Incredible images reveal the brave and heroic ‘Female Tommies’ who battled on the front line during the First World War – and paved the way for women’s rights
Author Elisabeth Shipton says the work of women in the war was an important factor in women eventually winning the right to vote
INCREDIBLE images have been released which reveal the inspiring role played by women in the First World War.
Young unmarried women played a vital part in the country's war effort, with some even risking their lives to travel to the front line when war broke out in 1914.
This year celebrates 100 years of women in the military and here, images of these inspirational figures carrying out their work - much of which was voluntary and unpaid - are displayed in full.
Although British women were not allowed to fight, more than 9,000 women served overseas in a variety of roles, most of which were close to the dangerous action on the front line, such as nursing at first aid points. The only British woman who fought overseas, Flora Sandes, fought for the Allied forces in the Serbian Army, not the British.
Author Elisabeth Shipton, a military historian who wrote 'Female Tommies: Frontline Women of the First World War", told the Sun the work of these heroines paved the way for women's rights.
"The contribution of women to the war effort was impossible to ignore. The ‘Female Tommies’ along with the women who worked as nurses and on the home front undertook such important work that it was definitely a key factor in helping women win the vote.
"There was a lot of reluctance to accept women in the war zone. Women's role was as life givers, not life takers, the war zone was believed to be a male environment."
However, the 'Female Tommies' were not dissuaded. Flora Sandes, a young woman from Yorkshire, travelled to Serbia to work in a hospital - but when the Serbian army was forced to retreat, Sandes stayed behind. She went from nurse to solider, and was even give her own uniform and firearms, eventually being made a corporal of the Serbian Army.
One woman, Edith Cavell, even gave her life for the war. Cavell, who took it upon herself to shelter British soldiers and smuggle them out of occupied Belgium, was executed in 1915 for her actions - causing global outrage.
According to Shipton, most of the women's groups offered some form of medical assistance.
Women also worked on the home front for the military back in Britain, as receptionists, drivers, mechanics and telegraphers, amongst other roles. Although the women who set up early pre-war organisations, such as Mabel St Clair Stobart and Edith Cavell, tended to be upper class, the women carrying out auxiliary duties were often working class women who performed similar roles at home before the war.
