Sister Soldiers of the Great War: The Nurses of the Canadian Army Medical Corps by Cynthia Toman (review)

Cynthia Toman's meticulously researched book charts the fascinating wartime experiences of the approximately 3,000 women who joined the Canadian Army Medical Corps during the Great War. They may seem a small number compared to the 600,000 men who volunteered for combat when Canada became embroiled in an industrialized and bloody conflict thanks to the actions and decisions of the British government in August 1914. Nevertheless, this book sheds new light on the conflict and is a very welcome addition to the scholarship, which has been stimulated by the centenary of the Great War. For while the role of women as nurses in times of war has become iconic, the everyday lives of what women were required to do to "salvage sick and wounded men for return to combat" is often hidden from history.

As Toman points out, only a few nurses wrote their memoirs, and not all letters written home have survived. However, the recently digitalized database of the nurses' official files has shed light on the diversity of the experience, background, and perhaps motivations of these women who left families and communities to go halfway around the world in wartime. The women recruited to nursing roles were expected to be British subjects, single, between twenty-one and thirty-eight years of age, and to have undertaken a recognized program of training of at least three years duration. One of their number was a dietician and one had undertaken medical training but chose this route to enlist as there were no opportunities for women doctors with the Canadian forces. Some seem to have been strongly patriotic; others relished the challenge of the role or the possibility to travel. One nurse wrote home explaining that "most of the girls seize the opportunity to go to Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the South of England when they get their leave."

The women had little experience of military nursing, and yet, it is argued, they soldiered on, maintaining both their professionalism and their femininity despite the challenges of nursing close to the theatres of war. Toman charts how their role was challenging, at times unexpected, and not restricted to the care of allied troops. One of the more poignant sections of the book discusses the reactions of the nurses who found themselves treating German prisoners of war, which combatant forces were required to do according to the terms of the Geneva Conventions. Not only did one nurse come to realize that many of the "Hated Hun" soldiers were just boys and mother's sons but also that these young lads regarded the allied nurses as enemies and with fear. Furthermore, the nurses' role was also a supervisory position; it was their responsibility to ensure that the cleaning and more mundane tasks on the wards were undertaken both by orderlies and recovering patients. Indeed, these staff were vital to helping them maintain any semblance of the cleanliness and order that was needed for nursing those with extensive injuries. For example, the book explains how on Lemnos Island in the Mediterranean, when submarine warfare had disrupted the supply of oil for the stove, nursing staff had to organize the orderlies to build bonfires so that needles could be sterilized; this was a risky procedure in a hospital housed in inflammable canvas tents.

This important book also explores the varied and unexpected emotional responses of nursing staff to their experiences and environment. There was camaraderie, pride in the uniform and role, and, for some, professional progression when they returned home at the end of the conflict. But, as Tonman astutely concludes, "there was no one universal experience or story. The nursing sisters understood the war in the context of their own personal needs, hopes and dreams." Whatever their background, these women daily faced the horror of what industrial warfare does to the combatants involved, and, hence, there is in this book no romanticization of warfare...