Kathleen Fitzgerald—Final History 10b Paper
Florence Nightingale: The Spark That Lit the Slow-burning Flame of Progress
Women have always followed the war drum. Throughout history, observers havedescribed the masses of wives and lovers that followed their husbands and companionsinto battle. Even as late as the Napoleonic Wars of 1808-1815, the Wellington-ledBritish forces consistently trampled into battle with a band of exhausted-looking ladieshot in pursuit. Deeply in love and worried about having to survive by themselves, thesemilitary wives drew lots that decided whether they were “Not-to-go” or “To-go.” Of those who were unfortunate enough to draw the “Not-to-go” lot, many sobbed openly andthrew themselves at their husbands during the war departure ceremony.
Merelyreinforcing the Romantic and Victorian era images of women as being more helpless thanhelpful, these ladies of the Napoleonic War had no idea that by the end of the 19
th
century, their breed would become extinct. Between the end of the Napoleonic battles in1815 and the start of the Crimean War in 1854, Great Britain enjoyed peace anddownsized their military.
Eventually dragged into protecting Turkey (part of the former Ottoman Empire) from the Napoleonic-like expansion of Russia, Great Britain jumpedinto the brawl quite unprepared. Standing on the palace balcony just as the sun began torise over the majestic towers of nearby Westminster Abbey, Queen Victoria proudlywaved to the immensely patriotic crowd that had gathered to watch the parade of troopsmarching off to the East.
Victoria had always been proud to call herself a soldier’sdaughter, and it was “in the triple role of wife, mother, and sovereign that Victoria
1
Brigadier F.C.G. Page,
Following the Drum: Women in Wellington’s Wars
(London: André DeutschLimited, 1986), p. 22-23.
2
Helen Rappaport,
No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War
(London: AurumPress Ltd., 2007), p. 4.
3
Ibid., p. 7.
1
Kathleen Fitzgerald—Final History 10b Paper greeted [the men], bowing and waving from her balcony.”
Although no one realized it atthe time, the flick of Queen Victoria’s waving wrist did far more than celebrateEngland’s military majesty.Unknowingly ushering in a new age of legitimate female war involvement,Victoria might as well have been guiding women like Florence Nightingale to the Easternfront alongside the troops: within the year, reports returned from the frontlines aboutBritain’s “Crimean disaster” and the dearth of male orderlies helping the woundedmasses.
The resultant outcries led to the quick arrival of female nurses in Crimea.Published in newspapers like
The Times,
these troublesome tales quickly galvanizedfemale nurses who decided to act. With proactive women like Nightingale clamoring toorganize supplies and help combat cholera epidemics among the soldiers, the collectiveBritish consciousness experienced a shock. No longer were the women at the frontsimply serving as helpless companions, cooks, laundrywomen, and seamstresses for thetroops as they had in all previous wars; instead, this new brand of (ironically) Victoria-inspired military women implemented bureaucratic and organizational changes and became renowned for their skills as nurses. Despite the fact that the British forcesdesperately needed Nightingale and the other female nurses, Victorian sensibilities of separate social spheres and the collective historical memory of women serving aslaundresses and seamstresses during previous wars prevented a rapid social acceptance of these new female nurses. In fact, it was only after 1898’s Anglo-Boer War that
4
Ibid., p. 7-8.
5
Sue M. Goldie, “I Have Done My Duty”:
Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War 1854-56
(Iowa City:University of Iowa Press, 1987), p. 3.
2
Kathleen Fitzgerald—Final History 10b Paper professional female nurses were widely accepted and began to enroll in the hundreds,eventually culminating in thousands participating in the First World War .
Part of the reason women like Florence Nightingale “engaged in a Laocoönianstruggle with [male] officials to try and reduce the vast chaos of the hospitals to some sortof order and regularity” was the poor reputation past female war followers had earnedamong the Victorian-minded men.
In previous wars, the main occupation for wivesincluded “cooking, and mending and laundering their husbands’ clothes, perhaps earningextra pennies by washing for batchelor soldiers also. Most wives were content to
follow
the drum.”
In historical accounts of these battles, the sources consistently praise thefemale accompaniment for providing some semblance of divine domesticity for therugged soldiers. Accounts of such interactions read like a modern-day morning routine.The morning brought further troubles to add to Mary [Anton]’s misery.James went off to carry out his duties, leaving her to do the housekeeping.She spent rather more than they could afford on some bread and wine toreplace the lost rations and then set off with her purchases to join James,who was on an advanced picque. She had only gone a little way along asteep and narrow path when her foot slipped and she fell down the slope.Fortunately she was not badly hurt and escaped with a nasty shaking and a bad fright. More seriously, in the fall she had lost her precious parcel.With great determination she returned to the camp, dipped once more intotheir dwindling stock of money, bought another loaf and more wine, andset off on a second attempt to reach her husband, who had gone on dutywithout food … she had used up her final resources and sank to theground, weeping bitterly.
In addition to spending most of her time sewing, Mary Anton failed to prove that shecould effectively provide food for her husband or manage their finances. In directcontrast to later female followers of war like Nightingale who successfully balanced long
6
Anne Summers,
Angels and Citizens: British Women as Military Nurses 1854-1914
(London: Routledge &Kegan Paul, 1988), p. 1-2.
7
Goldie, p. 4.
8
Page, p. vii.
9
Page, p. 39.
3
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