these unpleasant experiences were made up for by a
cordial reception.
Miss Thurstan was about to return to England when she heard of
the great need for trained nurses in Russia, and, after obtaining
permission from England to offer her services to the Russian Red Cross,
she travelled on from Copenhagen to Petrograd. Miss Thurstan started
work at once. After nursing for a time in base hospitals and learning
some Russian, she joined a flying ambulance column of motor cars, which
moved from place to place at the front. One of the base hospitals in
which she was quartered was at Warsaw, where, in spite of the great
difference between Russian and English hospital methods, Miss Thurstan
managed to adapt herself to the conditions. She was then sent on to
Lodz, where she had many adventures in the bombardment. Some idea of
the work may be gathered from the fact that in the Russian retreat
from Lodz over 18,000 wounded were evacuated in four days, during which
time the nurses worked practically without rest and under terrible
conditions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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