The Sword of Deborah: First-hand impressions of the British Women's Army in France

by F. Tennyson Jesse

I was going first to the Waac headquarters, to see the Area Controller, who corresponds to an Area Commandant in the V.A.D.'s and whose rank approximates to that of a Major. She is supreme in her area and only the Chief Controller of the Waacs is above her. Below her are her Unit Administrators, who are in charge of units and approximate to captains, and have their Deputy and Assistant Administrators whom for convenience' sake we can classify as lieutenants and second lieutenants.

This is the place to say frankly that I had heard—as had we all—"the rumors" that were flying round about the Women's Army. They "weren't a success," ... "it had been found to be unworkable ..." and, as reason, a more specific charge. Need I say what that specific charge was? What is it that always jumps to the mind of the average materialist? The most innocent thing in the world—in itself—and the cause of most of the scandal since the dawn of civilisation. A Baby.

There is a certain type of mind which always jumps to babies, apparently looking on them as the Churchmen of the Middle Ages looked on women—as the crowning touch of evil in an evil world. If you remember, there was great agitation in certain quarters at the beginning of the war, over "War-Babies." They were going to inundate the country, they were going to be a very serious proposition indeed. The Irish question, Conscription, Conscientious Objectors, were going to be as nothing to the matter of the War-Babies. It is perhaps from some points of view a pity that the War-Babies didn't materialize, but that of course is another question altogether. "Passons oultre," as the great Master of delicate—and indelicate—situations used to say.

The point as regards the Women's Army is that the whole of the agitation against it is a libel, and one which decent people should be ashamed to circulate even as supposititious. Quite apart from the evidence of my own ears and eyes, at various camps I was supplied with the official statistics for the Women's Army from March of 1917 to February of 1918. And of these women who "have not been a success," as the mischievous gossip has had it, how many do you think have proved failures out of six thousand? In the time mentioned fourteen have been sent home for incompetence, without any slur on their characters; twenty-three for lack of discipline, mostly in the early days when the girls did not realise what being in the Army meant and thought if they wanted to go to any particular place there was no reason why they shouldn't; and fifteen who were already enceinte before leaving England and which even the most censorious can hardly lay to the charge of the B.E.F. And of all that six thousand what percentage do you suppose has had to be sent back for what is euphemistically known, I believe, as "getting into trouble," since landing in France? No percentage at all, if I may express myself thus unmathematically, but exactly five cases. Five, out of six thousand. Compare that with the morality of any village in England, or anywhere else in the world, and then say, if you dare to be so obviously dishonest, that there is any reason why the Women's Army should be aspersed.

These statistics were given to me at the office of the Area Controller, and later repeated at the Women's Army H.Q. by the Controller in Chief, but on that first sunny morning amongst the pines and pale golden sand-dunes it was naturally the human and individual side rather than any of figures, however startling, that claimed the mind the most. For one thing, I had the actual organisation and attributes of the Women's Army to learn. I knew nothing. The actual working knowledge, apart from impressions and things learnt only by seeing them, that I gathered during the days I spent at various Waac centres is as follows:

The Women's Army differs from the F.A.N.Y. and the V.A.D. in being a paid instead of a voluntary body, in being directly under the Army, not the Red Cross, and in its members being ranked as privates. But it also differs from the G.S.V.A.D., though that too is paid and its members rank as privates. The G.S.V.A.D. is far more "mixed"; its members are of all classes and educations, and are drafted off for work accordingly, but the bulk of the Waacs are working girls and do manual labour, such as gardening, cooking, baking, scrubbing, etc., though there are amongst them girls of a more specialised education who are signallers and clerks. The officers, of course, are women of education who have undergone a stiff training and been carefully selected for the posts they fill. For, as will be seen, nearly everything depends upon the Waac officers; they have certainly a greater power for good or harm than the officers in the Regular Army, and never were both the force and danger of personality more acutely illustrated than in the position of the Waac leaders.

A Unit Administrator has to know individually every girl in her camp, though there may be several hundreds. She has to blend with her absolute authority a maternal interest and supervision. While she has no power to say whom a girl shall or shall not "walk out" with, she yet makes it her business to know what choice of men friends the girl makes and to influence, as far as she can, that choice towards discretion. She must not nag but must inculcate by subtle methods a realisation of what is due to the uniform, a sense of the "idea," the "symbol," of it. She does not actually say to a girl that she is not to walk arm in arm with a Tommy or pin her collar with her paste brooch, but she conveys to her that these things are not done in the best uniforms.... And the girl learns with incredible rapidity. A thing is Not Done—what a potency in those words; in that attitude of mind! It probably influenced the earliest savages in the manner of wearing their cowries.

After all, the whole idea of uniform, of distinguishing one caste from another by bits of different coloured cloth, is based on the instinct for being superior. Was it not John Selden who said something to the effect that our rulers have always tried to make themselves as different from us as possible? Of course they have, and it is exactly the same thing which the wise Pope Gregory VII had in mind when he definitely crystallised the measures for celibacy of the priesthood, and it is exactly the same thing which puts the policeman into a dark blue uniform and a helmet before he can so much as stop a milkcart. A policeman in plain clothes is a dethroned monarch. Nothing in the nature of controlling others was ever done without dressing up. The marvel is that for so many centuries the principle should have been confined to the masculine sex, when it has such an obvious appeal to the feminine.

This principle when carried a step further and applied to those controlled, by giving them also the sensation of being different from the rest of the world, results in that spirit called esprit de corps, which is really esprit de l'uniforme. Towards the rest of the world the uniformed are proud of being different, amongst themselves proud of being alike, and the more alike, so to speak, the aliker. It is not a thing to treat scornfully, for it has the whole of symbolism behind it. That which makes a man cheerfully die for a piece of bunting which, prosaically speaking, is only a piece of bunting that happens to be dyed red, white, and blue, is part of this same spirit. Dull of soul indeed must he be who can look without a profound emotion on the tattered "colours" of a regiment, and yet it is only the idea, the symbol, that makes these things what they are....

And for most of these girls, remember, it is the first time they have had a symbol held before them.... We of the upper classes are brought up with many reverences—for our superiors, our elders, for traditions, but the classes which for want of a better word I must call "lower"—so please do not cavil at me for doing so or attribute false meanings—are for the most part brought up to think themselves as good as anyone else, and their "rights" the chief thing in life; while owing to the unfortunate curriculum of our Board Schools, which does not insist nearly enough on history as the fount of the present and of all that is great and good in the past, they are left without those standards of impersonal enthusiasms and imaginative daring—which should be the rightful inheritance of us all.