1. ON THE FRONT LINE
Nell Armstrong. Telegraph sent to George Armstrong
from Columbus, Ohio. Dated 2nd Sept. 1914.
When the war broke out in 1914, the Red Cross
responded by sending over various personnel (mostly
female nurses and a handful of doctors) to aid the
situation. This telegram, sent by Nell to her lover
George Armstrong, informs him of her imminent
departure to serve on the war front in Serbia. Most
periods of service overseas lasted anywhere between
3 and 6 months, and these calls could come at a
moment’s notice. It is estimated that close to 24,000
nurses served with the Red Cross over the course of
the war, with almost 20,000 of these serving
overseas in some capacity. Interestingly, fluency in
the foreign language of the country of service was
not a requirement for overseas deployment, and as
such the language barrier created much difficulty in
communication between a nurse and her patients
(though in some instances there were translators).
ON THE FRONT LINE
The Protestant Hospital Association. Certificate of
Completion of the Training School for Nurses, presented
to Nell F. Steel. Columbus, Ohio. Dated 25th December,
1908.
Prior to the late 1800s, nursing was generally viewed
as an apprenticeship, and as such had very few, if
any, opportunities for formal education. Beginning
with the establishment of three “Nightingale schools”
in 1873, demands for increased education led to
some 500-700 Training Schools for Nurses by 1900,
one of which was in Columbus, Ohio where Nell
Armstrong (née Steel) received this diploma. This
particular school operated as a diploma nursing
program where most instruction was given in the
wards themselves as opposed to the classroom.
Nurses would start out by managing supplies until
they could “prove themselves trustworthy,” at which
point they were given charge of direct patient care.
Upon graduation, nurses were eligible for work as a
trained professional nurse.

2. ON THE FRONT LINE
Illustrated color plate. Le Poilu et la Princesse (The
Soldier and the Princess), by Alphonse Métérié, 1918.
This illustration of a Red Cross nurse with a French
common soldier (left) and a princess (right) was
done as a wood engraving by Charles Berjole (1884-
1924) for the play Le Poilu et la Princesse. This play
was performed at a charity gala benefitting the
French national branch of the Red Cross, whose
symbol (a red cross on a white background) was
modeled on the Swiss flag to emphasize the
neutrality of the organization. The image of a
graceful, innocent nurse in a spotless white uniform
was universally admired, harkening back to the
stories of King Arthur’s knights and Shakespeare’s
Henry V, where rough and battle-worn conquerors
would encounter gentle women who cared for them.
As Nell Armstrong’s letters reveal, this romanticized
view of the war was completely false.
ON THE FRONT LINE
Typed letter sent to Nell Armstrong from Charlotte E.
Van Duzer. The Red Cross Bureau of Public Health
Nursing. Washington, D.C. Dated 22nd Oct. 1918.
From the time the Red Cross was first established
by Clara Barton in 1881 to the outset of the war in
1914, only 107 local chapters existed in the United
States. However, the humanitarian organization
experienced unprecedented growth during World War
I so that by 1918 the number of local chapters had
grown to 3,864 with close to 30 million members. To
keep up with the exponential growth, US President
and honorary chairman of the American Red Cross
Woodrow Wilson appointed a War Council in May
1917, chaired by Henry P. Davison, to direct the
administration and bureaucracy of the Red Cross.
Both the National Officers and the War Council
members can be seen at the top corners of this
notice.

3. ON THE FRONT LINE
“Red Cross Work in Serbia: Roosevelt Hospital Nurse
Describes Conditions at Valjevo.” Newspaper clipping.
This newspaper clipping details the “sad conditions”
of the hospital at Valjevo, Serbia but, indeed, these
conditions were not unique; they were present in
hospitals across the war front. Wounded soldiers
were given very little in the way of food, usually
soup twice a day with half a loaf of coarse bread,
and only the extremely ill soldiers were given
something more substantial (2 eggs and sometimes
half a glass of milk). Poor nutrition and overcrowding
in the hospitals provided a breeding ground for
various diseases, including typhus and cholera.
Amputations due to infected wounds were performed
regularly, though there were no antibiotics and
disinfectants were crude. The Red Cross hospitals
were insufficiently supplied, lacking even the most
basic of necessities, which included bandages and
surgical dressings.
ON THE FRONT LINE
Letter from Nell Armstrong to George Armstrong.
Belgrade, Serbia. Dated 15th Nov. 1914.
For women of the early 1900s, nursing provided a
way to escape the conventional norms of society and
the gender roles that were being forced upon them.
There are countless accounts in diaries and letters
(including this one) of conflict between doctors and
nurses as nurses struggled to establish themselves
as professional women who greatly contributed to
society. In reality, when it came to patient care in
war front hospitals nurses and doctors were on equal
footing. One of the major impacts of the Red Cross
organization during the war was to provide
professional recognition of the abilities of female
nurses in a field that had been predominated by
men. Despite these advances, nurses were not to
obtain full legal recognition of registered status as
professionals until 1943.

