Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights
John Stuart Mill · en
The story of the retreat is now very generally known. The journey was
one long series of forced marches. Mountains 7000 feet high had to be
traversed in blinding snow, almost the whole journey had to be made on
foot and it was six weeks before the little band reached the coast.
Doctor Inglis meanwhile, with her group of nurses and orderlies, and
Doctor Hutchinson, with the London-Wales Unit, had gallantly stayed
behind and continued to attend to their Servian wounded and to organize
help for them till the work was forcibly stopped by the advancing
Austrian army.
UNIT TAKEN PRISONERS.
After being ordered out of Valjevo, Doctor Hutchinson made several
attempts to organize hospitals in the line of retreat. She was at
Vrnyachka Banja when the Austrians entered the town on November 10,
1915. She and her unit were taken prisoners and interned, first near the
Servian frontier and then in Hungary for three weary months. The
cheerful courage with which the members of the unit bore hardship and
uncertainty and hope deferred has been related by Doctor Hutchinson in a
memorable narrative. Their conditions would have been still more
intolerable and their release would have been still longer delayed if
Doctor Hutchinson herself had not known a great deal more about the
Geneva Convention than the Austrian authorities had ever dreamed. She
was thus able to assert herself on behalf of those under her in a way
which taught her captors something new about British women. At the
beginning of February the unit was at last allowed to cross the frontier
into Switzerland. It reached England on February 12. It was only the
perfection of its organization that carried this brave body of women
through amazing hardships.
Abroad women chauffeurs became almost as common in the war as men; the
public in Paris and London refused to regard the appearance of a woman
on the streets in cap, "knickers" and puttees or heavy boots as unusual,
and in need they in many instances not only drove "taxi," but guided
ambulances in the hospital service.
The Red Cross in America, in the matter of preparedness, organized a
class for women chauffeurs. One of these, started in Philadelphia, had
among its instructors Mrs. Thomas Langdon Elwyn and Miss Letitia McKim,
both of whom drove ambulances for the Allies in England.
The National League for Woman Service, working in conjunction with the
Council of National Defense, canvassed the country through its Bureau of
Registration and Information to provide statistics for mobilizing the
entire woman-force of the Nation; all of which was done with the
approval of the Secretary of Labor.