Women wanted: The story written in blood red letters on the horizon of the Great World WarDaggett, Mabel Potter
History
Women wanted: The story written in blood red letters on the horizon of the Great World War
Daggett, Mabel Potter
Women -- Employment; World War, 1914-1918 -- Women
threw flowers beneath her feet and kissed the hem of her dress. At the
station the Crown Prince presented her with the highest decoration
within his gift and the Order No. 1 of St. Sava, a cross of diamonds.
Never before had it been bestowed on any other woman save royalty.
Seldom has any woman in history been so conspicuously the object of an
entire country’s gratitude. The street on which the hospital stood was
renamed with her name. On the Plain of Kossova there stands a very old
and historic church, on the walls of which from time to time through
the centuries, have been inscribed the names of queens and saints.
Leila Paget’s name also has been written there. A nation feels even as
does that common Serbian soldier whom she had nursed back from death,
who afterwards wrote her: “For me only two people exist, you on earth
and God in Heaven.”
Well, Leila Paget stayed with Serbia to the end. After two months’
rest in England, she was back in July at her hospital in Uskub. Sir
Ralph had returned with her, having been made general director of
the British medical and relief work in Serbia, with his headquarters
at Nish. In October the Bulgarians took Uskub. When the city was
under bombardment during the battle that preceded its fall, Sir Ralph
arrived in a motor car to rescue his wife. But four hours later he
had to leave without her on his way in his official capacity to warn
the other hospitals which were in his charge. “Leila, Leila,” he
expostulated in vain. She only shook her head. “My place is here,” she
said, glancing backward where 600 wounded soldiers lay. Lady Paget and
her hospital were of course detained by the enemy when they occupied
the town. She remained to nurse Bulgarians, Austrians and Serbians
alike. And she organised relief work for the refugees, of whom she fed
sometimes as many as 4,000 a day. For weeks and months, it was only by
dint of the utmost exertion that it was possible to extract from the
exhausted town sufficient wood and petrol just to keep fires going in
the hospital kitchen and sterilisers in the operating rooms. “These,”
says Lady Paget, “were strange times and in the common struggle for
mere existence it did not occur very much to any one to consider who
were friends and who were enemies.” In the spring of 1916, in March,
arrangements were made by the German Government permitting the return
to England of Lady Paget and her unit. Her war record reaching America,
the New York City Federation of Women’s Clubs selected her as the
recipient of their jewelled medal. It is awarded each year to the woman
of all the world who has performed the most courageous act beyond the
call of duty.
HEROIC SERVICE OF SCOTTISH WOMEN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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