The Scottish Women’s Hospitals in Romania during World War I
The Scottish Women’s Hospitals in Romania during World War I

Summary/Abstract: The following article is an illustration of the interesting venture of the medical women from the Scottish Women’s Hospitals organization in Dobruja, Wallachia and Bessarabia during World War I. More precisely, a unit of this organization under the leadership of Dr. Elsie Inglis has traveled to the Russian Empire and then to Romania in their purpose to provide medical assistance for the Ist Serbian Volunteer Division. In 1916 this division was fighting in Dobruja on the orders of the Russian War Minister. As we will see, because of the difficulties created by the retreat from Dobruja, these brave Scottish women would be reunited with their protégés, the Serbian volunteers from the Russian army, only in a year’s time. The circumstances of this reunion (the Bolshevik Revolution and its consequences for the Great War) would hasten the departure of Dr. Elsie Inglis’s medical unit. As her last act of compassion for the Serbs, it seems likely that Dr. Inglis used her influence on the Royal Navy to also allow the transfer of the Ist Serbian Volunteer Division to the Macedonian front. In my research I have used press and journals from the beginning of the 20th century as well as recent academic books and articles.

• Details
• Contents