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In Russia with The Scottish Women's Hospital 1917 - 2017 accompanying notes

The "In Russia with The Scottish Women's Hospital 1917" blog, recreates the diary and photos of nurse Peggie Simms exactly 100 years later. She details her stay in Petrograd during the revolution's July Days, her nursing work on the Romanian front with Serb & Russian troops and her unit's return home with dying boss, Dr Elsie Inglis - part of a 6000 strong evacuation of Serbian troops organised by Inglis, through revolutionary Russia.

July 10th

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July 14, 2017

Haparanda Station

Tornea Station

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July 5th

July 07, 2017

Norway, the Neutral Ally - Norway was officially neutral during World War One, although having a large fleet (the fourth largest in the world) and being heavily dependant on imports, meant that relations with both main proganists of the war was problematic from the outset. However, trade agreements with Great Britain, favourable to the UK and her allies, and eventual full British control of the Norwegian merchant fleet from April 1917, led to the country being known as the Neutral Ally. Huns - In 1900 Kaiser Wilhelm II sent his troops to China with the instruction to behave like the Huns of old - "Let the Germans strike fear into their hearts, so he'll be feared like the Hun." By the beginning of World War One, British propaganda had picked up the use of the term in a derogatory way, suggesting a worst kind of German conduct - crushing the enemy (neutral or not) by any means necessary. The fact that Rudyard Kipling used the term in his 1914 poem "For All We Have a...

July 2nd

July 04, 2017

The Situation - At the beginning of July 1917, Elsie Inglis and her Scottish Women's Hospital Unit had been in the small Romanian town of Reni (now in Ukraine) since January that year. It had become strategically important because of its proximity to The Danube and the fact that it was on the main railway line to Odessa. The town, however, had been in danger of been taken by enemy troops since the moment they arrived. The Unit were supposed to be supporting Serbian troops, but with many of the divisions deemed unfit for battle, ended up in fact looking after the Russians more. As spring turned to summer, the Russian army was falling apart - the first revolution being a part of this. Soldiers were heeding the call to think more about the situation at home, not necessarily in terms of fighting, but also supporting their homesteads and families. Self-inflicted wounds to the hand were not uncommon. If the Serbs fought alongside the Russians, the feeling was that none would survive...

July 8th

July 11, 2017

Westcliff - This refers to a part of Herne Bay in Kent, very close to Peggie's home village of Eddington. Sweden was officially neutral during World War One, though the position was maintained with difficulty at times, with both sides of the conflict gaining the country's sympathies in one way or another during the four years of the conflict. Here's a YouTube clip with more info. Continental Hotel Stockholm - demolished in 1960s