4. ON THE FRONT LINE
Letter from Nell Armstrong to George Armstrong.
Belgrade, Serbia. Dated 29th Oct. 1914.
Daily life in the war front hospitals was both
emotionally and physically demanding, especially
when combined with a 14-hour workday. Some
responsibilities of a nurse to her soldiers might
include cleaning and dressing bandages, feeding,
comforting them and talking to them, bathing,
padding wounds with cotton, etc. In addition, trained
nurses like Nell Armstrong (as opposed to the
Voluntary Aid Detachment, or VAD’s) were asked to
help with various surgical procedures, as well as to
be on call at all times (which included the middle of
the night). Despite all of this, nurses were expected
to always have a smile and positive air to keep up
the spirits of the soldiers. At night, nurses were
allowed to write letters to the home front, but only
by candlelight, and these letters were oftentimes
seized by government censors and read before they
were allowed to be sent.
ON THE FRONT LINE
Nell Armstrong (right) with a fellow Red Cross nurse.
Eagle Pass, Texas. Dated 18th Sept. 1916.
Two Red Cross nurses (Nell Armstrong is on the
right) are featured here wearing basic nursing
uniforms. While the Red Cross uniforms differed
slightly depending on the particular national branch,
the core of the uniform remained the same, and
there were very restricting specifications for dress.
Both the oversleeves (generally white, but here they
were most likely blue) and the white working dress
underneath were made of linen. The oversleeves had
to be 15 inches long and were fastened at the cuff
by one button and at the elbow by elastic. Hats
were unstarched, oblong pieces of linen placed
centrally on the head. The Red Cross emblem on
the front-center of the hat that most are familiar with
was not introduced until c.1925.

5. ON THE FRONT LINE
Letter from Nell Armstrong to George Armstrong.
Belgrade, Serbia. Dated 25th Oct. 1914.
Contrary to media portrayal at the time, the reality of
life on the war front was horrific. In her letters, Nell
describes numerous instances of dying soldiers,
either from wounds or diseases, often in vivid detail.
In this particular letter, she describes the groaning
and suffering of a soldier who eventually dies of
lockjaw (tetanus). Due to a lack of supplies (there
was little in the way of support and funding in the
early years of the war), a nurse’s ability to aid the
soldiers was regularly reduced to making their final
days as comfortable as possible. Nurses provide a
unique perspective on the war as they were able to
see first-hand both the physical and psychological
damage the soldiers experienced.
ON THE FRONT LINE
“Our Troops in France.” Newspaper clipping. Dated 7th
Aug. 1917.
The glorification of soldiers and their deeds, even of
war itself, was a common theme in propaganda
during The Great War. The media would publish
these as facts, creating a skewed view of what was
actually going on at the war fronts. Fabricated stories
of German barbarism and a watered-down version of
trench warfare was common in journalism as they
attempted to boost morale and support for the war
effort. However, a complete condemnation of the
integrity of the press during this time would hardly
be fair, as governments ramped up censorship and
essentially controlled what information was to be
published and how. One reporter from the Daily
Chronicle in England, Philip Gibbs, was warned that
he would be shot if he tried to return to the front
lines.

6. ON THE FRONT LINE
“Tells of Work Over in Serbia: Experiences of a Red
Cross Nurse.” Newspaper clipping.
At a time when news was communicated through
newspapers, telegraphs, and an unreliable word of
mouth (this from persons who had never been to the
war front), personal anecdotes of true experiences
such as these provided valuable information to the
American people regarding the progress of the war
and the reality of what was actually going on. Today,
these newspaper clippings and letters add to the
complexity of our understanding of the wartime
experience as they allow us to view the war with
new perspectives. In the second column of this
article, Nell describes a puzzling yet vitally important
contrast within the hospitals that ultimately speaks of
a larger disparity in the war itself: “The friendliness
of [the Austrians and Serbians] in the hospitals
impressed me forcibly. They would chat, laugh and
exchange tobacco. It seemed incredible that these
good men…would go out to slaughter one another.”