BY 1914 THERE WERE over 1000 qualified women doctors in Great Britain and Ireland. The struggle to enter a medical College, to attend classes, to acquire practical experience had been long, and was not yet entirely over.

ELSIE MAUD INGLIS [1864-1917] qualified as a Doctor in 1892.When war broke out in 1914 she was fifty years old. A Scot, practicing in Edinburgh, she was an active member of the Scottish Branch of Millicent Garrett Fawcett's National nion of Women's Suffrage Societies - the NUWSS - , and was already the Commandant of the 6th Edinburgh VAD Detachment - the Women's Voluntary Aid organisation that would later send so many nurses to the War on the western Front.

SHE SAW NO REASON why women doctors should not serve. "To her it seemed wicked that women with power to wield the surgeon's knife in the mitigation of suffering and with knowledge to diagnose and cure, should be withheld from serving the sick and wounded." (From a letter to Lady Frances Balfour from Miss Mair of the NUWSS)

Elsie Inglis: photographer unknown

IN OCTOBER 1914 Dr Inglis approached the war office offering her personal services to the Army as a Doctor . The official's reply has passed into legend; "My good lady - go home and be still !"

SHE WAS NOT DISCOURAGED and her course became very clear. "I know what we will do" she said "we will have a Unit of our own !"

SHE APPROACHED the Scotttish Federation of Women's Suffrage Societies.

"Well do I recall the first suggestion that passed between us on the subject of directing the energies of our Suffrage Societies to the starting of a hospital. "Let us gather a few hundred pounds and then appeal to the public" was the decision of our ever courageous Dr Elsie and from that moment she never swerved from her purpose." (From a letter to Lady Frances Balfour from Miss Mair, the President of the Scottish Federation of Women's Suffrage Societies)

ELSIE INGLIS' SCHEME was eagerly taken up and the name "Scottish Women's Hospitals" adopted. An offer was made to the International Red Cross for the provision of women officered hospital units in and behind the war zones in Europe: this time the offer was swiftly accepted.

Collecting Box for the SWP

THE MONEY began to pour in through the network of the women's suffrage societies - not only in Scotland. The sum of £50,000 was estimated to be needed to put together a Hospital ready to go to the Front and an organising Committee formed in London to be responsible for buying the supplies and shipping them abroad. There were not only medical supplies and drugs but also beds, stretchers, cooking pots, crockery, knives, forks - not say ambulances, shovels, needles and pins! Tents. Blankets. Waterproofs. Uniforms were designed - long skirt and tunic in hodden grey with caps and slouch hats for the doctors and tartan bonnets for the nurses.

(photo: Dr Isabel Emslie (later Lady Hutton) the SWH doctor's uniform. Dr Emslie served in Salonika and Russia ending the war in Istanbul in 1919. The lapels of the tunic have a thistle badge. Photographer unknown)

IN LATE 1914 and early 1915 units of the Scottish Women's Hospitals left England for Europe - one to the aid of the French Army at Royaumont Abbey north west of Paris behind the line of the Western Front.

(left Royaumont Abbey.)

ANOTHER UNIT arrived at Kragujevatz in Serbia on the Eastern Front in late 1914: visiting Royaumont first and passing though Malta and Salonika, in April 1915 Dr Inglis joined it.

THE SWP UNIT in Kragujevatz had 550 beds in three hospitals; Austrian prisoners served as orderlies as well as being frequent patients ! The 1st Surgical - which was set up in a school building and known as Reserve No 8 - had an X-ray machine, and operating theatre. The typhus hospital - Reserve No 6 - and Reserve No 7 which was for relapsed fever and general cases. German, French and English were hesitantly spoken by everyone. There was a was a disinfecting centre under canvas - and slowly, after 3 months, the typhus epidemic was brought under control: local civilians being treated for civilian maladies - burns, goitre, dog and wolf bites, women in childbirth.

THE SUMMER OF 1915 was long and hot - but ended abruptly in October when a punitive force of Austrians, Germans and Bulgarians was launched against Serbia. The Serbian Army, despite much allied help, could not stand and in the winter of 1915 began preparations to retreat on foot across the high Albanian mountains towards the Adriatic sea.

THE SCOTTISH WOMEN'S HOSPITAL - and Elsie Inglis - lay directly in the path of the enemy advance ! They were advised, most strongly, to leave with the Army and try to cross the mountains. The cold, the snow and the altitude claimed men, women, children and animals through exposure and starvation in the high mountain cliffs and passes. Many crossed as best they could, alone or in small group desperate for shelter, food and clothing in freezing winds and howling blizzards. It is thought that 100,000 perished.

Dr INGLIS, with Dr Alice Hutchinson; the Hospital Administrator the Hon Evelina Haverfield and Vera Holme did not however join the Retreat. They chose to stay with their patients and face the enemy advance. The Hospital was overrun by the Austrian Army and the women were taken prisoner although they continued to look after their patients - of both sides !

AFTER 5 MONTH'S CAPTIVITY, still serving the sick and wounded of both sides, Dr Inglis and the Scottish Women were sent by train to Switzerland and released. They arrived back in London in February 1916.

UNDETERRED BY THIS EXPERIENCE by September 1916 Dr Inglis and a fresh SWP Unit set off again to the Eastern Front where the Serbian Army was now fighting on the Rumanian-Russian border. They travelled by sea to Archangel then by train to Moscow. Then from Moscow south to Odessa and onwards to Rumania where the SWP Hospital Units at Medgidia, and Bulbulmic were set up under canvas. But yet again the enemy forces were superior and Dr Inglis and the SWP, along with the armies, fell back to Reni - a town in a corner of the Ukraine overlooking the Danube.

(left) Yvonne Fitzroy at Reni. Note the muddy rubber boots, warm hat and solid clothes. Two friends watch.

(Right Dr Inglis in Saragea with other doctors) Photographers unknown

HER HEALTH DETERIORATING and just in time to avoid being trapped by the Bolshevik Russian Counter Revolution in October 1917, Dr Inglis returned to England, landing in Newcastle on 25th November 1917. She died, probably of stomach cancer, on the following day. She was buried in Edinburgh on November 29th 1917 with great honour.

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"Royaumont Abbey" is part of a picture by by Norah Neilson-Gray now owned by the Imperial War Museum. The doctor (Dr Ivens) wears white, the nurse has the long flowing cap and the orderley is in blue. The patient is in bed beneath a red blanket. In the background are the stone gothic arches and above a groined stone roof. Apologies for the long download time.

Thanks to Janet for help with the photo of Dr Inglis, original photographer unknown

Read more:

"Elsie Inglis" by Leah Leneman pub. NMS Publishing and other books by the same author. Available from Amazon.co.uk

"Dr Elsie Inglis" by Lady Frances Balfour pub. Hodder and Stoughton 1918. Not in print but obtainable on rare books' websites.

"A Red Cross Unit in Serbia" by James Berry and others pub. J & A Churchill, London, 1918. As above.

"With the Scottish Nurses in Rumania" by Yvonne Fitzroy pub. John Murray, London 1918. As above.

"Memories of a Doctor in War and Peace" by Isabel Hutton CBE MD pub. William Heineman London 1960. As above.

"The Women of Royaumont, a Scottish Women's Hospital on the Western Front" by Eileen Crofton pub. 1997 by Tuckwell Press Ltd. Available from Amazon.co.uk